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Today's
Stories
March 12 / 14, 2004
Gabriel Kolko
The Coming Elections and the Future
of American Global Power
March 11, 2004
Ron Jacobs
Bedtime
for Democracy
Bill Kauffman
Hey,
Ralph! Why Not Another Party of the People?
James Hollander
Slaughter
in Madrid: Consolidating an Ally?
Norman Solomon
They
Shoot Journalists, Don't They?
Patrick Gavin
The Salvation of Dan Quayle: Family Values Return
Becky Burgwin
You're
Messing with the Wrong Generation
John Sugg
The FBI is on My Trail
March 10, 2004
Hammond Guthrie
Read
This Book!: "Who the Hell is Stew Albert?"
Chris Floyd
Operation Enduring Sweatshop: Another
Bush Brings Hell to Haiti
Elizabeth Corrie
Remembering the Death of Rachel Corrie
Mike Whitney
US Press Torpedoes Aristide
M. Junaid Alam
An Anti-Civilizational War?
Bob Feldman
The Occupation of Haiti: Recalling 1915-1934
John L. Hess
An Overload of Crises
Gary Leupp
On Abu
Musab al-Zarqawi and the Uses of al-Qaeda "Links"
March 9, 2004
Greg Weiher
The
Zarqawi Gambit, Part 2
Ben Tripp
Word Up! Let's Have a Conversation
Tom Barry
Neo-Cons Target Syria
Sharon Smith
The Hypocrites in the Catholic Church
Robert Fisk
The Same Old Iraq
Doug Giebel
The Bush Strategy: Laughing All the Way
Ralph Nader
Pension Rights, the Trail of Broken Promises
Daniel Estulin
In Memory of Ricardo Ortega: a Great Journalist, Killed in Haiti
Dave Lindorff
Martha Stewart's Cloudy Day
Saul Landau
Will the Filthy Rich Dump Bush?
Website of the Day
Imperial Armies in the Garden
March 8, 2004
Amy Goodman
An
Interview with Aristide
Eric Ruder
An Interview
with Robert Fatton on the Coup in Haiti
Robert Jensen
The Presidential Library Terrorist
Connection
Mike Whitney
Expel the US from the Security Council
Jason Leopold
How Cheney Helped Cover Up Pakistan's
Nuclear Proliferation
Mazin Qumsiyeh
Why is Apartheid Touted as a Solution?
Kevin Alexander Gray
The Legacy of Strom Thurmond
Derek Seidman
Radical Continuity: an Interview with Paul Buhle
Steve Perry
Kerry Fiddles While He Could be Burning Bush
Website of the Day
Patriot
Act Game
March 6 / 7, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Understanding the World with
Paul Sweezy
Robert Pollin
Remembering Paul Sweezy
Jeffrey St. Clair
The Politics of Timber Theft
Tom Reeves
Bush's Mass Deportations: 63,000 and Counting
Charles Lewis
Who Mugged Howard Dean in Iowa:
Kerry, Torricelli and a Mysterious Frontgroup
Tom Jackson
My Breakfast with Sen. Judd Gregg
Kurt Nimmo
Is Venezuela Next?
Alan Cisco
A Report from Caracas
Jack Random
Haitian Democracy be Damned
Colin Piquette
Oh, Canada: the Coup Coalition
Lee Sustar
Labor's State of Emergency
William D. Hartung
Iraq and the Costs of War
David Sally
Rebuilding
Amérique
Mark Scaramella
When God Mooned Moses: Test Your Bible Knowledge
Mickey Z.
What We Can Learn from Ashcroft's Gallbladder
Ron Jacobs
Politics and Baseball
Dave Zirin
The Longest Jump: the Blackballing of Phil Shinnick
Poets' Basement
John Holt and Larry Kearney
Website of the Weekend
National Day of Action for Rachel Corrie
March 5, 2004
Chris Floyd
Uncle
Sugar: How the WMD Scam Put Money in Bush Family Pockets
Ron Jacobs
Chaos
Reigns: Haiti and Iraq
Lisa Viscidi
Guatemalan
Refugees: a Difficult Return
Yves Engler
Canada and the Coup in Haiti
Mike Legro
Those Bush Ads: Some Dead Bodies Are Worth More Than Others
Javier Armas
A Night of Inspiration: Oakland Benefit for Grocery Workers Strike
Bennett Hoffman
"Who Cares About Haiti, Anyway?"
Bill Christison
Faltering Neo-Cons Still Dangerous
Website of the Day
Haiti Support Group
March 4, 2004
Diane Christian
Sex
and Ideals
Sen. Robert Byrd
Stop the Stonewalling, Mr. President: Fairy Tales, Bush and the
9/11 Commission
Norman Solomon
Assuming the Right to Intervene: The US Press and Haiti
Jack Brown
A Fragrant Saga of Mexico's Greens
Hal Cranmer
The
John Kerry Experience
David Lindorff
Greenspan's Pension
Sam Smith
The Election is Over, We Lost
Christopher Brauchli
Goin'
to the Chapel: The Gay and the Dead
Brian D. Barry
The "Perfect" World of E-Voting: A Computer Scientist
Reports from the Polling Booth
Richard Oxman
Arsonists for Haiti?
Peter Phillips
Haitian
Fantasies: Mainstream Media Fails Itself, Again
Tariq Ali
Notes on Anti-Semitism, Zionism and
Palestine
Website of the Day
What If Boeing Ads Told the Truth?
March 3, 2004
Heather Williams / Karl
Laraque
Marines
Retake Haiti
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
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 12 / 14, 2004
Tweedle Dee, Tweedle
Dem
Kerry
and the Progressive Internationalists
By KURT NIMMO
Come November, America will have two unpalatable
choices: either Tweedle Bush or Tweedle Kerry. Given such, nothing
of substance will change. Oh, those of us who cringe at the sight
of neocons may be momentarily relieved to see the "creative
destructionists" pack their bags and leave the Pentagon,
the State Department, and the White House, head out for their
radical right-wing foundations and conspiracy tanks, but it will
be, all told, little more than a shuffling of deck chairs and
a change of stationary.
The Tweedle Democrats are a bit more
liberal when it comes to social policy, but in the realm of foreign
policy they are almost identical to the Tweedle Republicans.
The style is different, but the cloth is cut from the same bolt.
Recall Clinton's bombing of Yugoslavia, his raids on Iraq, his
vindictive destruction of the al-Shifa pharmaceutical plant in
Khartoum. Recall as well Clinton's NATO commander, Wesley Clark,
almost starting a war with Russia in Kosovo.
In essence, the only difference between
the Clinton and Bush neoliberal agenda is the difference between
multilateralism and unilateralism. Bush is the lone cowboy, while
Clinton wanted the United Nations and Europe on the neoliberal
bandwagon. For more on the lack of difference between Kerry and
Bush, read John Pilger's recent article: Bush or Kerry? No Difference.
"Let them have the election without
us," writes Kathy Fisher. "The media whores and special
interest groups and Corporate arm-twisters can vote for the brownnose
of their choice. After all, they're the only people the politicians
work for. The rest of us should boycott this fake-phony-fraud
of an election." The only difference
between Bush and Kerry, as Mike Whitney sees it, "is the
difference between driving off a cliff on a bike or in a limo.
The flight pattern might be different, but the results are guaranteed
to be the same."
The idiot Tweedle Democrats bemoan Ralph
Nader the Spoiler. Instead of criticizing the Tweedle Republicans
for stealing the election in 2000, these Democrats point to Nader's
insignificant 3% of the vote. Even so, exit polls in 2000 showed
that Nader took his votes in equal measure from Bush and Gore.
Once an idiot Tweedle Democrat, always
an idiot Tweedle Democrat.
If the Democrats sincerely wanted the
progressive vote, they would endeavor to change their party from
a pale mirror image of what the Republicans offer and rediscover
their progressive roots. As it now stands, the vast majority
of Tweed Dems have absolutely nothing in common with Ralph Nader
or, for that matter, Dennis Kucinich, who was completely marginalized
and ignored by the "media whores" mentioned by Fisher.
In fact, as underscored by Pilger, the
Tweedle Democrats have a more consistent record of butchery than
the Tweedle Republicans. "Like the Blairites, John Kerry
and his fellow New Democrats come from a tradition of liberalism
that has built and defended empires as 'moral' enterprises. That
the Democratic Party has left a longer trail of blood, theft
and subjugation than the Republicans is heresy to the liberal
crusaders, whose murderous history always requires, it seems,
a noble mantle."
"The leading mouthpiece for the
New Democrats' radical interventionist program could be our next
president," notes Mark Hand. "John Kerry, the frontrunner
in the quest for the Democratic Party presidential nomination,
has been promoting a foreign policy perspective called 'progressive
internationalism.' It's a concept concocted by establishment
Democrats seeking to convince potential backers in the corporate
and political world that, if installed in the White House, they
would preserve U.S. power and influence around the world, but
in a kinder, gentler fashion than the current administration."
Of course, this "kinder, gentler
fashion" translates into mass murder, and the end result
is identical to the less kind and more brutal Bushites -- dead
Iraqis, Afghans, Haitians, Colombians, Nigerians, and countless
others. It's still empire, if an empire tumble dried with fabric
softener for public consumption.
Kerry likes to pose as a liberal populist.
But even the nutcakes on the radical right know this is fakery.
Fred Barnes, executive editor of the Weekly Standard, the neocon
house organ bankrolled by Fox's Rupert Murdoch, says Kerry's
fake populism works on Tweedle Democrat consultants and the party
faithful, but it falls flat as a pancake on everybody else.
"In Boston, Kerry has a home on
fancy Beacon Hill," writes Barnes. "In Washington,
he lives on an estate near Rock Creek Park and belongs to the
Democratic establishment... As a senator for 19 years, he's advocated
mainstream liberalism, not the left-wing populism of fringe figures
like Ralph Nader and Jim Hightower. So it's easy to conclude
Kerry's populism doesn't reflect the essence of the man. It's
a pose."
Barnes forgot to mention Kerry is also
a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, not exactly a flaming
liberal bastion, but more of a New World Order fraternity. Like
his rival, Bush, Kerry is a Bonesman. And although Barnes would
never admit it in a month of Sundays, so-called "mainstream
liberalism" is not a radical departure from what Republicans
espouse, at least on foreign policy issues, thanks mostly to
the New Democrat William Jefferson Clinton and his pet project,
the Democratic Leadership Council.
Oh, and then there's the nearly $640,000
Kerry the anti-corporate populist received from lobbyists. Many
of these corporate lobbyists represented telecommunications and
financial companies with business before his committee -- the
Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee -- according
to Federal Election Commission data compiled by the nonpartisan
Center for Responsive Politics. "Here is a man who wants
to appeal to public distrust of insider politics, yet he is the
ultimate insider," Mark Rozell, chairman of the Department
of Politics at Catholic University in Washington, told the Detroit
Free Press. "It is a stretch to say that he has no connection
to insider Washington and that he is untainted by politics and
lobbying."
"Senator Kerry has taken individual
contributions from lobbyists, but that has not stopped him from
fighting against special interests on behalf of average Americans,"
Kerry spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter told the Washington Post,
obviously taking most of us for morons. "If anyone thinks
a contribution can buy Kerry's vote, then they are wasting their
money."
Say what?
Excuse me, Ms. Cutter, such patently
absurd nonsense may work on your average and pathetically desperate
"anybody but Bush" Tweedle Democrat, but for those
of us with frontal lobes intact it ain't gonna wash. Corporations
buy votes, they don't throw money after politicians because they
like the hors d'oeuvres at their fundraisers or the cut of their
chic Cristophe salon coiffures.
So, for all the idiot Tweedle progressive
internationalist Democrats out there: come November, when you
vote for Kerry, you will be voting for mass murder and flagrant
violation of international law. Like the Good Germans of Nazi
Germany, you will be guilty of supporting crimes against humanity.
Let's hear no whining on the day you are held accountable. Don't
blame it on Bush. Remember John Kerry voted to invade Iraq, as
did the vast majority of the Tweedle Democrats in Congress.
He also voted for the Patriot Act. "It
reflects," he boasted on the Senate floor, "an enormous
amount of hard work by the members of the Senate Banking Committee
and the Senate Judiciary Committee. I congratulate them and thank
them for that work." Hard work? As I recall, nobody even
read it, they simply gave it a thumbs up because they were afraid
of Bush calling them no-good unpatriotic pantywaists.
Finally, Kerry voted for NAFTA, so no
commiserating over your lost job. Get over it. McDonalds is hiring
and those jobs are now considered manufacturing.
Kurt Nimmo
is a photographer and multimedia developer in Las Cruces, New
Mexico. Visit his excellent no holds barred blog at www.kurtnimmo.com/blogger.html
. Nimmo is a contributor to Cockburn and St. Clair's,
The
Politics of Anti-Semitism. A collection of his essays
for CounterPunch, Another
Day in the Empire, is now available from Dandelion Books.
He can be reached at: nimmo@zianet.com
Weekend
Edition Features for March 6 / 7, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Understanding the World with
Paul Sweezy
Robert Pollin
Remembering Paul Sweezy
Jeffrey St. Clair
The Politics of Timber Theft
Tom Reeves
Bush's Mass Deportations: 63,000 and Counting
Charles Lewis
Who Mugged Howard Dean in Iowa:
Kerry, Torricelli and a Mysterious Frontgroup
Tom Jackson
My Breakfast with Sen. Judd Gregg
Kurt Nimmo
Is Venezuela Next?
Alan Cisco
A Report from Caracas
Jack Random
Haitian Democracy be Damned
Colin Piquette
Oh, Canada: the Coup Coalition
Lee Sustar
Labor's State of Emergency
William D. Hartung
Iraq and the Costs of War
David Sally
Rebuilding
Amérique
Mark Scaramella
When God Mooned Moses: Test Your Bible Knowledge
Mickey Z.
What We Can Learn from Ashcroft's Gallbladder
Ron Jacobs
Politics and Baseball
Dave Zirin
The Longest Jump: the Blackballing of Phil Shinnick
Poets' Basement
John Holt and Larry Kearney
Website of the Weekend
National Day of Action for Rachel Corrie
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