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Exciting New Print Edition of CounterPunch Bolivia's Third Revolution Confused by Bolivia's upheavals? CounterPunch's Newton Garver gives you the history, the politics and a roadmap through the present great upsurge of Indians who say NO to centuries of theft and oppression. On the track of Guatemala's killers: a searing report from John Ross on the US-backed monsters who turned Guatemala into a charnel house and on the heroes who hunt them down. The rise and rise of a corporation called Halliburton: Jeffrey St Clair scours some of Texas' history's dirtiest pages and tells how Halliburton's cash helped put two presidents to the White House. Get the answers you're looking for in the latest subscriber-only edition of CounterPunch ... CounterPunch Online is read by millions of viewers each month! But remember, we are funded solely by the subscribers to the print edition of CounterPunch. Please support this website by buying a subscription to our newsletter, which contains fresh material you won't find anywhere else, or by making a donation for the online edition. Remember contributions are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now! Show the New York Times You Don't Believe a Word of It: CounterPunch's New 14 Per Cent Club T-Shirts Call Toll Free 1-800-840-3683 or write CounterPunch, PO BOX 228, Petrolia, CA 95558

Now Available! Other Lands Have Dreams: From Baghdad to Pekin Prison by KATHY KELLY Click Here to Order the Hot New CounterPunch Book by 3-time Nobel Peace Prize Nominee Kathy Kelly! Today's Stories Paul Craig Roberts A War Waged by Liars and Morons June 20, 2005 Alan Maass The GM Job Massacre Tariq Ali To the Gates of the Gleneagles Hotel! Mickey Z. WMDs American-Style: It's 60 Years Since Alamogordo William Blum Some Things You Need to Know Before the World Ends Gary Leupp Old News Indeed: In 1999, Bush Craved Chance to Attack Iraq Jason Leopold Someone Tell Bush Iraq Wasn't Behind 9/11, Before He Starts Another War Dave Lindorff Why the Media Should be Schiavo'd Alan Maass The GM Job Massacre Uri Avnery Condi and Hamas Website of the Day Crimes Against Poetry June 18 / 19, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Is the Jury Dead? Greg Moses Race Bias and the Death Penalty, One More Time Benjamin Shepard Arrested for Stickering, Biking and Other Misadventures: Creative Direct Action in the Era of the PATRIOT Act Stan Goff Stuff to Do to Stop the War: 95 Days to Pre-Nixonize George W. Bush Lee Sustar Does Iraq's Main Labor Union Support the Occupation? Jude Wanniski The Tipping Point: Getting Out of Iraq Diana Barahona Librarians as Spooks: the Scheme to Infiltrate Cuba Via Libraries Brian Concannon, Jr. Justice Dodge in Haiti, Again: Impunity and the Raboteau Massacre Fred Gardner How Many Wins Can We Take? Mike Whitney Gen. Tommy Friedman's Plan to "Win" the War in Iraq: Reinstate the Draft Ahmad Faruqui Star Wars or Earth Wars? Manuel García, Jr. De-Eichmannizing America Roger Howard Leave Iranian Politics to Iranians Ron Jacobs Eros and the Grateful Dead Ben Tripp Situation Desperate: Why Am I Not Pleased? Poets' Basement Louise, Albert and Engel Website of the Weekend Christ's Entry into Washington   June 17, 2005 Ricardo Alarcón Who Helped Posada Enter the US? Clay Conrad Medical Marijuana: Is Jury Nullification the Next Step? Marc Estrin Open-Ended Closure: the Death Penalty and the Culture of Victimhood Colin Brown Firebombing Fallujah: Pentagon Lied About Use of Napalm in Iraq Christopher Brauchli Pennies for Africa: Bush's Phony Money Joshua Frank Blue State Warriors: How Democrats Derailed the Peace Movement Norman Solomon The Killing Street Memo Mary Rizzo Who's Afraid of Gilad Atzmon? Bond / Brutus / Setshedi How Bono and Trojan Horse NGOs Sabotage the Struggle Against Neoliberalism   June 16, 2005 John Walsh The Iraq War Polls: Dems' Stance Even Less Popular Than Bush's Dave Lindorff Work 'Till You Die: the Bush Retirement Plan Adrian Lomax Torture in U.S. Prisons: Common, Lethal, Unreported Tom Crumpacker The CIA, Posada and the Bombing of Cubana Flight 455 Jeffrey Kolakowski The Kinsley Paradigm: Downsizing the Downing St. Memo Julene Bair Turning Off the Ogallala Spigot: Toward a New Way to Farm on the Great Plains Michael Dickinson As We Forgive Our Debtors: the Madness of Money Francois Houtart / Isabel Parra, et al. Against Terrorism; In Defense of Humanity: an Appeal Tom Barry Meet Bolton's Replacement: Robert "First Strike" Joseph   June 15, 2005 Stan Goff An Open Letter to US Troops on Loyalty Daniel Wolff The Palace at 4 A.M. Tim Wise Discover the Nutwork: David Horowitz and the Politics of Ad Hominem Distortion Ricardo Alarcón The New CIA Revelations About Posada Joshua Frank House Republicans vs. Bush: "This is Not a Conservative War" John Hilary Bloodsuckers' Summit: Why the Left Should Rendezvous at the G8 Norman Solomon Iran's Reformers: a Threat to Theocrats and Neocons Alexander Cockburn / Jeffrey St. Clair Juries and Lynch Mobs Website of the Day What It Feels Like to be Tasered (Turn Up the Volume)   June 14, 2005 Paul Craig Roberts Enabling Evil: Bush's Willing Executioners Forrest Hylton Stalemate in Bolivia Richard Gott The Crisis in Bolivia Fred Gardner The Raich Decision: All Power to the Feds Steve Breyman Doing the Right Thing is Also Politically Expedient Dave Zirin Sacred Hoops: Basketball in the Barrio Robert Kent Outsourcing Torture and the Stop-Loss Program Paul Craig Roberts Enabling Evil: Bush's Willing Executioners   June 13, 2005 Gary Leupp Another Damning Document Dave Lindorff The Inca and Us John Stauber Mad Cow USA: the Cover-Up Begins to Unravel Fred Gardner Supreme Indignity: Medical Pot Doctors Respond to Justice Stevens Evelyn J. Pringle TeenScreen: the Lawsuits Begin Norman Solomon Letter From Tehran Winslow T. Wheeler Neo-Con Unfurls the Big Picture   June 10 / 12, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Thomas Friedman's Imaginary World Sharon Smith Torturers and Liars: Masters of Deception Brian Cloughley "Support Our Torturers!" Chris Kromm Home Cookin': Pentagon's Base Relignment Plan Would Increase South's Share Heather Gray A Day in Mississippi: Some Things Have Changed; Some Remain the Same Kevin Zeese What the Left Must Learn from 2004: an Interview with Josh Frank Mickey Z. The Pentagon Papers, 34 Years Later Gary Leupp A Review of Sison's "At Home in the World" Eli Stephens The Asshole in El Paso: Why Posada Carriles Matters Nick Dearden A Scottish Band in the Occupied Territories Oscar Olivera Recovering Bolivia's Oil and Gas Robert Fisk Screening "Kingdom of Heaven" in Beirut Michael Dickinson Oh My God!: Gunning for Blasphemers Poets' Basement Engel, Albert, Louise, Ford Website of the Weekend Gravity's Rainbow, Illustrated   June 9, 2005 Len Colodny Felt Was Asked Under Oath in 1975 If He Was "Deep Throat" Christopher Brauchli From Baseballs to Hand Grenades Ron Jacobs Light a Candle; Curse the Darkness Dave Lindorff US Media Shamed by Brit Journalist Katrina Yeaw / Alex Schmaus Repression 101: Anti-War Students Sanctioned at SFSU Alan Farago Spin Machine Busts a Gasket in the Everglades: Fed Judge Whacks Jeb Saul Landau The Charmed Life of a Mass Murderer   June 8, 2005 Jim Hougan Strange Bedfellows Deep Throat, Bob Woodward and the CIA Alan Maass Is Bolivia on the Edge of Revolution? an Interview with Tom Lewis Jason Leopold Enron Lives!: Former Army Sec. White Wants Govt. Money for New Energy Scam Niranjan Ramakrishnan Exit Right, Advani: Unpardonable Acts of Statesmanship Dave Zirin The Rotting Soul of the 49ers Derrick O'Keefe Bush's Terrorist: the Case of Posada Carriles Diana Johnstone Non, Neen, Angelene! Why Defenders of the "Oui" are Wrong Website of the Day The Meatrix   June 7, 2005 Forrest Hylton Bolivia's Agony of the Stalement Continues Greg Moses / Susan van Haitsma Pushing Back the Violence Lenni Brenner What Madison Would Think About the Air Force Academy's Offical Fanatics Col. Dan Smith Liberation vs. Survival in Iraq Joshua Frank Dean at the DNC: the Establishment vs. the Elites Dave Lindorff Fair-Weather Allies: US Denies French Fighters Emergency Landing Rights Margot Veranes / Adrian Navarro Xenophobia in the Desert: Racist Fever Becomes Law in Arizona Michael Neumann Sharing Music: Property Gone Wild   June 6, 2005 Stew Albert Everybody Must Get Busted: Supremes Rule Against the Sick Paul Craig Roberts Federal Bureau of Entrapment Nicole Colson Inside Walter Reed Hospital Ali Khan Friendly Renditions to Muslim Torture Chambers Jason Leopold When Will Rumsfeld Be Indicted? Charles Walker Poff Rumsfeld, China and Hypocrisy Ramzy Baroud My Grandpa's Right of Return Rep. John Conyers Did Bush Deliberately Deceive America About Iraq? Evelyn Pringle TeenScreen's Top Pusher Gary Corseri 25 Reasons to Impeach Bush Website of the Day Save This 200 Year Old Burr Oak from Bible Thumpers with Chainsaws   June 4 / 5, 2005 Alexander Cockburn France's Magnificent Non! James Petras The Centrality of Peasant Movements in Latin America Robert Fisk Who Killed Samir? Patrick Cockburn My Father, Claud Cockburn, the MI5 Suspect Rev. William Alberts When Pride in Power Corrupts: the Story of a Methodist President, His Bishops and an "Incompatible" Lesbian Minister Saul Landau 40 Interns and a Mule: Will the Dems Ever Take Advantage of the Republicans' Blunders? Mario Lamo Jimenez Dante with a Brush: Botero Immortalizes Bush Dave Lindorff What is the Media Running From? Lance Selfa Why Bush is Getting Away with Murder Tom Crumpacker On the Use of State Terrorism: the Posada Precedent Joshua Frank How Beltway Dems Sank Dean for America Fred Gardner Don't Bogart That Taxable Commodity Michael Dickinson Roll Out the Barrel: Blood, Oil and Baku Roger Martin We Can See, But Not Far Enough Reza Fiyouzat Welcome to the Third World Ben Tripp Romance: Advice from a Pro Graeme Greenback Pardon Me, While I Piss on this Bible Poets' Basement Smith-Ferri, Albert, Engel, Smith       June 3, 2005 Paul Craig Roberts Welcome to a Has-Been Country Joseph Massad Witch Hunt at Columbia Jeff Halper The Process of Transfer Continues Tom Barry The Immigration Debate: Whose Side Are You On? Bruce K. Gagnon Bush Seeks Military Control of Space: "It's Our Destiny" Joshua Frank Bombing Iran: Facts Don't Matter Mickey Z. Deep Throat as Sideshow Gary Leupp "Peddling Lies About How They Were Mistreated" Website of the Day Tattoo on My Heart: Warriors of Wounded Knee, 1973     June 2, 2005 Paul Craig Roberts The Slave Traders of the Gitmo Gulag Forrest Hylton Bolivia: the Agony of Stalemate Mike Whitney Post-Mortem on the 4th Amendment: Warrants without Judges Brian Cloughley Anarchy in Afghanistan; Ignorance in America Mazin Qumsiyeh A Two-State Solution is No Solution Russell D. Hoffman High Tension at San Onofre Norman Madarasz "Le Jolie Mois de Mai": the Meaning of the French "Non" Norman Solomon War Made Easy: from Vietnam to Iraq David Price The Shallowness of Deep Throat Website of the Day Fallujah on Film     June 1, 2005 James Petras Beyond Hypocrisy: the Deeper Meaning of Posada Justin Delacour Framing Venezuela: US Media Bias Against Chavez Edward Jay Epstein Was "Deep Throat" a Fictoid? Omar Barghouti / Lisa Taraki The AUT Boycott: Freedom vs. "Academic" Freedom Dave Lindorff When War Goes Off the Script Kevin Zeese Reality Check: Who to Believe on Iraq War and Gitmo? Jason Leopold When Presidents Lie William S. Lind Wreck It and Run     May 31, 2005 Sen. Mike Gravel Thank You, Mark Felt: We Need a New Deep Throat David Krieger US Nuclear Hypocrisy Tad Daley The Nuclear Me-Too Club Joshua Frank Pelosi at AIPAC: Israel Comes First Richard Gott Chavez Leads the Way Norman Solomon Time to Get Serious About Impeachment Tom Segev Our Man in the Territories Walter Brasch Killing Americans with Secrecy Diana Johnstone The French "Non"     May 28 / 30, 2005 Alexander Cockburn There's Their Way or the Galloway Richard Lichtman We Wuz Framed! the Consolations of George Lakoff Sharon Smith The Road to Abu Ghraib Paul Craig Roberts Bush Opts for Civil War in Iraq Dave Lindorff Whigged Out: the Dems Have Become Merely a Vestigial Opposition Party Ramzy Baroud Muslims Were Desecrated, Not Just Their Holy Book Brian Cloughley Why Are Nukes OK for You, But Not for Us? Fred Gardner Advice from a Lawyer About Medical Pot Lee Sustar Chavez Gets Proactive Joshua Frank Isikoff Comes Clean: "Nobody in the US Said a Word, Until the Riots" Justin E.H. Smith What About the People? a Report from Romania Jackie Corr A Montana History Lesson on Assfulness Michael Kimaid Bush as Ahab Toufic Haddad Lessons from the Reversal of the AUC Boycott Justin Taylor The Fear of Paul Virilio Amir Butler Searching for a Saladin Ben Tripp Insomnia and Sarcasm Poets' Basement Albert, Engel, Davies and Louise   May 27, 2005 Gary Leupp It Really is a Crusade! Daniel Estulin Infiltrating Bilderberg 2005 Kevin Zeese Iraq Withdrawal Vote: If Walter "Freedom Fries" Jones Can See the Light, Why Can't Nancy Pelosi? Robert Fisk Mubarak's Goon Squads Dave Zirin Why Pat Tillman's Parents Are No Longer Silent Website of the Day Stuckists                                                         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

June 21, 2005 Ron Howard's "Cinderella Man" The Crass Slipper Fits By DAVE ZIRIN "When our country was on its knees, he brought America to his feet." So proclaims the tagline for Ron Howard's Depression Era boxing film Cinderella Man starring Russell Crowe. Cinderella Man, the story of 1930's heavyweight champion James J. Braddock, has been compared to the 2003 film Seabiscuit, both stories of plucky sports underdogs that triumphed during the Great Depression. The comparison is apt, and not just because Crowe mopes around Cinderella Man with the same blank, hangdog expression as that damn horse. Like the insipid Seabiscuit, this entire big budget biopic comes off as yet another Hollywood effort to sweeten the story of the 1930s. And like Seabiscuit, Cinderella Man portrays the Depression as a time, in the words of film reviewer Jamie Bernard, "that was really good for teaching values." Beyond that, all one would learn from Cinderella Man is that the Great Depression was really depressing. In reality, the 1930s was an era of not only poverty but also mass resistance, as strikes swept the south and shut down the cities of San Francisco, Toledo, and Minneapolis. It was a time when many of the reforms on the chopping block today, like Social Security, were won through the struggles of the labor movement. It was a time when revolution in the United States was on the table as hundreds of thousands of people attempted to offer an alternative to the barbarisms of capitalism. As Depression era sports writer Lester Rodney put it, "In the 1930s if you weren't some kind of radical, Communist, socialist, or Trotskyist, you were considered brain-dead, and you probably were!" Just about everyone in Cinderella Man wears their brain-deadness like a medal of honor, passively enduring poverty as if they had just received red, white, and blue lobotomies. The only hint of the other side of the Depression in Cinderella Man is Braddock's dockworker buddy Mike Wilson (played by Patty Consodine.) Mike believes in the power of protest, but he's also clearly doomed from the opening frame, portrayed as a drunk whose wife snaps at him, "You can save the world, but not your family!" Renee Zellweger, as Crowe's spouse Mae mirrors Mike's wife, as the typically sexist sports-movie female character, fretting with every fight and forced to say lines like, "You are the champion of my heart, James J. Braddock!" The film is also shamefully simplistic and even slanderous in its portrayal of the heavyweight champion at the time Max Baer. Baer was a hulking, brutal fighter, who had two opponents die in the ring. But Cinderella Man reduces Baer to a one-dimensional stock villain, a perfect counterpart for Crowe's paper-thin stock hero. As played by Craig Bierko, Baer struts around with a psychotic gleam in his eye, as if he would enjoy nothing more than killing Braddock and spitting on his grave. In one scene, he looks at Mae and says, "Nice! Too bad she'll be a widow." In reality, Baer was devastated and nearly destroyed by the ring deaths that occurred at his hands, as any non-sociopath would be. Also Baer was a complex figure who fought against Nazi favorite Max Schmeling with a Star of David embroidered on his trunks. To see Howard's movie, one would think that the only symbol Baer favored was a pentagram. But the real tragedy of the film is its treatment of Braddock. Crowe does what he can with a terrible script, but it says everything about the film that the final credits roll before the actual ending of Braddock's fight career, a 1937 8th round knockout at the hands of Joe Louis. Louis, the first African-American heavyweight champ since Jack Johnson,was a symbol of hope for both African-Americans and the left wing of the radicalizing working class. To have portrayed his fight with Braddock would have meant dealing with complex issues of how boxing, in a violent society, has acted as a deeply symbolic morality play about the ability of people - especially people of color - to succeed and stand triumphant. It would have meant trying to understand why some people would have rooted for Braddock against Baer, but then bitterly opposed him against Louis. But the filmmakers could care less about these complicated dimensions of either the period or the sport. Their job in Cinderella Man is to take complex characters and turn them into stick figures, easily consumed and easily forgotten. At that task, they have succeeded admirably. [For people really interested in the James J. Braddock story, read the just released Jeremy Schaap book also called 'Cinderella Man' and - blessedly - not connected to the film.] Dave Zirin's new book "What's My Name Fool? Sports and Resistance in the United States" will be in stores in June 2005. Check out his revamped website edgeofsports.com. You can receive his column Edge of Sports, every week by e-mailing edgeofsports-subscribe@zirin.com. Contact him at whatsmynamefool2005@yahoo.com.