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Today's
Stories
September
25, 2003
David
Krieger
The
Second Nuclear Age
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
Recent
Stories
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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September
26, 2003
Teaching Suspicions
The
Unintended Consequences of Police Investigations of Parent Volunteers
By DAVID PRICE
At a PTA meeting two weeks ago I learned that
all parent-volunteers at my daughter's primary school are now
required to submit to a criminal background check which includes
a (thus far) "voluntary" request for the parent's thumbprint.
My school district in Olympia, Washington is not alone in adopting
such measures, other school districts in the state and across
the county have recently adopted similar policies, and other
districts are considering similar procedures in the name of increasing
"school safety"--this despite a lack of evidence that
such measures will make our children any safer.
As a civil libertarian who has been an
active classroom volunteer for the past seven years, I object
to my school district's demand that I subject myself to a criminal
background check and to "voluntarily" submit my thumbprint
so that I can accompany my child on a fieldtrip or help with
classroom chores. It is a minor thing, but I have long been
disappointed that my children will never be taught by even one
teacher in the public schools who is the type of civil libertarian
that would refuse to submit to being fingerprinted as a condition
of employment. These new policies now guarantee that school
children will not have classroom contact with civil libertarian
parents or other citizens who will not submit to such invasive
background checks. While this might make John Ashcroft breath
easier, this doesn't make me feel better about the safety of
school children.
But my worries about these new policies
reach beyond my civil liberty concerns (and because school districts
care little about civil liberties and are not likely to be moved
by such arguments, it makes sense for parents and concerned citizens
to focus their protests in another direction): I am worried about
the predictable negative impact of this policy on the academic
development of children already at risk of academic failure.
It is surprising to find our standardized-test-obsessed-schools
not worrying about the significant but unintended negative consequence
of these policies as they stand to further alienate low-income
parents who will become even more frightened of meaningfully
entering their children's schools.
I know from my years working with families
participating in a low-income family literacy program on Washington's
Olympic Peninsula (a region with extraordinarily high poverty
rates due to declines in the timber industry) that just asking
parents for fingerprints and permission for a police background
check will frighten away many low-income parents with records
for nonviolent offences from any participation--regardless of
the fact that these forms state that such past infringements
will not disqualify a parent from volunteering. These parents
are already fearful of the schools, and because they do not want
to risk revealing their past legal problems they will bypass
opportunities to be active supportive educational partners.
Several years ago I interviewed a father who told me that he
had planed to attend a Cub Scout camping trip with his son's
troop, but when he had been asked to submit to a criminal history
background check authorization form he quietly withdrew as he
did not want anyone to know about a long-previous non-violent
clash with the law (a not uncommon experience for Americans living
in poverty). I told this father that his past troubles would
likely not matter to the Scouts and I encouraged him to reconsider
his decision, but he did not want his past investigated so he
did not attend the outing and an important opportunity for a
supportive father-son experience was lost. This was not an isolated
incident and other impoverished parents I interviewed recounted
similar fears.
School policy makers know there is a
vast literature on early childhood education establishing that
visible parental involvement in classroom education significantly
strengthens young students' academic interests, commitments and
outcomes. In fact, parental support and interest in school work
is one of the strongest predictors of later academic success.
These new policies authorizing police background checks stand
to alienate an entire class of parents-arguably the class of
parents whose presence as volunteers could make the most significant
impact.
Some state PTA's have opposed policies
mandating police background checks of parents for just these
reasons. The Nevada PTA took an official stance opposing the
police background checks of parents; it instead advocates the
commonsense practice of adopting policies for supervising parent
volunteers. The Nevada PTA views parental background checks
as being antithetical to their mission of getting parents more
involved in student classroom activities. Nevada PTA President
D.J. Stutz argues that "In Nevada, there has not yet been
a reported incident of a volunteer molesting or assaulting a
child at school, while teachers, who are required to be fingerprinted
and do have to have background checks, cannot make the same claim."
Indeed, in my own community this past week a former teacher
who passed a thorough police background check has been charged
with murder and child rape.
There will no doubt be legal challenges
to this new affront to civil liberties, as schools place parents
in a double-bind wherein their children are required by law to
attend schools that parents may not meaningfully enter unless
they surrender their privacy rights. Perhaps the courts will
need to remind schools (to paraphrase Justice Brennan) that children
are not the only ones who do not shed their constitutional rights
when they enter the school house door. But we all know that the
current chill on civil liberties creates a climate in which fear
trumps rational concerns. As civil rights are increasingly seen
as "civil privileges," our hopes for the courts to
defend our rights are likewise reduced.
Parents and non-parents alike need to
speak-out to their school boards, local and state PTAs and state
Education Departments to challenge this affront to civil liberties
and to demand that schools take responsibility for further alienating
families with students at risk.
David Price
is an Associate Professor of anthropology at St. Martin's College.
He is a card carrying member of the PTA, his book Threatening
Anthropology: McCarthyism and the FBI's Surveillance of Activist
Anthropologists will be published this spring by Duke University
Press. He can be reached at: dprice@stmartin.edu
Weekend
Edition Features for Sept. 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?
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