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Today's
Stories
October
3 / 5, 2003
Bruce
Jackson
Addio
All Armi
October
2, 2003
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
What's
So Great About Gandhi, Anyway?
Amy Goodman
/ Jeremy Scahill
The
Ashcroft-Rove Connection
Doug Giebel
Kiss and Smear: Novak and the Valerie Plame Affair
Hamid
Dabashi
The Moment of Myth: Edward Said (1935-2003)
Elaine Cassel
Chicago Condemns Patriot Act
Saul Landau
Who
Got Us Into This Mess?
Website of the Day
Last Day to Save Beit Arabiya!
October 1, 2003
Joanne
Mariner
Married
with Children: the Supremes and Gay Families
Robert
Fisk
Oil,
War and Panic
Ron Jacobs
Xenophobia
as State Policy
Elaine
Cassel
The
Lamo Case: Secret Subpoenas and the Patriot Act
Shyam
Oberoi
Shooting
a Tiger
Toni Solo
Plan Condor, the Sequel?
Sean Donahue
Wesley
Clark and the "No Fly" List
Website of the Day
Downloader Legal Defense Fund
September
30, 2003
After
Dark
Arnold's
1977 Photo Shoot
Dave Lindorff
The
Poll of the Shirt: Bush Isn't Wearing Well
Tom Crumpacker
The
Cuba Fixation: Shaking Down American Travelers
Robert
Fisk
A
Lesson in Obfuscation
Charles
Sullivan
A
Message to Conservatives
Suren Pillay
Edward Said: a South African Perspective
Naeem
Mohaiemen
Said at Oberlin: Hysteria in the Face of Truth
Amy Goodman
/ Jeremy Scahill
Does
a Felon Rove the White House?
Website
of the Day
The Edward Said Page
September 29, 2003
Robert
Fisk
The
Myths of Western Intelligence Agencies
Iain A. Boal
Turn It Up: Pardon Mzwakhe Mbuli!
Lee Sustar
Paul
Krugman: the Last Liberal?
Wayne Madsen
General Envy? Think Shinseki, Not Clark
Benjamin
Dangl
Bolivia's Gas War
Uri Avnery
The
Magnificent 27
Pledge
Drive of the Day
Antiwar.com
Recent
Stories
September
26 / 28, 2003
Alexander
Cockburn
Alan
Dershowitz, Plagiarist
David Price
Teaching Suspicions
Saul Landau
Before the Era of Insecurity
Ron Jacobs
The Chicago Conspiracy Trial and
the Patriot Act
Brian
Cloughley
The Strangeloves Win Again
Norman Solomon
Wesley and Me: a Real-Life Docudrama
Robert
Fisk
Bomb Shatters Media Illusions
M. Shahid Alam
A Muslim Sage Visits the USA
John Chuckman
American Psycho: Bush at the UN
Mark Schneider
International Direct Action
The Spanish Revolution to the Palestiniana Intifada
William
S. Lind
How $87 Billion Could Buy Some Real Security
Douglas Valentine
Gold Warriors: the Plundering of Asia
Chris
Floyd
Vanishing Act
Elaine Cassel
Play Cat and Moussaoui
Richard
Manning
A Conservatism that Once Conserved
George Naggiar
The Beautiful Mind of Edward Said
Omar Barghouti
Edward Said: a Corporeal Dream Not Yet Realized
Lenni Brenner
Palestine's Loss is America's Loss
Mickey
Z.
Edward Said: a Well-Reasoned Voice
Tanweer Akram
The Legacy of Edward Said
Adam Engel
War in the Smoking Room
Poets' Basement
Katz, Ford, Albert & Guthrie
Website
of the Weekend
Who the Hell is Stew Albert?
September
25, 2003
Edward
Said
Dignity,
Solidarity and the Penal Colony
Robert
Fisk
Fanning
the Flames of Hatred
Sarah
Ferguson
Wolfowitz at the New School
David
Krieger
The
Second Nuclear Age
Bill Glahn
RIAA Doublespeak
Al Krebs
ADM and the New York Times: Covering Up Corporate Crime
Michael
S. Ladah
The Obvious Solution: Give Iraq Back to the Arabs
Fran Shor
Arnold and Wesley
Mustafa
Barghouthi
Edward Said: a Monument to Justice and Human Rights
Alexander Cockburn
Edward Said: a Mighty and Passionate
Heart
Website
of the Day
Edward Said: a Lecture on the Tragedy of Palestine
September 24, 2003
Stan Goff
Generational
Casualties: the Toxic Legacy of the Iraq War
William
Blum
Grand Illusions About Wesley Clark
David
Vest
Politics
for Bookies
Jon Brown
Stealing Home: The Real Looting is About to Begin
Robert Fisk
Occupation and Censorship
Latino
Military Families
Bring Our Children Home Now!
Neve Gordon
Sharon's
Preemptive Zeal
Website
of the Day
Bands Against Bush
September
23, 2003
Bernardo
Issel
Dancing
with the Diva: Arianna and Streisand
Gary Leupp
To
Kill a Cat: the Unfortunate Incident at the Baghdad Zoo
Gregory
Wilpert
An
Interview with Hugo Chavez on the CIA in Venezuela
Steven
Higgs
Going to Jail for the Cause--Part 2: Charity Ryerson, Young and
Radical
Stan Cox
The Cheney Tapes: Can You Handle the Truth?
Robert
Fisk
Another Bloody Day in the Death of Iraq
William S. Lind
Learning from Uncle Abe: Sacking the Incompetent
Elaine
Cassel
First They Come for the Lawyers, Then the Ministers
Yigal
Bronner
The
Truth About the Wall
Website
of the Day
The
Baghdad Death Count
September
20 / 22, 2003
Uri Avnery
The
Silliest Show in Town
Alexander
Cockburn
Lighten
Up, America!
Peter Linebaugh
On the Bicentennial of the Execution of Robert Emmet
Anne Brodsky
Return
to Afghanistan
Saul Landau
Guillermo and Me
Phan Nguyen
Mother Jones Smears Rachel Corrie
Gila Svirsky
Sharon, With Eyes Wide Open
Gary Leupp
On Apache Terrorism
Kurt Nimmo
Colin
Powell: Exploiting the Dead of Halabja
Brian
Cloughley
Colin Powell's Shame
Carol Norris
The Moral Development of George W. Bush
Bill Glahn
The Real Story Behind RIAA Propaganda
Adam Engel
An Interview with Danny Scechter, the News Dissector
Dave Lindorff
Good Morning, Vietnam!
Mark Scaramella
Contracts and Politics in Iraq
John Ross
WTO
Collapses in Cancun: Autopsy of a Fiasco Foretold
Justin Podur
Uribe's Desperate Squeals
Toni Solo
The Colombia Three: an Interview with Caitriona Ruane
Steven Sherman
Workers and Globalization
David
Vest
Masked and Anonymous: Dylan's Elegy for a Lost America
Ron Jacobs
Politics of the Hip-Hop Pimps
Poets
Basement
Krieger, Guthrie and Albert
Website of the Weekend
Ted Honderich:
Terrorism for Humanity?
September
19, 2003
Ilan Pappe
The
Hole in the Road Map
Bill Glahn
RIAA is Full of Bunk, So is the New York Times
Dave Lindorff
General Hysteria: the Clark Bandwagon
Robert Fisk
New Guard is Saddam's Old
Jeff Halper
Preparing
for a Struggle Against Israeli Apartheid
Brian J. Foley
Power to the Purse
Clare
Brandabur
Hitchens
Smears Edward Said
Website of the Day
Live from Palestine
September
18, 2003
Mona Baker
and Lawrence Davidson
In
Defense of the Boycott of Israeli Academic Institutions
Wayne
Madsen
Wesley
Clark for President? Another Neo-Con Con Job
Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
Wesley Clark and Waco
Muqtedar Khan
The Pakistan Squeeze
Dominique
de Villepin
The
Reconstruction of Iraq: This Approach is Leading Nowhere
Angus Wright
Brazilian Land Reform Offers Hope
Elaine
Cassel
Payback is Hell
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Leavitt
for EPA Head? He's Much Worse Than You Thought
Website
of the Day
ALA Responds to Ashcroft's Smear
September 17, 2003
Timothy J. Freeman
The
Terrible Truth About Iraq
St. Clair / Cockburn
A
Vain, Pompous Brown-noser:
Meet the Real Wesley Clark
Terry Lodge
An Open Letter to Michael Moore on Gen. Wesley Clark
Mitchel Cohen
Don't Be Fooled Again: Gen. Wesley Clark, War Criminal
Norman Madarasz
Targeting Arafat
Richard Forno
High Tech Heroin
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Website of the Day
The Ultimate Palestine Resource Site!
September 16, 2003
Rosemary and Walt Brasch
An
Ill Wind: Hurricane Isabel and the Lack of Homeland Security
Robert Fisk
Powell
in Baghdad
Kurt Nimmo
Imperial Sociopaths
M. Shahid Alam
The Dialectics
of Terror
Ron Jacobs
Exile at Gunpoint
Christopher Brauchli
Bush's War on Wages
Al Krebs
Stop Calling Them "Farm Subsidies"; It's Corporate
Welfare
Patrick Cockburn
The
Iraq Wreck
Website of the Day
From Occupied Palestine
The Great Alejandro Escavedo Needs Your Help!
September 15, 2003
Stan Goff
It Was
the Oil; It Is Like Vietnam
Robert Fisk
A Hail of Bullets, a Trail of Dead
Writers Bloc
We
Are Winning: a Report from Cancun
James T. Phillips
Does George Bush Cry?
Elaine Cassel
The Troublesome Bill of Rights
Cynthia McKinney
A Message to the People of New York City
Matthew Behrens
Sunday Morning Coming Down: Reflections on Johnny Cash
Uri Avnery
Assassinating
Arafat
Hammond Guthrie
Celling Out the Alarm
Website of the Day
Arnold and the Egg
September 13 / 14, 2003
Michael Neumann
Anti-Americanism:
Too Much of a Good Thing?
Jeffrey St. Clair
Anatomy of a Swindle
Gary Leupp
The Matrix of Ignorance
Ron Jacobs
Reagan's America
Brian Cloughley
Up to a Point, Lord Rumsfeld
William S. Lind
Making Mesopotamia a Terrorist Magnet
Werther
A Modest Proposal for the Pentagon
Dave Lindorff
Friendly Fire Will Doom the Occupation
Toni Solo
Fiction and Reality in Colombia: The Trial of the Bogota Three
Elaine Cassel
Juries and the Death Penalty
Mickey Z.
A Parable for Cancun
Jeffrey Sommers
Issam Nashashibi: a Life Dedicated to the Palestinian Cause
David Vest
Driving in No Direction (with a Glimpse of Johnny Cash)
Michael Yates
The Minstrel Show
Jesse Walker
Adios, Johnny Cash
Adam Engel
Something Killer
Poets' Basement
Cash, Albert, Curtis, Linhart
Website of the Weekend
Local Harvest
September 12, 2003
Writers Block
Todos
Somos Lee: Protest and Death in Cancun
Laura Carlsen
A Knife to the Heart: WTO Kills Farmers
Dave Lindorff
The Meaning of Sept. 11
Elaine Cassel
Bush at Quantico
Linda S. Heard
British
Entrance Exams
John Chuckman
The First Two Years of Insanity
Doug Giebel
Ending America as We Know It
Mokhiber / Weissman
The Blank Check Military
Subcomandante Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Website of the Day
A Woman in Baghdad
September 11, 2003
Robert Fisk
A Grandiose
Folly
Roger Burbach
State Terrorism and 9/11: 1973 and 2001
Jonathan Franklin
The Pinochet Files
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Postcards to the President
Norman Solomon
The Political Capital of 9/11
Saul Landau
The Chilean Coup: the Other, Almost Forgotten 9/11
Stew Albert
What Goes Around
Website of the Day
The Sights and Sounds of a Coup
September 10, 2003
John Ross
Cancun
Reality Show: Will It Turn Into a Tropical Seattle?
Zoltan Grossman
The General Who Would be President: Was Wesley Clark Also Unprepared
for the Postwar Bloodbath?
Tim Llewellyn
At the Gates of Hell
Christopher Brauchli
Turn the Paige: the Bush Education Deception
Lee Sustar
Bring the Troops Home, Now!
Elaine Cassel
McCain-Feingold in Trouble: Scalia Hogs the Debate
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Hammond Guthrie
When All Was Said and Done
Website of the Day
Fact Checking Colin Powell
Hot Stories
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
William Blum
Myth
and Denial in the War on Terrorism
Standard Schaefer
Experimental Casinos: DARPA and the War Economy
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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Weekend
Edition
October 3 / 5, 2003
The Other Race Card
Rush
Limbaugh and the Politics of White
Resentment
By TIM WISE
So now we know how Rush Limbaugh lost all that
weight. It wasn't will power, it wasn't exercise, and it wasn't
the Atkins Diet. Instead, it appears to have been a legal opiate
called OxyContin: legal, at least, for those persons who have
a prescription for it, which Rush doesn't. Limbaugh, according
to the former housekeeper who scored drugs for him since 1998,
is addicted to painkillers.
Rush's dope habit, however, is not the
subject of this column, except insofar as it might explain in
part his tendency to say some really stupid shit. People who
are high, after all, are known to have clouded judgment, which
is probably why Limbaugh hasn't denied the allegations of pill-popping,
since pill-popping might end up being the last best defense he
has against the charge that he's an ignorant, pompous blowfish.
Limbaugh's most recent outrage--claiming
that NFL quarterback Donovan McNabb is overrated but avoids serious
criticism because he's black and thus the media goes easy on
him--is frankly mild compared to many things he's said over the
years. Even in the realm of comments considered racist, as this
one has been by many, the quip ranks pretty low on the bigot-meter.
After all, early on in Rush's radio career
he told a black caller to "take that bone out of your nose
and call me back," and since then has said that all composite
sketches of criminals look like Jesse Jackson. Additionally,
he once dismissed the notion that black opinions matter by ranting
that "they're only 12 percent of the population. Who the
hell cares?"
The comment about McNabb--a three-time
Pro Bowler--which Rush made in his capacity as a recently-added
ESPN Sunday football commentator is, to hear Rush tell it, no
big deal. And the reaction to his remarks, again to hear him
tell it, only indicates how far "political correctness"
has gone. In fact, in Rush's mind, not only was the remark not
racist, but he is now the victim of a liberal-left cabal intent
on stifling any conservative commentary in the public arena:
a strange claim to make when you're a multimillionaire who has
gotten rich off of very un-stifled conservative commentary.
To be fair, Rush is right about one thing.
His comment was not, in and of itself racist. He did not, after
all, allege that McNabb's talent (or presumed lack thereof) was
due to his being black, and therefore somehow incapable of commanding
an NFL offense.
But at the same time, this is not where
a proper analysis of his remarks (or racism for that matter)
should end. For the simple fact is that racially-charged comments,
which this surely was, take place against a backdrop of larger
social commentary.
Statements of this nature exist not in
a vacuum, as if mere isolated flotsam and jetsam on the national
airwaves, but rather within a broader context, where their interpretation
and symbolic value become greater than the sum of their linguistic
parts.
In the case of a comment such as Limbaugh's,
one must consider the effect, not simply the intent behind the
words. It is this consideration that can legitimately cause Limbaugh's
remarks to be viewed as racist or at least an example of white
racial resentment, which in turn can feed the problem of racism,
whether or not this was the goal of the speaker.
That Rush would likely never understand
this is not surprising. Indeed, his understanding of racism,
like that of most white Americans it seems, is so limited that
it only allows the label to be used to describe the most vicious
and deliberately bigoted of statements or actions. In other words,
Rush, like most whites, views racism as requiring the evil intent
of an individual racist, and thereby considers the event through
the eyes of the perpetrator rather than the victim. If he didn't
mean any harm, then there was no foul.
But just as football players can be penalized
for holding whether or not they meant to do it, so too can someone
be guilty of fomenting racism, with or without the conscious
desire to contribute to such a thing.
Fact is, what Rush did on ESPN was to
play the conservative and white version of the so-called race
card. The one that goes like this: "Black people get treated
with kid gloves, get coddled, get preferential treatment, get
held to a lower standard, get away with sub-par performance in
ways that no white person could."
It's a card that Rush and others like
him have played for years in their diatribes against affirmative
action. It's a card that Rush himself played a few months ago
when he and other prominent conservatives insisted that New York
Times plagiarist Jayson Blair got away with his dishonesty for
so long merely because he was black, and because the Times had
an overzealous commitment to "diversity" at the expense
of quality. In fact, there is virtually no difference between
Rush's treatment of Blair and McNabb: both black, both supposedly
getting by on their skin color alone and being coddled by the
typically-liberal media, desperate to find ability among black
folks who aren't really that good.
Putting aside whether or not Rush is
right about McNabb's abilities--and this is something about which
honest football fans can disagree, I suppose--the remark can
only be viewed as a continuation of the "undeserving black
guy gets ahead" theme so common among an increasingly resentful
white public.
And keep in mind this is a public that
has already been fed lies about affirmative action for so long
that today many seem to think that whenever they fail to get
a job, it must have been because of some preference given to
a person of color; or that if their kid didn't get into the college
of their choice, it had to be because of quotas.
Ignore the evidence of course, since
it gives the lie to such silliness. Ignore the fact that the
very same blacks who presumably take white jobs are two to three
times more likely to be unemployed, even when their credentials
are equal to their white counterparts.
Ignore the fact that whites are more
likely than members of any other racial group to get into their
first-choice college, while blacks are the least likely to do
so.
Ignore the study published in the Journal
of Economic Literature--actually an analysis of over 200 other
studies--which found that persons who have benefited from affirmative
action perform equal to or better than their white contemporaries,
indicating that not only are they not being held to a lower standard,
but are meeting whatever standard exists for everyone else.
Even within the ranks of football, ignore
the recent study indicating that black coaches are fired more
quickly than their white counterparts, even when their records
are just as good or better.
Ignore the fact that another black quarterback,
Tennessee's Steve McNair, has long been under-appreciated by
the national media, stretching back to his days in college at
Alcorn State, where he was a Heisman Trophy candidate.
Why, one might ask, would the same media
that falls all over itself to kiss the ass of Donovan McNabb
just because he's black, constantly minimize McNair's talents
on the field, rarely praising him beyond noting that he's "gutsy
and plays with pain?"
Only this year, after four straight seasons
of high passer ratings and 60 percent-plus completion rates is
McNair starting to get some credit for the Titans strong play.
But given Rush's worldview, this hardly makes sense. After all,
if the media is itching to praise a black quarterback, why would
they seemingly have been allergic to such praise in the case
of McNair?
Speaking of McNair, imagine what white
conservatives would say if he, or any other black football player
or commentator were to suggest that the reason the media hasn't
given him much credit for his QB skills was because he was black?
In other words, what if McNair were to claim that racism against
blacks was the reason he failed to get the credit he deserved?
Odds are good that Rush and his loyal listeners would hit the
roof, blow a gasket, and then have to pop twenty or thirty pills
to ease the pain.
Such a claim by McNair would be viewed
as stoking racial resentment on the part of blacks. It would
be viewed as playing the race card in an arena where it didn't
belong. It would be viewed, in short, as racist by many on the
right, or at least an example of poisoning the well of race relations.
Well the same logic applies here. When
the national dialogue on race includes an unhealthy dose of diversity-bashing
from the right, replete with claims of blacks receiving unearned
preferences, to then claim that this kind of favoritism explains
McNabb's treatment by the press can only further that narrative.
In doing so, it can only poison the well of race relations and
engender white backlash against the mildest of civil rights efforts.
And it can do all of this, irrespective of the self-proclaimed
benign intentions of the speaker in question.
Of course the impact of Rush's remarks
on McNabb will likely be negligible. After all, an athlete like
Donovan McNabb isn't likely to care too much about an analysis
of his skills coming from someone whose main form of exercise
is washing down the equivalent of synthetic heroin with water.
But the impact it can have on the black community generally--especially
young black kids--is anything but insignificant.
For blacks to once again hear a white
person insist they really aren't that good and that anything
they achieve is only because of race, is for them to have planted
in their minds the seeds of self-doubt that can cripple achievement.
It is also to subject them to yet more proof that no matter what
they do, many whites will never think they are truly competent.
Rush of course offers up one last defense,
but if anything it actually makes the point of his critics. On
his radio show, Rush recently noted that he has also criticized
white quarterbacks Vinnie Testaverde and Kurt Warner as being
overrated by a doting media, and thus, his criticism of McNabb
cannot be seen as either unique, or racist.
Yet when casting doubts upon the skills
of these white players, and when questioning the media's generally
fawning attitude towards them, Rush naturally never suggested
that their treatment might be due to the media's desire to have
a "great white hope," at quarterback; or because, being
white, Warner or Testaverde fit some racialized notion of "all-American
boys."
Such comments could be made, one supposes,
though with not any greater legitimacy than the ones Rush actually
offered. That his criticism of white quarterbacks came without
the racial angle attached leads one to wonder: if not race, then
what else could possibly explain the media's love affair with
Warner and Testaverde? And if there is an answer other than race
available in these cases, then why wouldn't this also be true
for Donovan McNabb?
Of course there are other answers, but
for a flamethrower who has made his living pushing buttons, those
answers don't matter. Rush's job, as it were, for fifteen years
has been to serve as the voice of pissed off white men and the
white women who love them: pissed off at blacks for everything
under the sun; pissed off at immigrants for not learning English
fast enough; pissed off at liberals for taxes; pissed off at
Bill Clinton for blow jobs. Just plain pissed off.
Now we learn that if someone had simply
asked this pissed off superstar to piss in a cup, his star would
have darkened long ago. But like I said, this article isn't about
the fact that Rush is a drug addict. Did I mention that, by the
way?
Tim Wise is
an antiracist educator, essayist and activist. He can be reached
at timjwise@msn.com
Weekend
Edition Features for Sept. 26 / 28, 2003
Alexander
Cockburn
Alan
Dershowitz, Plagiarist
David Price
Teaching Suspicions
Saul Landau
Before the Era of Insecurity
Ron Jacobs
The Chicago Conspiracy Trial and
the Patriot Act
Brian
Cloughley
The Strangeloves Win Again
Norman Solomon
Wesley and Me: a Real-Life Docudrama
Robert
Fisk
Bomb Shatters Media Illusions
M. Shahid Alam
A Muslim Sage Visits the USA
John Chuckman
American Psycho: Bush at the UN
Mark Schneider
International Direct Action
The Spanish Revolution to the Palestiniana Intifada
William
S. Lind
How $87 Billion Could Buy Some Real Security
Douglas Valentine
Gold Warriors: the Plundering of Asia
Chris
Floyd
Vanishing Act
Elaine Cassel
Play Cat and Moussaoui
Richard
Manning
A Conservatism that Once Conserved
George Naggiar
The Beautiful Mind of Edward Said
Omar Barghouti
Edward Said: a Corporeal Dream Not Yet Realized
Lenni Brenner
Palestine's Loss is America's Loss
Mickey
Z.
Edward Said: a Well-Reasoned Voice
Tanweer Akram
The Legacy of Edward Said
Adam Engel
War in the Smoking Room
Poets' Basement
Katz, Ford, Albert & Guthrie
Website
of the Weekend
Who the Hell is Stew Albert?
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