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Today's
Stories
October
18 / 19, 2003
Robert
Pollin
Clintonomics:
the Hollow Boom
October
17, 2003
Stan Goff
Piss
On My Leg: Perception Control and the Stage Management of War
Newton
Garver
Bolivia
in Turmoil
Standard
Schaefer
Grocery Unions Under Attack
Ben Terrall
The Ordeal of the Lockheed 52
Ron Jacobs
First Syria, Then Iran
David
Lindorff
Michael
Moore Proclaims Mumia Guilty
October
16, 2003
Marjorie
Cohn
Bush
Gunning for Regime Change in Cuba
Gary Leupp
"Getting Better" in Iraq
Norman
Solomon
The US Press and Israel: Brand Loyalty and the Absence of Remorse
Rush Limbaugh
The 10 Most Overrated Athletes of All Time
Lenni
Brenner
I
Didn't Meet Huey Newton. He Met Me
Website of the Day
Time Tested Books
October
15, 2003
Sunil
Sharma / Josh Frank
The
General and the Governor: Two Measures of American Desperation
Forrest
Hylton
Dispatch
from the Bolivian War: "Like Animals They Kill Us"
Brian
Cloughley
Those
Phony Letters: How Bush Uses GIs to Spread Propaganda About Iraq
Ahmad
Faruqui
Lessons
of the October War
Uri Avnery
Three
Days as a Living Shield
Website
of the Day
Rank and File: the New Unity Partnership Document
JoAnn
Wypijewski
The
New Unity Partnership:
A Manifest Destiny for Labor
October 14, 2003
Eric Ridenour
Qibya
& Sharon: Anniversary of a Massacre
Elaine
Cassel
The
Disgrace That is Guantanamo
Robert
Jensen
What the "Fighting Sioux" Tells Us About White People
David Lindorff
Talking Turkey About Iraq
Patrick
Cockburn
US Troops Bulldoze Crops
VIPS
One Person Can Make a Difference
Toni Solo
The CAFTA Thumbscrews
Peter
Linebaugh
"Remember
Orr!"
Website
of the Day
BRIDGES
October
11 / 13, 2003
Alexander
Cockburn
Kay's
Misleading Report; CIA/MI-6 Syrian Plot; Dershowitz Flaps Broken
Wings
Saul Landau
Contradictions: Pumping Empire and Losing Job Muscles
Phillip Cryan
The War on Human Rights in Colombia
Kurt Nimmo
Cuba and the "Necessary Viciousness" of the Bushites
Nelson P. Valdes
Traveling to Cuba: Where There's a Will, There's a Way
Lisa Viscidi
The Guatemalan Elections: Fraud, Intimidation and Indifference
Maria Trigona and Fabian
Pierucci
Allende Lives
Larry
Tuttle
States of Corruption
William A. Cook
Failing America
Brian
Cloughley
US Economic Space and New Zealand
Adrian Zupp
What Would Buddha Do? Why Won't the Dalai Lama Pick a Fight?
Merlin
Chowkwanyun
The Strange and Tragic Case of Sherman Marlin Austin
Ben Tripp
Screw You Right Back: CIA FU!
Lee Ballinger
Grits Ain't Groceries
Mickey Z.
Not All Italians Love Columbus
Bruce
Jackson
On Charles Burnett's "Warming By the Devil's Fire"
William Benzon
The Door is Open: Scorsese's Blues, 2
Adam Engel
The Eyes of Lora Shelley
Walt Brasch
Facing a McBlimp Attack
Poets'
Basement
Mickey Z, Albert, Kearney
October 10, 2003
John Chuckman
Schwarzenegger
and the Lottery Society
Toni Solo
Trashing
Free Software
Chris
Floyd
Body
Blow: Bush Joins the Worldwide War on Women
October
9, 2003
Jennifer
Loewenstein
Bombing
Syria
Ramzi
Kysia
Seeing
the Iraqi People
Fran Shor
Groping the Body Politic
Mark Hand
President Schwarzenegger?
Alexander
Cockburn
Welcome
to Arnold, King for a Day
Website of the Day
The Awful Truth about Wesley Clark
October
8, 2003
David
Lindorff
Schwarzenegger
and the Failure of the Centrist Dems
Ramzy
Baroud
Israel's
WMDs and the West's Double Standard
John Ross
Mexico
Tilts South
Mokhiber
/ Weissman
Repub Guru Compares Taxes to the Holocaust
James
Bovard
The
Reagan Roadmap for Antiterrorism Disaster
Michael
Neumann
One
State or Two?
A False Dilemma
October
7, 2003
Uri Avnery
Slow-Motion
Ethnic Cleansing
Stan Goff
Lost in the Translation at Camp Delta
Ron Jacobs
Yom Kippurs, Past and Present
David
Lindorff
Coronado in Iraq
Rep. John Conyers, Jr.
Outing a CIA Operative? Why A Special Prosecutor is Required
Cynthia
McKinney
Who Are "We"?
Elaine Cassel
Shock and Awe in the Moussaoui Case
Walter
Lippman
Thoughts on the Cali Recall
Gary Leupp
Israel's
Attack on Syria: Who's on the Wrong Side of History, Now?
Website
of the Day
Cable News Gets in Touch With It's Inner Bigot
October
6, 2003
Robert
Fisk
US
Gave Israel Green Light for Raid on Syria
Forrest
Hylton
Upheaval
in Bolivia: Crisis and Opportunity
Benjamin Dangl
Divisions Deepen in Third Week of Bolivia's Gas War
Bridget
Gibson
Oh, Pioneers!: Bush's New Deal
Bob Fitrakis and Harvey
Wasserman
The Bush-Rove-Schwarzenegger Nazi Nexus
Nicole
Gamble
Rios Montt's Campaign Threatens Genocide Trials
JoAnn
Wypijewski
The
New Unity Partnership:
A Manifest Destiny for Labor
Website
of the Day
Guerrilla Funk
October
3 / 5, 2003
Tim Wise
The
Other Race Card: Rush and the Politics of White Resentment
Peter
Linebaugh
Rhymsters
and Revolutionaries: Joe Hill and the IWW
Gary Leupp
Occupation
as Rape-Marriage
Bruce
Jackson
Addio
Alle Armi
David Krieger
A Nuclear 9/11?
Ray McGovern
L'Affaire Wilsons: Wives are Now "Fair Game" in Bush's
War on Whistleblowers
Col. Dan Smith
Why Saddam Didn't Come Clean
Mickey
Z.
In Our Own Image: Teaching Iraq How to Deal with Protest
Roger Burbach
Bush Ideologues v. Big Oil in Iraq
John Chuckman
Wesley Clark is Not Cincinnatus
William S. Lind
Versailles on the Potomac
Glen T.
Martin
The Corruptions of Patriotism
Anat Yisraeli
Bereavement as Israeli Ethos
Wayne
Madsen
Can the Republicans Get Much Worse? Sure, They Can
M. Junaid Alam
The Racism Barrier
William
Benzon
Scorsese's Blues
Adam Engel
The Great American Writing Contest
Poets'
Basement
McNeill, Albert, Guthrie
October
2, 2003
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
What's
So Great About Gandhi, Anyway?
Amy Goodman
/ Jeremy Scahill
The
Ashcroft-Rove Connection
Doug Giebel
Kiss and Smear: Novak and the Valerie Plame Affair
Hamid
Dabashi
The Moment of Myth: Edward Said (1935-2003)
Elaine Cassel
Chicago Condemns Patriot Act
Saul Landau
Who
Got Us Into This Mess?
Website of the Day
Last Day to Save Beit Arabiya!
October 1, 2003
Joanne
Mariner
Married
with Children: the Supremes and Gay Families
Robert
Fisk
Oil,
War and Panic
Ron Jacobs
Xenophobia
as State Policy
Elaine
Cassel
The
Lamo Case: Secret Subpoenas and the Patriot Act
Shyam
Oberoi
Shooting
a Tiger
Toni Solo
Plan Condor, the Sequel?
Sean Donahue
Wesley
Clark and the "No Fly" List
Website of the Day
Downloader Legal Defense Fund
September
30, 2003
After
Dark
Arnold's
1977 Photo Shoot
Dave Lindorff
The
Poll of the Shirt: Bush Isn't Wearing Well
Tom Crumpacker
The
Cuba Fixation: Shaking Down American Travelers
Robert
Fisk
A
Lesson in Obfuscation
Charles
Sullivan
A
Message to Conservatives
Suren Pillay
Edward Said: a South African Perspective
Naeem
Mohaiemen
Said at Oberlin: Hysteria in the Face of Truth
Amy Goodman
/ Jeremy Scahill
Does
a Felon Rove the White House?
Website
of the Day
The Edward Said Page
September 29, 2003
Robert
Fisk
The
Myths of Western Intelligence Agencies
Iain A. Boal
Turn It Up: Pardon Mzwakhe Mbuli!
Lee Sustar
Paul
Krugman: the Last Liberal?
Wayne Madsen
General Envy? Think Shinseki, Not Clark
Benjamin
Dangl
Bolivia's Gas War
Uri Avnery
The
Magnificent 27
Pledge
Drive of the Day
Antiwar.com
September
26 / 28, 2003
Alexander
Cockburn
Alan
Dershowitz, Plagiarist
David Price
Teaching Suspicions
Saul Landau
Before the Era of Insecurity
Ron Jacobs
The Chicago Conspiracy Trial and
the Patriot Act
Brian
Cloughley
The Strangeloves Win Again
Norman Solomon
Wesley and Me: a Real-Life Docudrama
Robert
Fisk
Bomb Shatters Media Illusions
M. Shahid Alam
A Muslim Sage Visits the USA
John Chuckman
American Psycho: Bush at the UN
Mark Schneider
International Direct Action
The Spanish Revolution to the Palestiniana Intifada
William
S. Lind
How $87 Billion Could Buy Some Real Security
Douglas Valentine
Gold Warriors: the Plundering of Asia
Chris
Floyd
Vanishing Act
Elaine Cassel
Play Cat and Moussaoui
Richard
Manning
A Conservatism that Once Conserved
George Naggiar
The Beautiful Mind of Edward Said
Omar Barghouti
Edward Said: a Corporeal Dream Not Yet Realized
Lenni Brenner
Palestine's Loss is America's Loss
Mickey
Z.
Edward Said: a Well-Reasoned Voice
Tanweer Akram
The Legacy of Edward Said
Adam Engel
War in the Smoking Room
Poets' Basement
Katz, Ford, Albert & Guthrie
Website
of the Weekend
Who the Hell is Stew Albert?
September
25, 2003
Edward
Said
Dignity,
Solidarity and the Penal Colony
Robert
Fisk
Fanning
the Flames of Hatred
Sarah
Ferguson
Wolfowitz at the New School
David
Krieger
The
Second Nuclear Age
Bill Glahn
RIAA Doublespeak
Al Krebs
ADM and the New York Times: Covering Up Corporate Crime
Michael
S. Ladah
The Obvious Solution: Give Iraq Back to the Arabs
Fran Shor
Arnold and Wesley
Mustafa
Barghouthi
Edward Said: a Monument to Justice and Human Rights
Alexander Cockburn
Edward Said: a Mighty and Passionate
Heart
Website
of the Day
Edward Said: a Lecture on the Tragedy of Palestine
The Great Alejandro Escavedo Needs Your Help!
September 24, 2003
Stan Goff
Generational
Casualties: the Toxic Legacy of the Iraq War
William
Blum
Grand Illusions About Wesley Clark
David
Vest
Politics
for Bookies
Jon Brown
Stealing Home: The Real Looting is About to Begin
Robert Fisk
Occupation and Censorship
Latino
Military Families
Bring Our Children Home Now!
Neve Gordon
Sharon's
Preemptive Zeal
Website
of the Day
Bands Against Bush
September
23, 2003
Bernardo
Issel
Dancing
with the Diva: Arianna and Streisand
Gary Leupp
To
Kill a Cat: the Unfortunate Incident at the Baghdad Zoo
Gregory
Wilpert
An
Interview with Hugo Chavez on the CIA in Venezuela
Steven
Higgs
Going to Jail for the Cause--Part 2: Charity Ryerson, Young and
Radical
Stan Cox
The Cheney Tapes: Can You Handle the Truth?
Robert
Fisk
Another Bloody Day in the Death of Iraq
William S. Lind
Learning from Uncle Abe: Sacking the Incompetent
Elaine
Cassel
First They Come for the Lawyers, Then the Ministers
Yigal
Bronner
The
Truth About the Wall
Website
of the Day
The
Baghdad Death Count
September
20 / 22, 2003
Uri Avnery
The
Silliest Show in Town
Alexander
Cockburn
Lighten
Up, America!
Peter Linebaugh
On the Bicentennial of the Execution of Robert Emmet
Anne Brodsky
Return
to Afghanistan
Saul Landau
Guillermo and Me
Phan Nguyen
Mother Jones Smears Rachel Corrie
Gila Svirsky
Sharon, With Eyes Wide Open
Gary Leupp
On Apache Terrorism
Kurt Nimmo
Colin
Powell: Exploiting the Dead of Halabja
Brian
Cloughley
Colin Powell's Shame
Carol Norris
The Moral Development of George W. Bush
Bill Glahn
The Real Story Behind RIAA Propaganda
Adam Engel
An Interview with Danny Scechter, the News Dissector
Dave Lindorff
Good Morning, Vietnam!
Mark Scaramella
Contracts and Politics in Iraq
John Ross
WTO
Collapses in Cancun: Autopsy of a Fiasco Foretold
Justin Podur
Uribe's Desperate Squeals
Toni Solo
The Colombia Three: an Interview with Caitriona Ruane
Steven Sherman
Workers and Globalization
David
Vest
Masked and Anonymous: Dylan's Elegy for a Lost America
Ron Jacobs
Politics of the Hip-Hop Pimps
Poets
Basement
Krieger, Guthrie and Albert
Website of the Weekend
Ted Honderich:
Terrorism for Humanity?
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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October
18 / 19, 2003
Day of the Gropenfuhrer
California
Dreamin' Got Lost Along the Way
By
SAUL LANDAU
On the day that three more US soldiers died in
Iraq, Californians elected a narcissist governor in a bizarre
recall election. As Der Gropenfuhrer** heads for Sacramento,
millions of poor people believe that Arnold will magically terminate
the newly imposed and hated car tax (He'll have a tough time
convincing the majority in both Houses). That may have been the
loftiest reason that blue collar voters had to remove Governor
Gray Davis. He and the legislature in desperation used a hike
in auto taxes to try to fund schools and other necessities.
Try as they may, liberal Democrats can't
attribute their heavy loss in this election to the hanky panky
Republicans used in Florida in 2000. Yes, some voting machines
didn't work, some voters had to jump through hoops to find their
polling place and others found the punch-out instrument too dull
to pierce the paper. But these explanations are insufficient
to explain the overwhelming loss for Governor Gray Davis and
the impressive tally for Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Rather, Democrats should go back to the
world of fiction for their insight. The descendents of Californians
described in 1939 by novelist Nathanael West in The Day of the
Locust have now put into office a man who hobnobbed with the
very oil thieves (like former ENRON CEO Ken Lay) who stole billions
from the state to help get Californians into the current mess.
West called the Hollywood residents "savage and bitter,
especially the middle aged and the old... made so by boredom
and disappointment."
I did my own little public opinion experiment.
On election day, the following conversation took place between
middle aged Hispanic women. "Hey," said one housewife,
"Arnoldo can pinch my nalgas if he wants. It's more than
my husband does these days. But I need the $130 we'll have to
shell out for the car tax."
Another said: "Who does Cruz [Lt.
Governor Cruz Bustamante, Schwarzenegger's main Democratic competitor]
think he is,  taking us Latinos for granted? Does he
think we don't know he tried to take the Indian gambling money
and use it for his own campaign?" (A reference to Bustamante's
attempt to transfer Indian gaming money to another fund he controlled
and calling it a donation to charity).
In my suburban precinct at 8:00 a.m.,
I estimated the average age of the long line of people waiting
to vote to be about 80. I talked with an elderly couple.
LANDAU: So, what brings you out so early?
OLD LADY: Imagine, telling us that we
have such a large deficit and we have to pay more taxes to meet
it. He never told us that when he was running for reelection
-- last year [2002], was it?
LANDAU: You mean Governor Davis?
OLD MAN: He had plenty of time to raise
money for his campaign from those billionaire friends of his.
Why didn't he use some of it to meet the deficit?
OL: I voted for him in the last election
and I don't recall him mentioning that we had such a large deficit.
He tried to hide it from us. Who did he think he was fooling?
OM: You bet. He mismanaged the state.
He's finished as far as I'm concerned.
LANDAU: I gather you're a Republican?
OM: I voted for Clinton and he did plenty
of groping. At a certain age you stop caring about stuff like
that (giggles).
OM: "Let's win this one for the
groper, I say."
AFRICAN AMERICAN WOMAN, (shaking her
head in disgust). "Yeah, you ain't got nothing to grope.
Man, some people never learn."
She was right. Once again, rich Republicans
figured out a way to screw the poor and manipulate them into
voting for it. Back in 1978, Howard Jarvis pushed Proposition
13 and convinced working and middle class people to put a lid
on the legislature's ability to raise property taxes. Yes, they
did save a few hundred dollars a year, but they lost far more
as their children's education got cut along with other vital
services. Proposition 13 required a 2/3 vote of the legislature
to pass a tax increase.
The big winners, the ultra rich and the
big corporations, saw their property taxes reduced dramatically.
Indeed, one of the world's richest men, Warren Buffett, admitted
to paying only $2,000 a year on his $4 plus million fourth home
in California. When as an adviser to Arnold, he mentioned publicly
that this taxation system was unfair, the former body builder
told him to shut up. Buffett's voice has not been heard of since
then on the Arnold campaign. Needless to say, the majority of
the plutocrats did not agree with him and would rather pay large
sums to their CPAs to find loopholes so they don't pay even a
small increase in taxes.
The tax loopiness had decisive results.
From leading the nation in education in the 1960s and early 70s,
California dropped to fiftieth in spending per child. Arnold
pledged to fix all that without raising taxes. In 2002, he had
backed a state-wide proposition to fund after school programs,
which passed. The money used to implement that was deducted from
the education budget another of the bizarre rules established
by Californians in their democratic evolution from the modern
to the cave era.
Arnold ran as a social progressive, pro
choice, tolerant on gays and steering clear of prayer in schools
and the right to have a howitzer in your backyard. He did, however,
continue driving one his nine hummers around smog filled, freeway-congested
Los Angeles.
By doing so, Arnold put his finger on
the neo-macho, Harley Davidson pulse of the times. He not only
apparently won the former Reagan male blue-collar vote the sixteen
women who accused him of improper groping may actually have helped
him sway these lugs but actually persuaded enough women that
his magical star-shrouded ability to accomplish the impossible
merited their support as well. Those men who feel vulnerable
before confident women may well see appeal in ersatz macho figures
like George W. "Bring 'em on" Bush and the muscle bound,
boob-pinching Schwarzenegger.
The testosterone-exuding Arnold also
captured the "blame someone" voters. When the recall
petitions circulated, I remember hearing anger in people's voices
as they signed on to the move sponsored by extreme right wing
Republicans. These wingers saw recall as the only way they could
win an election. The far right, cynical, power-hungry and devious
Republican strategists, like Paul Weyrich of the Free Congress
Foundation and Phyllis Schlafly of the Eagle Forum, do not lack
intelligence and insight.
Indeed, they saw the politics of blame
as running through California history. At the turn of the century,
lured by what Nathanael West called "the land of sunshine
and oranges," and free enterprise opportunities galore,
aspiring lower middle class, workers and farmers left Ohio, Indiana
and later Oklahoma in large numbers.
The descendent of these people now find
themselves paying outrageous prices for almost everything especially
homes, cars and gasoline. "They realize they've been tricked
and burn with resentment," wrote West. He might have added:
"Not only against taxes, criminals and pederasts, successful
people and children, but against those who in the name of feminism,
women's rights, modern times, justice or whatever have shaken
the foundations of their social status."
Millions of Californians voted with discipline:
against the recall and for the lackluster Bustamante the much
lesser of two evils. But many more, some 4.5 million, voted for
Schwarzenegger or for Tom McClintock, the traditional anti-abortion,
pro prayer Republican.
The San Francisco Bay Area and the heavily
liberal areas of southern California voted against the recall
and against Arnold. But the non-voters remained in the majority.
Of approximately 21 million eligible (out of a total population
of about 35 million), some 15 million registered to vote. Out
of those no more than 7 million actually cast ballots on October
7.
Jokes aside, Arnold is not pro-Hitler;
nor is he a flaming reactionary. As soon as he ascends to the
actual governing chair he will face the very same issues as Gray
Davis did: inadequate funds to service the citizens. Arnold hints
that to fix the education system without raising taxes, he'll
ask President Bush "for a lotta, lotta favors" -- one
neo-macho guy to another!
In the real world of politics, Arnold
will face the tough, progressive, veteran John Burton, President
of the California Senate a man who does not easily suffer fools
or frauds.
What lessons does the California election
hold for progressives? Liberals and left activists used their
organizational skills and imagination to mobilize voters to defeat
handily the racist Proposition 54, the openly right wing push
to prohibit state and local governments from classifying people
by race, ethnicity, color or national origin. They garnered a
broad coalition to label the measure racist, including three
former surgeon generals who said it would impede medical research
and health care itself. Now, will the progressives of this state
and the nation summon their energies toward power? If so, there
is no more important challenge than the 2004 national elections.
*Mamas and Papas hit from the 1960s
**LA Times columnist Steve Lopez' term
Saul Landau
is a fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies. He teaches at
Cal Poly Pomona University. For Landau's writing in Spanish visit:
www.rprogreso.com.
His new book, PRE-EMPTIVE
EMPIRE: A GUIDE TO BUSH S KINGDOM, has just been published
by Pluto Press. He can be reached at: landau@counterpunch.org
Weekend
Edition Features for Sept. 26 / 28, 2003
Alexander
Cockburn
Kay's
Misleading Report; CIA/MI-6 Syrian Plot; Dershowitz Flaps Broken
Wings
Saul Landau
Contradictions: Pumping Empire and Losing Job Muscles
Phillip Cryan
The War on Human Rights in Colombia
Kurt Nimmo
Cuba and the "Necessary Viciousness" of the Bushites
Nelson P. Valdes
Traveling to Cuba: Where There's a Will, There's a Way
Lisa Viscidi
The Guatemalan Elections: Fraud, Intimidation and Indifference
Maria Trigona and Fabian
Pierucci
Allende Lives
Larry
Tuttle
States of Corruption
William A. Cook
Failing America
Brian
Cloughley
US Economic Space and New Zealand
Adrian Zupp
What Would Buddha Do? Why Won't the Dalai Lama Pick a Fight?
Merlin
Chowkwanyun
The Strange and Tragic Case of Sherman Marlin Austin
Ben Tripp
Screw You Right Back: CIA FU!
Lee Ballinger
Grits Ain't Groceries
Mickey Z.
Not All Italians Love Columbus
Bruce
Jackson
On Charles Burnett's "Warming By the Devil's Fire"
William Benzon
The Door is Open: Scorsese's Blues, 2
Adam Engel
The Eyes of Lora Shelley
Walt Brasch
Facing a McBlimp Attack
Poets'
Basement
Mickey Z, Albert, Kearney
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