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From Common Courage Press
Recent
Stories
July
17, 2003
Ron
Jacobs
Sometimes Even the President of the
United States Has to Stand Naked
Lisa
Walsh Thomas
Bush Country: the Venom and Adulation of Ignorance
Martin
Schwarz
Bush Pre-emptive Strike Doctrine is the Bane of Non-Proliferation
Watchdogs
Heidi
Lypps
Better Justice Through Chemistry? Forced
Drugging and the Supreme Court
Norman
Madarasz
Third Ways and Third Worlds: Lula at the Progressive Governance
Conference
Pankaj
Mehta
Criminalizing the Palestinian Solidarity Movement
Marjorie
Cohn
Bush, War Lies & Impeachment: the
Boy Who Cried Wolf
Hammond
Guthrie
(Dis) Intelligence Revisited
Website
of the Day
No Force, No Fraud: the Soul of Libertarianism
July
16, 2003
Jason
Leopold
Wolfowitz Told White House to Hype
Dubious Uranium Claims
William
Cook
Defining Terrorism from the Top Down
Elaine
Cassel
Judge Brinkema v. Ashcroft: She Whom
Must Not Be Obeyed
Jason
Leopold
How Can They Justify the War If WMDs Are Never Found?
Linda Heard
Bondage or Freedom?
Raymond
Barrett
From Detroit to Basra
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Back to the Future in Guatemala:
The Return of Gen. Ríos Montt
July
15, 2003
Kathleen
and Bill Christison
Why We Resigned from VIPS
Elaine
Cassel
Ashcroft's War on Legal Whistleblowers:
the Ordeal of Jesselyn Radack
Chris
Floyd
Barge Poles: Oil Wars and New Europe's Mercenaries
Jason
Leopold
CIA Warned White House Last October that Niger Docs were Forgeries
Gaius Publius
Considering the Obvious: Fool Us Once, Fool Us Twise...Please
John
Troyer
The Niger Syndrome
Becky Gillette
No Conspiracy at Coffeen Nature Preserve: a Response to David
Orrr
Uri
Avnery
The Bi-National State: The Wolf Shall
Dwell with the Lamb
Website
of the Day
Cost of Iraq War
July
14, 2003
Lisa
Taraki
Hot Days in Ramallah
Walter
Brasch
Bush: the Pretend Captain
SOA
Watch
Training Colombia's Killers in the US
Dan Bacher
Yurok Tribe Denounces Klamath River Salmon Killers
Veteran
Intelligence Professionals for Sanity
Intelligence Unglued
Website
of the Day
Coalition for Democratic Rights and Civil Liberties
July 12 / 13, 2003
Arthur
Mitzman
The Double Wall Before the Future
Standard
Schaefer
The Coming Financial Reality: an
Interview with Michael Hudson
John Feffer
A Fearful Symmetry: Washington and Pyongyang
Ron
Jacobs
Shades of Gray in Iran
Elaine
Cassel
Judicial Terrorism Against the Bill of Rights
Tom
Stephens
Civil Liberties After 9/11
David Lindorff
New White House Slogan: "Case Closed. Just Move On"
Jason
Leopold
The Mini-War Against Iraq Prior to 9/11
Lee Sustar
What's Behind the Crisis in Liberia?
Mickey
Z.
AIDS Dissent and Africa
Sam Hamod
Semitic is a Language Group, Not a Race or Ethnic Group
Ramzy
Baroud
Awaiting Justice on an Old Blanket
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Savage Incongruities: the Photographic Life of Lee Miller
Adam
Engel
Parable of the Lobbyist
Robert
Sanders
A Review of Ralph Lopez's American Dream
Poets'
Basement
Albert, Witherup, Guthrie
July
11, 2003
Conn
Hallinan
The Coin of Empire
Tim
Wise
God Responds to Bush
Mokhiber
/ Weissman
The Two Faces of Bush in Africa
Edward
S. Herman
Whitewashing Sandra Day O'Connor
David Orr
Coffeen-gate: What's Going on at the Sierra Club Foundation?
David
Lindorff
An Iraq War & Occupation Glossary
Website
of the Day
Dead Malls
July
10, 2003
Ron
Jacobs
Dealing with the Devil: the Bloody
Profits of General Dynamics
Sean
Donahue
Bush and the Paramillitaries: Coddling Terrorists in Colombia
Yemi
Toure
Who Outted Bush in Afrika?
Robert
Jensen
Politics and Sustainability: an Interview
with Wes Jackson
Ali
Abunimah
US Leaves Injured Iraqis Untreated
Joanne
Mariner
Federal Courts, Not Military Commissions
Website
of the Day
Electronic Iraq
July
9, 2003
David
Lindorff
Is the Media Finally Turning on
Bush?
David
Krieger and Angela McCracken
10 Myths About Nuclear Weapons
Mickey
Z.
Why Speak Out?
Lee Sustar
The Great Medicare Fraud
John
Chuckman
The Worst Kind of Lie
Gary Leupp
"Pacifist" Japan and the Occupation of Iraq
Website
of the Day
Hail to the Thief:
Songs for the Bush Years
July
8, 2003
Elaine
Cassel
Bully on the Bench: the Pathological
Dissents of Scalia
Alan
Maass
Nights of Fire and Rage in Benton Harbor
Chris
Floyd
Troubled Sleep: Getting Used to the American Gulag
Linda
S. Heard
America's Kangaroo Justice
Brian
Cloughley
They Tell Lies to Nodders
Charles
Sullivan
Bush the Christian?
Saul
Landau
The Intelligence Culture in the National Security Age
Website
of the Day
Occupation Watch
July
7, 2003
William
Blum
The Anti-Empire Report
Harvey
Wasserman
The Nuke with a Hole in Its Head
Ramzy
Baroud
Peace for All the Wrong Reasons
Simon
Jones
What Progressives Should Think About
Iran
Lesley
McCulloch
Fear, Pain and Shame in Aceh
Uri
Avnery
The Draw
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars Web Log 7/3
July
4 / 6, 2003
Patrick
Cockburn
Dead on the Fourth of July
Frederick
Douglass
What is Freedom to a Slave?
Martha
Honey
Bush and Africa: Racism, Exploitation
and Neglect
Jeffrey
St. Clair
The Rat in the Grain: Amstutz and
the Looting of Iraqi Agriculture
Standard
Schaefer
Rule by Fed: Anyone But Greenspan in 2004
Lenni Brenner
Jefferson is for Today
Elaine
Cassel
Fucking Furious on the Fourth
Ben Tripp
How Free Are We?
Wayne
Madsen
A Sad Independence Day
John Stanton
Happy Birthday, America! 227 Years of War
Jim
Lobe
Bush's Surreal AIDS Appointment
John Blair
Return to Marble Hill: Indiana's Rusting Nuke
Lisa
Walsh Thomas
Heavy Reckoning at Qaim
David Vest
Wake Up and Smell the Dynamite
Adam
Engel
Queer as Grass
Poets'
Basement
Christian, Witherup, Albert & St. Clair
Website
of the Weekend
The Lipstick Librarian
July
3, 2003
Patrick
W. Gavin
The Meaning of Gettysburg
Thomas
W. Croft
There Was a Reason They Called It the Casino Economy
David
Lindorff
Outlawing Subversives: Hong Kong
and the US
John
Chuckman
Lessons from the American Revolution
Jackson
Thoreau
New Far-Right Scheme: Impeach Supreme Court Justices
Stan
Goff
"Bring 'Em On?": a Former
Special Forces Soldier Responds to Bush's Invitation for Iraqis
to Attack US Troops
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars Web Log 7/3
July 2, 2003
Diane
Christian
Good Killing and Bad Killing
Richard
Falk
After Iraq, Does UN War Prevention Have a Future?
Mokhiber
/ Weissman
Bush Administration: Causing Repetitive Stress
Justin
Podur
Uribe's Onslaught Across Colombia
Reuven
Kaviner
Prosecuting Ben-Artzi, the Refusenik
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars Web Log 7/2
July
1, 2003
Sasan
Fayamanesh
Weapon of Choice: Nukes, Israel and
Iran
Elaine
Cassel
Sex and the Supreme Moralizer: Scalia
and the Sodomy Cops
Susan
Block
A Love Supreme: Our Assholes Belong
to Ourselves
Bill
Glahn
RIAA Watch: No, No Bono
David Lindorff
Weapons in Search of a Name
Gary
Leupp
Occupation, Resistance and the Plight of the GIs
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars Web Log 7/1
June
30, 2003
Karyn
Strickler
The Do-Nothings: an Exposé
of Progressive Politics in America
Col. Dan
Smith
The Occupation of Iraq: Descending into the Quagmire
Tim
Wise
Race and Destruction in Black and White
Neve Gordon
The Roadmap and the Wall
Chris
Floyd
The Revelation of St. George: "God Told Me to Strike Saddam"
Elaine
Cassel
Kentucky Woman
Uri
Avnery
Hope in Dark Times
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars Web Log 6/30
Website
of the Day
Bush El Hombre
June
28 / 29, 2003
M.
Shahid Alam
Bernard Lewis: Scholarship or Sophistry?
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Meet Steven Griles: Big Oil's Inside
Man
Laura
Carlsen
Democracy's Future: From the Polls or the Populace?
Alan Maass
You Call These Democrats an Alternative?
C.Y.
Gopinath
Bush and Kindergarten
Noah Leavitt
Bush, the Death Penalty and International Law
Joanne
Mariner
Rehnquist Family Values
Ignacio
Chapela
Tenure, Censorship and Biotech at Berkeley
Bob
Scowcroft
Bush's Squeeze on Organic Farmers
Jon Brown
Tom Delay: "I am the Government"
Kam
Zarrabi
Keep Your Hands Off Iran, Please!
Ron Jacobs
Big Bill Broonzy's Conversation with the Blues
Julie
Hilden
Fear Factor: Art, Terror and the First Amendment
Adrien
Rain Burke
The Anarchists' Wedding Guide
Adam
Engel
US Troops Outta Times Square
Poets'
Basement
Witherup, Guthrie, Albert, Hamod
June
27, 2003
Jason
Leopold
CIA: Seven Months Prior to 9/11 Iraq
Posed No Threat to US
David
Vest
Supreme Silence: Bush's Bunker-Hunker
David
Lindorff
The Catch and Release of "Comical
Ali"
Ray McGovern
Cheney, Forgery and the CIA
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars Web Log 6/26
Website
of the Day
John Kerry, Teresa Heinz & Ken Lay: The Politics of Hypocrisy
June
26, 2003
Sen.
Robert Byrd
The Road of Cover-Up is a Road to Ruin
Jason
Leopold
Wolfowitz Instructed the CIA to Investigate
Hans Blix
Paul
de Rooij
Ambient Death in Palestine
Chris Floyd
Mass Graves and Burned Meat in Bush's New Iraq
Elaine
Cassel
Wolfowitz as Lord High Executioner
CounterPunch
Wire
Musicians Unite Against Sweatshops
Sheldon
Hull
Squatting in Mansions
Ben Tripp
A Guide to Hating Almost Anyone
Uri
Avnery
The Best Show in Town
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars Web Log 6/25
Website
of the Day
Ordinary Vistas:
The Photographs of Kurt Nimmo
June
25, 2003
Bruce
Jackson
Buffalo Cops Wage War on Pedal Pushers
Mickey
Z.
The New Dark Ages
David Lindorff
Indonesia's War on Journalists
Dan
Bacher
Butterflies and Farmworkers Confront USDA and Riot Cops
Adam Federman
"Success is Not the Issue Here"
Elaine
Cassel
"Ain't No Justice": Fed Judge Quits, Assails Sentencing
Guidelines
Bill Kauffman
My America vs. the Empire
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars Web Log 6/25
Website
of the Day
You Are Being Watched:
Elevator Moods
June
24, 2003
Elaine
Cassel
Supreme Indemnity
Holocaust Denial at the High Court
Roya
Monajem
A Message from Tehran: Is It Worth
It to Risk One's Life?
John
Chuckman
The Real Clash of Civilizations
David Lindorff
WMD Damage Control at the Times
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars Web Log 6/24
June
23, 2003
Marc
Pritzke
Washington Lied: an Interview with
Ray McGovern
Conn
Hallinan
The Consistency of Sharon
Wayne Madsen
Commercials, Disney & Amistad
Edward
Said
The Meaning of Rachel Corrie
Steve Perry
Bush's Wars Web Log 6/23
June
21 / 22, 2003
Alexander
Cockburn
My Life as a Rabbi
William
A. Cook
The Scourge of Hopelessness
Standard
Schaefer
The Wages of Terror: an Interview with R.T. Naylor
Ron Jacobs
US Prisons as Strategic Hamlets
Harry
Browne
The Pitstop Ploughshares
Lawrence
Magnuson
WMD: The Most Dangerous Game
Harold
Gould
Saddam and the WMD Mystery
David Krieger
10 Reasons to Abolish Nuclear Weapons
Avia
Pasternak
The Unholy Alliance in the Occupied Territories
CounterPunch
Summer Reading:
Our Favorite Novels
Todd Chretien
Return to Sender: Todd Gitlin, the Duke of Condescension
Maria
Tomchick
Danny Goldberg's Imaginary Kids
Adam Engel
The Fat Man in Little Boy
Poets'
Basement
Guthrie, Albert & Hamod
June 20, 2003
Walter
Brasch
Down on Our Knees
Robert
Meeropol
The Son of the Rosenbergs on His Parents Death and Bush's America
Russell
Mokhiber and Robert Weissman
Grannies and Baby Bells
Norman
Madarasz
Pierre Bourgault: the Life of a
Quebec Radical
Gary
Leupp
Bush on "Revisionist Historians"
Steve
Perry
Bush's Lies
Marathon: the Finale
Hot Stories
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
Elaine
Cassel
Civil Liberties
Watch
Michel
Guerrin
Embedded Photographer Says: "I
Saw Marines Kill Civilians"
Uzma
Aslam Khan
The Unbearably Grim Aftermath of War:
What America Says Does Not Go
Paul de Rooij
Arrogant
Propaganda
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click Here
for More Stories.
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July
19, 2003
Rightwing Assault
on Ehrenreich at UNC
Nickle,
Dimed and Slimed
By STEVEN SHERMAN
The University of North Carolina summer reading
program for incoming students has done it again. You may recall
that last summer it stirred up national controversy by encouraging
students to read and discuss Michael Sell's Approaching
the Qur'an, a somewhat obscure literary discussion of
the Muslim holy book, which some feared might turn the students
into sympathizers with terrorists, while others seemed worried
that the University was intent on transforming good Christian
kids into followers of Mohammed.
This year, the University has gone to
further extremes, exposing fragile minds to the horrors of low
wage work in the US, as described by Barbara Ehrenreich in Nickel
and Dimed. There is, according to some, only one possible
reason the faculty might want students to learn about the psychological
abuse endemic to the low wage workplace, or the wretched living
conditions the poor or forced into. Obviously, the university
is trying to turn the students into raving socialists. Or, so,
at least, is the argument made by a group of students (heavily
funded by the concerned citizens of The John Locke Foundation)
who took out a newspaper ad denouncing the selection.
The ad makes fascinating reading for
anyone familiar with Ehrenreich's book, which commits the unforgiveable
sin of making an examination of realities of lower class life
into stimulating popular reading matter. The book is "an
all out assault on Christians, conservatives, and capitalism."
While readers might be willing to grant that a book critical
of Walmart, fast food establishments, maid services, middle class
homeowners and the contemporary housing market can perhaps be
described as an 'assault' on 'capitalism', they might be puzzled
by the reference to Christians and conservatives. The former
refers to her disappointment at a tent revival meeting, where
she misses the spirit of Jesus, the 'wine-guzzling vagrant and
precocious socialist'. The authors of the newspaper ad, needless
to say, fail to clarify that her description was meant affectionately.
As for conservatives, they highlight
an incident where she describes a book by Rush Limbaugh, lying
around a home she is cleaning, as 'at the low end of the literary
spectrum.' Gone, apparently, are the days when conservatives
wanted students to read Shakespeare or Milton. Now one must admire
Rush Limbaugh's prose achievements, and for the incoming students
they recommend (in a news article related to this controversy)
a novel by Ayn Rand, or the Wall Street Journal Editorial page
or Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations (presumably unaware of
the passages in the last where Smith warns kings about letting
big merchants gain too much power in government affairs). The
ad also takes Ehrenreich to task for confessing that she worried
about failing a drug test, and notes that she serves on the Board
of Directors of NORML (National Organization for the Reform of
Marijuana Laws). Obviously, the ad is aimed at the older generation
of Raleigh-Durham residents, and not at the incoming students
at UNC, many of whom are undoubtedly devoting more energy to
toking up with their new friends than to reading Nickel and Dimed
closely. Less amusingly, the ad warps what was a sardonic line
about Latinos 'hogging all the crap jobs and substandard housing'
in California (where she decided that, as a white woman, she
might not fit into the low-wage labor force) into evidence of
Ehrenreich's alleged racism.
It is not all that surprising that right-wingers
with shitloads of money to throw around would try to whip up
red-baiting hysteria about one book assignment. More disappointing
(if not altogether unexpected) is the attitude of local newspapers,
like the Durham Herald Sun. While supporting academic freedom
at UNC, they describe Ehrenreich as a 'man-the-barricades socialist'
because she is honorary chairwoman of Democratic Socialists of
America. To which I can only say to Counterpunch readers, most
of whom I suspect are familiar with the pusillanimous liberalism
of DSA, I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP. The editorial writers claim
her solution 'is the old socialist dream of redistribution of
wealth and income, thereby putting everybody on the same hardscrabble
level, rather like Cuba under Fidel Castro.' It is hard to know
which is more upsetting about this sentence-its misrepresentation
of Ehrenreich (who advocates some public spending to make up
for the shortcomings experienced by living on a salary below
a living wage) or its conflation of Swedish and Soviet/Cuban
models of socialism. It appears that the Herald Sun's understanding
of Ehrenreich and Nickel and Dimed comes from the John Locke
website, which describes her as "a well-known, and very
annoying, media commentator of the hard-left varietythe truly
soft-on-Marx, conspiracy-theory variety", rather than from
reading the text itself.
From here, its just a small step for
the editorial writers to bait the entire faculty and administration:
'UNC Chapel Hill, like any other big American university, has
a faculty and a corps of administrators steeped in the American
liberal tradition This is not an intellectual environment that
can throw up a balanced freshman reading program The committee
that chose 'Nickel and Dimed' wasn't about to deviate from academia's
obsession with the Holy Trinity: race, gender and class.' Apart
from the fact that the readings of the last two years-the aforementioned
Approaching the Qur'an and, before that, Confederates in the
Attic by Tony Horwitz-both deviated from the Holy Trinity, this
sentence is notable for its complete misrepresentation of universities,
and their actual role in American life.
It is undeniably the case that many faculty
in the social sciences and the humanities freely explore ideas,
including ones critical of capitalism, that are boycotted by
the US corporate media (although routinely discussed nearly everywhere
else in the world). But this hardly captures the main way UNC
and other major universities engage with the wider society. More
relevant in this respect are corporate/university partnerships
for research. For example, in North Carolina there is "the
Dupont Teflon plant in Bladen County (which) uses a technology
that was developed by UNC researchers. The plant itself received
$55 million in state tax breaks (to create a mere 120 jobs).
Thus, the state provides underwriting through tax breaks, the
university supports the research and the corporation rakes in
the profits" as Dan Coleman, author of Ecopolitics: Building
a Green Society explained in a recent op-ed piece in the Raleigh
News and Observer.
Another relevant example is the Research
Triangle Institute (RTI), a 'non-profit' corporation launched
with a combination of money from Duke, UNC, and NC State devoted
to advising developing countries on such matters as privatizing
water. RTI is presently proudly waving the contracts they've
won to help colonize-I mean export democracy to-Iraq. They don't
mention that such contracts come with promises that they will
not criticize the occupation government's performance.
However liberal some faculty and administrators
may be, most universities approach relations to workers and the
communities they are embedded in with the same arrogance of the
typical large capitalist enterprise. They pay their workers poorly
and do their best to stop unionization drives. They attempt to
intimidate the communities they are in with their political and
economic clout. When UNC had a dispute with the Chapel Hill town
council about the zoning of an area they were planning to expand
into, while in the midst of deliberations with the town, the
university snuck off to Raleigh and had a friend in the state
capital introduce legislation that would allow them to override
local zoning procedures. After public outcry, the legislation
was withdrawn.
Why does the right wing have such a vendetta
against an institution that serves the status quo so well? It
is a question somewhat reminiscent of why the Bush administration
decided to trash the United Nations, another less than radical
organization. In both cases, there is a strange mixture of a
climate of fear-that things have drifted out of their hands,
with dangerous consequences over the long term-and power-that
they can, without risking a great deal, regain control. In both
cases, it is not difficult to sense a considerable divide within
the US capitalist class, between those (high tech, multinational,
etc) happy enough with existing institutions, and those who want
to bring everything down so as to renew their power. The latter
faction clearly regards the leftist presence in academia as a
threat to their ideological control. The flap over Nickel and
Dimed is somewhat inconsequential-UNC will go ahead with the
reading-but it adds to a drumbeat of claims (as noted above,
largely endorsed by the media) that the university is an institution
out of the mainstream. In the North Carolina state legislature,
where many members believe the John Locke Foundation is a serious
producer of knowledge (probably holding it in higher esteem than
UNC), this is not a difficult case to make. Although the right
would have to overcome many obstacles in order to smash higher
education-parents who want certifying diplomas so their kids
can get good jobs, students who want what amounts to a four-year
summer camp with few limits on drug use or sexual behavior, faculty
and administrators who like their jobs, high tech capitalists
who like the funneling of public monies towards their projects-after
Bush flipped the bird to the UN security council and rammed through
tax cuts clearly designed to bankrupt the federal government,
it no longer seems completely unimaginable, although it still
appears to be a ways off.
In the meantime, UNC is going ahead with
Nickel and Dimed, although they've acceded to right-wing demands
that they include a link on their website to a series of questions
provided by the conservatives about the book. There is talk among
local left groups about providing their own guide, and demanding
similar treatment. And UNC housekeepers are moving ahead with
plans for an organizing drive in the fall. For the first week
of classes, they'll be sporting buttons that read 'I'm being
Nickel and Dimed'.
Steven Sherman
is a sociologist whose latest article, "The
attacks of September 11 in Three Temporalities", can
be read online. He can be reached at threehegemons@aol.com.
Weekend Edition Features for July 12/13, 2003
Arthur
Mitzman
The Double Wall Before the Future
Standard
Schaefer
The Coming Financial Reality: an
Interview with Michael Hudson
John Feffer
A Fearful Symmetry: Washington and Pyongyang
Ron
Jacobs
Shades of Gray in Iran
Elaine
Cassel
Judicial Terrorism Against the Bill of Rights
Tom
Stephens
Civil Liberties After 9/11
David Lindorff
New White House Slogan: "Case Closed. Just Move On"
Jason
Leopold
The Mini-War Against Iraq Prior to 9/11
Lee Sustar
What's Behind the Crisis in Liberia?
Mickey
Z.
AIDS Dissent and Africa
Sam Hamod
Semitic is a Language Group, Not a Race or Ethnic Group
Ramzy
Baroud
Awaiting Justice on an Old Blanket
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Savage Incongruities: the Photographic Life of Lee Miller
Adam
Engel
Parable of the Lobbyist
Robert
Sanders
A Review of Ralph Lopez's American Dream
Poets'
Basement
Albert, Witherup, Guthrie
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