Coming
in October
From Common Courage Press
Today's
Stories
August 29, 2003
Lenni Brenner
God
and the Democratic Wing of the Democratic Party
Bister, Estrin and Jacobs
Howard Dean, the Progressive Anti-War Candidate? Some Vermonters
Give Their Views
August 28, 2003
Gilad Atzmon
The
Most Common Mistakes of Israelis
David Vest
Moore's
Monument: Cement Shoes for the Constitution
David Lindorff
Shooting Ali in the Back: Why the Pacification is Doomed
Chris Floyd
Cheap Thrills: Bush Lies to Push His War
Wayne Madsen
Restoring the Good, Old Term "Bum"
Elaine Cassel
Not Clueless in Chicago
Stan Goff
Nukes in the Dark
Tariq Ali
Occupied
Iraq Will Never Know Peace
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Behold, My Package
Website of the Day
Palestinian
Artists
Recent
Stories
August 27, 2003
Bruce Jackson
Little
Deaths: Hiding the Body Count in Iraq
John Feffer
Nuances and North Korea: Six Countries in Search of a Solution
Dave Riley
an Interview with Tariq Ali on the Iraq War
Lacey Phillabaum
Bush's Holy War in the Forests
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Website of the Day
The Dean Deception
August 26, 2003
Robert Fisk
Smearing the Dead
David Lindorff
The
Great Oil Gouge: Burning Up that Tax Rebate
Sarmad S. Ali
Baghdad is Deadlier Than Ever: the View of an Iraqi Coroner
Christopher Brauchli
Bush Administration Equates Medical Pot Smokers with Segregationists
Juliana Fredman
Collective Punishment on the West Bank: Dialysis, Checkpoints
and a Palestinian Madonna
Larry Siems
Ghosts of Regime Changes Past in Guatemala
Elaine Cassel
Onward, Ashcroft Soldiers!
Saul Landau
Bush:
a Modern Ahab or a Toy Action Figure?
August 25, 2003
Kurt Nimmo
Israeli Outlaws in America
David Bacon
In Iraq, Labor Protest is a Crime
Thomas P. Healy
The Govs Come to Indy: Corps Welcome; Citizens Locked Out
Norman Madarasz
In an Elephant's Whirl: the US/Canada Relationship After the
Iraq Invasion
Salvador Peralta
The Politics of Focus Groups
Jack McCarthy
Who Killed Jancita Eagle Deer?
Uri Avnery
A Drug
for the Addict
August 23/24, 2003
Forrest Hylton
Rumsfeld
Does Bogota
Robert Fisk
The Cemetery at Basra
Veteran Intelligence Professionals for
Sanity
Insults to Intelligence
Andrew C. Long
Exile on Bliss Street: The Terrorist Threat and the English Professor
Jeremy Bigwood
The Toxic War on Drugs: Monsanto Weedkiller Linked to Powerful
Fungus
Jeffrey St. Clair
Forest
or Against Us: the Bush Doctor Calls on Oregon
Cynthia McKinney
Bring the Troops Home, Now!
David Krieger
So Many Deaths, So Few Answers: Approaching the Second Anniversary
of 9/11
Julie Hilden
A Constitutional Right to be a Human Shield
Dave Lindorff
Marketplace
Medicine
Standard Schaefer
Unholy Trinity: Falwell's Anti-Abortion Attack on Health and
Free Speech
Catherine Dong
Kucinich and FirstEnergy
José Tirado
History Hurts: Why Let the Dems Repeat It?
Ron Jacobs
Springsteen's America
Gavin Keeney
The Infernal Machine
Adam Engel
A Fan's Notations
William Mandel
Five Great Indie Films
Walt Brasch
An American Frog Fable
Poets' Basement
Reiss, Kearney, Guthrie, Albert and Alam
Website of the Weekend
The Hutton Inquiry
August 22, 2003
Carole Harper
Post-Sandinista
Nicaragua
John Chuckman
George Will: the Marquis of Mendacity
Richard Thieme
Operation Paperclip Revisited
Chris Floyd
Dubya Indemnity: Bush Barons Beyond the Reach of Law?
Issam Nashashibi
Palestinians
and the Right of Return: a Rigged Survey
Mary Walworth
Other People's Kids
Ron Jacobs
The
Darkening Tunnel
Website of the Day
Current Energy
August 21, 2003
Robert Fisk
The US
Needs to Blame Anyone But Locals for UN Bombing
Virginia Tilley
The Quisling Policies of the UN in Iraq: Toward a Permanent War?
Rep. Henry Waxman
Bush Owes the Public Some Serious Answers on Iraq
Ben Terrall
War Crimes and Punishment in Indonesia: Rapes, Murders and Slaps
on the Wrists
Elaine Cassel
Brother John Ashcroft's Traveling Patriot Salvation Show
Christopher Brauchli
Getting Gouged by Banks
Marjorie Cohn
Sergio Vieira de Mello: Victim of Terrorism or US Policy in Iraq?
Vicente Navarro
Media
Double Standards: The Case of Mr. Aznar, Friend of Bush
Website of the Day
The Intelligence Squad
August 20, 2003
Robert Fisk
Now No
One Is Safe in Iraq
Caoimhe Butterly
Life and Death on the Frontlines of Baghdad
Kurt Nimmo
UN Bombing: Act of Terrorism or Guerrilla War?
Michael Egan
Revisiting the Paranoid Style in the Dark
Ramzi Kysia
Peace
is not an Abstract Idea
Steven Higgs
NPR and the NAFTA Highway
John L. Hess
A Downside Day
Edward Said
The Imperial Bluster of Tom Delay
Jason Leopold
Gridlock at Path 15: the California Blackouts were the "Wake
Up Call"
Website of the Day
Ashcroft's Patriotic Hype
August 19, 2003
Jeffrey St. Clair
Blackouts Happen
Gary Leupp
"Our Patch": Australia v. the Evil Doers of the South
Pacific
Sean Donahue
Uribe's Cruel Model: Colombia Moves Toward Totalitarianism
Matt Martin
Bush's Credibility Problem on Missile Defense
Juliana Fredman
Recipe for the Destruction of a Hudna
John Ross
Fox Government's Attack on Mexican Basques
Sasan Fayazmanesh
What Kermit Roosevelt Didn't Say
Website of the Day
Tom Delay's Dual Loyalities
August 18, 2003
Uri Avnery
Hero in War and Peace
Stan Goff
The Volunteer Military and the Wicked Adventure
Cathy Breen
Baghdad on the Hudson
Michael Kimaid
Fight the Power (Companies)!
Jason Leopold
The California Rip-Off Revisited: Arnold, Milken and Ken Lay
Matt Siegfried
The Bush Administration in Context
Elaine Cassel
At Last, A Judge Who Acts Like a Judge
Alexander Cockburn
Judy Miller's War
Harvey Wasserman
The Legacy of Blackout Pete Wilson
Website of the Day
Fire Griles!
Congratulations
to CounterPuncher Gilad Atzmon! BBC Names EXILE Top Jazz CD
August 16 / 17, 2003
Flavia Alaya
Bastille
New Jersey
Jeffrey St. Clair
War Pimps
Saul Landau
The Legacy of Moncada: the Cuban Revolution at 50
Brian Cloughley
What Has Happened to the US Army in Iraq?
William S. Lind
Coffins for the Crews: How Not to Use Light Armored Vehicles
Col. Dan Smith
Time for Straight Talk
Wenonah Hauter
Which
Electric System Do We Want?
David Lindorff
Where's Arnold When We Need Him?
Harvey Wasserman
This Grid Should Not Exist
Don Moniak
"Unusual Events" at Nuclear Power Plants: a Timeline
for August 14, 2003
David Vest
Rolling Blackout Revue
Merlin Chowkwanyun
An Interview with Sherman Austin
Adam Engel
The Loneliest Number
Poets' Basement
Guthrie, Hamod & Albert
Book of the Weekend
Powerplay by Sharon Beder
Hot Stories
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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August
30, 2003
The Terminator and
Prop 187
Schwarzenegger
and Cuban Migration
By SAUL LANDAU
Even Arnold Schwarzenegger loves immigrants. "I'm
one myself," he reminds California voters. But in 1994 The
Terminator supported California's immigrant bashing Proposition
187, which the courts voided in 1999. The measure aimed to "prevent
illegal aliens from receiving benefits or public services in
the State of California." It would also have stopped non-documented
aliens from receiving access to public education and medical
care.
A Mexican American friend told me she
had watched a Spanish language reporter ask Arnold in early August
if his vote for Prop 187 would hurt his electoral chances. She
recalls his reply as: You Latins make great music. Keep making
great music and leave the politics to me.
If unsuccessful in his attempt to become
California Governor, he could use this experience to run for
high office in Austria, his birthplace where his father supported
the Nazis and he himself had a chummy relationship with Nazi-sympathizing
former Prime Minister Jorge Haider.
Mythical America doesn't hold the past
one's country of origin -- against people. This nation, after
all, consists of immigrants, except for the indigenous people,
whose lax immigration policies cost them dearly. In fact, Americans
have long held an ambivalent view of newcomers.
In the 19th and early 20th centuries,
during times of prosperity few cared about the arrival of a new
labor force. In hard times, demagogues exploited anti-immigrant
sentiments. The Irish, Jews, Italians and other European newcomers
felt the sting of xenophobia. Asians, Africans, Latin Americans
and Caribbean  people still take their blows. Millions
from poor countries seek entry into the United States and find
the door tightly shut.
The current recession has revived anti-immigrant
sentiment and Congress reacted against foreigners in its panicky
post 9/11 measures: tightening immigration procedures, imposing
restrictions under the Patriot Act, including detentions without
charge or deportations without due process for offenses like
routine visa violations.
One exception to the Administration-backed
anti-immigrant sentiment looms large, however: Cubans. When Florida
Republican legislators, hardly immigrant lovers, write to the
White House and complain about the Coast Guard repatriating some
Cuban migrants, you know something is wrong. These same folks
never complained when the Coast Guard returned boatloads of Haitians.
But Haitians don't have a high power
lobby that drops campaign money and even some votes on powerful
legislators. Indeed, under the push of the south-Florida based
anti-Castro lobby, Florida lawmakers have demanded that Bush
"fulfill his obligations" to Cubans. It's not clear
if they mean those one million plus who have left Cuba since
1959 or those 12 million who remain on the island.
But talking to George W. "leave
no child behind" Bush about "obligations" rings
hollow. Doesn't he owe some attention to tens of millions of
poor, unemployed and uninsured Americans? The answer is the anti-Castro
lobby paid for special treatment, and when it doesn't get it,
political thunder rolls.
The aspiring Cuban migrants have less
economic needs than say Mexicans or Haitians as reasons to come
to the United States. So what makes them special? Two different
entities: Fidel Castro's supreme disobedience and the success
of their own lobbying efforts, which includes influencing the
mass media.
Take The Miami Herald, once an independent
newspaper before its publisher succumbed to the intimidation
campaign led by Jorge Mas Canosa and the Cuban American National
Foundation in 1992 over a difference in policy over support for
the embargo. Mas plastered anti-Herald signs on busses and other
public places. The publisher and several editors received telephone
death threats. The intimidators won.
The hate Castro lobby assumes that "being
tough" on Castro will lead to his demise. Despite much evidence
to the contrary, they continue to demand policies that will hurt
this one man as if somehow he were the sole inhabitant of the
island. So, they ignore other immigrants and focus only on allowing
special status for Cubans who try to migrate.
Now, The Herald along with its Spanish
language counterpart El Nuevo Herald, have become the US-based
print source for the counterrevolution. Almost daily, it features
stories that dramatize the attempt by Cubans to make their way
across the 90 miles or more of ocean that separates Cuba from
Florida. Such stories obfuscate the reality both of Cuban migration
and the need of third world people to find decent paying jobs.
Migrants help capitalists keep wages
low, a new UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center study indicates.
Men native-born and immigrants "averaged 11 percent less
in wages than others in similar service and manual labor jobs
when they worked with newly arrived Hispanics." Alex Veiga,
AP, August 19, 2003, reported that "minority workers in
those jobs earned an average of 14 percent less." So, the
more newly-arrived Hispanic men on the job, the less money the
other workers received.
This banal wage reality gets lost in
political drama when it comes to Cuba. By 1993-4, when the Cuban
exodus to Florida took on tsunami proportions, President Clinton
invented a "wet foot/dry foot" formula, under which
Cubans who managed to get a toe in US soil obtained rapid parole
status, a quick shot at a green card and fast track to citizenship.
Clinton used the 1966 Cuban Adjustment Act a Cold War relic to
justify his "solution." Later, as he negotiated a migration
accord with Castro, Clinton promised but failed to get rid of
the Act. Clinton owed the Cuban lobby a debt for their "timely"
1992 campaign contributions.
President Bush, whose debt to the anti-Castro
lobby is even larger, now faces the dilemma of dealing with US
national interests or that of the people who helped put him in
office Remember who helped intimidate the vote counters during
Election 2000?
Even the president's brother, Florida
Governor Jeb Bush, took offense when the Coast Guard returned
12 men who hijacked a government boat. Castro's courts subsequently
freed half but sent the other six to prison for up to 10 years.
By returning the men, Bush signaled that in the post 9/11 atmosphere
he wouldn't encourage even anti-Castro Cubans to hijack boats
and planes.
Nor can Bush simply admit all aspiring
Cuban migrants without feeling the wrath of other groups who
want their relatives to immigrate.
More than a million Cubans have come
to the United States since the 1959 revolution and some of them
encourage their relatives to make the sea crossing. They pay
smugglers up to $10,000 to ferry their kin in speedboats. Needless
to say, some smugglers have little interest in the safe arrival
of their human cargo and will dump people overboard at the first
sighting of a Coast Guard vessel.
But how about the Mexicans and Central
Americans, whose "coyotes" leave them in the middle
of the perilous desert between Mexico and Arizona? Mexicans and
Central Americans who have left their countries during the same
period outnumber Cuban migrants by millions.
Indeed, the harsh treatment they receive
if caught dramatizes the desperation that drives them to make
the trip across an oven-hot desert. If Nature's perils alone
seem insufficient, think of the armed vigilantes who shoot at
them or the border patrol that trap them and sometimes mistreat
the "wets" short for wetback, a name invented for Mexicans
trying to cross the Rio Grande River that separates the two countries
-- as they're known in certain southwest circles.
Immigrant rights members in Arizona encountered
significant numbers of baby bottles left by women dragging infants
through the desert heat. US Border Patrol spokespeople told AP
reporter Michelle Rushlo in her August 16, 2003 story that they
think this constitutes evidence that the women take their children
in hopes of reconnecting with their husbands or fathers of the
children who are already in the United States.
The Border Patrol around Yuma Arizona,
on the California border, reported that their "apprehensions"
number has risen, especially of juveniles. In the 2001-2002 fiscal
year, the Border Patrol had grabbed 947 underage aliens and 5,362
women. This year, from October 2002 to July 2003 they had already
grabbed 4,000 underage Mexicans and Central Americans and 6,500
women just in that one border area.
Border patrol units in the rest of Arizona
caught some 210,000 people trying to gain entry into the United
States, said Frank Amarillas, a spokesman for the Border Patrol
in Tucson. 38,000 were women, up from 32,000 the year before,
8000 up from 7,000 the year before. In part, the increase stems
from the difficulties in obtaining legal entry into the United
States in the post 9/11 era. But Mexicans always bear the brunt
of US recessions. By late 2000, maquilas began to leave Mexico
for the lower-wages of China. The level of foreign investment
in Mexico has dropped as well.
Unlike Cubans who have a "dry foot"
option, Mexicans can no longer easily obtain even a visitor's
visa to rejoin their families. Men who support their families
from wages earned in the United States have become reluctant
to cross back into Mexico to visit, fearing that tightened security
will make it difficult or impossible for them to return to their
jobs.
It's a very rough world for poor people
in the third world. We need a terminator for current immigration
policy. Not Arnold, but a political savant that addresses immigration
in terms of fairness and justice not protection for Cubans and
persecution of Haitians and Mexicans.
Saul Landau
is a fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies. He teaches at
Cal Poly Pomona University. For more of Landau's writing visit:
www.rprogreso.com.
His new book, PRE-EMPTIVE
EMPIRE: A GUIDE TO BUSH S KINGDOM, will be published
in September by Pluto Books. Landau can be reached at: landau@counterpunch.org
Weekend
Edition Features for August 23 / 24, 2003
Forrest Hylton
Rumsfeld
Does Bogota
Robert Fisk
The Cemetery at Basra
Veteran Intelligence Professionals for
Sanity
Insults to Intelligence
Andrew C. Long
Exile on Bliss Street: The Terrorist Threat and the English Professor
Jeremy Bigwood
The Toxic War on Drugs: Monsanto Weedkiller Linked to Powerful
Fungus
Jeffrey St. Clair
Forest
or Against Us: the Bush Doctor Calls on Oregon
Cynthia McKinney
Bring the Troops Home, Now!
David Krieger
So Many Deaths, So Few Answers: Approaching the Second Anniversary
of 9/11
Julie Hilden
A Constitutional Right to be a Human Shield
Dave Lindorff
Marketplace
Medicine
Standard Schaefer
Unholy Trinity: Falwell's Anti-Abortion Attack on Health and
Free Speech
Catherine Dong
Kucinich and FirstEnergy
José Tirado
History Hurts: Why Let the Dems Repeat It?
Ron Jacobs
Springsteen's America
Gavin Keeney
The Infernal Machine
Adam Engel
A Fan's Notations
William Mandel
Five Great Indie Films
Walt Brasch
An American Frog Fable
Poets' Basement
Reiss, Kearney, Guthrie, Albert and Alam
Website of the Weekend
The Hutton Inquiry
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