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Today's
Stories
March 27 / 28, 2004
Jennifer Loewenstein
A Journey to Rafah
March 26, 2004
Christopher Brauchli
There's
a Chill Over the Country
Robert Fisk
The Man Who Knew Too Much: the Ordeal
of Mordechai Vanunu
Joe DeRaymond
Democracy in El Salvador? Think Again
Mike Whitney
Lessons on Apartheid from Ariel Sharon
Mickey Z.
Somalia and Iraq: Looking Back and Ahead
Chris Floyd
The Pentagon Archipelago
CounterPunch Photo Wire
Cheney's Close Shave?
John Breneman
Bush's Comic Bomb
Website of the Day
Dick
is a Killer
March 25, 2004
Lee Sustar
Who
is to Blame for Lost Jobs?
Standard Schaefer
An
Interview with Michael Hudson on Offshore Banking Centers
Roger Burbach
Lula vs. the IMF: Brazil Begins
to Throw Off the Austerity Planners
Jimmer Endres
Elections Without Politics: The Military Budget Is Not an "Issue"
Larry Tuttle
Acting in Your Name: Identity Theft and Public Interest Groups
Toni Solo
Misreporting Venezuela
Dan Bacher
A Memorial Wall for Iraq War's Dead and Wounded
Saul Landau
Is
Venezuela Next?
Website of the Day
The Spiral Railway
March 24, 2004
Gary Leupp
General
Musharraf's IOU
Richard Oxman
Shakespeare
for Kerry
William Lind
The Beginning
of Phase Three: 4G Warfare Hits Iraq
Rep. Ron Paul
Iraq One Year Later
Michael Dempsey
Killing Rachel Corrie Again
Alan Farago
The Bad Math of Mercury: Bush's War on the Unborn
Benjamin Dangl
and April Howard
Media
in Cuba
John L. Hess
No Lie Left Behind: Judy Miller Does Dick Clarke
Greg Weiher
Two Cheers for Dems: "We're Not as Bad as George"
Eva Golinger
An Open Letter to John Kerry on Venezuela
Grayson Childs
Where's Cynthia McKinney?
Steve Niva
Israel's Assassinations will Only
Fuel More Suicide Bombings
Website of the Day
The Bushiad and the Idiossey
March 23, 2004
Phillip Cryan
The
Drug War's Next Casualty: Colombia's National Parks
Ron Jacobs
They Shoot Men in Wheelchairs, Too?
Dave Lindorff
A Spanish Parallel: Scare Tactics and Elections
Mike Whitney
Richard Clarke and Teflon George
Brian McKinlay
Bush's Lil' Buddy in Trouble: John Howard Starts to Wobble
JG
Driving Mr. Koon: "Jim Crow Lives Next Door"
Phyllis Pollack
Gettin' Jigga with Metallica: the Battle Over the Double Black
CD
Ahmed Bouzid
Sharon's One-Way Track
Sean Carter
The G-Word Goes to Court: One Nation Under [Your Logo Here]
M. Shahid Alam
World's Greatest Country: Do the Facts Lie
March 22, 2004
Mazin Qumsiyeh
On Extrajudicial
Executions
Uri Avnery
The
Assassination of Sheikh Yassin is Worse Than a Crime
Gilad Atzmon
Sharon's Rampage
Mike Whitney
Guilty Until Proven Innocent: the Story of Captain James Yee
Jason Leopold
Firm With Ties to Cheney Faces Criminal Indictment in Cal Energy
Scam
Greg Moses
Stop
Walling and Stalling: a Report from Houston's Peace March
Phil Gasper
San Francisco: 25,000 March for an End to the Occupation
Lenni Brenner
Report
from NYC: Old and Young Parade for Peace
Julian Borger
The Clarke Revelations
Steve Perry
Karl Rove's Moment
Website of the Day
Enviros Against War
March 20 / 21, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Gay
Marriage: Sidestep on Freedom's Path
Jeffrey St. Clair
Intolerable Opinions in an Age of Shock and Awe: What Would Lilburne
Do?
Ted Honderich
Tony Blair's Moral Responsibility for Atrocities
Saul Landau / Farrah Hassen
The Plot Against Syria: an Irresponsibility Act
Gary Leupp
On Viewing "The Passion of the Christ"
William A. Cook
Fence, Barrier, Wall
Phil Gasper
Bush v. Bush-lite: Chomsky's Lesser Evilism
Ron Jacobs
Fox News and the Masters of War
John Stanton
Which Way John Kerry? The Senator's Inner Nixon
Justin Felux
Kerry and Black America: Just Another Stupid White Man
Mike Whitney
Greenspan's Treason: Swindling Posterity
Augustin Velloso
Avoiding Osama's Abyss
Lawrence Magnuson
Eyes Wide Open: Is Spain Caving in to Terrorism?
Kathy Kelly
Getting Together to Defeat Terrorism
Tracy McLellan
Scalia & Cheney: Happiness is a Warm Gun
Kurt Nimmo
Emma Goldman for President!
Luis J. Rodriguez
The Redemptive Power of Art: It's Not a Frill
Mickey Z
The Michael Moore Diet
Jackie Corr
When Harry Truman Stopped in Butte
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
The Great Trial of 1922: Gandhi's Vision of Responsibility
Poets' Basement
Stew Albert & JD Curtis
Website of the Weekend
Virtual World Election
March 19, 2004
Jeffrey St. Clair
Zapatero
to Kerry: Back Off, Senator, Our Troops are Coming Home
Ann Harrison
So
Protesters, How Well Do You Know Your Rights?
William MacDougall
Fortress Britain's War on "Economic Migrants"
Greg Moses
Sold American: Cowboy Nation Gets Ready to Vote
Cynthia McKinney
Haiti and the Impotence of Black America: Roll Back This Coup,
Mr. Bush
Norman Solomon
Spinning the Past; Threatening the Future
John L. Hess
"Missing" Evidence and the NYTs
Vicente Navarro
The
End of Aznar, Bush's Best Friend
Website of the War
Naming the Dead
March 18, 2004
Gila Svirsky
Rachel
Corrie, One Year Later: She Never Lost Faith in Decency
Christopher Brauchli
Drilling a Hole in the Sanctions: How Halliburton Made $73 Million
from Saddam
William Kulin
Report from Iraq: Just Another Baghdad Car Bombing
Mike Whitney
Resistance: a Moral Imperative
Rep. Ron Paul
Broadcast Indecency Act: an Indecent Attack on the First Amendment
Josh Frank
The Nader Question
Jack Random
They Lied & They Lost: Madrid and the Lessons of Democracy
Greg Bates
What Makes a Nader Voter Tick? A Survey
Sam Hamod / Alfredo Reyes
Contempt of the World: Hastert, Bush and Cheney on Spain
Gary Leupp
The
Madrid Bombings: the Chickens Come Home to Roost
Website of the Day
Privatizing Armageddon: Buy Your Own Doomsday Key
March 17, 2004
Marjorie Cohn
Spain, the EU and the US: War on
Terror or Civil Liberties?
David MacMichael
Untruth
and Consequences
Michael Donnelly
Wear the Green, But Skip the Green Beer
Tom Stephens
"Steady Leadership": Let the Buyer Beware
Wayne Madsen
Sen. Kerry, Let Me Help You Out
Karyn Strickler
Who Owns the Sierra Club? Anonymous Donors and Rigged Elections
Peter Linebaugh
Bush:
Blanc Blanc
March 16, 2004
Lenni Brenner
James
Madison: the Anti-Clerical Father of the Bill of Rights
Scott Boehm
Madrid
Diary: How to Change World Order in Four Days
Alexander Lynch
From Franco to Aznar: the History
Behind the Spanish Elections
Sam Hamod and Alfredo
Reyes
The Truth About the Spanish Elections: Aznar Was Going Down Anyway
Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg
You Wouldn't Do a Dog This Way:
Executing David Clayton Hill
Mike Whitney
The Case for a Nuclear Iran
Robert Fisk
The Bloody Price of the "War
on Terror"
Bill Christison
The
Aftershocks from Madrid
CounterPunch Photo Wire
The Passion of St. Teresa
Website of the Day
Join the War on Art!
March 15, 2004
Harry Browne
Terror Nothing New to Europe
Mike Whitney
Justice
Not Murder: the Tragic Symmetry of Terrorism
Lidice Valenzuela
Haiti: a Coup without Consultation
Greg Moses
Lessons
from the Texas Primaries: Looking for a Coalition with Legs
Mickey Z.
Depraved Indifference: C-Sections, Patriarchy & Women's Health
Asaf Shtull-Trauring
AWOL
in New York: From Refusenik to Organizer
CounterPunch Wire
Gen. Gramajo Executed by Bees!
March 12 / 14, 2004
Gabriel Kolko
The
Coming Elections and the Future of American Global Power
Saul Landau
Oh, Jesus...It's the Movie!
William Blum
Neo-Con(tradictions)
William S. Lind
Why They Throw Rocks
Rahul Mahajan
The Meaning of Madrid: War on "Terrorism" Makes Us
All Less Safe
Neve Gordon
Demographic Wars
Kurt Nimmo
Kerry and the Progressive Interventionists
Mickey Z.
The "New" UN Blames the Poor
Mike Whitney
War Games: the American Media Leads the Charge
Helen Scott and Ashley
Smith
Aristide's Fall: What Led to the Coup?
Justin E.H. Smith
Loïc Wacquant: Against a Sociodicy
of the American Prison
Brandy Baker
Him Again? Al Gore Needs to Move On
Robin Philpot
Nobody Can Call It a "Plane Crash" Now: the Report
on the Assassination of Rwandan President Habyarimana
Mokhiber / Weissman
The Meat Monopoly Takes a Rare Pounding
Dave Zirin
She Turned Her Back on the War: an Interview with Toni Smith
Daniel Wolff
The Lord's Pier
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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Weekend
Edition
March 27 / 28, 2004
Marxists for Kerry
Stop
Bush; Move Forward
By JOEL WENDLAND
"When will it end?" asks my
long-time friend and Nader supporter Tom --. "When will
the cycle of supporting the lesser evil Democrat against the
vicious, corrupt Republicans end in our liberation from the two-party
trap?" I'm not in the business of predicting the future
much so I shrug. I support the lesser of two evils philosophy
and will vote for Kerry and will encourage others to do likewise;
even more so, I will campaign for his election on November 2.
This has been a source of deep-rooted
contention and near bare-knuckle brawling between Tom and I for
several years now.
"I know that our immediate interest
lies in making sure a sexist, homophobic, racist anti-union,
war monger isn't allowed to keep office," I chime in.
"And Kerry's better?"
"Yes. I think he is more open to
popular influence."
"But he voted for war, for the PATRIOT
Act, for No Child Left Behind."
Just as the argument seemed to have crested
and our tones were on the verge of returning to civility, it
began again.
So I put down my mug of black coffee,
put four dollars on the diner counter, picked up my jacket and
bid Tom a good evening.
This is how it goes every four years.
When will this vicious cycle end?
Of course I know Tom is correct on many
points. Kerry is a representative of the capitalist class and
shares many of their interests. He has voted incorrectly many
times. Even the "cycle" argument rings logical. If
we refuse to threaten to leave the Democratic voter base, why
should they ever move their politics to the left?
Kerry's campaign has gotten off to a
weak start, and he has taken centrist positions and has even
mimicked some right-wing positions such has his unnecessarily
firm rejection of extending an olive branch to President Hugo
Chavez of Venezuela.
Yet, polls show Nader capturing enough
votes from his presumed constituency to cost Kerry the election.
Will this push him to the left? Did Nader's candidacy in 2000
(then with the support of an actual national political party)
push Gore to the left? That's up for debate.
Pro-third candidate activists say, "We
don't care what he does, or how many votes don't go his way.
We're trying to win the election for Nader." Of course most
of their talk is bluster as no one - even they, if they spoke
candidly - would lay money on Nader getting more than two or
three percent of the vote, let alone winning.
Still others on the pro-third candidate
side claim to be building a movement. A laudable ideal, but will
such a movement have credibility if it ignores the remaining
millions of voters or even worse uses the rhetoric of insult
to attack voters who are "duped" by the Democratic
machine or who aren't bright enough to see the truth as they
do?
But overall, these two camps have to
confess the role they play is as the protest vote. That ultimately
they are attempting to influence the direction of politics by
pressuring the Democratic Party to see things their way.
Of course there are the relatively small
handful of socialist sectarians who attack the "lesser evilism,"
as they call it, of others while endorsing the lesser "lesser
evilism" of the anti-Marxist, questionable working-class
politics of the liberal Nader. Others of this stripe advocate
boycotting the election, the complete abstention from participation
in this crucial element of class struggle.
Taken alone, out of the context of our
times, these arguments make a lot of sense. This is why a lot
of well-meaning and very principled people, like my friend Tom,
buy into them.
Eventually, it may make sense to buy
into these arguments in one fashion or another.
But Kerry and Bush aren't the same.
After using racist tactics to steal the
vote in Florida in 2000, Bush has a proven record of planning
and carrying out two wars of aggression for oil, for imperial
power. Tens of thousands have been killed. He has planned and
carried out two anti-democratic coups in the Western Hemisphere,
one of which was successfully implemented by right-wing thugs
funded by the Republican Party. The other thwarted by a massive
uprising of hundreds of thousands. This administration pressured
the Philippines government to suspend its Constitutional provisions
against foreign occupation. Bush has supported to the hilt the
assassination policy of the Sharon government in its dismantling
of the peace process between Palestine and Israel. In Colombia,
Bush supports with tax dollars an anti-union regime that has
terrorized workers who seek to organize to improve their way
of life. Everywhere, the Bush administration has threatened,
cajoled, and pressured governments to toe its line with military
and economic force.
In the U.S., Bush has worked overtime
to strip workers of their rights. He has gutted environmental
protections. He has appointed right-wing Christian fundamentalist
ideologues to federal courts promising to erode the boundary
between church and state, to undermine and ultimately withdraw
a woman's right to choose to be pregnant, and to heavily shift
the balance of power to large corporations in numerous areas
of civil justice from bankruptcy law to monopoly and the right
to sue. On an unprecedented scale, Bush has redistributed hundreds
of billions of dollars to the wealthy and shifted the already
unjust tax burden more heavily on to the backs of working people.
Even further, his policy of cutting taxes on capital and inherited
property intensifies this disparity, especially for people of
color who disproportionately more than whites earn their incomes
through wages rather than capital or property. He plans to use
billions of tax dollars to fund targeted religious fundamentalist
groups to cultivate a far-right religious base for future Republican
candidates.
This administration has driven racist,
sexist, and homophobic wedges into the working class. He has
steadfastly opposed affirmative action, has targeted schools
in predominantly Black and Latino districts for "reform,"
and has shown an utter lack of concern for the issues - domestic
and international - that people of color have repeatedly asked,
urged, or demanded that he address. His immigration policy is
a restoration of the old bracero programs of the early 20th century
that turns immigrant workers into virtual serfs to their employers
and uses the threat of deportation to keep low wages and deplorable
working conditions. He has refused to address disparities in
hiring, promotion, and unequal wage practices for women. His
view is that the government isn't in the business of providing
even a meager means of lifting people out of poverty with subsidy
programs for education or training.
Lately he has even refused to extend
unemployment benefits for about 400,000 laid off workers. His
philosophy is that people in these situations have to fend for
themselves. Meanwhile his economic policies have targeted sectors
of the economy that are heavily populated by union workers. Hundreds
of thousands of union workers, not accidentally, have lost work
since Bush took office. His Medicare bill has threatened to make
access to prescription drugs and other services much more expensive
for the majority of American seniors. His rule on overtime will
cut deeply into much needed earnings of as many as 8 million
workers. The Bush administration's proposed budget for 2005 could
cut a quarter-million families out of the federal Section 8 subsidized-housing
program. Cuts he implemented to veterans healthcare programs
prevented about 160,000 veterans from obtaining services they
had been promised.
But this is the short list of the Bush
administration's record. It isn't a secret either. He is proud
of it.
So why should we reward him with another
four years under the cover that Kerry will be the same? We should
send a message to Bush - and to Kerry - that we won't tolerate
this kind of record. It isn't enough to defeat Bush on November
2. Pro-third candidates are correct. We have to delegitmize and
isolate Bushism. But we do have to start by ending the Bush administration.
Joel Wendland
is Managing Editor Political Affairs A Marxist Monthly check
us out at: http://www.politicalaffairs.net
Weekend
Edition Features for March 20 / 21, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Gay
Marriage: Sidestep on Freedom's Path
Jeffrey St. Clair
Intolerable Opinions in an Age of Shock and Awe: What Would Lilburne
Do?
Ted Honderich
Tony Blair's Moral Responsibility for Atrocities
Saul Landau / Farrah Hassen
The Plot Against Syria: an Irresponsibility Act
Gary Leupp
On Viewing "The Passion of the Christ"
William A. Cook
Fence, Barrier, Wall
Phil Gasper
Bush v. Bush-lite: Chomsky's Lesser Evilism
Ron Jacobs
Fox News and the Masters of War
John Stanton
Which Way John Kerry? The Senator's Inner Nixon
Justin Felux
Kerry and Black America: Just Another Stupid White Man
Mike Whitney
Greenspan's Treason: Swindling Posterity
Augustin Velloso
Avoiding Osama's Abyss
Lawrence Magnuson
Eyes Wide Open: Is Spain Caving in to Terrorism?
Kathy Kelly
Getting Together to Defeat Terrorism
Tracy McLellan
Scalia & Cheney: Happiness is a Warm Gun
Kurt Nimmo
Emma Goldman for President!
Luis J. Rodriguez
The Redemptive Power of Art: It's Not a Frill
Mickey Z
The Michael Moore Diet
Jackie Corr
When Harry Truman Stopped in Butte
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
The Great Trial of 1922: Gandhi's Vision of Responsibility
Poets' Basement
Stew Albert & JD Curtis
Website of the Weekend
Virtual World Election
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