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Now Available! Dime's Worth of Difference: Beyond the Lesser of Two Evils Order Here! Today's Stories August 21, 2004 Cockburn / St. Clair "They Want Blood:" The Bi-Partisan Origins of the Total War on Drugs Landau / Hassen Failing the Mission? Form a Commission Brian Cloughley The Bush Team in Iraq: Moral Cowardice, as Practiced by Experts Josh Frank Nader as David Duke? The ADL Wants You to Think So Mike Whitney Reincarnating Mengele: the Torture Doctors of Abu Ghraib Ron Jacobs Day Labor Blues Mickey Z. Shooting at Whales: 40 Years After Tonkin Fred Gardner Dr. Wolman Comes Out: The Cannabis Consultants Dave Zirin Uprising in Athens: Iraqi Soccer Team Gives Bush the Boot Josh Saxe Witnessing Police Brutality in LA Yanar Mohammed Letter from Baghdad: a Democracy of Killings and Bombings   August 20, 2004 Jennifer Van Bergen National Security Courts and Torture Warrants Lisa Taraki Boycotting the Israeli Academy Greg Bates Racial Profiling and National Security: Back with a Vengeance Joshua Frank Monkeywrench Hope: an Interview with Jeffrey St. Clair John L. Hess Play It Backward Norman Solomon Rumsfeld's Return Diane Christian Holy Places Website of the Day Go Tell Cerebus: 50,000 Dogs Slaughtered for Olympics?   August 19, 2004 Lance Selfa To ABB or Not to ABB? Christopher Brauchli The Edicts of President Bush Mike Whitney The "Rebel Cleric" and the Siege of Najaf Jason Leopold The Oily Parachute: How Cheney Got Away with $35 Million Before the Feds Launched a Probe into Halliburton Jeff Nicholson-Owens Why We Need "Free Software" Voting Machines Bill Linville If the Republicans Are Funding Nader, Who is Funding the Democrats? Well, Try Halliburton for Starters Diana Barahona In the Minds of the Rich, the Venezuelan Poor Aren't Even Members of Society: Guess Who's Laughing Now? Alan Cisco The Discreet Charm of the Venezuelan Opposition Dave Lindorff Gitlin Tells Anti-Bush Protesters to "Cool It" Sex, Drugs & the Blues! Serpents in the Garden CounterPunch's Sizzling New Book on Culture and Sex is Now Available Click here to purchase   August 18, 2004 Amy Goodman An Interview with Mordechai Vanunu Adrian Kuzminski The Death of American Politics: Why Perot Was the Last Serious Challenger of the Political Duopoly Uri Avnery Israel and the US Elections Dave Lindorff Librarians as Wimps: "Sorry, Sir, Some Readers May Find Your Book Inflammatory" Toni Solo After the Venezuela Referendum: Bush's Dien Bien Phu? John L. Hess Laying Odds on Armageddon: a Midtown Hiroshima? Rodney Thomas Patti Smith, Another Take Sean Donahue Kerry and Bolivia: To the Right of Bush? Website of the Day Presidential Polls: David Cobb (at 0%) is Exceeding Expectations   August 17, 2004 Norm Dixon Darfuris Made Pawns in Western Power Play for Oil Alan Farago In Charley's Wake: Opportunity from Misfortune John L. Hess The Meaning of Venezuela Lisa Taraki / Omar Barghouti Presbyterian Church Divests from Israel Allen Thompson Et Tu, Patti? An Open Letter to Patti Smith John Ross Mexicans Dying in Bush's War Website of the Day List of Civilian Contractors Killed or Missing in Iraq   August 16, 2004 Gary Leupp The Attack on Najaf: the Ultimate Stupidity Ron Jacobs Iran Through an Iraqi Mirror? Mike Whitney The Guantanamo Mock Trials Zvi Bar'el Theater of the Absurd in Iraq: Chalabi, Feith and Israel John Blair A Culture of Waste Sharmini Peries Chavez Triumphs; Crushes Opposition Tariq Ali The Importance of Hugo Chavez Website of the Day Hurricane City   August 14 / 15, 2004 Justin Delacour / Diana Barahona The Venezuela Referendum: Can the Carter Center's McCoy be an Impartial Observer? Cockburn / St. Clair War on the Poor: "A Risk No Sane Person Would Take" M. Shahid Alam The Civilizing Mission: Some Economic Results Saul Landau God and Botox John Ross Echoes of Mexico City, 1968 Fred Gardner Is California Spying on Pro-Pot Doctors? Jonah Girdin The Opposition Strategy in Venezuela: Subvert Democracy in the Name of Democracy Katherine Lahey "Uh! Ah! Chávez No Se Va!": Democracy and Venezuela Medea Benjamin Hugo Chavez and the Poor of Venezuela Yves Engler The Media and the Venezuela Referendum Zeynep Toufe The NYTs and Chavez: More Than the Usual Bias Mike Whitney The Trouble in Najaf: What Was al-Sadr's Crime? Eric Drooker Gaza Stripped Dave Zirin Olympic Sized Horror in Greece: 150 Workers Died Building the Facilities Dave Lindorff A29 Could be a Very Slow Day Rebecca Brigham The Aftermath of Guatemala's Strike: Promises Still Unfulfilled Wayne Madsen The McGreevey Scandal: an Israeli Connection? David Krieger Nuclear Disarmament in a Time of Globalization: the US Double Standard Tracy McLellan The Illegality of Pot is a Crime: a Personal Account Christina Gerhardt Confronting Capitalism: What Has Changed Since Seattle 1999? Poets' Basement Adler, Albert Vijayalakshmi, Gilliam     August 13, 2004 Lee Sustar Report from Caracas Mickey Z. McProtests R Us: Why are the Dems Trying to Gag Anti-War Protesters? Stan Goff There He Goes Again: Kerry's "Energy" Plan Norman Madarasz Thoughts on Najaf: How Could the US Ever Be Considered a "Terrorist" State? Victor Kattan Press Freedom, Censorship and the War on Terror Oscar Heck Is Mendoza Off His Rocker? Chavez Opponents Pledge to Post Results Online Before Polls Close CounterPunch Wire Military Families File "Stop Loss" Suit Milan Rai Najaf: Bush Started It Website of the Day The Yes Men     August 12, 2004 Jeffrey St. Clair How Bush Got (and Lost) His Wings Lenni Brenner Take It on Faith: Kerry's See-Through-Monk's Robe Lee Ballinger The Coors and the Kerrys: Drink Up, Kids! Tariq Ali The Handover Fiction Yves Engler What's at Stake in Venezuela William S. Lind Seeing Through the Other Side's Eyes Christopher Brauchli Getting Bush's Goat Website of the Day The Sucker Puncher     August 11, 2004 Ceylon Mooney Who Woke Up Sen. Joe?: Watchers of the NJ Turnpike Voices in the Wilderness Hands Off Najaf Ray McGovern Porter Goss as CIA Director? Robert Jensen US Supports Anti-Democratic Forces in Venezuelan Recall Annie Higgins In Memory of Nick Pretzlik: As Good as It Gets Alexander Cockburn Bush v. Kerry: Not Even a Dime's Worth of Difference Website of the Day Nick Pretzlik   August 10, 2004 William A. Cook Silencing the Voice of the People Todd Chretien California Greens at the Crossroads: Will It Be Nader or Cobb? Dave Lindorff Chicago on the Hudson? Richard Gott Loathed by the Rich: Why Chavez is Headed for a Big Win Toni Solo Bluebeard's Castle: Disappearing the Right to Development Dave Zirin Carl Eller's Plea Rep. Ron Paul Police State, USA Patrick Cockburn If the Chalabis Were Corrupt, They Weren't Alone Website of the Day The Surveillance-Industrial Complex       August 9, 2004 Tito Tricot Pinochet Must Still be Tried: a Murderer and a Thief on the Loose Ron Jacobs In Memory of Deep Throat: the Day Nixon Was Gone Norm Dixon Crisis in Sudan: Oil Profits Behind West's Tears for Darfur Kurt Nimmo The Politics of Entrapment Elaine Cassel Welcome to Bush's America Gary Leupp Why Iraqi Christians are Moving to Syria     August 7 / 8, 2004 James Petras The Anatomy of "Terror Experts": Meet the Mandarins of Abu Ghraib Fred Gardner Run Ricky Run: Football, Pot and Pain Justin Delacour Anti-Chavez Pollsters Panic: Fix Numbers; Reinvent Venezuela Brian Cloughley Persecuted by All; Supported by None: Who Would Be A Kurd? Joshua Frank The Outsider: a Talk with Ralph Nader Iain A. Boal On "Shame": Warmed-Over Orientalism and Racist Projection Chris Floyd All About Eve: Open Season on Women in DC and Rome Andrew Fenton Fighting for Democracy and Justice in Haiti Aseem Shrivastava Saga of an Anguished Afghan Neil Corbett See Cuba: Sometimes a Cigar is Just a Cigar, Mr. Bush Carol Miller / Forrest Hill Rigged Convention; Divided Party: How David Cobb Won with Only 12% of the Vote Tarek Milleron Breaking the Principled Voter Donald Macintyre The Battle of Najaf Ron Jacobs Spirits of The Dead: Why I Love My Petty Bourgeois Tendencies Mickey Z. Kid Gavilan's Grave: Propaganda Scores a TKO Poets' Basement Adler, Ford and Albert       August 6, 2004 Joshua Frank David Cobb's Soft Charade: the Greens and the Politics of Mendacity Derek Seidman An Interview with Stan Goff Mike Whitney The Arbitrary Imprisonment of Jose Padilla William S. Lind Corruption in the Marine Corps David Price In the Shadow of Hiroshima and Nagasaki     August 5, 2004 Mike Ferner The Kerry Show: When Peace is Off Message Bruce Anderson Two Rejections Robert Fisk The Tale of Saddam's Cameraman Todd Chretien Florida Comes to California: the Democrats' Plot Against Nader Peter Linebaugh Doing Time for Political Crime: Paul and Silas, Bound in Jail     August 4, 2004 Mickey Z. Two Traditions: WMD and Disinformation Justin Huggler The Hunt for Bin Laden John Ross Mexico's Dirty War Never Ended: Inside Puente Grande Prison   August 3, 2004 Uri Avnery The Oligarchs Ray McGovern The 9/11 Commission Chimera Jack McCarthy Sexual Politics in Jeb's Florida Eric Ruder Meet Barak Obama: the Democrats' New Liberal Star John L. Hess Crying Wolf: Orange Alert! Elaine Cassel Civil Liberties Elections: 1800 v. 2004 Jules Rabin The Man Who Didn't Walk By Website of the Day No Wall     August 2, 2004 Robert Jensen Kerry's Hypocrisy on the Vietnam War Joshua Frank Greens, Kerry and the Politics of Mendacity Mike Whitney The 9/11 Commission and Civil Liberties: "We Need an American Police State" Gary Leupp Beyond Good and Evil: Some Thoughts on Invasions July 31 / Aug. 1, 2004 Alexander Cockburn Kerry: He's the (Any) One Merlin Chowkwanyun Five Questions with Noam Chomsky: "The Savage Extreme of a Narrow Policy Spectrum" David Lindorff The Shame of the DNC John Chuckman The Disturbing Words of John Edwards Brian Cloughley All Slam and No Dunk; All Blame and No Responsibility Christopher Brauchli "Being Poor is a State of Mind": the Frowning Face of Compassionate Conservatism Fred Gardner A World of Pain Michael Donnelly How Big Pharma Bilks the Elderly David Nally Genocide in Darfur? Joshua Frank Forest Battles Escalate in Oregon Sam Bahour Colin Powell and My Grandmother Diane Farsetta The IMF and the Indonesian Elections: The Invisible Hand in the Voting Booth Harold Gould Was Iraq a Mutual Charade? Van Bergen / Stephens Election 9/11: Surreal Political Theater Lee Sustar A New Model for the Labor Movement? Ron Jacobs The Lost Art of Hitchhiking M. Junaid Alam An Interview with Palestinian-American Rapper, The Iron Sheik Poets Basement Albert, Ford, Krieger, St. Clair Website of the Weekend Cross Cultural Poetics   July 30, 2004 Kolhatkar / Ingalls Shattering Illusions: Kerry's Speech Tells Anti-War Activists They're Not Wanted Dave Lindorff Murder Not So Foul? Bruce Jackson Walt Whitman on the Sound of Wolf Blitzer's Voice Fidel Castro The Pathology of George W. Bush Maximilien Robespierre Memo to Kerry and Bush: Why They Resist Saul Landau Bush Charges Castro with Sex Tourism; JFK Rolls Over in His Grave   July 29, 2004 Cockburn / St. Clair Hail, the Conquering War Criminal: What Kerry Really Did in Vietnam Frank Bardacke What Michael Moore Left Out of F9/11 Tom Barry Shallow and Formulaic: Kerry's Latin America Plan Ron Jacobs Kerry and Lennon: Hawking the CounterCulture Robert Fisk The Unreported War Lichtman / Kellis-Borok What Kerry Must Do to Win (But Probably Won't) William S. Lind The 9/11 Commission Report: Cashing in on Failure CounterPunch Wire Doonesbury Onto John Kerry in 1971! Website of the Day Jabbing JibJab: Copyright Madness       July 28, 2004 Robert Fisk The Occupation at 114 Degrees: Baghdad is Swamped in the Smell of the Dead Kevin Mink Kerry's Misperception of Palestine Ray McGovern Israel and the Iraq War: How the 9/11 Report Soft-Pedals Root Causes United for Peace & Justice An Open Letter to John Kerry: Winter Soldiers and Summer Patriots Mike Ferner Vets Demand End to Occupation: "Pull the Troops or Face Impeachment Mvt." Imraan Siddiqi Turning Tricks with Ann Coulter Alexander Cockburn Candidate Kerry Website of the Day Iraq Vets Against the War   July 27, 2004 Alexander Cockburn Why the Democrats Deserve Nader Dave Lindorff Back to the 19th Century: Globalization's Coming! Mike Whitney Control Room: Inside Al Jazeera Ali, Anderson, Bello, et al. If We Were Venezuelan, We'd Vote for Chavez Stefan Wray Texas Plan to Grab Los Alamos Takes Hold, as DOE Shuts Down Labs Louis Proyect Reflections on Nicaragua: First Came the Contra Butchers, Then the Sweatshops Rick Giombetti Faith in Freedom: the Challenge of Thomas Szasz Bill and Kathleen Christison The 9/11 Report and Its Weak-Kneed Consensus: Dogding Israel/Palestine; Blinkered on Causes of Terrorism     July 26, 2004 Todd Chretien Green Resistance: a Reply to Normon Solomon & Medea Benjamin Robert Fisk Terror by Video Richard Forno Security Theater in Boston: Security Expert Harrassed by DHS for Exposing Flaws at the Fleet Center Mitchel Cohen Report from a Boston Demo: Arresting the Curious Richard Moreno Rockers for Justice: an Interview with Tom Morello and Serj Tankian Alexander Cockburn Boston Awaits a Dead Party     July 24 / 25, 2004 Alexander Cockburn The Democrats and Their Conventions: Part One Dennis Hans Those 16 Words Still Smell, Mr. Bush Patrick Cockburn The Struggle for Iraq is Only Beginning Josh Frank The War Path of Unity: Dems Reject the Peace Movement Justin E.H. Smith Christianity and the Left: the Latin American Experience Tariq Ali What's at Stake in Venezuela Fred Gardner The Politics of Pot: Year of the Antagonist Mark Scaramella There's Dope and There's Dope Ron Jacobs The Weather Underground's Prairie Fire Statement...35 Years On     July 23, 2004 Lee Sustar Revolution in Nicaragua: 25 Years On Dave Lindorff Battle for NYC: Bush 1, Protesters 0 Saul Landau Zaniest President in US History: Bush Beats Reagan Mike Whitney The 9/11 Whitewash: Blaming No One Mickey Z Get On the Bus: 150 Years After Elizabeth Jennings Gary Leupp The 9/11 Commission and the Looming War on Iran   July 22, 2004 M. Junaid Alam Ten Ways to Build a Better Democrat Brian McKinlay Rusted On Down Under: Howard, Bush and Sharon Jason Leopold Cheney Lobbied for Easing of Sanctions on Terrorist Regimes While CEO of Halliburton Chris Floyd Mob Rule: Ripping the Lid Off of America's Pious Myths Uri Avnery Chirac v. Sharon   July 21, 2004 Paula J. Caplan The Emotional Casualities of War: Psychologists Can't Heal All the Damage Joshua Frank Nader Sleeping with the Enemy? Let's be Fair Ron Jacobs American Exceptionalism Reza Ghorashi The Elections, Iran and al-Qaeda Amy Martin Will Congress Rearm the Guatemalan Generals? John Ross Bush May Lose, But His Wars Will Go On and On   July 20, 2004 Stan Cox The Bush / Kerry War Ticket Chris Randolph An Open Letter to Dr. Ehrenreich: It's Over, Barb! Forrest Hylton The Ghosts of Gonismo: "Popular Patricipation" and Bolivia's Gas Referendum Mark Scaramella It's Official! Mendocino County is Crazier and Fatter Than the Rest of California Sam Bahour The World is Knocking on Israel's Door George Reiter A Defense of David Cobb John Ross Burying Iraq, Burying Bush John L. Hess Girlie Stuff: Media Tolerance of Arnold & Co. Website of the Day This Land is Your Land     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                       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.     Subscribe Online

Weekend Edition August 21 / 22, 2004 "They Want Blood" The Bi-Partisan Origins of the Total War on Drugs By ALEXANDER COCKBURN and JEFFREY ST. CLAIR Kerry or Bush? How about the 5.9 million people here in the United States, under "the supervision" of the Justice system, either in prison, in jail, of probation or parole. Will it make a difference to these people--two million of them behind bars--which of the two sits in the Oval Office? No. Both Kerry, who misses no chance of emphasizing how he was once a "prosecutor", and Bush, pledge more cops, tougher penalties, and above all no let up in the War on Drugs which has thrown millions into the American Gulag, for ten, fifteen, 20-year sentences based on mandatory minimums and "enhancements" which a federal appeals court has now declared to have flouted the Constitutional right to a fair trial before a jury of one's peers. Ever since the mid-1980s the War on Drugs has been a bipartisan affair. Come with us on a journey back to the time when Tip O'Neill, liberal Democrat from Massachusetts, and Ronald Reagan, colluded in a terrible new chapter of a war aimed at the poor, particularly ethnic minorities, and waged ever since the late nineteenth century and the attacks on the Chinese laborers of California. This is an excerpt from Dime's Worth of Difference: Beyond the Lesser of Two Evils. In 1930 a new department of the federal government, the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs, was created under the leadership of Harry Anslinger to carry out the war against drug users. Anslinger, an avowed racist, was an adroit publicist and became the prime shaper of American attitudes about drug addiction, hammering home his view that this was not a treatable addiction but a deviant urge that could only be suppressed by harsh criminal sanctions. Anslinger's first major campaign was to criminalize the drug commonly known at the time as hemp. But Anslinger renamed it "marijuana" to associate it with Mexican laborers who, like the Chinese before them, were unwelcome competitors for scarce jobs in the Depression. Anslinger claimed that marijuana "can arouse in blacks and Hispanics a state of menacing fury or homicidal attack. During this period, addicts have perpetrated some of the most bizarre and fantastic offenses and sex crimes know to police annals." Anslinger linked marijuana with jazz and persecuted many black musicians, including Thelonious Monk, Dizzy Gillespie and Duke Ellington. Louis Armstrong was also arrested on drug charges, and Anslinger made sure his name was smeared in the press. In Congress, the drug czar testified that "coloreds with big lips lure white women with jazz and marijuana". By the 1950s, amid the full blast of the Cold War, Anslinger was working with the CIA to charge that the new-born People's Republic of China was attempting to undermine America by selling opium to US crime syndicates. (This took a great deal of chutzpah on the part of the CIA, whose planes were then flying opium from Chiang Kai-Shek's bases in Burma to Thailand and the Philippines for processing and export to the US.) Anslinger convinced the US Senate to approve a resolution stating that "subversion through drug addiction is an established aim of Communist China". In 1951, Anslinger teamed with Democrat Hale Boggs to marshal through Congress the first minimum mandatory sentences for drug possession: two years for the first conviction for possession of a Schedule 1 drug (marijuana, cocaine), five to ten years for a second offense, and ten to twenty for a third conviction. In 1956 Anslinger once again enlisted the aid of Boggs to pass a law calling for the death penalty to be imposed on anyone selling heroin to a minor, the first linking of drugs with Death Row. This was Anslinger's last hurrah. Along with John Kennedy's New Frontier cantered sociologists attacking Anslinger's punitive philosophy. The tempo of the times changed, and federal money began to target treatment and prevention as much as enforcement and prison. But the interim didn't last long. With the waning of the war in Southeast Asia millions of addicted GIs came home to be ambushed by Richard Nixon's War on Drugs program. Nixon resurrected Anslinger's techniques of threat inflation, declaring in Los Angeles that "as I look over the problems of this country I see that one stands out particularly: the problems of narcotics." Nixon pledged to launch a war on drugs, to return to the punitive approach and not let any quaint notions of civil liberties and constitutional rights stand in the way. After a Nixon briefing in 1969, his top aide, H.R. Haldeman noted in his diary: "Nixon emphasized that you have to face the fact that the whole problem is really the blacks. The key is to devise a system that recognizes this while not appearing to." And the Democratic congress played along. But for all of his bluster, Nixon was a mere prelude to the full fury of the Reagan-Bush-Clinton years, when the War on Drugs became explicitly a war on blacks. The first move of the Reagan administration was to expand the drug forfeiture laws, first passed in the Carter administration. In 1981 Reagan's drug policy advisors outlined a plan they thought would be little more than a good PR sound bite, a public display of the required toughness. They proposed allowing the Justice Department to seize real property and so-called "substitute property"--that is, legally acquired assets equal in value to illegal monetary gains. They also proposed that the federal government be permitted to seize attorney's fees that they suspected might have been paid for through drug proceeds. The Reagan plan was to permit forfeitures on the basis of a "probable cause showing" before a federal judge. This meant that seizures could be made against people neither charged nor convicted, but only suspected, of drug offenses. Contrary to the administration's expectations, this plan sailed through Congress, eagerly supported by two Democratic Party liberals, Senators Hubert Humphrey and Joe Biden, the latter being the artificer in the Carter era of a revision of the RICO statutes, a huge extension of the federal conspiracy laws. Over the next few years the press would occasionally report on some exceptionally bizarre application of the new forfeiture provisions, such as the confiscation of a $25 million yacht in a drug bust that netted only a handful of marijuana stems and seeds. But typically, the press ignored the essential pattern of humdrum seizures, which more often focused on such ordinary assets as houses and cars. For example, in Orange County, California, fifty-seven cars were seized in drug-related cases in 1989 alone. "Even if only a small amount of drugs is found inside," an Orange County narcotics detective explained, "the law permits seized vehicles to be sold by law enforcement agencies to finance anti-drug law enforcement programs." In fact, the forfeiture program became a tremendous revenue stream for the police. From 1982 to 1991, the US Department of Justice seized more than $2.5 billion in assets. The feds confiscated $500 million in property in 1991 alone, and 80 percent of these seizures came from people who were never charged with a crime. On June 17, 1986 University of Maryland basketball star Len Bias died, reportedly from an overdose of cocaine. As Dan Baum put it in his excellent book Smoke and Mirrors: the War on Drugs and the Politics of Failure, "In life, Len Bias was a terrific basketball player. In death he became the Archduke Ferdinand of the Total War on Drugs." It was falsely reported that Bias had smoked crack cocaine the night before his death. (He had, in fact, sniffed powder cocaine and, according to the coroner, there was no clear link between this usage and the failure of his heart.) Bias had just signed to play with the Boston Celtics and amid Boston's rage and grief Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill, a representative from Massachusetts, rushed into action. In early July of that year he convened a special meeting of the Democratic Party leadership on the Hill: "Write me up some goddamn legislation," O'Neill ordered. "All anybody in Boston is talking about is Len Bias. They want blood. If we move fast enough we can get out in front of the White House." The Reagan White House was moving fast itself. Among other things the Drug Enforcement Agency had been instructed to allow ABC News to accompany it on raids against crack houses. "Crack is the hottest combat-reporting story to come along since the end of the Vietnam War", the head of the New York office of the DEA exulted. All this fed the congressional frenzy to write tougher laws. House Majority leader Jim Wright, the Texas Democrat, called drug abuse "a menace draining away our economy of some $230 billion this year, slowly rotting away the fabric of our society and seducing and killing our young". Not to be outdone, South Carolina Republican Thomas Arnett proclaimed that "drugs are a threat worse than nuclear warfare or any chemical warfare waged on any battlefield". So the 1986 Anti-Drug Abuse Act was duly passed. It boasted 29 new minimum mandatory sentences. Up until that time in the entire history of the Republic there had been only 56 minimum mandatory sentences. The new law enacted a death penalty provision for drug "king pins" and prohibited parole for even minor possession offenses. But the chief target of the bill was crack cocaine. Congress established a 100-to-1 sentencing ratio between the possession of crack and powder cocaine. Under this provision, possession of five grams of crack carries a minimum sentence five years in federal prison. The same mandatory minimum is not reached for any amount of powder cocaine under 500 grams. John Kerry voted for the measure. The sentencing disparity in the 1986 law was based on faulty testimony that crack was fifty times as addictive as powder cocaine. Congress then doubled this ratio as a so-called "violence penalty". Yet there is no inherent difference between the drugs, as Clinton drug czar Barry McCaffrey was forced to admit. The federal Sentencing Commission, established by Congress to review sentencing guidelines, found that so-called "crack violence" was largely attributable to the drug trade itself and has more to do with the setting in which crack is sold than the drug itself: crack is sold on the street, while powder cocaine is often vended by house calls. As Nixon and Haldeman would have approvingly noted, Tip O'Neill's new drug law was aimed squared at blacks, reminiscent of the early targeting of Chinese smoking opium rather than post-bellum ladies sipping their laudanum-laced tonics. In 1995 the US Sentencing Commission reviewed eight years of application of this provision and found it to be undeniably racist in practice: 84 percent of those arrested for crack possession where black, while only 10 percent were white and 5 percent Hispanic. The disparity for trafficking arrests was even wider: 88 percent blacks, 7 percent Hispanics and 4 percent whites. By comparison, defendants arrested for powder cocaine possession were 58 percent white, 26 percent black and 15 percent Hispanic. In Los Angeles all twenty-four federal defendants in crack cases in 1991 were black. The Sentence Commission recommended to Congress that the ratio should be one-to-one between sentences for offenses involving crack and powder cocaine, arguing that federal law allows for other factors to be considered by judges in lengthening sentences (such as whether guns or violence was associated with the offense). But for the first time in its history the Congress rejected the recommendations of the Sentencing Commission and retained the 100-to-1 ratio. Clinton likewise declined the advise of his drug czar and his attorney general and signed the bill. One need only look at the racial make-up of federal prisons to appreciate the consequences of the 1986 drug law. In 1983 the total number of prisoners in federal, state and local prisons and jails was 600,800. Of those, 57,975 (8.8 percent) were incarcerated for drug-related offenses. In 1993 the total prison population stood at 1.4 million, of whom 353,564-25.1 percent-were inside for drug offenses. The Sentencing Project, a DC-based watchdog group, found that the increase was far from racially balanced. Between 1986 and 1991 the incarceration rate for white males convicted on drug crimes increased by 106 percent. But the number of black males in prison for kindred offenses soared by a factor of 429 percent, and the rate for black women went up by an incredible 828 percent. The queen of the drug war, Nancy Reagan, said amid one of her innumerable sermons on the issue: "If you're a casual drug user, you're an accomplice to murder." In tune with this line of thinking, the Democratic-controlled Congress moved in 1988 to expand the crimes for which the federal death penalty could be imposed. These included drug-related murders, and murders committed by drug gangs, which would allow any gang member to face the death penalty if one member of the gang was linked to a drug killing. The new penalties were inscribed in an update of the Continuing Criminal Enterprises Act. Convictions under the new law between 1989 and 1996 were 70 percent white and 24 percent black. But 90 percent of the times the federal prosecutors sought the death penalty it was against non-whites: of these, 78 percent were black and the rest Hispanic. From 1930 to 1972 (when the Supreme Court found the death penalty unconstitutional), 85 percent of those given death sentences were white. When the federal death penalty was reapplied in 1984, with the Anti-Drug Abuse Act, the numbers for black death penalty convictions soared. Of those on Death Row, both federal and state, 50 percent are black, although blacks constitute only 16 percent of the US population. Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair's new book on the 2004 elections, Dime's Worth of Difference: Beyond the Lesser of Two Evils, is just out from AK Press/CounterPunch Books. Weekend Edition Features for August 7 / 8, 2004 James Petras The Anatomy of "Terror Experts": Meet the Mandarins of Abu Ghraib Fred Gardner Run Ricky Run: Football, Pot and Pain Justin Delacour Anti-Chavez Pollsters Panic: Fix Numbers; Reinvent Venezuela Brian Cloughley Persecuted by All; Supported by None: Who Would Be A Kurd? Joshua Frank The Outsider: a Talk with Ralph Nader Iain A. Boal On "Shame": Warmed-Over Orientalism and Racist Projection Chris Floyd All About Eve: Open Season on Women in DC and Rome Andrew Fenton Fighting for Democracy and Justice in Haiti Aseem Shrivastava Saga of an Anguished Afghan Neil Corbett See Cuba: Sometimes a Cigar is Just a Cigar, Mr. Bush Carol Miller / Forrest Hill Rigged Convention; Divided Party: How David Cobb Won with Only 12% of the Vote Tarek Milleron Breaking the Principled Voter Donald Macintyre The Battle of Najaf Ron Jacobs Spirits of The Dead: Why I Love My Petty Bourgeois Tendencies Mickey Z. Kid Gavilan's Grave: Propaganda Scores a TKO Poets' Basement Adler, Ford and Albert WWW http://www.counterpunch.org   Keep CounterPunch Alive: Make a Tax-Deductible Donation Today Online! home / subscribe / about us / books / archives / search / links /