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February
23, 2002
Bahour/Dahan
Cracks
in the Occupation
February
22, 2002
Alexander
Cockburn
Axel
of Evil: Sex Crimes
and the Constitution
February
21, 2002
Gary Leupp
The
Philippines: Second Front in US's Global War
David
Vest
Reagan
Clone Project?
Mokhiber
and Weissman
Chicago
School and Corporate America: Rotten to the Core
February
20, 2002
Bernard
Weiner
The
Shallow Throat Document
Kay Lee
The
Prison Guard Who Never Owned Up to His Crimes
February
19, 2002
David
Orr
Waylon
Jennings, the Duke,
and the Navajo
John Chuckman
The
Devil and Georgie Bush
Prudence
Crowther
Giblet
Gravitas
Ramzi
Kysia
Caught
in the Iraq DMZ
February
18, 2002
Ron Jacobs
The
US and Iran
George
Lewandowski
Empire
in Declline
Lenni
Brenner
Life
and Death of a Folk Hero
February
17, 2002
Robert
Fisk
Lost
in a Pit of Desperation
February
16, 2002
Phillip
Cryan
Colombia
in War Time
February
15, 2002
C.G. Estabrook
From
New York to Porto Alegre
Robert
O'Brien
The
View from Porto Alegre
Mokhiber/Weissman
Resisting
the Assassins
February
14, 2002
Levy and
Easton
Ante
Pavelic
Real Butcher of the Balkans
Joan Claybrook
Dear
Jeb Bush,
About You and Enron
John Chuckman
Time
for a Woman Prez
Alexander
Cockburn
Banning
the Koran
February
13, 2002
Sen. Russ
Feingold
War
Powers and
the War on Terror
Tom Turnipseed
Bush's
Folly
George
Monbiot
American
Imperialism
February
12, 2002
Uri Avnery
The
Great Game:
Oil, Sharon and Iran
Tommy
Ates
Black
Land Loss
February
11, 2002
Walt Brasch
The
Synergizing of America
John Troyer
Enron's
Deep Throat?
February
9, 2002
John Blair
Criticize
Cheney, Go to Jail
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
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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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February 23,
2002
Bush Mimics Reagan and the Corporate
Stranglehold on U.S. Media Tightens
By Tom Turnipseed
Bush rallies America in a perpetual war against
"evil ones" and the "axis of evil." Ronald
Reagan used the cold war to lambast the "evil empire"
of the Soviet Union. Their administrations are strikingly similar
not only in their use of adjectives, but also in denouncing Washington
and "big government" and pushing for tax cuts for the
rich and deregulating business. It is interesting to compare
the corporate connections of the Reagan years and the Bush administration.
At the hub of both sits General Electric.
Ronald Reagan was brought to us by General
Electric. Reagan was a mediocre movie actor when he became the
host of the General Electric Theater on NBC. General Electric
launched his political career by sponsoring a national speaking
tour for their handsome and wholesome, look-um-in-the-eye, all-American
guy who pushed their conservative philosophy from coast to coast.
Reagan was the ideal political huckster for corporate America's
profits-over-people philosophy of unbridled greed. He could put
a nice face on the mean-spirited politics of fear and greed as
he blamed "welfare mothers," "social programs,"
"government regulations" and the "evil empire
of the Soviet Union" as causes for America's troubles. His
divisive scape-goating of poor people and invective against government
programs enabled him to deliver a giant tax break for the rich,
roll back many health and safety regulations, and push through
a gigantic military buildup for corporate defense contractors
like General Electric. His racially charged attacks on affirmative
action failed to bring "good things to life" for racial
minorities and women as General Electric's advertising slogan
promised those who purchased their products. Like Reagan, George
W. Bush was supported by big corporations, and although Enron
gets a lot of credit, Bush was also presented to us by General
Electric, a more established prototype of corporate America success
also rumored to have some Enron-like accounting problems.
General Electric and its executives and
employees gave more than 70% of their campaign contributions
to Bush and the Republicans in the last election cycle. Their
newly retired and highly honored CEO, Jack Welch, was a Bush
supporter. Welch earned his sobriquet, Neutron Jack, for having
fired so many employees when he became Chairman and CEO of General
Electric in 1981 and was touted by many business writers as America's
leading corporate manager. Welch was ultimately successful in
putting profits over people and was also smart in acquiring a
media empire including NBC, CNBC and MSNBC. where all those talking
heads, writers and producers delivering the news to America knew
they were working for Neutron Jack and General Electric. To remind
them and America of who "owns" the news, an aerial
shot of the GE sign atop the GE building is displayed as Tom
Brokaw and the Tonight Show go off the air each weekday evening.
A recent federal appellate court decision
will further tighten the overwhelming corporate stranglehold
on information available to everyday Americans on television
and cable channels owned by media giants. More corporate consolidation
in media will further enhance the Bush administration's ability
to mesmerize and manipulate U.S. citizens with malignant militarism
and pernicious patriotism. Corporate America procured the White
House with the most money ever contributed to a presidential
campaign and the Bush operatives are mere minions of modern mega-bucks
moguls whose avarice exceeds their profiteering predecessors
in the Gilded Age. The big boys bought a government and installed
former corporate executives and lobbyists to run it. The flag-waving
frenzy that fills our television screens cloaks a corporate callousness
that puts war profits over people's lives. In the wonderful-world-of-never-ending-war,
the Bush administration unilaterally broadens the conflict and
blatantly admits an intent to lie.
Our tax dollars are now being used to
kill people who have nothing to do with terrorism against the
U.S. and to spread lies and disinformation around the world.
At the request of the Karzai interim government, the United States
has opened a new phase of the war in Afghanistan by bombing militia
groups which are neither Taliban or Al Qaeda and have no connection
with the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States. Sources
in the Pentagon said that part of the giant increase in the military
budget will be used to sway public opinion in both friendly and
unfriendly countries by using covert means and lies called "black"
campaigns, mixed with the truth known as "white" campaigns.
Criticized by the New York Times for "managing the news"
and the world media for such a brazen admission of purposeful
deceit, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld said the new Office of Strategic
Influence would "tell the American people and the people
of the world the truth". Then Rumsfeld defended the Pentagon's
need to conduct secret activities intended to deceive adversaries
during these times of conflict.
A couple of years ago, a veteran foreign
correspondent for a major American daily told me about State
Department briefings he attended before going overseas. He was
told that the U.S. embassies and their CIA attaches would furnish
him with classified "inside information" on what was
happening in the region. He said he had serious doubts about
the veracity of some of the information. The fact that the U.S.
intelligence apparatus uses reporters to do their dirty deeds
and to spread misinformation doesn't make it any easier on the
family and friends of a innocent guy like Danny Pearl. I've been
impressed with reports of writers with the Wall Street Journal
in the Afghanistan conflict and agree with the New York Times
editorial that said reporters like Pearl "have been trying
to present a detailed and informed portrait of the mindset, motives
and grievances of the Islamic fundamentalists in the wake of
the terrorist attack in New York." I reckon journalistic
integrity will have to take a back seat for now as lying and
killing are essential to waging war against "evil ones"
and "evil empires."
Tom Turnipseed
is an attorney, writer and civil rights activist in Columbia,
South Carolina. http://www.turnipseed.net
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