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Today's
Stories
February 26, 2004
Virginia Tilly
The Deeper Meaning of the Wall
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
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February
26, 2004
Rocking Politics
The
Music World Explodes in Anger
By SHADI HAMID
Music and politics ? They just don't mix, the
critics say.
David Segal, the Washington Post pop
music critic, summed up the conventional wisdom when he said
that the "history of rock and politics could be summarized
in an hour or two, because pop stars--or their handlers--are
typically smart enough to stick to their strengths, namely selling
music and piercing their extremities. Many performers are simply
apolitical or indifferent, and the few who dare to approach the
podium tend to tiptoe." Unfortunately for Segal, but fortunately
for us, this statement is simply wrong. It may have made sense
to say that three years ago. But, things have changed.
We live in a world of chaos and confusion.
The threat of terrorism, however vague, remains very real. America
has decided to become an imperial power. Bush, Ashcroft, and
the Department of Justice have decided to attack the constitution,
waging war on the liberties and freedoms that so many of us hold
dear. Not to mention that we have an exploding deficit and 40
million Americans without insurance. It would be tough for artists
to stay quiet in such a destructive atmosphere. And, indeed,
a wide array of musicians have taken on political causes, including
that most celebrated (and worthy) cause of all--unseating Dubya
in 2004.
This is a time of strangeness. But it
is a strangeness to be embraced. Shakira seems like a ditz but
apparently she has a side job as a budding foreign policy analyst:
"New leaders have to emerge, leaders who talk about love.
Like Ghandi and Martin Luther King, Jr. Where are they? The thinkers,
the journalists, the artists of this generation are the ones
who determine the thoughts of a generation, and we have to pronounce
those thoughts so people wake up, so we prevent future disasters."
Not bad. Shakira also came up with this little quotable gem:
"The leaders are lacking love, and love is lacking leaders."
Sounds like a mixture of Kennedy and a 7th grade student. Nevertheless,
it sounds almost original and I'll give her props for saying
something even remotely meaningful.
Yes, it all seems somehow surreal. We
live in a time where Bono gets shortlisted for Nobel Peace Prizes
for fighting third world debt. Even Jay-Z, who usually prefers
to sing about copulating with hot girls, is getting in on the
action--but this time the political kind. "We have a voice
and a responsibility to speak out," Jay-Z declares. Not
exactly a rousing call-to-arms but it's still rather impressive
coming from one of most popular rappers in hip-hop history.
Dave Matthews is a good songwriter and
performer but did I expect him to rail and ravage Bush in his
recent Rolling Stone cover story/interview ? "I'd drink
with George W. just to get him out of the White House,"
says Dave. Sounds like a plan, I guess. But he doesn't stop there:
"I am way more American than George Bush and Dick Cheney.
They have no fucking idea what it is to be American. They are
fucking idiots who are programmed to everything in the hands
of the few."
In the midst of the vitriol and profanity
of the Rolling Stone interview, there is actually an interesting
and seldom-used line of critique against Bush. "He represents
the tiniest, tiniest percentage. He got here on the shoulders
of giants. I think the Christian world feels an obligation to
support him, because he claims to be a Christian. I don't see
much of a Christian in him. I think there should be a long line
of nuns ready to smack the crap out of him," says Matthews.
Bush is often seen as an intensely religious man steeped in the
virtues of "moral clarity." Matthews isn't having any
of that. Coming from a South African background, Matthews has
perhaps a better sense of those founding ideals of Christianity
that are so often neglected, if not altogether forgotten--love,
compassion, and forgiveness.
Matthews wasn't always this angry. The
fact of the matter is that the events of the last two years have
made him and so many others reassess their roles as musicians
and social critics. Bruce Springsteen is another striking case
in point. Although his left-leaning political outlook is rather
obvious, Springsteen has always been respected by both liberals
and conservatives for his emotive depictions of working-class
America. Yet was this Springsteen the same one who, on October
4th, told a 50,000-strong crowd in New York to "shout a
little louder if you want the president impeached" ?
One could argue that it's all just meaningless
rhetoric without any action to back it up. Musicians, though,
are doing so much more than just talking. They are organizing
multi-band tours, such as Tom Morello's "Tell us the Truth
Tour" which takes aim at the at corporate greed and media
consolidation. Through Punkvoter.com,
bands such as Green Day, Offspring, and NOFX are organizing voter-registration
drives, a Rock Against Bush Tour, and starting up a political
action committee. Russell Simmons' Hip-Hop Summit, of which Jay-Z
is a participating member, is aiming to register more than 4
million new voters before the elections. If successful, such
an effort could prove to be decisive in a close race.
Bush, through his polarizing and disturbingly
partisan approach to governance, has galvanized the Left and
fueled the fire of what may become one of the strongest political
currents in recent memory. In the days of Clinton, the music
world was rather stale. Then along came Bush--the man who would
end up bringing politics back into music, giving birth to an
unintended artistic renaissance.
Shadi Hamid
is a Columnist at PopMatters.Com,
writing monthly on music, politics, and pop culture. He can be
reached at: sh75@georgetown.edu
Weekend
Edition Features for 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
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