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Today's
Stories
July 23, 2004
Gary Leupp
The 9/11 Commission and the Looming
War on Iran
July
22, 2004
M.
Junaid Alam
Ten Ways to Build a Better Democrat
Brian
McKinlay
Rusted On Down Under: Howard, Bush and Sharon
Jason
Leopold
Cheney Lobbied for Easing of Sanctions on Terrorist Regimes While
CEO of Halliburton
Chris
Floyd
Mob Rule: Ripping the Lid Off of America's Pious Myths
Uri
Avnery
Chirac v. Sharon
July
21, 2004
Paula
J. Caplan
The Emotional Casualities of War: Psychologists
Can't Heal All the Damage
Joshua
Frank
Nader Sleeping with the Enemy? Let's be Fair
Ron
Jacobs
American Exceptionalism
Reza
Ghorashi
The Elections, Iran and al-Qaeda
Amy
Martin
Will Congress Rearm the Guatemalan Generals?
John
Ross
Bush May Lose, But His Wars Will Go On and On
Sex,
Drugs & the Blues!
Serpents in the Garden
CounterPunch's Sizzling
New Book on Culture and Sex is Now Available
Click here to purchase
July
20, 2004
Stan
Cox
The Bush / Kerry War Ticket
Chris
Randolph
An Open Letter to Dr. Ehrenreich: It's Over, Barb!
Forrest
Hylton
The Ghosts of Gonismo: "Popular Patricipation"
and Bolivia's Gas Referendum
Mark
Scaramella
It's Official! Mendocino County is Crazier and Fatter Than the Rest
of California
Sam
Bahour
The World is Knocking on Israel's Door
George
Reiter
A Defense of David Cobb
John
Ross
Burying Iraq, Burying Bush
John
L. Hess
Girlie Stuff: Media Tolerance of Arnold & Co.
Website
of the Day
This Land is Your Land
July
19, 2004
Uri
Avnery
Marie and the Ghosts: the Hoax of Paris
Col.
Dan Smith
What Has Been Accomplished?
Mike
Whitney
Allawi: Our Puppet with a Pistol
Karyn
Strickler
Just Marriage, Not Gay Marriage
Robert
Fisk
The Crisis of Information in Baghdad
David
Swanson
Media Blackout of US Labor Opposition to Iraq
War
Jennifer
van Bergen
The Death of the Great Writ of Liberty
July
17 / 18, 2004
Gary
Leupp
Apocalypse Now: Why the Book of Revelations is
Must Reading
Ghada
Karmi
Vanishing the Palestinians
Lenni
Brenner
When Cattle Unite, Lions Go Hungry: Notes for Ralph Nader
Ben
Tripp
Man on a Bridge: a Ghost Story
Brandy
Baker
What Would Elizabeth Cady Stanton Make of John Kerry?
M.
Shahid Alam
Israel Builds Another Wall
Sasan
Fayazmanesh
Nuclear Hypocrisy: Israel, Iran and the IAEA
Patrick
Bond
The George Bush of Africa
Fred
Gardner
Politics of Marijuana: Cannabiniod Therapuetics
William
Blum
Bush and Thucydides
Ben
Terrall
Carter and the Indonesia Elections: "I Don't See Anything Wrong
with a General Running the Country"
Tom
Barry
John Lehman on the War Path
David
Vest
Dylan Without the Music
Phyllis
Pollack
Return to Sin City: Keith Richards Does Gram Parsons
Ron
Jacobs
Smearing Muhammad Ali: Bob Feller Strikes Out
Joshua
Frank
Kerry to Edwards: "Let's Lose!"
David
Nally
A Call for Sudan: Our Georgraphical Blindspot
Toni
Solo
Bolivia's Gas Referendum
Landau,
Hassan, Prashad & Lindorff
Three Reviews of Moore's F911
Poets's
Basement
Ford, Smith and Albert
July
16, 2004
Dave
Zirin
Adonal Foyle: Master of the Lefty Lay-Up
Shervan
Sardar
Dershowitz, the ICJ and Jim Crow Laws
Ron
Jacobs
The Lil' Engine That Couldn't: Kucinich Surrenders on Anti-War Plank
Robert
Fisk
Iraq, According to Edgar Allen Poe: Coffin Bombs
in Baghdad
Greg
Moses
The Forts of Iraq
Mickey
Z.
Ad Infinitum?: Presidential Campaigns in the Age of TV
Dan
Bacher
A Landmark Win for Salmon and the Tribes
Dave
Lindorff
The Mumia Case: Support from NAACP, But a Movement
in Shambles
Paul
McGeough
Did Allawi Shoot Inmates in Cold Blood?
Website
of the Day
10 Reasons to Fire Bush (and 9 Reasons Kerry Won't Be Any Better)
| July
23, 2004
Zaniest
President in US History
Bush Surpasses
Reagan
By
SAUL LANDAU
E-mail
is great. It offers opportunities to vote for almost everything.
And win prizes! You cast your e-ballot on your favorite brand of
condom or president of the United States on “youcanvoteforanything.com”
or some such website. So, get promises of “thousands of dollars
deposited into your account” and play video blackjack, while
voting for the best and worst presidents. These votes count about
as much as my November votes – but voting is fun, even virtual
voting.
So,
I chose George W. Bush as worst president in US history. How will
the rest of America judge him? Bush dies of premature senility.
Led by the media, fundamentalist clergy and political manipulators,
the nation officially remembers him as the liberator of Iraq and
savior of the United States from Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein’s
threat (weapons of mass destruction and links to the terrorist Al
Qaeda).
When
no weapons materialized Bush petulantly told an Oak Ridge Tennessee
crowd in mid July: "So I had a choice to make. Either take
the word of a madman or defend America. Given that choice I will
defend America."
Historians will no doubt credit Bush for his unique forms of verbal
expression, and as the economic wizard whose tax cuts magically
helped the poor by giving some of their money to the rich; the moralist
who tried desperately to stop gay marriages and offered cash incentives
for poor heterosexuals to marry. Bush surpassed Reagan in catering
to his ultra right wing constituency’s wishes. By opposing
stem cell research and other useful projects, he incurred the wrath
of scientists, including Nobel laureates. They complained about
Bush using religious dogma to interfere with scientific research.
But Bush stood up to them – despite even Nancy Reagan’s
support of stem cell research.
Bush
has surpassed Reagan’s anti-environmental vision. Reagan ceded
to corporate wishes – don’t spend money on areas that
don’t yield profits -- on the environment. Bush even looked
beyond earth’s environment to Mars, where he wants to launch
settlements. Bush also went beyond Reagan in diminishing meaningful
parts of government: public education, health, transportation.
Does
Reagan deserve some credit for Bush’s “accomplishments?”
When Reagan’s seemingly interminable funeral ended last month,
I said to myself that the public now won’t have The Gipper
to kick around until, of course, the fifth, tenth and twenty-fifth
anniversaries of his death. That’s the way history gets reported
in the age of TV news.
Instead
of reminding the public about the impact of Reagan’s deeds
on the nation, the environment and the world, pundits, politicians
and preachers offered fact-less eulogies, exalting the virtues of
a President who showed us how charming distortion could be as history
and how elegantly idiocy could be phrased posing as fact. Who could
not marvel at Reagan’s proclamation: “We stole the Panama
Canal and it’s ours.” Or, “The Sandinistas are
a two day march from Harlingen, Texas.” A few ill-humored
residents of Harlingen didn’t laugh! One witty line, “The
Contras are the moral equivalent of our Founding Fathers,”
confused the finest scholars. Did Reagan not know that the Contras
tortured and murdered civilians – as instructed by their CIA
manuals? Or did he mean that the Founding Fathers advocated murder
and torture?
Reagan
also showed loyalty. “He’s getting a raw deal,”
he said in 1985 of Guatemalan President, General Efrain Rios Montt,
accused of having authorized the slaughter of thousands of Guatemalans,
with massive evidence to support the charges. And he pardoned Iran-Contra
felons from his own Administration. Well intentioned guys!
Did
the memorial service speakers engage in a secret history twisting
contest as they extolled the virtues of this backward-looking actor?
His eight years in the White House some wag characterized as following
half of Benjamin Franklin’s advice: early to bed.
I
found a photo of the late President with his arms around my son
and daughter. Will historians know that the smiling figure in the
middle is just a cardboard cut out (we had the photo taken at an
amusement park -- as a joke)?
Reagan,
like Bush (43), was a joker – or maybe even a joke. After
all, humor is good for us. It offers release. I admit that the tumultuous
sexual activities of the Clinton years made me occasionally nostalgic
for the Reagan era, when sleeping with the President meant attending
a Cabinet meeting. And one must credit Reagan’s pedagogy,
teaching from the bully pulpit that Americans should despise government
and not pay taxes to support the very agencies he headed –
except for the police and military, of course, which merited full
backing.
Reagan
also knew how to explain the ills of our time in words we could
all grasp. In his 1980 campaign, for example, he denied that the
big logging and chemical companies held any responsibility for air
contamination. Instead, he pointed his finger at trees for causing
pollution. After all, they emitted 93 percent of nitrogen oxide.
Like
those “killer trees" Reagan explained that the homeless
preferred their idiosyncratic life style and, in support of cutting
funds for school lunches, he labeled ketchup as a vegetable.
Bush unquestioningly follows in Reagan’s rhetorical footsteps,
without of course possessing the Great Prevaricator’s poise
or wit. He did come close to Reaganese oratory when he described
the 9/11 fiends as terrorists who “hate our freedoms.”
How
about hating the poor? Bush should run for the President who has
done most to hurt the poor. Wouldn’t that be a great Internet
vote? In his eight years, Reagan oversaw the increase of numbers
of families living below the poverty line by one-third. Bush will
have to work hard to match that figure. But he’s working at
it. According to a June 29 Times-Union News story, Bush diverted
more than $22 billion dollars in federal money to “homeland
security." The Bushies took $2 billion of that amount from
HUD's budget that previously helped fund both homeless shelters
and housing for America’s poorest of renters and transferred
the funds assets to Homeland Security.
On
May 20, typical of the ungrateful citizens who don’t appreciate
all that Bush has done, a crowd of Los Angeles protesters denounced
proposals to diminish the federal government's Section 8 housing
program. The protestors claimed that the cuts would displace some
13,000 low-income area families. The Boston HUD office sent out
650 eviction notices to tenants, according to the April 27 Boston
Globe. Other metropolitan areas suffered similar affronts to the
poor.
Reagan,
in his most aggressive mode, did not match such audacity. Nor will
his record rival Bush's 2001 $1.35 trillion tax cut, which has produced
sighs of contentment from the excessively rich that border on the
orgiastic.
Finally,
Bush has outdone Reagan in his scorn for international law. Reagan
began his presidency in 1981 by rejecting The Law of the Sea Treaty.
His attitude toward international cooperation became even more dramatically
hostile when he withdrew the United States from UNESCO in late 1983
and of course taught the UN a major lesson by cutting the US contribution
to the organization.
The
Reagan Administration explained that UNESCO “politicized virtually
every subject it deals with, has exhibited hostility toward the
basic institutions of a free society, especially a free market and
a free press, and has demonstrated unrestrained budgetary expansion.”
On December 29, 1984, the State Department concluded “that
continued US membership in UNESCO will not benefit the country.”
Reagan
admonished Americans to uphold the law, but he didn’t recognize
the International Court of Justice’s jurisdiction when it
ruled against Washington for mining Nicaraguan harbors.
Bush
backed down from Reagan’s tough anti-UN stance when his advisers
convinced him that he would temporarily need the world body in the
wake of the 9/11 events.
He
announced the US reentry into UNESCO on September 12, 2002, the
very day he addressed the General Assembly and labeled Iraq’s
government “a grave and gathering danger.”
In
March 2003 Bush returned to the anti-UN line that the old Reaganites
promoted, but only after US arm twisting and attempts to bribe failed
to win the votes to push his “invade Iraq” resolution
through the Security Council. Bush invaded anyway, heaping scorn
on the UN, whose earlier resolution on Iraqi arms prohibitions he
solemnly proclaimed he felt duty bound to enforce. He invaded without
UN authorization and as we know found no WMDs.
Since
the Iraqi war, Bush’s world stature has diminished –
is that possible? But he could redeem himself by stealing a couple
of lines. The next time he sees Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon,
he could say, cameras rolling, his head tilted back, a slight twitch
of emotion in his face: “Mr. Sharon! Tear Down That Wall.”
If
you believe he’ll do something like that then you’ll
also probably think there’s a chance that Bush will convert
to socialism.
Saul
Landau is a fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies, teaches
at Cal Poly Pomona University and has a new book out: THE BUSINESS
OF AMERICA: HOW CONSUMERS HAVE REPLACED CITIZENS AND HOW WE CAN
REVERSE THE TREND. www.saullandau.net
Mike
Whitney can be reached at: fergiewhitney@msn.com
Weekend Edition July 17 / 18, 2004
Gary
Leupp
Apocalypse Now: Why the Book of Revelations is
Must Reading
Ghada
Karmi
Vanishing the Palestinians
Lenni
Brenner
When Cattle Unite, Lions Go Hungry: Notes for Ralph Nader
Ben
Tripp
Man on a Bridge: a Ghost Story
Brandy
Baker
What Would Elizabeth Cady Stanton Make of John Kerry?
M.
Shahid Alam
Israel Builds Another Wall
Sasan
Fayazmanesh
Nuclear Hypocrisy: Israel, Iran and the IAEA
Patrick
Bond
The George Bush of Africa
Fred
Gardner
Politics of Marijuana: Cannabiniod Therapuetics
William
Blum
Bush and Thucydides
Ben
Terrall
Carter and the Indonesia Elections: "I Don't See Anything Wrong
with a General Running the Country"
Tom
Barry
John Lehman on the War Path
David
Vest
Dylan Without the Music
Phyllis
Pollack
Return to Sin City: Keith Richards Does Gram Parsons
Ron
Jacobs
Smearing Muhammad Ali: Bob Feller Strikes Out
Joshua
Frank
Kerry to Edwards: "Let's Lose!"
David
Nally
A Call for Sudan: Our Georgraphical Blindspot
Toni
Solo
Bolivia's Gas Referendum
Landau,
Hassan, Prashad & Lindorff
Three Reviews of Moore's F911
Poets's
Basement
Ford, Smith and Albert
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