Wars
of the Laptop Bombers
Today's
Stories
February 15,
2005
Paul Craig
Roberts
The
American Job Sell Out
February 14,
2005
Robert Jensen
Ward
Churchill: Right to Speak Out; Right About 9/11
Brian Cloughley
Kuwait's Freedom, Bush-style
Patrick Cockburn
Outcome
of the Iraqi Elections: Shortages, Corruption, Guerrilla War
Gary Leupp
Post-election Iraq: What Next?
Michael Donnelly
Sacred Nature: Just Another Commodity?
Dave Lindorff
When Bush Came to My Neighborhood
Elaine Cassel
The
Lynne Stewart Verdict
February 12
/ 13, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
Ward
Churchill's Genes
Saul Landau
Alarcon
Speaks: an Interview with the Vice President of Cuba
Paul Craig
Roberts
Nothing
to Fear But Bush Himself
Patrick Cockburn
Two Years After the Fall of Saddam, the Resistance Controls All
Major Roads into Baghdad
John Feffer
Bush
v. N. Korea: Round Two
Mickey Z.
Right to Remain Silent; Duty to Speak
Kurt Nimmo
Viva la Cucaracha!
Fred Gardner
Waiting for Raich
Dave Zirin
Fighting the New Republic(ans)
John Chuckman
Hiroshima, Mon Amour
Ben Tripp
A Leftist on the Bush Payroll
Carol Norris
"Buddy, Can You Spare a Dwarf?"
Robert Fisk
No Middle East Peace Without Justice
Frank / Chowkwanyun
Muzzled Activist in an Age of Terror: the Case of Sherman Austin
Mike Whitney
Condi's Euro Tour
Deborah Frisch
A Psychologist's Defense of Ward Churchill
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Reading Khomeini in Colorado
Christine TenBarge
What's So Special About Ward?
Ron Jacobs
Curtis Mayfield's Train to Jordan
Dr. Susan Block
Chemistry of Love: a Valentine's Greeting
Poets' Basement
Louise, Smith-Ferri, Ford and Albert
Website of the Weekend
Free Sherman
February 11,
20055
Manuel Garcia,
Jr
The
Eight Percent War
Kurt Nimmo
Ann
Coulter's Racism: Where's Geronimo When You Really Need
Him?
Dave Lindorff
Guckert
or Gannon? The Perfect Plant; He Fit Right In
Larry Birns
War is Peace; Slavery is Freedom: Democracy According to Elliott
Abrams
Bill Quigley
Twenty Questions: a Social Justice Quiz
Tom Barry
Bush's State of Delusion
Jennifer Van
Bergen
Lynne
Stewart's Conviction Hurts Us All
February 10,
2005
Dave Lindorff
What
Academic Freedom?
Christopher Brauchli
The Love of Slaughter: From Rwanda to Iraq
Patrick Cockburn
In Baghdad, It's Easy to Get Killed
Nicole Colson
Have the Democrats Surrendered on Abortion Rights?
Suzan Mazur
More
on the Assassination of Lumumba from Mr. Garsin of Kinshasha
Michael Donnelly
Salvaging an Opposition
Mike Stark
Driving Ossie Davis: "Give Them a Little Truth, a Little
Hope"
Greg Moses
Taking
Jesus Back from the Hijackers
Website of
the Day
The Missionary Positions
February 9,
2005
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Duck
and Cover Redux: Bunker Busters and City Levellers
Mickey Z.
What Ward Churchill Didn't Say
John Ross
Hecho
en Mexico: the Iraqi Election
Tom Barry
Ambassador of Lies: Elliott Abrams, the Neocon's Neocon
Conn Hallinan
The
Coup in Nepal: Nursing the Pinion
Patrick Cockburn
Sistani's Vision for Iraq: Cricket is Fine, But Chess is "Absolutely
Forbidden"
Steen Sohn
Danish PM Says It's OK for Israel to Violate UN Resolutions
Tim Wise
Reflections on Empire and Uppity Indians
Website of
the Day
Support Antiwar.com
February 8,
2005
Patrick Cockburn
Shia/Kurd
Coalition to Dominate New Iraqi Govt.: "It's an Electoral
Pact, Not a Party"
Brian Cloughley
Out
of the Mouths of Generals: "It's Fun to Shoot Some People"
Steve Breyman
Against the Selfishness of the "Ownership Society"
Harry Browne
"Don't
Get on that Plane!": Soldiers Seek Asylum in Ireland
Doug Giebel
"We Love Free Speech in America": the People, the President
and Ward Churchill
Nate Collins
The Censorship of Ward Churchill and Dancehall Reggae: It's the
Same Beast
Dave Lindorff
It's Time for a Labor-Oriented Newspaper
David Smith-Ferri
Sanctions and the Health Crisis in Iraq
February 7,
2005
Paul Craig
Roberts
Bush's
War on Jobs
Carolyn Baker
The New McCarthyism on Campus: Churchill and the Attack on Higher
Ed
Joshua Frank
Marc Cooper's Hit List: First Mumia; Now Ward Churchill
Mickey Z.
Warning: More Hate Speech from W. Churchill
Patrick Cockburn
The
Kidnapping Gangs of Iraq
Mike Whitney
Tom Friedman: Scribe for New Age Imperialism
Stacie Jonas
Pinochet: Fit to be Tried
Dave Zirin
A Miserable Super Sunday: Clinton, Bush and the FBI
Tariq Ali
Imperial
Delusions
February 5
/ 6, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
Ward
Churchill and the Mad Dogs
Kurt Nimmo
A Ward Churchill Kind of Day
Joshua Frank
Liberals Trash Ward Churchill
P. Sainath
Mumbai's Man-Made Tsunami
Patrick Cockburn
Sistani's Triumph; Allawi's Bust
Laura Carlsen
Bush, Rice and Latin America
Dave Lindorff
How the NYT Killed the Bush Bulge Story
Pamela Olson
West Bank Story
Behzad Yaghmaian
The Future of Sudanese Refugees in the West
Saul Landau / Farrah Hassen
A Threatened UN in King George's Court
Roger Burbach
World Social Forum: a Tale of Two Presidents
Robert Fisk
History by Laptop
David Swanson
James Forman and the Liberal-Labor Syndrome
Justin E.H. Smith
Gay Marriage: a Report from Canada
Cacie Hart
The "State" of the Union: More War and a Ban on Love
Ron Jacobs
Chairman Bob Avakian: a Revolutionary Life
Mickey Z.
Viewing America from the Outside
Ben Tripp
Republican Heroes: a New Breed of Good Guy
Ben Sonnenberg
France at the End of the Devil's Decade: Renoir's Rules of the
Game
Poets' Basement
Smith-Ferri, Davies, Collins, & Albert
Website of
the Weekend
John Trudell: How to Earn a 17,000 Page FBI File
February 4,
2005
Brian Cloughley
The
Army Symphonist: "Sometimes the Only Way to Change the Behavior
of Someone Like That is to Kill Them"
Bill Christison
Election
Parallels: Vietnam, 1967; Iraq, 2005
Elaine Cassel
Did Zoloft Make Him Do It?
Jacob Levich
Chomsky and the Draft
Kanak Mani Dixit
Return of the Royalists in Nepal
Ron Jacobs
The
Downward Spiral in Iraq
February 3,
2005
Ward Churchill
On
the Injustice of Getting Smeared: a Campaign of Fabrications
and Gross Distortions
Sharon Smith
Resisting
Soldiers Need Our Support
Mickey Z.
Leslie
Gelb Asks Iraq: Who's Your Daddy?
Mike Whitney
President of Alienation: a Desperate State of the Union
Jenna Orkin
9/11 the Sequel: the Toxic State of Lower Manhattan
Saul Landau
Elections Won't Prevent Civil War in Iraq
Yitzhak Laor
Strange is the Silence
Dave Lindorff
The
Assault on Social Security: a New Campaign of Lies
February 2,
2005
David Domke
/ Kevin Coe
Bush's
Brand of Christianity
Noam Chomsky
Iraq
After the Elections
M. Shahid Alam
O'Reilly's
Fatwah on "Un-American" Professors: FoxNews Puts Me
in Its Crosshairs
Richard Oxman
Ringing in 1984 with Ward Churchill and Derrick Jensen
Joshua Frank
The Suckering of Howard Dean
Dave Lindorff
A History Lesson from the NYT
Nina Hartley
Feminists for Porn
Website of the Day
War is a Racket
February 1,
2005
Joshua L. Dratel
The
Torture Memos
Patrick Cockburn
New Doubts About Allawi
Robert Fisk
"The Only Decent Food We Get is at Funerals"
Uri Avnery
The Stalemate
Col. Dan Smith
"W" Stands for Withdrawal
Alison Weir
Making America as "Secure" as Israel
Alan Farago
Heaven and Hell in the Everglades
Ray Hanania
Low Voter Turnout of Iraqi Expatriates: Less Than 10% of Qualified
Voters
Paul Craig
Roberts
American
Police State
Website of the Day
Statisticians Refute Official Rationale for Exit Poll Errors
January 31,
2005
Dave Zirin
Mr.
Frank's Fatwah: New Republic Writer Calls for Death & Torture
of Arundhati Roy and Stan Goff
Robert Fisk
Amid
Tragedy, Defiance
Chyng Sun
Gonzales: Chief Prosecutor of Porn?
Greg Moses
The Real Scandals of the Texas Election
Mike Whitney
Cheney at Auschwitz
Ali Tonak
Turkey and the EU: Fantasies and Ultimatums
Patrick Cockburn
A
Victory for the Shia
Website of
the Day
Voting by the Script: Where Did the 8 Million Voter Turnout Figure
Come From?
January 29
/ 30, 2005
Manuel Yang
/ Peter Linebaugh
A
Dialogue About Murder in Toledo
Gabriel Kolko
Wilsonian
and Neoconservative Myths
Patrick Cockburn
Baghdad: City of Empty Streets
Robert Fisk
This Election Will Change the World, But Not as the US Wanted
Linn Washington,
Jr.
Con Job: Bush Pledges on Racism Lack Realism
Bernard Chazelle
Why the Children of Iraq Make No Sound When They Fall
Gary Leupp
"This Kind of Subject Matter": Bush's New Ed Secretary
vs. Vermont's Lesbians
JoAnn Wypijewski
The Passion of Paul Shanley
Alexander Cockburn
The Case of Father Jerry
Ron Jacobs
Ballot of the Puppets in Iraq
Brian Cloughley
Smart Bombs; Wrong House: Iraq's Civilian Dead
Fred Gardner
Peron May Split
Sister Dianna
Ortiz
Memo to Bush from a Survivor of the Guatemalan Torturers: Stop
the Torture!
Tom Reeves
How Bush Brings Freedom to the World: the Case of Haiti
Fran Quigley
Report: Haiti Now "More Violent and More Inhuman"
Suzan Mazur
"Mr. Garsin from Kinshasa": an Old Hand Weighs In on
the Murder of Lumumba
Kurt Nimmo
Condi Rice and the Neocon Plan for the Palestinians
Lenni Brenner
Holocaust History: Beyond the UN's Rhetoric
Gilad Atzmon
The
Politics of Auschwitz
Luis Gomez
Power and Autonomy in Bolivia
Mark Gaffney
NASA Searches for a Snowball in Hell: Why Velikovsky Matters
Ben Tripp
Lament of the Mnemonopath
Richard Oxman
Meet the Fuqers
Poets' Basement
Louise, Collins, Shanahan and Albert
Website of
the Weekend
Chemical Industry: Deceit and Denial
January 28,
2005
Rachard Itani
Tsunami
Aid By the Numbers: the US Really is a Miser
Jensen / Youngblood
Iraq's
Non-Election
Patrick Cockburn / Elizabeth
Davies
Attacks on Polling Places Leave 13 Dead
Dave Zirin
The Great Donovan McNabb: Proud "Black Quarterback"
Dave Lindorff
Suicide by State Execution?
Karyn Strickler
A Corporate Death Penalty Act?
Jorge Mariscal
Fighting
the Poverty Draft
January 27,
2005
Seymour Hersh
We've
Been Taken Over By a Cult
Cockburn /
Sengupta
The
US's Bloodiest Day in Iraq
Dave Lindorff
Juke Box Journalism: Shilling for Bush
Ignacio Chapela
/ John F. García
The Laws of Nature
Mike Whitney
The Widening Chasm Among Conservatives
Dr. Teresa
Whitehurst
Those Liberal Southern Baptists!
Ray McGovern
Reining In Cheney
Russ Wellen
Marginalizing Bin Laden
Christopher
Brauchli
The
FBI's Carnival of Errors
Website of
the Day
Informed Eating
January 26,
2005
Saree Makdisi
An
Iron Wall of Colonization: Fantasies and Realities About the
Prospects for Middle East Peace
Scott Fleming
In Good Conscience: an Interview with Concientious Objector Aidan
Delgado
Dave Lindorff
Filling Saddam's Shoes: the Puppet Regime Return's to Torture
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Salazar and Obama: Two Dismal Debuts
Toni Solo
The
US and Latin America: a Not-So-Magical Reality
William James Martin
Condoleezza Rice: Confused About the Middle East
William A.
Cook
Bush's Second Inaugural Address: the Lost Ur-Version
Eric Hobsbawm
Delusions
About Democracy
Alexander Cockburn
The CIA's New Campus Spies
January 25,
2005
Brian Cloughley
Iraq
as Disneyland
Mike Roselle
Satan is My Co-Pilot
Josh Frank
/ Merlin Chowkwanyun
The War on Civil Liberties
John Chuckman
Freedom on Steroids
Paul Craig
Roberts
A
Party Without Virtue
Dr. Teresa
Whitehurst
The
Intolerance of Christian Conservatives
James Petras
The
US / Colombia Plot Against Venezuela
Website of the Day
Lowbaggers for the Environment
January 24,
2005
Fred Gardner
Last
Monologue in Burbank
Lori Berenson
On the Politicization of My Case
Uri Avnery
King
George
January 22
/ 23, 2005
Jennifer Van
Bergen / Ray Del Papa
Nuclear
Incident in Montana
Alexander Cockburn
Prince
Harry's Travails
Jeffrey St. Clair
The Company That Runs the Empire: Lockheed and Loaded
Stan Goff
The Spectacle
Saul Landau
Nothing Succeeds Like Failure
Gary Leupp
Official Madness and the Coming War on Iran
Fred Gardner
Is GW Getting the Runaround?
Phil Gasper
Clemency Denied: the Politics of Death in California
Stanley Heller
A Kill-Happy Government: Connecticut Chooses Death
Greg Moses
The Heart of Texas: an Inauguration Day Betrayal on Civil Rights
Justin Taylor
The Folk-Histories of John Ross
Daniel Burton-Rose
One China; Many Problems
Elaine Cassel
Try a Little Tyranny: Questions While Watching the Inaugural
Mike Whitney
Failing Upwards: the Rise of Michael Chertoff
Mark L. Berenson
My Daughter Has Been Wrongly Imprisoned
Christopher
Brauchli
It Doesn't Compute: a $170 Million Mistake
Gilad Atzmon
Zionism and Other Marginal Thoughts
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Day of the Rats
Mark Donham
The Secret Messages of Rahm Emmanuel
Ben Tripp
Adventures in Online Dating
Walter Brasch
Hollywood's Patriots: Soulless Kooks, Mr. Bush?
Poets' Basement
Wuest, Landau, Ford, Albert & Drum
January 21,
2005
Dave Lindorff
A
Great American Journalist:
John L. Hess (1917-2005)
Sharon Smith
The
Anti-War Movement and the Iraqi Resistance
Don Santina
Baseball, Racism and Steroid Hysteria
Ron Jacobs
Locked Out and Pissed Off: Protesting the Bush Inauguration
Kurt Nimmo
The Problem with Mike Ruppert
Don Monkerud
Once They Were Cults: Bush's Faith-Based Social Services
Alan Farago
Swimming Home from the Galapagos
Derek Seidman
An
Interview with Army Medic and Anti-War Activist Patrick Resta
January 20,
2005
Paul Craig
Roberts
Dying
for Sycophants
William Cook
The
Bush Inauguration: A Mock Epic Fertility Rite
Joshua Frank
The Democrats and Iran: Look Who's Backing Bush's Next
Eric Ruder
Why Andres Raya Snapped: Another Casualty of Bush's War
Mike Whitney
Coronation in a Garrison State
Robert Jensen
A Citizens Oath of Office
Peter Rost
Bush Report on Drug Imports: Good Data, Bad Conclusions
David Underhill
Is It Torture Yet?: the Eclectic Fool Aid Torture Test
James Reiss
Adieu, Colin Powell: Pea Soup in Foggy Bottom
CounterPunch
Staff
Voices
from Abu Ghraib: the Injured Party
January 19,
2005
Marta Russell
Social
Security Privatization & Disability: 8 Million at Risk
Mike Ferner
Marines
Stretching Movement: Protesting Urban Warfare in Toledo
Nancy Oden
The
Nuremberg Principles, Iraq and Torture
Tony Paterson
A Catalogue of British Abuses in Iraq
Dave Lindorff
Bush's Divide-and-Conquer Plan to Destroy Social Security
Doug Giebel
BS and CBS: When 60 Minutes Helped Promote WMD Fantasies
Alexander Cockburn
Will
Bush Quit Iraq?
January 18,
2005
Paul Craig
Roberts
How
Americans Were Seduced by War: Empire and Militant Christianity
Jennifer Van
Bergen
Federal
Judge: Abu Ghraib Abuses Result of Decision to Ignore Geneva
Conventions
Douglas Lummis
It's a No Brainer; Send Graner: a Rap for Our Time
Ron Jacobs
Syria Back in the Crosshairs?
Seth DeLong
Enter the Dragon: Will Washington Tolerate a Venezuelan-Chinese
Oil Pact?
Lance Selfa
Stolen Election?: Most Democrats Didn't Even Bother to Inquire
Paul D. Johnson
Mystery Meat: a Right-to-Know About Food Origins
Elisa Salasin
An Open Letter to Jenna Bush, Future Teacher
January 17,
2005
Heather Gray
Misconceptions
About King's Methods for Social Change
Robert Fisk
Hotel Room Journalism: the US Press in Iraq
Dave Lindorff
What the NYT Death Chart Omitted: Civilians Slaughtered by US
Military
Jason Leopold
Sam Bodman's Smokestacks: Bush's Choice for Energy Czar is One
of Texas's Worst Polluters
Gary Leupp
A Message from the Iraqi Resistance
Douglas Valentine
An Act of State? the Execution of Martin Luther King
Harvey Arden
Welcome to Leavenworth: My First Encounter with Leonard Peltier
Greg Moses
King
and the Christian Left: Where Lip Service is Not an Option
January 15
/ 16, 2005
James Petras
The
Kidnapping of a Revolutionary
Robert Fisk
Flying Carpet Airlines: My Return to Baghdad
Ron Jacobs
Unfit for Military Service
Brian Cloughley
Smack Daddies of the Hindu Kush: Afghanistan's Drug Bonanza
Fred Gardner
The Allowable-Quantity Expert
Dr. Susan Block
The Counter-Inaugural Ball: Eros Day, 2005
John Ross
Zapatista Literary Llife
Suzan Mazur
Unspooking Frank Carlucci
M. Shahid Alam
America's New Civilizing Mission
Frederick B. Hudson
Jack Johnson's Real Opponent: "That I Was a Man"
Mike Whitney
Bush's Grand Plan: Incite Civil War in Iraq
Tom Crumpacker
A Constitutional Right to Travel to Cuba
Bob Burton
The Other Armstrong Williams Scandal
John Callender
La Conchita and the Indomitable 82-Year Old
Lila Rajiva
Christian Zionism
Saul Landau
An Imperial Portrait: a Visit to Hearst's Castle
Doug Soderstrom
A Touch of Evil: the Morality of Neoconservatism
Poets' Basement
Davies, Louise, Landau, Albert, Collins and Laymon
January 14,
2005
Robert Fisk
"The
Tent of Occupation"
Lee Sustar
Bush's Social Security Con Job
José
M. Tirado
The Christians I Know
Dave Zirin
The Legacy of Jack Johnson
Sheldon Rampton
Calling John Rendon: a True Tale of "Military Intelligence"
Tracy McLellan
Under the Influence
Yves Engler
The Dictatorship of Debt: the World Bank and Haiti
Tom Barry
Robert
Zoellick: a Bush Family Man
Website of
the Day
Ryan for the Nobel Prize?
January 13,
2005
Mark Chmiel
/ Andrew Wimmer
Hearts
and Minds, Revisited
Joe DeRaymond
The Salvador Option: Terror,
Elections and Democracy
Greg Moses
Every Hero a Killer?...Not
Dave Lindorff
The Great WMD Fraud: Time for an Accounting
Jorge Mariscal
Dr. Galarza v. Alberto Gonzales: Which Way for Latinos?
Christopher Brauchli
Gonzales and the Death Penalty: the Executioner Never Sleeps
Gary Leupp
"Fighting
for the Work of the Lord": Christian Fascism in America
January 12,
2005
Robert Fisk
Fear
Stalks Baghdad
Josh Frank
The
Farce of the DNC Contest
Jack Random
Casualties
of War: the Untold Stories
John Roosa
Aceh's Dual Disasters: the Tsunami and Military Rule
Carol Norris
In the Wake of the Tsunami
Mike Whitney
Pink Slips at CBS
Alan Farago
Can
the Everglades be Saved?
Paul Craig
Roberts
What's
Our Biggest Problem in Iraq...the Insurgency or Bush?
January 11,
2005
Tom Barry
The
US isn't "Stingy"; It's Strategic: Aid as a Weapon
of Foreign Policy
James Hodge
and Linda Cooper
Voice
of the Voiceless: Father Roy Bourgeois and the School of the
the Americas
Linda S. Heard
Farah Radio Break Down: Joseph Farah's Messages of Hate and Homophobia
Derrick O'Keefe
Electoral Gigolo?: Richard Gere and the Occupied Vote
Gila Svirsky
A Tale of Two Elections
Harry Browne
Irish
"Peace Process", RIP
January 10,
2005
Ramzy Baroud
Faith-Based
Disasters: Tsunami Aid and War Costs
Talli Nauman
Killing
Journalists: Mexico's War on a Free Press
Uri Avnery
Sharon's Monologue
Dave Lindorff
Tucker
Carlson's Idiot Wind
Dave Zirin
Randy
Moss's Moondance
Dave Silver
Left Illusions About the Democratic Party
Charles Demers
Plan Salvador for Iraq: Death Squads Come in Waves
William A.
Cook
Causes
and Consequences: Bush, Osama and Israel
January 8 /
9, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
Say,
Waiter, Where's the Blood in My Margarita Glass?
John H. Summers
Chomsky
and Academic History
Greg Moses
Getting Real About the Draft
Walter A. Davis
Bible Says: the Psychology of Christian Fundamentalism
Victor Kattan
The EU and Middle East Peace
John Bolender
The Plight of Iraq's Mandeans
Robert Fisk
The Politics of Lebanon
Fred Gardner
Situation NORML
Joe Bageant
The Politics of the Comfort Zone
Mickey Z.
I Want My DDT: Little Nicky Kristof Bugs Out
Ben Tripp
CounterClockwise Evolution
Ron Jacobs
Elvis and His Truck: Out on Highway 61
Saul Landau
Sex
and the Country
Rep. Cynthia McKinney
Time to End the Blackout
Ellen Cantarow
NPR's Distortions on Palestine
Richard Oxman
Bageantry Continued
Poets' Basement
Gaffney, Landau, Albert, Collins
January 7,
2005
Omar Barghouti
Slave
Sovereignty: Elections Under Occupation
Kent Paterson
The Framing of Felipe Arreaga: Another Mexican Environmentalist
Arrested
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Old
Vijay Merchant and the Tsunami
David Krieger
Cancel the Inauguration Parties
Gideon Levy
New Year, Old Story
Dave Lindorff
Ohio Protest: First Shot Fired by Congressional Progressives
Christopher
Brauchli
Privatizing the IRS
Roger Burbach
/ Paul Cantor
Bush,
the Pentagon and the Tsunami
January 6,
2005
Brian J. Foley
Gonzales:
Supporting Torture is not His Greatest Sin
Greg Moses
Boot
Up America!: Gen. Helmly's Memo Leaks New Bush Deal
Petras / Chomsky
An
Open Letter to Hugo Chavez
Alan Maass
The Decline of the Dollar
Dave Lindorff
Colin Powell's Selective Sense of Horror
Jenna Orkin
The EPA and a Dirty Bomb: 9/11's Disastrous Precedent
P. Sainath
The
Tsunami and India's Coastal Poor
January 5,
2005
Alan Farago
2004:
An Environmental Retrospective
Winslow T.
Wheeler
Oversight
Detected?: Sen. McCain and the Boeing Tanker Scam
Jean-Guy Allard
Gary Webb: a Cuban Perspective
Fred Gardner
Strutting, Smirking, As If The Mad Plan Was Working
David Swanson
Albert Parsons on the Gallows
Richard Oxman
The Joe Bageant Interview
Bruce Jackson
Death
on the Living Room Floor
January 4,
2005
Michael Ortiz
Hill
Mainlining
Apocalypse
Elaine Cassel
They
Say They Can Lock You Up for Life Without a Trial
Yoram Gat
The
Year in Torture
Martin Khor
Tragic
Tales and Urgent Tasks from the Tsunami Disaster
Gary Leupp
Death
and Life in the Andaman Islands
January 3,
2005
Ron Jacobs
The
War Hits Home
Dave Lindorff
Is
There a Single Senator Who Will Stand Up for Black Voters?
Mike Whitney
The Guantanamo Gulag
Joshua Frank
Greens and Republicans: Strange Bedfellows
Maria Tomchick
Playing Politics with Disaster Aid
Rhoda and Mark
Berenson
Our Daughter Lori: Another Year of Grave Injustice
David Swanson
The Media and the Ohio Recount
Kathleen Christison
Patronizing
the Palestinians
January 1 /
2, 2005
Gary Leupp
Earthquakes
and End Times, Past and Present
Rev. William
E. Alberts
On "Moral Values": Code Words for Emerging Authoritarian
Tendencies
M. Shahid Alam
Testing Free Speech in America
Stan Goff
A Period for Pedagogy
Brian Cloughley
Bush and the Tsunami: the Petty and the Petulant
Sylvia Tiwon
/ Ben Terrall
The Aftermath in Aceh
Ben Tripp
Requiem for 2004
Greg Moses
A Visible Future?
Steven Sherman
The 2004 Said Awards: Books Against Empire
Sean Donahue
The Erotics of Nonviolence
James T. Phillips
The Beast's Belly
David Krieger
When Will We Ever Learn
Poets' Basement
Soderstrom, Hamod, Louise and Albert
December 23,
2004
Chad Nagle
Report
from Kiev: Yushchenko's Not Quite Ready for Sainthood
David Smith-Ferri
The
Real UN Disgrace in Iraq
Bill Quigley
Death
Watch for Human Rights in Haiti
Mickey Z.
Crumbs
from Our Table
Christopher Brauchli
Merck's Merry X-mas
Greg Moses
When
No Law Means No Law
Alan Singer
An
Encounter with Sen. Schumer: a Very Dangerous Democrat
David Price
Social
Security Pump and Dump
Website of the Day
Gabbo Gets Laid
December 22,
2004
James Petras
An
Open Letter to Saramago: Nobel Laureate Suffers from a Bizarre
Historical Amnesia
Omar Barghouti
The Case for Boycotting Israel
Patrick Cockburn / Jeremy Redmond
They Were Waiting on Chicken Tenders When the Rounds Hit
Harry Browne
Northern Ireland: No Postcards from the Edge
Richard Oxman
On the Seventh Column
Kathleen Christison
Imagining
Palestine
Website of the Day
FBI Torture Memos
December 21,
2004
Greg Moses
The
New Zeus on the Block: Unplugging Al-Manar TV
Dave Lindorff
Losing
It in America: Bunker of the Skittish
Chad Nagle
The View from Donetsk
Dragon Pierces
Truth*
Concrete
Colossus vs. the River Dragon: Dislocation and Three Gorges Dam
Patrick Cockburn
"Things Always Get Worse"
Seth DeLong
Aiding Oppression in Haiti
Ahmad Faruqui
Pakistan and the 9/11 Commission's Report
Paul Craig
Roberts
America
Locked Up: a System of Injustice
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,
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February 15, 2005
So Says NYT, Citing CounterPunch
Dean
a "Safe" Moderate
By
CounterPunch News Service
Today NYT columnist Paul Krugman strenuously
rebuts charges that Howard Dean is a man of the left, as charged
by The Economist and the Clinton gang. Krugman writes:
It was always absurd to call
Mr. Dean a left-winger. Just ask the real left-wingers. During
his presidential campaign, an article in the muckraking newsletter
CounterPunch denounced him as a "Clintonesque Republicrat,"
someone who, as governor, tried "to balance the budget,
even though Vermont is a state in which a balanced budget is
not required."
The CounterPunch piece Krugman
was citing ran on this cite on August 29, 2003, when Howard Dean
appeared to be surging towards nomination by the Democrats as
their presidential candidate. Here's what CounterPuncher Ron
Jacobs and other Vermonters had to say. Take a look at the new
face at the DNC. Looks pretty old to us.
Howard Dean:
the Progressive Anti-War Candidate?
Some Vermonters
Give Their Views
By DONNA BISTER, MARC ESTRIN
and RON JACOBS
(The Editorial Collective of the Old North End RAG)
Howard Dean the liberal, anti-war
candidate? The laughter rings most loudly in Vermont.
As Dean's candidacy caught
fire over the summer, a number of articles have appeared on
the net examining his history and current stance on important
national and international issues. They all point to a Clintonesque
Republicrat whose stances are not far from that of the current
administration.
Foreign
Policy
Although he publicly opposed
attacking Iraq -- a smart political move setting him apart from
the other Democratic candidates -- Dean recently declared in
a Washington Post interview that he is now opposed to a pullout
of US troops from Iraq. According to the interview, he now feels
we must stay as a matter of national security, and not allow
another anti-American regime to develop. Of course, events on
the ground seem to indicate that the occupation itself is what
is creating anti-Americanism in Iraq, but most politicians wont
acknowledge that. Deans basic objection to the war was to the
Bush administrations unilateral approach, without UN approval.
But what about Washington-driven wars that are not unilateral?
What if the Security Council were arm-twisted into support?
What about multilateral wars like the war on Iraq in 1991, or
the ones on Yugoslavia and Afghanistan? Plain and simple--Dean
supported them.
Although he would likely be
more sparing in its application, Dean has endorsed the Bush
doctrine of preventive war, saying that he would not rule out
using military force to disarm either North Korea or Iran. Dean
has never voiced an objection to the notion that it is Washington's
prerogative to decide which countries may have nuclear weapons,
or its right to forcefully disarm those who do not do so voluntarily.
In addition, Dean does not support cutting the defense budget,
either for routine military expenditures, now at over one billion
dollars/day, nor the extra supplementary appropriations to support
the Iraq occupation, currently at four billion dollars/month.
Dean's notion about the causes
of anti-US belligerence echoes that of the current administration.
He has gone on record saying as much: "I think our freedom
is what they find so threatening, our freedom and the power
that I think results from that freedom." This analysis
can not honestly address the real issues behind the antagonism
the United States currently incurs, and will consequently require
ever greater military funding to handle the global consequences.
Sounding very much like Bush, Dean has charged that Iran (along
with Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Libya) are "funding Palestinian
terrorists and fueling terrorism throughout the world."
Do we need four more years of this?
When it comes to Israel and
Palestine, Dean thinks the US should become more involved, but
beyond that have no fundamental objections to the Bush administration
policies in the region. He calls for an end to Palestinian violence
against Israeli civilians, but not for a cessation of Israeli
violence against Palestinian, nor an end to the Israeli occupation.
He ignores Israeli defiance of UN Security Council resolutions
and the Geneva Accords, and has been silent concerning withdrawal
from Israel's illegal settlements in the occupied territories
or even concerning a freeze on the new construction. His appointment
of Steven Grossman, a former head of the pro-Israeli lobby AIPAC
and ex-chairman of the DNC, to a top campaign fundraising post
reflects his Zionist stance.
Domestic
Policy
Dean the Democrat continued
to pursue much of the economic agenda established by his Republican
predecessor, Richard Snelling In short, this meant a tepid pro-business
policy under the guise of fiscal conservatism, often at the
expense of social programs serving disadvantaged populations.
"One of my most persistent activities during the early
1990s was trying to fend off the more liberal wing of the Democratic
Party," said Glenn Gershaneck, Dean's press secretary for
nearly four years and Snelling's spokesman for seven months
before that.
Conservative Vermont business
leaders praised Dean's record and his constant effort to balance
the budget, even though Vermont is a state in which a balanced
budget is not required. While other Democrats fought against
Clinton's welfare reform, Dean gave it ardent support. His commitment
to a balanced budget would spare the Pentagon from any cuts.
So how would he reduce the deficit? During his Vermont tenure,
he tried to cut benefits for the aged, blind and disabled, spearheaded
a new workfare state law requiring labor from welfare recipients,
and has talked about moving the retirement age upwards -- some
indication on whose backs his budgets would be balanced.
Dean has recently vocalized
what seems to be politically motivated support of the death
penalty. He told the press after the vents of September 11,
2001: "As governor, I came to believe that the death penalty
would be a just punishment for certain, especially heinous crimes....
The events of September 11 convinced me that terrorists also
deserve the ultimate punishment." In subsequent statements
he even borrowed the phrasing from George Bush: "When someone
gets put to death for a heinous crime, I don't feel the least
bit conflicted about that."
There was a small, but telling,
incident back in 1996, when anti-death penalty protestors who
were in town opposing (the Pennsylvania governor) Tom Ridges
approval of Mumia Abu Jamals execution sprayed FREE MUMIA graffiti
at the Ethan Allen Homestead. The judge ruled, over the prosecutor's
objection, that the defendants could use a "necessity defense",
i.e. to speak of their motivations and analysis of Mumia's situation,
rather than just admit to spraying paint. Dean was disappointed
with that decision. "These guys are a bunch of hoods running
around our streets," Dean commented. "I don't think
this has anything to do with the necessity offense --imported
hoods I might add. People who spray paint and deface public
property are hoodlums not protesters with some higher purpose.
I have no patience for that." Reporter Peter Freyne, now
one of Dean's great supporters, asked his readers at the time
to "Remember [Dean's] the guy who once said 95 percent
of people charged with crimes are guilty anyway so why should
the state spend money on providing them with lawyers?"
Environment
As Governor, Howard Dean endorsed
the National Governors Association policy opposing the Kyoto
Protocol unless it included mandatory emissions cuts for developing
countries, and recommending that the United States "not
sign or ratify any agreement that would result in serious harm
to the U.S. economy." For environmentalists, EP, under
Dean's leadership, came to mean "Expedite Permits",
rather than Environmental Protection. Business leaders were especially
impressed with the way Dean went to bat for them against Vermont's
stringent environmental regulations. For more, read Michael
Colby's excellent review of Dean's environmental misbehavior.
* * *
But these are stories Counterpunch
readers are likely to know. In addition, we'd like to share
with you some details of Howard Dean's eleven-year governorship
more familiar to Vermonters.
Welfare
reform
Under Deans leadership, Vermont
started welfare reform two years before the mandatory federal
program was put in place. Beginning in 1994, one-third of Vermont
applicants for cash assistance were subject to work requirements
similar to those eventually adopted nationally. (Another third
received financial incentives for getting a paying job, and
the rest received standard benefits without incentives or penalties).
Was the plan a success? Well, most welfare recipients (87%)
got jobs on their own during the six years of the Vermont welfare
reform experiment. Cash assistance payments went down, and more
people were working in the robust economy of the mid 1990s.
But according to the official evaluation of the project (published
by the Manpower Development Research Corporation in September
2000), total family incomes did not change -- but families worked
more hours for a total earnings and cash assistance package
averaging less that $12,000 annually.
Howard Dean thinks that's success
-- and it fits his arrogant and ultimately unfair view of welfare
recipients. What is that opinion? Well, in 1993, when defending
his welfare reform proposals during a weekly press conference,
Dean said: "Those recipients don't have any self-esteem.
If they did, they'd be working." While he later apologized
for these callous remarks, his policies remained firmly in the
"they won't work unless they have to" vein. Dean also
used his position as chair of the National Governor's Association
to promote "flexibility" in welfare reform at the
national level--a code word for removing then current federal
minimum standards and protections for recipients of public assistance.
In other words, states could be as mean as they wanted to be
towards those out of work and without income.
Health Care
Howard Dean gives passionate
speeches about universal health care as a moral imperative,
not just a policy initiative. Maybe, somewhere deep in his heart,
he really believes that people have a right to good health care.
But we sure aren't going to get there following the path he
took in Vermont: tiny increments -- adding insurance coverage
for kids in moderate income families one year, cutting back
their benefits and increasing their co-pays and premiums the
next. Adding a prescription drug benefit for low-income seniors,
then cutting many of the most commonly used new drugs out of
the formulary and forcing seniors back onto older medications
with more side effects. His national proposal is similar--not
really universal: it would extend Medicaid to people under 25,
add a little prescription drug coverage to Medicare, tinker
with this, adjust that, don't do anything to upset the insurance
companies or big Pharmaceuticals. Then, when the bill gets big,
he would make the cutbacks in the same incremental fashion.
For example, began by defunding eyeglasses for kids here, dentures
for seniors there. You know, just a few cuts; after all, everyone
has to do his share.
Drug Policy
Howard Dean does not like drugs.
He had a bout with alcohol during his college years that seems
to have left him with the impression that since he couldn't
control his consumption of mood-modifying substances, then neither
could anyone else. Consequently, his governorship was a campaign
against reasonable approaches to substance abuse. Like much
of the US political establishment, liberal and otherwise, Dean
does not seem to believe that humans are capable of the discerning
use of intoxicating substances. Because he does not believe
in such a scenario, the only other option in his bag of tricks
is tougher penalties. He has endorsed fully the National Governors
Association's policy, which calls for increased involvement
of law enforcement and disavows any form of legalization not
only as a policy but also as a philosophy. In short, Dean not
only believes in the war on drug users, but also would like
to see it intensified.
Despite his background in medicine,
Dean has consistently opposed the use of marijuana for medicinal
purposes. Instead, he cites medical studies set up specifically
with the purpose of denying any medicinal properties to marijuana.
In addition, while heroin use has increased in Vermont, Dean
did every thing he could to oppose the introduction of methadone
treatment to the state. While there are certainly major flaws
in this type of treatment, Dean's opposition to instituting any
type of treatment plan into Vermont while law enforcement and
the citizenry were growing ever more alarmed at the growing
heroin problem illustrates an insensitivity to the very real
sociological reasons why people end up on these types of drugs.
While Dean vocalized his opposition
to methadone treatment clinics and decried any efforts to reduce
the penalties on marijuana use -- even labeling the latter as
a gateway drug (a statistically questionable claim at best)
-- the population of Vermont's prisons increased to potentially
dangerous levels. There is a correlation between these two phenomena.
The more police go after individuals who use drugs, and the
more judges are instructed to put them in jail, the more prisoners
there are. Of course, Vermont is not alone in the increase in
incarceration. Indeed, it still ranks among the lowest in incarceration
rates per100, 000 inhabitants. However, according to the DEA,
the number of drug arrests in Vermont increased under Dean's
watch, peaking in the year 2001, with the imprisonment of women
increasing by over 140%.
Attitudes
towards Justice
Dean's approach to criminal
justice is regressive and draconian. Dean the governor was no
friend of the public's right to legal defense. According to
various attorneys in public defender's offices around the state,
Dean underfunded public defense, pouring monies into state's
attorneys, police, and corrections instead. According to the
Rutland, Vermont daily, The Rutland Herald, this meant that
state's attorneys were able to round up ever-increasing numbers
of criminal defendants, but public defenders were not given
comparable resources to respond. This, too, helped to fill the
prisons. Its not that crime increased, but that police had more
laws that they could arrest people for (and more resources with
which to do so). As an illustration of his opposition to a fair
defense for all, Dean once stated at a meeting of criminal defense
lawyers that he believed his job as governor was to make the
defense attorneys' job as tough as possible. He also tried to
block a $150,000 federal grant aimed at assisting defendants
with mental disabilities.
Why would someone want to do
that unless he had doubts about the validity of the 6th amendment
to the US constitution? Is he motivated by a need to appear
tough on crime? As Governor he claimed the legal system unfairly
benefited criminals over prosecutors. According to his own words,
he wanted to "quickly convict guilty criminals,"(so
much for the presumption of innocence), and opined that the
US needs a "re-evaluation of the importance of some of
our specific civil liberties." John Ashcroft, perhaps there'd
be a job for you in a Dean administration.
Native American
Issues
All Vermont schoolchildren
learn about Vermonts first people, the Abenakis, in their lessons
about the history of Vermont. Despite this acknowledgement of
the Abenakis special status, the Dean administration, released
a 200-page document in 2002 that was prepared by out-of-state
consultants, and without a request from the Bureau of Indian
Affairs or anyone else, concerning "The State of Vermont's
Response to the Petition for Federal Acknowledgment of the Abenaki
Nation of Vermont." This legal opinion asserted that the
tribe does not meet the criteria for recognition. The document
has been criticized by local experts -- Vermont historians and
anthropologists -- as being "highly biased and wildly out
of date." Because the legal opinion would have raised a
ruckus among many progressive Vermonters, it was released quietly
in the final days of his governorship.
Contemporary Abenakis are currently
petitioning the federal government for official recognition as
a tribe -- which would give them legal minority status with
access to relevant civil rights laws, help them with grant-writing
for schools, scholarships and health care, and make available
cultural grants to help preserve the language and oral traditions.
As the aforementioned report indicates, Dean is opposed to this
petition. This type of vehemence towards Native Peoples rights
does not bode well for other First Nations within US borders.
Even Vermonters are mostly unaware of this gratuitous and mean-spirited
attack.
Given all the above we feel
that -- except for criticizing Bush's path into war -- Howard
Dean departs little, if at all, from the corporate-sponsored
bipartisan doctrines that now misrepresent our lives. To see
him as a potential savior from Bush & Co. is to delude ourselves,
and, furthermore, those on whom many of our states residents
urge him.
And here the RAG collective
dis-collects. We each have different plans for activity in the
2004 election.
Ron:
I have never voted for a presidential
candidate. Indeed, the last one I even wanted to see in the
White House was George McGovern, but my 18th birthday came after
the 1972 election. The only candidate I have consistently supported
for the presidency is the candidate managed in his first several
campaigns by Wavy Gravy: NOBODY. Why? Because I honestly believe
NOBODY really cares about the poor and the young, especially
when they don t vote. I also am truly convinced that NOBODY will
withdraw our forces from Iraq and Afghanistan unless they think
they will lose the election if they don't. And, last but not
least, NOBODY will legalize marijuana and cut the defense budget.
Of course, as one my friends in the Hog Farm used to remind
me, if NOBODY wins then nobody loses, especially the people.
Would I vote for Howard Dean
if he were running against George Bush? I honestly don t know.
If the election were held today, I think I would put a clothespin
on my nose and pull the lever for Mr. Dean. However, if he continues
to head down the path of imperial foreign policy and domestic
repression, I would reserve my vote once again for NOBODY. Even
if I did grudgingly vote for Dean, it would be because I believe
it is essential that Rumsfeld and Ashcroft become unemployed
sooner rather than later. As a resident of Vermont who has seen
Howard in action ever since I moved here in 1992, I know he
is not what he is claiming to be. Nuff said.
Marc:
Those of you who feel you must
go Democratic, should probably work uphill for Kucinich -- the
guy who actually is what Dean is supposed to be. But I intend
to work toward the longer-range goal of establishing a national
political party independent of corporate control, one embracing
not less-evil alternatives, but values I truly believe in: I
will be working to establish the Vermont Green Party.
My thoughts about the behavior
of a Democratic or Dean presidency are speculative, but I am
not as convinced as Ron, that it would necessarily be an improvement
over that of the current maniacs -- especially after another
9/11-like attack. Democrats have always to prove they are not
soft on crime, defense, etc.: the Gore campaign proposed even
higher military expenditures than Bush's. It was a Democrat
that gave us welfare "reform", and suffocated habeus
corpus, and wagged many dogs worth of tonnage. I won't argue
this here in detail. I think the world must now get through
a profound historical moment of contraction -- of imperial reach,
of economic coercion, of environmental footprint -- and that
the powerful of the American status quo will fight these changes
tooth and nail, be they Democrat or Republican. But the changes
we are experiencing -- in global consciousness, in planetary
pathology -- are ineluctable. Bush & Co. are providing the
clearest possible teaching moment, which, for all we know, may
shorten the time needed for change. Another Clinton-like Dem,
cloaking his malignancies in liberal rhetoric, may slow these
changes down. Who knows? It's going to be bad, either way, for
at least a generation. But if the world gets through it, the
US will need a politics that speaks to a healthier future. Thus,
I turn to the possibility of the Greens becoming a strong public
voice. See http://www.vermontgreens.org.
Donna:
I know that a lot of you are
going to vote for Dean -- he talks a good game; he can be charismatic
and charming. But I'm warning you. This man will tell you what
you want to hear, or at least tell you something that has some
little kernel of something that you can interpret as support
for the things that are important to you. But when the time
comes to stand up and lead on the issue, to take on the money
interests and backsliders in his own party, that stiff little
spine will turn into a slinky.
If you vote for him, it's your
job to stand behind him with a poker and keep him headed in
the right direction. Don't give him any honeymoon period, either--keep
the pressure on from the second you drop that ballot in the
box. The minute you relax, he's going to turn right back into
what he really is...a privileged, arrogant, middle of the road
republican. Put your political energy into getting some truly
progressive folks into the House and Senate, and into State
legislatures around the country so that there will be more pressure
from more directions. We need to get together our sophisticated
progressive thinkers to develop policy ideas in every area, so
that we're ready with real, well-thought out counter-proposals
for the incremental changes a Dean administration might put
forth. If you feel you must, support Dean, do--but then go do
the work necessary to make real change.
Ron Jacobs, Donna Bister and Marc
Estrin comprise the OLD NORTH END RAG collective. The RAG
is an agitational community newspaper serving the Old North End
of Burlington, Vermont. This neighborhood is a primarily working
class section of Vermonts largest city that has a history of
political activism. They can be reached at: rjacobs@uvm.edu
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