How
the Press & the CIA
Killed Gary Webb's Career
Today's
Stories
January 19,
2005
Nancy Oden
The
Nuremberg Principles, Iraq and Toture
Alexander Cockburn
Will
Bush Quit Iraq?
January 18,
2005
Paul Craig
Roberts
How
Americans Were Seduced by War: Empire and Militant Christianity
Jennifer Van
Bergen
Federal
Judge: Abu Ghraib Abuses Result of Decision to Ignore Geneva
Conventions
Douglas Lummis
It's a No Brainer; Send Graner: a Rap for Our Time
Ron Jacobs
Syria Back in the Crosshairs?
Seth DeLong
Enter the Dragon: Will Washington Tolerate a Venezuelan-Chinese
Oil Pact?
Lance Selfa
Stolen Election?: Most Democrats Didn't Even Bother to Inquire
Paul D. Johnson
Mystery Meat: a Right-to-Know About Food Origins
Elisa Salasin
An Open Letter to Jenna Bush, Future Teacher
January 17,
2005
Heather Gray
Misconceptions
About King's Methods for Social Change
Robert Fisk
Hotel Room Journalism: the US Press in Iraq
Dave Lindorff
What the NYT Death Chart Omitted: Civilians Slaughtered by US
Military
Jason Leopold
Sam Bodman's Smokestacks: Bush's Choice for Energy Czar is One
of Texas's Worst Polluters
Gary Leupp
A Message from the Iraqi Resistance
Douglas Valentine
An Act of State? the Execution of Martin Luther King
Harvey Arden
Welcome to Leavenworth: My First Encounter with Leonard Peltier
Greg Moses
King
and the Christian Left: Where Lip Service is Not an Option
January 15
/ 16, 2005
James Petras
The
Kidnapping of a Revolutionary
Robert Fisk
Flying Carpet Airlines: My Return to Baghdad
Ron Jacobs
Unfit for Military Service
Brian Cloughley
Smack Daddies of the Hindu Kush: Afghanistan's Drug Bonanza
Fred Gardner
The Allowable-Quantity Expert
Dr. Susan Block
The Counter-Inaugural Ball: Eros Day, 2005
John Ross
Zapatista Literary Llife
Suzan Mazur
Unspooking Frank Carlucci
M. Shahid Alam
America's New Civilizing Mission
Frederick B. Hudson
Jack Johnson's Real Opponent: "That I Was a Man"
Mike Whitney
Bush's Grand Plan: Incite Civil War in Iraq
Tom Crumpacker
A Constitutional Right to Travel to Cuba
Bob Burton
The Other Armstrong Williams Scandal
John Callender
La Conchita and the Indomitable 82-Year Old
Lila Rajiva
Christian Zionism
Saul Landau
An Imperial Portrait: a Visit to Hearst's Castle
Doug Soderstrom
A Touch of Evil: the Morality of Neoconservatism
Poets' Basement
Davies, Louise, Landau, Albert, Collins and Laymon
January 14,
2005
Robert Fisk
"The
Tent of Occupation"
Lee Sustar
Bush's Social Security Con Job
José
M. Tirado
The Christians I Know
Dave Zirin
The Legacy of Jack Johnson
Sheldon Rampton
Calling John Rendon: a True Tale of "Military Intelligence"
Tracy McLellan
Under the Influence
Yves Engler
The Dictatorship of Debt: the World Bank and Haiti
Tom Barry
Robert
Zoellick: a Bush Family Man
Website of
the Day
Ryan for the Nobel Prize?
January 13,
2005
Mark Chmiel
/ Andrew Wimmer
Hearts
and Minds, Revisited
Joe DeRaymond
The Salvador Option: Terror,
Elections and Democracy
Greg Moses
Every Hero a Killer?...Not
Dave Lindorff
The Great WMD Fraud: Time for an Accounting
Jorge Mariscal
Dr. Galarza v. Alberto Gonzales: Which Way for Latinos?
Christopher Brauchli
Gonzales and the Death Penalty: the Executioner Never Sleeps
Gary Leupp
"Fighting
for the Work of the Lord": Christian Fascism in America
January 12,
2005
Robert Fisk
Fear
Stalks Baghdad
Josh Frank
The
Farce of the DNC Contest
Jack Random
Casualties
of War: the Untold Stories
John Roosa
Aceh's Dual Disasters: the Tsunami and Military Rule
Carol Norris
In the Wake of the Tsunami
Mike Whitney
Pink Slips at CBS
Alan Farago
Can
the Everglades be Saved?
Paul Craig
Roberts
What's
Our Biggest Problem in Iraq...the Insurgency or Bush?
January 11,
2005
Tom Barry
The
US isn't "Stingy"; It's Strategic: Aid as a Weapon
of Foreign Policy
James Hodge
and Linda Cooper
Voice
of the Voiceless: Father Roy Bourgeois and the School of the
the Americas
Linda S. Heard
Farah Radio Break Down: Joseph Farah's Messages of Hate and Homophobia
Derrick O'Keefe
Electoral Gigolo?: Richard Gere and the Occupied Vote
Gila Svirsky
A Tale of Two Elections
Harry Browne
Irish
"Peace Process", RIP
January 10,
2005
Ramzy Baroud
Faith-Based
Disasters: Tsunami Aid and War Costs
Talli Nauman
Killing
Journalists: Mexico's War on a Free Press
Uri Avnery
Sharon's Monologue
Dave Lindorff
Tucker
Carlson's Idiot Wind
Dave Zirin
Randy
Moss's Moondance
Dave Silver
Left Illusions About the Democratic Party
Charles Demers
Plan Salvador for Iraq: Death Squads Come in Waves
William A.
Cook
Causes
and Consequences: Bush, Osama and Israel
January 8 /
9, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
Say,
Waiter, Where's the Blood in My Margarita Glass?
John H. Summers
Chomsky
and Academic History
Greg Moses
Getting Real About the Draft
Walter A. Davis
Bible Says: the Psychology of Christian Fundamentalism
Victor Kattan
The EU and Middle East Peace
John Bolender
The Plight of Iraq's Mandeans
Robert Fisk
The Politics of Lebanon
Fred Gardner
Situation NORML
Joe Bageant
The Politics of the Comfort Zone
Mickey Z.
I Want My DDT: Little Nicky Kristof Bugs Out
Ben Tripp
CounterClockwise Evolution
Ron Jacobs
Elvis and His Truck: Out on Highway 61
Saul Landau
Sex
and the Country
Rep. Cynthia McKinney
Time to End the Blackout
Ellen Cantarow
NPR's Distortions on Palestine
Richard Oxman
Bageantry Continued
Poets' Basement
Gaffney, Landau, Albert, Collins
January 7,
2005
Omar Barghouti
Slave
Sovereignty: Elections Under Occupation
Kent Paterson
The Framing of Felipe Arreaga: Another Mexican Environmentalist
Arrested
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Old
Vijay Merchant and the Tsunami
David Krieger
Cancel the Inauguration Parties
Gideon Levy
New Year, Old Story
Dave Lindorff
Ohio Protest: First Shot Fired by Congressional Progressives
Christopher
Brauchli
Privatizing the IRS
Roger Burbach
/ Paul Cantor
Bush,
the Pentagon and the Tsunami
January 6,
2005
Brian J. Foley
Gonzales:
Supporting Torture is not His Greatest Sin
Greg Moses
Boot
Up America!: Gen. Helmly's Memo Leaks New Bush Deal
Petras / Chomsky
An
Open Letter to Hugo Chavez
Alan Maass
The Decline of the Dollar
Dave Lindorff
Colin Powell's Selective Sense of Horror
Jenna Orkin
The EPA and a Dirty Bomb: 9/11's Disastrous Precedent
P. Sainath
The
Tsunami and India's Coastal Poor
January 5,
2005
Alan Farago
2004:
An Environmental Retrospective
Winslow T.
Wheeler
Oversight
Detected?: Sen. McCain and the Boeing Tanker Scam
Jean-Guy Allard
Gary Webb: a Cuban Perspective
Fred Gardner
Strutting, Smirking, As If The Mad Plan Was Working
David Swanson
Albert Parsons on the Gallows
Richard Oxman
The Joe Bageant Interview
Bruce Jackson
Death
on the Living Room Floor
January 4,
2005
Michael Ortiz
Hill
Mainlining
Apocalypse
Elaine Cassel
They
Say They Can Lock You Up for Life Without a Trial
Yoram Gat
The
Year in Torture
Martin Khor
Tragic
Tales and Urgent Tasks from the Tsunami Disaster
Gary Leupp
Death
and Life in the Andaman Islands
January 3,
2005
Ron Jacobs
The
War Hits Home
Dave Lindorff
Is
There a Single Senator Who Will Stand Up for Black Voters?
Mike Whitney
The Guantanamo Gulag
Joshua Frank
Greens and Republicans: Strange Bedfellows
Maria Tomchick
Playing Politics with Disaster Aid
Rhoda and Mark
Berenson
Our Daughter Lori: Another Year of Grave Injustice
David Swanson
The Media and the Ohio Recount
Kathleen Christison
Patronizing
the Palestinians
January 1 /
2, 2005
Gary Leupp
Earthquakes
and End Times, Past and Present
Rev. William
E. Alberts
On "Moral Values": Code Words for Emerging Authoritarian
Tendencies
M. Shahid Alam
Testing Free Speech in America
Stan Goff
A Period for Pedagogy
Brian Cloughley
Bush and the Tsunami: the Petty and the Petulant
Sylvia Tiwon
/ Ben Terrall
The Aftermath in Aceh
Ben Tripp
Requiem for 2004
Greg Moses
A Visible Future?
Steven Sherman
The 2004 Said Awards: Books Against Empire
Sean Donahue
The Erotics of Nonviolence
James T. Phillips
The Beast's Belly
David Krieger
When Will We Ever Learn
Poets' Basement
Soderstrom, Hamod, Louise and Albert
December 23,
2004
Chad Nagle
Report
from Kiev: Yushchenko's Not Quite Ready for Sainthood
David Smith-Ferri
The
Real UN Disgrace in Iraq
Bill Quigley
Death
Watch for Human Rights in Haiti
Mickey Z.
Crumbs
from Our Table
Christopher Brauchli
Merck's Merry X-mas
Greg Moses
When
No Law Means No Law
Alan Singer
An
Encounter with Sen. Schumer: a Very Dangerous Democrat
David Price
Social
Security Pump and Dump
Website of the Day
Gabbo Gets Laid
December 22,
2004
James Petras
An
Open Letter to Saramago: Nobel Laureate Suffers from a Bizarre
Historical Amnesia
Omar Barghouti
The Case for Boycotting Israel
Patrick Cockburn / Jeremy Redmond
They Were Waiting on Chicken Tenders When the Rounds Hit
Harry Browne
Northern Ireland: No Postcards from the Edge
Richard Oxman
On the Seventh Column
Kathleen Christison
Imagining
Palestine
Website of the Day
FBI Torture Memos
December 21,
2004
Greg Moses
The
New Zeus on the Block: Unplugging Al-Manar TV
Dave Lindorff
Losing
It in America: Bunker of the Skittish
Chad Nagle
The View from Donetsk
Dragon Pierces
Truth*
Concrete
Colossus vs. the River Dragon: Dislocation and Three Gorges Dam
Patrick Cockburn
"Things Always Get Worse"
Seth DeLong
Aiding Oppression in Haiti
Ahmad Faruqui
Pakistan and the 9/11 Commission's Report
Paul Craig
Roberts
America
Locked Up: a System of Injustice
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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January 19, 2005
8 Million Disabled Workers
Social
Security Privatization and Disability
By
MARTA RUSSELL
The Social Security privatization debate
has omitted the fate in store for Social Security Disability
Insurance (SSDI) as a part of the program's family of benefits.
Social Security not only provides Old-Age protection, it consists
of often overlooked Survivors and Disability Insurance protections
as well.
I'll wager that most Americans
are unaware of the importance of SSDI, especially young workers
who are the target of Bush's campaign to divert funds into private
stock market accounts.
I was unaware too until in
the late 1980s I found myself unable to work with an 8-year-old
child to support. I had worked to put myself through college
and made a career in the film industry. Even though I was born
with cerebral palsy it never occurred to me that someday I might
not be able to hold down a job and pay my own way. In fact, three
in ten Americans have a chance of becoming disabled before retirement
age.
I had been paying into SSDI
(payroll taxes) so when faced with a bodily breakdown I could
apply for disability benefits. Like retirement, SSDI is a wage
earner social insurance. It is calculated based on wages earned
over the number of years worked, it is not a personal savings
account. If one becomes unable to engage in "substantial
gainful activity" due to bodily impairment, SSDI is there
to furnish income in place of wages, as opposed to one's 401K,
for instance.
SSDI won't be there in any
meaningful form, however, if President Bush succeeds in duping
the public into supporting his privatization plan. The Bush administration
could deliver a blow to the Disability Insurance Trust Fund (a
separate account in the United States Treasury) just as it plans
for the retirement fund.
The President's Social Security
commission, in fact, recommended cutting disability benefits
to help pay for the cost of private accounts--to make up the
2 trillion dollar shortfall that must either be paid for by cutting
retirees benefits or added onto the deficit in order to continue
to pay current benefits. If the disability insurance elements
of the program were insulated from benefit cuts, then much larger
cuts in retirement benefits would be necessary to achieve the
same overall level of cost reductions--reductions which are necessary
because of the loss of the Trust Funds' revenue to the individual
accounts.
The sums are not insignificant.
According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, one
Bush plan being tossed around to "save" Social Security--price
indexing--would cause a 46 percent drop in some workers' Social
Security retirement benefits compared to current law.
Currently retirement benefits
are matched to changing wage levels but tying Social Security
to an inflation index will significantly cut retirement benefits
for all working Americans since inflation usually grows at a
much slower rate than wages. SSDI is also matched to wage levels
and it too could be switched to an inflation index lowering the
already meager disability benefits to levels one cannot survive
on. In December of 2004, for instance, the average disability
benefit was $894 per month.
There are more ways SSDI regulations
could be manipulated to result in a lower output of government
cash. The Bush administration could make eligibility rules more
restrictive by changing the definition of "disabled"
or make formula changes that cut benefits. They could use Continuing
Reviews that determine whether a disabled person can work or
not to purge disabled people from the rolls, increase the number
of work credits required to qualify, and eliminate the annual
cost of living adjustments, to name a few.
Over the years there have been
rumblings about how the disability rolls have grown out of control,
how Social Security bureaucrats function poorly by not meeting
mandates and that the disability system is in disarray. These
kinds of messages helped to drive the devastating cuts to SSDI
in the 1980s when Reagan was president. The Reaganites arbitrarily
sent tens of thousands of disabled people notices that they were
no longer "disabled" and cut off their benefits entirely.
This resulted in extreme hardship and death in many instances.
In a double whammy to the SSDI
program, Bush's Social Security commission also recommended that
access to disability accounts prior to retirement age be barred.
This means reduced Social Security benefits, and no money from
the accounts to cushion the loss. Such a change would defeat
the purpose of SSDI entirely.
So you say, private disability
insurance can pick up the pieces. There is no private insurance
plan that can compete with the amount workers pay into Social
Security and the return on those payroll tax dollars. For a 27-year-old
worker with a spouse and two children, for instance, Social Security
provides the equivalent of a $353,000 disability insurance policy.
The vast majority of workers would be unable to obtain similar
coverage through private markets.
According to the General Accounting
Office, in 1996, only 26 percent of private-sector employees
had long-term disability coverage under employer-sponsored insurance
plans. Work-related coverage has been shrinking not expanding
since then. It is not unheard of that after 40 years of paying
into private disability insurance the insurer refuses to recognize
impairment as incapacitating and denies a claim.
How about the prospect that
private investment accounts could replace lost disability benefits?
In January 2001, after examining a number of privatization plans,
the General Accounting Office concluded, "the income from
(workers' individual accounts) was not sufficient to compensate
for the decline in the insurance benefits that disabled beneficiaries
would receive."
This is in part because balances
would accumulate over much shorter periods of time than retirement
accounts and would, therefore, provide much less income in the
event that a worker becomes disabled.
Almost 8 million disabled workers
and dependents rely on SSDI. It is shameful that the Bush administration
is forcing us to defend Social Security rather than improve it.
I would like SSDI not only to remain intact for my daughter in
the event she may need it, I would like to see it provide disabled
workers with an income above the poverty level. I suspect other
parents feel the same.
Marta Russell is an independent journalist and author
who writes on the political, social and economic aspects of disablement.
She is the author of BEYOND
RAMPS, DISABILITY AT THE END OF THE SOCIAL CONTRACT (Common
Courage Press, 1998). She can be reached: ap888@lafn.org
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