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CHINA'S GREAT LEAP BACKWARDS Peter Kwong gives us the "New China" without illusions: from the "millionaires' fair" in Shanghai, with $60,000 diamond-studded dog leashes to one of the most savagely repressed working class and peasantry on the planet. How China's leaders swapped Marx and Mao for Milton Friedman. Alexander Cockburn on What's wrong with the U.S. left. They're sitting in darkened rooms weaving conspiracy fantasies about 9/11; they're blogging; they're confusing a medium with a movement; they're not doing enough to stop the war in Iraq. John Ross takes us along the stormy trail of the Mexican election. 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! |
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Today's Stories July 14 / 15, 2006 Alexander Cockburn Ramzy Baroud July 13, 2006 Rev. William
Alberts Ramzi Kysia Rep. John P. Murtha Radford / Santos Stan Cox Saul Landau José
Pertierra Website of
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July 12, 2006 John Ross John Stauber Robert Boston Wayne S. Smith John Graham Kevin Prosen Jonathan Cook Website of
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July 11, 2006 Dave Lindorff Dave Zirin Mokhiber / Weissman Amira Hass Clare Hanrahan Brian Cloughey Felice Pace Raed Jarrar Website of the Day
July 10, 2006 Paul Craig
Roberts Uri Avnery Roger Burbach Ron Jacobs Joshua Frank Missy Comley Beattie Alexander Cockburn
Stephen Green Paul Craig
Roberts Greg Moses Ralph Nader Laura Carlsen Conn Hallinan John Chuckman Fred Gardner Dr. Tod Mikuriya Pierre Tristam Lucinda Marshall David Swanson Heather Gray Dave Zirin
/ John Cox Mark Engler Michael Lettieri Ron Jacobs Jamal Juma' Jeffrey St. Clair Poets' Basement
July 7, 2006 John Ross July 6, 2006 Nick Dearden John Stanton Ralph Nader Laray Polk Saul Landau Joshua Frank William S. Lind Adelman / Lindorff Jonathan Cook Website of
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Mike Whitney Saul Landau Ramzy Baroud Missy Comley Beattie Arthur Neslen Vincent Maruffi Paul Cantor Paul D. Johnson David Price
Col. Dan Smith Chris Floyd Marjorie Cohn James Brooks Medea Benjamin Matt Reichel Elisa Salasin Rick Wilhelm Paul Craig
Roberts Website of the Day
July 3, 2006 Robert Bryce Dr. Bouthaina Shaban Julia Olmstead Dave Lindorff Andres Gomez Alan Singer Alexander Cockburn
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Banko Daniel Cassidy Fawzia Afzal-Khan Jeff Taylor John Ross Greg Moses Laura Carlsen Justin E.H.
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June 30, 2006 Marjorie Cohn Heather Williams Burbach / Cantor Nick Dearden Michael J.
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Bill Quigley Ron Jacobs Paul Craig
Roberts June 28, 2006 Jorge Mariscal Greg Moses Mark Weisbrot Ramzy Baroud Dave Lindorff William S.
Lind Mike Ferner Zoltan Grossman
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June 26, 2006 Don Santina Ralph Nader Dave Lindorff Rafael Rodriguez-Cruz Evelyn Pringle Jonathan Cook
June 23, 2006 Youmans / Erakat Dave Lindorff Ron Jacobs Col. Dan Smith
June 22, 2006 Marjorie Cohn Winslow T.
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Bastille
Day Weekend Edition A World Without Fajitas?The Rightwing Language PoliceBy WALTER BRASCH Let's pretend it's dinner time, and you've just developed a sudden craving for Mexican food. Yesterday, it was Chinese. Tomorrow it may be Italian. But today, it's Mexican. And, while we're pretending, let's pretend that a four-star Mexican restaurant just opened around the corner. You walk in, and the red-haired hostess politely greets you in impeccable British Standard English, seats you, and hands you a menu. At the top is a grilled American cheese sandwich. You can order it plain or with tomato (75 cents extra). Below are other specialties of the restaurant-pot roast, chicken pot pie, and fried liver with onions. Thinking you got the wrong menu, or at least went to the wrong restaurant, you ask the blond-haired waiter to give you the Mexican menu. "This is it," he
says. "I was hoping for an appetizer of nachos with salsa and guacamole, and a main course of fajitas," you say. He tells you the restaurant-Matthew's-doesn't have fajitas. Nor does it have tacos, enchiladas, or quesadillas. You can, however, order a mug of Two X beer, which was once named Dos Equis. "We used to have chili con carne, which we renamed chili with meat,"says the waiter, "but the Language Police ordered us to take it off the menu because we couldn't translate "chili" into an American term." Absurd? Of course it is. But, the truth is even more absurd. During World War I, with Americans despising anything German, and the establishment newspapers fueling flames of patriotic intolerance, "sauerkraut" became "victory cabbage," hamburgers became "liberty sandwiches" and hamburger steak became forever etched into Americans' vocabularies as "Salisbury steak." In March 2003, when France didn't agree with the United States about why the world should invade Iraq, Rep. Robert W. Ney (R-Ohio), chair of the Committee on House Administration, ordered all restaurants in the buildings of the House of Representatives to rename french toast "freedom toast" and french fries "freedom fries." The White House also thought that was a reasonable thing to do while planning a "shock-awe-and-quagmire" invasion. Hundreds of restaurant owners throughout the country followed the Congressional will. In response to reporters salivating to report upon an international food fight, Nathalie Loisau, a spokeswoman for the French embassy in Washington, D.C., said, "We are at a very serious moment dealing with very serious issues and we are not focusing on the name you give to potatoes," (Apparently, Americans didn't have any problems with french horns or french poodles.) As absurd as the linguistic larceny that renamed food are the babblings of most of the nation's radio talk-show hosts and their ranting gaggle of jingoistic followers who demand the United States be solely an English-speaking country. Hundreds of towns and half of the states, spending millions of taxpayer funds, have created legislation that makes English the official language. It's very simple, they wail, foreigners "gotta learn good English like us Americans." Of course, these good patriotic Americans-wearing T-shirts made in Taiwan, sneakers made in Thailand, and flying Chinese-made American flags from their imported Toyotas, Hondas, and VWs-don't seem to be concerned that Grandma Anusia speaks literate Polish but only halting English, or that Uncle Antonio's primary language is Italian. They're also tolerant of the Chinese restaurant workers who speak minimal English (and may be illegal immigrants working in sweat shop conditions) because-well-everyone loves those inexpensive buffets! President Bush's "No Child left Behind Act," enacted a year after his first inaugural, wiped out Title VII, the Bilingual Education Act that was begun in 1968 under Lyndon Johnson, and renewed under the administrations of Presidents Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush Sr., and Clinton-four Republicans, three Democrats. That Act encouraged "developing the English language skills" of children but also "to the extent possible, the native language skills." The new law disregards any instruction in any language other than English. If we accept what is sprouted by the radio talk shows, we'll have to "Americanize" vodka and caviar; blintzes, knishes, and latkes; gnocchi, lasagna, fettuccini, and eggplant parmigiano. Most food will have to be renamed, as will the names of most animals, and musical instruments. Among 75,000 words of international origin, we'll have to rename candy, coleslaw, dollar, and iceberg (from the Dutch), tomato, hammock, and pow-wow (from American Indians), adobe, coffee, gauze, magazines, soda, and sofa (from Arabic), pistols, polkas, and robots (from the Czech), and banjo, cola, jazz, and zebra (from West African languages). We may even have to rename Santa Claus, which originated as the Dutch Sintaklaas. We will no longer sing the "Hallelujah Chorus" at Christmas since "hallelujah" comes from the Hebrew, and "chorus" from the Greek. Reflecting the reality that Hispanics are now the fastest growing minority in America, there are dozens of Spanish language radio and TV stations, as well as six major networks. Univision, available on most cable systems, is the fifth largest TV network in the United States; its evening newscast, co-anchored by Jorge Ramos and Maria Elena Salinas, often has higher ratings than any English-language network evening newscast. Telemundo, owned by NBC/Universal, is the second largest Spanish language network. Almost since the beginning of the nation, there have been ethnic and cultural organizations and foreign language newspapers to inform and unite the nation of immigrants. The first foreign language newspaper was the Philadelphische Zeitung, a German language newspaper published in Germantown, now a part of Philadelphia; its publisher was Benjamin Franklin who didn't speak German, but knew the settlers needed information. During the 1790s, with Germans the largest ethnic population in the state, the Pennsylvania legislature narrowly defeated a bill that would have made German the state's official language. More than two centuries later, Americans are debating laws to make English the official language. Perhaps more American communities could follow Pennsylvania's original belief that there were better things to do than to decide on an official language. Every language, every culture, has helped contribute to what makes the United States unique. As the nation begins to accept immigrants, they do learn the American language, often becoming more fluent in it than do native-born speakers. By "rephrasing" our linguistic and cultural base to demand an ethnocentric America, we destroy a nation founded upon liberty and developed by immigrants. Walter Brasch, professor of journalism at Bloomsburg University, is an award-winning syndicated columnist and the author of 15 books, most of them about social issues, the First Amendment, and the media. His forthcoming book is America's Unpatriotic Acts; The Federal Government's Violation of Constitutional and Civil Liberties (Peter Lang Publishing.) You may contact Brasch at brasch@bloomu.edu or at www.walterbrasch.com
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from CounterPunch Books! The Case Against Israel By Michael Neumann  Grand Theft Pentagon: Tales of Greed and Profiteering in the War on Terror by Jeffrey St. Clair          Sick of sit-on-the-Fence speakers, tongue-tied and timid? CounterPunch Editors Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St Clair are available to speak forcefully on ALL the burning issues, as are other CounterPunchers seasoned in stump oratory. Call CounterPunch Speakers Bureau, 1-800-840-3683. Or email beckyg@counterpunch.org.                    |
