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Today's Stories
June 26 / 27, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Venezuela: the Gang's All Here
June 25, 2004
Stephen
Gowans
US to North Korea: "Trust Us"
Saul Landau
2006 Pentagon Budget as Sacrilege: Bush
Invests the National Treasure in Death and Destruction
Amir
Butler
Iraq: the Deadly Embrace
Jack McCarthy
Another Times Plagiarism Scandal? Did
Maureen Dowd Lift from the World Weekly News?
Greg
Bates
Chomsky and Zinn Plan to Vote Nader
June 24, 2004
Gary Leupp
John
Lehman on the Iraq / al-Qaeda Links
Patrick Cockburn
A
Day in the Life of Col. Abu Mohammed: Defusing Bombs, Facing
Death Threats
Harry Browne
On
the Rebound: Bush Bounces Back...in Europe
Bill Kaufman
Another
Marxist for Kerry: Joel Kovel's Sad Smear of Ralph Nader
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush,
Cheney and the 9/11 Commission: What Did They Know? What Did
They Tell?
Rick Gioimbetti
Andrea Yates: Victim of Psychiatric Violence?
John Chuckman
Call Center ID Hypocrisy
Diane Johnstone
Kerry
and Kosovo: the Lie of a "Good War"
June 23, 2004
Laura Carlsen
Bush
and Castro Face Off
Dave Zirin
Barry
Bonds vs. Boston: "A Flea Market of Racism"
Kurt Nimmo
From
Saddam, With Love
Patricia Wolff
Foundation Wars
Mahboob A. Khawaja
"They Had Me Arrested and Shackled My Son"
Patrick Cockburn
The
Pretense of an Independent Iraq
Website of the Day
The Road to Abu Ghraib
June 22, 2004
Dave Lindorff
The
Meaning of Putin's Pronouncement: Mutually Assured Pre-emption
Ron Jacobs
Nuclear Plants in US Protectorate of Iraq?
Vanessa Jones
Coogee, Peter Garrett and Valium Earrings
Mickey Z
An Open Letter to the People of Iraq
John L. Hess
Clinton Exhales
Pedro Marset/Ex-Solidarity
Committee for Pacho Cortés
An Exchange on the Case of Pacho Cortés
Bruce Jackson
Saying
No to Prosecutors: Why Steve Kurtz's Colleagues Refused to Testify
Website of the Day
From Boot Camp to Boot Hill
June 21,
2004
Gary Leupp
Putin's Helpful Remarks
Lucson
Pierre-Charles
Haiti After the Press Went Home: Chaos
Upon Chaos
Cockburn
/ Khan
Saddam May Face Death Penalty
Uri
Avnery
Irreversible Mental Damage
June 19
/ 20, 2004
Patrick
Cockburn
Inside the Green Zone: US is Paranoid
and Isolated
Bruce
Anderson
Frozen Gringos
Diane
Christian
Morality and Death: a Meditation on
Bush and Blake
Walter
A. Davis
Passion of the Christ in Abu Ghraib
Josh
Frank
How Democrats Helped Bush Rape Mother Nature
Col. Dan
Smith
Respectable Genocide?: the Crisis in Sudan
Brian
Cloughley
A Profound Disruption of the Senses
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush and the Timken Plant, a Year Later
Prudence
Crowther
Mr. Ashcroft, Deport Me!
Poets'
Basement
Iqbal/Alam, Krieger and Albert
Kathy
Kelly
Dying to See Their Kids
June 18,
2004
Chris
Floyd
Blood Victory
Dave Zirin
Danielle Green, Basketball Player &
Disabled Vet, Speaks Out Against War
Justin
E.H. Smith
The Christian Question in American Politics
Gary
Leupp
The "Long-Established" Link?:
Iraq, al-Qaeda, and al-Zarqawi
June
17, 2004
Noel
Ignatiev
Zionism, Anti-Semitism and the People
of Palestine
Kurt
Nimmo
The Bush-Kerry Conundrum
Ed
Cardoni
The Persecution of Steve Kurtz
Ron Jacobs
Power Relations: Rounding Up Everyone Who Knows More Than They Do
Dave
Lindorff
Philly Daily News: "Four Wasted Years"
Greg
Moses
Geneva Ignored
Norm
Dixon
How Reagan Armed Saddam with Chemical
Weapons
June
16, 2004
Lenni
Brenner
A Question for Kerry Supporters
Davey
D
Hip Hop Reflections on Reagan
Daniel
Wolff
Why Did Michael Moore Withhold Video Evidence of US Prisoner
Abuse?
Bruce
Jackson
Harry Levin and the Penultimate Manuscript of Finnegans Wake
Patrick
Cockburn
Boom! Boom! Out Go the Lights: Bombings Target Oil and Power
Facilities
Gary
Handschumacher
Mourn Ben Linder, Not His Killer: Reagan's Death Squads
JG
Turning Haiti into One Big Sweatshop
Mario
Benedetti
Obituary with Cheers
Vicente
Navarro
Meet the New Head of the IMF: Who
is Rodrigo Rato?
Website
of the Day
Iraqi Oil Revenue Watch
June
15, 2004
Harry
Browne
Ireland Adds a Brick to Fortress Europe
Neve
Gordon
The Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited
David
Palmer
Richard Armitage, Abu Ghraib and CACI
John
Blair
Lovelock's Misguided Call: Nukes Are No Solution to Global Warming
Dave
Lindorff
God Wins in TKO
Bill
Quigley
Blood-Pouring Peace Activists: State Charges Dropped; Feds Step
In
Patrick
Cockburn
Carbombs and Street Dances: 13 More Killed in Baghdad Blast
John
Chuckman
John Kerry, Political Placebo
June
14, 2004
John
Stanton / Wayne Madsen
Torture, Inc: Oliver North Joins
the Party
Kathy
Kelly
Requiems: What Happens When Compassion Dies?
Bruce
Jackson
Bush Gets Testy About Torture
Lee
Sustar
Strikers Defy Visteon's Company Thugs
Kurt
Nimmo
The Desperate Censors: the Republican Plot to Kill Farhenheit
9/11
Jim
Davis
Hard Right Nativism
Eliot
Katz
Death and War
Uri
Avnery
The Nightmare Comes True
Website
of the Day
Instruments of Statecraft
June 12 / 13, 2004
Peter
Linebaugh
Remembering the Common Hood: Soweto
and Runnymede
Team
CounterPunch
CP's Favorite Albums
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Troy, Now and Then
Gary
Leupp
Not Really a Puppet Government in Iraq?
Brian
Cloughley
US Military in Crisis
Antonio
Ponvert, III
Iraqi Prisoner Abuse: the Connecticut Connection
Ben
Tripp
The Polls Get Stupider
Joe
Bageant
Mash Note to the "Girl with the Leash"
Ron
Jacobs
The Return of the Hip Hop Insurgency
Forrest
Hylton
Object Lessons from the Case of Francisco Cortés
Christopher
Brauchli
Federal Bureau of Errors
Kurt
Nimmo
Going After Qaddafi, Again
Wayne
Madsen
Israel's Slap at Reagan
Anthony
Loewenstein
Al Jazeera Awakens the Arab World
Michael
Donnelly
A Lightship in the Forest: Greenpeace Docks in the Siskiyous
Greg
Moses
Who Will Tell Us More About the Workers of Nasiriyah?
Susan
Davis
Harry Potter & the Prisoner of Azkaban
Joseph
Ramsey
Weather Report: a Review of The Weather Underground
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
The 18th Brumaire in the 21st
Century
Wayne
Saunders
The Gipper, D-Day and the Stanley Cup
Poets'
Basement
Richey, Ford, La Morticella, Albert
Website
of the Weekend
Insurgent Music
| Weekend
Edition
June 26 / 27, 2004
The Withering
of the Anti-War Movement
The 15th
of Febuary 2003: a Eulogy and Prelude
By
KEITH ROSENTHAL
It’s
high time that the anti-war movement addresses the 500-pound gorilla
standing in the middle of the room. That’s right – I’m
talking about the mass movement that collapsed roughly around the 20th
of March 2003, in the wake of Bush’s decision to go ahead with
the invasion of Iraq.
We all
remember the feeling of euphoria on February 15th of that year, when
10 million people worldwide marched against the war on Iraq. Millions
took to the streets across America, chanting, blocking traffic, and
speaking out. Although we all knew that Bush was determined to have
his war, somewhere, in the recesses of our minds, we also held a flicker
of hope that maybe—just maybe—we would force him to stand
down.
Within
two months’ time, the million beams of hope had receded back into
the dark alleys of the general feeling of powerlessness we know as “the
American political system.”
First,
we were barraged with the hypocritical demand: “Support the Troops!”
The media, Democratic and Republican politicians alike, and “common-sense,”
all chimed in to order anti-war activists to immediately cease and desist,
for the very lives of American soldiers were at stake!
Next,
as soon as the invasion had turned into occupation, we were told by
the same foregoing echo chambers that we again had to cease and desist
all anti-war activity, but this time for the sake of the Iraqis themselves.
For if the US were to just pull out of Iraq, the argument went, we would
most certainly leave Iraq a much worse place than when we found it.
This turned into a variation of the ‘you break it, you own it’
mantra.
Finally,
we were told that the US must stay in Iraq for the next 5 to 10 years
to continue fighting “foreign terrorists,” “insurgents,”
and “former Ba’athist loyalists.” All pretenses of
ridding Iraq of weapons of mass destruction or of securing revenge for
the attacks of September 11th went out the window.
In the
end, the sole reason offered by the Bush administration for why the
US had to stay in Iraq was (drum roll please) . . . because we were
already there (dah-dah)!
The saddest
part of this whole charade was not the base superficiality of the Bush
administration’s rationalizations, but the fact that the vast
majority of anti-war activists bought it, or, at least, sunk into a
deep demoralization out of despair that we were unable to stop the war.
The past
year has been characterized by an intense hangover for the anti-war
movement. This hangover has been made worse by the fact that people
have grasped to the Democrat, John Kerry, as the alternative—an
alternative, not to Bush, but to our inability to influence policy through
mass demonstrations. The “Anybody But Bush” phenomenon is
less a referendum on George Bush, and more so on the confidence of the
American Left in its ability to affect change through independent, mass
action.
This is
the reason why there was barely a ripple of protest when the pictures
of Iraqis being tortured in Abu Ghraib prison by American soldiers spread
across the front-pages of newspapers like wildfire. This is the reason
why the anti-occupation movement remains so peripheral in the American
public eye despite a recent Gallup poll revealing that 44% of Americans
are for an immediate US withdrawal from Iraq.
The fact
of the matter is that the anti-war movement has to face up to some tough
political realities. First and foremost, we have to come to understand
why the anti-war protests failed to stop Bush’s war, lest we draw
the hopeless conclusion that mass protests simply don’t work.
In the context of the Election 2004, this amounts to the idea that the
only way we can have our voices heard is by changing our tune (i.e.,
voting for a candidate who is for everything that we’re against).
During
the Vietnam War era, millions of people all across the country spent
years organizing and protesting to stop the slaughter. One Democrat
after another betrayed the anti-war movement by escalating the conflict.
The anti-war movement was left with but one recourse: up the stakes.
This meant
coming to organize on the basis of a political analysis that went deeper
than simple opposition to a “mistaken” military venture.
It meant coming to see that wars fought by powerful nations against
weaker ones was nothing more than imperialism, pure and simple. Imperialism—the
logical extension of the “survival-of-the-fittest” capitalist
system onto the global market—was no mere policy adopted by this
or that administration. Imperialism is something rooted in the economic
system under which we live.
The movement had to begin to develop ideas to explain the stubbornness
of the government in the face of mass protests. It had to deepen its
connections with the armed resistance of the Vietnamese against the
US invasion. It had to forge more solid links with the US soldiers becoming
increasingly radicalized by the experience of fighting a war to liberate
a people who sought liberation from the US.
It was
only at this juncture that the American public eye began to turn wearily
towards the anti-war movement, seeing it not as a blight but as a haggard
sage. It was only at this juncture, when the movement began to pass
beyond the bounds within which it had previously defined itself—that
is, when it passed from an anti-war to a potentially revolutionary movement—that
the rulers began to listen . . . and take heed.
We are
currently at the very beginning of this process. The movement that failed
to stop Bush’s war was politically unequipped to deal with the
question of occupation; the question of the Iraqi resistance; the question
of democracy under capitalism. It may not come to develop an understanding
of these central issues for some time.
Meanwhile,
the dynamic of the occupation and the indemnity it is incurring domestically,
are playing out in an interesting manner. New forces are beginning to
emerge in active opposition to the occupation—forces a thousand
times stronger and more resolute than those comprising the February
15th demonstration. The February 15th movement was planning all along
to disappear within a year—either as a result of stopping the
war, or as a result of not stopping the war.
The new
movement, however, is being spear-headed by military families opposed
to the occupation; by soldiers themselves returning from Iraq; by Palestinians
connecting the occupation of their land with that of the Iraqis’;
and by the remnants of the anti-war movement of yester-year who have
drawn the conclusion that the only weakness of the February 15th protests
was that they didn’t go far enough—politically or organizationally.
Such forces
will not easily be diverted from their course. In fact, their cause
can only grow in active support as the Iraqi resistance develops apace,
as the US continues to lose more soldiers in the years to come, and
as the occupation waxes more and more brutal as the US attempts to “pacify”
a population refusing in larger and larger numbers to be accomplices
in their own oppression.
Moreover,
whatever the outcome of the election in November, it can be nothing
more than a school in the futility of advancing social causes through
a “changing of the guard.” If Bush wins, people will once
again be forced to look for alternatives to the electoral arena in which
to make their voices heard. If Kerry wins, he will add 40,000 more troops
to the occupation, and people will in due course have to once again
discover the importance of independent, mass organizing as the only
vehicle for social change.
None of this is to preach inevitability. The dynamics playing out in
Iraq—and their domestic consequences—can merely render the
conditions around us ripe for the re-emergence of mass struggle. Moreover,
this struggle has the potential to emerge on a much more solid political
footing than it had before it last disappeared.
The key link in this chain of events is the extent to which all of the
above lessons are learned, transmitted, and integrated into the very
consciousness of any future mass movement. This will primarily be done
by developing organizational links between the various forces emerging
around us in opposition to the occupation, but more importantly, in
carrying out a series of political discussions with these forces and
all others around us who are not yet active.
We have
to develop a lesser or greater degree of political continuity between
the coming movement and the last. We have to ensure that, although we
may go through the same motions in rebuilding a protest movement, we
are actually not reinventing the wheel. We must ensure that we come
to the tool-bench this time with a more refined dexterity and a clearer
blueprint. Finally, we must make sure that our toolkit is stocked with
the best equipment: anti-imperialism, a history of social struggle,
and a sober assessment of our own strengths and weaknesses. These crucial
tools must be forged through the process of political debate, discussion,
and argumentation.
This is
the single-most important task that we will face over the next year.
Keith
Rosenthal is active with the International Socialist Organization
in Burlington, VT. He can be reached at keithmr81@yahoo.com
Weekend Edition June 12 / 13, 2004
Peter
Linebaugh
Remembering the Common Hood: Soweto and Runnymede
Team CounterPunch
CP's Favorite Albums
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Troy, Now and Then
Gary Leupp
Not Really a Puppet Government in Iraq?
Brian
Cloughley
US Military in Crisis
Antonio
Ponvert, III
Iraqi Prisoner Abuse: the Connecticut Connection
Ben
Tripp
The Polls Get Stupider
Joe Bageant
Mash Note to the "Girl with the Leash"
Ron
Jacobs
The Return of the Hip Hop Insurgency
Forrest
Hylton
Object Lessons from the Case of Francisco Cortés
Christopher
Brauchli
Federal Bureau of Errors
Kurt Nimmo
Going After Qaddafi, Again
Wayne
Madsen
Israel's Slap at Reagan
Anthony
Loewenstein
Al Jazeera Awakens the Arab World
Michael
Donnelly
A Lightship in the Forest: Greenpeace Docks in the Siskiyous
Greg Moses
Who Will Tell Us More About the Workers of Nasiriyah?
Susan
Davis
Harry Potter & the Prisoner of Azkaban
Joseph
Ramsey
Weather Report: a Review of The Weather Underground
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
The 18th Brumaire in the 21st Century
Wayne
Saunders
The Gipper, D-Day and the Stanley Cup
Poets'
Basement
Richey, Ford, La Morticella, Albert
Website
of the Weekend
Insurgent Music
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