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A Special Report on the Presidential Elections Exclusively in the Print Edition CounterPunch

How Progressive Challenges Have Been Killed Off Since LBJ; Gagging Fanny Lou Hamer; Eugene McCarthy on "a Peasants Rebellion;" Sabotaging McGovern; The Wreck of Jesse Jackson's Rainbow Coalition; Smearing Nader, Not Once But Three Times: by Alexander Cockburn; The Thieves of the Green Zone by Patrick Cockburn; Murder in Mississippi: Could John Doar Have Saved Cheney, Schwerner & Goodman by David Kotz. In May, CounterPunch Online was read by over 20 million viewers! But remember, we are funded solely by the subscribers to the print edition of CounterPunch. Please support this website by buying a subscription to our newsletter, which contains fresh material you won't find anywhere else, or by making a donation for the online edition. Remember contributions are tax-deductible. Click here to make a (tax deductible) donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now!

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Today's Stories

July 20, 2004

John Ross
Burying Iraq, Burying Bush

July 19, 2004

Uri Avnery
Marie and the Ghosts: the Hoax of Paris

Col. Dan Smith
What Has Been Accomplished?

Mike Whitney
Allawi: Our Puppet with a Pistol

Karyn Strickler
Just Marriage, Not Gay Marriage

Robert Fisk
The Crisis of Information in Baghdad

David Swanson
Media Blackout of US Labor Opposition to Iraq War

Jennifer van Bergen
The Death of the Great Writ of Liberty

 

July 17 / 18, 2004

Gary Leupp
Apocalypse Now: Why the Book of Revelations is Must Reading

Ghada Karmi
Vanishing the Palestinians

Lenni Brenner
When Cattle Unite, Lions Go Hungry: Notes for Ralph Nader

Ben Tripp
Man on a Bridge: a Ghost Story

Brandy Baker
What Would Elizabeth Cady Stanton Make of John Kerry?

M. Shahid Alam
Israel Builds Another Wall

Sasan Fayazmanesh
Nuclear Hypocrisy: Israel, Iran and the IAEA

Patrick Bond
The George Bush of Africa

Fred Gardner
Politics of Marijuana: Cannabiniod Therapuetics

William Blum
Bush and Thucydides

Ben Terrall
Carter and the Indonesia Elections: "I Don't See Anything Wrong with a General Running the Country"

Tom Barry
John Lehman on the War Path

David Vest
Dylan Without the Music

Phyllis Pollack
Return to Sin City: Keith Richards Does Gram Parsons

Ron Jacobs
Smearing Muhammad Ali: Bob Feller Strikes Out

Joshua Frank
Kerry to Edwards: "Let's Lose!"

David Nally
A Call for Sudan: Our Georgraphical Blindspot

Toni Solo
Bolivia's Gas Referendum

Landau, Hassan, Prashad & Lindorff
Three Reviews of Moore's F911

Poets's Basement
Ford, Smith and Albert

July 16, 2004

Dave Zirin
Adonal Foyle: Master of the Lefty Lay-Up

Shervan Sardar
Dershowitz, the ICJ and Jim Crow Laws

Ron Jacobs
The Lil' Engine That Couldn't: Kucinich Surrenders on Anti-War Plank

Robert Fisk
Iraq, According to Edgar Allen Poe: Coffin Bombs in Baghdad

Greg Moses
The Forts of Iraq

Mickey Z.
Ad Infinitum?: Presidential Campaigns in the Age of TV

Dan Bacher
A Landmark Win for Salmon and the Tribes

Dave Lindorff
The Mumia Case: Support from NAACP, But a Movement in Shambles

Paul McGeough
Did Allawi Shoot Inmates in Cold Blood?

Website of the Day
10 Reasons to Fire Bush (and 9 Reasons Kerry Won't Be Any Better)

 

 

July 15, 2004

Heather Williams
McMissing the Point: Supersize Me Crashes on Its Message

Werther
Iraq: Follow the Money

Tom Crumpacker
The Birds of Guantanamo

Brian Cloughley
What Does the Bush Regime Object To?

Bill Christison
Reorganize the CIA? Of Course, But...

July 14, 2004

Jeffrey St. Clair
Chronicle of a Nomination Foretold: the Green Deceivers

Neve Gordon
Of Socrates and the Apartheid Wall

Diane Christian
The Priesthood of Death

Stefan Wray
Who Benefits from Missing Data at Los Alamos Nuclear Lab?

Josh Frank
The Nader / Dean Debate

Conn Hallinan
Divide and Conquer as Imperial Rules

Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg
Bring My Brother Home!: Class, War and Education

Website of the Day
Hijacking Catastrophe: 9/11, Fear and the Selling of US Empire

 

July 13, 2004

Ray McGovern
The CIA and Iraq: an Intelligence Debacle...and Worse

Mark Donham
The Sierra Club's Inexplicable Treatment of Cynthia McKinney

Ben Tripp
Politus Interruptis: With Friends Like These, Who Needs Electorates?

Mark Gaffney
Slipping Towards Armageddon: Israel in Iraq

Dave Lindorff
Osama Wins! Election Postponed!

Chris White
Double Think: the Bedrock of Marine Indoctrination

 

 

July 10 / 12, 2004

Kathleen Christison
The Problem with Neutrality Between Palestinians and Israel

Janine Pommy Vega
Trail of the Comet: a Gathering of the World's Poets Against War

Sherry Wolf
From Maverick to Party Attack Dog: Howard Dean Gay-Bashes Nader

Saul Landau and Farrah Hassen
A Transfer of Power, Sort Of

Michael Donnelly
How to Steal an Election: the Green Version, 2004

Stanton / Madsen
Iraq Survey Group: Rumsfeld's al-Qaeda?

Richard Lichtman
The End of Innocence: Reflections on American Pathology

Gila Svirsky
Thank You, Your Honors: a Legal Blow to the Wall

Kurt Nimmo
Clinton's Life

Toni Solo
Empire-Speak: What Roger Noriega Really Means

Ron Jacobs
The Black Panthers and the Rest

Camelo Ruiz Marrero
Gene Warfare in Oaxaca: Genetic Mutation of Mexican Maize

Omar Barghouti
Wither the Empire: Rise of a Global Resistance

Poets' Basement
Curtis and Albert

 

July 9, 2004

Dave Zirin
Carlos Delgado on Deck: Blue Jays Slugger Stands Up Against War

Justin Delacour
Wishing Kerry Would Shut Up About Latin America

Robert Fisk
Iraq in Reverse: Martial Laws Fuel Insurgency

Boris Kagarlitsky
Two Congresses and a Funeral

William S. Lind
The October Surprises

Sibel Edmonds
Our Broken System: John Ashcroft's War on Truth

Ron Jacobs
Reading Tea Leaves: What Vietnam Tells Us About Iraq's Future

Gary Leupp
The Lie That Will Not Die: Cheney and the Iraq/al-Qaeda Link

 

July 8, 2004

Niranjan Ramakrishnan
The Inexplicable John McCain

Toufic Haddad
Protesting Israel's Apartheid Wall: a Letter from the Hunger Strikers' Tent

Dave Lindorff
Liberation as Martial Law

Joshua Frank
The Fall: How Beltway Dems Sank Howard Dean

Christopher Brauchli
Bush & Cheney Play the Hitler Card

James Petras
The Truth About Jimmy Carter

 

July 7, 2004

John Chuckman
Kerry's BBQ: a Deafening Silence of Meaning

Virginia Tilley
A Line in the Sand: Azmi Bishara's Hunger Strike

Susan Martinez
A Letter to Bill Cosby

Mickey Z
Elie Wiesel's Strange Parade

Michael Donnelly
Our Own Private Wilderness: Trusting the Land in the Inland Empire

Sean Donahue
Boston Social Forum: the Dems aren't the Only Show in Beantown

Diane Christian
Sovereignty and Freedom in Iraq

 

July 6, 2004

Lisa Viscidi
Fleeing Guatemala: Central Americans Risk Lives to Reach El Norte

Marc Norton
The Felonious Five Ride Again: the Supreme Court and Enemy Combatants

James Brooks
Chemical Warfare on the West Bank?

Ray McGovern
Porter Goss as CIA Director?

William Cook
Legacy of Deceit: If Dante Knew of Bush and the Neo-Cons...

 

July 5, 2004

Forrest Hylton
US Imperialism in Latin America: Sept. 11, July 4 and Systematic Torture

Chris White
A Former Marine Sgt. on the Meaning of Independence Day

Joe Bageant
Cranky Reflections on the 4th of July

Robert Jensen
Stupid White Movie: What Michael Moore Misses About the Empire

Kathy Kelly
"Two Days an' a Wake-Up"

 

July 3 / 4, 2004

Elaine Cassel
Bush's Police State and Independence Day

Stan Goff
ABC of Opportunism: "Progressive" Latin American Leaders Support the Coup in Haiti

Snehal Shingavi
"We Want Real Justice for Bhopal": Two Survivors Speak Out

Bruce Anderson
The Cheney-Leahy Metaphor and the Greens

Sharon Smith
Twilight of the Greens: the Chokehold of "Anybody But Bush"

Josh Frank
Ralph Nader's Revolt: an Interview with Greg Bates

Robert Fisk
Pentagon Tried to Censor Saddam's Hearing

Joe Bageant
Sons of a Laboring God: Leftnecks Unite!

Brian Cloughley
Fortress Bush and the One Law Doctrine

Justin Delacour
The Anti-Chavez Echo Chamber: Venezuela's Media Tycoons

William S. Lind
Saudi Spillover

Linda S. Heard
A Joke Called "Justice"

Greg Moses
"It's Illegal, But It's Our Right": Korean Labor Won't Back Down

Ron Jacobs
"Ain't You Proud to be White on Independence Day?"

Toni Solo
Weary of Indigenous Resistances? Just Pretend They're Not There

Dan Nagengast
Chicken Manure as Cattle Food: Safe, But Do We Want to Eat It?

Stew Albert
Brando, a Personal Recollection

Dave Zirin
From the Black Panthers to Sacheen Littlefeather: a Eulogy for Our Brando

Patrick W. Gavin
The Progressive Case for Dodgeball

Steven Rosenthal / Junaid Ahmad
The Problem is Bigger Than the Bushes: a Review of F911

Poets' Basement
Kearney, Ford and Davies

Website of the Day
Global Peace Solution

 

July 2, 2004

Jeffrey St. Clair
Suicide Right on the Stage: the Demise of the Green Party

Douglas Valentine
Fahrenheit 911: Mocking the Moral Crisis of Capitalism

Gary Leupp
"Just Because I Could": On Obscenities and Opportunities

Lee Ballinger
Illegal People: Kerry Opposes Immigrant Rights

Robert Fisk
Saddam in the Dock: Confused? Hardly

CounterPunch Wire
"What Law Formed This Court?": a Transcript of Saddam's Arraignment

Christopher Brauchli
Bush's Drug Card Lottery: the Price Ain't Right

Saul Landau
Buzz Words and Venezuela

 


July 1, 2004

Katherine van Wormer
Bush's Damaged Mind: the Madness in His Method

Joe Bageant
Is Our President a Whackjob? Does It Matter?

William James Martin
The Dogma of Richard Perle

Dave Lindorff
Bush's Evacuation Moment

Robert Fisk
Bread and Circus Trials in Iraq

Alan Maass
Green Party in Reverse

Website of the Day
Michael Moore and Israel: Blind or a Coward?

 

 

June 30, 2004

Kurt Nimmo
Nicholson Baker's Checkpoint: a New Kind of Anger About Bush

Tariq Ali
Getting Away with Murder in Iraq

Jennifer Van Bergen
Bush and the Detainees

Douglas Valentine
Apotheosis of the Psychopaths: Instead of Fahrenheit 9/11, Rescreen The Quiet American

David Price
Fahrenheit 9/11 Through the McCain-Feingold Looking Glass

Roger Normand
America's Criminal Occupation of Iraq

Stan Cox
Sanitized for Your Protection: Ashcroft's War on Art

Henry David Thoreau
On the Futility of Bush v. Kerry: All Voting is a Kind of Gaming

Ben Tripp
Who Dast Call Him Liar: a Rebuttal to Nicholas Kristof

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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July 20, 2004

Banking on Your Desperation

The Bush / Kerry War Ticket

By STAN COX

Like tens of millions of American voters, I am desperate to see President Bush out of the White House. But I'm not voting for John Kerry. I'm not that desperate.

When it comes to the centerpiece of the Bush presidency -- the invasion and occupation of Iraq -- Kerry is taking a more belligerent line than even Bush himself. On July 16, he told the Wall Street Journal that he would be less likely than Bush to pull U.S. troops out of Iraq anytime soon, and that, if he were elected, the occupation would continue at least through his first term in office.

When asked how many additional troops should be deployed Iraq, Kerry said that once in office, he would "sit with the generals" and discuss the size of the increase. Earlier, he had told Defense News that he would add two divisions to the current 10-division army -- an increase of 40,000 troops -- while continuing reseach and development of the Star Wars missile defense/corporate welfare system and, not surprisingly, raising the overall military budget.

At a press conference also on June 16, Kerry endorsed the two most controversial elements of Bush's foreign policy: first-strike war and unilateralism. He asked, "Am I prepared to go get them before they get us if we locate them and have sufficient intelligence?" and answered, "You bet I am." He later added -- still in the classic Bush mode -- "I will never allow any other country to veto what we need to do and I will never allow any other institution to veto what we need to do to protect our nation".

The Kerry team has even managed to banish criticism of the Iraq war from the Democratic Party's 2004 platform. They forced the backers of antiwar challenger Dennis Kucinich to accept instead the statement that "people of good will disagree about whether America should have gone to war in Iraq."

In moving closer to, and in some cases beyond Bush's policies, Kerry is ignoring his own party's rank and file. A recent New York Times / CBS poll found 56% of Democrats agreeing that our troops should "leave Iraq as soon as possible, even if Iraq is not completely stable," while only 38% believed we should "stay in Iraq as long as it takes to make sure Iraq is a stable democracy."

The Kerry Democrats' refusal to criticize the war in their party platform is puzzling, since polls over the past month have shown that a majority of Americans believe we should never have invaded Iraq, and that fully 60% believe we should not attack another country unless it attacks first.

John Kerry has given me no choice but to vote against both him and Bush. In doing so, I refuse to be charged with single-issue voting. A presidential candidate who insists on a long-term U.S. occupation of Iraq is saying that he is not serious about curing our addiction to Middle Eastern oil or the development of renewable energy. A candidate who is willing to spend billions of dollars on Iraq (and, he is hinting, on other wars) in each and every month of his presidency is not serious about reducing the Bush budget deficits or about addressing domestic crises in health, education, and the environment.

A candidate who won't discuss a timetable for ending America's military occupation of Arab lands is hardly going to stop supporting Israel's occupation forces and settlements in the West Bank and Gaza (and Kerry's positions have become almost indistinguishable from Bush's on that issue as well.)

And a candidate who wants to continue sending the sons and daughters of working people to fight a war for, in his words, Iraq's "stability and security" (pointedly leaving out Bush's rhetoric about democracy) is less interested in the lives of people than in the profits of corporations.

Across the country, as always, good Democratic candidates can be found at the local, state, and congressional levels. But at the top of the ticket, as always, there's a timid fellow struggling to let as little daylight as possible pass between him and his Republican opponent. Voting dutifully against Reagan, against Bush I, against Dole, and against Bush II over the past two decades has not brought us better Democratic candidates, only worse Republicans.

Now we see close to 900 American troops dead in Iraq, with more than 5000 maimed. At least 11,000 Iraqi civilians haved died so far, and their country is in chaos. All of the rationales for having invaded Iraq lie in shambles. Despite it all, John Kerry is unwilling to condemn this mad adventure; in fact, he's telling us that he's thirsty for more.

He thinks I'm desperate enough to vote for him anyway. But he's wrong.

Stan Cox is a plant breeder and writer living in Salina, Kansas. He can be reached at: t.s@cox.net



Weekend Edition Features for July 10 / 12, 2004

Kathleen Christison
The Problem with Neutrality Between Palestinians and Israel

Janine Pommy Vega
Trail of the Comet: a Gathering of the World's Poets Against War

Sherry Wolf
From Maverick to Party Attack Dog: Howard Dean Gay-Bashes Nader

Saul Landau and Farrah Hassen
A Transfer of Power, Sort Of

Michael Donnelly
How to Steal an Election: the Green Version, 2004

Stanton / Madsen
Iraq Survey Group: Rumsfeld's al-Qaeda?

Richard Lichtman
The End of Innocence: Reflections on American Pathology

Gila Svirsky
Thank You, Your Honors: a Legal Blow to the Wall

Kurt Nimmo
Clinton's Life

Toni Solo
Empire-Speak: What Roger Noriega Really Means

Ron Jacobs
The Black Panthers and the Rest

Camelo Ruiz Marrero
Gene Warfare in Oaxaca: Genetic Mutation of Mexican Maize

Omar Barghouti
Wither the Empire: Rise of a Global Resistance

Poets' Basement
Curtis and Albert

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