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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
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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November
14 / 23, 2003
CounterPunch Diary
Clintontime: Was It Really
a Golden Age?
By ALEXANDER COCKBURN
To gauge the level of hatred entertained by liberals
for the Bush administration take a look at the bestseller lists.
Rubbing shoulders in the top tiers we find the liberal populists
Michael Moore, Al Franken, Paul Krugman and Molly Ivins all pouring
sarcastic rebukes on Bush2 and, categorically or by implication,
suggesting that in favoring the very rich and looting the economy
in their interests Bush stands in despicable contrast to his
immediate predecessor in the Oval Office.
So just get a Democrat, any Democrat,
back in the White House and the skies will begin to clear again.
But suppose a less forgiving scrutiny
of the Clinton years discloses that these years did nothing to
alter the rules of the neoliberal game that began in the Reagan/Thatcher
era with the push to boost after-tax corporate profits, shift
bargaining power to business, erode social protections for workers,
make the rich richer, the middle tier at best stand still and
the poor get poorer.
A few weeks ago here I discussed an extremely
sparing, not to say grossly flattering account of Clintonomics
by the neoliberal economist Paul Krugman, aka a renowned columnist
for the New York Times. Fortunately, we now have just such an
unsparing scrutiny of Clintonomics in the form of Robert Pollin's
Contours
of Descent, subtitled U.S. Economic Fractures and the Landscape
of Global Austerity, published by Verso.
Across his 238 pages Pollin is unambiguous.
"It was under Clinton" he points out, "that the
distribution of wealth in the US became more skewed than it had
at any time in the previous forty years. Inside the US under
Clinton the ratio of wages for the average worker to the pay
of the average CEO rose from 113 to 1 in 1991 to 1 to 449 when
he quit. In the world, exclusive
of China, between 1980 and 1988 and considering the difference
between the richest and poorest 10 per cent of humanity, inequality
grew by 19 per cent; by 77 per cent, if you take the richest
and poorest 1 per cent.
The basic picture? "Under the full
eight years of Clinton's presidency, even with the bubble ratcheting
up both business investment and consumption by the rich average
real wages remained at a level 10 per cent below that of the
Nixon-Ford peak period, even though productivity in the economy
was 50 per cent higher under Clinton than under Nixon and Ford.
The poverty rate through Clinton's term was only slightly better
than the dismal performance attained during the Reagan-Bush years."
We had a bubble boom, pushed along by consumer-spending by the
rich.
Through the Clinton era the bargaining
power of capital to cow workers, to make them toil harder for
less real money, increased inexorably. Speculative rampages were
given a green light.
To be sure, in accord with the captious
laws of class-based mechanics, the bubbling tide did raise boats,
albeit unevenly. The yachts of the rich lofted magnificently
on the flood. Meaner skiffs rose an inch or two. In those bubble
years businesses needed more workers, and for a brief moment
the labor shortage gave them some leverage to get more pay.
At the end of eight years, when the bubble tide had ebbed, what
did workers have by way of a permanent legacy? Clinton, Pollin
bleakly concludes, "accomplished almost nothing in the way
of labor laws or the broader policy environment to improve the
bargaining situation for workers Moreover, conditions under Clinton
worsened among those officially counted as poor."
Nowhere is Pollin more persuasive than
in analysing the causes of the fiscal turnaround from deficit
to surplus, an achievement that had Al Gore in 2000 pledging
to pay down the entire federal debt of $5.8 trillion. Was this
turnaround the consequence of economic growth (producing higher
tax revenues), along with the moderate rise in marginal tax rates
on the rich in 1993. If indeed these were the causes of fiscal
virtue, we might take a benign view of Clinston's fiscal policies.
On the other hand, if surplus was achieved by dint of hacking
away at social expenditures and at social safety nets, plus gains
in capital gains revenues stemming from the stock market bubble,
then progressives, even Democratic candidates, might not so eagerly
extol the Clinton model.
In a piece of original and trenchant
analysis Pollin shows that almost two thirds of Clinton's fiscal
turnaround can be accounted for by slashes in government spending
relative to GDP (54 per cent) and on capital gains revenues (10
per cent). Pollin then asks the question. Suppose there really
had been a peace dividend after the end of the cold war was won.
We could have had a few less weapons systems, 100,000 new teachers,
560,000 more scholarships, 1,400 new high schools and still had
a budget surplus of $220 billion.
Wall Street applauded the surpluses and
the ordinary folk paid the costs of all those slashes in the
budget: fewer teachers, a dirtier environment.
You think the next Democratic nominee
is going to address the long and short-term horrors engendered
by the neoliberal credo to which Clinton paid such fealty? Of
course not. What, at minimum, would have to be done? Pollin doesn't
shirk the questions, and he suggests answers that steer past
easy rhetorical flourishes about trade protections. If we are
to move towards a world in which families don't have to line
up outside churches to stay alive and teenagers don't have to
work for 20 cents a day in Third World sweatshops, we have to
have policies here that promote full employment and income security.
Such policies would have to include a
strengthening of workers' legal rights to organize and to form
unions; and also to fight on a level playing field in the conduct
of strikes. To get a measure of fairness and stability in the
financial system financial institutions would have to honor asset-based
reserve requirements, of which one example would be the margin
requirements Greenspan failed to impose in September, 1996. This
same policy instrument could be used to channel credit to socially
beneficial projects such as low income housing.
Despite the best efforts of our doctrinal
leaders, the moral sentiments of the people are not entirely
corrupted. Consumers, for example, are prepared to pay a premium
of they can be assured they are buying products not made in sweatshops.
And third-world countries need not survive only under the sweatshop
conditions ("tremendous good news") praised by Krugman
and his colleague at the Times, Nicholas Kristof. They have to
be permitted to return to the somewhat protected conditions encouraged
in the development policies of an earlier era, without agencies
of the US government decreeing that their reformers and their
union organizers be murdered by death squads.
I'm sorry, but you won't be hearing these
ideas from Howard Dean.
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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