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Today's
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October
27, 2003
Bill Kauffman
George
Bush, the Anti-Family President
October
25 / 26, 2003
Robert
Pollin
The
US Economy: Another Path is Possible
Jeffrey St. Clair
Outsourcing US Guided Missile Technology to China
James
Bunn
Plotting
Pre-emptive Strikes
Saul Landau
Should Limbaugh Do Time?
Ted Honderich
Palestinian Terrorism, Morality & Germany
Thomas Nagy
Saving the Army of Peace
Christopher
Brauchli
Between Bush and a Lobotomy: Killing Endangered Species for Profit
Laura Carlsen
Latin America's Archives of Terror
Diane
Christian
Evil Acts & Evil Actors
Muqtedar Khan
Lessons from the Imperial Adventure in Iraq
John Feffer
The Tug of War on the Korea Peninsula
Brian Cloughley
Iraq War Memories are Made of Lies
Benjamin
Dangl
and Kathryn Ledebur
An Uneasy Peace in Bolivia
Karyn
Strickler
Down
with Big Brother's Spying Eyes
Noah Leavitt
Legal Globalization
John Stanton
Hitler's Ghost Haunts America
Mickey
Z.
War of the Words
Adam Engel
Tractatus Ridiculous
Poets'
Basement
Curtis, Subiet and Albert
Website of the Weekend
Project Last Stand
October
24, 2003
Kurt Nimmo
Ashcroft's
War on Greenpeace
Lenni Brenner
The Demographics of American Jews
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Rockets,
Napalm, Torpedoes and Lies: the Attack on the USS Liberty Revisited
Sarah Weir
Cover-up of the Israeli Attack on the US Liberty
David
Krieger
WMD Found in DC: Bush is the Button
Mohammed Hakki
It's Palestine, Stupid!: Americans and the Middle East
Harry
Browne
Northern
Ireland: the Agreement that Wasn't
October
23, 2003
Diane
Christian
Ruthlessness
Kurt Nimmo
Criticizing Zionism
David Lindorff
A General Theory of Theology
Alan Maass
The Future of the Anti-War Movement
William
Blum
Imperial
Indifference
Stew Albert
A Memo
October
22, 2003
Wayne
Madsen
Religious
Insanity Runs Rampant
Ray McGovern
Holding
Leaders Accountable for Lies
Christopher
Brauchli
There's
No Civilizing the Death Penalty
Elaine
Cassel
Legislators
and Women's Bodies
Bill Glahn
RIAA
Watch: the New Morality of Capitalism
Anthony Arnove
An Interview with Tariq Ali
October 21, 2003
Uri Avnery
The
Beilin Agreement
Robert Jensen
The Fundamentalist General
David
Lindorff
War Dispatch from the NYT: God is on Our Side!
William S. Lind
Bremer is Deaf to History
Bridget
Gibson
Fatal Vision
Alan Haber
A Human Chain for Peace in Ann Arbor
Peter
Linebaugh
On the Bicentennial of the Hanging of Thomas Russell
October
20, 2003
Standard
Schaefer
Chile's
Failed Economy: an Interview with Michael Hudson
Chris
Floyd
Circus Maximus: Arnie, Enron and Bush Maul California
Mark Hand
Democrats Seek to Disappear Chomsky
& Nader
John &
Elaine Mellencamp
Peaceful
World
Elaine
Cassel
God's
General Unmuzzled
October
18 / 19, 2003
Robert
Pollin
Clintonomics:
the Hollow Boom
Gary Leupp
Israel, Syria and Stage Four in the Terror War
Saul Landau
Day of the Gropenfuhrer
Bruce Anderson
The California Recall
John Gershman
Bush in Asia: What a Difference a Decade Makes
Nelson P. Valdes
Bush, Electoral Politics and Cuba's "Illicit Sex Trade"
Kurt Nimmo
Shock Therapy and the Israeli Scenario
Tom Gorman
Al Franken and Al-Shifa
Brian
Cloughley
Public Propaganda and the Iraq War
Joanne Mariner
A New Way to Kill Tigers
Denise
Low
The Cancer of Sprawl
Mickey Z.
The Reverend of Doom
John Chuckman
US Missiles for Israeli Nukes?
George Naggiar
A Veto of Public Diplomacy
Alison
Weir
Death Threats in Berkeley
Benjamin Dangl
Bolivian Govt. Falling Apart
Ron Jacobs
The Politics of Bob Dylan
Fidel Castro
A Review of Garcia Marquez's Memoir
Adam Engel
I Hope My Corpse Gives You the Plague
Poets' Basement
Jones, Albert, Guthrie and Greeder
October
17, 2003
Stan Goff
Piss
On My Leg: Perception Control and the Stage Management of War
Newton
Garver
Bolivia
in Turmoil
Standard
Schaefer
Grocery Unions Under Attack
Ben Terrall
The Ordeal of the Lockheed 52
Ron Jacobs
First Syria, Then Iran
David
Lindorff
Michael
Moore Proclaims Mumia Guilty
October
16, 2003
Marjorie
Cohn
Bush
Gunning for Regime Change in Cuba
Gary Leupp
"Getting Better" in Iraq
Norman
Solomon
The US Press and Israel: Brand Loyalty and the Absence of Remorse
Rush Limbaugh
The 10 Most Overrated Athletes of All Time
Lenni
Brenner
I
Didn't Meet Huey Newton. He Met Me
Website of the Day
Time Tested Books
October
15, 2003
Sunil
Sharma / Josh Frank
The
General and the Governor: Two Measures of American Desperation
Forrest
Hylton
Dispatch
from the Bolivian War: "Like Animals They Kill Us"
Brian
Cloughley
Those
Phony Letters: How Bush Uses GIs to Spread Propaganda About Iraq
Ahmad
Faruqui
Lessons
of the October War
Uri Avnery
Three
Days as a Living Shield
Website
of the Day
Rank and File: the New Unity Partnership Document
JoAnn
Wypijewski
The
New Unity Partnership:
A Manifest Destiny for Labor
October 14, 2003
Eric Ridenour
Qibya
& Sharon: Anniversary of a Massacre
Elaine
Cassel
The
Disgrace That is Guantanamo
Robert
Jensen
What the "Fighting Sioux" Tells Us About White People
David Lindorff
Talking Turkey About Iraq
Patrick
Cockburn
US Troops Bulldoze Crops
VIPS
One Person Can Make a Difference
Toni Solo
The CAFTA Thumbscrews
Peter
Linebaugh
"Remember
Orr!"
Website
of the Day
BRIDGES
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
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October
27, 2003
Ministers
of War
Criminals
of the Cloth
By WILLIAM A. COOK
Perhaps we have not paid enough attention to Exodus
and have lost, therefore, the import of General "Jerry"
Boykin's words to the evangelical Christians as reported in the
LA Times on the 16th, "We in the army of God, in
the house of God, kingdom of God have been raised for such a
time as this." Exodus states it clearly enough: "The
Lord is a man of war"(15:3). Lt. Gen. Boykin, the new deputy
undersecretary of Defense for intelligence (sic), no doubt speaks
for Bush and Rumsfeld's forces in the field as he takes up his
position as fourth in command under Lord General God. It is comforting
to know that we are under the command of the Head Man in Heaven
as we enter the lists against the infidels led by their god,
a mere pagan "idol." Boykin, who has probably met "face
to face" with that other general, places the US squarely
in God's "house," indeed, in His "Kingdom"
as we "take up the cross" to fulfill His divine commands,
our army having been "raised for such a time as this."
One wonders if all the other ministers
of war sat enthroned behind the General as he expounded on God's
words: Pat Robertson, Franklin Graham, Jerry Falwell, to name
a few. Did they cheer him on? Did any of them suggest, perhaps,
that his invocation to the God of War had imbedded in it yet
another prayer, the one Mark Twain penned in his caustic satire
that turned such fawning gibberish into nonsense, "The War
Prayer." Let me paraphrase: "Dear God who counseled
'Do unto others as you would have them do unto you' bless our
cause and curse our enemy, destroy their children, leave their
mothers' barren and homeless, let the old and infirm weep alone
as they await death, devastate their land, burn their fields,
and destroy even the memory of their existence, in God's name
we pray!" These evangelical Christians listen in rapture
to the general who has become their instrument to effect Armageddon
even as they curse those who give the appearance of appeasement
against the Islamic hordes, including that former general, Colin
Powell who should be "nuked" according to Robertson.
Consider the import of this scene, the
general garbed in full combat regalia, spit shined shoes, epaulets
ablaze with glistening brass, marching before the attentive congregation
declaring that "radical Islamists hated the United States
'because we're a Christian nation, because our foundation and
roots are Judeo-Christian ...'" And more, "He's (Bush)
in the White House because God put him there." This man,
now in charge of "intelligence" in the Defense Department,
enlists his Christian warriors to take on "Satan."
He becomes the embodiment of the Tele-evangelists prophecy, those
who proclaim "end-time theology," the means by which
God will bring about prophecies present in the Book of Revelation.
This scene contains two important revelations, neither of them
resident in the Book of Revelation: the ministers of war
enlist once again the myths of Revelation to achieve power in
the secular realm and the myths that proclaim America's roots
as Judeo-Christian rise once again as fact when, in fact, they
are anathema to the concept and purpose of democracy.
The rising chorus of evangelicals decrying
Islam as the sole source of terror, the increasing volatility
of their wrath, and their visible displays of displeasure and
impatience with the policies of government in a democracy threaten
the very basis of a government based on separation of church
and state. Dennis Prager (October 7, 2003), prophet of the right
wing airways, attempts to defend America's need to go it alone
against Islamic "terror and tyranny" in this "war
of civilizations." He notes that the world is not supportive
of the "American mission" to fulfill God's word, and
this explains in good measure why they dislike George W. Bush,
"the believer in the biblical God and in an American mission."
"We cannot defeat the Islamist threat," he proclaims,
"without the same degree of faith fanatical Muslims have."
Here he notes, Israel and America are one because both nations
have fanatical  believers
who can stand against the infidels. "One civilization believes
in liberty and one does not." Prager fears that Europe and
non-believers in America can jeopardize the fulfillment of God's
mission. "It is between those who fervently believe in America
and in Judeo-Christian revelation and those who fervently believe
in neither." Those who do not believe are, in Prager's mind,
"the Left, many Democratic Party leaders, pacifists, the
cultural elite and academia..." This type of thinking pits
religious denominations against the political system because
the government must become the instrument to fulfill their interpretation
of God's word. Add to Prager's views those of Pat Robertson who
beseeches God on public television to intercede to change the
make-up of the Supreme Court and declares that only devout Christians
and Jews are fit to hold public office, and the casting of America
as a theocracy takes form.
According to Philip Lindsey ("Are
the Neo-Cons Conning Us") "All the major figures of
the Christian right have joined the new crusade to defend the
Israeli state and spread Jewish settlements around Jerusalem
and in the Occupied Territories. The Reverend James Hutchins,
president of Christians for Israel/US, proclaimed that this support
was in order to fulfil a 'divine calling to assist the Jewish
people in their return and restoration of the land of Israel.'
A quarter of a million US Christians have sent over $60 million
to Israel while Hutchins' organization has financed the immigration
of 65,000 Jews. For both the Christian and Jewish right, Islam
is the new 'evil empire' and Yasser Arafat is Israel's 'bin Laden.'"
With the three prominent Tele-evangelists urging their flocks
to reject the rights of Palestinians to a homeland because the
Jews have a covenant with God, with their active and visible
intervention in political affairs directly affecting this nation,
with the financial support they provide to terrorists in the
settlements, with their politically motivated sermons directing
their congregations to vote for born again Christians and Zionist
Jews, with their loud condemnation of non-Christians and Christians
not supportive of the Zionist right wing, they have created a
fissure of intolerance in America that threatens not only the
pillar of separation of church and state, but the rationale that
under girds this nation's tolerance of all religions in favor
of the fanatics that demand obeisance to the ministers of war
who interpret God's word for him in the Book of Revelation.
The actions of the Christian Zionists
are arguably anti-American in their attempts to gain control
of the democratic system, anti-American in their efforts to impose
a right-wing Christian theocracy upon all Americans, illegal
in their incitement to ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, who
have done nothing to Americans, through their support of Jewish
settlements that terrorize Palestinians, and illegal in their
active promotion of right wing factions in Israel that oppose
American foreign policy that calls for the creation of a Palestinian
state. These militant actions of the Christian Zionists stem
from their belief that the on-going crisis in the Mid-East is
prophesied in the Book of Revelation. Belief in Revelation
compels them to incite their congregations to destroy the infidels.
Ironically, this is not the first use of the Book of Revelation
on this continent by militant ministers of the Almighty that
has resulted in the slaughter of innocents. In 1500, as Columbus
ravaged the "new world" with the help of the Franciscans
who were set to build "the Kingdom of God on earth,"
a similar intolerance of other religions took hold. "There
had always been a millenarian cast to the followers of Saint
FrancisºMany believed that their founding saint was the
angel of the apocalypse who had unlocked the seal of the sixth
age of revelation; the gospel would now be preached throughout
the new world and then would come the Anti-ChristºWas not
Charles V the prophesied world emperor? And had not Mexico fallen
to Catholicism just as northern Europe fell to the Lutheran heretics?
Were these not signs that the hosts of good and evil were assembling
for Armageddon? º On New Year's Day, 1525, the friars drove
the Mexican priests from their temples and began the 'first battle
against the devil'" (Ronald Wright, The Stolen Continent,
1992). The Franciscans, driven by their fanatical zeal and bound
in allegiance to the Spanish Conquistadors to affect the fulfillment
of their prophecies, lost sight of the humans they killed in
the name of their God. They were the Christian Zionists of their
day!
If this was the first abuse of Revelation
on this continent, it followed 20 others in Europe dating from
1186 to 1492 and yet others in preceding centuries. Not all
resulted in slaughter of innocents, but many did, including the
crusades initiated by Urban II who used other myths to enlist
peasants and knights to the slaughter of the Jews and Muslims
in attempts to reclaim Jerusalem for the Church. Does not the
shear number of pseudo-prophets who have proclaimed the imminence
of Armageddon require us to declare our current crop benighted
idiots?
Have we learned nothing from history?
Does superstition guide civilized people in the year 2003? Must
we fall prey to denizens of myths who find power in prophecy
and ego enhancement in incitement to riot? Must we repeat what
we have seen in our own past, that fanatics maliciously use their
positions of respect to drive their believers to actions diametrically
opposed to the teachings of their supposed leader, Jesus Christ?
Are not these religious zealots criminals, exhorting their legions
to engage in illegal behavior when they call on them to give
millions of dollars to settlements damned as illegal by the UN
and the worlds' communities of nations in numerous resolutions?
Are not their rabble-rousing harangues designed to justify acquiescence
and complicity to the terrorism inflicted by Ariel Sharon on
innocent civilians in Palestine in the name of the God of Revelation?
Yet these ministers of war know no more of that God than all
the previous prophets of doom that preceded them, but they should;
they hold doctorate degrees in theology; they have the scientific
evidence that tracks the biblical writings of Revelation to an
unknown source on Patmos; they know no one knows the authors
of the New Testament; they know they cannot speak for God anymore
than the pseudo-prophets of the dark ages, yet they prophecy,
they prophecy for profit and power, the true ends of their proselytizing!
With what absolution then do they preach
death and destruction? Shouldn't this administration find these
false prophets enemies of the people? Do they not incite to riot
and enlist their minions to support illegal activities that are
detrimental to the peace of America? Have they not brought America
more insecurity by confirming in the minds of those fearful of
a clash of civilizations that indeed America is on a crusade
to destroy Islam? Have they not given aid and comfort to Osama
and his hordes by demonstrating the truth of what he says, the
Christians are out to defeat Allah?
Consider the power these men wield over
American policy. Not only does the "General of Intelligence"
preach before the evangelical hordes, but Tom DeLay, the anointed
leader of the Republican majority in the House and a rabid Christian
Zionist, addressed the Israeli Knesset on July 30 urging Israel
"to ignore the truce and go on killing Palestinian activists."
Benny Elon, Sharon's Minister of Tourism, appeared with DeLay
at the Washington convention of the Christian Coalition where
he called for the expulsion of the Palestinians from their homeland
claiming that land for Israel since it was guaranteed them in
the Bible. The ethnic cleansing is authorized in that same Bible
according to Elon, and confirmed by no less an authority than
Richard Army who called for removal of the Palestinians, despite
the presence of an indigenous population of Arabs in Palestine
for the last 1900 years! Even now, this month, 500 evangelicals
visited Israel in support of Sharon's divisive actions against
Palestinians. The yoking of the Christian Zionists, the right-wing
Jewish Zionists and the pro-Israeli neo-cons has undermined the
foundational concepts that guarantee American freedom of conscience
and religious tolerance. Perhaps Melchior Grimm had it right
when he declared in the mid 18th century: "It has taken
centuries to subdue the human race to the tyrannical yoke of
the priests; it will take centuries and a series of efforts and
successes to secure its freedom."
We need only pay heed to Thomas Jefferson's
words to Dr. Benjamin Rush in his letter of April 21, 1803: "It
behooves every man who values liberty of conscience for himself,
to resist invasions of it in the case of others; or their case
may ... become his own." Freedom of conscience cannot exist
in a climate of fear or in a nation that dictates truth. For
the Christian right to impose its beliefs on this nation by controlling
the ballot box to ensure the election of radical "end time"
believers, to impose their religious beliefs through legislation
that all must accept, or to align themselves with groups like
the neo-cons who desire a similar goal and would willingly subvert
the rights of the people as stated in the Declaration of Independence,
the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights to attain it, can and
will result in the erosion of the principles that ensure our
freedom. In that same letter to Rush, Jefferson noted the corruption
of Jesus' teachings as "doctrinized" by denominations,
extolling instead Christ's undiluted teachings: he taught "universal
philanthropy, not only to kindred and friends, to neighbors and
countrymen, but to all mankind, gathering into one family, under
the bonds of love, charity, peace, common wants and common aids"(Italics
mine). How different in concept this understanding of Christ's
teachings that provides tolerance of all as members of one family
from the teachings of the Christian Zionists and right-wing Jewish
Zionists who would purge a people from their homeland by superstitiously
interpreting words that allow them to determine the fate of millions.
How brilliant does the wording of the
Declaration seem now, "endowed by their creator with unalienable
rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,"
a prescription guaranteed in the Bill of Rights that indelibly
marks each and every human with the same rights to live in a
free society unencumbered by the dominance of another's infallible
thoughts! Jefferson understood that religions are not tolerant
or democratic; indeed, they are inherently neither, since ministers
serve as intermediaries to the divine and become the conduit
of doctrines and dogma that determine thought for the believer.
It followed logically for Jefferson that church and state must
be separate if all religions were to exist in the new country.
America does not rest on Christian principles; it exists, as
all democracies must, in tolerance of Christian beliefs as it
exists in tolerance of all religious beliefs precisely because
it was not founded on beliefs expounded by one religion. Thomas
Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Paine, the principal
exponents of the foundational concepts upon which this country
rests, were Deists who accepted the genuine precepts of Jesus,
not those that have evolved in the various denominations over
the course of centuries. Love, charity, and compassion define
Christ's precepts; love of all, charity toward all, compassion
for all, that all may live in peace. How anathema to General
Boykin and the Christian Zionist teachings as they incite their
congregations to war!
William Cook
is a professor of English at the University of La Verne in southern
California. His new book, Psalms
for the 21st Century, was just published by
Mellen Press. He can be reached at: cookb@ULV.EDU
Weekend
Edition Features for Oct. 18 / 19, 2003
Robert
Pollin
Clintonomics:
the Hollow Boom
Gary Leupp
Israel, Syria and Stage Four in the Terror War
Saul Landau
Day of the Gropenfuhrer
Bruce Anderson
The California Recall
John Gershman
Bush in Asia: What a Difference a Decade Makes
Nelson P. Valdes
Bush, Electoral Politics and Cuba's "Illicit Sex Trade"
Kurt Nimmo
Shock Therapy and the Israeli Scenario
Tom Gorman
Al Franken and Al-Shifa
Brian
Cloughley
Public Propaganda and the Iraq War
Joanne Mariner
A New Way to Kill Tigers
Denise
Low
The Cancer of Sprawl
Mickey Z.
The Reverend of Doom
John Chuckman
US Missiles for Israeli Nukes?
George Naggiar
A Veto of Public Diplomacy
Alison
Weir
Death Threats in Berkeley
Benjamin Dangl
Bolivian Govt. Falling Apart
Ron Jacobs
The Politics of Bob Dylan
Fidel Castro
A Review of Garcia Marquez's Memoir
Adam Engel
I Hope My Corpse Gives You the Plague
Poets' Basement
Jones, Albert, Guthrie and Greeder
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