|
January
28, 2002
Sen. Russ
Feingold
Campaign
Finance Reform?
Think Enron
John Chuckman
Liberal?
Media?
January
27, 2002
Mokhiber
and Weissman
Enron's
Drip, Drip, Drip
Tom Turnipseed
MLK
Jr.'s Dream Perverted
January
26, 2002
Norman
Madarsz
Adieu,
Bourdieu
January
25, 2002
National
Lawyers Guild
Know
Your Rights
Alexander
Cockburn
You
Call This Terrorism?
CounterPunch
Wire
Cal
Energy Crisis Hoax:
It Wasn't A Shortage,
It Was a Shakedown
Tariq
Ali
Kashmir,
Klinghoffer,
the Kurds and Chomsky
Nadine
Strossen
Protecting
MLK Jr.'s Legacy:
Justice and Liberty After 9/11
January
24, 2002
Robert
Fisk
Turkey
Targets Chomsky
Dean Baker
Lying
on Top:
Ken Lay One of Many
David
Vest
Idiot
Wind
January
23, 2002
Terry
Waite
Guantanamo
Prisoners:
Justice or Revenge?
Molly
Secours
The
Case of Abu-Ali:
Racism and the Death Penalty
Robert
Jensen
Speak
Out, Get Slimed
January
22, 2002
Brendan
Cooney
Moby-Dick
and the Hunt
for Osama bin Laden
Rick Giombetti
Progressive
Pols for Enron?
Judith
Resnik
Invading
the Courts?
Kevin
Alexander Gray
The
Crisis in Black Leadership
January
21, 2002
Marjorie
Cohn
Will
Walker's Words
Be Used Against Him?
Ahmad
Faruqui
MLK
Jr. and the Palestinians
January
19. 2002
Jordan
Green
Enron
Stole Our Future
January
18, 2002
Tom Turnipseed
The
Enron Model
Walt Brasch
Enron
at the White House
CounterPunch
Wire
Human
Rights Group Says Guantanamo Prisoners Must
Be Treated as POWs
January
17, 2002
Gideon
Levy
Bulldozing
Rafah
Uri Avnery
That
Weapons Shipment
January
16, 2002
John Chuckman
The
Angel and the Pretzel
Lawrence
McGuire
Subverting
the
Geneva Convention
Kathy
Kelly
An
Open Letter to
Richard Perle on Iraq
January
15, 2002
George
Monbiot
Greenpeace,
Lord Melchett
and the Business of Betrayal
Jack McCarthy
Follow
the Pretzel
William
Blum
Atta
and the Times:
Follow the Changing Story
Edward
Said
Emerging
Alternatives
in Palestine
January
14, 2002
David
Vest
Open
Bag. Eat Pretzels.
Patrick
Cockburn
Collapse
of Georgia
Ignored by the World
Mokhiber/Weissman
Enron's
Accountants:
When In Doubt, Shred It
January
13, 2002
C.G. Estabrook
Why
We Kill People
January
12, 2002
Cockburn/St.
Clair
Forbidden
Truths
January
11, 2002
Lee Balllinger/Dave
Marsh
Neil
Young's Duet with Ashcroft
January
10, 2002
Tom Turnipseed
Bush,
Enron, UNOCAL
and the Taliban
St. Clair/Cockburn
Greenpeace
to Greenwash?
Hans von
Sponek
Iraq:
Is There an Alternative
to Military Action?
Jim Lobe
Israeli
Human Rights Group Assails Army
Marina Mayakova
Russia's
Top Military Astrologer Predicts More Attacks from OBL
January
9, 2002
David
Vest
The
Super-Burqa
and the Big Tent
ND Jayaprakash
Winnable
Nuclear War?
Rafiq
Kathwari
Kashmir
Will Make Ground Zero Look Like a Bonfire
January
8, 2002
Prudence
Crowther
Sting
Like a B-52
Nelson
Valdés
Al-Qaeda
at Guantanamo Bay
John Chuckman
Dark
Tales from the
Ministry of Truth
Richard
Corn-Revere
Do
We Fear Freedom?
Joan Hoff
The
Nixon You Haven't Heard
January
7, 2002
Lawrence
McGuire
Confusing
Economic Tales About Argentina
Wael Masri
They
Are Taking
Our Rights Away
Philip
Farruggio
Better
Medicine
A Photographic Journal of Life
in an Afghan Refugee Camp
By Judith Mann
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!)
INSIDE
EXCLUSIVE
TO
COUNTERPUNCH
SUBSCRIBERS
Published Oct. 15, 2001
8-Page Special Issue
War Diary
CIA's Assassination Plan a History of
Torture in US Prisons
bin Laden and Bush
Business Connections
Aisha Ikramuddin on the Hidden Hype
of US Food Bombs
Peter Linebaugh on
Pakistan
Christopher Hitchens' Love for Mrs. Thatcher
Jiang Zemin Tells Bush:
Nuke 'Em
Search
CounterPunch
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
|
January
28, 2002
Bush's Civil Rights Nominee Called
Affirmative Action "Racist"
By George E. Curry
BlackPressUSA.com
President George W. Bush's controversial choice
to join the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights once dismissed affirmative
action as ''racist'' and ''a colossal failure.''
The views of Peter Kirsanow, a Cleveland
lawyer, are contained in an article titled ''The Affirmative
Action Experiment Has Been a Colossal Failure.'' The article,
written in May 1995, appeared in the National Policy Analysis,
a publication of the conservative National Center for Public
Policy Research.
''Affirmative action in its current form
is racist, demeaning and repugnant to the most fundamental tenets
of democracy,'' wrote Kirsanow, a Black conservative. After noting
that African-Americans have made ''impressive gains over the
last 30 years'' in corporate America, Kirsanow asserts, ''...Contrary
to the claims of its champions, these improvements are not perforce
the result of affirmative action. Indeed, as noted by Farrell
Bloch, author of Anti-Discriminatory Law and Minority Employment,
30 years of affirmative action has done virtually nothing to
improve Black employment and advancement prospects.''
Bush tried to appoint Kirsanow to the
U.S. Commission on Civil Rights in December but a majority of
the commissioners, led by Chair Mary Frances Berry, refused to
recognize the appointment, saying there are no vacancies to fill
on the anti-bias panel. The Bush administration has sued to force
the commissioners to accept Kirsanow's appointment. That suit
is still pending.
What Bush should do is withdraw the nomination,
which is an affront not only to people of color, women and others
who benefit from affirmative action, but to the commission itself.
A body charged with defending the rights of the defenseless shouldn't
be saddled with any more commissioners who oppose one of the
major tools available to create a more just society. This is
further proof that George W. Bush is not a ''compassionate conservative''
but is compassionate toward conservatives.
The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights was
established by Congress in 1957 as an independent, bipartisan
agency. It is primarily a fact-finding commission that looks
into allegations of discrimination based on race, color, religion,
sex, age, disability or national origin. The agency exerts influence
by submitting reports, findings and recommendations to the president
and Congress.
In his article, Bush's choice to sit
on the panel urges his fellow conservatives to be ''pragmatic.''
He writes, ''Simply state that that dog won't hunt. By their
own terms, the 30-year multi-billion affirmative action experiments
has been a colossal failure.
''And tell them about a program for Black
advancement with an astonishing success rate. One proven to increase
Black employment prospects by more than 40 percent. One proven
to reduce Black poverty rates by 50 percent. One proven to cut
the Black high school drop out rate by half. One proven to reduce
crime by 60 percent. In short, a program that works - spectacularly.
It's called the two-parent family...''
Of course, it's a fact that children,
both Black and White, are better served when both parents are
in the home. But in case Kirsanow hadn't noticed, the national
divorce rate approaches 50 percent-and that's not just limited
to Black families. Furthermore, affirmative action should not
be confused with anti-poverty programs. Affirmative action is
an anti-discrimination tool, not an anti-poverty program.
An examination of Kirsanow's writings
reveals that in addition to opposing affirmative action, he favors
vouchers and opposes raising the minimum wage.
If Bush is able to seat Kirsanow, it
would be his second major appointment of a key figure from a
Center for New Black Leadership, a group of Black conservatives
who receive most of their funding from Right-wing donors such
as the Bradley, Olin and Scaife foundations. Kirsanow is chairman
of the center's board of directors, which also includes Shelby
Steele, a fellow at the conservative Hoover Institution at Stanford
University. Kirsanow is also affiliated with Project 21, another
collective of Black conservatives.
Earlier, Bush appointed Gerald Reynolds,
president of the center, to be head of the U. S. Department of
Education's office of civil rights, though he had no professional
background in education.
In Kirsanow's case, he writes, ''Seventy-two
percent of Fortune 500 companies use affirmative action or quotas
in hiring. Federal, state and local governments let contracts
worth hundreds of millions of dollars only to minorities. Billions
of dollars are spent annually on training minority workers and
creating job opportunities for them.''
As Ronald Reagan, Kirsanow's ideological
godfather would say, there he goes again.
Kirsanow, an attorney, should know that
quotas are not used in corporate America. In fact, they are illegal.
Affirmative action is one of many tools used by companies to
combat the legacy of institutionalized negative action that excluded
qualified people on the basis of their race, gender or national
origin. Even with affirmative action, most of the high-paying
jobs, choice appointments and management promotions go to White
males, who make up less than half of the U.S. population.
It's one thing to oppose affirmative
action. It's quite another to call it ''racist, demeaning and
repugnant.'' George W. Bush's choice to sit on the U.S. Commission
on Civil Rights has demonstrated by his own words that he is
unfit to sit on any agency responsible to protecting the rights
of oppressed segments of society.
George E. Curry,
editor-in-chief of NNPA News Service and BlackPressUSA.com,
is former editor of ''Emerge: Black America's Newsmagazine.''
|