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Today's
Stories
October 20,
2004
Yitzhak Laor
"Did
You Two Squabble?": a Bullet Fired for Every Palestinian
Child
October 19,
2004
Jeff Taylor
Confessions
of a Swing State Voter
Matt Vidal
American
Myopia: "More Money in Your Pocket"
Victor Kattan
"It's Not Who You're Against; It's Who You're For":
Palestine Takes Center Stage At Euro Social Forum
William Loren
Katz
What Goes Around Comes Around
Sean Carter
O'Reilly Should Shut Up About Extortion Claiims
CounterPunch Wire
Who's Really in Bed with Republican Funders: Kerry or Nader?
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Party
Favors: the Political Business of Terry McAuliffe
October 18,
2004
Saul Landau
Facts
and Lies; Slogans and Truth
Dave Lindorff
Bulletin
on the Bush Bulge
Diane Christian
Sheep
and Goats: On the Language of Goodness
Greg Bates / Dave Lindorff
Betting on War: a Wager on the Fallout of a Kerry Presidency
Uri Avnery
Ariel
Sharon's Philosophy
Peter LaVenia
Leaving the Greens So Soon? a Response to Josh Frank
Mike Whitney
O'Reilly at the Whipping Post
Elaine Cassel
The Other War: Civil Liberties Three Years After 9/11
October 16
/ 17, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
The
Free Speech Movement and Howard Stern
Leslie Brill
Unmerciful Judge, Merry Executioners: the Death Penalty as the
True Measure of Bush's Character
Jules Rabin
Reckoning Deaths in an Agitated World
Dave Lindorff
About the Bush Bulge: Was There a Pucker in That Jacket or Was
the President Just Glad to be There?
Peter Linebaugh
Judging Judges: a Few Pages from The Mirror of Justices
Gary Leupp
Iran and Syria: How to Effect Regime Change and Expand the Empire
M. Shahid Alam
America, Imagine This!
Ron Jacobs
Trying to Cross Lake Champlain
Fred Gardner
The Flu Vaccine Question: How Bush Blew It
Jenna Orkin
The Toxic Legacy of 9/11
Dave Zirin
Name the DC Baseball Team: Contest Results
David Hamilton
Alone and Exposed: Bush as a Strong Leader?
Ralph Nader
Criticizing Israel is Not Anti-Semitism
Doug Giebel
Thinking the Unthinkable
Mark Engler
Crimes in Freedom's Name: Dick Cheney's El Salvador
Derek Tyner
Blacks Didn't Get the Vote by Voting: an Interview With Clarence
Thomas on the Million Worker March
Evan Jones
Gimme That Ole Time Religion: Cash and "The Mind of the
South"
Poets' Basement
LaMorticella, Klipschutz and Albert
Website of
the Weekend
No More Bush Girls
October 15,
2004
Paul Craig
Roberts
Where
Did These "Conservatives" Come From?: The Brownshirting
of America
Laura Carlsen
Wal-Mart
vs. the Pyramids of the Sun and Moon
Greg Bates
Empire of Insanity: Kerry's Iraq Troop Numbers
Michael Donnelly
News from a Swing State: Does Anyone Here Have a Spine?
Katherine Lahey
The Venezuelan "Threat": Why Do Kerry and Bush Fear
Hugo Chavez?
Robert Jensen
/ Pat Youngblood
Election Day Fears
Leah Caldwell
From
Supermax to Abu Ghraib: the Masterminds of Torture and Abuse
Website of
the Day
An Anti-Billionaire Policy? Why That Would Be Economic Racism
October 14,
2004
Darcy Richardson
The
Other Progressive Candidate: the Lonely Crusade of Walt Brown
Willliam A.
Cook
Turning
Myths into Truth
Laura Santina
Water, Women and War
Evelyn Pringle
Free Speech Banned by Big Pharma: What You Can't Say About Drug
Importation
Alan Farago
Lessons
from Nature
Rep. Maxine Waters
A Letter to Colin Powell on Haiti
Nicole Colson
Maimed
for Oil and Empire
October 13,
2004
Bishop Thomas
Gumbleton and Bill Quigley
Aftermath
of a Coup: The Other Disaster in Haiti
Sharon Smith
Barak
O-Bomb-a?: Democrats Target Iran
Christopher Brauchli
God and the Bush Administration
Mike Whitney
The Real Meaning of the Hamdi Case
Paul de Rooij
Amnesty
International: a False Beacon?
Website of
the Day
Operation
Truth
October 12,
2004
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
"Indian
Country"
Greg Bates
The Year of Voting Dangerously: a Survey Request of Nader Voters
in Swing States
Steven Conn
Progressives as Pawns: Kerry's War on Nader
Jason Leopold
Under Cheney, Halliburton Helped Saddam Siphon Billions from
UN Oil-for-Food Program
Security Scholars
for a Sensible Foreign Policy
Time for a Change of Course
Timothy J. Freeman
Dying for a Mistake
Pierre Tristam
Deconstructing Bush
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
The 2nd Debate: the Blurring of Act and Audience
Bill and Kathleen
Christison
Israel as Sideshow
Website of the Day
John Kerry's Personal Off-Shore Tax Shelters
October 11,
2004
Robert Fisk
Iraq:
Unforgivable Betrayals and Broken Promises
Kevin Pina
The
Untold Story of Aristide's Departure from Haiti
Patrick Gavin
Rethinking
Columbus Day
Chris Floyd
Tribes with Flags in the New Afghanistan
Daniel Wolff
Radioactive Money: Entergy, Political Cash and America's Most
Dangerous Nuclear Plant
Walter Brasch
The Only Ones Who Believe Saddam Had WMDs are Bush, Cheney...and
40% of All Americans
Mike Whitney
The Phony Afghan Elections: Ballot of the Disappearing Ink
Ari Shavit
"He Talks to Condi Rice Every Day": an Interview with
Sharon's Lawyer
Paul Craig
Roberts
The
Debates and the Big Lie
Website of the Day
Dylan's Greatest Recording?
October 9 /
10, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
"There
Are No Innocents"
Paul de Rooij
Northern Ireland is Still the Issue: a Conversation with Gerry
Adams
M. Shahid Alam
Making Sense of Our Times
Laura Carlsen
Protest and Populism in Latin America
Fred Gardner
Pot Shots: ASA Goes to Court
Col. Dan Smith
Bush's Credibility Gap
Paul Craig
Roberts
Faith-Based Economics
Greg Bates
What If Nader Critics Get What They Demand?
Joshua Frank
Cobb, the Greens and the Collapse of the Left
Felice Pace
Wilderness, Politics and the Oligarchy: How the Pew Charitable
Trust is Smothering the Grassroots Environmental Movement
Walter A. Davis
Of Pynchon, Thanatos and Depleted Uranium
William A.
Cook
The Agony of Colin Powell
Phyllis Pollack
Twas No Crank Call Love Affair: London Calling, 25 Years Later
Poets' Basement
Klipschutz, Albert, Ford
Website of the Weekend
Abu Ghraib: the Taguba Annexes
October 8,
2004
Jennifer Loewenstein
The
Israeli Invasion of Gaza
Moshe Adler
Edwards' Gambit: He Hoped No One Would Notice the Similarities
David Swanson
Media Blackout: Press Continues to Ignore Labor's Opposition
to Iraq War
Dave Zirin
CounterPunch Contest: Let's Name the New DC Baseball Team!
Rep. Ron Paul
The Draft is a Form of Slavery
William S. Lind
Keeping Our SA Up
Samar Assad
Kerry v. Bush: No Difference When It Comes to Israel / Palestine
Jim Ingalls
and Sonali Kolhatkar
The Elections in Afghanistan
October 7,
2004
Dave Lindorff
All
Out of Volunteers: A Draft is in the Air
Masha Hamilton
Fear in Kandahar
Christopher
Brauchli
Master of Corruption: the Ripening Scandals of Tom Delay
Jason Leopold
Is There Still Time to Impeach Bush?
Bruce K. Gagnon
Bombing the Panhandle: Fighting the Pentagon in Rural Florida
Meredith Kolodner
Where
is the Urgency?: The Anti-War Movement's Election Year Challenge
October 6,
2004
Jeffrey St.
Clair
"Please,
Dude, Can I Take Them Out?": Targeting Civilians in Fallujah
Ron Jacobs
Going
Nuclear: the Ghost of Edward Teller Lives
Michael Colby
The National Flip-Flop: Suddenly Bush is Unfit to Lead?
Tarif Abboushi
More of the Same: Israel Wins the Debates
Matthew Behrens
Canadian Firms Profit from Iraqi Blood
Mike Whitney
Rethinking WMDs
John Pilger
Stealing Diego Garcia
Ben Tripp
Kerry's "Triumph"
Kevin McKiernan
Cheney's Poison Lab: Wrong Time, Wrong Target
Patrick Cockburn
Elections
Will Not End the Fighting in Iraq
Website of the Day
Is There an Islamic Problem?
October 5,
2004
Anthony Loewenstein
Rupert
Murdoch and the Marginals: "Personally Creating Outcomes"
Mark Clinton
and Tony Udell
The
Suicide of an Iraq War Veteran
Greg Bates
Trading
Idiots: an Open Letter to Eric Alterman
Dave Lindorff
What's
the Frequency, Karl?
Norm Dixon
Why Washington Won't Save Darfur Villagers
Larry Kearney
God Talk and Burning Children
Bill Linville
Dirty Politics in the Land of "Clean" Government
Gary Leupp
What
Edwards Should Ask Cheney
Website of
the Day
A Guide to Halliburton for Tonight's Debate
October 4,
2004
Diane Christian
The
Gates of Hell
Joshua Frank
An Interview with David Cobb
Doug Giebel
Incurious George: What If Bush Didn't Lie?
John Chuckman
Strange Victory: Sen. Obvious and the Pathetic Lump
Ramzy Baroud
Reverse the Picture: Anatomy of a Palestinian Outrage
Julia Stein
Remembering Mario Savio and the FSM
Sean Donahue
Outsourcing
Terror: Kerry and Special Forces
Website of
the Day
Mapping
Mt. St. Helens as She Rocks
October 2 /
3. 2004
Paul Wright
John
Kerry on Criminal Justice
Kathleen and Bill Christison
An Exchange with Israeli Historian Bennie Morris
Kathie Helmkamp
My Son Trent: a Marine Who Doesn't Want to Kill
Phillip Cryan
Indigenous Mobilization in Colombia
Lenni Brenner
The First Ex-Catholic Saint: Memories of Mario Savio
Fred Gardner
Pot Shots: In Case You Missed "Montel"
Ron Jacobs
It Did Happen Here: When Neo-Nazis Terrorized Olympia
Ben Tripp
Sticker Shock
William S.
Lind
The Grand Illusion: Iraqi Security Forces
Dave Zirin
The Swindle of the Century: Baseball Comes to DC
Dave Lindorff
Lies from the Great Debate
Luscon Pierre-Charles
Haiti's Elections: a High-Tech Sham is Underway
Zoe Moskovitz
& Sasha Kramer
Separating Lies from Truth About Haiti
Nelson P. Valdes
Habana Night vs. Latin American Scholars in Vegas: 61 Banned
Cuban Academics
Alan Farago
The "Ownership Society" and the End of the Everglades
Nancy Haley
What is the Historical Jesus Trying to Tell Us?
Alex Billet
Long Live The Clash: London Still Calling After 25 Years
Steve Fesenmaier
Save and Burn: The War on Libraries
Poets' Basement
Smith, Holt, Albert
October 1,
2004
Steve Breyman
Kerry's
Missed Opportunities
Rose Gentle
My
Son Died for a Lie
Lee Sustar
Iran
in the Crosshairs
Ralph Nader
What
We Didn't Hear at the Debate: Where's the Exit Strategy?
Walter Andrews
We Are Less Secure Now Than Ever
Mike Whitney
Pandora's
Government
Mickey Z.
Debate
This
Saul Landau
The
Iraq Invasion: Lessons from the Pinochet Cases
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.
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October 20, 2004
Michael Moore's
Fright Show
Bombing
Madison
By
CHRISTOPHER DOLS
This past Saturday, Michael Moore came
to the University of Wisconsin at Madison to stump for John Kerry.
He spoke to a crowd of over 4,000 people and called upon these
swing-state liberals to take up the challenge and boot Bush in
the coming election. Moore's performance inspired many to get
out and work extra hard for Kerry in the coming weeks. He also
reminded the crowd's Nader supporters the importance of their
campaign because for every Hollywood sellout this fall,
there are hundreds of principled nobodies, risking life and limb
among crazed democrats in liberal locales across the country.
Madison's progressive community turned out impressive numbers
for Nader in 2000, in some wards as much as 30% of the vote.
This will not be the case in 2004 as Madison follows Moore's
lead back into the big tent, as Dennis Kucinich calls it, of
the Democratic Party. Yet in Wisconsin, Nader is polling comparable
numbers to his 2000 campaign (i.e. enough to 'spoil' 10 electoral
votes for Kerry) and Nader's former base can't understand why.
Those most affected by Bush and Kerry's shared agenda are Nader's
new base. In Madison, like nationally, these are the Muslim
and Arab Americans, the poor, and the thousands of black families
suffering from liberal Dane County's incarceration rate
the highest for blacks in the country. This is what Michael
Moore and his following don't understand. Whatever their mistakes
and illusions, it's worth comparing the Moore of today to the
Moore of 2000.
In 2000, Moore was among the
bold few to take a stand against the two-party system. Ralph
Nader's 2000 campaign, with Moore's endorsement, prompted thousands
to abandon the Democratic Party in favor of movement activism.
Further, Moore helped deliver an ideological blow to the establishment
- empowering millions of voters with the confidence to reject
the Republicans and Democrats. Today, like in 2000, the primary
roadblock barricade rather to progress is the two-party
system that thrives on its miniscule spectrum. As long as slight
differences keep us voting for the slightly less evil, the spectrum
only shifts rightward.
As Moore said at a Nader rally
in 2000, "We are at the place we are at now because we have
settled for so less, for so long. If we keep settling it is
only going to get worse. [With] the lesser of two evils, you
still wind up with evil. We are being asked to choose the second
worst candidate." Yet Moore, like dozens of former Nader
supporters, changed his mind this year, setting back his own
progressive platform.
John Kerry on the Iraq occupation:
"I'm not talking about leaving; I'm talking about winning."
Saturday night, instead of opposing Kerry's position, Moore
offered excuses for what will be Kerry's continuation of Bush's
occupation of Iraq: "It's going to ugly; it's going to messy;
human lives are going to be lost as a result of the irresponsibility
of Bush, and Wolfowitz, and Rumsfeld and Cheney." So Moore
has preemptively apologized away the tens of thousands of deaths
Kerry will inflict by trying to "win" in Iraq. Additionally
Moore repeated his attacks against Bush for diverting from the
real 'war on terror'. "If [al-Qaeda] is going to kill us
Mr. Bush, then why did you stop our special forces from going
after them in Afghanistan?" Moore opposed Clinton's persistent
bombings of Iraq and the UN sanctions that killed over a million
Iraqis. Moore should know that Democrats, like Republicans,
are incapable of helping Iraqis even when they're 'fixing'
a mess left by a Bush before them. Moore's newfound alliance
with the Democratic Party, and his call to 'go after them in
Afghanistan' gets at the most disastrous consequence of the 'Anybody
But Bush' dilemma: Moore and his followers have accommodated
their positions towards Bush's, in the name of opposing Bush.
The strongest feature of Moore's
speech was his unapologetic call for gay marriage and abortion
rights. But like everything else, his scathing attacks against
the Right are dulled by an endorsement for the Democrat. Moore
forgets what he once knew about the American political system.
The Right is organized and without our own independent organized
resistance, we will continue to lose ground. When the rightwing
wants to ban gay marriage this is what they do: They get Republicans
to push for a Constitutional Amendment banning gay marriage.
Democrats exclaim "No! We can't write bigotry into the
Constitution! Let states decide." And then the Democrats,
as Kerry is doing, lead the charge to ban gay marriage one state
at a time. The rightwing gets their way thanks to Kerry
not in spite of him. This is the ill logic of Lesser Evilism.
Abortion? Republicans: "Overturn
Roe v Wade!" Democrats: "No! We're a friend of women!
Just refuse federal funding of Abortions for the poor, require
parental consent, and ban late term abortions." Thanks
to democrats, the right-wing gets its way.
Corporate tax cuts? War?
Free Trade? Environment? The logic always works the same, and
the lesson is always the same: Thanks to the Lesser Evil, corporate
America gets its way.
Just as you oppose the wolf,
so too you must oppose the wolf in sheep's clothing leading the
true sheep directly into the sheep-processing machine.
Moore attacked the Republicans
for scaring us into voting for Bush. Yet Moore scares us into
voting for Kerry. Without trumpeting Kerry's conservative positions,
Moore is left reminding us how bloodcurdling Bush is. To counter,
consider a much more extreme example of the Left supporting the
Lesser Evil: Hitler's rise to power. In 1932 the German Left
'got out the vote' for right-winger Von Hindenburg (the Lesser
Evil), to defeat Hitler. Hindenburg won. Victory for the Left,
right? Wrong. Hindenburg in turn, appointed Hitler to the Chancellorship
of Germany and the Nazis hit the ground running. The Nazis succeeded
because the Left politically neutered itself by lining up with
Hindenburg. To be clear, 2004 America is not 1932 Germany.
The claim that Bush is teetering on Fascist is as ludicrous as
the Republicans say it is. Rather the Hitler example makes my
point in the negative. American Socialist, Hal Draper explains,
"The stakes were extreme. This is exactly why 1932 is the
classic case of the Lesser Evil, because even when the stakes
were this high, even then voting for the Lesser Evil meant
historic disaster when the stakes are not so high, the Lesser
Evil policy makes even less sense."
Moore dared to call Nader supporters
selfish for our inconsiderate conscience-soothing vote. This
was the sickest twist of the evening for surely the charge should
be reversed. As Martin Luther King said, "The ultimate
measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort
and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and
controversy." Many forget that King wasn't trying to convince
racists. King's audience was the 'realistic' liberals resisting
his radical platform.
In the 1990s Moore understood all of this as he held his brilliant,
contemptuous tongue for no one. He chastised liberals supporting
Clinton's bombing of Kosovo, "It is amazing to watch all
these "liberal" congress members line up behind the
President. In a way, I'm glad it's happening, if only to show
the American people there is little difference between the Democrats
and the usually war-loving Republicans." Yes, Michael Moore.
It really is amazing, isn't it?
Christopher Dols is a
member of the ISO, and a student at UW-Madison. He can be reached
at: cadols@wisc.edu
Weekend
Edition Features for October 16 / 17, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
The
Free Speech Movement and Howard Stern
Leslie Brill
Unmerciful Judge, Merry Executioners: the Death Penalty as the
True Measure of Bush's Character
Jules Rabin
Reckoning Deaths in an Agitated World
Dave Lindorff
About the Bush Bulge: Was There a Pucker in That Jacket or Was
the President Just Glad to be There?
Peter Linebaugh
Judging Judges: a Few Pages from The Mirror of Justices
Gary Leupp
Iran and Syria: How to Effect Regime Change and Expand the Empire
M. Shahid Alam
America, Imagine This!
Ron Jacobs
Trying to Cross Lake Champlain
Fred Gardner
The Flu Vaccine Question: How Bush Blew It
Jenna Orkin
The Toxic Legacy of 9/11
Dave Zirin
Name the DC Baseball Team: Contest Results
David Hamilton
Alone and Exposed: Bush as a Strong Leader?
Ralph Nader
Criticizing Israel is Not Anti-Semitism
Doug Giebel
Thinking the Unthinkable
Mark Engler
Crimes in Freedom's Name: Dick Cheney's El Salvador
Derek Tyner
Blacks Didn't Get the Vote by Voting: an Interview With Clarence
Thomas on the Million Worker March
Evan Jones
Gimme That Ole Time Religion: Cash and "The Mind of the
South"
Poets' Basement
LaMorticella, Klipschutz and Albert
Website of
the Weekend
No More Bush Girls
/
|