Coming
in October
From AK Press
Today's
Stories
September 12, 2003
Subcomandante Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
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
The Great Alejandro Escavedo Needs Your Help!
Recent
Stories
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
September 9, 2003
William A. Cook
Eating
Humble Pie
Robert Jensen / Rahul
Mahajan
Bush
Speech: a Shell Game on the American Electorate
Bill Glahn
A Kinder, Gentler RIAA?
Janet Kauffman
A Dirty River Runs Beneath It
Chris Floyd
Strange Attractors: White House Bawds Breed New Terror
Bridget Gibson
A Helping of Crow with Those Fries?
Robert Fisk
Thugs
in Business Suit: Meet the New Iraqi Strongman
Website of the Day
Pot TV International
September 8, 2003
David Lindorff
The
Bush Speech: Spinning a Fiasco
Robert Jensen
Through the Eyes of Foreigners: the US Political Crisis
Gila Svirsky
Of
Dialogue and Assassination: Off Their Heads
Bob Fitrakis
Demostration Democracy
Kurt Nimmo
Bush and the Echo Chamber: Globalizing the Whirlwind
Sean Carter
Thou Shalt Not Campaign from the Bench
Uri Avnery
Betrayal
at Camp David
Website of the Day
Rabbis v. the Patriot Act
September 6 / 7, 2003
Neve Gordon
Strategic
Abuse: Outsourcing Human Rights Violations
Gary Leupp
Shiites
Humiliate Bush
Saul Landau
Fidel
and The Prince
Denis Halliday
Of Sanctions and Bombings: the UN Failed the People of Iraq
John Feffer
Hexangonal Headache: N. Korea Talks Were a Disaster
Ron Jacobs
The Stage of History
M. Shahid Alam
Pakistan "Recognizes" Israel
Laura Carlson
The Militarization of the Americas
Elaine Cassel
The Forgotten Prisoners of Guantanamo
James T. Phillips
The Mumbo-Jumbo War
Bill Glahn
RIAA Watch: Slumlords of the Internet
Walter A. Davis
Living in Death's Dream Kingdom
Adam Engel
Midnight's Inner Children
Poets' Basement
Stein, Guthrie and Albert
Book of the Weekend
It Became Necessary to Destroy the Planet in Order to Save It
by Khalil Bendib
September 5, 2003
Brian Cloughley
Bush's
Stacked Deck: Why Doesn't the Commander-in-Chief Visit the Wounded?
Col. Dan Smith
Iraq
as Black Hole
Phyllis Bennis
A Return
to the UN?
Dr. Susan Block
Exxxtreme Ashcroft
Dave Lindorff
Courage and the Democrats
Abe Bonowitz
Reflections on the "Matyrdom" of Paul Hill
Robert Fisk
We Were
Warned About This Chaos
Website of the Day
New York Comic Book Museum
September 4, 2003
Stan Goff
The Bush
Folly: Between Iraq and a Hard Place
John Ross
Mexico's
Hopes for Democracy Hit Dead-End
Harvey Wasserman
Bush to New Yorkers: Drop Dead
Adam Federman
McCain's
Grim Vision: Waging a War That's Already Been Lost
Aluf Benn
Sharon Saved from Threat of Peace
W. John Green
Colombia's Dirty War
Joanne Mariner
Truth,
Justice and Reconciliation in Latin America
Website of the Day
Califoracle
September 3, 2003
Virginia Tilley
Hyperpower
in a Sinkhole
Davey D
A Hip
Hop Perspective on the Cali Recall
Emrah Göker
Conscripting Turkey: Imperial Mercenaries Wanted
John Stanton
The US is a Power, But Not Super
Brian Cloughley
The
Pentagon's Bungled PsyOps Plan
Dan Bacher
Another Big Salmon Kill
Elaine Cassel
Prosecutors Weep' Ninth Circuit Overturns 127 Death Sentences
Uri Avnery
First
of All This Wall Must Fall
Website of the Day
Art Attack!
September 2, 2003
Robert Fisk
Bush's
Occupational Fantasies Lead Iraq Toward Civil War
Kurt Nimmo
Rouind Up the Usual Suspects: the Iman Ali Mosque Bombing
Robert Jensen / Rahul Mahajan
Iraqi Liberation, Bush Style
Elaine Cassel
Innocent But Guilty: When Prosecutors are Dead Wrong
Jason Leopold
Ghosts
in the Machines: the Business of Counting Votes
Dave Lindorff
Dems in 2004: Perfect Storm or Same Old Doldrums?
Paul de Rooij
Predictable
Propaganda: Four Monts of US Occupation
Website of the Day
Laughing Squid
August 30 / Sept. 1,
2003
Alexander Cockburn
Handmaiden
in Babylon: Annan, Vieiera de Mello and the Decline and Fall
of the UN
Saul Landau
Schwarzenegger
and Cuban Migration
Standard Schaefer
Who
Benefited from the Tech Bubble: an Interview with Michael Hudson
Gary Leupp
Mel Gibson's Christ on Trial
William S. Lind
Send the Neocons to Baghdad
Augustin Velloso
Aznar: Spain's Super Lackey
Jorge Mariscal
The Smearing of Cruz Bustamante
John Ross
A NAFTA for Energy? The US Looks to Suck Up Mexico's Power
Mickey Z.
War is a Racket: The Wisdom of Gen. Smedley Butler
Elaine Cassel
Ashcroft's Traveling Patriot Show Isn't Winning Many Converts
Stan Cox
Pirates of the Caribbean: the WTO Comes to Cancun
Tom and Judy Turnipseed
Take Back Your Time Day
Adam Engel
The Red Badge of Knowledge: a Review of TDY
Adam Engel
An Eye on Intelligence: an Interview with Douglas Valentine
Susan Davis
Northfork,
an Accidental Review
Nicholas Rowe
Dance
and the Occupation
Mark Zepezauer
Operation
Candor
Poets' Basement
Albert, Guthrie and Hamod
Website of the Weekend
Downhill
Battle
Congratulations
to CounterPuncher Gilad Atzmon! BBC Names EXILE Top Jazz CD
August 29, 2003
Lenni Brenner
God
and the Democratic Wing of the Democratic Party
Brian Cloughley
When in Doubt, Lie Your Head Off
Alice Slater
Bush Nuclear Policy is a Recipe for National Insecurity
David Krieger
What Victory?
Marjorie Cohn
The Thin Blue Line: How the US Occupation of Iraq Imperils International
Law
Richard Glen Boire
Saying Yes to Drugs!
Bister, Estrin and Jacobs
Howard Dean, the Progressive Anti-War Candidate? Some Vermonters
Give Their Views
Website of the Day
DirtyBush
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
12, 2003
Tyranny
in the Name of the People?
Ending
America as We Know It
By DOUG GIEBEL
"There is nothing so irresistible
as a tyrannical power that commands in the name of the people."
-- Alexis de Toqueville, Democracy in
America, Mansfield and Winthrop tr.
The neo-conservative Bush Administration "plan"
to remake our American nation intends to alter forever the relationship
between government, business and the people. Until those tragic
but fortuitous events of September 11, 2001, this long-simmering
scheme was more wished-for than real. Then terrorists stuck and
stunned the world with mass murder. The smoke in Lower Manhattan,
Pennsylvania and at the Pentagon had not even cleared before
administration zealots realized it would be possible to capitalize
on the threat of "terrorism" and push through an agenda
to make the long-held Bushvolk dream a reality. In observing
America, Toqueville apparently didn't envision some future government
concocting a formulation so absurd that gullible citizens would
abandon critical reasoning and, prodded by selfishness and "fear,"
swallow the mixture without gagging on its excesses, deceptions
and lies.
Was Karl Rove the genius who understood
how easy it would be to manipulate citizens through "be
afraid" anxiety ("Terrorists may strike anywhere, anytime!")
alternating with soothing comfort ("Go about your lives
as usual.")? This teeter-totter nightmare to brain-wash
the public was implemented within days, perhaps hours, of 9/11.
Major media executives, anchors, pundits and reporters based
primarily in New York City and Washington had experienced the
carnage up close. They have opted to follow the administration's
lead without asking questions or challenging a psychology that
whipsawed the public from panic to "Don't worry, be happy"
and back again.
We were at war. The unsuspecting populace
felt safe in the arms of the Bush Administration's assertive
protection. Citizens rushed to "Support the Troops,"
not noticing how lawmakers were planning to slash medical care
for veterans and cut pay of those who had volunteered for hazardous
duty. Within days, the Bushvolk bullies captured the flag of
"patriotism," and compliant Democrats lined up to ram
through outrageous programs, or the beginnings of such programs,
while both Congress and voters were in a vengeful mood.
Immediately following the first major
address given by President Bush after 9/11, this writer heard
an administration spokesman respond to a reporters question,
"How long will the war on terror last?" with the words
"Five years," suggesting the plan was already hatched
to keep this "war" alive through the next election
cycle. Lately the five-year figure has been largely replaced
with predictions this terrorism "war" will continue
into the unforeseeable future at tremendous (but unknown) cost.
In his recent speech to the American Legion, President Bush called
for "total victory." What did he mean?
From the beginning, this administration
has fostered the notion that a "war" against "terrorism"
can literally be "won." How will we know? President
Bush and Donald Rumsfeld offer no specifics. Pushing Patriot
Act excess as if it were vitamin-enriched candy, Attorney General
Ashcroft and his crew seem to believe nearly anyone alive is
a potential terrorist. Who knows if my five-year-old neighbor
will grow up to follow in the footsteps of Timothy McVeigh? Can
the Ashcroft Justice Department devise a test to identify future
suicide bombers?
If not, should everyone be locked up,
just to be on the "safe" side?
Speaking of lock-ups, what will become
of the growing number of suspects already being "detained"
in Afghanistan, Guantanamo, Iraq and this country? And at what
cost? (Don't ask, don't tell?) In this sardonic scenario where
war is a never-ending story, Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden
must not be captured too soon. For drama to triumph over common
sense, Bushvolk psychological strategy requires "terrorism"
to have a literal face, and the face must always lurk like the
Bogey Man or Hitler, creating fear in the minds and dreams of
Americans, generating Beckett-like suspense on the nightly news:
"Have we caught him yet?"
"Not yet, but soon. We're making
progress."
"Ahhhhh!"
* * *
Even if Saddam and bin Laden have already
been captured or known to be dead, the elimination must be properly
timed for maximum political advantage. Whether "cynicism"
or "realpolitik"Machiavelli's prince never had it so
good.
Having invaded Iraq through manufactured
pretexts, the Bush Administration proclaims we will be there
only as long as necessary, a concept so vague as to be meaningless.
Scant attention was paid to the leaked-but-now-forgotten Pentagon
aim to build permanent military bases on Iraqi soil. In plain
language: we won't be leaving, period, since the neo-con cabal
hankers for a major Middle East presence: price in lives and
cash is immaterial.
Cost is no object. (Winning at all costs
isn't restricted to Republican warmongers. Democrat Joe "Bomber"
Biden calls for sending in more troopsmeaning even more Americans
will be targets who may come home wounded or in flag-draped coffins.
Grinning presidential hopeful Joe Lieberman continues to deny
the administration lied when taking the nation to its preventive
war.)
For years neo-conservatives have longed
to demolish "big government." Where responsible conservatives
once railed against a federal budget deficit, neo-cons are inspired
by the demented vision that huge deficits mean less money for
vile federal programs they despise. What better way to drive
up the deficit than by fighting an "endless" war on
terrorism? (Are the manipulators and their corporate cronies
thankful for that which "9/11" hath wrought? Bank on
it.)
Bleeding hearts who plead for do-good
public funds will be mocked. "Don't you know there's a war
on?" Those who challenge the Bushvolk agenda will continue
to have their patriotism challenged, led by talk-show smearleaders
such as Hannity, Coulter, Limbaugh and the fairly unbalanced
Fox network.
Liberals, moderates, environmentalists:
as with "terrorists" they're an enemy to be obliterated.
Hard right Republicans have locked Democrats
and moderates in a genuine "Catch-22," since the only
way to fund many programs will be to raise taxes, and asking
to raise taxes will bring angry cries of "Tax and Spend,
Tax and Spend!" An unenlightened public convinced it is
over-taxed is unlikely to support cries for "Please, may
we have some more?" It's a no-win situation if voters continue
to be taken in by Bushvolk anti-compassion rhetoric disguised
as Necessity to protect the national interest.
To make certain the deficit is deep and
endless, the weapon of choice: further depletion of the federal
treasury through tax refunds so insane that even a majority of
those who'd benefit from this phony largesse should turn the
rebates down. (They'll accept them. As every politician knows:
money talks.)
The beauty part of this strategy lies
in its domino effect as states and local governments are also
bled dry of the cash needed to support programs. Call it "insurance"
so those ugly, unwanted government-funded programs won't be possible
at any level. (Phasing out federal funding for Head Start, passing
on the costs to states too financially strapped to fund Head
Start adequately is a plot already in the works. Overtime and
unemployment payments for a growing number of jobless may soon
be history.)
* * *
According to Rush Limbaugh, high on the
neo-con's chopping-block list is the elimination of the Democratic
Party! Is this the ultimate delusion of unbridled ambition? Will
the "democracy" so beloved of Bushvolk mean an eventual
"one party" totalitarian government? Perhaps this is
what President Bush means when he calls for "total victory."
In our single-party utopia, dissenting
voices won't be branded "Osama lovers," "traitors"
or "fellow travelers." Those departing from the Grand
Only Party line will be reviled as "Democrats!"
This "plan" transcends mere
politics. Right wing Minister of Virtue William Bennett openly
advocates elimination of public education, replacing it with
Internet-based schooling. (Bennett already heads a corporation
for this purpose and is actively gambling with children's lives.)
A significant step toward dismantling
supposedly-crumbling public education lies in mandatory testing,
which will force teachers to "teach the test" and tempt
schools that want funding to eliminate those students who "bring
down test scores." Manipulating test scores and juggling
drop-out figures already take place, including in President Bush's
beloved state of Texas. In this emerging post-Orwellian universe,
Leave No Child Behind means leaving many children both behind
and out of luck.
What will happen to marginalized students
and drop-outs? Does perpetual war mean reinstatement of the draft?
(Administration spokespeople are evasive when asked.) We can
get those kids "off the street" and glow the unemployment
rate by drafting their sorry behinds. If they die or need life-long
medical care, worry about it later. This cannon fodder has plenty
of experience living in unsafe neighborhoods.
Promise 'em a college education (if they
live long enough) and "Bring 'em on!" Line forms on
the right for your one-way ticket to see the world: Iraq, Iran,
Korea . . .
In this neo-con fantasy, privatization
and deregulation are God's gifts to mankind. Mixing metaphors:
the biggest, greediest sharks get the lion's share, and the bogus
notion of a "level playing field" is abandoned altogether.
(As with Halliburton and WorldCom contracts in Iraq, the process
is rigged. We now know much of the money being spent to "rebuild"
Iraq is going into the pockets of corporate execs and shareholders.
The stock market rises courtesy of increased military-industrial
spending.)
Not content with Business As Usual, Defense
Secretary Rumsfeld recommends privatizing many military "non-combat"
duties. For this reason, no additional troops are being requested
for the quagmire in Iraq: our military forces there will be deemed
incapable of performing both combat and "rebuilding"
tasks. Ergo, private corporations must take over and permanently
assume many once-military duties. And who will benefit from this
public blackmail?
Politics itself is becoming privatized,
with only those who can raise the most cash from the deepest
pockets able to run for office. To a greater extent than ever
before, senators and representatives will function as private-sector
lobbyists inside federal government. Assisting the Democratic
Party's demise, election ballots will be counted by corporate-made
machines, not by plodding honest individuals sworn to accuracy.
By pocketing the White House and both
houses of Congress, neo-cons can handily pry apart the judicial
system, melding three traditional branches into one while packing
courts with jurists who will tow the party line, support abandonment
of civil rights, erase church-state separation and bar curious
citizens from "investigating" Bushvolk lies, manipulations,
corruption, wrongdoing.
Through non-declaration of endless war,
hard questions asked of administration officials will continue
be deflected with claims of "national security, or the spectral
mantra "Remember 9/11," meant to provoke guilt and
dodge specific answers. Hype and revisionism have already replaced
integrity, as when the administration declares terrorism to be
the greatest threat to the nation since World War Two or even
before.
How long until curious families of 9/11's
victims are branded "unpatriotic" or "traitors"
for persisting in their quest to learn the truth about events
leading up to that horrific day? Angry Americans once outraged
over those who died seem nonplussed by blatant Bushvolk stonewalling
to block a complete, open 9/11 investigation. Apparently the
public has, in the words of Robert Frost, "turned to their
affairs."
More and more this Bush-led, Ashcroft-ized
government has also turned to the "affairs" of citizens
with constitutionally-suspect intrusion into lives at every level.
The more egregious snooping is said to have been abandoned, but
one expects it to appear in new disguise under deceptive names
reminiscent of "Patriot Act" and "Victory Act."
Secrecy and cover-up are rampant. "The disappeared"
and Stalinist-style incarcerations happen with alarming regularity.
We may be only one election away from implementation of all those
anti-constitutional wet-dreams our zealous right wing control
freaks have ever had.
* * *
Now President Bush is asking for $87
billion to continue the never-ending story in Afghanistan and
Iraq. Anyone who expects $87 billion to be sufficient is surely
delusional. How much will it take to fill this ethically bottomless
hole? In his September 7 address to the nation, President Bush
unequivocally stated, "[W}e will do what is necessary, we
will spend what is necessary, to achieve this essential victory
in the war on terror. . ." Does he mean "we" will
spend the nation into bankruptcy if that is "what is necessary"?
Americans are being played for suckers
by a carnival of macho scam artists, the likes of which this
nation has never before experienced. Will fear and craven self-interest
induce citizens to fall for a malevolent revolution aimed at
overturning America As We Know It? Led by Pied Pipers who piously
play Government of the peoplewhile they dismantle the peoples
government, will voters march to the polls in lockstep, fearful,
angry, selfish, vengeful, only to elect more neo-con advocates
and sympathizers hell-bent on destruction?
How many citizens really give a damn
whether President Bush and his smoke-and-mirrors wild bunch continue
misleading the nation to sell a costly takeover of both Iraq
and the country formerly known as The United States of America?
A timid national press cowed and kowtowing to Bushvolk bullying
has not helped educate the public. The rest of the storywhich
should lead the morning headlines and nightly national news remains
silenced by intent.
Will creeping "war-weariness"
jar a majority of voters to reject this neo-con New World Order?
What more will it take for citizens to wake up and realize It
Can Happen Here?
Recently an American aid worker in Afghanistan
wrote home this prophetic comment: Quietly, we express the fear
that things may be unraveling.
The time has come when anxiety over retaliation
must be pushed aside, when giving this administration benefit
of the doubt must end. Dissenters must express their fears, not
quietly, but with voices that burn through the night.
Doug Giebel
lives in Big Sandy, Montana. He can be contacted at dougcatz@ttc-cmc.net.
Weekend
Edition Features for Sept. 1 / 7, 2003
Neve Gordon
Strategic
Abuse: Outsourcing Human Rights Violations
Gary Leupp
Shiites
Humiliate Bush
Saul Landau
Fidel
and The Prince
Denis Halliday
Of Sanctions and Bombings: the UN Failed the People of Iraq
John Feffer
Hexangonal Headache: N. Korea Talks Were a Disaster
Ron Jacobs
The Stage of History
M. Shahid Alam
Pakistan "Recognizes" Israel
Laura Carlson
The Militarization of the Americas
Elaine Cassel
The Forgotten Prisoners of Guantanamo
James T. Phillips
The Mumbo-Jumbo War
Bill Glahn
RIAA Watch: Slumlords of the Internet
Walter A. Davis
Living in Death's Dream Kingdom
Adam Engel
Midnight's Inner Children
Poets' Basement
Stein, Guthrie and Albert
Book of the Weekend
It Became Necessary to Destroy the Planet in Order to Save It
by Khalil Bendib
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