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Special Issue: the Collapse of America Paul Craig Roberts gives CounterPunchers the definitive data on what is happening to jobs in America. Not just blue collar jobs. Middle-class, white collar jobs. Roberts' stunning probe is the first true picture of what the U.S. economy is fast becoming and of the savage class wars that lie ahead. Plus Mike Ferner on what it really means to investigate war crimes in Iraq. 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 29 / 30, 2006 Michael
Neuman July 28, 2006 Jonathan
Cook Uri Avnery Renee Bowyer Robert
Fisk Patrick Cockburn Ramzy
Baroud Don Fitz Elaine
Cassel David Price Mike Whitney Mickey Z. Niranjan
Ramakrishnan Charles
Glass Website
of the Day
July 27, 2006 Tanya
Reinhart Saul Landau Ramzi
Kysia Tom Barry Joseph
Grosso Sharon Smith Gale Courey
Toensing Christopher Reed Werther Yusuf Mansur Richard
Harth Website of the Day
Norman
Solomon Barbara
Olshanksy David
Nally Jonathan
Cook Patrick
Cockburn William
Blum Joshua
Frank Gabriel
Kolko Daniel
Cassidy Michael
Dickinson Robert
Fisk Uri
Avnery Website
of the Day
July 25, 2006 Harry
Browne Marjorie
Cohn Robert
Bryce Sharat
G. Lin George
Bisharat CounterPunch
News Desk Zena
El-Khalil Larry
Lack Mike
Mejia Ashraf
Isma'il Website
of the Day
July 24, 2006 Mark
Levy Robert
Fisk Maher
Osseiran Paul
Craig Roberts Patrick
Cockburn Website
of the Day
July 22-23, 2006 Jonathan
Cook Paul
Craig Roberts Gilad
Atzmon Robert
Fisk Ralph
Nader Fred
Gardner Christopher
Reed Dr.
Susan Block Najla
Said Uri
Avnery July 21, 2006 George
Galloway P.
Sainath Aseem
Shrivastava Alexander
Cockburn Website
of the Day July 20, 2006 William
S. Lind Robert
Jensen John
Ross Tom
Hayden Paul
Craig Roberts July 19, 2006 Patrick
Cockburn Trish
Schuh Jonathan
Cook Vicente
Navarro July 17 / 18 2006 Mike
Whitney Kathleen Christison Atrocities in the Promised Land
July 14 / 15,
2006 Alexander Cockburn Tanya Reinhart Robert Fisk Daniel Cassidy Winslow Wheeler Hugh O'Shaughnessy M. Shahid Alam William S. Lind Ramzy Baroud Gilad Atzmon Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg Samar Assad Ron Jacobs Lee Ballinger Walter Brasch Dave Lindorff Clifton Ross Tom Crumpacker Ricardo Alarcon William Hughes Susie Day Farrah Hassen Poets' Basement
July 13, 2006 Rev. William
Alberts Ramzi Kysia Rep. John P. Murtha Radford / Santos Stan Cox Saul Landau José
Pertierra Website of
the Day
July 12, 2006 John Ross John Stauber Robert Boston Wayne S. Smith John Graham Kevin Prosen Jonathan Cook Website of
the Day
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
the Day
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
Paul Craig
Roberts Stephen T.
Banko Daniel Cassidy Fawzia Afzal-Khan Jeff Taylor John Ross Greg Moses Laura Carlsen Justin E.H.
Smith Brian Cloughley Anthony Papa Mike Ferner Jerry Tucker Jane Goodall / Rick Asselta Phyllis Pollack Poets' Basement
June 30, 2006 Marjorie Cohn Heather Williams Burbach / Cantor Nick Dearden Michael J.
Smith Brian Concannon Virginia Tilley
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
Marjorie Cohn Benjamin /
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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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Weekend
Edition Israeli DemonacracyThe Power of EvilBy WILLIAM A. COOK Nothing so graphically illustrates the dilemma facing the United States and the United Nations as the catastrophic collapse of negotiations that failed in Italy when America found itself standing alone before the entire world, nakedly defending the defiant state of Israel as it demolishes Lebanon. While the remainder of the world castigated Israel for pulverizing the people of Lebanon in retaliation for the acts of a few Hezbollah guerillas, the state of Israel cried that it had to defend itself against the onslaught of missiles from this terrorist organization that has vowed to wipe Israel off the map. Rather than demand that Israel agree to an immediate cease fire, the Bush administration rallied behind Israel to demand that the UN force Syria to abide by Resolution 1559 and rid Lebanon of Hezbollah. Here's the double edged dilemma: how does America force the UN to consider a resolution on behalf of Israel and deny Hezbollah and Hamas the right to ask the UN to raise all 65 UN resolutions that Israel has defied since 1948? And how does the United States support Israel's right to defend itself when its defense includes not just the land granted to it by the UN in Resolution 188 in 1947, the only true and recognized borders of the state of Israel, but all the land and natural resources it has confiscated from the Palestinian people? For Israel to proclaim that it has a right to defend itself when it occupies another people's land illegally, when it continues to construct more than 60 new settlements on confiscated land since March of 2001, when it demolishes more than 4,170 Palestinian homes, when it defies more than 65 UN Resolutions calling for return of stolen land and a return to human rights, when it denies the right of return to those forced from their homes against international law, when it imprisons 9,599 Palestinians including women and children without charge or due rights, when it kills 734 Palestinian children since September 2000, when it ignores the rulings of the International Court of Justice regarding the illegality of the Wall of Lamentation, when it has amassed a military force that has in excess of two million four hundred thousand fit for military service, when it alone of all the nations in the mid-east possesses nuclear weapons, when it utilizes illegal chemical weapons of war on civilians as it does in Lebanon, when it presents itself to the international community as a victim of terrorists when in fact it is the perpetrator of terrorism, then it has no right to defend the indefensible, its criminal acts against the people of the mid-east. This is the Israeli state of demonocracy, a state in which evil rules. Consider as well the defiant
hypocrisy of the Israeli state that condemns Hamas and Hezbollah
for sins it inflicts on Palestinians and Lebanese. Olmert and
his ministers argue that both Hamas and Hezbollah are committed
to the destruction of Israel, that, indeed, their very existence
rests on "wiping Israel from the face of the map."
Yet no one mentions that four of the Israeli political parties
launching candidates for the Knesset have platforms that call
for the removal of Arabs from the land that, according to their
twisted logic, belongs to Israel by historical right. No one
mentions that Israel has already used ethnic cleansing to force
Palestinians off their land, confined them behind a wall that
steals their land and olive groves, refused the right of return
to those forced from their homes, and created apartheid laws
that prevent them from owning their own land. No one mentions
that the current map of Israel obliterates the 45% of land provided
for the Evil confers intensity; it allows a state to confer on itself acceptance of an inscrutable purpose that mirrors its sick desires to hide its own insecurity. Such is the condition of the state of Israel as it mercilessly pounds the Lebanese people into oblivion, wantonly destroying apartment buildings, businesses, bridges, roads, airports, communication centers, generating plants, and the people as they attempt to flee the barbaric onslaught of the Israeli IDF. All of this brutality appears acceptable in the minds of Olmert and his Zionist fanatics to force the return of two Israeli soldiers captured by Hezbollah guerillas as prisoners of the occupying power that confiscated their Shaba farmlands in Syria three decades ago. Now with approximately 600 Lebanese dead, with more than 50 Israeli dead, with thousands made homeless, the insane intensity of Olmert's drive into Lebanon demonstrates to the entire world what Israel has inflicted on the Palestinians these past 60 years but has managed to hide from the glare of TV cameras. The "civilized" state of Israel, like all imperialist ventures that cycle through human history, conceals its brutality as philanthropy noting it is destroying the evil of "terrorism" for the ultimate benefit of the world communities. Such hubris. Here is how Joseph Conrad described this phenomenon in "Autocracy and War" in 1905: "The idea of ceasing to grow in territory, in strength, in wealth, in influence in anything but wisdom and self-knowledge - is odious to them as the omen of the end. Action, in which is to be found the illusion of a mastered destiny, can alone satisfy our uneasy vanity and lay to rest the haunting fear of the future" That self-knowledge is the fear that suppresses their insecurity as they fail to find harmony with their neighbors because ultimately they seek to dominate them and confiscate their land. But history, especially that in the middle-east, demonstrates the folly and futility of the Zionist dream, the "greater Israel" of the covenant, that has no more chance of reaching fulfillment than the aspirations of the Roman emperors that destroyed the Jewish kingdom and dispersed its population throughout the world. Israel's devastation of Lebanon graphically demonstrates a savage mentality dressed in pin striped suits and combat fatigues. Evil, especially state evil, finds nourishment in self-delusion that feeds on visions of superiority cultured in ancient myths that have not been allowed to atrophy despite reason and historical events. Both Sharon's Israel (and now Olmert's) and Bush's America feast on such delusions as they are fed "truth" by the ministers of superstition in the Zionist cults in Israel and the right-wing evangelicals in America. That the people of Lebanon must suffer the outrages of these demented minds only illustrates what uncontrolled power can inflict on the innocent. Consider the enormity of the delusion: by instilling fear in the minds of their followers that God speaks through them, proclaiming that the existence of Israel is essential to the fulfillment of "end time" prophecy, that thousands must die to enable His truth to manifest itself, that the horrors of technologically sophisticated warfare mirror the images in the Book of Revelation, that despite hundreds of predictions over the centuries that Armageddon was imminent though it never came, they not only command obedience, they extol the savagery in Lebanon and mock the voices that dissent in the name of Jesus and his teachings to "love one another and thy enemy as thyself." Such men belong in jail not in our houses of worship. Evil knows no morality; it savors no regard for the weak or oppressed; it admits no rights but those it imposes; it condemns those who dissent without regard for evidence or truth; it denies all wrongdoing since its actions alone determine right; it feels no shame; it accepts no blame; it pleads innocence, seeks to cloak itself in the victim's stripes, and curses those who condemn its crimes. Franz Kafka presented a vicious portrayal of such a country in "The Penal Colony." Considered as a metaphor for Israel today, ironically since Kafka wrote from the vantage point of being a Jew, the "Officer" and executioner delighted in describing the virtues of his state's torture machine as it inscribed on the victim's skin his crime, and in the duration of its agonizing process the victim learned what he was guilty of, though, until that moment of recognition as the steel spikes carved his sentence on his back, he had never been charged with a crime. Kafka knew the consequences of being a Jew in a world without compassion. Thus it is in today's Israel; the state, in the figure of its Prime Minister, determines what is right, what is a crime, and who is guilty; there is no need for due rights whether of an individual or a state like Lebanon. Israel alone determines what terrorism is, it alone defies international law and the UN resolutions with impunity, it alone chooses the words that will describe its actions determining for the world community how it is to understand Israel's actions. And so it is in the Penal Colony. All live in fear of the executioner, both the colonists and the occupied. So long as that fear can be maintained, so long can the Colony survive under its brutal regime. But time catches up with the Penal Colony. An outsider is brought in to witness how it operates and how it executes its "civilized" approach to management of the colony. The witness listens to the detailed explanation of the Officer as he justifies the policies and procedures of the Penal Colony, but he marks the Medieval and barbaric reality of the colony and its treatment of its citizens and those it condemns to execution. Kafka notes with remarkable insight and wisdom that the state will not change until it accepts its own guilt, until it comprehends that its behavior rests on principles that are corrosive to human kind, blind to the reality of human equality, and self-destructive because built on superstition and fear. Once that recognition comes, the Officer and executioner mounts the torture machine and straps himself in its bed. And as the machine begins to run, the witness watches the spikes inscribe the sentence on his back, "Be Just." Evil exists in the delusion that grows from ignorance and alienation, necessary ingredients in a state of demonocracy. Peace is possible when openness proliferates and people remove the barriers that isolate and separate them from each other. William Cook is a professor of English at the University of La Verne in southern California and author of Tracking Depception: Bush's Mideast Policy He can be reached at: cookb@ULV.EDU
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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.                    |
