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Today's
Stories
August 19,
2004
Dave Lindorff
Gitlin
Tells Anti-Bush Protesters to "Cool It"
August 18,
2004
Amy Goodman
An
Interview with Mordechai Vanunu
Adrian Kuzminski
The
Death of American Politics: Why Perot Was the Last Serious Challenger
of the Political Duopoly
Uri Avnery
Israel
and the US Elections
Dave Lindorff
Librarians as Wimps: "Sorry, Sir, Some Readers May Find
Your Book Inflammatory"
Toni Solo
After the Venezuela Referendum: Bush's Dien Bien Phu?
John L. Hess
Laying Odds on Armageddon: a Midtown Hiroshima?
Rodney Thomas
Patti Smith, Another Take
Sean Donahue
Kerry
and Bolivia: To the Right of Bush?
Website of the Day
Presidential Polls: David Cobb (at 0%) is Exceeding Expectations
August 17,
2004
Norm Dixon
Darfuris
Made Pawns in Western Power Play for Oil
Alan Farago
In
Charley's Wake: Opportunity from Misfortune
John L. Hess
The
Meaning of Venezuela
Lisa Taraki
/ Omar Barghouti
Presbyterian Church Divests from Israel
Allen Thompson
Et Tu, Patti? An Open Letter to Patti Smith
John Ross
Mexicans
Dying in Bush's War
Website of the Day
List of Civilian Contractors Killed or Missing in Iraq
August 16,
2004
Gary Leupp
The
Attack on Najaf: the Ultimate Stupidity
Ron Jacobs
Iran
Through an Iraqi Mirror?
Mike Whitney
The
Guantanamo Mock Trials
Zvi Bar'el
Theater
of the Absurd in Iraq: Chalabi, Feith and Israel
John Blair
A
Culture of Waste
Sharmini Peries
Chavez
Triumphs; Crushes Opposition
Tariq Ali
The Importance of Hugo Chavez
Website of
the Day
Hurricane City
Sex,
Drugs & the Blues!
Serpents in the Garden
CounterPunch's
Sizzling New Book on Culture and Sex is Now Available
Click here to purchase
August 14 /
15, 2004
Justin Delacour
/ Diana Barahona
The
Venezuela Referendum: Can the Carter Center's McCoy be an Impartial
Observer?
Cockburn /
St. Clair
War
on the Poor: "A Risk No Sane Person Would Take"
M. Shahid Alam
The Civilizing Mission: Some Economic Results
Saul Landau
God and Botox
John Ross
Echoes of Mexico City, 1968
Fred Gardner
Is California Spying on Pro-Pot Doctors?
Jonah Girdin
The Opposition Strategy in Venezuela: Subvert Democracy in the
Name of Democracy
Katherine Lahey
"Uh!
Ah! Chávez No Se Va!": Democracy and Venezuela
Medea Benjamin
Hugo Chavez and the Poor of Venezuela
Yves Engler
The Media and the Venezuela Referendum
Zeynep Toufe
The NYTs and Chavez: More Than the Usual Bias
Mike Whitney
The Trouble in Najaf: What Was al-Sadr's Crime?
Eric Drooker
Gaza Stripped
Dave Zirin
Olympic Sized Horror in Greece: 150 Workers Died Building the
Facilities
Dave Lindorff
A29 Could be a Very Slow Day
Rebecca Brigham
The Aftermath of Guatemala's Strike: Promises Still Unfulfilled
Wayne Madsen
The McGreevey Scandal: an Israeli Connection?
David Krieger
Nuclear Disarmament in a Time of Globalization: the US Double
Standard
Tracy McLellan
The Illegality of Pot is a Crime: a Personal Account
Christina Gerhardt
Confronting Capitalism: What Has Changed Since Seattle 1999?
Poets' Basement
Adler, Albert Vijayalakshmi, Gilliam
August 13,
2004
Lee Sustar
Report
from Caracas
Mickey Z.
McProtests R Us: Why are the Dems Trying to Gag Anti-War Protesters?
Stan Goff
There
He Goes Again: Kerry's "Energy" Plan
Norman Madarasz
Thoughts on Najaf: How Could the US Ever Be Considered a "Terrorist"
State?
Victor Kattan
Press Freedom, Censorship and the War on Terror
Oscar Heck
Is Mendoza Off His Rocker? Chavez Opponents Pledge to Post Results
Online Before Polls Close
CounterPunch
Wire
Military Families File "Stop Loss" Suit
Milan Rai
Najaf: Bush Started It
Website of
the Day
The Yes Men
August 12,
2004
Jeffrey St.
Clair
How
Bush Got (and Lost) His Wings
Lenni Brenner
Take
It on Faith: Kerry's See-Through-Monk's Robe
Lee Ballinger
The Coors and the Kerrys: Drink Up, Kids!
Tariq Ali
The
Handover Fiction
Yves Engler
What's at Stake in Venezuela
William S.
Lind
Seeing
Through the Other Side's Eyes
Christopher Brauchli
Getting Bush's Goat
Website of
the Day
The Sucker Puncher
August 11,
2004
Ceylon Mooney
Who
Woke Up Sen. Joe?: Watchers of the NJ Turnpike
Voices in the
Wilderness
Hands
Off Najaf
Ray McGovern
Porter
Goss as CIA Director?
Robert Jensen
US
Supports Anti-Democratic Forces in Venezuelan Recall
Annie Higgins
In Memory of Nick Pretzlik: As Good as It Gets
Alexander Cockburn
Bush
v. Kerry: Not Even a Dime's Worth of Difference
Website of the Day
Nick Pretzlik
August 10,
2004
William A.
Cook
Silencing
the Voice of the People
Todd Chretien
California Greens at the Crossroads: Will It Be Nader or Cobb?
Dave Lindorff
Chicago on the Hudson?
Richard Gott
Loathed
by the Rich: Why Chavez is Headed for a Big Win
Toni Solo
Bluebeard's
Castle: Disappearing the Right to Development
Dave Zirin
Carl Eller's Plea
Rep. Ron Paul
Police State, USA
Patrick Cockburn
If the Chalabis Were Corrupt, They Weren't Alone
Website of
the Day
The Surveillance-Industrial Complex
August 9, 2004
Tito Tricot
Pinochet
Must Still be Tried: a Murderer and a Thief on the Loose
Ron Jacobs
In
Memory of Deep Throat: the Day Nixon Was Gone
Norm Dixon
Crisis in Sudan: Oil Profits Behind West's Tears for Darfur
Kurt Nimmo
The Politics of Entrapment
Elaine Cassel
Welcome to Bush's America
Gary Leupp
Why
Iraqi Christians are Moving to Syria
August 7 /
8, 2004
James Petras
The
Anatomy of "Terror Experts": Meet the Mandarins of
Abu Ghraib
Fred Gardner
Run
Ricky Run: Football, Pot and Pain
Justin Delacour
Anti-Chavez Pollsters Panic: Fix Numbers; Reinvent Venezuela
Brian Cloughley
Persecuted by All; Supported by None: Who Would Be A Kurd?
Joshua Frank
The
Outsider: a Talk with Ralph Nader
Iain A. Boal
On "Shame": Warmed-Over Orientalism and Racist Projection
Chris Floyd
All About Eve: Open Season on Women in DC and Rome
Andrew Fenton
Fighting for Democracy and Justice in Haiti
Aseem Shrivastava
Saga of an Anguished Afghan
Neil Corbett
See Cuba: Sometimes a Cigar is Just a Cigar, Mr. Bush
Carol Miller
/ Forrest Hill
Rigged Convention; Divided Party: How David Cobb Won with Only
12% of the Vote
Tarek Milleron
Breaking the Principled Voter
Donald Macintyre
The
Battle of Najaf
Ron Jacobs
Spirits of The Dead: Why I Love My Petty Bourgeois Tendencies
Mickey Z.
Kid
Gavilan's Grave: Propaganda Scores a TKO
Poets' Basement
Adler, Ford and Albert
August 6, 2004
Joshua Frank
David
Cobb's Soft Charade: the Greens and the Politics of Mendacity
Derek Seidman
An
Interview with Stan Goff
Mike Whitney
The
Arbitrary Imprisonment of Jose Padilla
William S. Lind
Corruption in the Marine Corps
David Price
In
the Shadow of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
August 5, 2004
Mike Ferner
The Kerry Show: When Peace is Off
Message
Bruce Anderson
Two
Rejections
Robert Fisk
The Tale of Saddam's Cameraman
Todd Chretien
Florida
Comes to California: the Democrats' Plot Against Nader
Peter Linebaugh
Doing Time for Political Crime:
Paul and Silas, Bound in Jail
August 4, 2004
Mickey Z.
Two
Traditions: WMD and Disinformation
Justin Huggler
The Hunt for Bin Laden
John Ross
Mexico's
Dirty War Never Ended: Inside Puente Grande Prison
August 3, 2004
Uri Avnery
The
Oligarchs
Ray McGovern
The 9/11 Commission Chimera
Jack McCarthy
Sexual Politics in Jeb's Florida
Eric Ruder
Meet Barak Obama: the Democrats' New Liberal Star
John L. Hess
Crying Wolf: Orange Alert!
Elaine Cassel
Civil Liberties Elections: 1800 v. 2004
Jules Rabin
The Man Who Didn't Walk By
Website of the Day
No Wall
August 2, 2004
Robert Jensen
Kerry's
Hypocrisy on the Vietnam War
Joshua Frank
Greens, Kerry and the Politics of Mendacity
Mike Whitney
The 9/11 Commission and Civil Liberties: "We Need an American
Police State"
Gary Leupp
Beyond
Good and Evil: Some Thoughts on Invasions
July 31 / Aug.
1, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Kerry:
He's the (Any) One
Merlin Chowkwanyun
Five Questions with Noam Chomsky: "The Savage Extreme of
a Narrow Policy Spectrum"
David Lindorff
The Shame of the DNC
John Chuckman
The
Disturbing Words of John Edwards
Brian Cloughley
All Slam and No Dunk; All Blame and No Responsibility
Christopher Brauchli
"Being Poor is a State of Mind": the Frowning Face
of Compassionate Conservatism
Fred Gardner
A World of Pain
Michael Donnelly
How Big Pharma Bilks the Elderly
David Nally
Genocide in Darfur?
Joshua Frank
Forest Battles Escalate in Oregon
Sam Bahour
Colin Powell and My Grandmother
Diane Farsetta
The IMF and the Indonesian Elections: The Invisible Hand in the
Voting Booth
Harold Gould
Was Iraq a Mutual Charade?
Van Bergen / Stephens
Election 9/11: Surreal Political Theater
Lee Sustar
A New Model for the Labor Movement?
Ron Jacobs
The Lost Art of Hitchhiking
M. Junaid Alam
An Interview with Palestinian-American Rapper, The Iron Sheik
Poets Basement
Albert, Ford, Krieger, St. Clair
Website of
the Weekend
Cross Cultural Poetics
July 30, 2004
Kolhatkar /
Ingalls
Shattering
Illusions: Kerry's Speech Tells Anti-War Activists They're Not
Wanted
Dave Lindorff
Murder
Not So Foul?
Bruce Jackson
Walt Whitman on the Sound of Wolf Blitzer's Voice
Fidel Castro
The
Pathology of George W. Bush
Maximilien Robespierre
Memo to Kerry and Bush: Why They Resist
Saul Landau
Bush
Charges Castro with Sex Tourism; JFK Rolls Over in His Grave
July 29, 2004
Cockburn /
St. Clair
Hail,
the Conquering War Criminal: What Kerry Really Did in Vietnam
Frank Bardacke
What
Michael Moore Left Out of F9/11
Tom Barry
Shallow and Formulaic: Kerry's Latin America Plan
Ron Jacobs
Kerry
and Lennon: Hawking the CounterCulture
Robert Fisk
The Unreported War
Lichtman /
Kellis-Borok
What Kerry Must Do to Win (But Probably Won't)
William S. Lind
The 9/11 Commission Report: Cashing in on Failure
CounterPunch
Wire
Doonesbury Onto John Kerry in 1971!
Website of
the Day
Jabbing JibJab: Copyright Madness
July 28, 2004
Robert Fisk
The
Occupation at 114 Degrees: Baghdad is Swamped in the Smell of
the Dead
Kevin Mink
Kerry's Misperception of Palestine
Ray McGovern
Israel and the Iraq War: How the 9/11 Report Soft-Pedals Root
Causes
United for
Peace & Justice
An
Open Letter to John Kerry: Winter Soldiers and Summer Patriots
Mike Ferner
Vets Demand End to Occupation: "Pull the Troops or Face
Impeachment Mvt."
Imraan Siddiqi
Turning Tricks with Ann Coulter
Alexander Cockburn
Candidate
Kerry
Website of
the Day
Iraq Vets Against the War
July 27, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Why
the Democrats Deserve Nader
Dave Lindorff
Back to the 19th Century: Globalization's Coming!
Mike Whitney
Control Room: Inside Al Jazeera
Ali, Anderson, Bello, et al.
If We Were Venezuelan, We'd Vote for Chavez
Stefan Wray
Texas Plan to Grab Los Alamos Takes Hold, as DOE Shuts Down Labs
Louis Proyect
Reflections on Nicaragua: First Came the Contra Butchers, Then
the Sweatshops
Rick Giombetti
Faith in Freedom: the Challenge of Thomas Szasz
Bill and Kathleen
Christison
The
9/11 Report and Its Weak-Kneed Consensus: Dogding Israel/Palestine;
Blinkered on Causes of Terrorism
July 26, 2004
Todd Chretien
Green
Resistance: a Reply to Normon Solomon & Medea Benjamin
Robert Fisk
Terror
by Video
Richard Forno
Security
Theater in Boston: Security Expert Harrassed by DHS for Exposing
Flaws at the Fleet Center
Mitchel Cohen
Report from a Boston Demo: Arresting the Curious
Richard Moreno
Rockers
for Justice: an Interview with Tom Morello and Serj Tankian
Alexander Cockburn
Boston
Awaits a Dead Party
July
24 / 25, 2004
Alexander
Cockburn
The Democrats and Their Conventions:
Part One
Dennis
Hans
Those 16 Words Still Smell, Mr. Bush
Patrick
Cockburn
The Struggle for Iraq is Only Beginning
Josh
Frank
The War Path of Unity: Dems Reject
the Peace Movement
Justin
E.H. Smith
Christianity and the Left: the Latin
American Experience
Tariq
Ali
What's at Stake in Venezuela
Fred
Gardner
The Politics of Pot: Year of the
Antagonist
Mark
Scaramella
There's Dope and There's Dope
Ron
Jacobs
The Weather Underground's Prairie
Fire Statement...35 Years On
July
23, 2004
Lee
Sustar
Revolution in Nicaragua: 25 Years
On
Dave
Lindorff
Battle for NYC: Bush 1, Protesters
0
Saul
Landau
Zaniest President in US History: Bush
Beats Reagan
Mike
Whitney
The 9/11 Whitewash: Blaming No
One
Mickey
Z
Get On the Bus: 150 Years After Elizabeth
Jennings
Gary
Leupp
The 9/11 Commission and the Looming
War on Iran
July
22, 2004
M.
Junaid Alam
Ten Ways to Build a Better Democrat
Brian
McKinlay
Rusted On Down Under: Howard, Bush and Sharon
Jason
Leopold
Cheney Lobbied for Easing of Sanctions on Terrorist Regimes While
CEO of Halliburton
Chris
Floyd
Mob Rule: Ripping the Lid Off of America's Pious Myths
Uri
Avnery
Chirac v. Sharon
July
21, 2004
Paula
J. Caplan
The Emotional Casualities of War:
Psychologists Can't Heal All the Damage
Joshua
Frank
Nader Sleeping with the Enemy? Let's
be Fair
Ron
Jacobs
American Exceptionalism
Reza
Ghorashi
The Elections, Iran and al-Qaeda
Amy
Martin
Will Congress Rearm the Guatemalan Generals?
John
Ross
Bush May Lose, But His Wars Will Go
On and On
July
20, 2004
Stan
Cox
The Bush / Kerry War Ticket
Chris
Randolph
An Open Letter to Dr. Ehrenreich: It's Over, Barb!
Forrest
Hylton
The Ghosts of Gonismo: "Popular
Patricipation" and Bolivia's Gas Referendum
Mark
Scaramella
It's Official! Mendocino County is Crazier and Fatter Than the
Rest of California
Sam
Bahour
The World is Knocking on Israel's Door
George
Reiter
A Defense of David Cobb
John
Ross
Burying Iraq, Burying Bush
John
L. Hess
Girlie Stuff: Media Tolerance of Arnold & Co.
Website
of the Day
This Land is Your Land
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
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August
19, 2004
Voting
for Evil
To
ABB or Not to ABB?
By
LANCE SELFA
Many progressives make it sound as if
there's a world of difference between the candidates. Is this
true?
The standard liberal charge
hurled at Nader supporters is that we believe there is "no
difference" between the two mainstream parties in U.S. politics--the
Republicans and Democrats. Actually, no one on the American left--certainly
not this newspaper--has ever made this claim.
In fact, the U.S. political
system works precisely because there are some minimal differences
between the two parties. It simply wouldn't be credible--nor
would it be a recipe for election success--for the Democrats
and Republicans to run on identical platforms.
Yet as the two governing capitalist
parties in the U.S. political system, the Democrats and Republicans
are instruments of the capitalist class. They carry out the policies
of the capitalist class. They merely differ on the details.
If the Republicans openly flaunt
their favoritism toward the rich, the Democrats are, in the words
of Republican pundit Kevin Phillips, "the world's second
most enthusiastic capitalist party." If the neoconservative
"hawks" around George W. Bush loudly trumpet the need
for a new U.S. imperialism, Kerry and the Democrats speak for
the need for "muscular internationalism."
On the key questions of the
day--the issues that elections are supposed to be about--there
is little difference between Kerry and Bush. Conservative pundit
George Will has said that you can't slide a piece of tissue paper
between Kerry's and Bush's positions on Iraq. Both are committed
to maintaining and prevailing in the U.S. occupation.
Kerry voted for the civil liberties-shredding
USA PATRIOT Act and Bush's No Child Left Behind Act to wreck
public education. He supported the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
He was an early proponent--even when Bill Clinton was president--of
"regime change" in Iraq.
On domestic policy, he has
been a firm and unwavering supporter of "free trade"
agreements like the North American Free Trade Agreement and the
Free Trade Area of the Americas. He, like Bush, opposes the right
of gays and lesbians to marry.
On all of these questions--all
of which are quite fundamental--there is very little difference,
mainly a rhetorical one, between Bush and Kerry. The problem
with pro-Kerry progressives is that they take the differences
that do exist between the candidates and elevate them to the
chief reason to vote for the Democrat.
This is the classic method
of "lesser evilism" at work. But focusing on particular
differences obscures the overall agreement between the two parties.
Thus, the Democratic convention
in Boston featured Ron Reagan making a pitch against Bush for
opposing stem cell research because of his connections to the
anti-abortion fanatics. There's nothing wrong with stem cell
research, of course, and any reasonable government should support
it. But this is hardly a main question in this election.
Yet it was an "approved"
criticism of Bush that Kerry's handlers allowed at the convention--while
they wouldn't allow any delegate to carry a sign with the word
"Peace" written on it. That would have been "off
message" in a convention dedicated to showing that Kerry
would be tougher than Bush on Iraq and the "war on terrorism."
By the logic of lesser evilism, we're supposed to forget all
of this and vote for Kerry just because he has a better position
than Bush on stem cell research.
The editors of The Nation wrote
in their "Open Letter to Ralph Nader" in February,
"The odds of this becoming a race between Bush and Bush
Lite are almost nil." But after the warmongering Democratic
convention, can anyone seriously believe this?
KERRY WON'T be perfect, but
won't grassroots struggles have a better shot at success with
Kerry in the White House instead of Bush? Aren't the Democrats
more open to pressure by our side than Republicans?
A NUMBER of leading figures
on the left, with long histories in activist movements--like
Alternative Radio founder David Barsamian and United for Peace
and Justice leader Leslie Cagan--make this argument. They call
for a vote for Kerry because, they argue, a Democratic administration
would be more likely to respond to constituencies like organized
labor, women's rights groups, or the antiwar movement.
This argument isn't specific
to 2004. It resurfaces every election year. Unfortunately, this
is another claim where the evidence is thin--and getting thinner
with each election year.
In fact, the ruling orthodoxy
of the Democratic Party today--stoked by the mandarins of the
conservative Democratic Leadership Council within the party--is
that Democratic candidates have to prove themselves by not "pandering"
to the Democrats' most loyal voting constituencies, and doing
all they can to help out the party's big-business funders.
In key "battleground"
states like Michigan, organized labor's get-out-the-vote efforts
regularly deliver around half of the Democrats' votes. Yet the
Clinton administration "rewarded" labor with the NAFTA
trade agreement and "welfare-to-work" programs that
undercut union jobs.
What about issues like abortion
where there are real differences between the two parties? At
least Democrats are committed to maintaining abortion as a legally
available option for women, whereas the Republicans are committed
to outlawing it. This is true. But supporting Democrats just
because they aren't as bad as the Republicans demonstrates the
poverty of expectations among liberals and progressives.
When he was running for president
in 1992, Bill Clinton promised to pass a "Freedom of Choice
Act" that would guarantee a woman's right to choose. After
he took office, he dropped the bill. While he vetoed efforts
to ban the late-term abortion procedure misnamed "partial-birth"
abortion by the right, he nevertheless signed into law abortion
bans on federal employees and residents of Washington, D.C.,
and he maintained the ban on Medicaid funding for abortion.
But women's rights groups never
made Clinton pay a political price for these betrayals. Meanwhile,
a concerted attack on abortion rights gathered steam at the state
level, while feminist leaders refused to mobilize a counteroffensive--based,
in part, on their assumption that abortion rights were safe with
a Democrat in the White House.
IT WAS one thing to vote for
Ralph Nader in 2000 when he was a candidate of the Green Party.
But this year, he's an independent. His campaign is doing nothing
to build the Greens or the left in general.
THIS ARGUMENT is heard primarily
among those who supported the nomination of David Cobb and Pat
LaMarche as the Green Party candidates for president and vice
president. As left-wing author Stephen Shalom wrote in New Politics
magazine before the Greens' convention, "The case for backing
David Cobb...seems to me much more compelling than for backing
Nader. Cobb is really part of the Green Party, which is a real
organization, going through a democratic process--not very efficiently,
to be sure, but democratic nonetheless.
"Look at the Green Party
Web site, <www.gp.org>, and see such links as United for
Peace and Justice, ZNet, Democracy Now and Fair Trade Coffee.
This is our party." This argument would carry some weight
if the purpose of Cobb's candidacy was to aggressively take on
Bush and Kerry on questions of the war, the occupation, the USA
PATRIOT Act, abortion rights, health care, or any one of a number
of positions on which the Greens are to the left of the Democrats.
But the Cobb campaign made
it clear that it would support a "safe states" strategy
of not campaigning hard in states where a big Green vote could
tip the election to Bush--illustrated most absurdly when LaMarche,
a Maine native, said in an interview that she would vote against
herself if the election looked close in Maine. By accepting this,
the Green ticket declared its own irrelevance to the national
debate.
You can't "build the left"
if you don't want your ideas to have any consequence in the real
world. Indeed, Shalom wrote that a vote for Cobb is a way to
build the left without "giving undo aid to Bush"--in
other words, without presenting a challenge that could hurt Kerry
and the Democrats where it matters.
In contrast, the Nader-Camejo
campaign--despite vicious baiting from people on the left and
a full-court press by Democrats determined to keep it off ballots
around the country--is attempting to offer a left alternative
for people who want to vote against the war and occupation, against
the USA PATRIOT Act, and for gay marriage and national health
care.
As California Nader organizer
Todd Chretien put it, "Like Paine, Douglass, Parks, Lewis,
Malcolm, Mario, Gurley-Flynn and countless others understood,
any movement that ever aims to win, must learn to stand up for
itself precisely when it is darkest. That's the only way the
millions of people who hate the system that oppresses them can
ever gain confidence in us to join us and transform our movement
from a minority affair of protest into a majority tide of power."
THIS ELECTION is a referendum
on the war in Iraq. Imagine the reaction of the Iraqi people
if Americans re-elect the man that invaded their country and
killed so many people. We have to make sure that Bush doesn't
get a mandate for his war on the world.
GLOBAL EXCHANGE founder Medea
Benjamin put it this way: "The world is watching and waiting
with bated breath to see if the U.S. people will reject the Bush
agenda. When I was last in Iraq, Ghazwan Al-Mukhtar, an Iraqi
engineer, said, 'Saddam Hussein was a bastard, but this was not
a democracy, and we didn't elect him. So his evil deeds were
not done in our name. Can you say the same thing for George Bush?'
"We owe it to ourselves
and to the global community to make sure that Bush is no longer
allowed to speak in our name." This would be a compelling
argument if the national elections were organized to fire the
president. Unfortunately, as Benjamin herself knows, the only
way to accomplish this is to elect John Kerry.
In "An Open Letter to
Progressives," Benjamin, Peter Coyote, Daniel Ellsberg and
other prominent figures made the case that "the only candidate
who can win instead of Bush in November is John Kerry"--and
urged a vote for Kerry in "swing states." If Kerry
is elected on a platform that calls for the continued occupation
of Iraq, an increase in the number of troops deployed there,
a further "internationalizing" of the occupation and
worse, can we really say that a vote for Kerry is vote against
Bush's war policy?
Kerry has openly campaigned
as the candidate who can make the occupation work--which can
hardly be good news for ordinary Iraqis. If the end result is
the same for ordinary Iraqis--and for U.S. soldiers and their
families--why is it better to have John Kerry "speaking
in our name" than George Bush?
For Iraqi civilians--or Colombian
peasants or any other people--who will bear the brunt of U.S.
imperialism's assaults, it makes no difference whether a Republican
or Democratic administration is ordering the bombing of their
villages or the arming death squads against them.
AL GORE wouldn't have gone
to war in Iraq, and Kerry will be less likely to go to war in
the future. That's enough of a difference to vote for him.
"HAD GORE been elected,
he would have gone to war in Afghanistan, but I doubt he would
have gone to war in Iraq," British antiwar activist and
socialist Tariq Ali told Doug Henwood in an August 6 radio interview.
"This is very much a neocon agenda, dominated by the need
to get the oil and appease the Israelis. This war in Iraq is
very much something this administration went for. The defeat
of this administration would be a defeat of the war party."
The problem with Tariq's claim
is that there's no way to verify it. We don't know if Gore would
have invaded Iraq, and we don't know what the future holds, so
we can't say whether Kerry will take the U.S. into more wars.
We do know, however, that the
Democrats have a long record of posing as more moderate than
the Republicans, but carrying out the same war policies. Thus,
in the 1964 presidential election, Lyndon Johnson campaigned
as a "peace" candidate against the "warmonger"
Barry Goldwater, and won in a landslide. But it was LBJ who escalated
the war in Vietnam.
Al Gore's running mate, Sen.
Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.), was one of the biggest pro-Israel hawks
in the U.S. government, and a supporter of the neocon Project
for a New American Century. During the buildup to last year's
invasion of Iraq, Lieberman often went on television to chide
Bush for not moving fast enough!
We do know that Kerry and Edwards
voted for Bush's wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. We know that both
advocated "regime change" in Iraq long before Bush
signed on to the project. And on August 10, Kerry told reporters
that, knowing what he knows now about Bush's lies and Iraq's
non-existent "weapons of mass destruction," he still
would have voted for the war and supported the invasion!
The Democratic platform that
Kerry's operatives largely wrote criticizes the Bush administration
because it "did not send sufficient forces to accomplish
the mission" in Iraq. It asserts that "[w]ith John
Kerry as commander-in-chief, we will never wait for a green light
from abroad when our safety is at stake." In other words,
Kerry is not going to give up his right to "unilaterally"
order U.S. troops around the world.
While it's that party platforms
aren't worth the paper they're printed on, it's hard to avoid
the message that the Democrats were sending with their parade
of ex-generals at the convention--and the browbeating of antiwar
delegates to accept a pro-war platform. In fact, Kerry is espousing
the key points of the neocon agenda--without the neocon baggage.
Anti-imperialists like Tariq
Ali and Noam Chomsky know this very well, and will oppose imperial
adventures led by a President Kerry as vigorously as they would
oppose those of Bush. But isn't this also a good reason for them
not to cut Kerry any slack today?
I'D LIKE to vote for Nader,
but we can't afford to vote on principle this year. The stakes
are too high for workers and the oppressed.
"THE PRESIDENTIAL election
of 2004 is not a debate about voting your fears or voting your
conscience," reads a statement from Greens for Impact--an
organization of Greens, including well-known radicals like left-wing
writer Norman Solomon. "It is not an academic or theoretical
exercise. Real people's lives are at stake.
"Women, people of color,
the GLBT community, our nation's poor, and many others, save
for the privileged few, will face real consequences from the
outcome of this election. As a result, we must view the effect
of our votes collectively, not merely by what they mean to us
as individuals."
This statement is only one
of many similar examples that could be quoted. But the truth
is that its appeal mirrors those that Democratic Party liberals
haul out every election year. Liberals, labor leaders, civil
rights leaders--who spend most of their time being ignored or
disparaged by the Democratic Party--can always be counted on
to denounce activists who want something better than the Democrats
as "elitists" who don't care about the dire consequences
that will befall ordinary people if the Republican wins the election.
Before they class- and race-bait
people who want to vote for a left-wing alternative that actually
reflects their beliefs, these liberal leaders should ask themselves
what they get for their efforts to drum up support for the Democrats.
The answer is next to nothing.
Look at the record of the Clinton
administration. During the eight years of the Clinton administration,
abortions became harder to obtain. The percentage of workers
organized in unions dropped. Income inequality increased by 10
times. The number of people in the nation's prisons (disproportionately
Black and Latino) nearly doubled. And the number of people discharged
from military service because they are gay actually increased.
And Clinton eliminated the U.S. welfare system.
So when liberals talk about
how "lives are on the line" if a Republican is elected,
we should ask how many people's lives have already been sacrificed
under Democratic administrations. The Democrats are accomplices,
not opponents, to these assaults.
If liberals and progressives
always line up with the Democrats and oppose any alternative
to the left, then the big-money, corporate forces that run the
party will demand that candidates shift further to the right
and run "centrist" campaigns--marginalizing any demands
for policies that actually benefit working people.
OF COURSE we need to build
the movement. Why shouldn't we do both -- organize grassroots
struggles and vote for the "lesser evil" on Election
Day?
IT SEEMS very straightforward:
voting only takes a few minutes, and we can spend the rest of
our time building the movement. But if you're serious about believing
that elections offer the hope of social change, then a "few
minutes on Election Day" isn't enough.
This year, the AFL-CIO is spending
an unprecedented amount of money to get out the vote for Kerry.
Those millions could be spent, for example, organizing Wal-Mart
workers into unions--which would have far greater impact on advancing
organized labor's agenda. So this strategy of voting for the
lesser evil diverts resources away from the real fights that
need to be waged.
I'm not against voting in principle.
What I oppose is working people throwing their votes away on
a candidate who opposes them on the major issues. Thus, the movement
for gay marriage that erupted earlier this year has been sidetracked
and sabotaged by liberals who worry that the issue's prominence
could hurt Kerry. So supporters of gay marriage are now being
asked to vote for a candidate who explicitly opposes the rights
of gays and lesbians to marry.
When movements fall behind
Democrats like Kerry, it weakens them. They get used to lowering
their sights and putting their issues on the back burner.
Lance Selfa writes for the Socialist
Worker. He can be reached at: laselfa@hotmail.com
Weekend
Edition Features for August 7 / 8, 2004
James Petras
The
Anatomy of "Terror Experts": Meet the Mandarins of
Abu Ghraib
Fred Gardner
Run
Ricky Run: Football, Pot and Pain
Justin Delacour
Anti-Chavez Pollsters Panic: Fix Numbers; Reinvent Venezuela
Brian Cloughley
Persecuted by All; Supported by None: Who Would Be A Kurd?
Joshua Frank
The
Outsider: a Talk with Ralph Nader
Iain A. Boal
On "Shame": Warmed-Over Orientalism and Racist Projection
Chris Floyd
All About Eve: Open Season on Women in DC and Rome
Andrew Fenton
Fighting for Democracy and Justice in Haiti
Aseem Shrivastava
Saga of an Anguished Afghan
Neil Corbett
See Cuba: Sometimes a Cigar is Just a Cigar, Mr. Bush
Carol Miller
/ Forrest Hill
Rigged Convention; Divided Party: How David Cobb Won with Only
12% of the Vote
Tarek Milleron
Breaking the Principled Voter
Donald Macintyre
The
Battle of Najaf
Ron Jacobs
Spirits of The Dead: Why I Love My Petty Bourgeois Tendencies
Mickey Z.
Kid
Gavilan's Grave: Propaganda Scores a TKO
Poets' Basement
Adler, Ford and Albert
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