Coming
Soon!
From Common Courage Press
Recent
Stories
June
13, 2003
David
Vest
Bush
Roadmap to What?
Ron Jacobs
The Iranian Revolution, Reloaded?
John
Chuckman
The Man Who Wasn't There
Jason Leopold
Six Months Before War White House Silenced Critics of WMD Intelligence
Michael
Leon
Missing Weapons, Shrinking Bush and the Media
Negar Azimi
Ashcroft's Cruel Version of America
Saul
Landau
Shiite Happens
Hammond
Guthrie
Then and Now
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars
Web Log 6/13
June
12, 2003
Gary
Leupp
The Intel-gate Row in Britain: a Chronology
Ahmad Faruqui
The Tragic Legacy of the Six Day
War
Wayne
Madsen
Unfit for Office: Time for Rumsfeld to Resign
Laura Carlsen
Hunger and Security
Tarif
Abboushi
Warm and Fuzzy in Aqaba
Ray
McGovern
Deceived into War: Reflections of
a Former CIA Analyst
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars
Web Log 6/12
June
11, 2003
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Attack of the Hog Killers: Why the
Generals Hate the A-10
Elaine
Cassel
Meet Michael Chertoff: Ashcroft's
Top Gremlin
David Lindorff
The Republican Drive to Eliminate Overtime Pay
Tom
Gorman
Greens, the Antiwar Movement and 2004
Alfredo
Castro
Colombia: The Most Dangerous Place
on Earth for Trade Unionists
Nnimo
Bassey and Lawrence Bohlen
Bush Must Stop Telling Us What to
Eat!
Julie Hilden
Spike Lee v. Spike TV
CounterPunch
Wire
Blair Bros. Change Jobs!
Eric
Hobsbawm
The Empire Expands, Wider and Still
Wider
Steve
Perry
DHS: As Big
a Planning Snafu as Iraq?
June
10, 2003
Benjamin
Shepard
A Season in the Anti-War Movement
Chris
Floyd
Bush Family Lies About Iraq and Nazi
Germany
Wayne
Madsen
Weaponsgate
Jason Leopold
Powell's Denials Ring Hollow
Richard
Lichtman
Whining, Whimpering Leftists Confront the Logic of American World
Domination
Ray
Close
A CIA Analyst on Why the Lies About
WMD Matter
Hammond
Guthrie
Banking on Saddam?
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars
Web Log 6/10
June
9, 2003
Alex
Coolman
Male Rape in US Prisons
Elaine
Cassel
Ashcroft is Coming!
Lee
Sustar
Is Iran Next?
Agustin
Velloso
Equatorial Guinea: Few Rich, Many
Poor
Gila
Svirsky
Some Lives Are Worth Less Than Others
Dr. Gerry
Lower
Human Worth in Bush's America
Michael
S. Ladah
A True Liberation
Ishmael Reed
Iraqi Slaughter, Mayhem and Plunder
Steve
Perry
How to Beat Bush, part 1
June
7 / 8, 2003
Alexander
Cockburn
The Terrible Truth
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Going Critical: Bush's War on Endangered Species
Joanne
Mariner
Ashcrofts Sides with Torturers
Steven
Sherman
A Different Theory of Everything
Ron Jacobs
Sports, Politics and the 60s
M.
Shahid Alam
Pauperizing the Periphery
Amelia
Peltz
If This is the Road, I'd Rather be Lost
Shelton
Hull
Another Powell, Another Capitulation
Binoy Kampmark
Nuclear Deterrence and North Korea
Ben
Tripp
A Fish Story
Sen. Robert
Byrd
Where is the Outrage?
Robin
Philpot
Congo Distortions
Julie Hilden
Murder and the Matrix
Laura
Flanders
An Interview with Isabel Allende
David Lindorff
The Last Byline
Adam
Engel
Talk Dirty Scary Monsters
Poets'
Basement
Kearney, Reiss, Guthrie, Albert and Hamod
June
6, 2003
Elaine
Cassel
Ashcroft the Insatiable
David
Krieger
The Big Lie
Ramzy
Baroud
Sharon and the Myth of the Peacemakers
Anthony
Gancarski
Sharansky: "Crucifixion is a Privilege"
Sam
Hamod
His Own Little Country
Sean Carter
Why Indict Martha Stewart and Not Ken Lay?
David
Lindorff
Cracks in the Consensus
Stew Albert
Ari's Great Set
Steve
Perry
Greens and
Moore in 04? No
June
5, 2003
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Pools of Fire: The Looming Nuclear
Nightmare in the Woods of North Carolina
Imraan
Siddiqi
Ann Coulter's Foul Mouth
Michael
Leon
Clinton, Reno & Waco: Remember What They've Done
Robert
Jensen
Texas Pledge Law Undermines Democracy
Ann Harrison
Rosenthal is Free, But the Fight isn't Over
Paul
Dean
How You Can Be Deliriously Happy in the Age of Bush
Gary Leupp
When Spooks Speak Out
Website
of the Day
Evidence in Black and White?
Hot Stories
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Elaine
Cassel
Civil Liberties
Watch
Michel
Guerrin
Embedded Photographer Says: "I
Saw Marines Kill Civilians"
Uzma
Aslam Khan
The Unbearably Grim Aftermath of War:
What America Says Does Not Go
Paul de Rooij
Arrogant
Propaganda
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click Here
for More Stories.
|
June
14, 2003
TJ: the Genghis Khan
of the Western World?
Dear
Rudy, Let's Get Those Damned Liberals
By DR. GERRY LOWER
Author's Note: In response to my comparison of
how George Bush and Thomas Jefferson address the issue of relative
human worth (Counter Punch, June
9, 2003), I received several very kind responses from free-thinking
Americans. One reader, however, Rudy from rural Wisconsin of
all places, wrote to inform me that I am just another misguided
liberal, educated directly into ignorance, led astray by "Saint
Thomas Jefferson," the "Genghis Khan of the Western
World." Now, of course, Rudy's comments do not deserve a
response, but what the hell? Our times may have become entirely
political, but they are certainly not correct.--GL
Dear Rudy,
Thank you for your response to my editorial
commentaries on relative human worth in Bush World. Even though
you found little of merit in the effort, I figure a guy who reads
Counter Punch can't be all bad. On the other hand, perhaps you
are only following the Biblical injunction to "know thine
enemies." I can't argue with that either, but I do think
you error in where you are looking for your enemies. Let me explain
so that you need not live in fear of honesty and common sense.
My ancestors came to America from southern
Germany in the middle of the 17th century and several of the
fathers and their sons fought willingly in the American Revolution.
As a result, my great grandfolks carried first names like "Jefferson"
and "Madison" instead of "Jacob" and "Isaac."
My family moved to southwestern Wisconsin in the 1850s as second
generation pioneers from the State of New York. My grandfather
started the first bank in my hometown and, as a youngster, I
received many pats on the back from local farmers for being his
grandson. Damn, that always felt great. My grandfather had foreclosed
on no one during the Depression, eating the losses himself rather
than ruining his friends. He was not alone in this effort to
keep people more highly placed than profits. I come from a family
and community steeped in progressive Republicanism (Bill Moyers,
"This is Your Story," June 4, 2003).
That entire almost-decent Republican
era was dead and gone by the time the dark-eyed California used-car
salesman ran for the Presidency. Dick clearly established a solid
precedent for the role of un-policed corruption in American political
life, unless you haven't noticed what a corrupt joke you Republicans
have become since then. Have you people ever voted for a human
rights bill while I have been alive?
In 1927, my grandfather hauled his family
over the dirt roads of South Dakota to watch the dedication of
the carving of Mount Rushmore. My father's family and my family
have visited Mount Rushmore nearly every year since. Eight years
ago, I moved my family from rural Wisconsin to within two miles
of the Shrine of Democracy where I can say good morning to our
Deist Fathers every day. It helps with the loneliness that results
from admiring Jefferson in an America devoted to Hamilton and
the Tory god.
To be certain, good Sir, your knowledge
of American history and the values of nascent Christianity and
nascent Democracy, as well as your grasp of patriotism, isn't
worth a spit, let alone 3,200 Iraqi civilians. But, that is beside
the point, and I do not want to discourage you for a moment.
Rather, I urge you onward in your efforts to disparage Jefferson
and his democracy and the liberal thought it springs from.
Do you realize that your religious self-assurance
implies that you know something Jefferson didn't know? It implies
that you know something Franklin and Washington and Madison and
Paine didn't know. Pretty impressive, I must admit. I would have
guessed, fool that I am, that men capable of synthesizing a viable
democratic political philosophy as an alternative to European
monarchical and papal rot might have touched upon most of the
important bases. There is nothing wrong with nascent America
values, Rudy. It is just that people like you have ignored them
and more recently replaced them with fundamentalist American
neo-rot.
In assigning your allegiances and delineating
your enemies, do you realize the absurd proportions of your religious
ego trip here should you turn out to be wrong? Do you realize
that your self-assured style of ill-informed, fabricated Republican
commentary has offended virtually every educated nation on earth?
Do you realize that George Bush has already destroyed any semblance
of American and Christian morality by thinking pretty much as
you do? Or is it you who thinks like him? Do either of you ever
think for yourselves?
Do you realize that old American allies
in Europe are already talking about cutting your water off (George
Monbiot, "How to Stop America," New Statesman, June
9, 2003)? Do you realize that the European Union could bankrupt
America in a week should these good people tire of Bush's self-righteous
American imperialism? Surely you must agree with Bush that money,
especially oil money, is what makes the world go round.
Do you realize that this sorry American
outcome at the hands of the world is inevitable, virtually guaranteed,
with America under the dominion of religious fanatics who worship
mammon and believe themselves infallible and entirely above the
law, human reason and the people? You know, Rudy, people like
yourself.
Do you realize that with America's fall
from "grace" as the world's self-appointed judge, jury
and executioner, when vengence-based religion and crony capitalism
are discredited in the eyes of the world, the doors will once
again be open to the values of nascent Christianity and Science
and Democracy, the values upon which American democracy was founded?
Do you realize that I can beat George
Bush over the head with Jesus and Jefferson all that I want,
and you can disparage our Fathers all that you want, and the
outcome for America will be precisely the same regardless? Nothing
that you or I say will change that outcome. We can only hope
to change how we think about picking up the pieces that Bush
leaves us to work with.
For your efforts, Rudy, I am therefore
most thankful, because the sooner you blindly self-righteous
folks discredit yourselves along with vengeance-based religion
and crony capitalism, the sooner we can all get back to the Democracy
our enlightened Deist Fathers intended. By doing the work of
Bush's god, you are doing the work of Jefferson's God as well,
the one in the head and heart of every person, the one who works
only through the free will and the good will of the people.
The "second coming" is when
you religious people stop talking about Christ and start thinking
like Him, instead of thinking like the depotic Roman Emperor,
Constantine. Men like Jefferson and Franklin and Priestly and
Paine were pretty accomplished at this over two centuries ago.
Had they not been, you would not be here, Rudy.
Their peace be with you and yours, as
I remain,
Sincerely if not respectfully yours,
Dr. Gerry Lower
Dr. Gerry Lower
lives in Keystone, South Dakota. He can be reached at: tisland@enetis.net
Yesterday's Features
David
Vest
Bush
Roadmap to What?
Ron Jacobs
The Iranian Revolution, Reloaded?
John
Chuckman
The Man Who Wasn't There
Jason Leopold
Six Months Before War White House Silenced Critics of WMD Intelligence
Michael
Leon
Missing Weapons, Shrinking Bush and the Media
Negar Azimi
Ashcroft's Cruel Version of America
Saul
Landau
Shiite Happens
Hammond
Guthrie
Then and Now
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars
Web Log 6/13
Keep CounterPunch
Alive:
Make
a Tax-Deductible Donation Today Online!
home / subscribe
/ about us / books
/ archives / search
/ links /
|