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Today's Stories

November 13, 2003

Jack McCarthy
Veterans for Peace Booted from Vet Day Parade

Adam Keller
Report on the Ben Artzi Verdict

Richard Forno
"Threat Matrix:" Homeland Security Goes Prime-Time

Vijay Prashad
Confronting the Evangelical Imperialists

November 12, 2003

Elaine Cassel
The Supremes and Guantanamo: a Glimmer of Hope?

Col. Dan Smith
Unsolicited Advice: a Reply to Rumsfeld's Memo

Jonathan Cook
Facility 1391: Israel's Guantanamo

Robert Fisk
Osama Phones Home

Michael Schwartz
The Wal-Mart Distraction and the California Grocery Workers Strike

John Chuckman
Forty Years of Lies

Doug Giebel
Jessica Lynch and Saving American Decency

Uri Avnery
Wanted: a Sharon of the Left

Website of the Day
Musicians Against Sweatshops


November 11, 2003

David Lindorff
Bush's War on Veterans

Stan Goff
Honoring Real Vets; Remembering Real War

Earnest McBride
"His Feet Were on the Ground": Was Steve McNair's Cousin Lynched?

Derek Seidman
Imperialism Begins at Home: an Interview with Stan Goff

David Krieger
Mr. President, You Can Run But You Can't Hide

Sen. Ernest Hollings
My Cambodian Moment on the Iraq War

Dan Bacher
The Invisible Man Resigns

Kam Zarrabi
Hypocrisy at the Top

John Eskow
Born on Veteran's Day

Website of the Day
Left Hook

 

November 10, 2003

Robert Fisk
Looney Toons in Rummyworld: How We Denied Democracy to the Middle East

Elaine Cassel
Papa's Gotta Brand New Bag (of Tricks): Patriot Act Spawns Similar Laws Across Globe

James Brooks
Israel's New War Machine Opens the Abyss

Thom Rutledge
The Lost Gospel of Rummy

Stew Albert
Call Him Al

Gary Leupp
"They Were All Non-Starters": On the Thwarted Peace Proposals


November 8/9, 2003

Kathleen and Bill Christison
Zionism as Racist Ideology

Gabriel Kolko
Intelligence for What?
The Vietnam War Reconsidered

Saul Landau
The Bride Wore Black: the Policy Nuptials of Boykin and Wolfowitz

Brian Cloughley
Speeding Up to Nowhere: Training the New Iraqi Police

William Blum
The Anti-Empire Report:
A Permanent Occupation?

David Lindorff
A New Kind of Dancing in Iraq: from Occupation to Guerrilla War

Elaine Cassel
Bush's War on Non-Citizens

Tim Wise
Persecuting the Truth: Claims of Christian Victimization Ring Hollow

Toni Solo
Robert Zoellick and "Wise Blood"

Michael Donnelly
Will the Real Ron Wyden Please Stand Up?

Mark Hand
Building a Vanguard Movement: a Review of Stan Goff's Full Spectrum Disorder

Norman Solomon
War, Social Justice, Media and Democracy

Norman Madarasz
American Neocons and the Jerusalem Post

Adam Engel
Raising JonBenet

Dave Zirin
An Interview with George Foreman

Poets' Basement
Guthrie, Albert and Greeder


November 7, 2003

Nelson Valdes
Latin America in Crisis and Cuba's Self-Reliance

David Vest
Surely It Can't Get Any Worse?

Chris Floyd
An Inspector Calls: The Kay Report as War Crime Indictment

William S. Lind
Indicators: Where This War is Headed

Elaine Cassel
FBI to Cryptome: "We Are Watching You"

Maria Tomchick
When Public Transit Gets Privatized

Uri Avnery
Israeli Roulette


November 6, 2003

Ron Jacobs
With a Peace Like This...

Conn Hallinan
Rumsfeld's New Model Army

Maher Arar
This is What They Did to Me

Elaine Cassel
A Bad Day for Civil Liberties: the Case of Maher Arar

Neve Gordon
Captives Behind Sharon's Wall

Ralph Nader and Lee Drutman
An Open Letter to John Ashcroft on Corporate Crime


November 5, 2003

Jeffrey St. Clair
Just a Match Away:
Fire Sale in So Cal

Dave Lindorff
A Draft in the Forecast?

Robert Jensen
How I Ended Up on the Professor Watch List

Joanne Mariner
Prisons as Mental Institutions

Patrick Cockburn
Saddam Not Organizing Iraqi Resistance

Simon Helweg-Larsen
Centaurs from Dusk to Dawn: Remilitarization and the Guatemalan Elections

Josh Frank
Silencing "the Reagans"

Website of the Day
Everything You Wanted to Know About Howard Dean But Were Afraid to Ask


November 4, 2003

Robert Fisk
Smearing Said and Ashrawi: When Did "Arab" Become a Dirty Word?

Ray McGovern
Chinook Down: It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Vietnam

Woodruff / Wypijewski
Debating the New Unity Partnership

Karyn Strickler
When Opponents of Abortion Dream

Norman Solomon
The Steady Theft of Our Time

Tariq Ali
Resistance and Independence in Iraq


November 3, 2003

Patrick Cockburn
The Bloodiest Day Yet for Americans in Iraq: Report from Fallujah

Dave Lindorff
Philly's Buggy Election

Janine Pommy Vega
Sarajevo Hands 2003

Bernie Dwyer
An Interview with Chomsky on Cuba

November 1 / 2, 2003

Saul Landau
Cui Bono? The Cuba Embargo as Rip Off

Noam Chomsky
Empire of the Men of Best Quality

Bruce Jackson
Midge Decter and the Taxi Driver

Brian Cloughley
"Mow the Whole Place Down"

John Stanton
The Pentagon's Love Affair with Land Mines

William S. Lind
Bush's Bizarre Korean Gambit

Ben Tripp
The Brown Paste on Bush's Shoes

Christopher Brauchli
Divine Hatred

Dave Zirin
An Interview with John Carlos

Agustin Velloso
Oil in Equatorial Guinea: Where Trickle Down Doesn't Trickle

Josh Frank
Howard Dean and Affirmative Action

Ron Jacobs
Standing Up to El Diablo: the 1981 Blockade of Diablo Canyon

Strickler / Hermach
Liar, Liar Forests on Fire

David Vest
Jimmy T99 Nelson, a Blues Legend and the Songs that Made Him Famous

Adam Engel
America, What It Is

Dr. Susan Block
Christy Canyon, a Life in Porn

Poets' Basement
Greeder, Albert & Guthrie

Congratulations to CounterPuncher David Vest: Winner of 2 Muddy Awards for Best Blues Pianist in the Pacific Northwest!


October 31, 2003

Lee Ballinger
Making a Dollar Out of 15 Cents: The Sweatshops of Sean "P. Diddy" Combs

Wayne Madsen
The GOP's Racist Trifecta

Michael Donnelly
Settling for Peanuts: Democrats Trick the Greens, Treat Big Timber

Patrick Cockburn
Baghdad Diary: Iraqis are Naming Their New Babies "Saddam"

Elaine Cassel
Coming to a State Near You: The Matrix (Interstate Snoops, Not the Movie)

Linda Heard
An Arab View of Masonry

 


October 30, 2003

Forrest Hylton
Popular Insurrection and National Revolution in Bolivia

Eric Ruder
"We Have to Speak Out!": Marching with the Military Families

Dave Lindorff
Big Lies and Little Lies: The Meaning of "Mission Accomplished"

Philip Adams
"Everyone is Running Scared": Denigrating Critics of Israel

Sean Donahue
Howard Dean: a Hawk in a Dove's Cloak

Robert Jensen
Big Houses & Global Justice: A Moral Level of Consumption?

Alexander Cockburn
Paul Krugman: Part of the Problem

 

 

October 29, 2003

Chris Floyd
Thieves Like Us: Cheney's Backdoor to Halliburton

Robert Fisk
Iraq Guerrillas Adopt a New Strategy: Copy the Americans

Rick Giombetti
Let Them Eat Prozac: an Interview with David Healy

The Intelligence Squad
Dark Forces? The Military Steps Up Recruiting of Blacks

Elaine Cassel
Prosecutors as Therapists, Phantoms as Terrorists

Marie Trigona
Argentina's War on the Unemployed Workers Movement

Gary Leupp
Every Day, One KIA: On the Iraq War Casualty Figures

October 28, 2003

Rich Gibson
The Politics of an Inferno: Notes on Hellfire 2003

Uri Avnery
Incident in Gaza

Diane Christian
Wishing Death

Robert Fisk
Eyewitness in Iraq: "They're Getting Better"

Toni Solo
Authentic Americans and John Negroponte

Jason Leopold
Halliburton in Iran

Shrireen Parsons
When T-shirts are Verboten

Chris White
9/11 in Context: a Marine Veteran's Perspective

 


October 27, 2003

William A. Cook
Ministers of War: Criminals of the Cloth

David Lindorff
The Times, Dupes and the Pulitzer

Elaine Cassel
Antonin Scalia's Contemptus Mundi

Robert Fisk
Occupational Schizophrenia

John Chuckman
Banging Your Head into Walls

Seth Sandronsky
Snoops R Us

Bill Kauffman
George Bush, the Anti-Family President

 

 

October 25 / 26, 2003

Robert Pollin
The US Economy: Another Path is Possible

Jeffrey St. Clair
Outsourcing US Guided Missile Technology to China

James Bunn
Plotting Pre-emptive Strikes

Saul Landau
Should Limbaugh Do Time?

Ted Honderich
Palestinian Terrorism, Morality & Germany

Thomas Nagy
Saving the Army of Peace

Christopher Brauchli
Between Bush and a Lobotomy: Killing Endangered Species for Profit

Laura Carlsen
Latin America's Archives of Terror

Diane Christian
Evil Acts & Evil Actors

Muqtedar Khan
Lessons from the Imperial Adventure in Iraq

John Feffer
The Tug of War on the Korea Peninsula

Brian Cloughley
Iraq War Memories are Made of Lies

Benjamin Dangl
and Kathryn Ledebur

An Uneasy Peace in Bolivia

Karyn Strickler
Down with Big Brother's Spying Eyes

Noah Leavitt
Legal Globalization

John Stanton
Hitler's Ghost Haunts America

Mickey Z.
War of the Words

Adam Engel
Tractatus Ridiculous

Poets' Basement
Curtis, Subiet and Albert

Website of the Weekend
Project Last Stand

 

 

 

October 24, 2003

Kurt Nimmo
Ashcroft's War on Greenpeace

Lenni Brenner
The Demographics of American Jews

Jeffrey St. Clair
Rockets, Napalm, Torpedoes and Lies: the Attack on the USS Liberty Revisited

Sarah Weir
Cover-up of the Israeli Attack on the US Liberty

David Krieger
WMD Found in DC: Bush is the Button

Mohammed Hakki
It's Palestine, Stupid!: Americans and the Middle East

Harry Browne
Northern Ireland: the Agreement that Wasn't

 

 

 

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
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Impeach Bush: A Draft Resolution

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November 14 / 23, 2003

Southern, White Male Dems

Howard Dean's Folly

By State Rep. ERIK R. FLEMING
The Black Commentator

Howard Dean, the former governor of Vermont, and the man who probably will be the Democratic nominee for the office of President of the United States, made a bold statement recently. He said, "White folks in the South who drive pickup trucks with Confederate flag decals on the back ought to be voting with us, and not [Republicans], because their kids don't have health insurance either, and their kids need better schools too."

Dean has caught a lot of press and drawn a lot of ire for that statement, none more amusing than the hypocritical tirade of North Carolina's U.S. Senator John Edwards. Edwards criticized Dean for making such a reference, but if I remember correctly, this was the same guy who held a press event in some Confederate historical site earlier in the campaign. I guess only Southern white male Democrats can make Confederate references. Howard, you should have asked for John's permission to do so. Let that be a lesson learned.

Now back to the premise of the statement. Dean may be on to something that was brought out last issue: Democrats must find a way to reach out and relate to Southern whites or they will continue to be obliterated every election. He is right that Southerners are not voting with their wallets, for many poor whites are denied quality health care, adequate housing and premium education. Southern whites, whether they drive pickups or not, are among some of the poorest individuals in America as it relates to income and quality of life.

But if Dean thinks he can overwhelm these poor souls with intelligent arguments, he is on a folly that will lead to defeat in November 2004. That Confederate flag he alluded to is the reason why Southern whites gravitate to the GOP. The Republicans in the South have wrapped themselves in that flag, very subtly suggesting that poor whites are in the condition they are in because of government dollars that are being directed to black folks.

Now, you and I know that there are more whites in TANF programs than blacks, but it is hard to convince Southern whites, especially the ones receiving the assistance, otherwise. The GOP uses black faces in their campaigns when they talk about fighting crime, inciting fear that is unwarranted and unnecessary. The Republicans have even made the flag an issue in itself, saying that its display is about heritage and not hate. These are the obstacles Dean has to face and overcome if he wants to woo Southern whites, especially males, back into the proverbial big tent of the Democratic Party.

As to the argument that Dean will alienate African-Americans with these comments, hearken back with me to the glory days of the 1992 Clinton campaign. Remember Sister Souljah, the social activist that became a one-hit wonder on the rap scene? She made a record that allegedly encouraged the killing of white folks in the lyrics. Who was the person who raised the most concern about that song? If you guessed Bill Clinton, you are correct. Jesse Jackson openly criticized Clinton at his Rainbow/PUSH meetings for chastising Sister Souljah. Many black leaders felt Clinton attacked Sister Souljah to curry favor with white voters, Southern and suburban. Clinton did and the rest is history.

Dean is a shrewd politician. He is not one to go on quixotic political quests. This statement was calculated to make a point that the Dean campaign is open to everyone that wants to be a part of it, even Southern white males. The question is what substantive message can he contrive to make his gambit successful. Only time will tell.

Erik R. Fleming, a Democrat, is a state representative in Mississippi. This essay originally appeared in one of CounterPunch's favorite websites, The Black Commentator.

 

Weekend Edition Features for Nov. 8 / 9, 2003

Kathleen and Bill Christison
Zionism as Racist Ideology

Gabriel Kolko
Intelligence for What?
The Vietnam War Reconsidered

Saul Landau
The Bride Wore Black: the Policy Nuptials of Boykin and Wolfowitz

Brian Cloughley
Speeding Up to Nowhere: Training the New Iraqi Police

William Blum
The Anti-Empire Report:
A Permanent Occupation?

David Lindorff
A New Kind of Dancing in Iraq: from Occupation to Guerrilla War

Elaine Cassel
Bush's War on Non-Citizens

Tim Wise
Persecuting the Truth: Claims of Christian Victimization Ring Hollow

Toni Solo
Robert Zoellick and "Wise Blood"

Michael Donnelly
Will the Real Ron Wyden Please Stand Up?

Mark Hand
Building a Vanguard Movement: a Review of Stan Goff's Full Spectrum Disorder

Norman Solomon
War, Social Justice, Media and Democracy

Norman Madarasz
American Neocons and the Jerusalem Post

Adam Engel
Raising JonBenet

Dave Zirin
An Interview with George Foreman

Poets' Basement
Guthrie, Albert and Greeder

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