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A Special Report on the Presidential Elections Exclusively in the Print Edition CounterPunch How Progressive Challenges Have Been Killed Off Since LBJ; Gagging Fanny Lou Hamer; Eugene McCarthy on "a Peasants Rebellion;" Sabotaging McGovern; The Wreck of Jesse Jackson's Rainbow Coalition; Smearing Nader, Not Once But Three Times: by Alexander Cockburn; The Thieves of the Green Zone by Patrick Cockburn; Murder in Mississippi: Could John Doar Have Saved Cheney, Schwerner & Goodman by David Kotz. In May, CounterPunch Online was read by over 20 million viewers! But remember, we are funded solely by the subscribers to the print edition of CounterPunch. Please support this website by buying a subscription to our newsletter, which contains fresh material you won't find anywhere else, or by making a donation for the online edition. Remember contributions are tax-deductible. Click here to make a (tax deductible) donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now! Call Toll Free 1-800-840 3683 or write CounterPunch, PO BOX 228, Petrolia, CA 95558

Sex, Drugs & the Blues! Serpents in the Garden CounterPunch's Sizzling New Book on Culture and Sex is Now Available Click here to purchase Today's Stories July 20, 2004 John Ross Burying Iraq, Burying Bush 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 15, 2004 Heather Williams McMissing the Point: Supersize Me Crashes on Its Message Werther Iraq: Follow the Money Tom Crumpacker The Birds of Guantanamo Brian Cloughley What Does the Bush Regime Object To? Bill Christison Reorganize the CIA? Of Course, But... July 14, 2004 Jeffrey St. Clair Chronicle of a Nomination Foretold: the Green Deceivers Neve Gordon Of Socrates and the Apartheid Wall Diane Christian The Priesthood of Death Stefan Wray Who Benefits from Missing Data at Los Alamos Nuclear Lab? Josh Frank The Nader / Dean Debate Conn Hallinan Divide and Conquer as Imperial Rules Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg Bring My Brother Home!: Class, War and Education Website of the Day Hijacking Catastrophe: 9/11, Fear and the Selling of US Empire   July 13, 2004 Ray McGovern The CIA and Iraq: an Intelligence Debacle...and Worse Mark Donham The Sierra Club's Inexplicable Treatment of Cynthia McKinney Ben Tripp Politus Interruptis: With Friends Like These, Who Needs Electorates? Mark Gaffney Slipping Towards Armageddon: Israel in Iraq Dave Lindorff Osama Wins! Election Postponed! Chris White Double Think: the Bedrock of Marine Indoctrination     July 10 / 12, 2004 Kathleen Christison The Problem with Neutrality Between Palestinians and Israel Janine Pommy Vega Trail of the Comet: a Gathering of the World's Poets Against War Sherry Wolf From Maverick to Party Attack Dog: Howard Dean Gay-Bashes Nader Saul Landau and Farrah Hassen A Transfer of Power, Sort Of Michael Donnelly How to Steal an Election: the Green Version, 2004 Stanton / Madsen Iraq Survey Group: Rumsfeld's al-Qaeda? Richard Lichtman The End of Innocence: Reflections on American Pathology Gila Svirsky Thank You, Your Honors: a Legal Blow to the Wall Kurt Nimmo Clinton's Life Toni Solo Empire-Speak: What Roger Noriega Really Means Ron Jacobs The Black Panthers and the Rest Camelo Ruiz Marrero Gene Warfare in Oaxaca: Genetic Mutation of Mexican Maize Omar Barghouti Wither the Empire: Rise of a Global Resistance Poets' Basement Curtis and Albert   July 9, 2004 Dave Zirin Carlos Delgado on Deck: Blue Jays Slugger Stands Up Against War Justin Delacour Wishing Kerry Would Shut Up About Latin America Robert Fisk Iraq in Reverse: Martial Laws Fuel Insurgency Boris Kagarlitsky Two Congresses and a Funeral William S. Lind The October Surprises Sibel Edmonds Our Broken System: John Ashcroft's War on Truth Ron Jacobs Reading Tea Leaves: What Vietnam Tells Us About Iraq's Future Gary Leupp The Lie That Will Not Die: Cheney and the Iraq/al-Qaeda Link   July 8, 2004 Niranjan Ramakrishnan The Inexplicable John McCain Toufic Haddad Protesting Israel's Apartheid Wall: a Letter from the Hunger Strikers' Tent Dave Lindorff Liberation as Martial Law Joshua Frank The Fall: How Beltway Dems Sank Howard Dean Christopher Brauchli Bush & Cheney Play the Hitler Card James Petras The Truth About Jimmy Carter   July 7, 2004 John Chuckman Kerry's BBQ: a Deafening Silence of Meaning Virginia Tilley A Line in the Sand: Azmi Bishara's Hunger Strike Susan Martinez A Letter to Bill Cosby Mickey Z Elie Wiesel's Strange Parade Michael Donnelly Our Own Private Wilderness: Trusting the Land in the Inland Empire Sean Donahue Boston Social Forum: the Dems aren't the Only Show in Beantown Diane Christian Sovereignty and Freedom in Iraq   July 6, 2004 Lisa Viscidi Fleeing Guatemala: Central Americans Risk Lives to Reach El Norte Marc Norton The Felonious Five Ride Again: the Supreme Court and Enemy Combatants James Brooks Chemical Warfare on the West Bank? Ray McGovern Porter Goss as CIA Director? William Cook Legacy of Deceit: If Dante Knew of Bush and the Neo-Cons...   July 5, 2004 Forrest Hylton US Imperialism in Latin America: Sept. 11, July 4 and Systematic Torture Chris White A Former Marine Sgt. on the Meaning of Independence Day Joe Bageant Cranky Reflections on the 4th of July Robert Jensen Stupid White Movie: What Michael Moore Misses About the Empire Kathy Kelly "Two Days an' a Wake-Up"   July 3 / 4, 2004 Elaine Cassel Bush's Police State and Independence Day Stan Goff ABC of Opportunism: "Progressive" Latin American Leaders Support the Coup in Haiti Snehal Shingavi "We Want Real Justice for Bhopal": Two Survivors Speak Out Bruce Anderson The Cheney-Leahy Metaphor and the Greens Sharon Smith Twilight of the Greens: the Chokehold of "Anybody But Bush" Josh Frank Ralph Nader's Revolt: an Interview with Greg Bates Robert Fisk Pentagon Tried to Censor Saddam's Hearing Joe Bageant Sons of a Laboring God: Leftnecks Unite! Brian Cloughley Fortress Bush and the One Law Doctrine Justin Delacour The Anti-Chavez Echo Chamber: Venezuela's Media Tycoons William S. Lind Saudi Spillover Linda S. Heard A Joke Called "Justice" Greg Moses "It's Illegal, But It's Our Right": Korean Labor Won't Back Down Ron Jacobs "Ain't You Proud to be White on Independence Day?" Toni Solo Weary of Indigenous Resistances? Just Pretend They're Not There Dan Nagengast Chicken Manure as Cattle Food: Safe, But Do We Want to Eat It? Stew Albert Brando, a Personal Recollection Dave Zirin From the Black Panthers to Sacheen Littlefeather: a Eulogy for Our Brando Patrick W. Gavin The Progressive Case for Dodgeball Steven Rosenthal / Junaid Ahmad The Problem is Bigger Than the Bushes: a Review of F911 Poets' Basement Kearney, Ford and Davies Website of the Day Global Peace Solution   July 2, 2004 Jeffrey St. Clair Suicide Right on the Stage: the Demise of the Green Party Douglas Valentine Fahrenheit 911: Mocking the Moral Crisis of Capitalism Gary Leupp "Just Because I Could": On Obscenities and Opportunities Lee Ballinger Illegal People: Kerry Opposes Immigrant Rights Robert Fisk Saddam in the Dock: Confused? Hardly CounterPunch Wire "What Law Formed This Court?": a Transcript of Saddam's Arraignment Christopher Brauchli Bush's Drug Card Lottery: the Price Ain't Right Saul Landau Buzz Words and Venezuela   July 1, 2004 Katherine van Wormer Bush's Damaged Mind: the Madness in His Method Joe Bageant Is Our President a Whackjob? Does It Matter? William James Martin The Dogma of Richard Perle Dave Lindorff Bush's Evacuation Moment Robert Fisk Bread and Circus Trials in Iraq Alan Maass Green Party in Reverse Website of the Day Michael Moore and Israel: Blind or a Coward?     June 30, 2004 Kurt Nimmo Nicholson Baker's Checkpoint: a New Kind of Anger About Bush Tariq Ali Getting Away with Murder in Iraq Jennifer Van Bergen Bush and the Detainees Douglas Valentine Apotheosis of the Psychopaths: Instead of Fahrenheit 9/11, Rescreen The Quiet American David Price Fahrenheit 9/11 Through the McCain-Feingold Looking Glass Roger Normand America's Criminal Occupation of Iraq Stan Cox Sanitized for Your Protection: Ashcroft's War on Art Henry David Thoreau On the Futility of Bush v. Kerry: All Voting is a Kind of Gaming Ben Tripp Who Dast Call Him Liar: a Rebuttal to Nicholas Kristof                       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

July 19, 2004 It's Official! Mendocino County is Crazier and Fatter Than the Rest of California! By MARK SCARAMELLA How nuts are we? Plenty. Fat, too. According to page 33 of the 2004 Mendocino County Community Health Status Report -- an expensively produced, grant-funded 40-page booklet -- we're mucho nutso and fatso grando. The bad news, or confirmation of long-held suspicions, is found on page 33 of the report where we're informed that the US Surgeon General, speaking in 1999, declared that an "estimated 20% of all Americans will experience a diagnosable serious mental illness sometime in their life." In Mendocino County, our hard-hitting helping professionals tell us, that translates as 20% of our nearly 90,000 citizens. At any one time, then, considered as a statistical probability, about 18,000 Mendolanders can be said to be officially wacko. That's one nut among every five of us. Crazy *and* fat, it seems. 61% of Mendolanders are overweight, compared to 54% statewide, and 24% of Mendolanders -- one in four -- are obese, a statistic which includes Mendocino County's kids who are as fat as its adults and getting heftier by the year. Of our five Supervisors then, at least one is 5150 at any given time. (As it happens, one sitting supervisor is on heavy psychotropic drugs but still goes on public crying jags at supervisors' meetings. Another supervisor is an alcoholic. Another a Republican, an incurable mass delusion that considers the current occupant of the White House a plausible person for the task. And the other two suffer from infantile fixation disorder, which is rampant in Mendocino County; and characterized by persistent interest in the music of one's youth into late middle-age. There are some 30 department heads at work in Mendocino County government; six of them, statistically, are crazy. (The *visibly* deranged include the County Counsel and his staff and include almost all the supervisory personnel at Mental Health, a twitchingly paranoid group of people who think everyone is out to get them. In fact, only the supervisors want to get them.) From July 2002 to June 2003 Mendocino's well-staffed Mental Health Department "and its contract providers" served 2,490 clients, up 16% from the previous year. 52% of these were women. 35% were depressed, 21% were schizophrenic, 19% were bipolar, and 11% suffered anxiety. The report plays up Mental Health's 24-7 Crisis Center (which is now sorta open 17-7 days and early evenings only. The crucial hours of midnight to seven a.m. nobody answers the phone.) The Crisis Center "saw 331 individuals in crisis" who were not hospitalized but who stayed at the Crisis center "for up to 23 hours to *resolve their issues*." Twenty-three whole hours to resolve their issues! Where do I sign up? I'm not *clinically* depressed, schizo, bipolar or anxious, but I'd sure like to resolve my issues in 23 hours or less. (As long as the Mental Health staffers keep their distance.) But how exactly is "issue" defined? Nothing in the report is defined with any precision, which isn't surprising given the rather extreme verbal deficiencies of the authors, the Mental Health Department of Mendodcino County. And fatuity, though epidemic, is not treatable. Mental Health provided "psychotropic medication management" to 1,092 adults during the period cited, managing at least some "issues" chemically, it seems. But what about the kids? How were their "issues" resolved? "Child psychiatric services were made available to 94 children in 2003 through the telepsychiatry contract operated out of offices in Ukiah, Willits and Fort Bragg." What is telepsychiatry? A phone call from a psychiatrist in Bombay? "Children in Mendocino County have access to mental health services through the schools, various non-profit organizations, private practitioners throughout the community, and the Mendocino County Mental Health Department." In other words, crazy kids are going to get a lot crazier. Not that Mendocino County lacks mental health professionals. Hell, all the hippies had to go somewhere when they came down out of the hills in '71. Mendocino County has 115 licensed Marriage and Family Counselors (second only to nurses in the list of licensed non-physician health professionals) and 61 licensed social workers. The county's divorce rate runs about 60%, perhaps higher among marriage and family counselors. There are 25 licensed acupuncturists and 35 licensed chiropractors to unkink the kinks the shrinks are unable to medicate or blather to non-"issue." Seventy-six children received "services" in 2003 as part of their Individualized Education Plan, "which called for mental health services in order to ensure success in school." 80% of these were eligible for MediCal. (MediCal apparently pays for the pharmaceutical speed known as Ritalin, too. Small boys are cranked to the max for their alleged hyperactivity, childhood now being generally frowned upon.) "The remaining students, by law, received these services at no cost to the family." (This is the usual disclaimer from local bureaucrats implying that despite their cush salaries they're also a little more charitable than most of the rest of us. Mendolib not only wants to be paid well for making crazy people crazier, it wants to be loved!) The Community Health Status Report says that an almost unbelievable 26% of County Jail inmates are receiving psychotropic medications -- 714 inmates got psychiatric drugs in 2003. This statistic is suspicious, though. It may just be a reflection of how many of the County's nuts are treated by the cops at the jail after they've done a public wig-out; the more active psychos are now the responsibility of law enforcement. Psychotropic medications also may be prescribed to keep certain inmates sedated, not because they've tossed their bonnet. Nevertheless, according to Mental Health's own stats more than twice as many people get "psychiatric services" in jail than at the crisis center. Still, given that upwards of 20% of the population is starkers, there a lot more nuts than the pecans getting treatment at the jail or County Mental Health. The Mental Health Department summary concludes with this footnote: "An estimated number of residents in Mendocino County not receiving needed services was approximately 2,500." Most of the Mental Health services provided by the Mental Health Department and their contract providers were paid for by taxpayers via MediCal and Medicare; the uninsured were covered out of general public funds. Only 7% of Mental Health's psychiatric services were paid for by private insurers. The Department of Mental Health gets a lot of taxpayer money to provide "treatment," but even though the department is (still) more than adequately staffed at well over 100 people as of last year, the seriously crazy people are handled by the cops and "contract providers." After this year's round of budget cuts in Mental Health, there will be fewer than the 140 people employed at Mental Health's peak staffing because it's obvious that their workload does not warrant that many people getting paid to do mental health work that is now done by police agencies and private contractors. Mental Health closed the Psychiatric Health Facility (the PHF or "puff" Unit) years ago and has already cut the 24-hour crisis center back to part-time, creating a virtual shit storm of protest from Mental Health client advocates, the Mental Health Advisory Board and the Department itself. Expect a virtual chorus of feral howls when these latest cuts are made. Medicare pays far more of the cost of hospitalization in Mendocino County than any other funding source (46%). Private insurance (mostly tax-funded via government employee health insurance plans, but which also includes auto insurance and workers comp) pays only 26%, and MediCal pays only 21%. Almost a quarter of Mendolanders are uninsured, most of whom are illegal immigrant vineyard workers, poor, and/or employed by employers who do not provide health insurance. There are seven medical clinics in Mendocino County -- Ukiah, Willits, Fort Bragg, Gualala, Potter Valley, Anderson Valley, and Laytonville. Of these only Laytonville and Gualala offer acupuncture services, Laytonville logged 2200 acupuncture treatments in 2002, and Gualala more than 1000. There's no accounting for exactly which medical conditions were treated by acupuncture, but whatever it was it no doubt resolved some issues. Although Mendocino County is probably America's number one consumer of medicinal marijuana, the Mendocino Community Health Status Report mysteriously ignores the devil weed's alleged healing properties. Other depressing statistics: Mendo is ranked sixth in the state in the rate of death from cancer, which the report implies is mostly related to Mendo's higher than average numbers of smokers. (34% of Mendolanders smoke every day, compared to a statewide rate of 28%.) Little mention is made of pesticide use or industrial chemicals as contributing factors to the high cancer rate. As Mendolanders age, they fall down a lot. 44% (1100) of non-fatal hospitalized injuries in Mendocino County were the result of falls, and 63% of the 1100 fallers were people 65 years of age and older. Mendocino County, according to our home grown experts, is one of the fattest, craziest counties in the state. And given student test scores, we might soon be the dumbest, too. Mark Scaramella is the managing editor of the Anderson Valley Advertiser. He can be reached at: themaj@pacific.net Weekend Edition Features for July 10 / 12, 2004 Kathleen Christison The Problem with Neutrality Between Palestinians and Israel Janine Pommy Vega Trail of the Comet: a Gathering of the World's Poets Against War Sherry Wolf From Maverick to Party Attack Dog: Howard Dean Gay-Bashes Nader Saul Landau and Farrah Hassen A Transfer of Power, Sort Of Michael Donnelly How to Steal an Election: the Green Version, 2004 Stanton / Madsen Iraq Survey Group: Rumsfeld's al-Qaeda? Richard Lichtman The End of Innocence: Reflections on American Pathology Gila Svirsky Thank You, Your Honors: a Legal Blow to the Wall Kurt Nimmo Clinton's Life Toni Solo Empire-Speak: What Roger Noriega Really Means Ron Jacobs The Black Panthers and the Rest Camelo Ruiz Marrero Gene Warfare in Oaxaca: Genetic Mutation of Mexican Maize Omar Barghouti Wither the Empire: Rise of a Global Resistance Poets' Basement Curtis and Albert WWW http://www.counterpunch.org   Keep CounterPunch Alive: Make a Tax-Deductible Donation Today Online! home / subscribe / about us / books / archives / search / links /