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July 13, 2002
M. Junaid Alam
Raping the
Palestinians
Matt Vidal
Corporate
Ethics Red Herrings
July 12, 2002
Sean Donahue
The Other
Harken Energy Scandal: Oil, Death Squads
and Colombia
Walt Brasch
Sin Tax
Scam
"Psst. Cigarettes. A Buck Each."
Steve Perry
A Tale
of Two Twits
Wall Street Burns, Bush Fiddles, But Where's Wellstone?
July 11, 2002
Lloyd Marbet
Arrested
by the Chamber
of Commerce
David Krieger
Law vs.
Force
David Vest
Fountain
of Foo:
Strike Three Called
Irit Katriel
A Deep
Ideological Crisis
Richard Glen Boire
Dangerous
Lessons:
Public School Drug Testing
July 10, 2002
CounterPunch Wire
Third Party
Woes
South Carolina Denies Kevin Alexander Gray Ballot Status
Nassar Ibriham &
Majed Nassar
Bush's
Middle East Plan: Always Changing, Never Changing
Robert Fisk
Ain't That
America:
A Strange Kind of Freedom
Dave Marsh
The Return
of CREEP:
Record Cartel Accounting
Bernard Weiner
Hope and
Despair in
the Body Politic
Gary Leupp
European
Worries and
Bush's Terror War
July 9, 2002
St. Clair / Cockburn
The Atomic
Clock is Ticking:
All Roads Lead to Yucca Mtn.
Jack McCarthy
Florida:
a Terrorist Sanctuary for Bush's Bloody Pals?
Robert Fisk
How a Saudi
Billionaire
Does Beirut
Stanton and Madsen
God, Incorporated
Kurt Nimmo
IDF, Gangbanging
with Tanks
Bill Christison
Disastrous
Foreign Policies
of the US Part 3:
What Can We Do About It?
July 8, 2002
Rick Mercier
Yucca
Mountain Bound
Lev Grinberg
The
BUSHARON Global War
Tariq Ali
How Bush
Used 9/11 to Remap the World
Lori Allen
The Tugs
of War:
Palestinian Life Under Curfew
July 7, 2002
Alexander Cockburn
White
House Crooks
July 6, 2002
Gavin Keeney
Loose
Lips:
Liberty, Democracy & Bush
Michael Neumann
What's
So Bad About Israel?
Steve Baughman
Ashcroft's
Vendetta:
Lynching John Lindh
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!)
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EXCLUSIVE
TO
COUNTERPUNCH
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Published March 15, 2002
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 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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Weekend
Edition
July 13, 2002
Lessons from Independence Day
in Greensboro, North Carolina
by Ed Whitfield
Folks who believe the official line that the support
for the current US policies in the war on terrorism and the
new domestic measures at home is nearly unanimous need to know
what happened in Greensboro, North Carolina on the 4th of July.
The Greensboro Peace Coalition heeded
a firm suggestion by one of its leading younger members that
it should have an entry in the city's annual 4th of July Parade.
After some hesitation, we decided to register an entry and spread
the word widely among our contacts that we were going to claim
our piece of the public space and utilize that day of patriotism
to spread our message of opposition to Bush's "war on terrorism".
To coincide with our entry into the parade,
we bought a half page ad in the local daily paper, the Greensboro
News and Record and had them print the "Not In Our Name
-- Statement of Consciousness" along with names of over
100 prominent national signers.
We were never sure how many people would
show up. Some of our members and supporters were afraid that
the parade entry would be too agressive a tactic. They feared
that in the light of the patriotic outburst since 911 an entry
in the city's parade would be too much in the face of those
who would be waving the flag that day. Some of the same folks
who have stood weekly on a busy street corner in a vigil for
peace every since October when the US started bombing Afghanistan,
felt that the parade entry would be a bit too much.
Some of them changed their minds and
came to the parade anyway. The were all glad that they did because
those negative fears turned out on this 4th of July in Greensboro
North Carolina to be wrong.
We had over 50 people -- black and white,
young and old, professional and laboring and unemployed -- come
to march with us behind a large banner that said "Greensboro
Peace Coalition -- Not In Our Name". Along the route we
passed out small flyers with the "Not In Our Name"
pledge of resistance on one side and a statement from the Greensboro
Peace Coalition on the other. The theme of the Parade was "American
Heroes". Our delegation marched with posters of Mark Twain,
Albert Einstein, Fredrick Douglas, Martin Luther King, and other
great Americans who have stood for peace and against militarism
and agression.
As we walked the mile and a half parade
route, many of the people along the street began to applaud.
There were a few hecklers, but only a few. There were far more
smiles, peace signs and applause. Two city police on bicycles
pulled into the parade to follow our group. We passed the reviewing
stand where there was a live broadcast on the local radio.
The announcer seemed a bit surprised as he announced "And
here is ... the Greensboro Peace Coalition." We let out
a cheer for ourselves that could be heard on the radio.
After the parade, we set up a table among
the groups who participated in the day long "Fun Fourth"
activities. We were in between the table of a businessman running
for US Senate, and a young man selling digital phone service
for AT&T. Many people came by our table to pick up more
literature and to talk. So many times that day we heard how
glad people were to see someone with the courage to express
concerns about the nation's direction.
A real surprise came when officials from
the event's organizing committee came to our table to give us
the award for "Best Interpretation of Theme" in the
Parade.
After the day was over, I looked at the
emails coming to the Greensboro Peace Coalition. Some of them
were caustic and critical of us for having the nerve of going
against "mainstream America". One said that what we
were doing and saying was not "in vogue" and that
this wasn't the 60's. Many others however expressed real joy
that someone was standing up for what was right and asking how
to get more involved.
We are following up by getting people
involved in our regular meeting and inviting them to other special
events like the speaker from Colombia who will talk about the
US military involvememt there at a covered dish dinner here
in just over a week.
There is a real lesson in this. If you
scratch the surface of the poll numbers about Bush's and Ashcroft's
overwhelming support, you get down to a lot of people with a
lot of questions, a lot of concerns and a lot of fears. Some
of them are afraid that they are alone in what they are thinking.
What it takes to get them excited and
to get them involved is for them to see someone standing up
so that they will know that they are not alone. We should have
been doing this in every city across the country that had a
4th of July parade. If we had the forsight and the courage,
we could have turned this day of flag waving into a day of
introspection and dialogue and building this important movement
against repression here at home and agression abroad.
Ed Whitfield lives in Greensboro, NC.
This Weekend's
Features
M. Junaid Alam
Raping the
Palestinians
Matt Vidal
Corporate
Ethics Red Herrings
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