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Today's
Stories
February 28 / 29, 2004
Stephen Green
Serving Two Flags: Neo-Cons, Israel
and the Bush Team
Mike Whitney
Dismantle
the Military Goliath
February 27, 2004
Thomas C. Mountain
A
White Jesus During Black History Month?
Laura Carlsen
Americans
Abroad: Bush is Persona Non Grata
John B. Anderson
Nader's Campaign Brings Back Memories: Creating an Open Electoral
Process
Jason Leopold
Spying
on Kofi Annan
John Chuckman
Nader,
Risk and Hope
Standard Schaefer
An
Interview with Michael Hudson on Putin's Russia
Ray McGovern
Punished
for Honest Intelligence
Saul Landau
The
Haiti Redux
Website of the Day
Bush: Why I'm Running for Re-election
February 26, 2004
Brandy Baker
Is Nader
on to Something?
Jacques Kinau
AEI
to Colombia: "Can't Give You Anything But Guns, Baby"
Norman Solomon
Bugging Kofi Annan: UN Spying
and the Evasions of US Journalism
Greg Weiher
A Purloined Letter: the Zarqawi Gambit
Walt Brasch
Janet Jackson, Bush & No. 542: There are No Halftime Shows
in War
Shadi Hamid
The Music World Explodes in Anger
Norman Madarasz
As Canadian as Corruption
Chris Floyd
Bullets and Ballots
Virginia Tilly
The
Deeper Meaning of the Wall
Amy Goodman / Jeremy
Scahill
Haiti's
Lawyer Says US is Arming Haiti's Anti-Aristide Paramilitaries
Website of the Day
Clear Channel Sucks
February 25, 2004
Dr. Susan Block
Saddam's
Sex Therapist and the Rape of Free Speech
Bruce Anderson
Treacherous Bastards: The Greens and the Dems and Nader
Ron Jacobs
Our Power is on the Streets and
in Our Hearts
Mike Whitney
Bush
and Gay America: the Politics of Duplicity
Sam Husseini
Jesus in 100 Words
John L. Hess
Kick Off or Flub?
Sam Hamod
Bush's Newest Red Herring
Cockburn / St. Clair
Winning
with Nader
Website of the Day
VotePact
February 24, 2004
Ralph Nader
Why
I'm Running for President
Greg Moses
Rally
the Mob! Bush, Gay Marriage and the Constitution
Douglas O'Hara
The
Merchants of Fear: Smearing Nader
Phillip Cryan
Frozen in Time: The WSJ's Paranoid
Lens on Latin America
David Lindorff
John Kerry's China Connection
Jason Leopold
Cheney's Shame: Halliburton Faces New Charges
Gary Younge
Haiti: Throttled by History
Kromm, Masri & Purohit
Why No Democracy in Iraq?
Steve Perry
Tangled Up in Red and Blue: Beware the Electoral College
February 23, 2004
Neve Gordon
Israel's Apartheid Wall on Trial
at The Hague
Kurt Nimmo
Richard Perle, Executioner: "Heads Should Roll"
Jonathan Franklin
US Soldier Seeks Refugee Status in Canada
Al Krebs
The Liberal "Intelligentsia" v. Nader
Josh Frank
Nader's Nadir? Not a Chance
Bruce Jackson
Nader, Another View: "He's as Evil as Bush"
Gary Leupp
A Misguided
Attack, The Passion, Rabbi Lerner and the Gospels
February 20 / 22, 2004
Cockburn / St. Clair
Kerry:
He's Peaking Already!
Derek Seidman
Chasing
Judith Miller from the Stage: Watch Her Run!
Ghada Karmi
Sharon is not the Problem
Vanessa Jones
This Week in Redfern, a Boy Dies, Chased by Cops
Ben Granby
Anatomy of a Night Raid on Balad, Iraq
John Holt
An Air That Kills: Greed, Apathy, Dead People
Saul Landau
Entry from a White House Diary
Tom Jackson
Why They Couldn't Wait to Invade Iraq
Frederick B. Hudson
Slave Power and the Constitution: Jefferson, Slaves, Haiti and
Hypocrisy
Roger Burbach
Argentina Fights Back
Kate Doyle
Lessons on Justice from Guatemala
Mike Whitney
Operation Enduring Misery: the Afghanistan Debacle
Greg Moses
What Gives Texas A&M the Right to Trample the Civil Rights
Act?
David Krieger
US Elections: an Opportunity to Debate Nuclear Weapons
Sam Bahour
Palestinian Issue Riddles Bush's Budget
David Grenier
You Could Get 10 Years in Prison Just for Reading This
Charles Sullivan
Corporatism vs. Single Party Politics
Poet's Basement
Hilda White, Larry Kearney & Stew Albert
Website of the Weekend
The Rumsfeld Fighting Technique
February 19, 2004
Cecilie Surasky
Anti-Semitism
at the World Social Forum? That's Not What I Saw
Ray McGovern
Iraq
Hawks and Deceptive Intelligence: Did They Really Think They'd
Get Away With It?
Tariq Ali
How Far
Will Bush Go in Iraq?
Ralph Nader
Whither
the Nation?
Wayne Madsen
Would Kerry Purge the Neo-Cons?
Norman Solomon
The Collapse of Dean's Cyber-Bubble
Christopher Brauchli
Cheney, Halliburton and the NYT
Mike Whitney
Bush's Iraq Strategy: "I Hope They Kill Each Other"
Lewis Carroll
Bush the Mighty Helmsman from Yale
Website of the Day
Sex Toy Horoscope
February 18, 2004
William Wilgus
Bush:
AWOL and Dereliction of Duty
William Blum
Mush-Minded
Liberals
Dave Lindorff
Bush's China Syndrome
Greg Weiher
Why
is Kerry Getting a Pass?
Mike Griffin
Killing the Messenger: the AFL-CIO's Attack on Harry Kelber
Mark Hand
Kerry Tells Peace Movement to "Move On"
February 17, 2004
Mike Ferner
The
Countryside Murders in Iraq
Mokhiber / Weissman
Corporation
as Psychopath
Marjorie Cohn
DrakeGate:
a Victory for Free Speech
Kurt Nimmo
Bush's
Endgame: a Review of Chalmers Johnson's "Sorrows of Empire"
Greg Bates
Nader Ambush: a New Low for The
Nation
Ximena Ortiz
A Bush
Doctrine, of Sorts
Gary Leupp
Whatever Happened to Gen. Khazraji?
Sen. John Kerry
"The Cause of Israel is the Cause of America"
Steve Perry
Kerry
1, Drudge 0
February 16, 2004
James Johnston
Huddling
with the Cheeseheads in a NASCAR World
Sara Eltantawi
To
Wear the Hijab or Not
Bruce Anderson
Kevin
Cooper and the Midnight Needle
Elaine Cassel
Feds
on Campus: the Drake Subpoenas
Rahul Mahajan
Bush,
Is the Tide Finally Turning?
Kevin Cooper
The Ritual of Death
Stan Cox
Goodbye, Howard Dean
Larry David
My War
Steve Perry
Bush and the Guard: the Cover-Up's the Thing
Website of the Day
Prison Patriots: Help This Vital Film Get Made
Hot Stories
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click Here
for More Stories.
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Weekend
Edition
February 28 / 29, 2004
The Democratic Tamasha
Continues
Exeunt
Serenaders, Enter Nader
By NIRANJAN RAMAKRISHNAN
Then to side with truth is
noble
when we share her wretched crust
Ere her cause bring fame and profit
and 'tis prosperous to be just
These words of James Russell Lowell (from his
poem, The Present Crisis) were repeatedly echoed in recent weeks,
if far less poetically, by Howard Dean.
In the days prior to dropping out, Dean
was expressing a heartfelt grouse, not unlike that of the unsung
inventor who went through life complaining how Alexander Graham
Bell had stolen his idea.
Dean's case is the more tragic, for he
was once anointed frontrunner by the wise folk. Senators Kerry
and Edwards, hardly notable as significant impediments to Bush's
legislative agenda in the past three years, woke up to Dean's
success, pinched his ideas in full daylight, and yanked him from
the front of the queue to the back. In the era where we use television
not only to see and hear the candidates, but also rely on it
to tell us what to make of them, Dean was roundly criticized
for his camera-side manner.
In the age of political correctness,
who wants to say Dean looks a lot like Richard Dreyfuss without
a neck? Instead of sticking out its own neck, conventional wisdom
conveniently coined 'Electability', a term that could be straight
out of Catch-22. Just imagine this conversation:
"Dean's not going to get elected".
"Why not?"
"Because he doesn't have electability."
"Why doesn't he have electability?"
"Because he can't win."
OK, so it's not so entirely tautological.
The mark against Dean was that even if he won the Democratic
nomination, he would not be able to beat George Bush. Basically,
then, to beat George Bush, you needed someone a little more like
George Bush. Meanwhile the pundits discovered new virtues in
the new frontrunner -- he had actually had served in combat (in
stark distinction from all the recent high-rollers in Washington
who had studiously avoided Vietnam -- Clinton, George W., Cheney,
Gingrich, DeLay, to name just a few)! And Bush's subsequent National
Guard answers, while showing his versatility -- that he could
dissemble not only about the big things but also about the small
-- and all in the course of the same interview -- left him looking
more like a kid playing truant than a War President.
In Wisconsin, Edwards discovered jobs.
Now Kerry is all about jobs too. In the software business, they
talk of 'commodification'. The moment a product hits the stands
these days, it becomes a commodity item. So it would seem with
Democratic talking points. Suddenly Kerry sees everything wrong
with NAFTA. Why then did he vote for it? Or for granting MFN
status to China? He would like safeguards. Why did he vote for
the pacts in the first place if there were no safeguards?
Edwards' answer to the same questions
reminds one of a schoolboy's triumphant glee when asked why he
doesn't know something -- "I was absent that day".
Jubilant that he wasn't a senator then, he tells us how he would
have voted on NAFTA. But if he has such consuming hatred for
it, surely he could have spoken out against NAFTA once he was
in the Senate. Both Edwards and Kerry are senators. Why don't
they sponsor a resolution in the Senate to put in safeguards
into NAFTA, and while they're at it, also produce some legislation
about the lopsided balance of trade with China?
In the interrugnum between the Wisconsin
primary on Feb 17 (and Dean's subsequent withdrawal) and the
upcoming Super Tuesday primaries of March 2, Ralph Nader threw
his hat (or monkey wrench -- depending on your view) into the
ring. A hush descended on the Democratic camp, while a muffled
prayer of thanks rose from the Republican.
Nader hit home with his points -- the
acquiescence of the Democrats in so many of Bush's excesses,
the corporate raj in Washington, the lack of money for our schools,
hospitals and public works while it pours into the war, who could
disagree with any of these? And as for his taking away the election
from Gore, the Democrats showed that they were perfectly capable
of losing even without Nader's assistance -- see my article,
Encore-Again! below on the 2002 elections.
The trouble I have with the Nader candidacy
is different. Why now, Mr. Nader? These issues have existed all
the years of the Bush Administartion (and some of them, per your
rationale in 2000, during the Clinton administration too). As
with Bush's National Guard service, is it fair to ask where Nader
was, AWOL during these three years? (And please don't answer
that he addressed a couple of meetings here or there). With his
name recognition, reputation and powers of organization, he could
by now have been a major voice against all the wrongs committed
by this administration. Why wasn't he out building a movement?
God knows he had ample time. In three years, he could have built
a movement ten times the size of Dean's. The fact is that Nader
has done far, far, less than Howard Dean to articulate the anger
of the people against Bush's rule. Dean serenaded the Democratic
Party out of its blue funk, and energized millions of common
people. In return, the Democratic Establishment has treated Dean
far worse than anything they could mete out to Nader, who didn't
even seek to run as a Democrat. But it is Dean who has displayed
enough self-effacement and maturity to see that the first task
must be to consign the present administration to the history
books.
But back to James Russell Lowell:
Then it is the brave man chooses,
while the coward stands aside,
Doubting in his abject spirit,
till his Lord is crucified.
Were he serious about the presidency,
Nader would have campaigned hard all these months. He could have
been part of the democratic melee and had all the debates he
wished. Instead he stood, doubting, far from the water's edge.
Now, unless he believes he can set the Mississippi on fire with
his campaining, a rather remote prospect, he will rightly be
viewed as convenient distraction (convenient for Bush).
In some situations, it is standing aside
that may require the greater valor (after all, isn't this exactly
what President Bush has been trying to convey to the country
regarding his National Guard service?).
*Tamasha is an Indian word, variously
translated as tableaux, farce, fun, entertainment, bill of fare.
Niranjan Ramakrishnan is a writer living on the West Coast. His writings
can be found on http://www.indogram.com.
He can be reached at njn_2003@yahoo.com.
Weekend
Edition Features for February 20 / 22, 2004
Cockburn /
St. Clair
Kerry:
He's Peaking Already!
Derek Seidman
Chasing
Judith Miller from the Stage: Watch Her Run!
Ghada Karmi
Sharon is not the Problem
Vanessa Jones
This Week in Redfern, a Boy Dies, Chased by Cops
Ben Granby
Anatomy of a Night Raid on Balad, Iraq
John Holt
An Air That Kills: Greed, Apathy, Dead People
Saul Landau
Entry from a White House Diary
Tom Jackson
Why They Couldn't Wait to Invade Iraq
Frederick B. Hudson
Slave Power and the Constitution: Jefferson, Slaves, Haiti and
Hypocrisy
Roger Burbach
Argentina Fights Back
Kate Doyle
Lessons on Justice from Guatemala
Mike Whitney
Operation Enduring Misery: the Afghanistan Debacle
Greg Moses
What Gives Texas A&M the Right to Trample the Civil Rights
Act?
David Krieger
US Elections: an Opportunity to Debate Nuclear Weapons
Sam Bahour
Palestinian Issue Riddles Bush's Budget
David Grenier
You Could Get 10 Years in Prison Just for Reading This
Charles Sullivan
Corporatism vs. Single Party Politics
Poet's Basement
Hilda White, Larry Kearney & Stew Albert
Website of the Weekend
The Rumsfeld Fighting Technique
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