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March 20, 2002
Robert
Jensen
The
Politics of Pain
and Pleasure
Sheperd Bliss
Notes from Hawai'i:
Trouble in Paradise
Rick Giambetti
Prozac
and Suicide:
an Interview with
Dr. David Healy
Philip Farruggio
Bullies
Lori Allen
Live
from Ramallah:
The Madness of Occupation
March
19, 2002
Tariq
Ali
Nuke
Iraq?
Phyllis
Pollack
Roger
Daltrey's LA Surprise
Amir Ahmadi
War-Mongering
Academics:
The New Tartuffe
Ben White
Bomber
Blair
Fran Shor
Child-Murderers
and Madmen
March
18, 2002
Tom Turnipseed
Crazy
is Cool
Dave Marsh
DeskScan:
What's Playing At My House
Armen
Khanbabyan
The
Pentagon in the Caucasus:
Georgia Is Only the Beginning
Gabriel
Ash
Abdullah
v. Osama
Bernard
Weiner
Middle
East for Dummies
Alexander
Cockburn
Tipping
in America
March
17, 2002
David
Vest
The
Politics of Packaging
Tariq
Ali
The
Left's New Empire Loyalists
March
16, 2002
Chris
Floyd
Ashcroft's
Secret Snatches
March 15, 2002
Doron Rosenblum
Israel's Settler Warlords
Alex Lynch
Rhetorical
Attacks On Iraq
Norman Madarasz
Neo-Con Propaganda
and the National Review
Paul-Marie
de La Gorce
Making
Enemies
March
14, 2002
Dr. Susan
Block
RIP
Danny Pearl
Francis
Boyle
Bush
Nuke Plan Violates International Law, Again
Wayne
Saunders
Memo
to Paul McCartney:
There Are Two Kinds
of Freedom, Sir
H.P. Albarelli
Anthrax
Cover-up?
March
13, 2002
Amira
Hass
Are
the Occupied Protecting the Occupier?
CounterPunch
Wire
National
Review Editors Suggest Nuking Mecca
Mokhiber
/ Weissman
Personal
Responsibility
for Corporate Elites?
Robert
Fisk
Arabs
Don't Want US
to Strike Iraq
Alexander
Cockburn
When
Billy Graham Wanted
to Kill One Million People
March
12, 2002
Kay Lee
Dangerous
Changes in
California's Prisons
John Patrick
Leary
The
Return of Otto Reich
Wole Akande
US
is Being Discredited
in the Eyes of Africa
March
11, 2002
Hani Shukrallah
This
is the Way the World Ends
Tommy
Ates
Bush's
New Nuke Policy:
Target Allies and Enemies
Lidia Andrusenko
The Great
Chicken War:
Bush v. Putin
Dave Marsh
10
CDs Playing On My Desk
John Chuckman
Footprints
in the Dust
Norman
Madarasz
Max
Steel in a Time of Chaos
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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TO
COUNTERPUNCH
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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
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This Explosive
New Book at an
Amazing Discount!
Reviews of Gore:
a User's Manual
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March 20, 2002
Coming
Soon: Tonya Harding vs. Tom Friedman
Hail to the Chaff
By David Vest
As winter gave way to spring, there was too much
weather and too much to write about. Anyone with good sense would
have burned the pencils. Everytime I tried to leave the house
and avoid the issue I was lashed back indoors by driving hail
and falling branches from the wych elm in the yard. Even the
drug dealer on the corner had to give up after awhile and take
shelter. I tried turning on the TV for relief but as usual it
was hard to tell the risible from the ridiculous.
According to my cable connection, here's
what was important in the world:
In the wake of the revelation of the
existence of a "shadow government," Tipper Gore ran
the world's shortest shadow Senate campaign. Al Gore shaved the
shadows off his face and issued an utterly baffling explanation,
far stranger than the beard.
Tonya Harding beat the living hell out
of Paula Jones, who turned tail and ran then cowered in a corner
begging for mercy. Harding showed the depth of her compassion
with a haymaker to the top of the head that knocked Jones into
next week. Did Bill Clinton send the winner flowers? He should
have.
A jury in Texas found that Andrea Yates
was crazy before and after but miraculously sane during the murder
of her five children. (During the trial a child was killed by
gunfire every two and a half hours in the U.S.)
Meanwhile, Dick Cheney lumbered around
the Middle East in Air Force One trying to talk about invading
Iraq, a subject of no apparent interest to anyone who met with
him. It was the best example of the administration being thrown
"off message" since Enron.
Ari ("be careful what you say")
Fleischer blamed Bill Clinton for Middle East violence during
the Bush administration. There was no word on whether Fleischer
also blamed Clinton for the visas recently issued to dead suspected
hijackers on Bush's watch.
In Afghanistan, the masterminds of Operation
Anaconda, the two-day battle that lasted two weeks, declared
total victory as hundreds of al-qaeda fighters escaped, according
to our Afghan allies. (This is what some thought the U.S. should
have done in Vietnam: declare victory and get out.)
Who's likely to be caught first? Osama
bin Ladin in the mountains of Afghanistan, or Eric Robert Rudolph
in the mountains of North Carolina? The domestic bombing suspect,
wanted for the fatal bombing of a Birmingham abortion clinic
and linked to the explosion that went off in prime time during
the Atlanta Olympics, has been on the FBI's most wanted list
for almost four years. WIll U.S. troops be searching caves in
Afghanistan that long? This may sound familiar: the FBI stated
in 1998 that it "hasn't ruled out any possibilities,"
including that Rudolph is dead or has fled the area.
In Washington, Trent Lott threw a major
temper tantrum over the Judiciary Committee's rejection of Judge
Charles Pickering, Sr.'s nomination. It gave Tom Daschle something
to smile about and will give Lott something to talk about when
he next speaks to his beloved Conservative Citizen's Council.
Missing from my TV was the news that
George W. Bush was greeted with catcalls, protest signs and "carols
of derision" during an appearance at a St. Patrick's Day
parade in Chicago.
Did I just miss it, or was it the "patriotic
duty" of the networks to avoid developing this story? The
inability of organizers and White House advance men to turn Chicago
into the usual obligatory Potemkin Village required for a presidential
visit is surely newsworthy.
Fortunately, the Chicago
Independent Media Center was on the case.
Riddle me this: since Cheney was reported
to be traveling in Air Force One, how did Bush get to Chicago?
Amtrak? Greyhound? Enron jet?
Perhaps Dubya should have sent the Shadow
Government in his place. Something tells me our Shadow Government
would have known what to do with those protesters.
Anyone who turned off the TV and picked
up the New York Times expecting relief instead found Thomas L.
Friedman calling on Bush to send an American occupying force
to Israel. "Are you sitting down?" asked Friedman.
No, I'd rather go outside and stand in the hail.
David Vest
writes the Rebel Angel column for CounterPunch. He is a poet
and piano-player for the Pacific Northwest's hottest blues band,
The Cannonballs.
He can be reached at: davidvest@springmail.com
Visit his website at http://www.rebelangel.com
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