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Now Available from CounterPunch for Only $10.50 (S/H Included) Today's Stories October 8, 2003 James Bovard The Reagan Roadmap for Antiterrorism Disaster Michael Neumann One State or Two? A False Dilemma   October 7, 2003 Uri Avnery Slow-Motion Ethnic Cleansing Stan Goff Lost in the Translation at Camp Delta Ron Jacobs Yom Kippurs, Past and Present David Lindorff Coronado in Iraq Rep. John Conyers, Jr. Outing a CIA Operative? Why A Special Prosecutor is Required Cynthia McKinney Who Are "We"? Elaine Cassel Shock and Awe in the Moussaoui Case Walter Lippman Thoughts on the Cali Recall Gary Leupp Israel's Attack on Syria: Who's on the Wrong Side of History, Now? Website of the Day Cable News Gets in Touch With It's Inner Bigot   October 6, 2003 Robert Fisk US Gave Israel Green Light for Raid on Syria Forrest Hylton Upheaval in Bolivia: Crisis and Opportunity Benjamin Dangl Divisions Deepen in Third Week of Bolivia's Gas War Bridget Gibson Oh, Pioneers!: Bush's New Deal Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman The Bush-Rove-Schwarzenegger Nazi Nexus Nicole Gamble Rios Montt's Campaign Threatens Genocide Trials JoAnn Wypijewski The New Unity Partnership: A Manifest Destiny for Labor Website of the Day Guerrilla Funk   October 3 / 5, 2003 Tim Wise The Other Race Card: Rush and the Politics of White Resentment Peter Linebaugh Rhymsters and Revolutionaries: Joe Hill and the IWW Gary Leupp Occupation as Rape-Marriage Bruce Jackson Addio Alle Armi David Krieger A Nuclear 9/11? Ray McGovern L'Affaire Wilsons: Wives are Now "Fair Game" in Bush's War on Whistleblowers Col. Dan Smith Why Saddam Didn't Come Clean Mickey Z. In Our Own Image: Teaching Iraq How to Deal with Protest Roger Burbach Bush Ideologues v. Big Oil in Iraq John Chuckman Wesley Clark is Not Cincinnatus William S. Lind Versailles on the Potomac Glen T. Martin The Corruptions of Patriotism Anat Yisraeli Bereavement as Israeli Ethos Wayne Madsen Can the Republicans Get Much Worse? Sure, They Can M. Junaid Alam The Racism Barrier William Benzon Scorsese's Blues Adam Engel The Great American Writing Contest Poets' Basement McNeill, Albert, Guthrie   October 2, 2003 Niranjan Ramakrishnan What's So Great About Gandhi, Anyway? Amy Goodman / Jeremy Scahill The Ashcroft-Rove Connection Doug Giebel Kiss and Smear: Novak and the Valerie Plame Affair Hamid Dabashi The Moment of Myth: Edward Said (1935-2003) Elaine Cassel Chicago Condemns Patriot Act Saul Landau Who Got Us Into This Mess? Website of the Day Last Day to Save Beit Arabiya! October 1, 2003 Joanne Mariner Married with Children: the Supremes and Gay Families Robert Fisk Oil, War and Panic Ron Jacobs Xenophobia as State Policy Elaine Cassel The Lamo Case: Secret Subpoenas and the Patriot Act Shyam Oberoi Shooting a Tiger Toni Solo Plan Condor, the Sequel? Sean Donahue Wesley Clark and the "No Fly" List Website of the Day Downloader Legal Defense Fund   September 30, 2003 After Dark Arnold's 1977 Photo Shoot Dave Lindorff The Poll of the Shirt: Bush Isn't Wearing Well Tom Crumpacker The Cuba Fixation: Shaking Down American Travelers Robert Fisk A Lesson in Obfuscation Charles Sullivan A Message to Conservatives Suren Pillay Edward Said: a South African Perspective Naeem Mohaiemen Said at Oberlin: Hysteria in the Face of Truth Amy Goodman / Jeremy Scahill Does a Felon Rove the White House? Website of the Day The Edward Said Page September 29, 2003 Robert Fisk The Myths of Western Intelligence Agencies Iain A. Boal Turn It Up: Pardon Mzwakhe Mbuli! Lee Sustar Paul Krugman: the Last Liberal? Wayne Madsen General Envy? Think Shinseki, Not Clark Benjamin Dangl Bolivia's Gas War Uri Avnery The Magnificent 27 Pledge Drive of the Day Antiwar.com   September 26 / 28, 2003 Alexander Cockburn Alan Dershowitz, Plagiarist David Price Teaching Suspicions Saul Landau Before the Era of Insecurity Ron Jacobs The Chicago Conspiracy Trial and the Patriot Act Brian Cloughley The Strangeloves Win Again Norman Solomon Wesley and Me: a Real-Life Docudrama Robert Fisk Bomb Shatters Media Illusions M. Shahid Alam A Muslim Sage Visits the USA John Chuckman American Psycho: Bush at the UN Mark Schneider International Direct Action The Spanish Revolution to the Palestiniana Intifada William S. Lind How $87 Billion Could Buy Some Real Security Douglas Valentine Gold Warriors: the Plundering of Asia Chris Floyd Vanishing Act Elaine Cassel Play Cat and Moussaoui Richard Manning A Conservatism that Once Conserved George Naggiar The Beautiful Mind of Edward Said Omar Barghouti Edward Said: a Corporeal Dream Not Yet Realized Lenni Brenner Palestine's Loss is America's Loss Mickey Z. Edward Said: a Well-Reasoned Voice Tanweer Akram The Legacy of Edward Said Adam Engel War in the Smoking Room Poets' Basement Katz, Ford, Albert & Guthrie Website of the Weekend Who the Hell is Stew Albert?   September 25, 2003 Edward Said Dignity, Solidarity and the Penal Colony Robert Fisk Fanning the Flames of Hatred Sarah Ferguson Wolfowitz at the New School David Krieger The Second Nuclear Age Bill Glahn RIAA Doublespeak Al Krebs ADM and the New York Times: Covering Up Corporate Crime Michael S. Ladah The Obvious Solution: Give Iraq Back to the Arabs Fran Shor Arnold and Wesley Mustafa Barghouthi Edward Said: a Monument to Justice and Human Rights Alexander Cockburn Edward Said: a Mighty and Passionate Heart Website of the Day Edward Said: a Lecture on the Tragedy of Palestine The Great Alejandro Escavedo Needs Your Help! September 24, 2003 Stan Goff Generational Casualties: the Toxic Legacy of the Iraq War William Blum Grand Illusions About Wesley Clark David Vest Politics for Bookies Jon Brown Stealing Home: The Real Looting is About to Begin Robert Fisk Occupation and Censorship Latino Military Families Bring Our Children Home Now! Neve Gordon Sharon's Preemptive Zeal Website of the Day Bands Against Bush September 23, 2003 Bernardo Issel Dancing with the Diva: Arianna and Streisand Gary Leupp To Kill a Cat: the Unfortunate Incident at the Baghdad Zoo Gregory Wilpert An Interview with Hugo Chavez on the CIA in Venezuela Steven Higgs Going to Jail for the Cause--Part 2: Charity Ryerson, Young and Radical Stan Cox The Cheney Tapes: Can You Handle the Truth? Robert Fisk Another Bloody Day in the Death of Iraq William S. Lind Learning from Uncle Abe: Sacking the Incompetent Elaine Cassel First They Come for the Lawyers, Then the Ministers Yigal Bronner The Truth About the Wall Website of the Day The Baghdad Death Count September 20 / 22, 2003 Uri Avnery The Silliest Show in Town Alexander Cockburn Lighten Up, America! Peter Linebaugh On the Bicentennial of the Execution of Robert Emmet Anne Brodsky Return to Afghanistan Saul Landau Guillermo and Me Phan Nguyen Mother Jones Smears Rachel Corrie Gila Svirsky Sharon, With Eyes Wide Open Gary Leupp On Apache Terrorism Kurt Nimmo Colin Powell: Exploiting the Dead of Halabja Brian Cloughley Colin Powell's Shame Carol Norris The Moral Development of George W. Bush Bill Glahn The Real Story Behind RIAA Propaganda Adam Engel An Interview with Danny Scechter, the News Dissector Dave Lindorff Good Morning, Vietnam! Mark Scaramella Contracts and Politics in Iraq John Ross WTO Collapses in Cancun: Autopsy of a Fiasco Foretold Justin Podur Uribe's Desperate Squeals Toni Solo The Colombia Three: an Interview with Caitriona Ruane Steven Sherman Workers and Globalization David Vest Masked and Anonymous: Dylan's Elegy for a Lost America Ron Jacobs Politics of the Hip-Hop Pimps Poets Basement Krieger, Guthrie and Albert Website of the Weekend Ted Honderich: Terrorism for Humanity? 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.     Subscribe Online Search CounterPunch

October 9, 2003 Repub Guru Compares Taxes to Genocide Terry Gross, Grover Norquist and Holocaust By RUSSELL MOKHIBER and ROBERT WEISSMAN Terry Gross has a syndicated show on National Public Radio. It's called "Fresh Air." As a guest last week, Gross had on Grover Norquist, the head of Americans for Tax Reform and the reputed architect of President Bush's tax cuts. One of Terry Gross' first questions to Grover Norquist was this one: "Now the Bush tax cuts would cost us about $1.1 trillion over the next 10 years, and we're going to be hundreds of billions of dollars in debt. At the same time, the president wants $87 billion to rebuild Iraq and Afghanistan. Do you think we're in a tough spot, needing a lot of money, to rebuild those two countries at the same time that we're cutting taxes? And here's Grover Norquist's answer: "Well, there's a very interesting use of the word 'we.' Every time you use the word 'we,' you meant the government, and I tend to use the word 'we' to mean the American people and to speak of the government as the government. So when the government doesn't take as much of your money next year as it did last year, we have more money. The government has a lower tax rate, and depending on economic growth, may have more or less money, but we, the people, have more money. So it is a good thing for us to have lower taxes." Wow, Grover -- we can't use the word "we" anymore to refer to a political entity called the government? What do you propose we replace the word "we" with in the following, Grover? "We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote general welfare, and secure the blessing of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." Terry Gross then moves on to the estate tax. Here's the back and forth: Terry Gross: The estate tax is only paid by somebody who gets over $2 million in inheritance. So, you know, when you get out of poverty and you cross that line which is -- What is it, like, $18,000 or something that's officially poverty line? Grover Norquist: Depends on how many kids you have. Yeah. Terry Gross: Right. OK. So when you cross that, maybe you're making, like, $20,000 or something. That's not going to help you with the estate tax. I mean, you're talking about $2 million. That's a line people don't cross a lot. That's -- I don't think that's ... Grover Norquist: Yeah, the good news about the move to abolish the death tax, the tax where they come and look at how much money you've got when you die, how much gold is in your teeth and they want half of it, is that -- you're right, there's an exemption for -- I don't know -- maybe a million dollars now, and it's scheduled to go up a little bit. However, 70 percent of the American people want to abolish that tax. Congress, the House and Senate, have three times voted to abolish it. The president supports abolishing it, so that tax is going to be abolished. I think it speaks very much to the health of the nation that 70-plus percent of Americans want to abolish the death tax, because they see it as fundamentally unjust. The argument that some who played at the politics of hate and envy and class division will say, 'Yes, well, that's only 2 percent,' or as people get richer 5 percent in the near future of Americans likely to have to pay that tax. I mean, that's the morality of the Holocaust. 'Well, it's only a small percentage,' you know. 'I mean, it's not you, it's somebody else.' And this country, people who may not make earning a lot of money the centerpiece of their lives, they may have other things to focus on, they just say it's not just. If you've paid taxes on your income once, the government should leave you alone. Shouldn't come back and try and tax you again. Terry Gross: Excuse me. Excuse me one second. Did you just ... Grover Norquist: Yeah? Terry Gross: compare the estate tax with the Holocaust? Grover Norquist: No, the morality that says it's OK to do something to do a group because they're a small percentage of the population is the morality that says that the Holocaust is OK because they didn't target everybody, just a small percentage. What are you worried about? It's not you. It's not you. It's them. And arguing that it's OK to loot some group because it's them, or kill some group because it's them and because it's a small number, that has no place in a democratic society that treats people equally. The government's going to do something to or for us, it should treat us all equally. " Terry Gross: So you see taxes as being the way they are now terrible discrimination against the wealthy comparable to the kind of discrimination of, say, the Holocaust? Grover Norquist: Well, what you pick -- you can use different rhetoric or different points for different purposes, and I would argue that those who say, 'Don't let this bother you; I'm only doing it' -- I, the government. The government is only doing it to a small percentage of the population. That is very wrong. And it's immoral. They should treat everybody the same. They shouldn't be shooting anyone, and they shouldn't be taking half of anybody's income or wealth when they die." First of all, Grover, the morality underpinning the estate tax is the not same as the "morality" underpinning the holocaust. The holocaust was mass killing driven by a racist ideology. There is no morality there. The estate tax is a moral tax -- taxing the wealth of the super-rich to help the not so super-rich -- it's called progressive taxation. According to Bill Gates Sr. and Chuck Collins of the group Responsible Wealth, nearly half of all estate taxes are paid by the wealthiest 0.1 percent of the American population -- a few thousand families each year. In 2001, Gates was the lead signer on Responsible Wealth's Call to Preserve the Estate Tax, which was signed by over 1,000 wealthy people personally affected by the estate tax -- including George Soros, Ted Turner, and David Rockefeller Jr. He points out that since it was enacted in 1916, the estate tax has helped to limit the concentration of wealth, making it easier for Americans to educate themselves, innovate, build new businesses, and prosper. Gates also points out that while there is no question that "some people accumulate great wealth through hard work, intelligence, creativity, and sacrifice" it is equally important to acknowledge "the influence of other factors, such as luck, privilege, other people's efforts, and society's investment in the creation of individual wealth such as a patent system, enforceable contracts, open courts, property ownership records, protection against crime and external threats, and public education." The father of the man with the billions understands the word "we." Get it, Grover? Russell Mokhiber is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Corporate Crime Reporter. Robert Weissman is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Multinational Monitor, and co-director of Essential Action. They are co-authors of Corporate Predators: The Hunt for MegaProfits and the Attack on Democracy (Monroe, Maine: Common Courage Press, 1999.)   Weekend Edition Features for Sept. 26 / 28, 2003 Tim Wise The Other Race Card: Rush and the Politics of White Resentment Peter Linebaugh Rhymsters and Revolutionaries: Joe Hill and the IWW Gary Leupp Occupation as Rape-Marriage Bruce Jackson Addio Alle Armi David Krieger A Nuclear 9/11? Ray McGovern L'Affaire Wilsons: Wives are Now "Fair Game" in Bush's War on Whistleblowers Col. Dan Smith Why Saddam Didn't Come Clean Mickey Z. In Our Own Image: Teaching Iraq How to Deal with Protest Roger Burbach Bush Ideologues v. Big Oil in Iraq John Chuckman Wesley Clark is Not Cincinnatus William S. Lind Versailles on the Potomac Glen T. Martin The Corruptions of Patriotism Anat Yisraeli Bereavement as Israeli Ethos Wayne Madsen Can the Republicans Get Much Worse? Sure, They Can M. Junaid Alam The Racism Barrier William Benzon Scorsese's Blues Adam Engel The Great American Writing Contest Poets' Basement McNeill, Albert, Guthrie Keep CounterPunch Alive: Make a Tax-Deductible Donation Today Online! home / subscribe / about us / books / archives / search / links /