Read
Why It Happened!
Dime's
Worth of Difference:
Beyond the
Lesser of Two Evils
Order Here!
Today's
Stories
November
18, 2004
Robert
Fisk
There are No Frontiers of Immorality
Left
November
17, 2004
Christian
Harleman / Jan Oberg
Who and What Killed Our Friend Margaret
Hassan?
Dave
Lindorff
Bring Them Home Before They Kill
Again
Larry
Birns
Condi Rice and Latin America: She Sees
Enemies Everywhere
Toni
Solo
Rumsfeld in Nicaragua
Omar
Barghouti
Snuff Films and War Crimes in Iraq
Clancy
Sigal
"How to Take a Beating": Gen. Stilwell's Lessons for
Iraq
Brita
May Rose
America's Radioactive War: DU in Iraq
Ben
Terrall
"We Must Kill the Bandits!": Lula's Troops in Haiti
Sam
Hamod
The New Mongols
David
Krieger
An Open Letter to the Regents of
the University of California on Nuclear Weapons Research
Pierre
Tristam
It Has Happened Here
John
Marciano
Oppose the War and the Warriors:
"Iraqis are a Cancer. An We're the Chemotherapy"
Website
of the Day
Fallujah: the Real Story
November
16, 2004
Paul
Craig Roberts
Declining Superpower Act: the Coming
Currency Shock
Mike
Whitney
The Goss Purge: Night of the Long Knives at CIA
Uri
Avnery
Rejoice Not: Arafat's Funeral
Andrew
Buncombe
Murder in a Fallujah Mosque
Dr.
Teresa Whitehurst
On Refusing to be Silenced: Sen. Bill Frist v. John Quincy Adams
Rudy
Rimando
Cousins of Color: Black Soldiers in the Philippines, 1899
Jordan
Green
Fighting Jim Crow in Cincy: The Old South Lives ... Across the
River
Hugh
Urban
The Ohio "Vote": Ken Blackwell Has Some Explaining
to Do
Steve
Breyman
Challenges for the Peace Movement
John
Ross
Bush in Rapture
Website
of the Day
We
Doomed?
November 15, 2004
Larry
Birns
A Resignation Without Meaning: Powell
and Latin America
Walt
Brasch
On the (Far) Right Hand of God
John
Pilger
The Greatest Political Scandal of
Our Time
John
Chuckman
Welcome to Ripley's Believe It or Not of Christianity
Francis
A. Boyle
Obliterating Fallujah: War Crime in Real Time
Georgy
/ Sengupta
Fallujah in Ruins: The Air is Polluted with the Stench of Death
Ralph
Nader
Voters v. Sports Fans
Neve
Gordon
The "No Partner" Myth
Donna
J. Volatile
So What Are You Going to Do About It?
Werther
On Reading the Duelfer Report
November
13 / 14, 2004
Alexander
Cockburn
"Let Them Drink Sand!"
David
Domke
Bush, God and the Election: a Theology
of War?
James
Petras
The Politics of Imperialism: Neoliberalism and Latin America
Carl
G. Estabrook
How to Stop the GWOT: "Tell the Truth and Shame the Devil!"
Stan
Goff
Torture and the Cinema
Dave
Lindorff
The Ruins of Fallujah
Mike
Whitney
Fallujah and the Erosion of American Power
Ron
Jacobs
Waiting for the Last War to End
Alan
Maass
The Rise and Fall of Gingrich: a Parable for Our Times
Lenni
Brenner
"Next"...a Prison Tale
Gary
Leupp
France's Little Vietnam: Imperialist France Destroys an African
Air Force
Jessica
Leight / Larry Birns
Haiti: the New Regime Shows Its Colors
Heather
Gray
Whistling Dixie: Bush's Reelection, a Perspective from the South
Jordan
Green
Ohio's Provisional Ballots: the State of Play
Robert
Fisk
Arafat Ruled by Emotion and Cronyism
Omar
Barghouti
The Death of Arafat and the Two-State SOlution
Fred
Gardner
Marijuana: an Election Scorecard
Christopher
Brauchli
When a POW Isn't a POW: the Other Torture Memo
Joanne
Mariner
A Preview of the Scalia Court
Dr.
Susan Block
Blue Values
Patrick
Timmons
Violence at the Ballot Box: the War on Gay Rights
Mickey
Z.
Rumor Club
Poets
Basement
Hasan, Albert, Kent, St. Clair
Website
of the Weekend
The Hand of God?
November
12, 2004
Forrest
Hylton / Sinclair Thomson
Insurgent Bolivia: the Roots of Rebellion
November
11, 2004
Peggy
Thomson
Encounters with Arafat
Joe
Bageant
Hung Over in the End Times: Heaven's
Foot Soldiers Escape the Dog Patch
Ben
Tripp
The Squeaky Wheel Gets the Grief
Edwin
Krales
Cuba's Response to AIDS: a Model for
the Developing World
Jordan
Green
How They Tried to Suppress the Black
Vote in South Carolina
Gary
Leupp
Guzman's Fist
Mike
Whitney
Meet Your New AG: Alberto Torquemada
Sam
Bahour
Palestine is Bigger Than Arafat
Sylvia
Shihadeh and Robert Jensen
The Irony of Arafat
Russ
Wellen
Why Do They Laugh at Us?
Mark
Scaramella
Kerry's Enablers: the Clinton
Cult Factor
November
10, 2004
Joshua
Frank
The Bright Side of Bush's Reelection
Mickey
Z.
The Worst President Ever?: Bush +
Clinton = Bubya
Stan
Goff
Debating a Neo-Con
Mike
Whitney
Exit Ashcroft
Dave
Lindorff
Taking a Leak on the Bush Bulge
Ghada
Karmi
After Arafat
Fr.
Gerard Jean-Juste
Letter from a Haitian Jail
Rev.
Bob Jones, III
A Letter to President Bush: "God Has Granted America a Reprieve"
Bernestine
Singley
Tampa Vote: Dispatches from the Ground
Website
of the Day
Free Camilo Mejia
November
9, 2004
Meredeth
Kolodner
Rebuilding the Anti-War Movement
Saul
Landau
The Appeal of George W. Bush: a Mystery for the World to Solve
Brian
Cloughley
Diego Garcia and Freedom, Bush-Style
Charles
Glass
US is Failing the Test of History in
Iraq
Robert
Fisk
Arafat Died Years Ago
Paul
Craig Roberts
The American Centhttp:#reader-pageury is Over
Adam
Federman
Witch Hunt at Columbia: Middle East Profs Smeared as Anti-Semites
M.
Junaid Alam
The Discredited Logic of ABB
Tony
Kevin
Fallujah and the Making of a War Crime
Pierre
Tristam
Zealots on the Mount: Get Voltaire on Speed Dial!
Patrick
Cockburn
Crushing Fallujah Will Not End the
Iraq War
Website
of the Day
Don't Blame the Voters!
November
8, 2004
Roger
Burbach
Out of the Ashes: Bush Win is a Defeat
for Democrats, Not the Left
Dave
Lindorff
Lessons from a Quagmire: Fallujah, the Hue of Iraq
Greg
Moses
After the Morning After: On the Homefront of the Civil War
Greg
Bates
Nader's Election Legacy: Something to Stand On
Michael
Donnelly
The Hit-and-Run Left: From ABB to CYA
Nick
Schwellenbach
Gutting FOIA: the Harm of Too Much Secrecy
Adam
Jones
Men vs. Civilians in Fallujah
Amelia
Peltz
Note from Palestine: This Is Not the Time for Despair
David
Swanson
The Media Black Out on Vote Fraud
Brian
Rainey
The Devil Made Them Do It? Elections, Religion and the American
People
Poets'
Basement
Albert, Landau, Hamod
Website
of the Day
A Report on the US Supply of Toxic Weapons to Iraq
November
6 / 7, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Don't
Say We Didn't Warn You
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Green Out
Carl
G. Estabrook
Who Killed Cock Robin?
Saul
Landau
Che: the Man and the Movie
Gary
Leupp
Let There Be Conflict!
Ben
Tripp
You Call This a Party?
Paul
Craig Roberts
The October Numbers: Continuing Stress on the Jobs Front
Jordan
Green
Heroin, Cocaine and Espanola, NM
Fred
Gardner
Haul of Justice
J.A.
Miller
Cults of the Jealous God: the Balfour Decision Reconsidered
Ramzy
Baroud
Life Without Arafat
Dave
Zirin
Out at the Ballgame: Pro Sports and the Gay Athelete
Ron
Jacobs
The Arrow on the Doorpost
Robert
Oscar Lopez
How White Liberals Became a New Racial Minority
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
The November Surprise
Dave
Lindorff
Silver Linings
Richard
Oxman
Invitation to the Bodily Snatched
John
Whitlow
Value Wars: the View from Lexington, Kentucky
Rahul
Mahajan
Fallujah and the Reality of War
Leila
Matsui
Political "Ju-On": Carrying a Grudge
November
5, 2004
David
Vest
The Not-Bush Brothers: a Fond Farewell
Elizabeth
Boylan
The Dems and Faith-Based Politics
Conn
Hallinan
War Crimes and Iraq
David
Zonsheine
Poetry and the Courage to Refuse
Cynthia
McKinney
It's a New Day!
Elaine
Cassel
Running from the Religious Right
Chris
Geovanis
First Protect Your Vote: Lessons for Democrats on Fixing Elections
from Chicago
Rob
Ritchie
Election 2004 by the Numbers
Jo
Guldi
The Beast of History is In
November
4, 2004
Sharon
Smith
The Self-Fulfilling Prophesy of Lesser-Evilism
CounterPunch
Wire
Bush Voters: 2000 v. 2004
Ben
Tripp
My Fellow Americans...Get Stuffed!
Michael
Donnelly
Why Not Blame Rosie?
Vijay
Prashad
An Election of Homophobia and Misogyny
Jules
Rabin
De Profundis: the Morning After
Robert
Jensen
Politics and Professions of Faith:
"Your Rich Men are Full of Violence"
Zoltan
Grossman
Blue State Secession: the Only Solution?
Jonah
Birch
1968 and Today
Dave
Lindorff
What Went Wrong?
Jack
McCarthy
I Knew It Was Over When Michael Moore Showed Up: He Was For Nader...Before
He Was Against Him
Donna
J. Volatile
Ahoy Kerrycrats! Welcome to Our Nightmare
Paul
Craig Roberts
The Bright Side of Black Tuesday
November
3, 2004
James
Hodge / Linda Cooper
The CIA and Abu Ghraib: 50 Years of
Training Torturers
Ann
Harrison
The Ghost Votes in the Machine: Voting Snafus Across the Nation
Greg
Moses
Blues for Fallujah
Anis
Memon
The Moral (Values) of This Election
Mickey
Z.
Post Mortem
Josh
Frank
The Dems Should be Ashamed
Chris
Floyd
No Ways Tired: Defeat, Dissent and the Bush Machine
spArk
Smoke Signals from Portland: Karmic Blowback and the Democrats
Friedrich
von Schiller
Folly, Thou Conquerest
Cockburn
/ St. Clair
Democrats in End Time: Who to Blame
Now?
November
2, 2004
Gary
Leupp
Democratic Elections in Historical
Perspective: The Wrong Side Wins
Lance
Selfa
Selling the War on Terror
Laura
Carlsen
The US Elections and Latin America: Can the US Ever be a Good
Neighbor?
James
Davis
To Control the Event: Attention Bicyclists
Richard
Oxman
Getting Up with Osama
Dr.
Ira Kay
A Mental Map of the Bush Presidency
Jesse
Walker
Frankenstein v. Chucky: the Halloween Election
Thomas
C. Mountain
Election '24, Deja Vu?: LaFollette, Nader, & the "Most
Important Election of Our Lifetimes"
November
1, 2004
Cockburn
/ St. Clair
How Bush Was Offered Bin Laden and
Blew It
Dave
Lindorff
Bulgegate Confirmed; Press Yawns
Greg
Bates
Nader Voter Survey Results
Roger
Morris
Novel Politics: Only Fiction Can Do
This Election Justice
Diane
Christian
Death Tolls
Lenni
Brenner
Secularists Be Warned: Christlike Kerry Roams Spiritual Universe
Christopher
C. Conway
Can the Left Sink Any Lower?
Francis
Boyle
Legal Elites and the Iraq War: the Nazis Had Their Law Professors,
Too
Jason
Leopold
Rummy's Failed War Plan
Website
of the Day
Dylan Resurrects "Masters of War"
October
30 / 31, 2004
JoAnn
Wypijewski
The Long March and the Million Worker
March
Winslow
T. Wheeler
Spartacus Tells All
Bruce
Anderson
Notes from the Big Empty: When the Hippies Invaded NoCal
Vicente
Navarro
They Worked for Franco: How Sec. of State Cordell Hull and Nobel
Laureate Camilo Jose Cela Collaborated with the Fascist Regime
Robin
Blackburn
How Monica Lewinsky Saved Social Security
Greg
Bates
A Question of Character: What Makes Nader Tick?
Nancy
Welch
The American Health Care Crisis: an Interview with Dr. David
Himmelstein
William
Lind
Election Day: Which Menendez Brother Will You Vote For?
Brian
Cloughley
Uzbekistan and Bush Hypocrisies
Suzan
Mazur
Oops They Did It Again: the NYTs the Paper of Record and Rip-Offs
Greg
Moses
Standing at the Graves of Iraq
John
Chuckman
Osama's Endorsement
Richard
Oxman
Why Not Accept Osama's Offer?
Ken
Avidor
Landscape of Fear: When Ugly is Suspicious
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
Bush, Ba'ath and Beyond
Hope
Bastian
Strangling Cuba's Economy
P.
Sainath
Tower of Gabble: Toward a Sustainable Rhetoric
Dave
Zirin
Bush League: Why MLB Owners Support the Prez
Jon
Swift
The Dry Drunk Thang: Put a Cork in It
Ron
Jacobs
The Joke's on Me: a Review of Bob Dylan's Chronicles Vol. 1
Alexander
Billet
Taking Theatre Back: Are the States Ready for "Stuff Happens"?
Poets'
Basement
Jones, Laymon, Norris, Ford and Albert
Website
of the Weekend
The Origins of Halloween
October
29, 2004
Harry
Browne
No Justice for Peace Activist in County
Clare
October
28, 2004
Forrest Hylton
"The Gas is Ours:" Bolivia's
Ghosts of October
Col. Dan Smith
Rebellion
in the Ranks
Alan Maass
Jon Stewart v. the Pundits
Ron Jacobs
Ecstasy
in Red Sox Nation
Alexander
Cockburn
Kerrycrats and the War
October
27, 2004
Jules
Rabin
Crammed with Distressful Politics
Dave
Lindorff
Bulgegate: the Lies Continue
Katherine
Van Tassel
On the Home Front: Both Parties
Ignore Working Parents
Jeffrey
St. Clair
The Bi-Partisan Politics of Oil
October 26,
2004
Brian Cloughley
Three
Weddings and Lots of Funerals: Atrocities in Iraq and Afghanistan
William Blum
Fear
Factors
Lenni Brenner
The
1964 Berkeley Free Speech Movement: Lessons for 2004
Ben Tripp
The
Chicken Salad Election
Fidel Castro
After the Fall
Greg Bates
The Nation's Flawed Calculus
Walter Brasch
Gag the Public: the War on Dissent
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
An Open Letter to Pat Buchanan
Mickey Z.
Rumble in the Jungle at 30: Ali, Foreman and the Congo
Amir Taheri
The Boom in Conspiracy Theories
Alexander Billet
Say It Ain't So, Bruce!: the Boss Endorses Kerry
Doug Giebel
The Religion of G.W. Bush
Kathleen Christison
Why
I Liked Thomas Friedman's Latest Column Before I Didn't
October 25,
2004
Ralph Nader
Letter
from a Minnesota Highway
Werther
West
Texas Wahabbism
Dave Zirin
Boston's Killer Cops: Death of a Fan
Fred Gardner
Pot Shots: Oregon Revokes Dr. Leveque's License
Omar Barghouti
Executing Another Child in Rafah
William J. Nottingham
Lori Berenson's Story
John Chuckman
A Foolish Consistency
Uri Avnery
On
the Road to Civil War
October 22
/ 24, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
You
Can't Blame Nader for This
Rev. William Alberts
On Bended Knee: Faith-Based Deceptions
Willliam A.
Cook
Killing for Christ
Saul Landau
George W. Bush: a Man of His Words?
Bill Quigley
I Held the Bullet in My Palm: Masked Haitian Police Shoot Children
While Arresting Priest
Christopher Brauchli
Seal It With a Frown: What Compassionate Conservativism Really
Means
William S.
Lind
Fallujah and the Moral Level of War
Sharon Smith
Guilt Trippers for Kerry
Greg Bates
Kerrynomics: "Hurt the Ones Who Vote for Us"
Justin E.H. Smith
Is Lesser Evilism a Compromise with Evil?
Rebecca Evans
Tarnished Legacy: Pinochet and the Chilean Military
Mike Whitney
Al Hurra TV: the Second Invasion
M. Junaid Alam
Purchasing Individuality in America
David Krieger
Nuclear Non-Proliferation: Examining the Policies of Bush and
Kerry
David J. Ledermann
The Emperor's New Crumbs
Lawrence Reichard
Same Old FBI Story
Website of
the Weekend
Lie Girls: the Real Coalition of the Willling
October 21,
2004
Ben Tripp
The
Undecided Voter Examined
Joshua Frank
Kerry
and the Environment:
It's Not Easy Pretending to be Green
Stan Cox
What
the Left Doesn't Get About Small Businesses
Bill Martinez
State
Depart and Cuban Visas: Only Anti-Castro Agitators Need Apply
Mark Engler
The War and Globalization
Lina Britto
and Lucia Suarez
Bolivia:
a Year After the October Insurrection
Website of the Day
Two Pampered Children of Wealth
October 20,
2004
Yitzhak Laor
"Did
You Two Squabble?": a Bullet Fired for Every Palestinian
Child
Jason Leopold
Sinclair
Broadcasting's Air War: a Long History of Journalistic Deception
Jesse Sharkey
A
Teacher's Account of How Military Recruiters Prey on High School
Students
Col. Dan Smith
Choking
Free Speech About the Draft
Dr. Teresa Whitehurst
Using My Religion
David Vest
If
Bush Wins, Blame Me
Jack Random
The Jackson 17: Reflections on a Mutiny
Ron Jacobs
Time
to Kick It Up a Notch
James Brittain
Plan Patriota and the FARC: a Change in the Countryside?
Christopher
Dols
Bombing Madison: Michael Moore's Fright Fest
Dave Lindorff
First They Came for the Nurses...
Website of
the Day
Banana Republican Catalogue
October 19,
2004
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Party
Favors: the Political Business of Terry McAuliffe
Jeff Taylor
Confessions
of a Swing State Voter
Matt Vidal
American
Myopia: "More Money in Your Pocket"
Victor Kattan
"It's Not Who You're Against; It's Who You're For":
Palestine Takes Center Stage At Euro Social Forum
William Loren
Katz
What Goes Around Comes Around
Sean Carter
O'Reilly Should Shut Up About Extortion Claiims
CounterPunch Wire
Who's Really in Bed with Republican Funders: Kerry or Nader?
October 18,
2004
Saul Landau
Facts
and Lies; Slogans and Truth
Dave Lindorff
Bulletin
on the Bush Bulge
Diane Christian
Sheep
and Goats: On the Language of Goodness
Greg Bates / Dave Lindorff
Betting on War: a Wager on the Fallout of a Kerry Presidency
Uri Avnery
Ariel
Sharon's Philosophy
Peter LaVenia
Leaving the Greens So Soon? a Response to Josh Frank
Mike Whitney
O'Reilly at the Whipping Post
Elaine Cassel
The Other War: Civil Liberties Three Years After 9/11
October 16
/ 17, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
The
Free Speech Movement and Howard Stern
Leslie Brill
Unmerciful Judge, Merry Executioners: the Death Penalty as the
True Measure of Bush's Character
Jules Rabin
Reckoning Deaths in an Agitated World
Dave Lindorff
About the Bush Bulge: Was There a Pucker in That Jacket or Was
the President Just Glad to be There?
Peter Linebaugh
Judging Judges: a Few Pages from The Mirror of Justices
Gary Leupp
Iran and Syria: How to Effect Regime Change and Expand the Empire
M. Shahid Alam
America, Imagine This!
Ron Jacobs
Trying to Cross Lake Champlain
Fred Gardner
The Flu Vaccine Question: How Bush Blew It
Jenna Orkin
The Toxic Legacy of 9/11
Dave Zirin
Name the DC Baseball Team: Contest Results
David Hamilton
Alone and Exposed: Bush as a Strong Leader?
Ralph Nader
Criticizing Israel is Not Anti-Semitism
Doug Giebel
Thinking the Unthinkable
Mark Engler
Crimes in Freedom's Name: Dick Cheney's El Salvador
Derek Tyner
Blacks Didn't Get the Vote by Voting: an Interview With Clarence
Thomas on the Million Worker March
Evan Jones
Gimme That Ole Time Religion: Cash and "The Mind of the
South"
Poets' Basement
LaMorticella, Klipschutz and Albert
Website of
the Weekend
No More Bush Girls
October 15,
2004
Paul Craig
Roberts
Where
Did These "Conservatives" Come From?: The Brownshirting
of America
Laura Carlsen
Wal-Mart
vs. the Pyramids of the Sun and Moon
Greg Bates
Empire of Insanity: Kerry's Iraq Troop Numbers
Michael Donnelly
News from a Swing State: Does Anyone Here Have a Spine?
Katherine Lahey
The Venezuelan "Threat": Why Do Kerry and Bush Fear
Hugo Chavez?
Robert Jensen
/ Pat Youngblood
Election Day Fears
Leah Caldwell
From
Supermax to Abu Ghraib: the Masterminds of Torture and Abuse
Website of
the Day
An Anti-Billionaire Policy? Why That Would Be Economic Racism
October 14,
2004
Darcy Richardson
The
Other Progressive Candidate: the Lonely Crusade of Walt Brown
Willliam A.
Cook
Turning
Myths into Truth
Laura Santina
Water, Women and War
Evelyn Pringle
Free Speech Banned by Big Pharma: What You Can't Say About Drug
Importation
Alan Farago
Lessons
from Nature
Rep. Maxine Waters
A Letter to Colin Powell on Haiti
Nicole Colson
Maimed
for Oil and Empire
October 13,
2004
Bishop Thomas
Gumbleton and Bill Quigley
Aftermath
of a Coup: The Other Disaster in Haiti
Sharon Smith
Barak
O-Bomb-a?: Democrats Target Iran
Christopher Brauchli
God and the Bush Administration
Mike Whitney
The Real Meaning of the Hamdi Case
Paul de Rooij
Amnesty
International: a False Beacon?
Website of
the Day
Operation
Truth
October 12,
2004
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
"Indian
Country"
Greg Bates
The Year of Voting Dangerously: a Survey Request of Nader Voters
in Swing States
Steven Conn
Progressives as Pawns: Kerry's War on Nader
Jason Leopold
Under Cheney, Halliburton Helped Saddam Siphon Billions from
UN Oil-for-Food Program
Security Scholars
for a Sensible Foreign Policy
Time for a Change of Course
Timothy J. Freeman
Dying for a Mistake
Pierre Tristam
Deconstructing Bush
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
The 2nd Debate: the Blurring of Act and Audience
Bill and Kathleen
Christison
Israel as Sideshow
Website of the Day
John Kerry's Personal Off-Shore Tax Shelters
October 11,
2004
Robert Fisk
Iraq:
Unforgivable Betrayals and Broken Promises
Kevin Pina
The
Untold Story of Aristide's Departure from Haiti
Patrick Gavin
Rethinking
Columbus Day
Chris Floyd
Tribes with Flags in the New Afghanistan
Daniel Wolff
Radioactive Money: Entergy, Political Cash and America's Most
Dangerous Nuclear Plant
Walter Brasch
The Only Ones Who Believe Saddam Had WMDs are Bush, Cheney...and
40% of All Americans
Mike Whitney
The Phony Afghan Elections: Ballot of the Disappearing Ink
Ari Shavit
"He Talks to Condi Rice Every Day": an Interview with
Sharon's Lawyer
Paul Craig
Roberts
The
Debates and the Big Lie
Website of the Day
Dylan's Greatest Recording?
October 9 /
10, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
"There
Are No Innocents"
Paul de Rooij
Northern Ireland is Still the Issue: a Conversation with Gerry
Adams
M. Shahid Alam
Making Sense of Our Times
Laura Carlsen
Protest and Populism in Latin America
Fred Gardner
Pot Shots: ASA Goes to Court
Col. Dan Smith
Bush's Credibility Gap
Paul Craig
Roberts
Faith-Based Economics
Greg Bates
What If Nader Critics Get What They Demand?
Joshua Frank
Cobb, the Greens and the Collapse of the Left
Felice Pace
Wilderness, Politics and the Oligarchy: How the Pew Charitable
Trust is Smothering the Grassroots Environmental Movement
Walter A. Davis
Of Pynchon, Thanatos and Depleted Uranium
William A.
Cook
The Agony of Colin Powell
Phyllis Pollack
Twas No Crank Call Love Affair: London Calling, 25 Years Later
Poets' Basement
Klipschutz, Albert, Ford
Website of the Weekend
Abu Ghraib: the Taguba Annexes
October 8,
2004
Jennifer Loewenstein
The
Israeli Invasion of Gaza
Moshe Adler
Edwards' Gambit: He Hoped No One Would Notice the Similarities
David Swanson
Media Blackout: Press Continues to Ignore Labor's Opposition
to Iraq War
Dave Zirin
CounterPunch Contest: Let's Name the New DC Baseball Team!
Rep. Ron Paul
The Draft is a Form of Slavery
William S. Lind
Keeping Our SA Up
Samar Assad
Kerry v. Bush: No Difference When It Comes to Israel / Palestine
Jim Ingalls
and Sonali Kolhatkar
The Elections in Afghanistan
October 7,
2004
Dave Lindorff
All
Out of Volunteers: A Draft is in the Air
Masha Hamilton
Fear in Kandahar
Christopher
Brauchli
Master of Corruption: the Ripening Scandals of Tom Delay
Jason Leopold
Is There Still Time to Impeach Bush?
Bruce K. Gagnon
Bombing the Panhandle: Fighting the Pentagon in Rural Florida
Meredith Kolodner
Where
is the Urgency?: The Anti-War Movement's Election Year Challenge
October 6,
2004
Jeffrey St.
Clair
"Please,
Dude, Can I Take Them Out?": Targeting Civilians in Fallujah
Ron Jacobs
Going
Nuclear: the Ghost of Edward Teller Lives
Michael Colby
The National Flip-Flop: Suddenly Bush is Unfit to Lead?
Tarif Abboushi
More of the Same: Israel Wins the Debates
Matthew Behrens
Canadian Firms Profit from Iraqi Blood
Mike Whitney
Rethinking WMDs
John Pilger
Stealing Diego Garcia
Ben Tripp
Kerry's "Triumph"
Kevin McKiernan
Cheney's Poison Lab: Wrong Time, Wrong Target
Patrick Cockburn
Elections
Will Not End the Fighting in Iraq
Website of the Day
Is There an Islamic Problem?
October 5,
2004
Anthony Loewenstein
Rupert
Murdoch and the Marginals: "Personally Creating Outcomes"
Mark Clinton
and Tony Udell
The
Suicide of an Iraq War Veteran
Greg Bates
Trading
Idiots: an Open Letter to Eric Alterman
Dave Lindorff
What's
the Frequency, Karl?
Norm Dixon
Why Washington Won't Save Darfur Villagers
Larry Kearney
God Talk and Burning Children
Bill Linville
Dirty Politics in the Land of "Clean" Government
Gary Leupp
What
Edwards Should Ask Cheney
Website of
the Day
A Guide to Halliburton for Tonight's Debate
October 4,
2004
Diane Christian
The
Gates of Hell
Joshua Frank
An Interview with David Cobb
Doug Giebel
Incurious George: What If Bush Didn't Lie?
John Chuckman
Strange Victory: Sen. Obvious and the Pathetic Lump
Ramzy Baroud
Reverse the Picture: Anatomy of a Palestinian Outrage
Julia Stein
Remembering Mario Savio and the FSM
Sean Donahue
Outsourcing
Terror: Kerry and Special Forces
Website of
the Day
Mapping
Mt. St. Helens as She Rocks
October 2 /
3. 2004
Paul Wright
John
Kerry on Criminal Justice
Kathleen and Bill Christison
An Exchange with Israeli Historian Bennie Morris
Kathie Helmkamp
My Son Trent: a Marine Who Doesn't Want to Kill
Phillip Cryan
Indigenous Mobilization in Colombia
Lenni Brenner
The First Ex-Catholic Saint: Memories of Mario Savio
Fred Gardner
Pot Shots: In Case You Missed "Montel"
Ron Jacobs
It Did Happen Here: When Neo-Nazis Terrorized Olympia
Ben Tripp
Sticker Shock
William S.
Lind
The Grand Illusion: Iraqi Security Forces
Dave Zirin
The Swindle of the Century: Baseball Comes to DC
Dave Lindorff
Lies from the Great Debate
Luscon Pierre-Charles
Haiti's Elections: a High-Tech Sham is Underway
Zoe Moskovitz
& Sasha Kramer
Separating Lies from Truth About Haiti
Nelson P. Valdes
Habana Night vs. Latin American Scholars in Vegas: 61 Banned
Cuban Academics
Alan Farago
The "Ownership Society" and the End of the Everglades
Nancy Haley
What is the Historical Jesus Trying to Tell Us?
Alex Billet
Long Live The Clash: London Still Calling After 25 Years
Steve Fesenmaier
Save and Burn: The War on Libraries
Poets' Basement
Smith, Holt, Albert
October 1,
2004
Steve Breyman
Kerry's
Missed Opportunities
Rose Gentle
My
Son Died for a Lie
Lee Sustar
Iran
in the Crosshairs
Ralph Nader
What
We Didn't Hear at the Debate: Where's the Exit Strategy?
Walter Andrews
We Are Less Secure Now Than Ever
Mike Whitney
Pandora's
Government
Mickey Z.
Debate
This
Saul Landau
The
Iraq Invasion: Lessons from the Pinochet Cases
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.
|
Annual Fundraising
Appeal
Bring It On Home,
CounterPunchers!
As of this morning, CounterPunch
has raised $21,000 in the past three days, slightly more than
two-thirds of the way toward reaching our fundraising goal (ie.,
iron-clad necessity) of $30,000. If this pace keeps up,
we can dispense with what Edward Abbey used to call "this
disgusting plea for cash" before Thanksgiving, which we
know many of you will refuse to celebrate as a strict act of
conscience.
That's the good news. 
The puzzling news is that all
of that money has come from only 529 individuals, meaning that
a very select few are doing a lot of heavy-lifting for the rest
of you. We know that between 70,000 and 100,000 individuals visit
the CounterPunch site every day. That means less than one-percent
of you have pitched in. Imagine: if each of you pitched in a
mere $10 (about the price of a bad Bruce Willis movie ... aren't
they all?) we wouldn't have to conduct another of these fundraisers
until the year 2025!
Remember, CounterPunch's website
is supported almost entirely by subscribers to the print edition
of our newsletter. We don't clutter the site by selling annoying
popup ads. We aren't on the receiving end of six-figure grants
from big foundations. George Soros doesn't have us on retainer.
And we don't sell tickets on cruiseliners.
Through the Iraq war, the traumas
of the Bush administration and the carnage of the election, many
of you have found a refuge at CounterPunch and made us your homepage.
You tell us that you love CounterPunch because the quality of
writing you find here every day and because we don't flinch under
fire. We appreciate the support and prepared for the fierce battles
to come as the Bush administration expands its wars abroad and
at home.
Unlike many other outfits,
we don't hit you up for money every month...or even every quarter.
We only ask for your support once a year. But when we ask, we
mean it. Please, make a
donation to CounterPunch today or purchase a gift subscription.
To contribute by phone you can call Becky toll free (in the US)
at: 1-800-840-3683. From outside the US, call 707-6289-3683."
Onward,
Alexander, Jeffrey and Becky
November 18, 2004
Bush, the Neocons
and Evangelical Christian Fiction
America,
"Left Behind"
By
HUGH URBAN
"Is [Jesus] gonna kill
a bunch of people here, like He is over there?"
"I'm afraid He is. If
they're working for the Antichrist, they're in serious trouble."
-- Tim LaHaye and Jerry B.
Jenkins, Glorious Appearing: End of Days
I see things this way: The
people who did this act on Americaare evil peopleAs a nation
of good folk, we're going to hunt them downand we will bring
them to justice.
-- George W. Bush, September
25, 2001
As a professor of comparative religion
and cultural studies, I have long been fascinated by the strange
intersections between religion, politics and popular culture.
One of the most striking such intersections occurred to me this
summer as I sat down to read the twelfth and last volume of the
wildly popular Left Behind series by evangelical preacher
Tim LaHaye and novelist Jerry Jenkins. For those who haven't
yet had a chance to read any of LaHaye and Jenkin's series, the
story is basically an evangelical interpretation of the Book
of Revelation set in the context of contemporary global politics:
the Rapture has taken place, the Antichrist has taken control
of the U.N. and created a single global economy, while a small
group of American-led believers battles the forces of evil in
a showdown in Jerusalem.
At the same time that I was immersed in this entertaining mixture
of Stephen King-esque thrills and fundamentalist rhetoric, I
had also been reading much of the recent literature on the Neoconservative
movement and its powerful role in the Bush administration. As
Stefan Halper and Jonathan Clarke have persuasively argued in
their recent study, America Alone, the election of George
W. Bush and the confusion following 9/11 allowed a small but
radical group of intellectuals to seize the reins of U.S. foreign
policy. Led by figures like Paul Wolfowitz, Dick Cheney, Donald
Rumsfeld and the members of the Project for a New American Century,
the Neocons have been able to put into effect a long-held plan
for asserting a U.S. global hegemony, in large part by dominating
the Middle East and its oil resources.
The two narratives that I was
reading here -- the Neocon's aggressive foreign policy, centered
around the Middle East, and the Christian evangelical story of
the immanent return of Christ in the Holy Land-- struck me as
weirdly similar and disturbingly parallel. The former openly
advocates a "New American Century" and a "benevolent
hegemony" of the globe by U.S. power, inaugurated by the
invasion of Iraq, while the latter predicts a New Millennium
of divine rule ushered in by apocalyptic war, first in Babylon
and then in Jerusalem.
I was tempted to dismiss the
similarity as an amusing but insignificant coincidence. Yet the
more I began to examine the Neocon's strategies and the ties
between George W. Bush and the Christian Right, the less this
link seemed to be either coincidental or unimportant. I am not,
of course, suggesting that there is some kind of conspiratorial
plot at work between Neocon strategists and evangelical writers
like LaHaye, or that the two are somehow working secretly together
behind the scenes. Rather, I am suggesting that there is a subtle
but powerful "fit," or what sociologist Max Weber calls
an "elective affinity," between the two that has helped
them to reinforce one another in very effective ways. The otherwise
vacuous figure of George W. Bush represents a crucial link or
structural pivot between these two powerful factions, helping
to tie them together: Bush presents the Neocons' radical foreign
policy in a guise that is acceptable to his large base of support
in the Christian Right, even as he reassures his Christian base
that their moral agendas (anti-abortion, anti-gay marriage, faith-based
initiatives, etc) will be given powerful political support. In
Bush, America as the benevolent hegemon of the Neocons and the
American-led "Tribulation Force" of LaHaye's wildly
popular novels come together in a disturbing, yet surprisingly
successful way.
Glorious
Appearing, End of Days: LaHaye and The Council for National Policy
In the last two decades,
Tim LaHaye has emerged as not only the theological brains behind
the best-selling Left Behind series, but also as one of
the most influential figures in the American Christian Right.
Indeed, when the Institute for the Study of American Evangelicals
decided to name the most influential evangelical leader of the
past 25 years, they chose not Billy Graham, Pat Robertson or
Jerry Falwell, but Tim LaHaye, in large part because of his work
in evangelical politics. Not only is LaHaye an influential preacher
and interpreter of prophecy and revelation, he has also become
a remarkably powerful force in domestic and now even international
politics through the highly secretive Council for National Policy,
founded in 1981. Called by some "the most powerful conservative
group you've never heard of," the CNP includes among its
members Reverends Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, Ralph Reed,
Jesse Helms, Tom DeLay, Oliver North, Christian Reconstructionist
R.J. Rushdoony and, formerly, John Ashcroft (himself a Pentecostal
Christian). Recent speakers at the Council's highly private meetings
have included Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, White House
counsel Alberto Gonzales, and Timothy Goeglein, deputy director
of the White House Office of Public Liaison. Although the group
initially focused primarily on domestic agendas like abortion
and homosexuality, LaHaye's Council has recently begun to turn
to larger international issues such as U.S. policy in the Middle
East and the state of Israel.
Published from 1995-2004, the
Left Behind series has provided a key outlet for spreading
LaHaye's political agendas to a massive audience of American
readers. The twelve-volume story is not simply an evangelical
reading of the Apocalypse, but also a Christian Right perspective
on contemporary global politics. LaHaye's interpretation of the
final days is "pre-millenarian" (as opposed to post-millenarian
or a-millenarian): Christ must return to defeat the Antichrist
before the great Millennium of divine rule and peace can
be established. The events of the series take place immediately
after the Rapture, when a few chosen souls have been suddenly
taken up to heaven, and the rest of those "left behind"
must struggle against the rising power of the Antichrist. A small
group of former sinners-turned-believers forms a "Tribulation
Force" to fight this divine war, led by pilot Rayford Steele,
his daughter Chloe, journalist Buck Williams, and pastor Bruce
Barnes.
Much of the narrative is clearly
a commentary on the processes of globalization and America's
role in a transnational era. The Antichrist, in the person of
a sinister Romanian named Nicolae Carpathia, has progressively
taken over the United Nations and the world's economic system,
unifying all political states ("Global Community"),
media ("Global Community Network,"), and religions
("Enigma Babylon One World Faith") under a Nicolae-appointed
supreme pontiff. The millions of the Antichrist's followers are
branded with a loyalty mark and even "vaccinated" with
a bio-chip embedded with their personal information. Eventually,
the Antichrist establishes "New Babylon" as the epicenter
of the world's political and financial networks, spreading its
digital tentacles into every aspect of life and commerce in the
new global order. Meanwhile, the Tribulation Force is led by
(mostly white male) Americans, who manage to persuade a few converts
from other countries and religious faiths to join their brave
coalition and resist this global menace.
In the penultimate volume of the series, "New Babylon"
is destroyed by the Lord's ongoing series of apocalyptic dispensations,
throwing the world's entire economic structure into chaos. This
leads the way for Christ's return in the last volume, Glorious
Appearing, in which the Tribulation Force and the armies
of the Antichrist gather around Jerusalem for the final conflict.
As the apocalypse unfolds, the Jews at long last begin to return
to Christ and accept Him as the true Messiah (though the millions
of those branded by the Beast refuse to do so, God having "hardened
their hearts"). In the spectacularly violent final battle,
the returning Christ mows down the Antichrist's massive armies
in the most gory fashion, splitting bodies apart and spilling
entrails across the earth with the sharp two-edged sword of His
Word. In the end, only the small remnant of believers survives
to "populate the Millennium" and inhabit the New Jerusalem.
As Amy Frykholm has argued
in her study of the series, Rapture Culture, the Left
Behind books contain a strong political message and a "conservative,
patriarchal, even racist agenda that mirrors the agenda of the
Christ Right." On the domestic front, LaHaye's books advance
a strong pro-life message, while targeting feminism and homosexuality
as instruments of the Antichrist. On the international front,
the books contain a deep message of "racially charged American
chauvinism." The leaders of the Tribulation force are white
American men, such as Rayford Steele, while all "others"
women, African Americans, Arabs, Asians, and non-Americans
-- either submit dutifully to their leadership or are destroyed.
The entire series, moreover, contains a disturbing kind of anti-Semitism,
portraying Israel as too stubborn to recognize Jesus as the Messiah,
while making heroes of Jewish converts to Christianity.
Benevolent
Hegemony: The Neocons' Middle East and Geopolitical Strategy
Going a step further, however,
it is difficult not to see striking reflections of the Neoconservative
agenda in the Left Behind narrative. Indeed, these novels
provide a weird kind of fictional, evangelical and astonishingly
popular counter-part to the Neoconservative's rather elite and
intellectual geo-political vision.
According to Irving Kristol,
who first used the term in a positive sense, Neoconservatism
does not represent so much a coherent movement or party as a
kind of "persuasion," or a moral and political attitude.
As Halper and Clarke suggest, the Neocon persuasion can perhaps
best be characterized by three features: first, "a belief
deriving from religious conviction that the human condition is
defined as a choice between good and evil and that the true measure
of political character is found in the willingness by the former
to confront the latter;" second, "an assertion that
the fundamental determinant of the relationship between states
rests on military power and the willingness to use it;"
and third, a "focus on the Middle East and global Islam
as the principal theater for American overseas power."
One aspect of Neoconservative
thinking that is often overlooked, however, is the centrality
of religion in much of their agenda. As Kristol argues, strong
religious faith and a belief in the transcendent basis of moral
law is crucial to the health of the country and the strength
of the economy: "The three pillars of modern conservatism
are religion, nationalism, and economic growth. Of these religion
is easily the most important, because it is the only power that
can shape people's characters and regulate their motivation."
The loss of a strong moral and religious compass, in turn,
has led to the intense crisis that modern liberal America faces,
which he described as a "steady decline in our democratic
values, sinking to new levels of vulgarity." Thus, in
1995 Kristol argued that the Republican Party needed to reach
out and embrace the strong religious core of the American population
-- despite its tendency toward un-democratic attitudes-- if it
was to triumph over the liberal malaise of Clinton's America:
"conservatives and the Republican Party must embrace the
religious if they are to survive. Religious people always create
problems since their ardor tends to outrun the limits of politics
in a constitutional democracy. But if the Republican Party is
to survive, it must work on accommodating these people."
[One of the more striking examples
of this Neoconservative outreach to the Christian Right is Michael
Ledeen, an influential Fellow at the Neocon think-tank, American
Enterprise Institute. Not only was Ledeen one of the most vocal
proponents of the Iraq War, but since the 1980s, he has also
appeared frequently on Pat Robertson's 700 Club promoting
an aggressive Neocon political vision. In a 2004 interview
with Robertson, Ledeen argued that Iraq is only the first step
in the re-structuring of the Middle East and should be followed
by use of military force against Iran, as well.]
By now, the Neocons' role in
the preemptive invasion of Iraq is fairly well known (Indeed,
most of their plans for Iraq and its oil resources can be easily
read in articles going back to the early 90s available on the
Project for a New American Century web-page ). Already in 1992,
toward the end of the Bush I White House, then undersecretary
of defense Wolfowitz and secretary of defense Cheney came up
with a bold new plan to rethink US military policy, which was
circulated in the top-secret Defense Policy Guidance report.
So disturbing was this report that it was leaked by a Pentagon
official, who believed this strategy debate should be carried
out in the public domain. Indeed, it was described by some as
nothing less than a plan for the US to "rule the world,"
without acting through the U.N. and by using pre-emptive attacks
on potential threats.
Although this plan was quickly
shot down after its leak, it resurfaced in a new form in 1997,
with the founding of the Project for a New American Century by
Irving Kristol's son, William. As William Kristol and Robert
Kagan had already argued in Foreign Affairs in 1996, America
now has an opportunity to exercise a "benevolent hegemony"
over the world while promoting democracy and free markets --
an opportunity it would be foolish to let slip away. Kristol
and Kagan's PNAC soon emerged as the leading think-tank and a
who's who of the Neocon establishment, advocating a powerful
new vision of America's role as global leader through its military
strength and moral principles.
The ousting of Saddam and the
rebuilding of Iraq (and by implication, the Middle East) was
a key part of this program for American leadership. In the words
of Raymond Tanter -- a member of Reagan's National Security
Council and now a visiting fellow at the Washington Institute
for Near East Policy -- "the road to Jerusalem goes through
Baghdad. The road to Tehran goes through Baghdad. The road to
Damascus goes through Baghdad[I]f you change the regime through
force in Baghdad, American military power will cast a long diplomatic
shadow, and it will be America's decade in the Middle East."
This became the mantra of the Necon's foreign policy. In 1998
eighteen associates of the PNAC, including Richard Armitage,
William Bennet, Francis Fukuyama, Robert Kagan, William Kristol,
Richard Perle, Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz , wrote a letter
to President Clinton. In it they warned of the need to secure
the "significant portion of the world's oil supply"
in Iraq, advising the President that the only acceptable strategy
is to "undertake military action" and remove "Saddam
Hussein and his regime from power."
Although Clinton chose not
to take their advice, the PNAC did not give up its bold vision
for America's benevolent global hegemony. In September 2000,
the PNAC issued a report entitled "Rebuilding America's
Defenses: Strategy, Forces, and Resources for a New Century."
Its authors lament the lack of effort to "preserve American
military preeminence in the coming decades" and criticize
Clinton for squandering his opportunity to make the U.S. the
sole, indomitable Super-power. The removal of Saddam and the
US. Occupation of Iraq would provide both the crucial justification
and the ideal precondition for this larger global agenda. Achieving
this goal of undeniable U.S. power, the authors suggest, would
require a radical transformation in public opinion and government
policy. But they also caution that "the process of transformation,
even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long
one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event -- like a
New Pearl Harbor."
From Prodigal
Son to Christian Crusader: George W. Bush as the link between
the Neocons and the Christian Right
Not long after the publication
of the PNAC document, two things occurred that handed the Neocons
their "catastrophic and catalyzing events" on a silver
platter. The first was the election of George W. Bush to the
White House. The second was the terrorist attack of 9/11.
As Halper and Clarke argue,
the relatively naïve and unformed Bush allowed a small group
of Neocon thinkers like Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, Perle, Cheney and
others to suddenly have a much more central and active role in
shaping American foreign policy. Kristol himself observed that
Bush was something of a fortuitous gift to those of the Neocon
persuasion: "by one of those accidents historians ponder,
our current president and his administration turn out to be quite
at home in this new political environment, although it is clear
they did not anticipate this role any more than their party as
a whole did." Among other things, Bush provided the perfect
liaison to the Christian Right that the Neocons needed in order
to win popular support and promote their vision of American power
both at home and abroad.
The narrative that Bush and
his biographers tell is clearly modeled on the parable of the
prodigal son -- the young man who fritters away his early life
on alcohol and sin, only to find God and return to his rightful
place in his father's former occupation. As he recounts his own
redemption narrative, Bush had been mired in the world of business
and overuse of alcohol, and so turned in his darker hours to
the study of scripture. The beginning of his conversion occurred
during a summer weekend in 1985, when evangelist Billy Graham
visited George and Laura at the Bush summer house in Maine. The
reverend, with his magnetic presence and warmth, planted a "seed
of salvation" in W.'s soul that soon blossomed into a new
birth and helped him "recommit [his] heart to Jesus Christ."
This recommitment to Christ
proved to be not only a spiritual awakening within George W.
himself but an important part of the Republican party's own re-connection
with the Christian Right. The senior Bush had actually had a
great deal of trouble reaching out to the religious right, which
regarded his Episcopalian, aristocratic airs with some suspicion.
In his 1988 campaign, therefore, the elder Bush gave his newly-reborn
son the task of working with the campaign's liaison to the Christian
right, Assemblies of God evangelist Doug Wead (who also wrote
H.W. Bush's campaign narrative Man of Integrity).
The younger Bush was far more successful in connecting with
the Religious Right; as Craig Unger put it, he was "deeply
attuned to the nuances of the evangelical subcultures" and
"replaced his father's visionless pragmatism with the Manichaean
certitudes of Good and Evil."
George W.'s religiosity became
even more explicit, however, once he decided to run for president
in the 2000 election. As he confided to James Robinson, he believed
that he in fact been called by God himself to he lead the United
States: "I feel like God wants me to run for President.
I can't explain it, but I sense my country is going to need meGod
wants to me to do it." As he considered the prospect of
his candidacy, Bush met frequently with evangelical leaders.
In October 1999, in fact, he addressed LaHaye's Council for National
Policy -- though there is a much difference of opinion as to
what he actually said in that particular address, which was recorded
but has never been publicly released.
Yet it was the attacks of 9/11
that really brought out the most powerful use of religious rhetoric
by Bush and his speech-writers. After the attacks, Bush began
to cast the global situation as a vast war between Good and Evil,
the forces of liberty and democracy against he forces of tyranny
and terror: "Our responsibility to history", he declared
on September 14, 2001, is "to answer these attacks and rid
the world of evil." As he put it in on September 25, 2002,
in ruggedly down-home, no-nonsense, black and white terms, "I
see things this way: The people who did this act on Americaare
evil people. They don't; represent an ideologyThey're flat evil.
That's all they can think about, is evil. As a nation of good
folks, we're going to hunt them downand we will bring them to
justice."
So impressive was Bush's powerful
religious rhetoric that he soon came to be recognized as the
new leader of the Christian Right in America. On the day before
Christmas, 2001, the Washington Post reported that "Pat
Robertson's resignation this month as President of the Christian
Coalition confirmed the ascendance of a new leader of the religious
right in America: George W. Bush." In the words of Ralph
Reed, the Christian Coalition's former President, "God knew
something we didn'tHe had a knowledge nobody else had: He knew
George Bush had the ability to lead in this compelling way."
However, if Bush's intense
religiosity could be used to rouse the American people to respond
to a devastating terrorist attack, it would also soon be used
to persuade Americans to accept, largely without criticism, the
Neocon's long-held plan to invade Iraq -- one of the key links
in the "Axis of Evil." As he explained to Bob Woodward,
the decision to invade Iraq did not come from his political advisors
or even from former President H.W. Bush, but from a much higher
authority: "He couldnot consult his Secretary of State about
going to war and not need to look for strength to his father,
the former President, because he was consulting a 'higher father.'"
In his January 2003 State of the Union Address, in which he
made the strongest case for war against Iraq, Bush made an explicit
appeal to God, divine will and Providence to justify the sacrifice
of American lives; for they will be dying not just for the American
people, but for freedom which is "God's gift to humanity."
Whether or not George W. Bush's
decision to invade Iraq was divinely inspired, it does seem to
have fulfilled the Neocon's long-held plans on both the domestic
and the international fronts. As David Harvey argues in his recent
book, The New Imperialism, the attacks of 9/11 and Bush's
evangelical response to it have provided the ideal rationale
for imposing the Neocon's larger agendas of "establishment
of and respect for order, both at home and upon the world stage."
On the domestic front, 9/11
has provided the excuse to impose extremely invasive new measure
like the USA PATRIOT Act, championed by conservative Christian
Attorney General John Ashcroft. On the international front, it
has also provided the ideal motivation-- and spiritual justification
-- for the Neocon's plans for Iraq dating back to the early 90s.
As Harvey observes, the Neocon strategy for occupying Iraq has
behind it a much larger and more disturbing global agenda. With
Iraq as its base of operation, and Saudi Arabia, Syria and Iran
close at hand, the U.S. will be uniquely placed to dominate the
flow of oil from the Middle East and, by extension, the flow
of capital throughout the world in an age still fuelled by oil
and petro-dollars: "The U.S. will be in a military and geo-strategic
position to control the whole globe militarily and, through oil,
economically.The neo-conservatives are, it seems, committed to
nothing short of a plan for total domination of the globe."
Left
Behind: Elective Affinities and Double Ironies
So what are we to make of the
strange parallels between this popular series of evangelical
fiction and this aggressive Neoconservative strategy for American
hegemony? On the one hand, we have the wondrous vision of a New
Millennium established after a small American-led group fights
against the global forces of the Antichrist in the Holy Land;
on the other, we have the bold vision of a New American Century
established after American unilateral military force defeats
the Axis of Evil and asserts its benevolent hegemony in the Middle
East. But how are these two narratives related? Is it a plot
hatched secretly in one of LaHaye's Council for National Policy
meetings? A coded message woven subliminally into the Left Behind
books themselves?
Probably not. Instead, I think
this connection is not so much an explicit or even necessarily
intentional link, but rather a subtle yet powerful kind of "elective
affinity," in Weber's sense of the phrase. As Weber argued
in his classic work, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of
Capitalism, it is not simply the case that Protestant Christianity
caused the rise of early modern capitalism, or vice-versa.
Rather, the two shared an affinity that was mutually beneficial
and reinforcing. The Protestant ethics of hard-work, thrift,
restraint in consumption and asceticism fit well with an early
capitalist system based on labor and accumulation of profit and
allowed the latter to flourish in ways that no other religious
worldview could.
So too, I would suggest, there
is a fit or affinity between the evangelical vision of the New
Millennium and the Neoconservative ideal of a New American Century.
Updating Weber somewhat, we might call this affinity "the
Evangelical Ethic and the Spirit of Neo-Imperialism." The
Neocons and the Christian Right may not be conspiring together
secretly behind the scenes; but they do need each other
to promote their respective agendas, and they do have enough
similar interests to find common ground in the Prodigal Son,
George W. As a relatively empty, unformed "floating signifier,"
Bush serves as the key link in this elective affinity, the point
at which the otherwise conflicting interests of the Neocons and
the evangelicals come together in a disturbingly powerful way.
In all of this, however, there
is a disturbing kind of double irony. As David Harvey has argued,
the aggressive foreign and domestic strategies of the Necons
carry with them a twofold danger. First, the extremely invasive
and intrusive domestic policies put into place after 9/11 --
of which the USA PATRIOT Act is the most obvious example -- risk
turning the United States into the same sort of oppressive regime
that we so despised in the former Soviet Union. Second, this
intense militarism and reckless pattern of deficit spending threatens
to bankrupt the United States in much the same way that the Soviet
Union was destroyed by its massive military expenditure during
the Cold War: "If the Soviet Empire was really brought down
by excessive strain on its economy through the arms race, then
will the U.S., in its blind pursuit of military dominance, undermine
the economic foundations of its own power?" And by the
time we finally secure the oil wealth in the Middle East and
proclaim our benevolent hegemony, is it possible that most of
the world will have already realized the finitude of the earth's
oil supplies and moved on to alternative energy sources, anyway?
The danger, in effect, is that
America really will be "left behind" in the new global
order.
Hugh Urban teaches in the Department of Comparative
Studies at Ohio State Universion. He is the author of Tantra:
Sex, Secrecy, Politics and Power. Urban can be reached at:
urban.41@osu.edu
What's
Inside the New Post-Election Print Edition of CounterPunch!
How Bush Might
Have Been Defeated by
Robin Blackburn;
Terror and Death: Iraq Falls Apart:
Patrick Cockburn reports from Baghdad; From Detroit to Baghdad: Death of an
Interrogator by
Alexander Cockburn. CounterPunch
Online is read by millions of viewers each month! 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
Weekend
Edition Features for October 30 / 31, 2004
November
6 / 7, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Don't
Say We Didn't Warn You
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Green Out
Carl
G. Estabrook
Who Killed Cock Robin?
Saul
Landau
Che: the Man and the Movie
Gary
Leupp
Let There Be Conflict!
Ben
Tripp
You Call This a Party?
Paul
Craig Roberts
The October Numbers: Continuing Stress on the Jobs Front
Jordan
Green
Heroin, Cocaine and Espanola, NM
Fred
Gardner
Haul of Justice
J.A.
Miller
Cults of the Jealous God: the Balfour Decision Reconsidered
Ramzy
Baroud
Life Without Arafat
Dave
Zirin
Out at the Ballgame: Pro Sports and the Gay Athelete
Ron
Jacobs
The Arrow on the Doorpost
Robert
Oscar Lopez
How White Liberals Became a New Racial Minority
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
The November Surprise
Dave
Lindorff
Silver Linings
Richard
Oxman
Invitation to the Bodily Snatched
John
Whitlow
Value Wars: the View from Lexington, Kentucky
Rahul
Mahajan
Fallujah and the Reality of War
Leila
Matsui
Political "Ju-On": Carrying a Grudge
|