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Now Available from CounterPunch for Only $11.50 (S/H Included) Today's Stories December 4, 2003 Gary Leupp The Fall of Shevardnadze December 3, 2003 Stan Goff Feeling More Secure Yet?: Bush, Security, Energy & Money Joanne Mariner Profit Margins and Mortality Rates George Bisharat Who Caused the Palestinian Diaspora? Mickey Z. Tear Down That Wal-Mart John Stanton Bush Post-2004: a Nightmare Scenario Harry Browne Shannon Warport: "No More Business as Usual"   December 2, 2003 Matt Vidal Denial and Deception: Before and Beyond Iraqi Freedom Benjamin Dangl An Interview with Evo Morales on the Colonization of the Americas Sam Bahour Can It Ever Really End? Norman Solomon That Pew Poll on "Trade" Doesn't Pass the Sniff Test Josh Frank Trade War Fears Andrew Cockburn Tired, Terrified, Trigger-Happy December 1, 2003 Fawzia Afzal-Khan Unholy Alliances: Zionism, US Imperialism and Islamic Fundamentalism Dave Lindorff Bush's Baghdad Pitstop: Memories of LBJ in Vietnam Harry Browne Democracy Delayed in Northern Ireland Wayne Madsen Wagging the Media Herman Benson The New Unity Partnership for Labor: Bureaucratizing to Organize? Gilad Atzmon About "World Peace" Bill Christison US Foreign Policy and Intelligence: Monstrous Messes November 29 / 30, 2003 Peter Linebaugh On the Anniversary of the Death of Wolfe Tone Gary Leupp Politicizing War on Fox News: a Tale of Two Memos Saul Landau Lying and Cheating: Bush's New Political Math Michael Adler Inside a Miami Jail: One Activist's Narrative Anthony Arnove "They Put the Lie to Their Own Propaganda": an Interview with John Pilger Greg Weiher Why Bush Needs Osama and Saddam Stephen Banko, III A Soldier's Dream Forrest Hylton Empire and Revolution in Bolivia Toni Solo The "Free Trade" History Eraser Ben Terrall Don't Think Twice: Bush Does Bali Standard Schaefer Unions are the Answer to Supermarkets Woes Richard Trainor The Political Economy of Earthquakes: a Journey Across the Bay Bridge Mark Gaffney US Congress Does Israel's Bidding, Again Adam Engel The System Really Works Dave Lindorff They, the Jury: How the System Rigs the Jury Pool Susan Davis Framing the Friedmans Neve Gordon Arundhati Roy's Complaint for Peace Mitchel Cohen Thomas Jefferson and Slavery Ben Tripp Capture Me, Daddy Poets' Basement Kearney, Albert, Guthrie and Smith     November 28, 2003 William S. Lind Worse Than Crimes David Vest Turkey Potemkin Robert Jensen / Sam Husseini New Bush Tape Raises Fears of Attacks Wayne Madsen Wag the Turkey Harold Gould Suicide as WMD? Emile Durkheim Revisited Gabriel Kolko Vietnam and Iraq: Has the US Learned Anything? South Asia Tribune The Story of the Most Important Pakistan Army General in His Own Words Website of the Day Bush Draft   November 27, 2003 Mitchel Cohen Why I Hate Thanksgiving Jack Wilson An Account of One Soldier's War Stefan Wray In the Shadows of the School of the Americas Al Krebs Food as Corporate WMD Jim Scharplaz Going Up Against Big Food: Weeding Out the Small Farmer Neve Gordon Gays Under Occupation: Help Save the Life of Fuad Moussa   November 26, 2003 Paul de Rooij Amnesty International: the Case of a Rape Foretold Bruce Jackson Media and War: Bringing It All Back Home Stew Albert Perle's Confession: That's Entertainment Alexander Cockburn Miami and London: Cops in Two Cities David Orr Miami Heat Tom Crumpacker Anarchists on the Beach Mokhiber / Weissman Militarization in Miami Derek Seidman Naming the System: an Interview with Michael Yates Kathy Kelly Hogtied and Abused at Ft. Benning Website of the Day Iraq Procurement   November 25, 2003 Linda S. Heard We, the Besieged: Western Powers Redefine Democracy Diane Christian Hocus Pocus in the White House: Of Warriors and Liberators Mark Engler Miami's Trade Troubles David Lindorff Ashcroft's Cointelpro Website of the Day Young McCarthyites of Texas   November 24, 2003 Jeremy Scahill The Miami Model Elaine Cassel Gulag Americana: You Can't Come Home Again Ron Jacobs Iraq Now: Oh Good, Then the War's Over? Alexander Cockburn Rupert Murdoch: Global Tyrant     November 14 / 23, 2003 Alexander Cockburn Clintontime: Was It Really a Golden Age? Saul Landau Words of War Noam Chomsky Invasion as Marketing Problem: Iraq War and Contempt for Democracy Stan Goff An Open Letter to GIs in Iraq: Hold on to Your Humanity Jeffrey St. Clair Bush Puts Out a Contract on the Spotted Owl John Holt Blue Light: Battle for the Sweetgrass Hills Adam Engel A DC Lefty in King George's Court: an Interview with Sam Smith Joanne Mariner In a Dark Hole: Moussaoui and the Hidden Detainees Uri Avnery The General as Pseudo-Dove: Ya'alon's 70 Virgins M. Shahid Alam Voiding the Palestinians: an Allegory Juliana Fredman Visions of Concrete Norman Solomon Media Clash in Brazil Brian Cloughley Is Anyone in the Bush Administration Telling the Truth? William S. Lind Post-Machine Gun Tactics Patrick W. Gavin Imagine Dave Lindorff Bush's Brand of Leadership: Putting Himself First Tom Crumpacker Pandering to Anti-Castro Hardliners Erik Fleming Howard Dean's Folly Rick Giombetti Challenging the Witch Doctors of the New Imperialism: a Review of Bush in Babylon Jorge Mariscal Las Adelitas, 2003: Mexican-American Women in Iraq Chris Floyd Logical Conclusions Mickey Z. Does William Safire Need Mental Help? David Vest Owed to the Confederate Dead Ron Jacobs Joe: the Sixties Most Unforgiving Film Dave Zirin Foreman and Carlos: a Tale of Two Survivors Poets' Basement Guthrie, Albert, Greeder, Ghalib and Alam   Congratulations to CounterPuncher David Vest: Winner of 2 Muddy Awards for Best Blues Pianist in the Pacific Northwest!   November 13, 2003 Jack McCarthy Veterans for Peace Booted from Vet Day Parade Adam Keller Report on the Ben Artzi Verdict Richard Forno "Threat Matrix:" Homeland Security Goes Prime-Time Vijay Prashad Confronting the Evangelical Imperialists November 12, 2003 Elaine Cassel The Supremes and Guantanamo: a Glimmer of Hope? Col. Dan Smith Unsolicited Advice: a Reply to Rumsfeld's Memo Jonathan Cook Facility 1391: Israel's Guantanamo Robert Fisk Osama Phones Home Michael Schwartz The Wal-Mart Distraction and the California Grocery Workers Strike John Chuckman Forty Years of Lies Doug Giebel Jessica Lynch and Saving American Decency Uri Avnery Wanted: a Sharon of the Left Website of the Day Musicians Against Sweatshops November 11, 2003 David Lindorff Bush's War on Veterans Stan Goff Honoring Real Vets; Remembering Real War Earnest McBride "His Feet Were on the Ground": Was Steve McNair's Cousin Lynched? Derek Seidman Imperialism Begins at Home: an Interview with Stan Goff David Krieger Mr. President, You Can Run But You Can't Hide Sen. Ernest Hollings My Cambodian Moment on the Iraq War Dan Bacher The Invisible Man Resigns Kam Zarrabi Hypocrisy at the Top John Eskow Born on Veteran's Day Website of the Day Left Hook   November 10, 2003 Robert Fisk Looney Toons in Rummyworld: How We Denied Democracy to the Middle East Elaine Cassel Papa's Gotta Brand New Bag (of Tricks): Patriot Act Spawns Similar Laws Across Globe James Brooks Israel's New War Machine Opens the Abyss Thom Rutledge The Lost Gospel of Rummy Stew Albert Call Him Al Gary Leupp "They Were All Non-Starters": On the Thwarted Peace Proposals November 8/9, 2003 Kathleen and Bill Christison Zionism as Racist Ideology Gabriel Kolko Intelligence for What? The Vietnam War Reconsidered Saul Landau The Bride Wore Black: the Policy Nuptials of Boykin and Wolfowitz Brian Cloughley Speeding Up to Nowhere: Training the New Iraqi Police William Blum The Anti-Empire Report: A Permanent Occupation? David Lindorff A New Kind of Dancing in Iraq: from Occupation to Guerrilla War Elaine Cassel Bush's War on Non-Citizens Tim Wise Persecuting the Truth: Claims of Christian Victimization Ring Hollow Toni Solo Robert Zoellick and "Wise Blood" Michael Donnelly Will the Real Ron Wyden Please Stand Up? Mark Hand Building a Vanguard Movement: a Review of Stan Goff's Full Spectrum Disorder Norman Solomon War, Social Justice, Media and Democracy Norman Madarasz American Neocons and the Jerusalem Post Adam Engel Raising JonBenet Dave Zirin An Interview with George Foreman Poets' Basement Guthrie, Albert and Greeder November 7, 2003 Nelson Valdes Latin America in Crisis and Cuba's Self-Reliance David Vest Surely It Can't Get Any Worse? Chris Floyd An Inspector Calls: The Kay Report as War Crime Indictment William S. Lind Indicators: Where This War is Headed Elaine Cassel FBI to Cryptome: "We Are Watching You" Maria Tomchick When Public Transit Gets Privatized Uri Avnery Israeli Roulette November 6, 2003 Ron Jacobs With a Peace Like This... Conn Hallinan Rumsfeld's New Model Army Maher Arar This is What They Did to Me Elaine Cassel A Bad Day for Civil Liberties: the Case of Maher Arar Neve Gordon Captives Behind Sharon's Wall Ralph Nader and Lee Drutman An Open Letter to John Ashcroft on Corporate Crime   November 5, 2003 Jeffrey St. Clair Just a Match Away: Fire Sale in So Cal Dave Lindorff A Draft in the Forecast? Robert Jensen How I Ended Up on the Professor Watch List Joanne Mariner Prisons as Mental Institutions Patrick Cockburn Saddam Not Organizing Iraqi Resistance Simon Helweg-Larsen Centaurs from Dusk to Dawn: Remilitarization and the Guatemalan Elections Josh Frank Silencing "the Reagans" Website of the Day Everything You Wanted to Know About Howard Dean But Were Afraid to Ask   November 4, 2003 Robert Fisk Smearing Said and Ashrawi: When Did "Arab" Become a Dirty Word? Ray McGovern Chinook Down: It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Vietnam Woodruff / Wypijewski Debating the New Unity Partnership Karyn Strickler When Opponents of Abortion Dream Norman Solomon The Steady Theft of Our Time Tariq Ali Resistance and Independence in Iraq   November 3, 2003 Patrick Cockburn The Bloodiest Day Yet for Americans in Iraq: Report from Fallujah Dave Lindorff Philly's Buggy Election Janine Pommy Vega Sarajevo Hands 2003 Bernie Dwyer An Interview with Chomsky on Cuba November 1 / 2, 2003 Saul Landau Cui Bono? The Cuba Embargo as Rip Off Noam Chomsky Empire of the Men of Best Quality Bruce Jackson Midge Decter and the Taxi Driver Brian Cloughley "Mow the Whole Place Down" John Stanton The Pentagon's Love Affair with Land Mines William S. Lind Bush's Bizarre Korean Gambit Ben Tripp The Brown Paste on Bush's Shoes Christopher Brauchli Divine Hatred Dave Zirin An Interview with John Carlos Agustin Velloso Oil in Equatorial Guinea: Where Trickle Down Doesn't Trickle Josh Frank Howard Dean and Affirmative Action Ron Jacobs Standing Up to El Diablo: the 1981 Blockade of Diablo Canyon Strickler / Hermach Liar, Liar Forests on Fire David Vest Jimmy T99 Nelson, a Blues Legend and the Songs that Made Him Famous Adam Engel America, What It Is Dr. Susan Block Christy Canyon, a Life in Porn Poets' Basement Greeder, Albert & Guthrie   October 31, 2003 Lee Ballinger Making a Dollar Out of 15 Cents: The Sweatshops of Sean "P. Diddy" Combs Wayne Madsen The GOP's Racist Trifecta Michael Donnelly Settling for Peanuts: Democrats Trick the Greens, Treat Big Timber Patrick Cockburn Baghdad Diary: Iraqis are Naming Their New Babies "Saddam" Elaine Cassel Coming to a State Near You: The Matrix (Interstate Snoops, Not the Movie) Linda Heard An Arab View of Masonry   October 30, 2003 Forrest Hylton Popular Insurrection and National Revolution in Bolivia Eric Ruder "We Have to Speak Out!": Marching with the Military Families Dave Lindorff Big Lies and Little Lies: The Meaning of "Mission Accomplished" Philip Adams "Everyone is Running Scared": Denigrating Critics of Israel Sean Donahue Howard Dean: a Hawk in a Dove's Cloak Robert Jensen Big Houses & Global Justice: A Moral Level of Consumption? Alexander Cockburn Paul Krugman: Part of the Problem     October 29, 2003 Chris Floyd Thieves Like Us: Cheney's Backdoor to Halliburton Robert Fisk Iraq Guerrillas Adopt a New Strategy: Copy the Americans Rick Giombetti Let Them Eat Prozac: an Interview with David Healy The Intelligence Squad Dark Forces? The Military Steps Up Recruiting of Blacks Elaine Cassel Prosecutors as Therapists, Phantoms as Terrorists Marie Trigona Argentina's War on the Unemployed Workers Movement Gary Leupp Every Day, One KIA: On the Iraq War Casualty Figures October 28, 2003 Rich Gibson The Politics of an Inferno: Notes on Hellfire 2003 Uri Avnery Incident in Gaza Diane Christian Wishing Death Robert Fisk Eyewitness in Iraq: "They're Getting Better" Toni Solo Authentic Americans and John Negroponte Jason Leopold Halliburton in Iran Shrireen Parsons When T-shirts are Verboten Chris White 9/11 in Context: a Marine Veteran's Perspective   October 27, 2003 William A. Cook Ministers of War: Criminals of the Cloth David Lindorff The Times, Dupes and the Pulitzer Elaine Cassel Antonin Scalia's Contemptus Mundi Robert Fisk Occupational Schizophrenia John Chuckman Banging Your Head into Walls Seth Sandronsky Snoops R Us 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       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 Click Here for More Stories.     Subscribe Online Search CounterPunch

December 4, 2003 It's All About Winning, Isn't It? Republican By ADAM ENGEL True, some of that "if you can't beat 'em, annoy 'em" nastiness was part of my decision to turn Republican. But there's so much more. Ever since I declared myself a Republican I've felt so...free. NOW I understand how those flag-waving Republicans working ninety hours a week with no benefits, no overtime, no nothing (except heavy packages containing the corpses of their children coming C.O.D. from Iraq) are always running around shouting about "Freedom." It's not economic or political freedom they're talking about, it's FREEDOM FROM DEMOCRATS. For this they are grateful, and I don't blame them. Think about it. Did the Republicans ever blame you for losing the presidency in '92, or again in '96? Not at all. They lost fair and square (or whatever you call it when the votes are tallied by those electronic Doo-dads) and took their anger out on the cause of their despair: the Republican (posing as a Democrat) Bill Clinton. They fought him tooth and nail from day one. They never let up. Didn't give him or his deceitful, AIPAC of a wife, Hillary, a minute's rest. Yet when the Democrats lost in 2000 - and not even remotely fair and square; they lost even though they won; and worse, it was the Supreme Court, not even the electoral college or Pat Robertson college or any other college that gave him the Presidency--we non-Republicans who chose not to vote Democrat were target number one. Because I chose not to vote Democrat, but Green, I STILL haven't heard the end of it. "What did you do to MY country?" First of all, I thought that "my country" business was the province of the Republicans, but I guess it just shows how it really doesn't matter in the end. Both the Republicans and the Democrats share two traits: one, they don't want you to vote for anyone but the person/persons they tell you to vote for; two, they want you to shut the hell up unless you're saying exactly what they want you to say. But there are some differences. For instance, the Republicans fight their "enemies" which include gays, women, pro-choicers, leftists, free thinkers, college professors, writers, junkies, skinny-dippers, and numerous other ne'er-do-wells, even Democrats. While the Democrats, too damned scared to fight Republicans, just fight Greens. Why bother asking why Democrats in the House and Senate gave Bush just about anything and everything he ever asked for, including war powers and the USA PATRIOT ACT, son of Bill Clinton's "Effective Anti-terrorism and death penalty act," when you can blame Nader and the Greens, who didn't do anything except get even less votes than they expected to get and, in past years, work to clean up the environment, protect consumers, limit corporate power and increase corporate liability, and other trivial nonsense that means nothing to anyone cause most Corporate jobs are going overseas anyway. Nevertheless, these Democrats can be annoying. Why just the other day I received a missive from one of those crazed liberal whackos, waiting for the second coming of FDR, which read: "Dear Mr. Engel, Sorry, no matter how much you protest, it was people like you who helped hand W the White House. I will never forgive Nader for saying over and over how there is no difference between the Dems and the Repubs. In light of the recent sham Medicare Bill that was passed, I beg to differ. Maybe I missed your goal. Perhaps it is to totally destroy the country I love and start over. One thing for sure, the repubs love people like you. Sincerely, Officious Liberal Democrat" First of all, this missive puzzled me, for I never protested that I was anything but a radical leftist, much less a chicken-hearted, zombie Democrat. Possibly Officious Liberal Democrat was referring to an article in which I referred to myself (as I was in 2000) as a "stop-light-green: if I can't vote red I'll vote green, but never yellow." But that was in 2000. I've moved way, WAY to the left since then. Nevertheless I DID admit to voting for Nader, which got me into a whole bowl of hot water with these liberal types. So I wrote back: "Dear Officious Liberal Democrat, "No one, that is, no form of life, is lower than a hypocrite flim-flam artist who suckers people into the same mistake time and again except one thing: the rubes who fall for the hustle themselves. Again and again and again. "Not only did 'people like me' not cost anyone anything because Gore actually WON the election, but Nader was right in that there is no difference between Republicans and Democrats. True, Bush Inc. are an excessive lot, but even the Republicans are starting to see this as "our troops" come home in body bags and the USA PATRIOT ACT, scion of Bill Clinton's "Effective Anti-Terrorism and Death Penalty Act," which first began yanking vertebrae out of the Bill of Rights in 1996, started impinging on their cramped little lives. "How dare Gore take votes from over fifty million people, then sit back and watch as the Supreme Court handed Dubya the White House? Why didn't he fight? The Presidency was unlawfully taken not only from him, but from all who voted for him, yet he lay down and died. Something Nader would not have done. "How dare the Democrats let Bush Inc. get away with MURDER since 9/11. Did they once fight en masse against the depredations of the Junta in the White House? How dare they vote to give Bush full war powers? How dare they vote for the USA PATRIOT ACT without even reading the damn thing? How DARE they vote unanimously, along with their Republican cohorts, to condemn the court that ruled that "under god" be stricken from the pledge (and not only that, but pose, en masse, unified at last, on the steps of the Capitol with their hands over their feint hearts screaming the Pledge and UNDER GOD for the cameras?) "How dare they bow to AIPAC as fervently as their fellow Republicans? How dare they approve the military packages presented to them by the Republicans? How dare they not fight back, never, with the exception of Barbara Lee and Cynthia McKinney (and you know what happened to HER). In fact, how DARE they not have come to her aid while NYC money and Republican chicanery destroyed her? "How DARE the Democrats never ever fight back with any strength or unity during the past two years of this mess? "How dare YOU tell me who I can vote for? If you're telling me that the ONLY choice I have is to vote Democrat (despite Clintonomics, Carter's war on Nicaragua and HIS training of Bin Laden, not to mention Lyndon "Gulf of Tonkin" Johnson and John "Kill Cubans and Vietnamese" Kennedy and Harry "Hiroshima" Truman), then I'll vote Republican, if anything just to assert my freedom from ones such as YOU. "Vote for Clark or Dean or Kucinich or Hillary (Hillary who supported ALL of Bush's war requests when she should have been stomping up and down, shouting NO! as should have all the Democrats). "Repubs love people like YOU, for as long as you live, things will never, ever change. Repubs love people like you because you can always be counted on to vote for their spineless foes. Repubs love people like you because, like them, you presume to tell people who to vote for and what to say. "Also, what country do you love? The bully of the world? The nuclear terror? The halcyon days of Clinton time when Wall Street ran happy on the dot.com balloon economy? The greatest Republican the Democrats -- and I'm twice guilty of this - ever voted into office. "How dare you make blanket statements blaming people who do not share your views for "losing the Presidency" when it is now public knowledge that the election was a sham, the electronic voting process is a sham, and Gore is a sham for taking a dive? "If "this country" means a place where people tell me who I can and can't vote for and what I can and can't say, "no matter how much I protest," then yes, I'd be glad to take it down, cause it sure ain't a Democracy. It all began on January, 2001, eh? The Democrats had things under control before the Greens forced the Supreme Court to discount nearly a million votes (some say more) and select the President of their choice, eh? "Fine. I gave the Presidency to Bush just to destroy America, the world, and tiny disciplinarians like you. "You, who are still blaming the Greens for trying to do what you are too afraid to do: change the system. "Well, then, I changed my mind. I'm no longer a leftist trouble-maker. I'm a Republican and proud of it. Bush-Cheney in 2004! There are millions of us. You can't stop us. The best you can do is "elect" leaders who will bow down before us, again and again and again. Sincerely, Adam "Proud to be an American" Engel" Now I may have been a trifle mean and ornery in my reply; in fact, I was downright truculent. But who ever said a debate had to be pretty? The thing is, there was no debate. There's never a debate when you're talking to religious freaks, be they Jewish Zionists, Fundamentalist Christians or Fundamentalist Moslems. There is only one truth, one story, there in the black and white text of some two-zillion-year-old book, and THEY have a monopoly on this ancient wisdom. After all my ranting and raving, all my arguments and accusations, Officious Liberal Democrat merely replied: "You're wrong and I hope you are very happy with W. W and his minions will get 4 more years to destroy the country I love. Thanks to people like you. You must not be paying attention. There is no way that the Dems and the Repbs are the same." That was it. She didn't respond to a single one of my points. Yet I was "wrong." Not only that, I was helping "W. and his minions" (where'd she get this, Marvel Comics?) to destroy the country "she" loves. What the hell country is she talking about? The country that bombed and starved Iraq for twelve years - eight of those years under Clinton's watch - the country with the worst Health Care system in the Western World, the country that - but as the man says, "there I go again." Trying to argue with a fanatic. As if we have to argue the fine points between Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon, or their good-looking predecessor, who started the whole Vietnam mess and left those two dog-faced politicos holding the bag. It was right then and there that I decided to become a Republican. First of all, just because I'm a Republican, it doesn't mean I have to vote Republican; I don't have to vote for anyone at all, and most Republicans (and Democrats) don't. I don't have to blame Ralph Nader for anything, I don't have to whine and pine for some Clintonesque Messiah to come and beat the pants off Dubya yet leave the System intact. I don't have to do anything, really, except not argue with liberal democrats, because deep in my cunning Republican heart, I know we're ultimately fighting for the same thing: perpetuation of the "American Way of Life" by any means necessary. And as an added bonus, since it's assumed by my very Republicanness that I love America and all that, I'm standing on the high ground. It's MY country now. And all of you liberal Democrat bleeding heart tax-and-spenders (but secret lovers of the System we all share) had better watch what you say about MY country and MY President. WOW! What a great deal. I immediately wrote to Officious Liberal Democrat to tell her the good news: "Dear Officious Liberal Democrat, I am happy with my President. He's doing a fine job. People like you, who don't know the facts, yet criticize him anyway, are terrorists. Sincerely, Adam Engel, Born-again Republican." I've never been so free, so happy, so untroubled by serious ideas and the gray areas of life. I urge you all to stop the folly of your ways and become born-again Republicans. Just close your yes, click your heels, and repeat after me: "We CAN all get along. We CAN all get along. We CAN all get along.... Adam Engel loves Apple Pie, War, Empire, Capitalism, Corporatism, Authority, Rich People, and ANYONE, who will tell him how great and strong and wise his leaders are so all those nasty thoughts will disappear forever. God bless us, everyone (except Ralph Nader and those damn Greens). Donations can be forwarded to bartleby.samsa@verizon.net     Weekend Edition Features for Nov. 29 / 30, 2003 Peter Linebaugh On the Anniversary of the Death of Wolfe Tone Gary Leupp Politicizing War on Fox News: a Tale of Two Memos Saul Landau Lying and Cheating: Bush's New Political Math Michael Adler Inside a Miami Jail: One Activist's Narrative Anthony Arnove "They Put the Lie to Their Own Propaganda": an Interview with John Pilger Greg Weiher Why Bush Needs Osama and Saddam Stephen Banko, III A Soldier's Dream Forrest Hylton Empire and Revolution in Bolivia Toni Solo The "Free Trade" History Eraser Ben Terrall Don't Think Twice: Bush Does Bali Standard Schaefer Unions are the Answer to Supermarkets Woes Richard Trainor The Political Economy of Earthquakes: a Journey Across the Bay Bridge Mark Gaffney US Congress Does Israel's Bidding, Again Adam Engel The System Really Works Dave Lindorff They, the Jury: How the System Rigs the Jury Pool Susan Davis Framing the Friedmans Neve Gordon Arundhati Roy's Complaint for Peace Mitchel Cohen Thomas Jefferson and Slavery Ben Tripp Capture Me, Daddy Poets' Basement Kearney, Albert, Guthrie and Smith Keep CounterPunch Alive: Make a Tax-Deductible Donation Today Online! home / subscribe / about us / books / archives / search / links /