Coming
in September
From AK Press
Featuring Essays by:
Edward Said, Robert Fisk, Michael Neumann, Shahid Alam, Alexander
Cockburn, Uri Avnery, Bill and Kathy Christison and More
Today's
Stories
August 12, 2003
Ray McGovern
Relax, It Was All a Pack of Lies
Recent
Stories
August
11, 2003
Douglas
Valentine
Homeland Security for Whom?
Mickey
Z.
Bush's Progress
Bill
Glahn
RIAA Watch: Meet the New Bitch, Same
as the Old
Elaine
Cassel
Indicting DNA
Dr. Mohammad
Omar Farooq
Civil Liberties and Uncivil Super-Patriotism
Uri
Avnery
Who Will Save Abu Mazen?
Website
of the Day
RIAA Subpoena Clearinghouse
August
9 / 10, 2003
Alexander
Cockburn
California's Glorious Recall!
Saul
Landau
Bush and King Henry
Gary
Leupp
On Terrorism, Methodism, "Wahhabism"
and the Censored 9/11 Report
Paul de
Rooij
The Parade of the Body Bags
Michael
Egan
History and the Tragedy of American Diplomacy
Rob Eshelman
A Home of Our Own
Daoud
Kuttab
Life as an ID Card
Philip
Agee
Terror and Civil Society: Instruments of US Policy in Cuba
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Marc Racicot: Bush's Main Man
Walt Brasch
Schwarzenegger, "Hollyweird"
and the Rigtheous Right
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush, Bribery and Berlusconi
Josh Frank
Mean, Mean Howard Dean
Elaine
Cassel
Will the Death Penalty Ever Die?
Sean Carter
Total Recall
Poets'
Basement
Hamod, Engel, Albert
August
8, 2003
John
Chuckman
What the US Says Goes
Roberto
Barreto
Defend the Vieques 12!
Bruce Gagnon
Iraq War Emboldens Bush Space Plans
Elaine
Cassel
The Reign of John Ashcroft
Dave
Lindorff
Snoops Night Out
Website
of the Day
Zero Boy
August
7, 2003
M.
Shahid Alam
It the US a "Terrorist Magnet?"
Toni
Solo
Neo-liberal Nicaragua: a New Banana
Republic
Adam Lebowitz
Hiroshima Commemorated: the View from Japan
Hanan
Ashrawi
When the Bully Whines
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
Conscience Takes a Holiday
Jason
Leopold
Wolfowitz Lets Slip: Iraq Not Behind 9/11; No Ties to Al-Qaeda
Mike Kimaid
What's the Score?
Elaine
Cassel
The Smell of VICTORY: Ashcroft's Latest Stinkbomb
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
August 6, 2003
Steve
Higgs
Going to Jail for the Cause: It's Not
Easy Confronting King Coal
David
Krieger
Remembering Hiroshima and Nagasaki
Robert
Fisk
The Ghosts of Uday and Qusay
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush's War on the National Forests
Elaine
Cassel
No Fly Lists
Stan
Goff
Military Equipment and Pneumonia
Hugh Sansom
An Open Letter to Nicholas Kristof on the Nuking of Japan
August
5, 2003
Uri
Avnery
The Prisoner of Ramallah: Arafat at
74
Forrest
Hylton
Terrorism and Political Trials: the
View from Bolivia
Ray
McGovern
"We Cook Estimates to Go"
David
Morse
Poindexter's Gambit
Edward
Said
Orientallism: 25 Years Later
George
W. Bush
My Darn Good Resumé
Hammond
Guthrie
It's Incremental, Watson!
Website
of the Day
National Prayer Day
August 4, 2003
Bruce
K. Gagnon
Another Peace Activist Detained by
Airport Cops: My Story
David
Lindorff
Fear-Mongering About Social Security
Mark
Zepezauer
George F. Will: Descent into Self-Parody
James
Plummer
Tracking You Through the Mail
Mickey
Z.
Marriage Insecurity from Sharon to Bush
Bruce
Jackson
News that Isn't News: How the NYT's
Pimps for the White House
August
2 / 3, 2003
Tamara
R. Piety
Nike's Full Court Press Breaks Down
Francis
Boyle
My Alma Mater, the University of Chicago, is a Moral Cesspool
David
Vest
Sons of Paleface: Pictures from Death's Other Side
Neve Gordon
Nightlife in Jerusalem
Uri
Avnery
Their Master's Voice:
Bush, Blair and Intelligence Snafus
Robert
Fisk
Paternalistic Democracy for Iraq
Jerry
Kroth
Israel, Yellowcake and the Media
Noah Leavitt
What's Driving the Liberian Bloodbath: Is the US Obligated to
Intervene?
Saul
Landau
The Film Industry: Business and Ideology
Ron Jacobs
One Big Prison Yard: the Meaning of George Jackson
Thomas
Croft
In the Deep, Deep Rough: Reflections on Augusta
Amadi Ajamu
Def Sham: Russell Simmons New Black Leader?
Poets'
Basement
Vega, Witherup, Albert and Fleming
August
1, 2003
Joanne
Mariner
Stopping Prison Rape
Alex Coolman
Who Moved My Soap: Trivializing
Prison Rape
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Stan Goff
Injury and Decorum: The Missing Wounded in Iraq
Wayne
Madsen
Europe Unplugs from the Matrix
Robert
Fisk
Wolfowitz the Censor
Elaine
Cassel
Ashcroft Loses Big in Puerto Rico
Website
of the Day
Stop Prisoner Rape
July
31, 2003
Ray
McGovern
The Prostitution of Intelligence
Brian
Cloughley
Wolfowitz's Operative Statement
Sheldon
Hull
The RIAA's Jihad:
The Devil's Music (Industry)
Elaine
Cassel
The Next Time You Crack a Lawyer Joke, Think of These Attorneys
Sheldon
Rampton
and John Stauber
True Lies: Propaganda and Bush's
Wars
Hammond
Guthrie
Speculation Blues
Website
of the Day
Army of One?
Congratulations
to CounterPuncher Gilad Atzmon! BBC Names EXILE Top Jazz CD
July
30, 2003
David
Lindorff
Poindexter the Terror Bookie
Marjorie
Cohn
Why Iraq and Afghanistan? It's About
the Oil
Elaine
Cassel
How Ashcroft Coerces Guilty Pleas
in Terror Cases
Zvi
Bar'el
The Hidden Costs of the Iraq War
Lisa Walsh
Thomas
Killing Mustafa Hussein: Death of a Child, Birth of a Legend?
Sean
Carter
Pat Robertson's Prayer Jihad: God, Sodomy and the Supremes
ND Jayaprakash
India and Ariel Sharon
Steve
Perry
Bush's Top 40 Lies
Standard
Schaefer
Correction about Bloomberg and Outscourcing
Website
of the Day
Bring Them Home Now!
Hot Stories
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
Elaine
Cassel
Civil Liberties
Watch
Michel
Guerrin
Embedded Photographer Says: "I
Saw Marines Kill Civilians"
Uzma
Aslam Khan
The Unbearably Grim Aftermath of War:
What America Says Does Not Go
Paul de Rooij
Arrogant
Propaganda
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click Here
for More Stories.
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August
12, 2003
Revisionist History
The
Bush Administration, Civil Rights and Iraq
By RON JACOBS
According to a recent statement by Condoleeza
Rice at a convention of black journalists that compared the war
on Iraq to the civil rights movement in the United States, I
am a racist. Why? Because I don't believe the war on the people
of the middle east is about bringing democracy? Because I, along
with most people in the rest of the world believe the US/UK war
is about control of oil access and oil profits? Because I don't
accept that the killing of thousands of Iraqis by US firepower
is "the moral mission of our time", like Condoleeza
Rice does? Or is it because I find the ethnic cleansing practices
of the Sharon regime in Israel--practices which are supported
by the Bush administration--to be morally repugnant? Perhaps
it even simpler: because I believe that the war on the peoples
of the Middle East is about colonialism, plain and simple.
Like the colonialism of past centuries,
the drive for power and profit is cloaked in words of morality.
The western powers used to go in and Christianize the natives,
now we bring them western democracy--a concept that is a figment
of someone's imagination, much like western civilization. Much
like the conquerors of old killed the "natives" when
they met up with indigenous peoples who didn't feel like being
Christianized, the modern colonizers kill those who don't want
to be "democratized." Of course, if they kill enough,
thereby destroying the opposition, soon the colonizers can realize
their dream of democracy.
By making these comments, the Bush administration's
feeble attempts to make the US/UK war on Iraq a moral war have
become more than a sad farce. They are an insult to our intelligence.
Even more, this most recent utterance is an insult to the legacy
of the grassroots movement to destroy legal apartheid in the
United States. For Ms. Rice to take the mantle of that movement
and attempt to overlay it on her administration's shabby and
immoral assault on the country and people of Iraq is a disgusting
and cynical blow to integrity of the people who risked their
lives and their freedom in their attempt to make this country
a more just place to live and work. If he could, Martin Luther
King, Jr. might tell Ms. Rice to read the speech he gave on April
4th, 1967 at the Riverside Church in New York city. It was on
that night that Dr. King drew the existing lines between racism
in the streets of the United States and the racist war on the
people and country of Vietnam.
These lines were not new. They existed
long before Vietnam. Indeed, they are part of the white people's
legacy in the settling of this nation. our ancestors came here
and tricked, enslaved, lied to, and killed those who were here
before them in order to occupy their land. Then, when the indigenous
peoples refused to be enslaved, the growers and traders joined
in the growing international slave trade, becoming its biggest
customers. It was this involvement, more than any other part
of our history, that has stained our thinking ever since. To
this day, there are reminders of that legacy--whether that be
the disproportionate numbers of black men and women in our prisons
or the disenfranchisement of tens of thousands of black voters
in the state of Florida during the 2000 election. It was this
disenfranchisement that gave Mr. Bush (and by default, Ms. Rice)
their jobs. It is also this disenfranchisement that represents
Ms. Rice's western democracy. In other words, it is democracy
only for those who are allowed in the club.
The Bush administration can call this
a war about WMD. THey can call it a war to get rid of Saddam
Hussein. They can call it a war to fight terrorism. Heck, they
can even call it a war to bring democracy to the country of Iraq.
All of these public relations attempts might gain an adherent
or two. However, for them to send out Ms. Rice and have her tell
the people in this country that their dirty little war is on
moral par with the movement to end legalized racism and apartheid
in the United States is going way too far. If they had any shame,
they would know this and be appropriately ashamed. Since shame
is not a part of their thought processes, however, one can only
hope that the true spokespeople for the civil rights movement--those
anti-racist Americans of all skin tones who are not part of the
privileged few who put us in this war--will remind them whenever
and wherever they can of Martin Luther King's words that night
in 1967: "Somehow this madness must cease."
Ron Jacobs
is author of The
Way the Wind Blew: a history of the Weather Underground.
He can be reached at: rjacobs@zoo.uvm.edu
Weekend
Edition Features for August 9 / 10, 2003
Alexander
Cockburn
California's Glorious Recall!
Saul
Landau
Bush and King Henry
Gary
Leupp
On Terrorism, Methodism, "Wahhabism"
and the Censored 9/11 Report
Paul de
Rooij
The Parade of the Body Bags
Michael
Egan
History and the Tragedy of American Diplomacy
Rob Eshelman
A Home of Our Own
Daoud
Kuttab
Life as an ID Card
Philip
Agee
Terror and Civil Society: Instruments of US Policy in Cuba
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Marc Racicot: Bush's Main Man
Walt Brasch
Schwarzenegger, "Hollyweird"
and the Rigtheous Right
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush, Bribery and Berlusconi
Josh Frank
Mean, Mean Howard Dean
Elaine
Cassel
Will the Death Penalty Ever Die?
Sean Carter
Total Recall
Poets'
Basement
Hamod, Engel, Albert
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