Now
Available from
CounterPunch for Only $11.50 (S/H Included)
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.
|
Weekend
Edition
February 28 / 29, 2004
CounterPunching
Stalinists
for Kerry! and Other Roars from the Crowd
This letter from John Lacny is polite,
but we can tell he's pretty mad at us.
Dear Cockburn:
Here's you:
cockburn02252004.html
"Listening to Democrats screaming
about Ralph Nader's entry into the presidential race we finally
understand the mindset of those Communist dictatorships that
used to take such trouble to ensure that the final count showed
a 99 percent Yes vote for the CP candidate."
I knew, just fucking knew, that you people
would eventually resort to old-fashioned red-baiting to attack
the People's Front against Bush. Knew it. Old Claud Cockburn
is spinning in his grave right now, a man who had the gumption
to call the POUM what they were for firing on the however-imperfect
Spanish Republic from BEHIND the lines even as the falangists
closed in for the kill. For that, he's been called a "totalitarian"
ever since, and his son has hitherto at least had the courage
to defend him against Orwell, Hitchens, Ron Radosh, and the rest
of that offal. No more, it appears; the son has thrown in his
lot with the Trotskyites.
Well, here's one former CounterPunch
subscriber who wears the bullshit "totalitarian" slanders
of red-baiters as a badge of honor. Self-righteous fools on their
way out of the left have always taken the ultraleft and Trotskyite
route first, just as Hitchens did, and so are you, as your longtime
alliance with the fascist sympathizers at "antiwar.com"
should have indicated long ago. Their nonsense is already creeping
into your polemics, as can be seen from the loathsome scribblings
of your buddy Bruce Anderson, who writes elsewhere in CounterPunch
about the Democratic Party being the party of "limo labor,"
"ethnic demagogues," and "gays in wedding gowns."
I fully expect smug diatribes against affirmative action and
"special rights" and "union bosses" in the
near future.
Your citation of Nader's previous record
is about as relevant right now as a citation of CounterPunch's
own noble record in other times and places. The point is that
Nader -- and you -- are traitors. You are splitters, wreckers,
left in form but right in essence and function, every bit as
worthy of the turncoat label as David Horowitz. You know it's
true.
So what are you going to do now, call
me a "Stalinist"? Maybe it would be better if you just
gave up on CounterPunch and skipped a few steps, and just started
writing rants for Reason Magazine or the Ayn Rand Institute about
how Hillary Clinton is interfering with your right to smoke or
something. The part where you hawk Socialist Worker on the street
is pretty boring, anyway.
John Lacny
And here's a tough one (we got lots)
about Bruce Jackson's attack on Nader.
Dear Professor Jackson:
You said:
"Religious fanatics like Nader live
in their minds, not in the real world: the rest of us live in
the real world, a place where our choices and actions do matter."
Take me to your real world, o wise one.
I am but a lowly high school dropout and I still believe my own
eyes. Explain to me, professor, how civil rights and women's
rights and education and jobs and the environment "don't
seem to matter or exist" for a man who has worked tirelessly
for them for forty years.
I'm so stupid. All this time I thought
Mr. Nader's hatred of corporate America and the two-party system
was a logical response to the untold death and destruction they've
wrought. Now I know it's just a symptom of his monomania and
religious fanatacism. Thanks for clearing that up.
Thanks, too for putting my weak little
mind through the mental gymnastics necessary to process this
one: " most votes cast for Nader would have gone to Gore
or they wouldn't have been cast at all. If Nader had not run,
Gore would have won New Hampshire and Florida."
Again, I'm just a high school dropout.
I still can't figure out how votes that wouldn't have been cast
at all actually belonged to Gore.
I'm also having some difficulty with
the concept that Nader should "give a hoot" if his
opponent loses. Being one of the dullards who thinks that Gore
did actually win Florida, I can't understand why Democrats are
still mad at him.
You higher education guys sure are hard
to figure out. Like when you say Nader should be honored, and
in the same piece you call him a monomaniac, an idealogue, a
lunatic, an egomaniac, a religious fanatic who cares not a bit
for real people and someone who is posing and weasling. But
I guess a couple of semesters in one of your classes and I'd
start to understand all kinds of stuff that's absolutely mysterious
to me now in my inferior mental state.
There's one mystery, however, I'm certain
that I'll never ever get, one that I know will baffle me until
the day I die. How is it that a man can insult his political
adversary, abandon basic rules of logic, indulge in vicious little
poodle-like attacks and even in jest, even in jest, mind you,
call for his adversary to immolate himself, thereby potentially
inciting violence on his adversary and disgracing the memory
of those brave and immortal souls who made the ultimate sacrifice
for the noblest of reasons- and that man is called "Distinguished
Professor".
I guess it is true after all. A mind
is a terrible thing to waste.
Jim Priest
And another...
There's another aspect of the Democrats'
reaction to Nader's campaign which you'd failed to mention. It's
their new complaints about how Nader will be doing damage to
his own work. Many people cite the fact that Public Citizen lost
a lot of its support because of Nader's 2000 campaign, even though
Nader hasn't had a lot to do with that organization lately.
But such complaints have the whiff of
both the bully and the habitual victim. The people making these
complaints never try to _prevent_ such damage from happening.
No one says, "People shouldn't punish Public Citizen because
they dislike Nader." They say that Nader shouldn't raise
his head, because then angry Democrats'll start hurting the hostages.
In other words, these critics are _glad_ that irrational liberals
are being vindictive against progressive causes, because it gives
them moral leverage over Ralph Nader. That's the bully. The "habitual
victim" is the fear that lies under the argument.
Imagine if someone said that Kerry, or
the Democrats in general, should refrain from making any criticisms
of the Bush administration for these reasons. Don't offend Dick
Cheney, the argument might go, because he might fast-track drilling
in Alaska out of spite. Don't criticize John Ashcroft, or he
might start demanding that Democrats provide three kinds of photo
ID at airports. That's not too far removed from the wails of
"Nader doing damage to the Left" that we've been hearing
since 2000.
Until this past weekend, I was ready
to swallow my pride and vote for whoever the Democrats were going
to nominate. But the reaction to Nader is sickening, and I'm
tempted to vote for him out of sheer disgust.
Yours,
Angry CounterPuncher
And a final word from Fred Feldman,
who hits the nail right on the head: NBK NOBODTY BUT KERRY!
Who are they to get in the way of our
election? This is not what democracy looks like. Democracy is
when everybody but the good candidate pulls out of the race.
I think that the only way to save democracy is for all candidates
except Kerry to withdraw from the race. That should include
Bush too, of course.
If there is more than one candidate,
the horror of 2000 may be repeated! More than one candidate means
vote-stealing, reactionary advertising campaigns, the possibility
of Republican and Green and socialist candidates, and unpredictable
outcomes. The good candidate may not win. The result will be
the ruin of democracy.
Only a one-candidate election with Kerry as the candidate can
save the nation! Just to be on the safe side, voters who oppose
both Kerry and Bush should be required to vote for Kerry.
Why should they be allowed to possibly affect the outcome by
staying at home or abstaining on the Presidential vote? The
Democratic primaries have spoken. Anybody But Bush is named Kerry.
For any reasonable, ego-free, other-directed individual, this
should be enough to settle the matter.
Four candidates is treason! Three candidates is a crime! Two
candidates is one too many! In a democracy, there must be one
candidate and all democratic-minded people must vote for him
as one! Lets make our vote count in 2004!
Fred Feldman
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
Keep
CounterPunch Alive:
Make
a Tax-Deductible Donation Today Online!
home / subscribe
/ about us / books
/ archives / search
/ links /
|