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March
14, 2002
H.P. Albarelli
Anthrax
Cover-up?
March
13, 2002
Amira
Hass
Are
the Occupied Protecting the Occupier?
CounterPunch
Wire
National
Review Editors Suggest Nuking Mecca
Mokhiber
/ Weissman
Personal
Responsibility
for Corporate Elites?
Robert
Fisk
Arabs
Don't Want US
to Strike Iraq
Alexander
Cockburn
When
Billy Graham Wanted
to Kill One Million People
March
12, 2002
Kay Lee
Dangerous
Changes in
California's Prisons
John Patrick
Leary
The
Return of Otto Reich
Wole Akande
US
is Being Discredited
in the Eyes of Africa
March
11, 2002
Hani Shukrallah
This
is the Way the World Ends
Tommy
Ates
Bush's
New Nuke Policy:
Target Allies and Enemies
Lidia Andrusenko
The Great
Chicken War:
Bush v. Putin
Dave Marsh
10
CDs Playing On My Desk
John Chuckman
Footprints
in the Dust
Norman
Madarasz
Max
Steel in a Time of Chaos
March
10, 2002
Thomas
Croft
Year
of Living Dangerously
March
9, 2002
Bill Cook
Sharon's
Bulldozer
Alexander
Cockburn
The
Nightmare in Israel
March
8, 2002
Mokhiber
/ Weissman
When
Business Men
Make Boo-Boos
CounterPunch
Exclusive
Enron's
Spooky
Image Consultant
Rep. Ron
Paul
Stop
the War on Colombia
Andre
Achong
The
Failed War on Drugs
John B.
Kelly
Michael
Moore and Me:
Disability Rights and
a Big Stupid White Guy
March
7, 2002
CounterPunch
Wire
Congressman
McInnis Equates Enviros to al-Qaeda
Mike Rogers
Will
the Battle of Shah-i-Kot Become the Taliban's Alamo
Walt Brasch
Patriot
Act and Free Speech
John Jonik
Insurance
Scams:
Who Are the Scofflaws?
Cockburn
/ St. Clair
Bumper
Crop: The Politics
of Afghan Opium
March
6, 2002
CounterPunch
Wire
A
Beautiful Mind:
Another Dangerous Lie?
Tom Turnipseed
War
Is Wrong
David
Vest
Billy
Graham and Nixon:
Tangled Up in Tape
Patrick
Cockburn
The
Bombings That
Made Putin a Hero
CounterPunch
Wire
Berezovsky
Fingers Putin
in Bombings
Edward
Said
Thoughts
About America
March
5, 2002
CounterPunch
Wire
Ann
Coulter At It Again:
Race-Baiting Norm Mineta
Bill Christison
A
Former CIA Officer
Explains Why the War
on Terror Won't Work
Delkhasteh and Wright
What
Should We be Fighting For? An Open Letter
to Pro-War Academics
Mariya
Tsvekova
Putin's
Georgian Gambit
March
4, 2002
Ralph
Nader
Dick
Cheney: A Dinosaur
in the Age of Mammals
Uri Avnery
How
Israel Will Torpedo
the Saudi Peace Plan
Southern
/ Kubrick
Stangelove
Scenario
for Shadow Govt. Bunker
David
Vest
Grammy's
of Constant Sorrow
March
3, 2002
Bernard
Weiner
War
on Terrorism for Dummies
Paul Cox
Boycott
Mel Gibson's
"We Were Soldiers"
Frederick
Hudson
Toward
a Nonviolent Africa:
Bill Sutherland's Quest
Eric Schaeffer
Dear
Christie Whitman:
Take This Job and Shove It
John Chuckman
Why
the Rest of Planet is Unnerved by America
March
2, 2002
Alexander
Cockburn
Sweat,
Sex, Feet and
the Working Class
March
1, 2002
Brendan
Sexton III
What's
Wrong With Black Hawk Down: an Actor Speaks Out
David
Krieger
Nuclear
Terrorism
and US Nuclear Policy
A Photographic Journal of Life
in an Afghan Refugee Camp
By Judith Mann
Resources:
100s of Links
About 9/11
CounterPunch:
Complete
Coverage of 9/11 and Its Aftermath
Five
Days That
Shook The World:
Seattle and Beyond
By Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
Photos by Allan Sekula
(Click Here to Order from CounterPunch
Online at 20% Off Amazon.com's price!)
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COUNTERPUNCH
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Published Oct. 15, 2001
8-Page Special Issue
War Diary
CIA's Assassination Plan a History of
Torture in US Prisons
bin Laden and Bush
Business Connections
Aisha Ikramuddin on the Hidden Hype
of US Food Bombs
Peter Linebaugh on
Pakistan
Christopher Hitchens' Love for Mrs. Thatcher
Jiang Zemin Tells Bush:
Nuke 'Em
Search
CounterPunch
Read Whiteout and Find Out
How the CIA's Backing of the Mujahideen Created the World's Most
Robust Heroin Market and Helped to Finance the Rise of the Taliban
and Osama bin Laden
Whiteout:
CIA, Drugs & the
Press
by Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The New Crusade:
America's War on Terrorism
By Rahul Mahajan
The Memphis Blues Again:
Six Decades of Memphis Music Photographs
Photos by Ernest Withers
Text by Daniel Wolff
The New Intifada:
Resisting Israel's Apartheid
Edited by Roane Carey
A Pocket Guide to
Environmental Bad Guys
by James Ridgeway
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The
Phoenix Program
by Douglas Valentine
Al Gore:
A User's Manual
by Cockburn
and St. Clair
Buy
This Explosive
New Book at an
Amazing Discount!
Reviews of Gore:
a User's Manual
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March 14, 2002
Memo to Paul McCartney:
There are Two Types
of Freedom, Sir
By Wayne Saunders
Two recent sporting spectaculars began with two
rather different musical intros; both relate to the cherished
concept known as freedom.
It was hard to miss the contrast: "I
will fight for the right to live in freedom," sang Sir Paul
McCartney at the Super-Patriotic Bowl. Days later, Robbie Robertson
crooned "This is Indian land," at the Olympic opening
ceremonies, demonstrating that not all pop stars have adopted
a patriotic persona, while reminding viewers that the freedom
of indigenous peoples has been under attack for hundreds of years.
I don't doubt Sir Paul's candor for a
cause. Linda McCartney was a staunch animal rights activist,
and, I'm told, so is he. Nowadays Paul and fiancee Heather Mills
are involved in the campaign to ban land mines, so sincerity
is not the issue. The problem I have with this post Sept. 11
ditty is that I don't know which type of freedom he's talking
about. And I'm not sure he does either.
To begin with, catchall concepts are
easily exploited. As U.S. casualties in Afghanistan begin to
mount, President George W. Bush has pledged to continue to "pursue
those who want to hurt America and take away our freedoms."
This notion - that hurting or killing Americans, including civilians,
is akin to taking away their freedoms - deserves a dose of critical
deconstruction.
Historically, the idea of liberty yields
two basic threads: "freedom to do," and "freedom
from." In modern times, "freedom to do" evolved
out of the Enlightenment, when it became widely acclaimed that
not just kings and aristocrats are born with certain inalienable
rights.
On the other hand, "freedom from"
arose from amending documents such as the U.S. Bill of Rights,
whereby certain provisions limited the coercive power of central
government. Moreover, freedom from also is derived from a continually
evolving set of ideas, laws, and customs including such proactive
and state interventionist notions like affirmative action, welfare,
and employment insurance.
Actually, the two strands of freedom
are interwoven, since it is impossible to realize one without
the other, and neither are fully realized, anywhere.
What do these nuances mean in a political
climate dumbed down by crude rhetoric, jingoism, and Attorney
General John Ashcroft's brand of draconian justice? Specifically,
what does all this have to do with a silly pop song?
Well, the United States is a big "to
do" country - the biggest ever, actually. Freedom to do
encompasses many things including the right to economic, social
and geographic mobility. But freedom to do also has a dark, collective
manifestation with an historic imperial mandate. From the days
of gunboat diplomacy to George W's "axis of evil speech,"
freedom to do is evidenced by a strong tradition of unilateral
military action.
And so, when the Bush administration
"goes it alone" by thumbing its nose at a myriad of
international protocols and agreements from Kyoto to the ABM
missile treaty, to Sir Paul and Heathers land mines treaty, are
we to rest easy knowing that a cherished principle is at play?
Pursuing life as one sees fit may embody
the so-called American dream, be it myth or reality, for each
individual. But freedom to do doesn't work even remotely fairly,
without healthy doses of freedom from.
This involves freedom from things like
fear, poverty, exploitation, violence, racism, war, and yes,
terror. President Franklin Roosevelt touched upon this strand
of freedom in his so-called Four Freedoms inaugural speech on
January 6, 1941.
The first two freedoms were freedom of
speech and freedom of worship. But the next two clearly fall
into the freedom from category. The third freedom cited was freedom
from want, in which he envisioned "economic understandings"
that would "secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life
for its inhabitants." The fourth freedom, freedom from fear,
was to be achieved by "a world-wide reduction of armaments..."
In this endeavor, the United States has
reneged, and in many ways works to undermine freedom "from."
As underwriter for the global economic system, and leading arms
salesman of the last century, the U.S. has propped up some of
the great rogues of our time - all in the name of freedom of
course.
A partial list reveals former allies
Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden. Then there's Marcos, Suharto,
Pinochet, the Contras, the Turkish and Colombian armed forces
- and that is just scratching the surface. Some of these leaders
attacked other nations as well as their own citizens, all have
brutalized people, and all are critical violators of the freedom
from principle.
Evidently freedom from does not apply
to the foreign victims of such callous and disgraced statecraft,
whose names and lives rarely merit reference in popular discourse,
and whose numbers are legion.
Nor does freedom from come into play
for those that have been rounded up merely because of their Arab
lineage. Actually, freedom to do no longer works for these unfortunate
souls either, many of whom, are likely guilty of nothing. But
not so for Enron's Kenneth Lay who retains the privilege of "taking
the fifth," against self-incrimination. Other laypersons
may take heed: the Bill of Rights still pertains to white-collar
crooks.
The September attack on the United States,
while a heinous crime against humanity, was not the only time
that a civilian population has been made to pay a terrible price
for the sins (perceived or otherwise) of leadership. It was surely
an attack on freedom, but more of the "from" type than
the "to do" type. Resilient Americans have more or
less returned to the business of doing as they please, but now
know what much of the rest of the world knows all too well. Freedom
from fear, war, and terror on home soil has been lost.
The song "Freedom" was composed
hastily in response to the events of Sept. 11, and I do suspect
Sir Paul means both kinds of freedom, in a naive Beatlesque kind
of way.
Afterall, despite his pot convictions,
freedom to do and freedom from still work well for Paul in the
land of the free (add British pop stars to the Bill of Rights
club). But for the common rabble, the document is starting to
look like a quaint oddity from a bygone era, sort of like that
old vinyl copy of The White Album. It's nice to dust it off once
in awhile, but who is really listening? Because oddly enough,
it is Ashcroft's Patriot Act that ultimately threatens the freedom
of Americans. What the government could not do, it now can and
is doing. Is this the freedom that Sir Paul claims he would fight
for?
For celebrities, a Super bowl gig carries
considerable symbolism as does any Olympic appearance, even if
they convey different attributes. It's just a guess, but I doubt
McCartney meant to question anything American. After all, it
was John Lennon who penned Power to the People.
I cannot query Sir Paul, because it is
hard for a lowly scribe to chat with knighted Beatles.
Oh, how we miss you John. And I don't
mean Ashcroft.
Wayne Saunders
is a freelance writer. This column originally appeared in YellowTimes. He encourages
your comments: planetway@netscape.net
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