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A Special Report on the Presidential Elections Exclusively in the Print Edition CounterPunch

How Progressive Challenges Have Been Killed Off Since LBJ; Gagging Fanny Lou Hamer; Eugene McCarthy on "a Peasants Rebellion;" Sabotaging McGovern; The Wreck of Jesse Jackson's Rainbow Coalition; Smearing Nader, Not Once But Three Times: by Alexander Cockburn; The Thieves of the Green Zone by Patrick Cockburn; Murder in Mississippi: Could John Doar Have Saved Cheney, Schwerner & Goodman by David Kotz. In May, CounterPunch Online was read by over 20 million viewers! But remember, we are funded solely by the subscribers to the print edition of CounterPunch. Please support this website by buying a subscription to our newsletter, which contains fresh material you won't find anywhere else, or by making a donation for the online edition. Remember contributions are tax-deductible. Click here to make a (tax deductible) donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now!

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Today's Stories

July 20, 2004

John Ross
Burying Iraq, Burying Bush

July 19, 2004

Uri Avnery
Marie and the Ghosts: the Hoax of Paris

Col. Dan Smith
What Has Been Accomplished?

Mike Whitney
Allawi: Our Puppet with a Pistol

Karyn Strickler
Just Marriage, Not Gay Marriage

Robert Fisk
The Crisis of Information in Baghdad

David Swanson
Media Blackout of US Labor Opposition to Iraq War

Jennifer van Bergen
The Death of the Great Writ of Liberty

 

July 17 / 18, 2004

Gary Leupp
Apocalypse Now: Why the Book of Revelations is Must Reading

Ghada Karmi
Vanishing the Palestinians

Lenni Brenner
When Cattle Unite, Lions Go Hungry: Notes for Ralph Nader

Ben Tripp
Man on a Bridge: a Ghost Story

Brandy Baker
What Would Elizabeth Cady Stanton Make of John Kerry?

M. Shahid Alam
Israel Builds Another Wall

Sasan Fayazmanesh
Nuclear Hypocrisy: Israel, Iran and the IAEA

Patrick Bond
The George Bush of Africa

Fred Gardner
Politics of Marijuana: Cannabiniod Therapuetics

William Blum
Bush and Thucydides

Ben Terrall
Carter and the Indonesia Elections: "I Don't See Anything Wrong with a General Running the Country"

Tom Barry
John Lehman on the War Path

David Vest
Dylan Without the Music

Phyllis Pollack
Return to Sin City: Keith Richards Does Gram Parsons

Ron Jacobs
Smearing Muhammad Ali: Bob Feller Strikes Out

Joshua Frank
Kerry to Edwards: "Let's Lose!"

David Nally
A Call for Sudan: Our Georgraphical Blindspot

Toni Solo
Bolivia's Gas Referendum

Landau, Hassan, Prashad & Lindorff
Three Reviews of Moore's F911

Poets's Basement
Ford, Smith and Albert

July 16, 2004

Dave Zirin
Adonal Foyle: Master of the Lefty Lay-Up

Shervan Sardar
Dershowitz, the ICJ and Jim Crow Laws

Ron Jacobs
The Lil' Engine That Couldn't: Kucinich Surrenders on Anti-War Plank

Robert Fisk
Iraq, According to Edgar Allen Poe: Coffin Bombs in Baghdad

Greg Moses
The Forts of Iraq

Mickey Z.
Ad Infinitum?: Presidential Campaigns in the Age of TV

Dan Bacher
A Landmark Win for Salmon and the Tribes

Dave Lindorff
The Mumia Case: Support from NAACP, But a Movement in Shambles

Paul McGeough
Did Allawi Shoot Inmates in Cold Blood?

Website of the Day
10 Reasons to Fire Bush (and 9 Reasons Kerry Won't Be Any Better)

 

 

July 15, 2004

Heather Williams
McMissing the Point: Supersize Me Crashes on Its Message

Werther
Iraq: Follow the Money

Tom Crumpacker
The Birds of Guantanamo

Brian Cloughley
What Does the Bush Regime Object To?

Bill Christison
Reorganize the CIA? Of Course, But...

July 14, 2004

Jeffrey St. Clair
Chronicle of a Nomination Foretold: the Green Deceivers

Neve Gordon
Of Socrates and the Apartheid Wall

Diane Christian
The Priesthood of Death

Stefan Wray
Who Benefits from Missing Data at Los Alamos Nuclear Lab?

Josh Frank
The Nader / Dean Debate

Conn Hallinan
Divide and Conquer as Imperial Rules

Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg
Bring My Brother Home!: Class, War and Education

Website of the Day
Hijacking Catastrophe: 9/11, Fear and the Selling of US Empire

 

July 13, 2004

Ray McGovern
The CIA and Iraq: an Intelligence Debacle...and Worse

Mark Donham
The Sierra Club's Inexplicable Treatment of Cynthia McKinney

Ben Tripp
Politus Interruptis: With Friends Like These, Who Needs Electorates?

Mark Gaffney
Slipping Towards Armageddon: Israel in Iraq

Dave Lindorff
Osama Wins! Election Postponed!

Chris White
Double Think: the Bedrock of Marine Indoctrination

 

 

July 10 / 12, 2004

Kathleen Christison
The Problem with Neutrality Between Palestinians and Israel

Janine Pommy Vega
Trail of the Comet: a Gathering of the World's Poets Against War

Sherry Wolf
From Maverick to Party Attack Dog: Howard Dean Gay-Bashes Nader

Saul Landau and Farrah Hassen
A Transfer of Power, Sort Of

Michael Donnelly
How to Steal an Election: the Green Version, 2004

Stanton / Madsen
Iraq Survey Group: Rumsfeld's al-Qaeda?

Richard Lichtman
The End of Innocence: Reflections on American Pathology

Gila Svirsky
Thank You, Your Honors: a Legal Blow to the Wall

Kurt Nimmo
Clinton's Life

Toni Solo
Empire-Speak: What Roger Noriega Really Means

Ron Jacobs
The Black Panthers and the Rest

Camelo Ruiz Marrero
Gene Warfare in Oaxaca: Genetic Mutation of Mexican Maize

Omar Barghouti
Wither the Empire: Rise of a Global Resistance

Poets' Basement
Curtis and Albert

 

July 9, 2004

Dave Zirin
Carlos Delgado on Deck: Blue Jays Slugger Stands Up Against War

Justin Delacour
Wishing Kerry Would Shut Up About Latin America

Robert Fisk
Iraq in Reverse: Martial Laws Fuel Insurgency

Boris Kagarlitsky
Two Congresses and a Funeral

William S. Lind
The October Surprises

Sibel Edmonds
Our Broken System: John Ashcroft's War on Truth

Ron Jacobs
Reading Tea Leaves: What Vietnam Tells Us About Iraq's Future

Gary Leupp
The Lie That Will Not Die: Cheney and the Iraq/al-Qaeda Link

 

July 8, 2004

Niranjan Ramakrishnan
The Inexplicable John McCain

Toufic Haddad
Protesting Israel's Apartheid Wall: a Letter from the Hunger Strikers' Tent

Dave Lindorff
Liberation as Martial Law

Joshua Frank
The Fall: How Beltway Dems Sank Howard Dean

Christopher Brauchli
Bush & Cheney Play the Hitler Card

James Petras
The Truth About Jimmy Carter

 

July 7, 2004

John Chuckman
Kerry's BBQ: a Deafening Silence of Meaning

Virginia Tilley
A Line in the Sand: Azmi Bishara's Hunger Strike

Susan Martinez
A Letter to Bill Cosby

Mickey Z
Elie Wiesel's Strange Parade

Michael Donnelly
Our Own Private Wilderness: Trusting the Land in the Inland Empire

Sean Donahue
Boston Social Forum: the Dems aren't the Only Show in Beantown

Diane Christian
Sovereignty and Freedom in Iraq

 

July 6, 2004

Lisa Viscidi
Fleeing Guatemala: Central Americans Risk Lives to Reach El Norte

Marc Norton
The Felonious Five Ride Again: the Supreme Court and Enemy Combatants

James Brooks
Chemical Warfare on the West Bank?

Ray McGovern
Porter Goss as CIA Director?

William Cook
Legacy of Deceit: If Dante Knew of Bush and the Neo-Cons...

 

July 5, 2004

Forrest Hylton
US Imperialism in Latin America: Sept. 11, July 4 and Systematic Torture

Chris White
A Former Marine Sgt. on the Meaning of Independence Day

Joe Bageant
Cranky Reflections on the 4th of July

Robert Jensen
Stupid White Movie: What Michael Moore Misses About the Empire

Kathy Kelly
"Two Days an' a Wake-Up"

 

July 3 / 4, 2004

Elaine Cassel
Bush's Police State and Independence Day

Stan Goff
ABC of Opportunism: "Progressive" Latin American Leaders Support the Coup in Haiti

Snehal Shingavi
"We Want Real Justice for Bhopal": Two Survivors Speak Out

Bruce Anderson
The Cheney-Leahy Metaphor and the Greens

Sharon Smith
Twilight of the Greens: the Chokehold of "Anybody But Bush"

Josh Frank
Ralph Nader's Revolt: an Interview with Greg Bates

Robert Fisk
Pentagon Tried to Censor Saddam's Hearing

Joe Bageant
Sons of a Laboring God: Leftnecks Unite!

Brian Cloughley
Fortress Bush and the One Law Doctrine

Justin Delacour
The Anti-Chavez Echo Chamber: Venezuela's Media Tycoons

William S. Lind
Saudi Spillover

Linda S. Heard
A Joke Called "Justice"

Greg Moses
"It's Illegal, But It's Our Right": Korean Labor Won't Back Down

Ron Jacobs
"Ain't You Proud to be White on Independence Day?"

Toni Solo
Weary of Indigenous Resistances? Just Pretend They're Not There

Dan Nagengast
Chicken Manure as Cattle Food: Safe, But Do We Want to Eat It?

Stew Albert
Brando, a Personal Recollection

Dave Zirin
From the Black Panthers to Sacheen Littlefeather: a Eulogy for Our Brando

Patrick W. Gavin
The Progressive Case for Dodgeball

Steven Rosenthal / Junaid Ahmad
The Problem is Bigger Than the Bushes: a Review of F911

Poets' Basement
Kearney, Ford and Davies

Website of the Day
Global Peace Solution

 

July 2, 2004

Jeffrey St. Clair
Suicide Right on the Stage: the Demise of the Green Party

Douglas Valentine
Fahrenheit 911: Mocking the Moral Crisis of Capitalism

Gary Leupp
"Just Because I Could": On Obscenities and Opportunities

Lee Ballinger
Illegal People: Kerry Opposes Immigrant Rights

Robert Fisk
Saddam in the Dock: Confused? Hardly

CounterPunch Wire
"What Law Formed This Court?": a Transcript of Saddam's Arraignment

Christopher Brauchli
Bush's Drug Card Lottery: the Price Ain't Right

Saul Landau
Buzz Words and Venezuela

 


July 1, 2004

Katherine van Wormer
Bush's Damaged Mind: the Madness in His Method

Joe Bageant
Is Our President a Whackjob? Does It Matter?

William James Martin
The Dogma of Richard Perle

Dave Lindorff
Bush's Evacuation Moment

Robert Fisk
Bread and Circus Trials in Iraq

Alan Maass
Green Party in Reverse

Website of the Day
Michael Moore and Israel: Blind or a Coward?

 

 

June 30, 2004

Kurt Nimmo
Nicholson Baker's Checkpoint: a New Kind of Anger About Bush

Tariq Ali
Getting Away with Murder in Iraq

Jennifer Van Bergen
Bush and the Detainees

Douglas Valentine
Apotheosis of the Psychopaths: Instead of Fahrenheit 9/11, Rescreen The Quiet American

David Price
Fahrenheit 9/11 Through the McCain-Feingold Looking Glass

Roger Normand
America's Criminal Occupation of Iraq

Stan Cox
Sanitized for Your Protection: Ashcroft's War on Art

Henry David Thoreau
On the Futility of Bush v. Kerry: All Voting is a Kind of Gaming

Ben Tripp
Who Dast Call Him Liar: a Rebuttal to Nicholas Kristof

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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July 20, 2004

An Open Letter to Dr. Erhenreich

It's Over Barb!

By CHRIS RANDOLPH

How unfortunate that you have chosen to continue the pseudo-liberal smear campaign against Ralph Nader as both a candidate and man in the pages of that stalwart progressive publication The New York Times. I see you were given column space because Thomas Friedman has taken leave to write another awful book in praise of Mammon. I hope you understood the assignment was to write a column in your own words and not in Friedman's by proxy; having seen the results I can't tell which your aim was.

Having dutifully done the dirty work of right wing extremists under cover of a lefty rubric in America's newspaper of record, I can only hope the next time they let you write something for the Op-Ed page you can squeeze in a word for the downtrodden.

How unfortunate also that Nader decided to run for president without consulting you first. If it makes you feel any better, he didn't consult me either, and I also voted for him in 2000. In looking over the US Constitution, it appears he isn't actually required to ask permission from either of us.

Nader also failed to ask our permission to co-found four additional progressive and reformist organizations in the past 4 years, including a champion (Democracy Rising) of your apparent candidate of choice, Dennis Kucinich.

I see that Representative Kucinich has predictably failed in his attempt to use his campaign to nudge the Democratic Party platform into inclusion of a withdrawal strategy from Iraq, or even a statement that one is desirable. Shockingly he has also failed to persuade the DNC to include a simple statement - in the midst of an increasingly unpopular war in an election year - that our illegal invasion is an error based upon a series of lies.

The only function of Kucinich now, one in which you seem eager to join, is that of shepherd bringing compliant liberal sheep back into the fold. You do so for the DLC and John Kerry, an entity and man with which your readers and supporters have nothing in common. It's a sad day when one of the best-known liberals in America shills for a billionaire war hawk. It's sadder still when she writes a well-regarded book on poverty then turns around to skewer a man fighting for the living wage and universal healthcare on behalf of a man who voted for No Child Left Behind and welfare "reform."

Which of Kerry's progressive causes energizes you to the extent that you need to mock Nader in a most public forum? Is it his desire to spend a half trillion dollars on Reagan's lunatic Star Wars plan? Is it his desire to better manage the Bush war in Iraq, for which he voted, and to expand it to include NATO, which Bush has yet been unsuccessful in doing? Are you drawn by the Democratic Party's failure in the aftermath of the last election to stand up for voting rights of African-Americans, or is it more the attempts of the party to keep anyone from voting for Nader this time around? Perhaps as a self-described feminist you're drawn to Kerry's willingness to appoint anti-choice judges to the federal bench? His attacks on welfare mothers? His description of his position on gay marriage being similar to Dick Cheney's?

After, Dr. Ehrenreich, asking a man to drop out of a race, especially in a mocking fashion, is not to be done lightly. Surely you have some explanation for why John Kerry and his DLC buddies have excited you so, and we here in your book-buying base would love to hear it.

I see you blathered on for a bit about how George W. Bush is a bad man who scares foreign children. It's worth noting that the party you're supporting voted unanimously in the Senate to do those naughty things. An honest person also has to take note that civilians were killed in Iraq by a 20:1 ratio by Kerry's colleagues the Clinton Adminstration over the Bush Administration, not by lack of trying on the part of the latter. What is to be made, then, of Kerry's advisor and shadow cabinet member Madeleine Albright, infamous in the Arab world for her statement that the precalculated slow murder of hundreds of thousands of children, elderly and infirm was a "price we think is worth it?" Surely she makes foreign tots a bit uneasy, no?

I should also note that civil liberties at home didn't simply "evaporate," but were voted down, in large part by Democrats. You should ask your new beau John Kerry about that, not simply because authored parts of and voted for the PATRIOT Act, but because he also voted for the wretched 1994 crime bill and 1996 Effective Death Penalty Act. I wish that you spent one eighth the venom in attacking Kerry on that which you do on Nader for having the temerity to oppose the process which produces such enormities.

As for the Reform Party, you may note that they have good, decent and just positions on the WTO, NAFTA, FTAA, corporate welfare as a whole and they also oppose the war in Iraq. If this makes them "paleo-right wingers" - I would say it simply makes them honest conservatives in favor of clean government - what is your term for the Democratic Party which is on the opposite side of the fence on all of those issues?

It's also worth noting, if you want to trash Nader for not supprting the Greens (which is it, do you want this party running candidates or not?) that Nader appeared at over 30 fundraisers for them in the past 4 years. How many have you done?

I'm sorry, Dr. Ehrenreich, that you can no longer tell the difference between people who fight to help the downtrodden workers you slummed with for a bit and the people who habitually abuse their trust for personal gain. On the whole I'd rather have you retire to the beach than Mr. Nader. Perhaps it's your turn to crank up the Led Zep, roll yourself some of that reefer you're so keen on (what are Ralph and John's positions on THAT one, again?) and leave those of us who still have a sense of what we're fighting for alone.

Yours,

Chris Randolph
Independent candidate,
US Congress 1st District Pennsylvania

email: randolph_19147@yahoo.com


Weekend Edition Features for July 10 / 12, 2004

Kathleen Christison
The Problem with Neutrality Between Palestinians and Israel

Janine Pommy Vega
Trail of the Comet: a Gathering of the World's Poets Against War

Sherry Wolf
From Maverick to Party Attack Dog: Howard Dean Gay-Bashes Nader

Saul Landau and Farrah Hassen
A Transfer of Power, Sort Of

Michael Donnelly
How to Steal an Election: the Green Version, 2004

Stanton / Madsen
Iraq Survey Group: Rumsfeld's al-Qaeda?

Richard Lichtman
The End of Innocence: Reflections on American Pathology

Gila Svirsky
Thank You, Your Honors: a Legal Blow to the Wall

Kurt Nimmo
Clinton's Life

Toni Solo
Empire-Speak: What Roger Noriega Really Means

Ron Jacobs
The Black Panthers and the Rest

Camelo Ruiz Marrero
Gene Warfare in Oaxaca: Genetic Mutation of Mexican Maize

Omar Barghouti
Wither the Empire: Rise of a Global Resistance

Poets' Basement
Curtis and Albert

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