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Coming in August! Dime's Worth of Difference: Beyond the Lesser of Two Evils Order Now! Today's Stories July 31, 2004 Alexander Cockburn Kerry: He's the (Any) One 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 Sex, Drugs & the Blues! Serpents in the Garden CounterPunch's Sizzling New Book on Culture and Sex is Now Available Click here to purchase   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 Who Dast Call Him Liar: a Rebuttal to Nicholas Kristof                       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

July 31, 2004 New Model for the Labor Movement? Behind the UNITE HERE Union Merger By LEE SUSTAR At one level, the UNITE HERE convention was much different than similar union gatherings. Union staffers talked bluntly about terrible contracts negotiated by the corrupt old guard in HERE locals. At the HERE special convention to approve the merger, President John Wilhelm motivated the change by declaring that "we need another rebirth of the North American labor movement"--and later raised the prospect of leaving the AFL-CIO if it doesn't change. Bruce Raynor, the president of UNITE and now the merged union, acknowledged that too many members are just as broke after they get their paycheck as they were before. In his first speech as UH president, Raynor sounded left-wing themes seldom heard from major U.S. labor leaders in an election year--addressing the concentration of wealth among the richest, the health care crisis, poverty, infant mortality and the Iraq war. The highlight of the convention was a moving presentation by participants in last year's Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride, a campaign that HERE played a crucial role in organizing. Both Raynor and Wilhelm--two of the five leaders of the New Unity Partnership--spoke bluntly about the decline in union power and influence, underscored by the fact that just 8.2 percent of workers in the private sector are members of unions. By comparison, the last convention of the United Auto Workers (UAW) in 2002 avoided discussion of the union's repeated failure to organized Japanese and German-owned auto assembly plants and the steep decline in union membership. The proceedings of the UAW convention were deadening, consisting mainly of union officials reading aloud resolutions that had already been printed and distributed to delegates. However, the UH convention was just as scripted as that of the UAW--and much less democratic. UAW leaders, after all, allowed some members to take to the floor to try to challenge the leadership, which a small opposition was able to do. The UH proceedings excluded virtually all participation from the convention floor. Instead, union officials and organizers introduced strategic campaigns--the organizing drives at Cintas industrial laundries, for example, or at Native American-owned hotels and casinos--from the front. These presentations were followed by reports from rank-and-file participants who accompanied the officials onstage in accordance to what convention organizers called "show flow." The speeches were usually effective and met with cheers and sincere enthusiasm. Yet the effect was to create a sense of membership participation without giving convention delegates any real ability to shape the direction of the union. This approach was taken to absurd lengths when the other leaders of the New Unity Partnership addressed the convention. Raynor, chairing the proceedings, suddenly announced that union leaders would take questions--and a prearranged comment from a delegate led to a prepared speech by Service Employees International Union (SEIU) President Andrew Stern on problems in the AFL-CIO and organizing the unorganized. More seriously, the merger agreement, the new constitution and new officers were voted on with virtually no discussion from the floor. And since the next UH convention won't be held for five years, the complex business of completing the merger and launching new organizing campaigns will be carried out exclusively by the union's general executive board--thanks to a constitution that centralizes power at the top. What strategy will revive our unions? THE LEADERS of the New Unity Partnership have a ready answer to charges that their program for labor will weaken union democracy. "The truth is, being losers is not what members want," SEIU president Stern told Socialist Worker at the UH convention. "They want to be united, and we artificially divide them by locals, by colors and by initials. "I think if you want to have democracy, let the workers vote about whether they want to be in the same unions with the workers who do the same kind of work. That would be the ultimate democracy, and the ultimate question that I'm willing to put to any member anywhere about this." Even AFL-CIO President John Sweeney seemed to take on much of the New Unity Partnership's rhetoric in his speech at the UH convention, congratulating the unions for having the "courage" to merge and declaring that the U.S. labor movement has to "change faster and work ever harder." Wilhelm, who will serve as a top UH official under Raynor, told delegates, "The labor movement, as it is currently structured, is not working." He compared the New Unity Partnership to the Committee for Industrial Organizations within the AFL in the 1930s, which then split to form the Congress of Industrial Organizations, or CIO. Asked if this implied that the New Unity Partnership would leave the AFL-CIO, he replied, "I honestly don't know." Yet in Wilhelm's description, the CIO emerged from the mind of Sidney Hillman, a longtime leader of one of UNITE's predecessor unions and a major player in an era when CIO leaders were deemed the "new men of power." Wilhelm made no mention of the general strikes of 1934 in Toledo, Minneapolis and San Francisco--or the great sit-down strike in the auto plants of Flint, Mich., two years later. Those struggles involved the illegal seizure of corporate property and physical confrontation with scabs, police and the National Guard by radicalized rank-and-file union members. Left-wing parties--including the Communist and Socialist parties and Trotskyist organizations --were central to these struggles, while union leaders like Hillman used labor's new clout to win a place in the Washington establishment. If this history is given short shrift by NUP leaders, it's because they still operate within the framework of mainstream union leaders--partnership with employers, accepting concessions to ensure profits, and full support for the Democratic Party. Raynor, for example, told Socialist Worker that concessions were "sometimes necessary for survival," while Wilhelm told the convention that one of the key measures of success for the merged union would be its willingness to seek out "mutually beneficial" relationships with employers. And for all Raynor's radical language on social issues, politics at the convention were outsourced to a series of Democratic politicians that included Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy; Barack Obama, a candidate for U.S. Senate from Illinois; Thomas Menino, the union-busting mayor of Boston, speaking via pre-recorded video; and a live videoconference with vice presidential candidate John Edwards. The reality is that the New Unity Partnership program isn't a return to the militant roots of the CIO, but an attempt to take on corporations by imitating them--with large, centralized organizations that can use resources more effectively. Any serious bid to organize the unorganized should be welcomed--and the New Unity Partnership could open a long overdue debate in the AFL-CIO in the run-up to the federation's convention next year. But its top-down methods and limited social vision are incapable of leading a genuine revival of the unions. That will only come when the real legacy of the CIO--a dynamic, militant rank and file organizing from below--is revived by a new generation of workers. Lee Sustar is labor editor for Socialist Worker newspaper. He can be reached at: lsustar@ameritech.net Weekend Edition Features for 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 WWW http://www.counterpunch.org   Keep CounterPunch Alive: Make a Tax-Deductible Donation Today Online! home / subscribe / about us / books / archives / search / links /