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June
27, 2003
David
Lindorff
The Catch and Release of "Comical
Ali"
Ray McGovern
Cheney, Forgery and the CIA
June
26, 2003
Sen.
Robert Byrd
The Road of Cover-Up is a Road to Ruin
Jason
Leopold
Wolfowitz Instructed the CIA to Investigate
Hans Blix
Paul
de Rooij
Ambient Death in Palestine
Chris Floyd
Mass Graves and Burned Meat in Bush's New Iraq
Elaine
Cassel
Wolfowitz as Lord High Executioner
CounterPunch
Wire
Musicians Unite Against Sweatshops
Sheldon
Hull
Squatting in Mansions
Ben Tripp
A Guide to Hating Almost Anyone
Uri
Avnery
The Best Show in Town
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars Web Log 6/25
Website
of the Day
Ordinary Vistas:
The Photographs of Kurt Nimmo
June
25, 2003
Bruce
Jackson
Buffalo Cops Wage War on Pedal Pushers
Mickey
Z.
The New Dark Ages
David Lindorff
Indonesia's War on Journalists
Dan
Bacher
Butterflies and Farmworkers Confront USDA and Riot Cops
Adam Federman
"Success is Not the Issue Here"
Elaine
Cassel
"Ain't No Justice": Fed Judge Quits, Assails Sentencing
Guidelines
Bill Kauffman
My America vs. the Empire
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars Web Log 6/25
Website
of the Day
You Are Being Watched:
Elevator Moods
June
24, 2003
Elaine
Cassel
Supreme Indemnity
Holocaust Denial at the High Court
Roya
Monajem
A Message from Tehran: Is It Worth
It to Risk One's Life?
John
Chuckman
The Real Clash of Civilizations
David Lindorff
WMD Damage Control at the Times
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars Web Log 6/24
June
23, 2003
Marc
Pritzke
Washington Lied: an Interview with
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Conn
Hallinan
The Consistency of Sharon
Wayne Madsen
Commercials, Disney & Amistad
Edward
Said
The Meaning of Rachel Corrie
Steve Perry
Bush's Wars Web Log 6/23
June
21 / 22, 2003
Alexander
Cockburn
My Life as a Rabbi
William
A. Cook
The Scourge of Hopelessness
Standard
Schaefer
The Wages of Terror: an Interview with R.T. Naylor
Ron Jacobs
US Prisons as Strategic Hamlets
Harry
Browne
The Pitstop Ploughshares
Lawrence
Magnuson
WMD: The Most Dangerous Game
Harold
Gould
Saddam and the WMD Mystery
David Krieger
10 Reasons to Abolish Nuclear Weapons
Avia
Pasternak
The Unholy Alliance in the Occupied Territories
CounterPunch
Summer Reading:
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Return to Sender: Todd Gitlin, the Duke of Condescension
Maria
Tomchick
Danny Goldberg's Imaginary Kids
Adam Engel
The Fat Man in Little Boy
Poets'
Basement
Guthrie, Albert & Hamod
June 20, 2003
Walter
Brasch
Down on Our Knees
Robert
Meeropol
The Son of the Rosenbergs on His Parents Death and Bush's America
Russell
Mokhiber and Robert Weissman
Grannies and Baby Bells
Norman
Madarasz
Pierre Bourgault: the Life of a
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Gary
Leupp
Bush on "Revisionist Historians"
Steve
Perry
Bush's Lies
Marathon: the Finale
Hot Stories
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
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Wire
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Corrie
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Elaine
Cassel
Civil Liberties
Watch
Michel
Guerrin
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Uzma
Aslam Khan
The Unbearably Grim Aftermath of War:
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Paul de Rooij
Arrogant
Propaganda
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
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June
27, 2003
Supreme Silence
Bush's
Bunker-Hunker
By
DAVID VEST
On September 11, 2001, after being told that America
was under attack, George W. Bush sat quietly doing nothing in
a Florida photo-op appearance for more than five minutes, before
flying first to Louisiana and then Nebraska, leaving Americans
to guess whether their national institutions remained intact.
On June 26, 2003, when the Court that
appointed him president struck down a Texas anti-sodomy law,
he also sat quietly. Indeed, his silence was deafening. Not even
a "No comment." Was he hiding in the bunker again?
The same justices who created him president were now killing
him with his core constituency.
Justice Scalia, however, was far from
silent. The tangled logic of his calculated charge that the Court
had "signed on to the so-called homosexual agenda"
was vintage Scalia, his "so-called" appearing to assert
that homosexuals are running around falsely pretending to have
an "agenda" that in fact exists only in the minds of
hysterical bigots. But Scalia was playing to a gallery far more
fearful of gays than of, say, terrorists.
Which was more contemptible? Justice
Scalia's rabble-rousing outburst, or the fact that the president
of the United States had nothing to say in response to the Court's
historic decision?
We can cut the president this much slack:
the Democratic candidates for president seemed equally determined
to avoid not only the subject but the entire news cycle.
And there you have the entire problem
with the election of 2004 in a nutshell. Raise a fundamental
issue of human rights, and neither major party will touch it
with a ten-foot poll. For them, it's a no-win situation. Applaud
the decision and you're "pro homosexual." Denounce
it and you're One-with-Howard-Phillips, but less compassionate.
"This is a great day for America,
long overdue ..." did you spend the day looking for someone
in a position of influence to say that on TV? A quick flip through
the channels turned up Barney Frank, two or three more-or-less
anonymous gay people, and the usual dreary, bulbous pack of Falwells
and spokespeople for Family This and Heritage That. Predictably,
most programs presented the story as an issue with "two
sides," as though ordinary respect for human dignity and
wild-eyed hate-mongering were equally plausible "positions."
Here's an idea, the next time a mass murderer struts his stuff
why not show us a debate between a grieving parent and a "spokesperson
for the serial killer community."
The national media knew well in advance
that this decision was coming down. They had plenty of time to
line up substantive commentators. Didn't they even try, or was
everyone on vacation? How grateful everyone but Trent Lott must
have been when news arrived late in the day that Strom Thurmond
had died, blessedly changing the subject.
Anyone could have foretold that the far
right fundamentalists would line up to denounce the decision
(and to position themselves for a new wave of direct mail fundraising).
But who knew the Fundies would have such a rough week? They lost
Affirmative Action, Lester Maddox, Sodomy Laws and Strom Thurmond,
one right after the other, like a rickety line of Dixie Dominos
falling. It was enough to confuse and befuddle the hardiest of
them. Tom DeLay could be heard muttering, "What a man does
with an ax handle in the privacy of his own bedroom is nobody's
handkerchief."
Think of how they must feel, our reactionary
compatriots. They put George W. Bush in office (with a little
help). They booed the Dixie Chicks when he told them to. They
swallowed the Patriot Act, which violated at least as many of
the right's principles as of the left's. Three years later, racial
and sexual minorities have trounced them in the Supreme Court,
people are still getting abortions, and all their movement has
to show for all their loyalty is a tax cut and an occasional
gospel song from Johnnie "Joy in the Morning" Ashcroft,
who, when he sings, gushes with a mannered religious ecstasy
that reminds one of nothing if not a tired porn queen summoning
up the energy to fake a few more orgasms.
Come election time, Bush W. will run
the same old scam on these hapless folk: vote for me and there'll
be vacancies on the Court and I'll appoint people who'll follow
the Constitution and overturn Roe v. Wade and get rid of hip-hop,
whatever suits you. And they'll vote for him, if they vote for
anybody. They may experience a falling-off of fervor based on
the fact that they got everything they wanted in a president
and they still can't get what they want. Nixon, Ford, Reagan,
Bush and Bush have failed to prevent the country from sliding
ever leftward, from their perspective.
Who knows what they'll do? Maybe they'll
forget politics and go help Franklin Graham baptize Iraqis. Right
now, they couldn't be more stunned if Newt Gingrich had a sex
change.
David Vest
writes the Rebel Angel column for CounterPunch. He and his band,
The Willing Victims, just released a scorching new CD, Way
Down Here.
He can be reached at: davidvest@springmail.com
Visit his website at http://www.rebelangel.com
Weekend
Edition Features
Alexander
Cockburn
My Life as a Rabbi
William
A. Cook
The Scourge of Hopelessness
Standard
Schaefer
The Wages of Terror: an Interview with R.T. Naylor
Ron Jacobs
US Prisons as Strategic Hamlets
Harry
Browne
The Pitstop Ploughshares
Lawrence
Magnuson
WMD: The Most Dangerous Game
Harold
Gould
Saddam and the WMD Mystery
David Krieger
10 Reasons to Abolish Nuclear Weapons
Avia
Pasternak
The Unholy Alliance in the Occupied Territories
CounterPunch
Summer Reading:
Our Favorite Novels
Todd Chretien
Return to Sender: Todd Gitlin, the Duke of Condescension
Maria
Tomchick
Danny Goldberg's Imaginary Kids
Adam Engel
The Fat Man in Little Boy
Poets'
Basement
Guthrie, Albert & Hamod
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