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February
20, 2002
Kay Lee
The
Prison Guard Who Never Owned Up to His Crimes
February
19, 2002
David
Orr
Waylon
Jennings, the Duke,
and the Navajo
John Chuckman
The
Devil and Georgie Bush
Prudence
Crowther
Giblet
Gravitas
Ramzi
Kysia
Caught
in the Iraq DMZ
February
18, 2002
Ron Jacobs
The
US and Iran
George
Lewandowski
Empire
in Declline
Lenni
Brenner
Life
and Death of a Folk Hero
February
17, 2002
Robert
Fisk
Lost
in a Pit of Desperation
February
16, 2002
Phillip
Cryan
Colombia
in War Time
February
15, 2002
C.G. Estabrook
From
New York to Porto Alegre
Robert
O'Brien
The
View from Porto Alegre
Mokhiber/Weissman
Resisting
the Assassins
February
14, 2002
Levy and
Easton
Ante
Pavelic
Real Butcher of the Balkans
Joan Claybrook
Dear
Jeb Bush,
About You and Enron
John Chuckman
Time
for a Woman Prez
Alexander
Cockburn
Banning
the Koran
February
13, 2002
Sen. Russ
Feingold
War
Powers and
the War on Terror
Tom Turnipseed
Bush's
Folly
George
Monbiot
American
Imperialism
February
12, 2002
Uri Avnery
The
Great Game:
Oil, Sharon and Iran
Tommy
Ates
Black
Land Loss
February
11, 2002
Walt Brasch
The
Synergizing of America
John Troyer
Enron's
Deep Throat?
February
9, 2002
John Blair
Criticize
Cheney, Go to Jail
A Photographic Journal of Life
in an Afghan Refugee Camp
By Judith Mann
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War Diary
CIA's Assassination Plan a History of
Torture in US Prisons
bin Laden and Bush
Business Connections
Aisha Ikramuddin on the Hidden Hype
of US Food Bombs
Peter Linebaugh on
Pakistan
Christopher Hitchens' Love for Mrs. Thatcher
Jiang Zemin Tells Bush:
Nuke 'Em
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How the CIA's Backing of the Mujahideen Created the World's Most
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and Osama bin Laden
Whiteout:
CIA, Drugs & the
Press
by Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The New Crusade:
America's War on Terrorism
By Rahul Mahajan
The Memphis Blues Again:
Six Decades of Memphis Music Photographs
Photos by Ernest Withers
Text by Daniel Wolff
The New Intifada:
Resisting Israel's Apartheid
Edited by Roane Carey
A Pocket Guide to
Environmental Bad Guys
by James Ridgeway
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The
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by Douglas Valentine
Al Gore:
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February 20,
2002
Is Reagan Next?
Aggie Cloning
By David Vest
Those of us with fond memories of the "Aggie
Cold Fusion" debacle and bizarre reports of long-term alchemical
research (well-funded, too) by top Aggie scientists could hardly
have been more delighted by the triumphant production of "Copycat,"
the kitten newly cloned at Texas A&M University.
Why does it seem to have surprised no
one that this was done at A&M? For that matter, why should
anyone have failed to suspect that the Aggies spent years trying
to turn lead into gold? Hell, they turned an "Agricultural
and Mechanical Institute" into a "University,"
didn't they?
Whether Aggie science has succeeded in
turning DNA into gold is perhaps the more relevant question.
The theory is that the commercial potential of cloning is in
pet reproduction. People with plenty of money will be willing
to pay to have their pet cat or dog "with them always."
Why, you may ask, shouldn't institutions
of higher learning get in on the action and extract their share
of funds from the idle rich? (We can be sure that Little Orphan
Annie couldn't afford to get her pup cloned without a check from
Daddy Warbucks.)
The rich may be different from you and
me, but they are demonstrably no less gullible.
Architects exploit them shamelessly.
When I lived in Houston, people were making a killing selling
nuclear bomb shelters in River Oaks and Memorial. Lead-lined
rooms in the center of the house were de rigeur, as essential
as Audubon prints and books supplied by decorators, who bought
them by weight. People with a little less money were all buying
the same cast-iron curbside mailboxes. Musically-inclined lawyers
would want to sit in with blues bands, having spent upwards of
$40,000 on hobby gear to try to recreate the sound Lightnin'
Hopkins got from a borrowed guitar and his fingers.
So ubiquitous were the custom stretch
limos that entire cities appeared to be caught in warring funeral
processions. When the limos reached the cemetary, the occupants
would sometimes pay an arm, a leg and a neckbone to be buried
near the big carved face of Jesus with the eyes that "follow
you everywhere, in any direction, seeming to move as you move."
That they would not themselves be moving could be counted upon
to escape the attention of a reliable few.
The stupidity of new money is one of
the oldest, not to say richest, American stories. Can you say
Enron?
New money combined with access to advanced
technology can be one of the scariest.
It was enough to make even that old reactionary,
Allen Tate, "view with alarm," to use one of his favorite
phrases. In 1950, in a talk called "To Whom is the Poet
Responsible?" he raised the question of "how much natural
knowledge should be placed in the hands of [people] whose moral
and spiritual education has not been impressive?"
What sort of people was he talking about?
"By such [people] I mean the majority at all times and places,
and more particularly the organized adolescents of all societies
known as the military class."
Or, in the case of Texas A&M, the
"faux military" class, complete with make-believe uniforms.
Never mind Tate's dismissal of majority rule -- what else would
we expect from a reactionary? And it is safe to assume that by
"moral and spiritual education" Tate did not quite
have in mind Jerry Falwell or Bob Jones.
To observe how far the level of Tory
discourse has fallen since Tate's day, we need only ask when
was the last time we were able to imagine an institution such
as Texas A&M being effectively attacked from the right?
The Aggie kitten is indeed cute. A&M's
estimate of the commercial potential of pet cloning is probably
shrewd.
But Texas has already given us Bush II.
How much would you be willing to bet that no one in Texas has
yet discussed -- in the presence of someone with plenty of money
-- the possibility of cloning Ronald Reagan?
David Vest
is a regular writer for CounterPunch, a poet and piano-player
for the Pacific Northwest's hottest blues band, The Cannonballs.
He can be reached at: davidvest@springmail.com
Visit his website at http://www.mindspring.com/~dcqv
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