Now
Available from
CounterPunch for Only $11.50 (S/H Included)
Today's
Stories
December 8, 2003
Michael Neumann
Ignatieff:
Apostle of He-manitariansim
December 6 / 7, 2003
Alexander Cockburn
The
UN: Should Be Late; Never Was Great
CounterPunch Special
Toronto Globe and Mail Kills Review of "The Politics of
Anti-Semitism"
Vincente Navarro
Salvador Dali, Fascist
Saul Landau
"Reality
Media": Michael Jackson, Bush and Iraq
Ben Tripp
How Bush Can Still Win
Gary Leupp
On Purchasing Syrian Beer
Ron Jacobs
Are We Doing Body Counts, Now?
Larry Everest
Oil, Power and Empire
Lee Sustar
Defying the Police State in Miami
Jacob Levich
When NGOs Attack: Implications for the Coup in Georgia
Toni Solo
Game Playing by Free Trade Rules: the Results from Indonesia
and Dominican Republic
Mark Scaramella
How to Fix the World Bank
Bruce Anderson
The San Francisco Mayor's Race
Brian Cloughley
Shredding the Owner's Manual: the Hollow Charter of the UN
Adam Engel
A Conversation with Tim Wise
Neve Gordon
Fuad and Ezra: an Update on Gays Under the Occupation
Kurt Nimmo
Bush Gives "Freedom" Medal to Robert Bartley
Tom Stephens
Justice Takes a Holiday
Susan Davis
Avast, Me Hearties! a Review of Disney's "Pirates of the
Caribbean"
Jeffrey St. Clair
A
Natural Eye: the Photography of Brett Weston
Mickey Z.
Press Box Red
Poets' Basement
Greeder, Orloski, Albert
T-shirt of the Weekend
Got Santorum?
December 5, 2003
Jeremy Scahill
Bremer
of the Tigris
Jeremy Brecher
Amistad
Revisited at Guantanamo?
Norman Solomon
Dean
and the Corp Media Machine
Norman Madarasz
France
Starts Facing Up to Anti-Muslim Discrimination
Pablo Mukherjee
Afghanistan:
the Road Back
December 4, 2003
M. Junaid Alam
Image
and Reality: an Interview with Norman Finkelstein
Adam Engel
Republican
Chris Floyd
Naked Gun: Sex, Blood and the FBI
Adam Federman
The US Footprint in Central Asia
Gary Leupp
The
Fall of Shevardnadze
Guthrie / Albert
RIP Clark Kerr
December 3, 2003
Stan Goff
Feeling
More Secure Yet?: Bush, Security, Energy & Money
Joanne Mariner
Profit Margins and Mortality Rates
George Bisharat
Who Caused the Palestinian Diaspora?
Mickey Z.
Tear Down That Wal-Mart
John Stanton
Bush Post-2004: a Nightmare Scenario
Harry Browne
Shannon
Warport: "No More Business as Usual"
December 2, 2003
Matt Vidal
Denial
and Deception: Before and Beyond Iraqi Freedom
Benjamin Dangl
An Interview with Evo Morales on the Colonization of the Americas
Sam Bahour
Can It Ever Really End?
Norman Solomon
That
Pew Poll on "Trade" Doesn't Pass the Sniff Test
Josh Frank
Trade
War Fears
Andrew Cockburn
Tired,
Terrified, Trigger-Happy
December 1, 2003
Fawzia Afzal-Khan
Unholy
Alliances: Zionism, US Imperialism and Islamic Fundamentalism
Dave Lindorff
Bush's
Baghdad Pitstop: Memories of LBJ in Vietnam
Harry Browne
Democracy Delayed in Northern Ireland
Wayne Madsen
Wagging the Media
Herman Benson
The New Unity Partnership for Labor: Bureaucratizing to Organize?
Gilad Atzmon
About
"World Peace"
Bill Christison
US
Foreign Policy and Intelligence: Monstrous Messes
November 29 / 30, 2003
Peter Linebaugh
On
the Anniversary of the Death of Wolfe Tone
Gary Leupp
Politicizing War on Fox News: a Tale of Two Memos
Saul Landau
Lying and Cheating:
Bush's New Political Math
Michael Adler
Inside a Miami Jail: One Activist's Narrative
Anthony Arnove
"They Put the Lie to Their Own Propaganda": an Interview
with John Pilger
Greg Weiher
Why Bush Needs Osama and Saddam
Stephen Banko, III
A Soldier's Dream
Forrest Hylton
Empire and Revolution in Bolivia
Toni Solo
The "Free Trade" History Eraser
Ben Terrall
Don't Think Twice: Bush Does Bali
Standard Schaefer
Unions
are the Answer to Supermarkets Woes
Richard Trainor
The Political Economy of Earthquakes: a Journey Across the Bay
Bridge
Mark Gaffney
US Congress Does Israel's Bidding, Again
Adam Engel
The System Really Works
Dave Lindorff
They, the Jury: How the System Rigs the Jury Pool
Susan Davis
Framing the Friedmans
Neve Gordon
Arundhati Roy's Complaint for Peace
Mitchel Cohen
Thomas Jefferson and Slavery
Ben Tripp
Capture Me, Daddy
Poets' Basement
Kearney, Albert, Guthrie and Smith
November 28, 2003
William S. Lind
Worse Than Crimes
David Vest
Turkey
Potemkin
Robert Jensen / Sam Husseini
New Bush Tape Raises Fears of Attacks
Wayne Madsen
Wag
the Turkey
Harold Gould
Suicide as WMD? Emile Durkheim Revisited
Gabriel Kolko
Vietnam
and Iraq: Has the US Learned Anything?
South Asia Tribune
The Story
of the Most Important Pakistan Army General in His Own Words
Website of the Day
Bush Draft
November 27, 2003
Mitchel Cohen
Why
I Hate Thanksgiving
Jack Wilson
An
Account of One Soldier's War
Stefan Wray
In the Shadows of the School of the Americas
Al Krebs
Food as Corporate WMD
Jim Scharplaz
Going Up Against Big Food: Weeding Out the Small Farmer
Neve Gordon
Gays
Under Occupation: Help Save the Life of Fuad Moussa
November 26, 2003
Paul de Rooij
Amnesty
International: the Case of a Rape Foretold
Bruce Jackson
Media
and War: Bringing It All Back Home
Stew Albert
Perle's
Confession: That's Entertainment
Alexander Cockburn
Miami and London: Cops in Two Cities
David Orr
Miami Heat
Tom Crumpacker
Anarchists
on the Beach
Mokhiber / Weissman
Militarization in Miami
Derek Seidman
Naming the System: an Interview with Michael Yates
Kathy Kelly
Hogtied
and Abused at Ft. Benning
Website of the Day
Iraq Procurement
November 25, 2003
Linda S. Heard
We,
the Besieged: Western Powers Redefine Democracy
Diane Christian
Hocus
Pocus in the White House: Of Warriors and Liberators
Mark Engler
Miami's
Trade Troubles
David Lindorff
Ashcroft's
Cointelpro
Website of the Day
Young McCarthyites of Texas
November 24, 2003
Jeremy Scahill
The
Miami Model
Elaine Cassel
Gulag
Americana: You Can't Come Home Again
Ron Jacobs
Iraq
Now: Oh Good, Then the War's Over?
Alexander Cockburn
Rupert Murdoch: Global Tyrant
November 14 / 23, 2003
Alexander Cockburn
Clintontime:
Was It Really a Golden Age?
Saul Landau
Words
of War
Noam Chomsky
Invasion
as Marketing Problem: Iraq War and Contempt for Democracy
Stan Goff
An Open Letter to GIs in Iraq: Hold on to Your Humanity
Jeffrey St. Clair
Bush Puts Out a Contract on the Spotted Owl
John Holt
Blue Light: Battle for the Sweetgrass Hills
Adam Engel
A DC Lefty in King George's Court: an Interview with Sam Smith
Joanne Mariner
In a Dark Hole: Moussaoui and the Hidden Detainees
Uri Avnery
The General as Pseudo-Dove: Ya'alon's 70 Virgins
M. Shahid Alam
Voiding the Palestinians: an Allegory
Juliana Fredman
Visions of Concrete
Norman Solomon
Media Clash in Brazil
Brian Cloughley
Is Anyone in the Bush Administration Telling the Truth?
William S. Lind
Post-Machine Gun Tactics
Patrick W. Gavin
Imagine
Dave Lindorff
Bush's
Brand of Leadership: Putting Himself First
Tom Crumpacker
Pandering to Anti-Castro Hardliners
Erik Fleming
Howard Dean's Folly
Rick Giombetti
Challenging the Witch Doctors of the New Imperialism: a Review
of Bush in Babylon
Jorge Mariscal
Las Adelitas, 2003: Mexican-American Women in Iraq
Chris Floyd
Logical Conclusions
Mickey Z.
Does William Safire Need Mental Help?
David Vest
Owed to the Confederate Dead
Ron Jacobs
Joe: the Sixties Most Unforgiving Film
Dave Zirin
Foreman and Carlos: a Tale of Two Survivors
Poets' Basement
Guthrie, Albert, Greeder, Ghalib and Alam
Congratulations
to CounterPuncher David Vest: Winner of 2 Muddy Awards for Best
Blues Pianist in the Pacific Northwest!
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
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.
|
December
8, 2003
Denial in the New
Millennium
Nuclear
Terror and Psychic Numbing
By CAROL WOLMAN, MD
Nuclear terror has ruled our lives since 1945.
As the types, numbers, delivery methods, and owners of nuclear
weapons have proliferated, the terror has deepened. The terror
is deeply buried, because it is so painful. For two or three
generations now, we have been living on the edge of eco-catastrophe,
the possibility of ending all life on earth with a manmade nuclear
winter.
Gulf War I introduced of a horrendous
new nuclear weapon, depleted uranium. This material causes abortions,
birth defects and cancer, as well as lung and kidney ailments.
It pollutes the local gene pool forever. We have to accept the
enormous damage we have already done. (For the latest information
about this material, www.uraniumweaponsconference.de)
NUCLEAR TERROR strikes at the very heart
of consciousness, which ultimately is about continuation of the
species. As individuals, we are concerned about ourselves. As
members of a species, we are concerned about reproduction, about
having healthy children and providing for them.
As continuation of the species looks
more and more unlikely, we develop more and more PSYCHIC NUMBING-
a deep loss of hope for the future: shutting down of the basic
biological urge to propagate our kind. We stop having children,
or don't care for them. We live in the moment and don't plan
for the future of our children, our grandchildren, our planet.
Our psyches are terribly distorted, and
the distortions are embedded in the developing brains of everyone
born after 1945. Since we all are affected, we don't notice,
just as fish aren't aware of water. Perhaps that is why the only
consistent voice of sanity in the US Senate these days belongs
to a man in his 80's, Senator Robert Byrd of WV.
We are psychically split. We act as if
life will go on for many generations to come, ignoring the ever-growing
danger of nuclear war. We live AS IF life were the same as it
was 100 years ago. Nuclear war is a taboo subject, not fit for
polite company. Essentially, we are all living a lie, ignoring
the overwhelming threat to continuation of life on earth. Psychic
numbing shows up in our trouble making and keeping long term
commitments, such as the marriage vow.
AMERICANS tend to identify with America's
nuclear weapons, thinking that they meant to defend our country.
We plebes don't realize that their real function is to defend
the interests of a small group of corporations, the military-aerospace-oil
complex. Our role is to be HOSTAGES. The people in power have
bunkers and bomb shelters in which to ride out a nuclear war.
There is no civil defense for the rest of us. Not only are we
targeted, but we pay for the privilege, with our taxes. (The
actual price tag for US military spending in fiscal 2004 will
be $486 billion, or 56 percent of all federal discretionary spending.)
Our DENIAL OF THIS SHATTERING TRUTH IS HEAVILY FOSTERED by the
warmongers. We are told by the media, over and over, that we
have an enemy, and we need nuclear weapons to protect us. When
the Cold War ended, a new threat called terrorism was quickly
produced.
As if thought control by the media weren't
enough, our culture is geared toward violence and exploitation.
Our children are raised on sadistic cartoons and video games.
We are taught to channel our aggression into team sports- mostly
as spectators- and to always root for the home team. "Us
against them" thinking is ingrained, and of course we are
always the good guys.
We are also trained to be passive. We
are fed all sorts of drugs, legal and illegal, that sedate us
or make us crazy. The education system trains our children to
sit still and give the right answers. Our diet and lifestyle
makes us fat and lazy.
We are also terrorized. Protestors are
given harsh sentences these days. Sane leaders who advocate love
and peace have been systematically assassinated or killed in
mysterious accidents- both Kennedys (3 with John Jr.), ML King,
Jr., Mel Carnahan and Paul Wellstone to name a few.
We are socially fragmented. We are encouraged
to focus on ourselves and personal success, rather to face our
common problems and seek solutions together. The divorce rate
is high and children are neglected or abused. The social service
system breaks up our families. As we are socially atomized, we
feel more and more powerless to deal with the threat of nuclear
holocaust.
We are out of touch with our bodies.
We sit in cars, in front of TVs and computers, at desks, but
we don't experience our physical reality and that of the world
around us. No wonder we don't take care of the environment!
We worship money and goods instead of
the God of love and truth. After 9-11, the president told us
to keep shopping. Our health as a nation is measured by the the
stock market rather than by the number of people in prison.
No doubt the reader will think of a dozen
more ways in which psychic numbing is maintained, and the belief
that nuclear weapons will protect us and not harm us, is fostered.
When peace movements arise, as they did in the 60's and prior
to the Iraq invasion, they tend to focus on stopping specific
wars rather than concentrating on the overriding need to abolish
nuclear weapons, once and for all.
THE THREAT OF NUCLEAR
WAR HAS INCREASED DRAMATICALLY IN THE NEW MILLENNIUM.
The Bush administration is systematically
dismantling the international treaties that were painstakingly
crafted over the past 40 years to contain and control the use
and spread of nuclear weapons.
The ABM treaty was the first target.
Signed by the two nuclear giants in 1972 it successfully capped
the nuclear arms race for 30 years. It prevented the building
of a missile shield, a huge boondoggle much desired by the Bush
junta. Although the fight to save the ABM treaty was valiant
and nearly succeeded, Bush took advantage of 9-11 to withdraw.
A missile shield can never provide the security we had with the
treaty structure- at best, it's only 95% effective, and it is
years away
Bush's new pre-emptive strike policy,
by lumping nuclear weapons with other WMD's and asserting the
right to use them against non-nuclear nations, clearly violates
the crucial NonProliferation Treaty (NPT), which every nation
in the world has signed except for Israel, India and Pakistan.
And North Korea just withdrew. According to ElBaradei, head of
the international agency set up to inspect and enforce the NPT,
40 or 50 countries could develop nuclear weapons in the next
year, if they so chose. Nuclear anarchy, here we come!
The Bush doctrine includes A RELIGIOUS
ANGLE. It says that America is a Christian country on a crusade
against evil. We are brainwashed into believing that war is peace,
lies are truth, and Jesus advocates war and conquest. "Christian"
leaders advocate hate and violence, against Muslims, pro-choice
advocates, liberals. Here's a description of banner at a pro-Bush
rally:
Across the top of the banner, which was
clearly professionally made and not hand-lettered, were the block-letter
words "SUPPORT PRESIDENT BUSH." Through the center
of the banner were black outlines of various weapons, including
a thermonuclear bomb. Underneath these images were two more block-letter
words: "TRUST JESUS."
The threat of doomsday brings up Biblical
imagery in a largely Christian country, where the Bible is still
the best selling book. Terms like armageddon and apocalypse have
become part of the culture. Conveniently for the warmongers,
an interpretation of prophecy has emerged- set out in the popular
"Left Behind" books- that culminates in nuclear war,
thus justifying and sanctifying the nuclear buildup.
The current right wing "Christian"
theology offers people a comforting way of dealing with nuclear
terror. Called dispensationalism, it promises that true believers
will avoid the travail of the tribulation, and will be transported
straight to heaven by Jesus. They won't have to experience nuclear
war, which will take place only after they are "raptured
up". Of course, this interpretation of the Bible fails to
explain how Jesus will rule over the new Jerusalem on a planet
totally polluted with gene-destroying radiation.
We PEACE ACTIVISTS, who see through the
guff and keep the threat of nuclear war ever in our consciousness,
still have our own layers of psychic numbing to go through. How
do we avoid despair? How do we talk to the ostriches all around
us? How do we find the strength to deal with a police state?
How can we look our children in the eye and honestly encourage
them to have babies?
We must never forget the urgency of the
threat, and the magnitude of the destruction. Let us not be diverted
by electoral politics or Michael Jackson, but keep our eye on
the sword of Damocles, as we struggle to remove it.
We must keep faith that humanity has
enough common sense to avoid catastrophe. Nuclear weapons up
to now have provided an iron discipline for mankind, which has
developed more self-restraint and international cooperation in
the last 50 years than in the preceding 2000. I believe that
God will not destroy His creation.
We must bring the damage done to our
own troops by depleted uranium to the forefront. Potentially,
this slow form of nuclear war affects enough Americans now to
create public outrage similar to the Strontium 90 uproar in the
late 50's, which led to abolition of aboveground nuclear testing.
We must realize that as peacemakers,
we are engaged in spiritual warfare against the warmongers. We
must speak the truth, sound the warning, denounce the lying criminals
who would destroy us. Our words, our tongues, our writings, are
our weapons.
We must love all our neighbors, including
the terrorists, the whales and polar bears, and our own great-grandchildren.
Only love can overcome the fear and hatred that is driving us
to destruction.
We must take responsibility for cleaning
up the horrendous mess we have made, and not seek the easy out
of mass suicide.
We must be grateful for our successes,
and keep our confidence in the face of repression and lost battles.
We are the people, we are everywhere, and we will prevail!
We must reclaim the mantle of legitimacy,
and not allow the false Christians to steal it from us. Jesus
is the Prince of Peace, not of nuclear war.
We are almost at the point of no return.
The spiritual battle of Armageddon, between the warmongers and
the peacemakers, is raging right now. The warmongers have overreached
themselves, but don't know how to turn back. They will hold onto
power with all their might.
We must always remember that God is on
the side of life. He will not allow a nuclear winter to take
place. He told Moses: Deuteronomy 30:19 This day I call heaven
and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you
life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that
you and your children may live .
Let us choose life, now and forever.
If God is with us, we cannot lose.
Carol Wolman
is a psychiatrist. She can be reached at: cwolman@mcn.org
Weekend
Edition Features for Nov. 29 / 30, 2003
Alexander Cockburn
The
UN: Should Be Late; Never Was Great
CounterPunch Special
Toronto Globe and Mail Kills Review of "The Politics of
Anti-Semitism"
Vincente Navarro
Salvador Dali, Fascist
Saul Landau
"Reality
Media": Michael Jackson, Bush and Iraq
Ben Tripp
How Bush Can Still Win
Gary Leupp
On Purchasing Syrian Beer
Ron Jacobs
Are We Doing Body Counts, Now?
Larry Everest
Oil, Power and Empire
Lee Sustar
Defying the Police State in Miami
Jacob Levich
When NGOs Attack: Implications for the Coup in Georgia
Toni Solo
Game Playing by Free Trade Rules: the Results from Indonesia
and Dominican Republic
Mark Scaramella
How to Fix the World Bank
Bruce Anderson
The San Francisco Mayor's Race
Brian Cloughley
Shredding the Owner's Manual: the Hollow Charter of the UN
Adam Engel
A Conversation with Tim Wise
Neve Gordon
Fuad and Ezra: an Update on Gays Under the Occupation
Kurt Nimmo
Bush Gives "Freedom" Medal to Robert Bartley
Tom Stephens
Justice Takes a Holiday
Susan Davis
Avast, Me Hearties! a Review of Disney's "Pirates of the
Caribbean"
Jeffrey St. Clair
A
Natural Eye: the Photography of Brett Weston
Mickey Z.
Press Box Red
Poets' Basement
Greeder, Orloski, Albert
T-shirt of the Weekend
Got Santorum?
Keep CounterPunch Alive:
Make
a Tax-Deductible Donation Today Online!
home / subscribe
/ about us / books
/ archives / search
/ links /
|