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New Print Edition of CounterPunch Before Kill and Run, Was There Rape and Run? Documents Show the FBI Gave Janklow a Pass by Stephen Hendricks; The Faces of Janus: Why the New York Times Has Always Been a Rotten Paper by Alexander Cockburn; Steal a Tree, Go To Jail; Steal a Forest, Stay in the Lincoln Bedroom: the Politics of Timber Theft by Jeffrey St. Clair; A Southern Africa Sojourn by Lawrence Reichard; The Kiev Con: Exposing David Duke's Illusory Doctorate; CounterPunch Online is read by 70,000 visitors each day, but 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! Or Call Toll Free 1-800-840 3683 or write CounterPunch, PO BOX 228, Petrolia, CA 95558

Now Available from CounterPunch for Only $11.50 (S/H Included) Today's Stories 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?   January 12, 2004 Ben Tripp No Stan for the Kurds Norman Solomon The Dixie Trap: Democrats and the South Mike Whitney O'Neill's Revenge Jason Leopold From the Very First Instant It Was About Iraq Uri Avnery Syria's Peace Proposal   January 10 / 11, 2004 Alexander Cockburn Bush as Hitler? Let's Be Fair Susan Davis Dangerous Books Diane Christian On Lying and Colin Powell Lisa Viscidi Exhumations: Unearthing Guatemala's Macabre Past Daniel Estulin Destroying History in Iraq Saul Landau Homeland Anxiety Elaine Cassel Who's Winning the War on Civil Liberties? Bruce Jackson Making the Shit List Christopher Brauchli Baptizing Hitler's Ghost Francis A. Boyle The Deep Scars of War Lee Ballinger Cold Sweat: Sweatshops and the Music Industry Patrick W. Gavin Hillary's Slur: Mrs. Lott? Ramzy Baroud What Invaders Have in Common Michael Schwartz Inside the California Grocery Strike Gary Johnson An Interview with Former Heavyweight Champ Greg Page Dave Zirin An Interview with Marvin Miller on Unions and Baseball Mark Hand A Review of Resistance: My Life for Lebanon Poets' Basement Thomas, Daley, Curtis, Guthrie and Albert   January 9, 2004 David Lindorff The Misers of War: Troop Strength and Chintzy Bonuses Kurt Nimmo Saddam's Defense: Summon Bush Sr. to the Stand Mike Whitney Orange Jumpsuits for the Bush Clan?: The Carnegie Report on Iraq's Non-existent WMDs Deb Reich Palestinians and Israelis: This War is Unwinnable David Vest Disabled Vets Fire Back at Rumsfeld   January 8, 2004 Neve Gordon Israeli Refuseniks Sentenced to Jail Lenni Brenner Dr. Dean and the Godhead Ray McGovern Bush: Driving Without Breaks Mark Scaramella Inside the DA's Office: Lies, Errors and Tedium Yves Engler Bush's Mexican Gambit James Hollander Journalists Under Fire: the Death of José Couso in Baghdad   January 7, 2004 Democracy Now! Uncharitable Care: How Hospitals are Gouging and Even Arresting the Uninsured Greg Weiher The Bush Administration's Ongoing Intelligence Problem Ben Tripp The Word of the Year, 2003 Dave Lindorff Dean and His Democratic Detractors Michael Leon The NYT Does Chomsky Bob Boldt God Talk Ramon Ryan Small Victories and Long Struggles: the 10th Anniversary of the Zapatista Uprising     January 6, 2004 Dave Lindorff RNC Plays the Hitler Card: MoveOn Shouldn't Apologize for Those Ads Ron Jacobs Drugs in Uniform: Hashish and the War on Terrorism Josh Frank Coffee and State Authority in Colombia Doug Giebel Permanent Bases: Leave Iraq? Hell No, We Won't Go John Chuckman Sick Puppies: David Frum's New Neo-Con Manifesto Rannie Amiri The Politics of the Iranian Earthquake John L. Hess A Record to Dissent From Thacher Schmid A Cheesehead's Musings on the Sunday NYT David Price "Like Slaves": Anthropological Thoughts on Occupation   January 5, 2004 Al Krebs How Now Mad Cow! Kathy Kelly Squatting in Baghdad's Bomb Craters Jordy Cummings The Dialectic of the Kristol Family: Putting the Neo in the Cons Fran Shor Mad Human Disease: Chewing the Fat Down on the Farm Fidel Castro "We Shall Overcome": On the 45th Anniversary of the Cuban Revolution Gary Leupp North Korea for Dummies     January 3 / 4, 2004 Brian Cloughley Never Mind the WMDs, Just Look at History Vice Admiral Jack Shanahan The Wrong War at the Wrong Time William Cook Failing to Respond to 9/11 Glen Martin Jesus vs. the Beast of the Apocalypse Robert Fisk Iraqi Humor Amid the Carnage Ilan Pappe The Geneva Bubble Walter Davis Robert Jay Lifton, or Nostalgia Kurt Nimmo Ashcroft vs. the Left Mike Whitney The Padilla Case Steven Sherman On Wallerstein's The Decline of American Power Dave Lindorff Bush's Taiwan Hypocrisy William Blum Codework Orange! Mitchel Cohen Learning from Che Guevara Seth Sandronsky Mad Cow and Main Street USA Bruce Jackson Conversations with Leslie Fiedler Standard Schaefer Poet Carl Rakosi Turns 100 Ron Jacobs Sir Mick Adam Engel Hall of Hoaxes Poets' Basement Jones, Albert & Curtis       January 2, 2004 Stan Cox Red Alert 2016 Dave Lindorff Beef, the Meat of Republicans Jackie Corr Rule and Ruin: Wall Street and Montana Norman Solomon George Will's Ethics: None of Our Business? David Vest As the Top Wobbleth January 1, 2004 Randall Robinson Honor Haiti, Honor Ourselves David Krieger Looking Back on 2003 Robert Fisk War Takes an Inhuman Twist: Roadkill Bombs Stan Goff War, Race and Elections Hammond Guthrie 2003 Almaniac Website of the Day Embody Bags December 31, 2003 Ray McGovern Don't Be Fooled Again: This Isn't an Independent Investigation Kurt Nimmo Manufacturing Hysteria Robert Fisk The Occupation is Damned Mike Whitney Mad Cows and Downer George Alexander Cockburn A Great Year Ebbed, Another Ahead       December 30, 2003 Michael Neumann Criticism of Israel is Not Anti-Semitism Annie Higgins When They Bombed the Hometown of the Virgin Mary Alan Farago Bush Bros. Wrecking Co.: Time Runs Out for the Everglades Dan Bacher Creatures from the Blacklight Lagoon: From Glofish to Frankenfish Jeffrey St. Clair Hard Time on the Killing Floor: Inside Big Meat Willie Nelson Whatever Happened to Peace on Earth?     December 29, 2003 Mark Hand The Washington Post in the Dock? David Lindorff The Bush Election Strategy Phillip Cryan Interested Blindness: Media Omissions in Colombia's War Richard Trainor Catellus Development: the Next Octopus? Uri Avnery Israel's Conscientious Objectors   December 27 / 28, 2003 Alexander Cockburn A Journey Into Rupert Murdoch's Soul Kathy Kelly Christmas Day in Baghdad: A Better World Saul Landau Iraq at the End of the Year Dave Zirin A Linebacker for Peace & Justice: an Interview with David Meggysey Robert Fisk Iraq Through the American Looking Glass Scott Burchill The Bad Guys We Once Thought Good: Where Are They Now? Chris Floyd Bush's Iraq Plan is Right on Course: Saddam 2.0 Brian J. Foley Don't Tread on Me: Act Now to Save the Constitution Seth Sandronsky Feedlot Sweatshops: Mad Cows and the Market Susan Davis Lord of the (Cash Register) Rings Ron Jacobs Cratched Does California Adam Engel Crumblecake and Fish Norman Solomon The Unpardonable Lenny Bruce Poets' Basement Cullen and Albert Website of the Weekend Activism Through Music     December 26, 2003 Gary Leupp Bush Doings: Doing the Language   December 25, 2003 Diane Christian The Christmas Story Elaine Cassel This Christmas, the World is Too Much With Us Susan Davis Jinglebells, Hold the Schlock Kristen Ess Bethlehem Celebrates Christmas, While Rafah Counts the Dead Francis Boyle Oh Little Town of Bethlehem Alexander Cockburn The Magnificient 9 Guthrie / Albert Another Colorful Season       December 24, 2003 M. Shahid Alam The Semantics of Empire William S. Lind Marley's List for Santa in Wartime Josh Frank Iraqi Oil: First Come, First Serve Cpt. Paul Watson The Mad Cowboy Was Right Robert Lopez Nuance and Innuendo in the War on Iraq     December 23, 2003 Brian J. Foley Duck and Cover-up Will Youmans Sharon's Ultimatum Michael Donnelly Here They Come Again: Another Big Green Fiasco Uri Avnery Sharon's Speech: the Decoded Version December 22, 2003 Jeffrey St. Clair Pray to Play: Bush's Faith-Based National Parks Patrick Gavin What Would Lincoln Do? Marjorie Cohn How to Try Saddam: Searching for a Just Venue Kathy Kelly The Two Troublemakers: "Guilty of Being Palestinians in Iraq"   December 20 / 21, 2003 Alexander Cockburn How to Kill Saddam Saul Landau Bush Tries Farce as Cuba Policy Rafael Hernandez Empire and Resistance: an Interview with Tariq Ali David Vest Our Ass and Saddam's Hole Kurt Nimmo Bush Gets Serious About Killing Iraqis Greg Weiher Lessons from the Israeli School on How to Win Friends in the Islamic World Christopher Brauchli Arrest, Smear, Slink Away: Dr. Lee and Cpt. Yee Carol Norris Cheers of a Clown: Saddam and the Gloating Bush Bruce Jackson The Nameless and the Detained: Bush's Disappeared Juliana Fredman A Sealed Laboratory of Repression Mickey Z. Holiday Spirit at the UN Ron Jacobs In the Wake of Rebellion: The Prisoner's Rights Movement and Latino Prisoners Josh Frank Sen. Max Baucus: the Slick Swindler John L. Hess Slow Train to the Plane Adam Engel Black is Indeed Beautiful Ben Tripp The Relevance of Art in Times of Crisis Michael Neumann Rhythm and Race Poets' Basement Cullen, Engel, Albert & Guthrie   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

January 28, 2004 Nothing to Lose but Your Brains The State of the Media Union By NORMAN SOLOMON My fellow American media consumers: At a time when news cycles bring us such portentous events as the remarkable wedding of Britney Spears, the advent of Michael Jackson's actual trial proceedings and the start of the Democratic presidential primaries, it is time to reflect upon the state of the media union. The achievements are everywhere to be seen and heard. On more than a thousand radio stations owned by the Clear Channel conglomerate, the programming quality is as reliable as a Big Mac. In cities and towns across the nation, an array of outspoken radio talk-show hosts can be depended on to run the gamut from the mushy center to the far right. Television provides a wide variety of homogenized offerings. With truly impressive (production) values, the major networks embody a consummate multiplicity of sameness, with truncated imagination and consolidated ownership. These days, there's a captivatingly unadventurous cable channel for virtually every niche market. A few naysayers like to disparage our system of mass communications. Yet overall, modern free-enterprise media outlets are the best that money can buy. In 2004, those who scoff at the transcendent future of new media technologies are like those who greeted television several decades ago with cries of "idiot box" and "vast wasteland." The cynics failed to trust those who would be enriched by the emerging medium. Today, let us not be bound by old concepts of national boundaries. The global village is being wired with fiber optics; the power to consume is now in the hands of billions. In an era of international understanding -- when everyone from Peoria to Belgrade to Beijing knows the meaning of golden arches or a Nike-brand swoosh -- commercial expression has become a kind of global lexicon in a language gradually redefining what it means to be human. For the 21st century, from one shining sea to another, a manifest corporate destiny is upon us. Leaving no pixel unturned, entrepreneurial genius has found endless ways to innovate on behalf of the eternal quest for more capital. Just as the highest monetary achievers among us have learned to seem to do good while doing extraordinarily well for themselves, the TV networks teach us that the most pristine values are to be achieved by, not coincidentally, spending money. Every priceless moment, as MasterCard commercials have often reminded us, somehow seems to coincide with financial expenditures. To better live in a society that treasures individuality, you can learn how to be more in step with everyone else who matters. Glancing at a TV screen for scarcely more than a second, you have the potential to absorb the latest data from key stock-market indicators as well as glimpse snippets of headlines crawling across the bottom of the screen, absorb computer-generated graphics, listen to voices, hear background music -- and, of course, keep an eye on the big picture. But with all media privileges, my fellow American consumers, come responsibilities. Some technologies are being abused to bypass commercials on television, suppress pop-up ads on line and resist legitimate efforts by sponsors to replace your unduly iconoclastic sense of reality with lucrative facades. Yet let us be candid. The legends of corporate-driven community, laid down by conventions of commerce and politics, are suitable for compliance with never-never lands of public pretense. Contrived narratives that provide maximum profits can have little to do with authentic experience. To guide the expenditures of time and resources for enhancement of cash flow, our powerful institutions must function as arbiters of social meaning. First among equals of those institutions are the powerhouses of mass media. As Marshall McLuhan observed, "All media exist to invest our lives with artificial perceptions and arbitrary values." These are revolutionary times, media outlets often remind us. All over the planet, mass marketing boosts cultural products to digitize the future. In the binary mode, you're either with it or you're not. Media consumers of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your brains. Norman Solomon is co-author, with Reese Erlich, of "Target Iraq: What the News Media Didn't Tell You." Weekend Edition Features for January 10 / 11, 2004 Alexander Cockburn Bush as Hitler? Let's Be Fair Susan Davis Dangerous Books Diane Christian On Lying and Colin Powell Lisa Viscidi Exhumations: Unearthing Guatemala's Macabre Past Daniel Estulin Destroying History in Iraq Saul Landau Homeland Anxiety Elaine Cassel Who's Winning the War on Civil Liberties? Bruce Jackson Making the Shit List Christopher Brauchli Baptizing Hitler's Ghost Francis A. Boyle The Deep Scars of War Lee Ballinger Cold Sweat: Sweatshops and the Music Industry Patrick W. Gavin Hillary's Slur: Mrs. Lott? Ramzy Baroud What Invaders Have in Common Michael Schwartz Inside the California Grocery Strike Gary Johnson An Interview with Former Heavyweight Champ Greg Page Dave Zirin An Interview with Marvin Miller on Unions and Baseball Mark Hand A Review of Resistance: My Life for Lebanon Poets' Basement Thomas, Daley, Curtis, Guthrie and Albert Keep CounterPunch Alive: Make a Tax-Deductible Donation Today Online! home / subscribe / about us / books / archives / search / links /