|
October
4, 2001
Robin Blackburn
Road
to Armageddon
Noam
Chomsky
Chatting
with Chomsky
Tony
Blair
The
Dossier on bin Laden
Norman
Madarasz
Canada
Kow-Tows to US
Lorenzo Ervin
No Palestinian
Ever
Called Me Nigger
October
3, 2001
Peter Bell
Hitchens
and Coulter:
Love at Last?
Patrick
Cockburn
Waiting
Is the Hardest Part
Jeff
Chang
Clear
Channel Fires
Davey D!
John Chuckman
War
on Terror:
Crusade Without a Definition
Mahajan/Jensen
Tough
Talk Won't Solve
Problems of Terrorism
Ariel
Dorfman:
America
the Wounded
Lennie
Brenner
Dr.
Watson in Afghanistan
Steve
Perry:
Ashcroft's
Scare Tactics
October
2, 2001
Patrick
Cockburn:
Inside
an Afghan Hospital
Richard
Manning:
A
Vietnam Vet on Patriotism
St. Clair/Cockburn:
Tarnished
Star,
Tom Ridge in Vietnam
October
1, 2001
Noam
Chomsky:
Memo
to Hitchens
Hizam
Bitar:
Refuting
Michael Kinsley
David Grenier:
The
Good, The Bad,
and the Ugly
Douglas
Valentine:
Homeland
Insecurity
Carl
Estabrook:
Stop Bush's Killing
Mahajan/Jensen:
Food,
Fear and War
Patrick
Cockburn:
Ready
to Strike
Cockburn/St.
Clair:
Things
Could Be Worse
Terry
Allen:
Early
Profit-taking and 9/11
Resources:
100s of Links
About 9/11
CounterPunch:
Complete
Coverage of 9/11 and Its Aftermath
Five
Days That
Shook The World:
Seattle and Beyond
By
Alexander Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
Photos by Allan Sekula
(Click Here to Order from CounterPunch
Online at 20% Off Amazon.com's price!)
INSIDE
EXCLUSIVE
TO
COUNTERPUNCH
SUBSCRIBERS
Published Oct. 3, 2001
8-Page Special
Issue
Aftermath
Diary
Ashcroft's Onslaught
on
Civil Liberties
Ridge Long Groomed
for
Cheney's Job
Those CIA Killing
Bids
Never Stopped
The Not-So-Great
Mayor Giuliani
Crop Duster
Ban
Will Save Lives
Madeleine Albright's
Deadly Legacy
How the Bin
Laden Women
Fled Bel Air
Tom Ridge's
Vietnam
Same as Kerrey's?
A CounterPunch
Journey
to Ramallah
A Word About
God
Nostrodamus
Jam-maker
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
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
New Stories:
|
October
4, 2001
Send in the Cons
By David Vest
Someone writes to me in favor of arming
the populace for national defense, on the ground that terrorists
would be reluctant to board any airplane knowing that the entire
complement of passengers was armed.
So, of course, would anyone
else in his right mind.
Another correspondent offers
the old myth that Japan choose to bomb Pearl Harbor rather than
to invade our mainland because their leaders knew our people
had guns.
Perhaps this same argument
will keep the United States out of Afghanistan, though I doubt
it.
I bring this up not to launch
a new argument with gun advocates. It is understandable that
a true believer in any cause will see a national emergency as
reason to argue that cause with greater urgency. In the public
arena, this can be useful. It can, for example, allow hateful
charlatans like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson the opportunity
to expose their true feelings for all to behold.
For the most part, there has
been a commendable absence of authentic nuttiness on the national
airwaves since Sept. 11, although Fox did resort to hauling Jeanne
Kirkpatrick in for an interview. (Who knew she was still alive?
You decide.)
Then there was Billy Graham's
poor daughter, who really should get out more. She told Brian
Gumble the other day that "God was being a perfect gentleman
in doing just what we asked Him to do" when He stayed out
of our lives and allowed people to attack us on Sept. 11. The
heartlessness of it was stunning.
There is probably something
to be said for airing all this vacuous puerility, for lancing
these boils of unfeeling stupidity and getting the viciousness
out of our national system.
Air time is there to be filled,
and why not interview people who think like Mariah Carey sings?
What's the alternative? Talking to Edward Said or Noam Chomsky?
Finding out what Ralph Nader thinks?
"Intellectual disgrace/Stares
from every human face," said Auden. Still, most people seem
to know that now is not the right time to destroy themselves
on TV.
However, it's not what's being
said and done in front of cameras and microphones that troubles
me. I don't have much of a problem with anchor people waving
little flags and sobbing. What else can they do? They've long
forgotten how to report news, ask hard questions or investigate
anything of substance. (Can you say "Carlyle Group,"
dear anchor?)
What concerns me more is what
else might not be getting shown on TV while we watch the twin
towers collapse again and yet again.
For example, no one has shown
me the truth about what's going on with Cheney and his health.
Are they telling themselves it's in the interests of national
security to keep quiet? Telling themselves that is easy. They
do it all the time.
They still haven't told us
the names of the industry insiders who helped Cheney write energy
policy, either. (Here, look at this picture of the towers collapsing
again. Pay no attention to the man behind that curtain.)
At the old ball park, the singing
of the National Anthem and the Seventh Inning Stretch are the
two most productive times for pickpockets, who flourish in those
moments when the public's lump-in-the-throat attention is directed
elsewhere.
If patriotism is the last refuge
of the scoundrel, times of national catastrophe are the first
choice of the con artist and huckster.
There are people who jack up
the price of flags and gasoline. People who show up at the widow's
door with a box of dust and ashes, claiming to have retreived
the remains of the lost beloved. Artists who haven't had a hit
in eons competing for the chance to bellow "I'm proud to
be an American" at any public event (but not "This
Land is Your Land"). There are evangelists who know a golden
opportunity for gay-bashing when they see one. Oil companies
who would like to seize the moment and drill the Arctic National
Wildlife Refuge while other matters weigh on the public mind.
You get the feeling they would drill in Arlington National Cemetary
if allowed.
Who do petrochemical plants
along the Gulf Coast take advantage of hurricanes and tropical
storms to emit their most noxious clouds of poison? People hiding
in the cellar or joining evacuation routes are somehow less observant
than on, say, a sunny Sunday afternoon.
The environment is never in
greater peril than when no one is watching. The same can be said
for our civil rights. In "a war unlike any other,"
says the president, "sometimes we'll see the fruits of our
labors, and sometimes we won't."
The president was referring
to efforts to track down those who planned and financed the Sept.
11 attacks. "There is no doubt in my mind, no doubt at all,
that we will fail," he told the Labor Department, and the
nation, only this morning. Sometimes he (and we) will hear what
he says, and sometimes he (and we) won't. CP
David Vest is a writer, poet and piano player
for the Cannonballs. A native of Alabama, he now lives in Portland,
Oregon. Visit his webpage for samples of the Cannonballs' brand
of take no prisoners rock & roll and other Vest columns:
http://www.mindspring.com/~dcqv
|