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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
A Letter from Blue Ridge Bush Country
Howling
in the Belly of the Confederacy
By JOE BAGEANT
Bluebird, bluebird
Take a letter up north for me
These folks is fixin to hurt somebody
And it sure'nuff might be me.
--From "Bluebird," a traditional
blues song
How can the region of America that gave us lynching,
Jim Crow, Harry Byrd, George Wallace, Taliban Christianity, David
Duke, the KKK, Bible hair, Tammy Fay Bakker, congregational snake
handling, the poll tax, inbreeding, and chitterlings possibly
take another step back down the stairs of human evolution? Beats
the hell out of me. But somehow here in the Shenandoah Valley
of Virginia we have managed it.
Like most modern Southerners who've fled
their native states for long periods of time, I have the standard
love/hate relationship with my home town--Winchester, Virginia.
On one hand, it is a backward and mostly irrelevant place where
the question of whether Stonewall Jackson had jock itch at the
Battle of Chancellorsville still rages right alongside evolution
and abortion. To be sure, it is the standard venal Southern place,
where poverty and ugliness are thrust into one's face daily,
with all the gothic family melodramas of greed and intrigue so
often written about Southern novels. On the other hand, it is
the place that made me who I am, a moralizing, preachy and essentially
lazy bastard who likes to drink. I was raised a Pentecostal Baptist,
steeped in the gloomy ultra-Protestant assumption that man is
a worthless, evil thing from birth and only goes downhill from
there. And I still managed to become a raving, socialist heathen.
Which proves there's hope for everyone.
But something new and more ominous is
afoot down here. Something that scares even a hardened tobacco-stained
old toad like me--a clammy, repressive chill. One that not only
dampens all political conversation not Pro-Bush, but can even
cost you your job in a small town like this one. I'm serious.
When I invite likeminded people for cocktails, the atmosphere
is distinctly that of a "safehouse," as the few local
liberals all but whisper their opinions and eye one another,
judging just how safe it is to speak one's mind. It's spooky,
so spooky almost none of us is willing to admit it.
I can remember back in the 1960s when
we still had a left, right and center in politics, even here
in Virginia. Gawd I feel old. Remembering liberalism here is
like being able to remember scrap paper drives and ration tickets
during World War II. It feels so long ago. Anyway, contrary to
neocon revisionist history, neither left, right or center was
particularly seen as some sort of evil booger. The left may not
have been popular, but it wasn't particularly demonized either.
My kids do not believe me when I tell them that even during the
Vietnam War protests America was not so dangerously polarized
as now, because there was only one issue at hand--the war. Now
nearly everything is at issue. Whatever the case, today in the
Shenandoah we have only a right and a far right, with some very
limp moderates that pass for a left.
OK, so we do have a few liberals here--mostly
transplants and retirees from "up North," old ones
whose fires have long since dimmed. They come here for the cheap
historic homes and easy retirement in a low tax state where you
can still get domestic "help" four times a month, four
hours a crack, to clean your house for less than 180 bucks. Bear
in mind, however, that we set a pretty low bar for liberalism
around here. If you don't say nigger out loud, have ever voted
for a Democrat, and can spell latte, you qualify as a gold plated
liberal. Unfortunately, even the miniscule new generation of
Southern "liberals" cannot imagine speaking up on anything,
muchless taking to the streets in 1960s fashion. Hell, Southern
liberals didn't even do it back then. But these younger Virginia
liberals see members of their generation who demonstrated at
the WTO talks over in D.C. as dog strangling homo kooks. For
the most part, their generation of Virginians has been reduced
to being either brown shirts or light brown shirts. And when
they see a green shirt, well... you gotta be queer to like green
at all.
Ask practically any Winchester native.
They'll tell you like it is. And it's like this: "Everyone
is America's enemy these days because we Americans have the guts
to stand up for what is right." That is the neocon party
line down here, and it is served up with lots of patriot sauce
and fear. Even the Europeans are now our enemies. We must become
super-militarized because we have the greatest life style in
the world and everyone else is jealous of our personal weaponry,
our lack of health insurance and our sheer obesity. Americans
love to believe that their gut level but uninformed opinions
are some sort of unvarnished foundational political truths. Nowhere
is this more true than here in the Valley, where the "Screw
a bunch of pointy headed multi-cultural "librul types"
is scriptural, and there is a special place in hell for those
operating on the reckless assumption that some people are wiser
than others and that their opinion just might be worth listening
to. "Europeans are gutless. The U.N. is helpless,"
goeth the litany, "And it is up to us to run the world."
If I've heard this once, I've heard it a dozen times. Five dozen
times. The real question here is whether being down-in-the-dirt
ignorant makes you a bad person. It's the never ending conundrum
of the South. The jury has been out on that one for 200 years.
Longer than that in our town, which even
George Washington called one of the most ignorant, mean spirited
and predatory places in all the colonies. Later however, Washington
rolled out the barrels of rum on main street and the same mean
spirited lot who had been preying on his soldiers elected him
to the Virginia House of Burgesses.
Since then, predation has been institutionalized.
Down at city hall rich slumlords, which own 56% of Winchester,
roam like grazing animals, picking up properties from the elderly
widow or the bankrupt redneck who lost his job at the styrofoam
peanut factory for mentioning the word union. We are an anti-union
state, therefore we earn only three-quarters of the national
average and can be fired tomorrow if we even fart wrong. Local
companies maintain a pro-union blacklist. Our city and county
governments consists mostly of car dealers who put their homely
daughters in TV commercials, and millionaire real estate hotwires
and landlords setting up fixes and business connections within
the city government.
All this while our girthsome, ill-educated
polity hoots, cheers and guffaws at a Fox network made-for-the
masses political movie called "America, the Baddest Dog
on the Block," as the power elite pick every pocket in the
audience through regressive taxes, stopping only to loot the
local treasury on their way out the back door to that money insulated
estate they bought for a song. They are safe from prosecution
because their crimes were codified into law down here during
and after the reconstruction era. It's the newest "New South"
ladies and gentlemen, much like the old one, but with three more
layers of lawyers and realtors. Free market capitalism, Dixie
fried. Now from your vantage point up north or out west, you
might well observe that we are getting exactly the government
and society we deserve. But then, if we Southerners long ago
got the government we deserve, the rest of America is now getting
a dose of the same beefed up predatory Darwinism. Contrary to
all logic, it is the blue collar NAASCAR dads, the ones who get
screwed at every turn on the track, who are the staunchest defenders
of this feudal system; They are also the most rabid fans of our
current national belligerence toward the rest of the world. Said
belligerence is particularly manifest in the Virginian's love
of personal firearms. Deeply insecure because it seems we can
control nothing these days, kids, job security, health care,
retirement, the goddam goat roasting Mexican neighbors... Personal
weaponry makes us feel at least a little more potent and able
to defend against who knows what. "Long as I got my gun..."
Meanwhile, the very same polical/corporate
syndicate that screws NAASCAR daddy blue is also gouging him
bloody for healthcare. Which is a big deal here because we are
a very unhealthy people. (Ugly too, but that doesn't count.)
Our huge new regional medical center is by far the largest cause
of local bankruptcies. So finally, when the local Styrofoam peanut
factory--the one that makes our cancer risk over 100 times the
national average--says the hell with it and cuts workers, NAASCAR
loses his house and the slumlord is right there at the sale.
At least he managed to save the Dale Earnhardt Number 3 commemorative
beer cooler and a couple of other family heirlooms.
When a local plant moves kit and kaboodle
to Asia, its marginal white male employee, like a tireless but
not very smart gun dog, freezes on point and barks "Asians!
The sumnabitches stole our jobs!" But lest even a slow dog
catch on to a bad point, the Republican politicos wave him toward
Iraq: "Over there! A swarthy bad guy called Saddam done
hauled off and killed all them New Yorkers!" Git 'um boys!"
HYYYYYEEEEEE! The rebel yell goes up down at down at Bo's Belly
Barn-honest to god, it's a real place--and the marginal white
males again turn dogs of war. They didn't do all that paintball
practice in the woods for nothing.
Down here, the military is second in
reverence only to Christian fundamentalism; War is an honor bound
duty. In fact, the military is hardwired in with the fundamentalist
Christain madrasses up and down the Shenandoah Valley cranking
out 18-year-old Rambos for Jesus on a production line. These
are the ones presently rotating into Iraq, who will return to
get their community college certificates in law enforcement (maybe).
Those like my nephews, one of whom keeps his .357 Glock in the
nightstand and the Bible on the nightstand with the personal
weapons permit for the Glock inside the Bible. To him, I'm sure
there is a fundamental Christian symmetry in this. Just as there
is to my other nephew who just completed, along with his wife
yet, study of criminology and the Bible at Bob Jones University.
Like their parents, they know what has gone wrong in America,
who is responsible and how to correct the situation. Just ask
yourself: Who would Jesus kill? Muslims are always hollerin'
to meet Allah, and they're more than happy to provide.45 caliber
cab fare to heaven. Imagine their Christian faces when they get
to heaven and find out the Muslim's next door got all the virgins.
Conversely, there are plenty of radical Muslims more than happy
to help them enjoy the Rapture. Fundamentalists on both sides
are apocalyptic, both pack a lot of heat.
They've got the heat. They've got the
meat, they've got the motion. And they are going to, as one radio
preacher down here says, "Put god back into the constitution."
All Virginia's neocons lack is a truly inspired and brilliant
leader. Thankfully, they elected a gibbon to the White House,
because there is nearly enough politically in place down here
to create a scenario such as we have not seen since 1936 Germany.
Like I tell the ole boys down at the Royal Lunch Tavern: "Try
not to be too impressed by the purty brown shirts when they hand
them out. You ain't seen the price tag yet."
OK then, how to survive all this? Well,
it helps to have been born here. So does age. And at my age,
having seen many elections and as many wars, I no longer bother
to entertain opposing views. Screw Southern politeness, most
of which is just avoidance anyway. I rant my commie screed. No
problemo. I don't work in this town. Nor do I go to church, at
least not frequently enough to be recognized. I have a full bar
in my home, and my memory is still good. Good enough to summon
up memories of old lovers and sun struck days of an LSD besotted
hippie youth, when the very earth murmured its love for my sheer
existence, for everyone's really. And I would have you know that
the lone brain cell I have been operating on since 1965 is still
working just fine, thank you. It's one helluva BIG cell. Doctors
tell me it's a double-yolker, weighs about two pounds and responds
primarily these days to red meat, gin and sex, even the internet
kind. I couldn't be happier with the situation.
Nevertheless, I'm here to tell you this:
You goddam Yankee liberals, gays and other malignant types had
better get out and vote. Every last one of you. Otherwise, there's
no telling what all this beer, guns and inbreeding might lead
to.
I'm done ranting. You can go now. And
while you are up, fetch me my gin.
Joe Bageant
is a senior editor at Primedia History Magazine Group who has
trained his dog to drink and to bark when "Law and Order"
comes on TV. He can be reached at: bageant@counterpunch.org.
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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