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What's Inside the New Print Edition of CounterPunch! What Business Wanted from Welfare Reform by Stephen Pimpare: How Democrats and Corporate Think Tanks Dismantled Welfare; Poverty and Hunger Up, Federal Aid to Poor Down; The Objective: Cheapening the Cost of Labor; A Report from a Black Organizer in South Carolina by Kevin Alexander Gray: ABB versus Movement Building; Why the Nazis Banned Fractura by Alexander Cockburn. CounterPunch Online is read by millions of viewers each month! 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! Call Toll Free 1-800-840-3683 or write CounterPunch, PO BOX 228, Petrolia, CA 95558

Now Available! Dime's Worth of Difference: Beyond the Lesser of Two Evils Order Here! Today's Stories October 30 / 31, 2004 Winslow T. Wheeler Spartacus Tells All October 29, 2004 Harry Browne No Justice for Peace Activist in County Clare October 28, 2004 Forrest Hylton "The Gas is Ours:" Bolivia's Ghosts of October Col. Dan Smith Rebellion in the Ranks Alan Maass Jon Stewart v. the Pundits Ron Jacobs Ecstasy in Red Sox Nation Alexander Cockburn Kerrycrats and the War   October 27, 2004 Jules Rabin Crammed with Distressful Politics Dave Lindorff Bulgegate: the Lies Continue Katherine Van Tassel On the Home Front: Both Parties Ignore Working Parents Jeffrey St. Clair The Bi-Partisan Politics of Oil   October 26, 2004 Brian Cloughley Three Weddings and Lots of Funerals: Atrocities in Iraq and Afghanistan William Blum Fear Factors Lenni Brenner The 1964 Berkeley Free Speech Movement: Lessons for 2004 Ben Tripp The Chicken Salad Election Fidel Castro After the Fall Greg Bates The Nation's Flawed Calculus Walter Brasch Gag the Public: the War on Dissent Niranjan Ramakrishnan An Open Letter to Pat Buchanan Mickey Z. Rumble in the Jungle at 30: Ali, Foreman and the Congo Amir Taheri The Boom in Conspiracy Theories Alexander Billet Say It Ain't So, Bruce!: the Boss Endorses Kerry Doug Giebel The Religion of G.W. Bush Kathleen Christison Why I Liked Thomas Friedman's Latest Column Before I Didn't   October 25, 2004 Ralph Nader Letter from a Minnesota Highway Werther West Texas Wahabbism Dave Zirin Boston's Killer Cops: Death of a Fan Fred Gardner Pot Shots: Oregon Revokes Dr. Leveque's License Omar Barghouti Executing Another Child in Rafah William J. Nottingham Lori Berenson's Story John Chuckman A Foolish Consistency Uri Avnery On the Road to Civil War   October 22 / 24, 2004 Alexander Cockburn You Can't Blame Nader for This Rev. William Alberts On Bended Knee: Faith-Based Deceptions Willliam A. Cook Killing for Christ Saul Landau George W. Bush: a Man of His Words? Bill Quigley I Held the Bullet in My Palm: Masked Haitian Police Shoot Children While Arresting Priest Christopher Brauchli Seal It With a Frown: What Compassionate Conservativism Really Means William S. Lind Fallujah and the Moral Level of War Sharon Smith Guilt Trippers for Kerry Greg Bates Kerrynomics: "Hurt the Ones Who Vote for Us" Justin E.H. Smith Is Lesser Evilism a Compromise with Evil? Rebecca Evans Tarnished Legacy: Pinochet and the Chilean Military Mike Whitney Al Hurra TV: the Second Invasion M. Junaid Alam Purchasing Individuality in America David Krieger Nuclear Non-Proliferation: Examining the Policies of Bush and Kerry David J. Ledermann The Emperor's New Crumbs Lawrence Reichard Same Old FBI Story Website of the Weekend Lie Girls: the Real Coalition of the Willling     October 21, 2004 Ben Tripp The Undecided Voter Examined Joshua Frank Kerry and the Environment: It's Not Easy Pretending to be Green Stan Cox What the Left Doesn't Get About Small Businesses Bill Martinez State Depart and Cuban Visas: Only Anti-Castro Agitators Need Apply Mark Engler The War and Globalization Lina Britto and Lucia Suarez Bolivia: a Year After the October Insurrection Website of the Day Two Pampered Children of Wealth   October 20, 2004 Yitzhak Laor "Did You Two Squabble?": a Bullet Fired for Every Palestinian Child Jason Leopold Sinclair Broadcasting's Air War: a Long History of Journalistic Deception Jesse Sharkey A Teacher's Account of How Military Recruiters Prey on High School Students Col. Dan Smith Choking Free Speech About the Draft Dr. Teresa Whitehurst Using My Religion David Vest If Bush Wins, Blame Me Jack Random The Jackson 17: Reflections on a Mutiny Ron Jacobs Time to Kick It Up a Notch James Brittain Plan Patriota and the FARC: a Change in the Countryside? Christopher Dols Bombing Madison: Michael Moore's Fright Fest Dave Lindorff First They Came for the Nurses... Website of the Day Banana Republican Catalogue   October 19, 2004 Jeffrey St. Clair Party Favors: the Political Business of Terry McAuliffe Jeff Taylor Confessions of a Swing State Voter Matt Vidal American Myopia: "More Money in Your Pocket" Victor Kattan "It's Not Who You're Against; It's Who You're For": Palestine Takes Center Stage At Euro Social Forum William Loren Katz What Goes Around Comes Around Sean Carter O'Reilly Should Shut Up About Extortion Claiims CounterPunch Wire Who's Really in Bed with Republican Funders: Kerry or Nader?     October 18, 2004 Saul Landau Facts and Lies; Slogans and Truth Dave Lindorff Bulletin on the Bush Bulge Diane Christian Sheep and Goats: On the Language of Goodness Greg Bates / Dave Lindorff Betting on War: a Wager on the Fallout of a Kerry Presidency Uri Avnery Ariel Sharon's Philosophy Peter LaVenia Leaving the Greens So Soon? a Response to Josh Frank Mike Whitney O'Reilly at the Whipping Post Elaine Cassel The Other War: Civil Liberties Three Years After 9/11   October 16 / 17, 2004 Alexander Cockburn The Free Speech Movement and Howard Stern Leslie Brill Unmerciful Judge, Merry Executioners: the Death Penalty as the True Measure of Bush's Character Jules Rabin Reckoning Deaths in an Agitated World Dave Lindorff About the Bush Bulge: Was There a Pucker in That Jacket or Was the President Just Glad to be There? Peter Linebaugh Judging Judges: a Few Pages from The Mirror of Justices Gary Leupp Iran and Syria: How to Effect Regime Change and Expand the Empire M. Shahid Alam America, Imagine This! Ron Jacobs Trying to Cross Lake Champlain Fred Gardner The Flu Vaccine Question: How Bush Blew It Jenna Orkin The Toxic Legacy of 9/11 Dave Zirin Name the DC Baseball Team: Contest Results David Hamilton Alone and Exposed: Bush as a Strong Leader? Ralph Nader Criticizing Israel is Not Anti-Semitism Doug Giebel Thinking the Unthinkable Mark Engler Crimes in Freedom's Name: Dick Cheney's El Salvador Derek Tyner Blacks Didn't Get the Vote by Voting: an Interview With Clarence Thomas on the Million Worker March Evan Jones Gimme That Ole Time Religion: Cash and "The Mind of the South" Poets' Basement LaMorticella, Klipschutz and Albert Website of the Weekend No More Bush Girls   October 15, 2004 Paul Craig Roberts Where Did These "Conservatives" Come From?: The Brownshirting of America Laura Carlsen Wal-Mart vs. the Pyramids of the Sun and Moon Greg Bates Empire of Insanity: Kerry's Iraq Troop Numbers Michael Donnelly News from a Swing State: Does Anyone Here Have a Spine? Katherine Lahey The Venezuelan "Threat": Why Do Kerry and Bush Fear Hugo Chavez? Robert Jensen / Pat Youngblood Election Day Fears Leah Caldwell From Supermax to Abu Ghraib: the Masterminds of Torture and Abuse Website of the Day An Anti-Billionaire Policy? Why That Would Be Economic Racism     October 14, 2004 Darcy Richardson The Other Progressive Candidate: the Lonely Crusade of Walt Brown Willliam A. Cook Turning Myths into Truth Laura Santina Water, Women and War Evelyn Pringle Free Speech Banned by Big Pharma: What You Can't Say About Drug Importation Alan Farago Lessons from Nature Rep. Maxine Waters A Letter to Colin Powell on Haiti Nicole Colson Maimed for Oil and Empire       October 13, 2004 Bishop Thomas Gumbleton and Bill Quigley Aftermath of a Coup: The Other Disaster in Haiti Sharon Smith Barak O-Bomb-a?: Democrats Target Iran Christopher Brauchli God and the Bush Administration Mike Whitney The Real Meaning of the Hamdi Case Paul de Rooij Amnesty International: a False Beacon? Website of the Day Operation Truth     October 12, 2004 Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz "Indian Country" Greg Bates The Year of Voting Dangerously: a Survey Request of Nader Voters in Swing States Steven Conn Progressives as Pawns: Kerry's War on Nader Jason Leopold Under Cheney, Halliburton Helped Saddam Siphon Billions from UN Oil-for-Food Program Security Scholars for a Sensible Foreign Policy Time for a Change of Course Timothy J. Freeman Dying for a Mistake Pierre Tristam Deconstructing Bush Niranjan Ramakrishnan The 2nd Debate: the Blurring of Act and Audience Bill and Kathleen Christison Israel as Sideshow Website of the Day John Kerry's Personal Off-Shore Tax Shelters   October 11, 2004 Robert Fisk Iraq: Unforgivable Betrayals and Broken Promises Kevin Pina The Untold Story of Aristide's Departure from Haiti Patrick Gavin Rethinking Columbus Day Chris Floyd Tribes with Flags in the New Afghanistan Daniel Wolff Radioactive Money: Entergy, Political Cash and America's Most Dangerous Nuclear Plant Walter Brasch The Only Ones Who Believe Saddam Had WMDs are Bush, Cheney...and 40% of All Americans Mike Whitney The Phony Afghan Elections: Ballot of the Disappearing Ink Ari Shavit "He Talks to Condi Rice Every Day": an Interview with Sharon's Lawyer Paul Craig Roberts The Debates and the Big Lie Website of the Day Dylan's Greatest Recording?     October 9 / 10, 2004 Alexander Cockburn "There Are No Innocents" Paul de Rooij Northern Ireland is Still the Issue: a Conversation with Gerry Adams M. Shahid Alam Making Sense of Our Times Laura Carlsen Protest and Populism in Latin America Fred Gardner Pot Shots: ASA Goes to Court Col. Dan Smith Bush's Credibility Gap Paul Craig Roberts Faith-Based Economics Greg Bates What If Nader Critics Get What They Demand? Joshua Frank Cobb, the Greens and the Collapse of the Left Felice Pace Wilderness, Politics and the Oligarchy: How the Pew Charitable Trust is Smothering the Grassroots Environmental Movement Walter A. Davis Of Pynchon, Thanatos and Depleted Uranium William A. Cook The Agony of Colin Powell Phyllis Pollack Twas No Crank Call Love Affair: London Calling, 25 Years Later Poets' Basement Klipschutz, Albert, Ford Website of the Weekend Abu Ghraib: the Taguba Annexes   October 8, 2004 Jennifer Loewenstein The Israeli Invasion of Gaza Moshe Adler Edwards' Gambit: He Hoped No One Would Notice the Similarities David Swanson Media Blackout: Press Continues to Ignore Labor's Opposition to Iraq War Dave Zirin CounterPunch Contest: Let's Name the New DC Baseball Team! Rep. Ron Paul The Draft is a Form of Slavery William S. Lind Keeping Our SA Up Samar Assad Kerry v. Bush: No Difference When It Comes to Israel / Palestine Jim Ingalls and Sonali Kolhatkar The Elections in Afghanistan     October 7, 2004 Dave Lindorff All Out of Volunteers: A Draft is in the Air Masha Hamilton Fear in Kandahar Christopher Brauchli Master of Corruption: the Ripening Scandals of Tom Delay Jason Leopold Is There Still Time to Impeach Bush? Bruce K. Gagnon Bombing the Panhandle: Fighting the Pentagon in Rural Florida Meredith Kolodner Where is the Urgency?: The Anti-War Movement's Election Year Challenge     October 6, 2004 Jeffrey St. Clair "Please, Dude, Can I Take Them Out?": Targeting Civilians in Fallujah Ron Jacobs Going Nuclear: the Ghost of Edward Teller Lives Michael Colby The National Flip-Flop: Suddenly Bush is Unfit to Lead? Tarif Abboushi More of the Same: Israel Wins the Debates Matthew Behrens Canadian Firms Profit from Iraqi Blood Mike Whitney Rethinking WMDs John Pilger Stealing Diego Garcia Ben Tripp Kerry's "Triumph" Kevin McKiernan Cheney's Poison Lab: Wrong Time, Wrong Target Patrick Cockburn Elections Will Not End the Fighting in Iraq Website of the Day Is There an Islamic Problem? October 5, 2004 Anthony Loewenstein Rupert Murdoch and the Marginals: "Personally Creating Outcomes" Mark Clinton and Tony Udell The Suicide of an Iraq War Veteran Greg Bates Trading Idiots: an Open Letter to Eric Alterman Dave Lindorff What's the Frequency, Karl? Norm Dixon Why Washington Won't Save Darfur Villagers Larry Kearney God Talk and Burning Children Bill Linville Dirty Politics in the Land of "Clean" Government Gary Leupp What Edwards Should Ask Cheney Website of the Day A Guide to Halliburton for Tonight's Debate   October 4, 2004 Diane Christian The Gates of Hell Joshua Frank An Interview with David Cobb Doug Giebel Incurious George: What If Bush Didn't Lie? John Chuckman Strange Victory: Sen. Obvious and the Pathetic Lump Ramzy Baroud Reverse the Picture: Anatomy of a Palestinian Outrage Julia Stein Remembering Mario Savio and the FSM Sean Donahue Outsourcing Terror: Kerry and Special Forces Website of the Day Mapping Mt. St. Helens as She Rocks   October 2 / 3. 2004 Paul Wright John Kerry on Criminal Justice Kathleen and Bill Christison An Exchange with Israeli Historian Bennie Morris Kathie Helmkamp My Son Trent: a Marine Who Doesn't Want to Kill Phillip Cryan Indigenous Mobilization in Colombia Lenni Brenner The First Ex-Catholic Saint: Memories of Mario Savio Fred Gardner Pot Shots: In Case You Missed "Montel" Ron Jacobs It Did Happen Here: When Neo-Nazis Terrorized Olympia Ben Tripp Sticker Shock William S. Lind The Grand Illusion: Iraqi Security Forces Dave Zirin The Swindle of the Century: Baseball Comes to DC Dave Lindorff Lies from the Great Debate Luscon Pierre-Charles Haiti's Elections: a High-Tech Sham is Underway Zoe Moskovitz & Sasha Kramer Separating Lies from Truth About Haiti Nelson P. Valdes Habana Night vs. Latin American Scholars in Vegas: 61 Banned Cuban Academics Alan Farago The "Ownership Society" and the End of the Everglades Nancy Haley What is the Historical Jesus Trying to Tell Us? Alex Billet Long Live The Clash: London Still Calling After 25 Years Steve Fesenmaier Save and Burn: The War on Libraries Poets' Basement Smith, Holt, Albert   October 1, 2004 Steve Breyman Kerry's Missed Opportunities Rose Gentle My Son Died for a Lie Lee Sustar Iran in the Crosshairs Ralph Nader What We Didn't Hear at the Debate: Where's the Exit Strategy? Walter Andrews We Are Less Secure Now Than Ever Mike Whitney Pandora's Government Mickey Z. Debate This Saul Landau The Iraq Invasion: Lessons from the Pinochet Cases                   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.     Subscribe Online

Weekend Edition October 30 / 31, 2004 A Case for Sustainable Rhetoric The Tower of Gabble By P. SAINATH I have reflected in recent times on all the useful words that Development has taught me. It seems to me this is something Civil Society needs to ponder, right from the Grassroots to Emerging Leaders. At some point, a Knowledge-Based Society needs to learn something. What, I do not know, but hopefully something that demarcates us from all those ignorance-based societies of these past millennia. Perhaps we need to have a Consultation of NGOs, Action Groups, CSOs and all other Stakeholders to work out the Best Practices in this regard.. These groups could then work towards a Summit bringing together the best talent from amongst whom we create a Task Force which will then seek to Empower the Target Groups in each sector. The Summit itself will work out an overall Declaration to be translated into concrete Action Plans by Focus Groups. The Exploratory Sessions will be based on Interactive Communication (and Gender Equity). Since by this time we might be running low on Sustainable Resources, we could initiate a number of Private-Public Partnerships to ensure that some share of the moolah goes to at least a few Beneficiaries. (The Livelihood Issues of the leaders of Non-Profits, for instance, are not unimportant.) These Micro-Credit Strategies could further be supplemented through Budgetary Allocations by other Facilitators (sometimes called governments). They could be roped in via a Plenary Session on Good Governance, Accountability and the importance of Networking. Given the need to create an Alternative Dialogue with an Innovative Conceptual Framework, we could enlist the Traditional Knowledge of Development Consultants who would call Workshops to decide on how to Mainstream Development Issues in the Media. We must, after all, examine Paradigm Shifts in the Development Debate while strengthening Conscientization, Advocacy Outreach and Institution-Building. We propose a Preparatory Meeting (at an Eco-Friendly locale) which can formulate a Mission Statement on how best to further the goals of Human Development and Natural Resource Management towards building a better Common Future. Realization of our Millennium Goals would undoubtedly require serious Capacity Building Ideas on how to ensure Food Security for the participants in the Pre-Summit Brainstorming are welcome. Undoubtedly, in this era of the Information Society, the first session will be on ICTs and Poverty Alleviation. There will be, of course, a Focus Session on Resource Mobilization (Self-Help Groups are asked to show a little restraint at this point). Deliberations resume after a quick Participatory Research Lunch. Germane to the Fund-Raising focus will be the Study of Issue-Based development of Institutional Linkages to the right Donors. The whole area throws up several Challenges / Opportunities that call for Strategic Planning aimed at ensuring Control/Access over Resources. The next session looks at Integrated Strategies that adopt a Holistic Approach in ensuring Local Participation and Community Control. Case studies of Successful Interventions amongst Marginalised Communities will be presented (by Subaltern Voices from the grassroots). A Core Group will do Environmental Impact Assessments of the radical new rhetoric. Our Documentation & Research Centre will preserve all relevant material in Gender-Sensitive Databases. (All irrelevant material goes into the Final Report of the Conference.) The above presentation is available in Power Point format. Please add $ 5 for postage. P. Sainath can be reached at psainath@vsnl.com. Editors' note: Okay CounterPunchers, this is a breach of what we term the Ron Jacobs Rule, in memory of a satire by this same Jacobs which too many CounterPunchers took to be literally true. We swore we'd never publish another satire. But exceptions are there to prove (meaning test or assay) the rule. This is a parody, a very deft parody of a dialect, called NGO-Speak. We'll leave it to Noam Chomsky to decide how deeply this hideous argot is embedded in Man's (and Wo-Man's) neural circuitry, but it's now become the lingua franca of all grant applicants, conference planners and permanent itinerants to those Forums of Uplift inhabited by all who believe that the world's problems can be solved by nice people inspired by a trip to Porto Allegre and a (sustainable) grant from some major foundation. We are very happy to have the author of this genial parody on our site, where we will be featuring his work from time to time. P. Sainath is a marvelous Indian journalist we' know and have long admired. His great achievement has been to disclose to respectable India the full extent and horrible realities of poverty there, not least in the thousands of suicides of small farmers driven to self destruction by neo-liberal policies. After glittering years on Blitz and the Times of India Sainath quit the padded chair of editorial omniscience and started reporting on the situation of extremely poor people across India, spending most of his time in the remoter countryside, hitherto largely disdained by the Indian press. His collection Everybody Loves a Good Drought was a deserving best seller. Sainath has had a powerful impact, not only on Indian journalism, where there have been some efforts to follow his pioneering work, but on the lives of the people he writes about since he has provoked some political reaction to the terrible abuses and corruptions he exposed. These days Sainath is the rural affairs editor of The Hindu. AC/JSC Weekend Edition Features for October 22 / 14, 2004 Alexander Cockburn You Can't Blame Nader for This Rev. William Alberts On Bended Knee: Faith-Based Deceptions Willliam A. Cook Killing for Christ Saul Landau George W. Bush: a Man of His Words? Bill Quigley I Held the Bullet in My Palm: Masked Haitian Police Shoot Children While Arresting Priest Christopher Brauchli Seal It With a Frown: What Compassionate Conservativism Really Means William S. Lind Fallujah and the Moral Level of War Sharon Smith Guilt Trippers for Kerry Greg Bates Kerrynomics: "Hurt the Ones Who Vote for Us" Justin E.H. Smith Is Lesser Evilism a Compromise with Evil? Rebecca Evans Tarnished Legacy: Pinochet and the Chilean Military Mike Whitney Al Hurra TV: the Second Invasion M. Junaid Alam Purchasing Individuality in America David Krieger Nuclear Non-Proliferation: Examining the Policies of Bush and Kerry David J. Ledermann The Emperor's New Crumbs Lawrence Reichard Same Old FBI Story Website of the Weekend Lie Girls: the Real Coalition of the Willling WWW http://www.counterpunch.org   /