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Today's
Stories
March 4, 2004
Tariq Ali
Notes on Anti-Semitism, Zionism and
Palestine
March 3, 2004
Jack McCarthy
Guy's
Our Guy: "I am the Chief. My Hero is Pinochet."
Robert Sandels
The
Purloined Label: The Struggle Over the Havana Club Trademark
Juliana Fredman / James Davis
Israeli Organized Crime
JG
The Yuppie Silence on Haiti
Emilio Sardi
The
Colombia/US Free Trade Deal: It's About More Than Trade
Alan Farago
Swimming in Sewage
Mike Whitney
"Blood
Will Have Blood": 143 Murdered in Liberated Iraq
CounterPunch Wire
Nader's Legislative Record in the 1960s
Steve Perry
Kerry
Advisory: Remember Lena Guerrero
Nelson George/ Marcus Miller
Miles Davis & Hip Hop: a Conversation
Website of the Day
$10,000 Is Yours for the Taking: The USS Liberty Challenge
March 2, 2004
William Blum
If Kerry's
the Answer, What's the Question?
Conn Hallinan
Haiti:
the Dangerous Muddle
JoAnn Wypijewski
The Bravo
H-Bomb Test: One WMD They Couldn't Hide
Mike Whitney
Regime Change in Haiti: the Bush Dominos Keep Falling
Ra Ravishankar
Afghanistan, the Liberation That Isn't: an Interview with Mariam
from RAWA
Dan Bacher
Merle Haggard & the Politics of Salmon: "Clearcutting
is Rape"
Greg Moses
Oscar White
Brandy Baker
Mel Gibson's Minstrelsy Show
Little Tucker Carlson
What I Did on My Vacation
Robert Fisk
All This
Talk of Civil War, Now This
Merle Haggard
Kern River
Website of the Day
Rebel Edit
March 1, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Morris
Thanks War Criminal in Front of Billions
Richard Oxman
Oscar's
Obit: Thanking Bob McNamara
Elaine Cassel
Writing and Reading as "Terrorism"
Mickey Z
Thomas Friedman's Education
Mike Whitney
George Will and Anti-Semitism: a Cul-de-Sac of Prejudice
Heather Williams
Haiti
as Target Practice: How the US Press Missed the Story
Cathy Crosson
Chanson d'amour haïtienne
Website of the Day
God Hates Shrimp
February 28 / 29, 2004
Stephen Green
Serving
Two Flags: Neo-Cons, Israel and the Bush Team
Gary Leupp
Another Senseless Bush Battle: Defining and Protecting Marriage
William A. Cook
Israel:
America's Albatross
Ron Jacobs
Kucinich: Good Fight; Wrong Battlefield
Ben Tripp
A Nosegay of Posies: Queer Weddings at Last!
Leilla Matsui
Dances with Crucifixes
Mike Whitney
Dismantle
the Military Goliath
Yoel Marcus
Down and Out in the Hague
Uri Avnery
The Dancing Bear
Linda S. Heard
Britons and Americans Condemned to a Hobson's Choice
Al Krebs
Unmasking a Secret American Empire: Land, Water & Cotton
Stan Cox
Life (Pat. Pend.): Genetic Commandeering
JG
The Haiti Boomerang: "After The Looting & Pillaging,
Your Hunger Will Remain"
Rick Giombetti
Censorship at the Seattle P-I on Forced Psychiatry
Keith Hoeller
The Bankruptcy of Mental Health Insurance Parity
Dave Zirin
Colorado Football: Buffalo Swill
NADERAMA
Alan Maass
Nader and the Politics of Lesser
Evils
Michael Donnelly
Regime
Rotation: Anybody But Bush...Again?
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Exeunt Serenaders; Enter Nader
Doug Giebel
So Nader's Running? Get Over It
Bruce Jackson
An Open Letter to Naderites
CounterPunch Wire
Stalinists for Kerry! and Other Roars from the Crowd
Poets' Basement
Davies, Scarr, Kearney & Albert
February 27, 2004
Thomas C. Mountain
A
White Jesus During Black History Month?
Laura Carlsen
Americans
Abroad: Bush is Persona Non Grata
John B. Anderson
Nader's Campaign Brings Back Memories: Creating an Open Electoral
Process
Jason Leopold
Spying
on Kofi Annan
John Chuckman
Nader,
Risk and Hope
Standard Schaefer
An
Interview with Michael Hudson on Putin's Russia
Ray McGovern
Punished
for Honest Intelligence
Saul Landau
The
Haiti Redux
Website of the Day
Bush: Why I'm Running for Re-election
February 26, 2004
Brandy Baker
Is Nader
on to Something?
Jacques Kinau
AEI
to Colombia: "Can't Give You Anything But Guns, Baby"
Norman Solomon
Bugging Kofi Annan: UN Spying
and the Evasions of US Journalism
Greg Weiher
A Purloined Letter: the Zarqawi Gambit
Walt Brasch
Janet Jackson, Bush & No. 542: There are No Halftime Shows
in War
Shadi Hamid
The Music World Explodes in Anger
Norman Madarasz
As Canadian as Corruption
Chris Floyd
Bullets and Ballots
Virginia Tilly
The
Deeper Meaning of the Wall
Amy Goodman / Jeremy
Scahill
Haiti's
Lawyer Says US is Arming Haiti's Anti-Aristide Paramilitaries
Website of the Day
Clear Channel Sucks
February 25, 2004
Dr. Susan Block
Saddam's
Sex Therapist and the Rape of Free Speech
Bruce Anderson
Treacherous Bastards: The Greens and the Dems and Nader
Ron Jacobs
Our Power is on the Streets and
in Our Hearts
Mike Whitney
Bush
and Gay America: the Politics of Duplicity
Sam Husseini
Jesus in 100 Words
John L. Hess
Kick Off or Flub?
Sam Hamod
Bush's Newest Red Herring
Cockburn / St. Clair
Winning
with Nader
Website of the Day
VotePact
February 24, 2004
Ralph Nader
Why
I'm Running for President
Greg Moses
Rally
the Mob! Bush, Gay Marriage and the Constitution
Douglas O'Hara
The
Merchants of Fear: Smearing Nader
Phillip Cryan
Frozen in Time: The WSJ's Paranoid
Lens on Latin America
David Lindorff
John Kerry's China Connection
Jason Leopold
Cheney's Shame: Halliburton Faces New Charges
Gary Younge
Haiti: Throttled by History
Kromm, Masri & Purohit
Why No Democracy in Iraq?
Steve Perry
Tangled Up in Red and Blue: Beware the Electoral College
February 23, 2004
Neve Gordon
Israel's Apartheid Wall on Trial
at The Hague
Kurt Nimmo
Richard Perle, Executioner: "Heads Should Roll"
Jonathan Franklin
US Soldier Seeks Refugee Status in Canada
Al Krebs
The Liberal "Intelligentsia" v. Nader
Josh Frank
Nader's Nadir? Not a Chance
Bruce Jackson
Nader, Another View: "He's as Evil as Bush"
Gary Leupp
A Misguided
Attack, The Passion, Rabbi Lerner and the Gospels
February 20 / 22, 2004
Cockburn / St. Clair
Kerry:
He's Peaking Already!
Derek Seidman
Chasing
Judith Miller from the Stage: Watch Her Run!
Ghada Karmi
Sharon is not the Problem
Vanessa Jones
This Week in Redfern, a Boy Dies, Chased by Cops
Ben Granby
Anatomy of a Night Raid on Balad, Iraq
John Holt
An Air That Kills: Greed, Apathy, Dead People
Saul Landau
Entry from a White House Diary
Tom Jackson
Why They Couldn't Wait to Invade Iraq
Frederick B. Hudson
Slave Power and the Constitution: Jefferson, Slaves, Haiti and
Hypocrisy
Roger Burbach
Argentina Fights Back
Kate Doyle
Lessons on Justice from Guatemala
Mike Whitney
Operation Enduring Misery: the Afghanistan Debacle
Greg Moses
What Gives Texas A&M the Right to Trample the Civil Rights
Act?
David Krieger
US Elections: an Opportunity to Debate Nuclear Weapons
Sam Bahour
Palestinian Issue Riddles Bush's Budget
David Grenier
You Could Get 10 Years in Prison Just for Reading This
Charles Sullivan
Corporatism vs. Single Party Politics
Poet's Basement
Hilda White, Larry Kearney & Stew Albert
Website of the Weekend
The Rumsfeld Fighting Technique
February 19, 2004
Cecilie Surasky
Anti-Semitism
at the World Social Forum? That's Not What I Saw
Ray McGovern
Iraq
Hawks and Deceptive Intelligence: Did They Really Think They'd
Get Away With It?
Tariq Ali
How Far
Will Bush Go in Iraq?
Ralph Nader
Whither
the Nation?
Wayne Madsen
Would Kerry Purge the Neo-Cons?
Norman Solomon
The Collapse of Dean's Cyber-Bubble
Christopher Brauchli
Cheney, Halliburton and the NYT
Mike Whitney
Bush's Iraq Strategy: "I Hope They Kill Each Other"
Lewis Carroll
Bush the Mighty Helmsman from Yale
Website of the Day
Sex Toy Horoscope
February 18, 2004
William Wilgus
Bush:
AWOL and Dereliction of Duty
William Blum
Mush-Minded
Liberals
Dave Lindorff
Bush's China Syndrome
Greg Weiher
Why
is Kerry Getting a Pass?
Mike Griffin
Killing the Messenger: the AFL-CIO's Attack on Harry Kelber
Mark Hand
Kerry Tells Peace Movement to "Move On"
February 17, 2004
Mike Ferner
The
Countryside Murders in Iraq
Mokhiber / Weissman
Corporation
as Psychopath
Marjorie Cohn
DrakeGate:
a Victory for Free Speech
Kurt Nimmo
Bush's
Endgame: a Review of Chalmers Johnson's "Sorrows of Empire"
Greg Bates
Nader Ambush: a New Low for The
Nation
Ximena Ortiz
A Bush
Doctrine, of Sorts
Gary Leupp
Whatever Happened to Gen. Khazraji?
Sen. John Kerry
"The Cause of Israel is the Cause of America"
Steve Perry
Kerry
1, Drudge 0
February 16, 2004
James Johnston
Huddling
with the Cheeseheads in a NASCAR World
Sara Eltantawi
To
Wear the Hijab or Not
Bruce Anderson
Kevin
Cooper and the Midnight Needle
Elaine Cassel
Feds
on Campus: the Drake Subpoenas
Rahul Mahajan
Bush,
Is the Tide Finally Turning?
Kevin Cooper
The Ritual of Death
Stan Cox
Goodbye, Howard Dean
Larry David
My War
Steve Perry
Bush and the Guard: the Cover-Up's the Thing
Website of the Day
Prison Patriots: Help This Vital Film Get Made
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.
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March
4, 2004
The Election is Over
We Lost
The
November 3 Movement
By SAM SMITH
The winner is a supporter of three of the worst
government decisions of our time: the war in Iraq, the Patriot
Act, and the Bush education law.
He is a Yale graduate and a member of
a secret society of dubious values and influence. He is arrogant
with the sense of self-entitlement of the fully privileged yet
has done little in life to justify this self esteem. And he is
a tenured and servile member of an establishment that has trashed
the Constitution, badly weakened the economy, made us hated around
the world, and effectively brought to the end of the First American
Republic.
To be sure there will be a consolation
runoff in which we get to decide who we would rather do battle
against for the next four years. This choice of battleground
is not an insignificant matter but neither is it what a democratic
election is supposed to be about. It is more like a cancer patient
choosing between surgery and chemotherapy. We don't have to wait
for Katherine Harris; this election has already been fixed.
How people of democratic inclination
react to this dismal fact will vary considerably. Some will go
forth with the cry of "Anybody But Bush," some will
stay home on election day, others will support Nader or a Green.
There may even be a portion of this constituency that will argue
for Kerry's virtues beyond the gossamer assumption of 'electability'
but this argument --- usually central to any vigorous campaign
--- has so far been strangely muted.
The proponents of each of these positions
will become increasingly insistent as the campaign progresses.
Already the Anybody But Bush crowd has attacked Ralph Nader with
vituperation usually reserved for the extreme right. You can
expect more of such things because the story of the American
left for the past three decades has been one of subdivision,
fragmentation, and splitting into smaller and weaker cells of
action and opinion with, of course, no diminution of certainty
in the righteousness concerning each shard of what was once a
movement.
The left has become somewhat similar
to the three major factions of the Episcopal church: the high
and crazy, the low and lazy, and the broad and hazy. You can
no more define what it means to be a Democrat than it does to
be an Episcopalian. And, as with that church, it is the last
group --- the broad and hazy --- that predominates. These are
people who energize themselves only at election time or during
debates over judicial nominations, just like people who only
go to church on Christmas and Easter.
I am certain that over the next few months
I will be strenuously lectured by persons who have not been involved
in any issue since they started blaming Nader for Gore's defeat
in 2000. If even a fraction of their energy had been devoted
over the past four years to real issues such as national health
care or a fair economy, we might not only have progress but a
better choice at the ballot box.
As for the rest --- those progressives
who do believe in, and act upon, something --- there is little
to be gained by either arguing with the mushy middlers or with
each other. I can't recall the last time I ever observed anyone
win one of these arguments. We are all going to do what we are
going to do, some wisely and some foolishly, and to the extent
that these actions are taken honestly, we should respect them
in the best tradition of ecumenism.
This is not an artifice. For example,
while Ralph Nader may have made the wrong political decision,
it is a sign of the corrupt, cynical nature of our times to look
into the face of moral integrity and dismiss it as an act of
ego.
While it is too much to ask that we not
speak ill of others of our ilk, we can at least aspire to the
order given to his troops by a 19th century general: "Elevate
your guns a little lower."
Once having established a more generous
and forgiving atmosphere on the left, we might then respond to
our choice of chemotherapy or surgery in the manner of many normal
mortals - by declaring that, having made such a difficult decision,
we deserve a treat. And the best present progressives could give
each other would be to find something they agreed about, better
yet five or ten things. In other words, for the first time since
the 1960s, treat themselves to a movement.
The movement could be launched the day
after the election. On November 3 a broad coalition of groups
and individuals could declare itself the real opposition to whoever
ends up in the White House. Even those who work hard for Kerry
could make clear their commitment ends with the closing of the
polls, after which they will be with the November 3 Movement
and the revival of the American republic.
Threre are many who might vote for Kerry
but who would never include themselves among his 'supporters.'
If those preaching so loudly about getting rid of Bush would
quiet down for a minute, they might discover that the best way
to achieve their end might be to hand out airplane barf bags
with the inscription, "Vote for Kerry."
The November 3 Movement would not have
to conflict with any of the election strategies of those on the
left. It could, however, soften some of the anger and some of
the potential damage progressives and liberals might otherwise
do to each other.
Deanies, Kucinichistas, Greeners, Sharptonoids,
and Naderites as well as folks from public interest groups could
meet at the local and state level in the coming months to begin
planning such a movement, thus easing present tension with future
visions. Every state could name a member or two to the national
steering committee as could national progressive and liberal
organizations.
The only ground rule would be that no
one is allowed to argue over election strategy. The morning after
the election a news conference would be held declaring the November
3 Movement the official opposition of the newly elected president.
A national conference would also be announced, at which delegates
would select the issues to guide the movement. This is what should
have happened at the beginning of the Clinton administration,
which is one reason we face someone as bad as Bush today.
Two unusual rules could prevent this
from turning into the sort of internecine blood bath that progressives
seem to love. The first would be that the only issues discussed
would be those about which there was a reasonable opportunity
of agreement. The second would be that agreement would not be
expressed by majority vote but by some form of census.
This is not a fantasy. One of the steps
taken that led to the creation of the national Green Party -
out of state groups and factions that had plenty of differences
with each other - was a national conference attended by 125 members
of over 20 third parties ranging from the socialists and one
of the last members of the American Labor Party to Greens, Libertarians
and members of Perot's Reform party. At the end of the weekend
we had full consensus on 17 issues and a high degree of agreement
on others. Even some of us who had organized the conference were
stunned.
Great movements are not created by arguing
over Roberts Rules of Order, by winning narrow parliamentary
victories by dubious means against natural allies, by publicly
scolding those who don't agree with you, and by excoriating those
whose view of virtue diverges from your own. They are created
by the realization that there is something far greater that we
all dream about and that we can only turn the dream into reality
by compromising, sharing, and talking honestly with others ---
recognizing that that each of us will be more powerful by marching
with others than if we continue to walk alone.
And November 3 is only eight months away.
Sam Smith
is the editor of Progressive
Review.
Weekend
Edition Features for February 28 / 29, 2004
Stephen Green
Serving
Two Flags: Neo-Cons, Israel and the Bush Team
Gary Leupp
Another Senseless Bush Battle: Defining and Protecting Marriage
William A. Cook
Israel:
America's Albatross
Ron Jacobs
Kucinich: Good Fight; Wrong Battlefield
Ben Tripp
A Nosegay of Posies: Queer Weddings at Last!
Leilla Matsui
Dances with Crucifixes
Mike Whitney
Dismantle
the Military Goliath
Yoel Marcus
Down and Out in the Hague
Uri Avnery
The Dancing Bear
Linda S. Heard
Britons and Americans Condemned to a Hobson's Choice
Al Krebs
Unmasking a Secret American Empire: Land, Water & Cotton
Stan Cox
Life (Pat. Pend.): Genetic Commandeering
JG
The Haiti Boomerang: "After The Looting & Pillaging,
Your Hunger Will Remain"
Rick Giombetti
Censorship at the Seattle P-I on Forced Psychiatry
Keith Hoeller
The Bankruptcy of Mental Health Insurance Parity
Dave Zirin
Colorado Football: Buffalo Swill
NADERAMA
Alan Maass
Nader and the Politics of Lesser
Evils
Michael Donnelly
Regime
Rotation: Anybody But Bush...Again?
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Exeunt Serenaders; Enter Nader
Doug Giebel
So Nader's Running? Get Over It
Bruce Jackson
An Open Letter to Naderites
CounterPunch Wire
Stalinists for Kerry! and Other Roars from the Crowd
Poets' Basement
Davies, Scarr, Kearney & Albert
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