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Today's
Stories
March 24, 2004
Steve Niva
Israel's Assassinations will Only
Fuel More Suicide Bombings
March 23, 2004
Phillip Cryan
The
Drug War's Next Casualty: Colombia's National Parks
Ron Jacobs
They Shoot Men in Wheelchairs, Too?
Dave Lindorff
A Spanish Parallel: Scare Tactics and Elections
Mike Whitney
Richard Clarke and Teflon George
Brian McKinlay
Bush's Lil' Buddy in Trouble: John Howard Starts to Wobble
JG
Driving Mr. Koon: "Jim Crow Lives Next Door"
Phyllis Pollack
Gettin' Jigga with Metallica: the Battle Over the Double Black
CD
Ahmed Bouzid
Sharon's One-Way Track
Sean Carter
The G-Word Goes to Court: One Nation Under [Your Logo Here]
M. Shahid Alam
World's Greatest Country: Do the Facts Lie
March 22, 2004
Mazin Qumsiyeh
On Extrajudicial
Executions
Uri Avnery
The
Assassination of Sheikh Yassin is Worse Than a Crime
Gilad Atzmon
Sharon's Rampage
Mike Whitney
Guilty Until Proven Innocent: the Story of Captain James Yee
Jason Leopold
Firm With Ties to Cheney Faces Criminal Indictment in Cal Energy
Scam
Greg Moses
Stop
Walling and Stalling: a Report from Houston's Peace March
Phil Gasper
San Francisco: 25,000 March for an End to the Occupation
Lenni Brenner
Report
from NYC: Old and Young Parade for Peace
Julian Borger
The Clarke Revelations
Steve Perry
Karl Rove's Moment
Website of the Day
Enviros Against War
March 20 / 21, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Gay
Marriage: Sidestep on Freedom's Path
Jeffrey St. Clair
Intolerable Opinions in an Age of Shock and Awe: What Would Lilburne
Do?
Ted Honderich
Tony Blair's Moral Responsibility for Atrocities
Saul Landau / Farrah Hassen
The Plot Against Syria: an Irresponsibility Act
Gary Leupp
On Viewing "The Passion of the Christ"
William A. Cook
Fence, Barrier, Wall
Phil Gasper
Bush v. Bush-lite: Chomsky's Lesser Evilism
Ron Jacobs
Fox News and the Masters of War
John Stanton
Which Way John Kerry? The Senator's Inner Nixon
Justin Felux
Kerry and Black America: Just Another Stupid White Man
Mike Whitney
Greenspan's Treason: Swindling Posterity
Augustin Velloso
Avoiding Osama's Abyss
Lawrence Magnuson
Eyes Wide Open: Is Spain Caving in to Terrorism?
Kathy Kelly
Getting Together to Defeat Terrorism
Tracy McLellan
Scalia & Cheney: Happiness is a Warm Gun
Kurt Nimmo
Emma Goldman for President!
Luis J. Rodriguez
The Redemptive Power of Art: It's Not a Frill
Mickey Z
The Michael Moore Diet
Jackie Corr
When Harry Truman Stopped in Butte
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
The Great Trial of 1922: Gandhi's Vision of Responsibility
Poets' Basement
Stew Albert & JD Curtis
Website of the Weekend
Virtual World Election
March 19, 2004
Jeffrey St. Clair
Zapatero
to Kerry: Back Off, Senator, Our Troops are Coming Home
Ann Harrison
So
Protesters, How Well Do You Know Your Rights?
William MacDougall
Fortress Britain's War on "Economic Migrants"
Greg Moses
Sold American: Cowboy Nation Gets Ready to Vote
Cynthia McKinney
Haiti and the Impotence of Black America: Roll Back This Coup,
Mr. Bush
Norman Solomon
Spinning the Past; Threatening the Future
John L. Hess
"Missing" Evidence and the NYTs
Vicente Navarro
The
End of Aznar, Bush's Best Friend
Website of the War
Naming the Dead
March 18, 2004
Gila Svirsky
Rachel
Corrie, One Year Later: She Never Lost Faith in Decency
Christopher Brauchli
Drilling a Hole in the Sanctions: How Halliburton Made $73 Million
from Saddam
William Kulin
Report from Iraq: Just Another Baghdad Car Bombing
Mike Whitney
Resistance: a Moral Imperative
Rep. Ron Paul
Broadcast Indecency Act: an Indecent Attack on the First Amendment
Josh Frank
The Nader Question
Jack Random
They Lied & They Lost: Madrid and the Lessons of Democracy
Greg Bates
What Makes a Nader Voter Tick? A Survey
Sam Hamod / Alfredo Reyes
Contempt of the World: Hastert, Bush and Cheney on Spain
Gary Leupp
The
Madrid Bombings: the Chickens Come Home to Roost
Website of the Day
Privatizing Armageddon: Buy Your Own Doomsday Key
March 17, 2004
Marjorie Cohn
Spain, the EU and the US: War on
Terror or Civil Liberties?
David MacMichael
Untruth
and Consequences
Michael Donnelly
Wear the Green, But Skip the Green Beer
Tom Stephens
"Steady Leadership": Let the Buyer Beware
Wayne Madsen
Sen. Kerry, Let Me Help You Out
Karyn Strickler
Who Owns the Sierra Club? Anonymous Donors and Rigged Elections
Peter Linebaugh
Bush:
Blanc Blanc
March 16, 2004
Lenni Brenner
James
Madison: the Anti-Clerical Father of the Bill of Rights
Scott Boehm
Madrid
Diary: How to Change World Order in Four Days
Alexander Lynch
From Franco to Aznar: the History
Behind the Spanish Elections
Sam Hamod and Alfredo
Reyes
The Truth About the Spanish Elections: Aznar Was Going Down Anyway
Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg
You Wouldn't Do a Dog This Way:
Executing David Clayton Hill
Mike Whitney
The Case for a Nuclear Iran
Robert Fisk
The Bloody Price of the "War
on Terror"
Bill Christison
The
Aftershocks from Madrid
CounterPunch Photo Wire
The Passion of St. Teresa
Website of the Day
Join the War on Art!
March 15, 2004
Harry Browne
Terror Nothing New to Europe
Mike Whitney
Justice
Not Murder: the Tragic Symmetry of Terrorism
Lidice Valenzuela
Haiti: a Coup without Consultation
Greg Moses
Lessons
from the Texas Primaries: Looking for a Coalition with Legs
Mickey Z.
Depraved Indifference: C-Sections, Patriarchy & Women's Health
Asaf Shtull-Trauring
AWOL
in New York: From Refusenik to Organizer
CounterPunch Wire
Gen. Gramajo Executed by Bees!
March 12 / 14, 2004
Gabriel Kolko
The
Coming Elections and the Future of American Global Power
Saul Landau
Oh, Jesus...It's the Movie!
William Blum
Neo-Con(tradictions)
William S. Lind
Why They Throw Rocks
Rahul Mahajan
The Meaning of Madrid: War on "Terrorism" Makes Us
All Less Safe
Neve Gordon
Demographic Wars
Kurt Nimmo
Kerry and the Progressive Interventionists
Mickey Z.
The "New" UN Blames the Poor
Mike Whitney
War Games: the American Media Leads the Charge
Helen Scott and Ashley
Smith
Aristide's Fall: What Led to the Coup?
Justin E.H. Smith
Loïc Wacquant: Against a Sociodicy
of the American Prison
Brandy Baker
Him Again? Al Gore Needs to Move On
Robin Philpot
Nobody Can Call It a "Plane Crash" Now: the Report
on the Assassination of Rwandan President Habyarimana
Mokhiber / Weissman
The Meat Monopoly Takes a Rare Pounding
Dave Zirin
She Turned Her Back on the War: an Interview with Toni Smith
Daniel Wolff
The Lord's Pier
March 11, 2004
Ron Jacobs
Bedtime
for Democracy
Bill Kauffman
Hey,
Ralph! Why Not Another Party of the People?
James Hollander
Slaughter
in Madrid: Consolidating an Ally?
Norman Solomon
They
Shoot Journalists, Don't They?
Patrick Gavin
The Salvation of Dan Quayle: Family Values Return
Becky Burgwin
You're
Messing with the Wrong Generation
John Sugg
The FBI is on My Trail
March 10, 2004
Hammond Guthrie
Read
This Book!: "Who the Hell is Stew Albert?"
Chris Floyd
Operation Enduring Sweatshop: Another
Bush Brings Hell to Haiti
Elizabeth Corrie
Remembering the Death of Rachel Corrie
Mike Whitney
US Press Torpedoes Aristide
M. Junaid Alam
An Anti-Civilizational War?
Bob Feldman
The Occupation of Haiti: Recalling 1915-1934
John L. Hess
An Overload of Crises
Gary Leupp
On Abu
Musab al-Zarqawi and the Uses of al-Qaeda "Links"
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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March
24, 2004
Shakespeare for Kerry, et al.
The
Ainger Angle
By RICHARD OXMAN
This article is dedicated to Stephanie
Stewart, a fourteen-year-old whose recent brave, inspired political
actions made me revisit Shaw's Maid of Orleans.
"Well...well...well."
-- John Kerry, graduate of Yale University,
quoting Hamlet
Like Jeanne D'Arc, I had a vision last night.
But it was The Bard who spoke, not the Lord. Nevertheless, he's
so lyrical, I thought I'd share his thoughts with you on the
"reform" we need...whether Kerry or Bush or Peltier
or Nader or anyone else leads the Pack of Wild Animals that dominates
our population, our culture, our political agenda. After all,
he did know The Globe quite well.
1. Respecting Native Americans: "Like
a fair house built on another man's ground."
Such an enterprise as ours was doomed
from the beginning, according to The Merry Wives of Windsor II,
ii, 216, and it's time to honor the treaties we've broken with
the Indians. With Kerry their sad situation will get even worse.
2. Respecting Same-Sex Marriage: "Time
goes on crutches till Love have all his rites."
As per Much Ado About Nothing II, i,
352, time does drag painfully waiting for a wedding to take place.
Ditto with regard to marriages which have taken place, but which
may be nullified because of Bush's proposed amendment to our
constitution. All Love deserves the same benefits sanctioned
by society. Ever ask yourself why Kerry lacks Kevin's convictions,
his enthusiasm about the issue? From another angle, Kerry could
kick Cockburn's thoughts on the
subject around, if...if Old Skull and Bones can keep up with
him intellectually.
3. Respecting War: "For God's sake,
go not to these wars!"
If each and every enlistee (and their
family members) would stop using the "economic excuse"
for joining the abominations abroad, we'd have another world
overnight. Everyone could acknowledge the value of the injunction
above (from Henry IV, Part Two, II, iii, 9), and put a fraction
of their life's blood --compared to what's involved with placing
bodies on the line-- into demanding that the Feds spend our money
another way. It might help to remember the dying king's advice
to his son, the future Henry V: "Be it thy course to busy
giddy minds/With foreign quarrels" in the same play (IV,
v, 213). That's one of the ways those politicians fool 'ya. No
relief from John Boy here; ditto for the other JFK, in case you
hadn't noticed.
4. Respecting International Politics:
"O, it is excellent/To have a giant's strength; but it is
tyrannous/To use it like a giant."
Threatening weaker nations so as forge
alliances on our way toward Global Hegemony is exactly what Measure
for Measure, II,ii,107 is warning against. If only it had been
required reading at Yale. 5. Respecting Allies: "Nature
teaches beasts to know their friends." However did the little
Elizabethan anticipate the atrocities Mossad would inflict on
(and with the help of) this nation under the auspices of a genocidal
Israel? Or, to put it another way, don't we have to re-evaluate
the status of the Israeli lobbyists in this country? Darn, I
just wish people would keep the words from Coriolanus, II, i,
6 in mind when reviewing the latest revelations about the U.S.S.
Liberty, Robert McNamara and Richard Perle. As per The Politics
of Anti-Semitism (ed. by Cockburn and St. Clair), we're in for
more of the same with Mass. Murder Man (from-a-V-nyet-Nam).
6. Respecting War Crimes: "Truth
will come to light; murder cannot be hid long."
These words from The Merchant of Venice,
II, ii, 79 were echoed by Ralph Waldo Emerson ("Murder will
speak out of stone walls.") in the halls of Harvard, and
repeated by Chaucer, Cervantes and many others. "Murder
will out" is the proverbial saying, and whether or not our
atrocities were commited unilaterally, as a member of a coalition
and/or with the UN's imprimatur, we will be exposed. Our technical
immunity --forced upon the world-- will not protect us. All great
Neptune's oceans, to paraphrase Macbeth, will not wash the blood
clean from our hands. Rather, all of our attempts at coverup
will result in making the multitudinous seas incarnadine...so
enormous, so widespread are our crimes against humanity. What
will be in order? Atonement? Reparations? Punishment? Anyone
gonna query Kerry The Unconscionable?
7. Respecting Crime: "The robbed
that smiles, steals something from the thief."
That's according to Othello, I, iii,
204, but what about the rich robber who smiles as he shafts the
poor? Such economic indiscretions will out too (see "War
Crimes" above), as the murderer notes in Richard III, I,
i, 118. On the issue of minor thievery in this country (as opposed
to Enron-like acts), let it be known that people are being driven
to acts they would rather not partake in as per Timon of Athens,
IV, iii, 422 ("We are not thieves, but men that much do
want."). And it will get much worse as disparity in wealth
continues to rise under all administrations. When oh when will
the top 2% pay their fair share? Why can't corporations which
have not paid a penny in tax within memory (nay, which have received
subsidies up the kazoo) pay double of what they paid the last
time they paid taxes? Why isn't Kerry talking about tax shelters
until he's blue(blooded) in the face?
8. Respecting Poverty: "The orphan
pines while the oppressor feeds."
So says The Rape of Lucrece, 905. See
"Crime" above for a solution. Don't see John.
9. Respecting Environment: "Clear
wells spring not, sweet birds sing not,/Green plants bring not
forth their dye./Herds stands weeping, flocks all sleeping."
The lines from The Passionate Pilgrim,
xvii, 25 remind me of the fact that the U.S. military's "closed
bases" have already made uninhabitable an area in the continental
U.S. the size of Florida. What's Kerry going to do about that?
And will they take action on my wager in Las Vegas?
10. Respecting Obesity/Health: "Let
me have men about me that are fat,/Sleek-headed men, and such
as sleep a-nights."
The preferences of our rulers today are
not much different than what's expressed in this sentiment from
Julius Caesar, I, ii, 192, but that's not to compare Bush or
Kerry with Founder of the First Triumvirate (see Michael Parenti's
glorious work The Assassination of Julius Caesar: A People's
History of Ancient Rome). The lean and hungry look won't do these
days. Nay, "Sweep on, you fat and greasy citizens."
As You Like It, II, i, 55 provides the line that eptiomizes the
attitudinal set of those aspiring for High Office; no higher
high for them. But because in spite of all that above "There
lives the dearest freshness, deep down things" ( as per
Gerard Manley Hopkins), let's have one more for the rough road
ahead:
11. Respecting Miracles: "They say
miracles are past."
That's one view posited by All's Well
That Ends Well, II, iii, 1. However, as Thomas Carlyle declared
in History of the French Revolution, miracles are forever with
us. And --in that sweet light-- I'm going to close by suggesting
that a "changed" William, if living today, would personally
approve of Katherine Ainger's "Against
the Misery of Power, The Politics of Happiness". In
it, Hilary Wainwright's Reclaim the State is cited, a miracle
of a work which depicts miracles taking place in England right
now...where people are taking control of their own lives... "devising
systems through which communities can organize themselves. These
involve direct democracy, decentralization and radical participation.
And there will not be a single ideological model to form a party
around and compete in a national election. That's because what's
needed is a democratic renewal of the system itself, to be implemented
here, now, by all of us - one that reaches from the local to
the global. No new ideology but a new methodology - one that
we build from the ground up."
Pure Ainger. She underscores how "the
powerful spend much of their time and resources attempting to
sabotage and undermine recognition of our own power. For we are
rich in human ingenuity, in collective resources, in imagination
and above all in sheer numbers." I agree with her that "power
from below is reinventing politics" and that it's going
to be on our own terms this time. As the kids might say (if they
knew better), "Ainger rules!". Sonnet to 'ya, baby!
Methinks Billy the Bard would find good material here for the
boards, not boding ill, but well...well...well.
Richard Oxman
is a former professor of Dramatic Art & Speech, Comparative
Literature, ESL and Cinema History at various institutions of
so-called higher education. He was born in the "Flower"
of the Garden State, Newark, New Jersey, but can be reached these
days in so-called progressive Santa Cruz, California at mail@onedancesummit.org
when he's not fussing with the French a la www.frenchpaintbox.com.
Weekend
Edition Features for March 20 / 21, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Gay
Marriage: Sidestep on Freedom's Path
Jeffrey St. Clair
Intolerable Opinions in an Age of Shock and Awe: What Would Lilburne
Do?
Ted Honderich
Tony Blair's Moral Responsibility for Atrocities
Saul Landau / Farrah Hassen
The Plot Against Syria: an Irresponsibility Act
Gary Leupp
On Viewing "The Passion of the Christ"
William A. Cook
Fence, Barrier, Wall
Phil Gasper
Bush v. Bush-lite: Chomsky's Lesser Evilism
Ron Jacobs
Fox News and the Masters of War
John Stanton
Which Way John Kerry? The Senator's Inner Nixon
Justin Felux
Kerry and Black America: Just Another Stupid White Man
Mike Whitney
Greenspan's Treason: Swindling Posterity
Augustin Velloso
Avoiding Osama's Abyss
Lawrence Magnuson
Eyes Wide Open: Is Spain Caving in to Terrorism?
Kathy Kelly
Getting Together to Defeat Terrorism
Tracy McLellan
Scalia & Cheney: Happiness is a Warm Gun
Kurt Nimmo
Emma Goldman for President!
Luis J. Rodriguez
The Redemptive Power of Art: It's Not a Frill
Mickey Z
The Michael Moore Diet
Jackie Corr
When Harry Truman Stopped in Butte
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
The Great Trial of 1922: Gandhi's Vision of Responsibility
Poets' Basement
Stew Albert & JD Curtis
Website of the Weekend
Virtual World Election
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