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Today's
Stories
February
4, 2004
Brian
McKinlay
Bush's Australian Deputy: Howard's
Last Round Up?
February
3, 2004
Alan
Maass
The
Dems' New Mantra: What They Really Mean by "Electability"
Nick
Halfinger
How the Other Half Lives: Embedded
in Iraq
Rahul
Mahajan
Our True Intelligence Failure
Neve Gordon
The Only Democracy in the Middle East?
Laura
Carlsen
Mexico: Two Anniversaries; Two Futures
Jordan
Green
Democratic Patronage in Northern New
Mexico
Terry
Lodge
An Open Letter to Michael Powell from the Boobs & Body Parts
Fairness Campaign
Hammond
Guthrie
Investigating the Meaningless
Website
of the Day
Waging Peace
February
2, 2004
Gary
Leupp
The Buddhist Nun in Tom Ridge's Jail
Justin
E.H. Smith
The Manners of Their Deaths: Capital Punishment in a Smoke-Free
Environment
Tom
Wright
The Prosecution of Captain Yee
Winslow
Wheeler
Inside the Bush Defense Budget
Lee Ballinger
Janet Jackson's Naked Truth
Leonard
Pitts, Jr
For Blacks, the Game of Justice is
Rigged
Jeffrey
St. Clair
The Hollow Candidate:
The Trouble with Howard Dean
Website
of the Day
Resistance:
In the Eye of the American Hegemon
Jan. 31 / Feb 1, 2004
Paul
de Rooij
For Whom the Death Tolls: Deliberate
Undercounting of Coalition Fatalities
Bernard
Chazelle
Bush's Desolate Imperium
Jack
Heyman
Bushfires on the Docks
Christopher
Reed
Broken Ballots
Michael
Donnelly
An Urgent Plea to Progressives: Don't Give in to Fear
Rob Eshelman
The Subtle War
Lee
Sustar
Palestine and the Anti-War Movement
George
Bisharat
Right of Return
Ray
McGovern
Nothing to Preempt
Brian Cloughley
Enron's Beady-Eyed Sharks
Conn
Hallinan
Nepal, Bush & Real WMDs
Kurt Nimmo
The Murderous Lies of the Neo-Cons
Phillip
Cryan
Media at the Monterrey Summit
Christopher
Brauchli
A Speech for Those Who Don't Read
John
Holt
War in the Great White North
Mickey
Z.
Clueless in America: When Mikey Met Wesley
Mark
Scaramella
The High Cost of Throwing Away the Key
Tariq Ali
Farewell, Munif
Ben
Tripp
Waiter! The Reality Check, Please
Poets'
Basement
LaMorticella, Guthrie, Thomas and Albert
January 30, 2004
Saul
Landau
Cuba High on Neo-Con Hit List
Michael
Donnelly
Bush's Second Front: The War in
the Woods
Elaine
Cassel
Worse Than Jacko: Child Abuse at Gitmo
David Vest
More Halliburton News, Brought to You by Halliburton
Mike
Whitney
The Kay Report: Still Defending Aggression
David
Miller
The Hutton Whitewash
Sam
Husseini
How Many People Must Die Because of This "Mistake",
Senator Kerry?
January 29, 2004
Patricia
Nelson Limerick
John Ehrlichman, Environmentalist
Ron
Jacobs
Homeland Security and "Legalized"
Immigration
Rahul Mahajan
New Hampshire v. Iraq
Greg
Weiher
Bush Calls for Preemptive Strike on
Moon and Mars
Norman
Solomon
The State of the Media Union
Cockburn
/ St. Clair
Does NH Mean Anything?
January
28, 2004
Kathy
Kelly
Bearing Witness Against Teachers of
Torture and Assassination
January
27, 2004
Steve
Philion
Ritter Was Right: My Exchange with
CNN's Aaron Brown
Daniel
Ellsberg
Leak Against This War: Expose the
Lies from the Inside
C.G.
Estabrook
Can George Ever Really be Elected
President?
Josh
Frank
Hot Coals in Vermont: Dean's Smoke
Screens
Greg
Moses
Racism 101 All Over Again
Gilad
Atzmon
Blood, Soil and Art
Mike
Ferner
"We're All Lied To": an
Interview with Bruce Cockburn in Baghdad
Hammond
Guthrie
General Disorders of the Day
January
26, 2004
Sean
Donahue
The Toxic Career of Rand Beers: Kerry's
Drug War Zealot
Gary
Leupp
David Kay's Admission
January
24/5, 2004
Patrick
Cockburn
Iraq's Shia: "Our Day Has
Come"
Laura
Flanders
State of the Conservative Union
Simon Helweg-Larsen
Enter Berger: Signs of Hope in
Guatemala
Dave
Lindorff
Ground Control to Maj. George
Susan Davis
The Birdwatcher Menace
Alexander
Cockburn
The Fog of Cop Out: McNamara 10,
Morris 0
January
23, 2004
Yonathan
Shapira
An Israeli Pilot Speaks Out
Standard
Schaefer
Italian Philosopher Giorgio Agamben
Protests US Travel Policy
Josh
Frank
In Defense of Polluters: Howard Dean's
Vermont
William
A. Cook
Rule by the Corrupt and the Capricious
January
22, 2004
Sam
Smith
Howards End?
Patricia
Koyce Wanniski
Lost in Space
Alexander
Lukin
Putin and the Clans
Katherine
van Wormer
Dry Drunk Confirmed: O'Neill's
Revelations and Bush's Mind
Forrest
Hylton
The Prisoner, the President and the
Mafia
January 19, 2004
Justin E. H. Smith
Inside
America's Prisons: From Corrections to Retribution
Richard W. Behan
The GOP, Inc.
Ray McGovern
Bush's
State of the Union: Humility or More Hyperbole?
Werther
SOTUS:
the Stalin Moment of America's Nomenklatura
Phillip Cryan
Media Collusion in Colombia's War
Lee Sustar
A New Strategy to Reverse Labor's Decline?
Arthur Versluis
Great Lakes as Commodity: Privatizing Water
Uri Avnery
Anti-Semitism:
a Practical Manual
Steve Perry
Fresh Crack from Hawkeye State
January 17 / 18, 2004
Fadi Kiblawi and Will
Youmans
The
Use and Abuse of MLK Jr by Israel's Apologists
Joshua Muldavin
and Joseph Nevins
Blaming the Symptoms
Jeffrey St. Clair
Bad Days at Indian Point: Inside America's Most Dangerous Nuclear
Plant
Brian Cloughley
Iron Hammers in Iraq
Saul Landau
Fog of War: Vietnam and Iraq
M. Shahid Alam
Lerner, Said and the Palestinians
Richard Manning
Food Poisoning as Background Noise
Marjorie Cohn
The Guantanamo Concentration Camp
Mike Whitney
Scalia and Opus Dei: Radicals on the Court
Sadik Kassim
Meet Our New Saddam: Islam Karimov
Carol Norris
Arnold
and Bush's Numbers Don't Add Up
Joe Quandt
Suicide
Bombers: The Clash of Absurdities
David Krieger
Imagining MLK Jr at 75
Bruce Jackson
Making War, Making Movies
Ron Jacobs
Revolution in the Air: a review
Richard Edmondson
Rupert Murdoch and My Sister
Richard Forno
Apologizing for Preemption: Evil, Perle and Frum
Poets' Basement
Holt, Mickey Z, Albert & Guthrie
January 16, 2004
Kathy Kelly
A Visit
to Umm Qasr Prison
William S. Lind
More
Thoughts on 4th Generation Warfare
Gillian Russom
So.
Cal Grocery Strikers Speak Out: "We Need Action!"
Ari Shavit
Survival
of the Fittest? An Interview with Benny Morris
Adi Ophir
Genocide Hides Behind Expulsion: a Response to Benny Morris
Dave Lindorff
The General's Henchman: Michael Moore Smears Kucinich
Steve Perry
Iowa Death Trip 2
January 15, 2004
Veteran Intelligence
Professionals for Sanity
Memo
to the President: Your State of the Union Address
John Chuckman
Dry
Hole in the Oval Office: President from Podunk Drilling, Inc
Chris Floyd
Mind Over Matter
Gil-Scott Heron
Whitey on the Moon
Gary Leupp
The
Silk Road: Random Thoughts on the Bam Earthquake and Satan
January 14, 2004
Greg Moses
Happy
Birthday, Dr. King: To Write Off the South is to Surrender to
Bigots
Kurt Nimmo
Bush and the Supremes: Amputating the Bill of Rights
Dave Lindorff
Preview of Iowa? Pennsylvania Straw Poll Spells Trouble for Traditional
Dems (and Dean)
Jason Leopold
O'Neill Claims Backed by Rumsfeld / Wolfowitz War Letters to
Clinton
Alexander Cockburn
Bush,
Oil and Iraq: Some Truth at Last
January 13, 2004
William S. Lind
How 2004
Looks from Potsdam
M. Junaid Alam
Do Iraqis Have a Right to Resist?
Mickey Z
Snipers:
No Nuts in Iraq
Adolfo Gilly
Chonchocoro:
The Prisoner and the Presidents
Steve Perry
You Love God, Right?
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.
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February
4, 2004
Return of the Culture
Wars
Whose
Boob Tube?
By FRAN SHOR
When Justin Timberlake ripped off the right outer
garment covering Janet Jackson's chest during the Super Bowl
Halftime Show, more was exposed than Jackson's bare breast with
its ornamental nipple ring. Once more the culture wars were revealed
with all their sordid contradictions. From the denunciation of
the "classless, crass, and deplorable stunt" by FCC
Chair, Michael Powell, to White House spokesperson, Scott McClellan's
call "for families to be able to expect a high standard
when it comes to programming," the Bush Administration mounted
its steed of moral guardianship of the airwaves. For an Administration
that had favored Viacom and CBS with its corporate policies,
the shock that CBS could not police MTV, its subsidiary, to reign
in its sexploitation spectacle seemed only too predictable.
Aware of the need to mobilize the puritan
sensibilities of its fundamentalist base, the Bush Administration
kept faith with Attorney General John Ashcroft's earlier cover
up of a statue whose breast was exposed. One wonders what these
paragons of virtue would do when confronted with Delacroix's
famous 1831 painting of bare-breasted figure of Liberty waving
the tricolors while leading the masses to the barricades. Of
course, knowing that this was a French painting from the "Old
Europe" of licentious attitudes would be enough to censor
such ribald exposure.
CBS and Viacom were very accommodating
to censoring an earlier scheduled showing of a biography of Ronald
Reagan which featured not the exposed breasts of Nancy Reagan
but a narrow-minded condemnation of AIDS by President Reagan.
Apparently, kowtowing to the political right-wing is part of
the corporate culture of CBS. Such sycophantic behavior by CBS
towards the right and particularly the Bush Administration was
further reinforced when CBS refused to accept a 30 second anti-Bush
ad for the Super Bowl paid by the liberal advocacy group, MoveOn.
Perhaps CBS was just trying to protect the innocent minds of
children who might have been puzzled by the MoveOn ad's portrayal
of children laboring at grown-up jobs as an indictment of the
profligate deficit policies of the Bush Administration.
Yet, when one considers the ads favored
by CBS for the Super Bowl, one is struck by how many of these
ads were moronic and offensive. As a New York Times article from
the February 3, 2004 business page asked: "Where is the
inquiry into the crude, crass Super Bowl commercials celebrating
a dog trained to bite crotches, a flatulent horse, a monkey pitching
woo to a woman, a man tortured with a bikini waxing and an elderly
couple fighting over a bag of potato chips?" Why should
the gross-out by Timberlake and Jackson be considered any worse
these aforementioned commercials?
In fact, the whole flow of half-time
ads and entertainment is representative of marketing strategies
for men between the ages of 18 and 34. It would be hard to imagine
that many of these men were scandalized by Timberlake's aggressive
assault on Jackson or even the rapper Nelly's grabbing of his
crotch. Maybe had Nelly pulled off the outer garment of a white
woman a layer of residual racism would have been additionally
exposed (except if Madonna had been the singer since outrageous
interracial posturing by Madonna is an integral part of her act.)
On the other hand, Viacom and CBS should
not have been under any illusions that their naughty cable affiliate,
MTV, would exploit the sexual boundaries of prime-time television.
MTV has been catering to teenage audiences and their sexual fantasies
with everything from revealing music videos to the near-pornographic
sensibilities of "The Real World." As far back as 1992
MTV prefigured Bill Clinton's own sexual peccadilloes when he
was asked by a woman during his MTV appearance whether he favored
boxes or briefs. We would only later learn that the real answer
was "thongs."
It shouldn't be surprising that the same
crew that went after Clinton during the Monica Lewinsky affair
is part of the loud chorus of critics of the Timberlake-Jackson
stunt. According to the New York Times, the chair of the House
Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet, Fred Upton,
a rib-rock conservative Republican, "introduced legislation
last month to increase tenfold the FCC's fines for indecency."
After contacting the president of Viacom to make sure that he
demonstrated the proper obeisance to right-wing puritan standards,
Upton assured the readers of the Times that the Viacom president
"was appalled and apologetic."
So far Upton hasn't asked for an apology
from President Bush for his appalling behavior on Iraq. Then
again, that's a question about state-sanctioned violence, something
thoroughly embraced by the right. When he comes to sexual mores
and the right to choose (ironically the theme of the Super Bowl
halftime show), the boobs of the right seem particularly offended
by exposed boobs on the tube and the right of woman to control
their bodies.
Of course, Janet Jackson's deliberate
manipulation of her own sexuality, absent the "garment malfunction,"
is part of the larger issue of the co modification of sexuality
in capitalist society. What appeals to the male gaze and what
sells is certainly integral to the coin of the realm. That's
why the contradiction of a corporate conglomerate like Viacom
trying to tame its hip sexual sensationalist subsidiary MTV is
rather laughable. While the right will prate on about indecency
on television, capitalism will continue to consolidate its media
control. The boob tube will, when necessary, respond to the political
winds, hoping never to expose too much of its own sordid relationship
with the master class of mind managers, whether corporate or
political. Only when the body politic reveals the bawdiness of
capitalism as the real violator of human beings will the boob
tube no longer suckle those who would bite the breast that feeds
it.
Fran Shor
teaches at Wayne State University and is a peace and justice
activist. He can be reached at: aa2439@wayne.edu
Weekend
Edition Features for February 1, 2004
Paul
de Rooij
For Whom the Death Tolls: Deliberate
Undercounting of Coalition Fatalities
Bernard
Chazelle
Bush's Desolate Imperium
Jack
Heyman
Bushfires on the Docks
Christopher
Reed
Broken Ballots
Michael
Donnelly
An Urgent Plea to Progressives: Don't Give in to Fear
Rob Eshelman
The Subtle War
Lee
Sustar
Palestine and the Anti-War Movement
George
Bisharat
Right of Return
Ray
McGovern
Nothing to Preempt
Brian Cloughley
Enron's Beady-Eyed Sharks
Conn
Hallinan
Nepal, Bush & Real WMDs
Kurt Nimmo
The Murderous Lies of the Neo-Cons
Phillip
Cryan
Media at the Monterrey Summit
Christopher
Brauchli
A Speech for Those Who Don't Read
John
Holt
War in the Great White North
Mickey
Z.
Clueless in America: When Mikey Met Wesley
Mark
Scaramella
The High Cost of Throwing Away the Key
Tariq Ali
Farewell, Munif
Ben
Tripp
Waiter! The Reality Check, Please
Poets'
Basement
LaMorticella, Guthrie, Thomas and Albert
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