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What You're Missing in our subscriber-only CounterPunch newsletter Did Oprah Pick Another Fibber? Truth and Fiction in Elie Wiesel's Night In his special report Alexander Cockburn interviews former Wiesel colleague and Holocaust survivor Eli Pfefferkorn. What Raul Hilberg, the Holocaust's greatest historian, really thinks about Wiesel's "Night". Also in this special issue: Is Hugo Chavez Hitler or Father Christmas? Larry Lack tells the full story of Venezuela's hand-outs to Uncle Sam's Shivering Poor. Plus, Jeffrey St Clair profiles the Endangered Visigoth and traces the rise and possible fall of Rick Pombo, destroyer of nature. CounterPunch Online is read by millions of viewers each month! 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 donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now! Get CounterPunch By Email for Only $35 a Year

Today's Stories March 21, 2006 Sophia A. McLennen Assault on Higher Education: the Conservative Push for the Right Student March 20, 2006 Paul Craig Roberts A Collapsing Presidency Dave Lindorff Howard Dean Tells CounterPunch: DNC No Foe of Impeachment Ralph Nader The DNC's "Grassroots Agenda": Howard Dean's Plea for Advice Diane Christian License to Lie: Over to You, Dante Jeff Halper "To Hell with All of You": the Power of Saying No Harry Browne Unhappy St. Patrick's Day: Bush's Crackdown on Gerry Adams and Sinn Fein Norman Solomon Why are We Here?: Is There a Right Way to Wage a Wrong War? Patrick Cockburn Death Squads on the Prowl; Iraq Convulsed by Fear Website of the Day Abugate   March 18 / 19, 2006 Cockburn / St. Clair Three Years On: Where's the Resistance Here on the Home Front? Werther Bombs and Butchers: "Where Do We Get Such Men?" Chris Kromm Katrina Aid Package: Much Too Little; Much Too Late Patrick Cockburn Halabja: Kurds Destroy Monument to Victims of Saddam's Poison Gas Attack Elaine Cassel Abortion Politics and Animus for Women: Can Justice Kennedy be Swayed? S. Brian Willson Iraq Vets and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Fred Gardner The War on Kids Brian Cloughley General Insanity: the Prevarications of Gen. Peter Pace Laura Carlsen Challenging Disparity: Toward a New US Policy in Latin America Eamon Martin Life in the Shadows of the Empire: Mysterious Photographers of Nothing Julie Hilden Free Speech in the Classroom: Teachers Don't Enjoy Enough Legal Protection Alison Weir So Much for "Sunshine Week": AP Erases Video of Israeli Soldier Shooting Palestinian Boy Jeffrey St. Clair Playlist: What I'm Listening to This Week Poets' Basement LaMorticella, Krieger, Louise, and Engek Website of the Weekend Are the Elites Turning Against the Effects of the Israel Lobby?   March 17, 2006 Eduardo Galeano Abracadabra: Uruguay's Desaparecidos Begin to Appear Greg Moses Bush and Nuclear Preemption: Do You Feel Safe With This Man's Finger on the Button? Richard Falk / David Krieger The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty is Dying: What Now? Cindy and Craig Corrie Three Ways to Remember Rachel Amira Hass Hamas's Haniyeh: "I Never Sent Anyone on a Suicide Mission" Mike Marqusee Reasons to March James Petas and Robin Eastman-Abaya Philippines: the Killing Fields of Asia Website of the Day Black Shamrock   March 16, 2006 Norman Solomon Hook, Line and Sinker: War-Loving Pundits Tom Philpott Neoliberalism at the Garden Gate: Community Farming in LA Heather Gray Anne Braden: the South's Rebel Without a Pause Amira Hass Is Hamas Playing into the Hands of Israeli Hardliners? Missy Comley Beattie Dangerous-to-Society Women: Locked Up in the Tombs Sen. Russell Feingold President Bush has Broken the Law; He Must be Held Accountable Lucinda Marshall President Ken Doll: Bush Insults Women on Intl. Women's Day Andrew Bosworth From the Man Who Voted Against Katrina Aid: Joe Barton's War on CITGO Clancy Sigal In Celebration of Dachau's 73rd Anniversary, Halliburton Gets Concentration Camp Contract Website of the Day Help Rebuild the New Orleans Public Library March 15, 2006 Jonathan Cook Israel's Raid on the Jericho Jail Winslow Wheeler Hiding the Cost of War: Paying for Iraq with Supplemental Funding Diane Christian Sharon's Stroke Ron Jacobs New Tenants for Abu Ghraib?: a Cell for Kissinger and Haig Missy Comley Beattie How Many Brinks to Pass? Jared Bernstein The Minority Wealth Gap Noam Chomsky The Crumbling Empire Website of the Day French Students Reclaim the Streets of Paris   March 14, 2006 Earl Ofari Hutchinson No Requiem for a Black Conservative: the Fall of Claude Allen Dave Lindorff Why the Gitmo Tribunals are a Bad Idea: Exhibit A, t he Moussaoui Case Kevin Zeese Divide and Rule in Iraq Gone Awry Todd Chretien Counting the Dead in Iraq: Why is the Left Understating the Carnage? Jason Kunin Canada in Afghanistan: "We're Here Because We're Here" Thomas Palley The Economics of Outsourcing Cockburn / St. Clair Pages from the Liberals' War Website of the Day Golf Courses and Swimming Pools   March 13, 2006 Uri Avnery The Missing Word Dave Lindorff Extra, Extra! Media Reports on Censure Motion Mike Whitney South Dakota's Taliban: the Fanatics are on the Loose David Green Questions of Solidarity: Blacks and Jews in Neo-Con America Jeremy Scahill Rest Easy, Bill Clinton: Slobo Can't Talk Any More Mike Ferner Up Against the Wall, Son: Hungering for Justice During My First Congressional Testimony Corey Harris Memories of Ali Farka Touré Paul Craig Roberts Killing Off Milosevic: Was Serbia a Practice Run for Iraq? Website of the Day Prayer Flags for Peace March 11 / 12, 2006 Alexander Cockburn Democrats: When the War Was Lost Ralph Nader Bush at the Tipping Point Paul Craig Roberts Why Did Bush Destroy Iraq? Ben Tripp My Night at the Oscars: the Happy People Speak Out John Strausbaugh The Cowboys and the Village Voice: Alt Press Flagship Goes Corporate Landau / Hassen Why "We" Fight "Their" Wars Robert Bryce A Thousand Pages of Rage Gary Leupp Why They Really Think They Must Defeat Iran Fred Gardner "But He's Good on Our Issue" Ron Jacobs Condi and Iran: Folly, Tragedy and Farce Jonathan Scott Science Fiction's Black Oracle: the Genius and Courage of Octavia Butler Ramzy Baroud Who Will Stop Bush's Militant Militarists? Jordan Flaherty Gitmo on the Mississippi: Life Under the Klan Wasn't This Bad John Chuckman Parable of the Hatchet: the Fallacy of Nation-Building in Afghanistan Joe Allen Smearing Ron Carey and the TDU: Bob Fitch's Hatchet Job Julia Kendlbacher Amazonia: Where All Life Matters St. Clair / Walker / Pollack / Vest Playlist: What We're Listening to This Week Poets' Basement Hassen, Harley, Ford and Subiet Website of the Weekend No Hay Ser Humano Ilegal   March 10, 2006 Ben Rosenfeld The Great Green Scare and the Fed's Case Against Rod Coronado: a War on the First Amendment Lila Rajiva The Gitmo Documents: Miller, Boykin, Cambone and Feith Saree Makdisi From Rachel Corrie to Richard Rogers: the Wall, the Javits Center and the Bullying of an Architect Elena Shore FBI Grills US Professor Over Support for Venezuela Joshua Frank How the Green Party Slays Their Own Dave Zirin Lynching Barry Bonds Aura Bogado An Interview with Subcomandate Marcos   March 9, 2006 John Walsh Neocon Daniel Pipes Advocates Civil War in Iraq as Strategic Policy Annie Zirin Leftwing Generals: the Dark Side of Liberal Imperialism Brian McKenna We All Live in Poletown Now: GM and the Corporate Uses of Eminent Domain Chris Floyd Scar Tissue: How the Bushes Brought Bedlam to Iraq Rachard Itani "Over There": Iraq as Soap Opera Niranjan Ramakrishnan The Action Thing Wylie Harris Immigration and Jeffersonian Democracy: Free Borders Make Good Neighbors Alexander Cockburn Ex-State Department Security Officer Charges Pre-9/11 Cover-Up Website of the Day About Pace: Expelling Anti-War Students   March 8, 2006 Patrick Bond The Loans of Mass Destruction: Wolfowitz's Anti-Corruption Hoax at the World Bank Brian Concannon, Jr. Elusive Victories in Haiti Pat Williams Buyer's Remorse: Bush, the View from the Purple States Lance Selfa The Democrats and Dubai: the Politics of Distraction Mokhiber / Weissman Have You Ever Been Convicted of a Felony? Walter Brasch Compromising Civil Liberties Vijay Prashad For Them Indian Mangoes: Anatomy of an Agreement Website of the Day Rachel Corrie: a Call to Action   March 7, 2006 Werther Half a Trillion Dollars: It's an Awful Lot of Money to Make Us Less Safe and Less Free John Blair Dr. Strangelove is Our President: Global Peace Through Nuclear Weapons Dave Lindorff The Impeachment Groundswell and Bush's Last Hope: the Democrats Mike Whitney No Immunity: Israel's Policy of Targeted Assassination Warren Guykema Who is Afraid of Rachel Corrie? Sen. Russell Feingold Misleading Testimony About NSA Domestic Spying Robert Jensen Why I am a Christian (Sort Of) Norman Solomon Digitalized Hype: a Dazzling Smokescreen? Bernie Dwyer Hopeful Signs Across Latin America: an Interview with Noam Chomsky Website of the Day Golem Song March 6, 2006 Ralph Nader Bush and Katrina: "Situational Information?" Dave Zirin Why Did Pat Tillman Die? an Investigation Reopens Vanessa Redgrave Censorship of the Worst Kind: the Second Death of Rachel Corrie Walter A. Davis Theater, Ideology and the Censorship of "My Name is Rachel Corrie" Joshua Frank Down By Law: the Mysterious Case of David Cobb Nate Mezmer A Second Look at "Crash": More Myths About Blacks and Racist Cops Paul Craig Roberts America's Bleak Jobs Future Website of the Day Crossroads: Race, Class and Art March 4 / 5, 2006 Alexander Cockburn The Dubai Ports Purchase: National Insecurity, Imported or Homegrown? Jennifer Van Bergen Bush's NSA Spying Program Violates the Law Steven Higgs Dying for Their Work: Westinghouse Workers and the Highest Level of PCBs Ever Recorded Winslow T. Wheeler The Generals, the Legislators and the Gulfstream VIP Transports Ron Jacobs Stealing Back Adam's Rib Rev. William E. Alberts Remember Damadola Colin Asher Goodbye, Dubai: the Teamsters and the Ports Fred Gardner Denney's Law "Pariah" Scapegoats and Shunning: Sexual Fascism in Progressive America John Scagliotti Brokeback Mountain: Pain is Not Enough Seth Sandronsky When the White House Walks Away: Bush, Arnold and the Flood Risk in the Central Valley Joan Roelofs A Challenge to Rebuild the World Arjun Makhijani The US / India Nuclear Pact: a Bad and Dangerous Deal Ardeshr Ommani Destroying the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Diana Barahona An Open Letter to Freedom House: Release Info on Your Federal Grants Ben Tripp Bonzo, Wherefore Art Thou? St. Clair / Socialist Worker Staff Playlist: What We're Listening To Poets' Basement Engel, Davies, Buknatski Website of the Weekend The Return of Pearl Jam March 3, 2006 Laura Carlsen Mexico: the Power of Corruption and the Corruption of Power John V. Whitbeck Two States or One? Chris Floyd The Monolith Crumbles: Reality and Revisionism About Iran Mohamed Hakki Wolfowitz at the World Bank: Cronyism and Corruption Pratyush Chandra Bush in India: Dinner with George and Manmohan John Scagliotti Why are There No Real Gays in "Brokeback Mountain"? Website of the Day Support the IRC!   March 2, 2006 Paul Craig Roberts How the Economic News is Spun Dave Lindorff Troops to Bush: Get Us Out of Here! Ramzy Baroud Middle East Democracy: the Hamas Factor Saul Landau Halfway Down the Road to Hell Joe Allen The Murder of George Jackson: an Interview with His Lawyer, Stephen Bingham Steve Shore Berlusconi on Capitol Hill: "I Am Italy!" Denise Boggs Roadless and Clueless: Wilderness Logging Greenwashed by Enviro Groups Norman Finkelstein The Attacks on Beyond Chutzpah Website of the Day ScreenHead   March 1, 2006 Mairead Corrigan Maguire The Human Right to a Nuclear Free World Niranjan Ramakrishnan The India That Can No Longer Say No Faheem Hussain Bush in Pakistan Antony Loewenstein Spinning Us to War with Iran: an Aussie Perspective Elizabeth Schulte The Charge to Overturn Roe Has Begun Mike Whitney Sudan: Beware Bolton's Sudden Humanitarianism John Ryan Canada and the American Empire Michael Donnelly Brokeback Mountain: a No Love Story Tom Reeves Haitian Election Aftermath Website of the Day Mardi Gras Index: Reuilding of New Orleans Stalled   February 28, 2006 Sen. Russ Feingold Renewing the Patriot Act: a Sham Process and a Rotten Deal Ralph Nader The Dark Age of the Auto Industry Joshua Frank The Palazzo Feinstein: the Mansion the War Bought? Aziz Haniffa Why India Should Choose Iran, Not the US: an Interview with Dr. Ajun Makhijani Benjamin Dangl Bolivian Human Rights Leader Barred from Entering the US Norman Solomon Mahatma Bush Mike Ferner Seven Arrested at White House Antiwar Protest Sharon Smith Racism Thrives Website of the Day Creek Running North   February 27, 2006 Buncombe / Cockburn And Now Come the Death Squads Paul Craig Roberts Twilight of the Hegemony Ingmar Lee Bush Mired in India's Nuclear Fallout: the Smiling Buddha Blast Ron Jacobs Death Squads, Shrine Bombs, Civil War: Iraq Going According to the Plan? Dave Lindorff Bush's Bunker Days Pat Wolff Sleeper Cells in South Dakota? The State of Mandatory Motherhood Lila Rajiva Double Standards on Foreign Owners: Amdocs vs. DP World Website of the Day Get Ya Hustle On!   February 25 / 26, 2006 Alexander Cockburn Quail in War and Peace Lila Rajiva Chertoff Strikes Again Lee Sustar Target: Iran Jennifer Van Bergen / Madis Senner The Case of Dr. Rafil Dhafir Justin E.H. Smith David Horowitz's Odd Gripe Paul Craig Roberts Bush Hides Behind Supply-Side Economics to Reward His Cronies Jason Leopold Cheney Exposed?: New Emails in Plame Case Point to Veep's Role Gilad Atzmon In Support of My Mayor Zahid Shariff What's Going On in Pakistan? Fred Gardner Investigating Dr. Denney Dick J. Reavis What the UAE / Seaports Deal Teaches Us David Stocker Snow Job: the Privatization of US Ports John Bomar Losing on Every Front Mike Marqusee The Marchers Were Right Pratyush Chandra Bush's Passage to India Ben Tripp Rewriting History Dr. Susan Block Life, Death and Cartoons Poets' Basement Landau, Guthrie, LaMorticella, Engel and Mazza Website of the Weekend Toward Freedom   February 24, 2006 Alan Maass War Crimes and Hunting Misdemeanors William S. Lind The Coming Fall of Pakistan Dave Lindorff Useless Democrats: a Whig's Worth of Difference? Pierre Tristam Iraq's Cambodian Jungle Meg Bannerji Bush's Port Deal: Who's the Dummy? Robert Jensen The Failures of Our First Amendment Successes Mark Engler How Costly is Too Costly?: Finding the Budgetary Tipping Point for Iraq Jennifer Loewenstein Watching the Dissolution of Palestine Website of the Day Katrina and the Failure of Black Leadership   February 23, 2006 Chet Richards Rumsfeld's New Model Military: Creating Stability or Insurgency? Jonathan Feldman Dubaigate Deconstructed Joshua Frank The Democrats' Pull Out Method: Another Election Year Stunt? Ron Jacobs Volunteers of America: the Politics of the Weather Underground Amira Hass Separate and Unequal: Forbidden to Go Home Together Samah Sabawi Hamas and the Missing Video: Editorial Delusions at the Globe and Mail Norman Solomon The Unreal Death of Journalism Christopher Reed Japan's Neo-Militarists Website of the Day Is the Pentagon Making an Anthrax Bomb in Utah?   February 22, 2006 Robert Pollin Reaganomics Revisited: Beyond the Glow of Nostalgia Phil Doe How to Pay for War and Cut Taxes for the Rich: Sell Off the Public Lands Pirouz Azadi Looking Middle Eastern? You are a Prime Suspect Saul Landau Memo to the Dems: Doesn Anyone Give a Damn? Brian McKinlay Howard's End?: Trouble Down Under Sam Smith Real Holocaust Denial Niranjan Ramakrishnan Could You Please Pass the Port? Diane Farsetta The Pentagon's Media Contracts: the Wages of Spin Website of the Day Port of No Return: Bin Laden, the Taliban and the UAE   February 21, 2006 Paul Craig Roberts Would Someone Please Interfere in Our Elections? Franklin Spinney Arab Democracy American-Style: Or How to Lose a 4th Generation War Dave Lindorff Chasing Cheney in the Ambulance Alevtina Rea Ethics, Morals and Empire Bruce K. Gagnon The Dems' Latest Stall Strategy: "Strategic Redeployment" Dave Zirin Whiteblindness: the Winter Olympics, Bryant Gumbel and Racism at ESPN Bill Quigley Six Months After Katrina: Who Was Left Behind Then? Who is Being Left Behind Now? Website of the Day Soldiers and Students   February 20, 2006 Jennifer Van Bergen The Perversions of the Bush Administration: Sexual Humiliation and Mother Murder in the War on Terror Rachard Itani The Bigoted Wombat: John Howard Does Abu Ghraib Gideon Levy A Chilling Heartlessness Joshua Frank Cindy Sheehan's Message to the Democrats Newton Garver The Challenges and Opportunities Confronting Evo Morales Pratyush Chandra What the US Ambassador Taught Nepalis Seth Sandronsky Bubblicious: the US Real Estate Market Cockburn / St. Clair The FBI and the Myth of Fingerprints Website of the Day Chickenhawks Hall of Shame   February 18 / 19, 2006 Werther A Half-Dozen Questions About 9/11 They Don't Want You to Ask Uzma Aslam Khan Live from Lahore: Watching with Glee Joe DeRaymond A Case of Injustice in Pennsylvania: the Prosecution of Dennis Counterman Edward F. Mooney Is Liberalism a Failing Religion? The Case of the Danish Cartoons Paul Craig Roberts From Conservatives to Brownshirts Elaine Cassel The Sentencing of Zacarias Moussaoui: an Issue of Competency P. Sainath Soaring Suicides in Vidharbha Thomas P. Healy An Interview with Ann Wright Brian Concannon, Jr. Haiti's Elections: Right Result; Wrong Procedure Fred Gardner Health Savings Accounts: a Boon for the Bosses Rep. Cynthia McKinney Katrina's New Underclass Brian Tokar WTO vs. Europe: Less (and More) Than It Seems Chan Chee Khoon Privatizing the World Bank? Andrew Freedman Chicago's Panopticon St. Clair / Walker Playlists: What We're Listening to This Week Poets' Basement Hassen, Anderson, Engel and Guthrie Website of the Weekend Depictionary   February 17, 2006 Floyd Rudmin Secret War Plans and the Malady of American Militarism Gervasio Rodríguez FBI Home Invasions in Puerto Rico Gary Leupp The Mad is No Longer Out of the Question: Stopping the War on Iran Before It Starts Ramzy Baroud Weathering the Globalization Storm Amira Hass Apartheid Gates: IDF Establishes "Israeli Only" Crossings Matthew Koehler Forest Abuse on the Kootenai: an Intervention in Montana Niranjan Ramakrishnan Deadeye Dick: Who Dares Call Him Chickenhawk Now? Debbie Nathan ABC's Primetime "Teen Sex Slaves" Scam Website of the Day Black Mesa Defense   Febrauary 16, 2006 Lila Rajiva Torture Pictures That Didn't Make the Exhibition Norman Solomon Dick Cheney's Fox Trot Ron Jacobs An Interview with Antiwar Faster Mike Ferner Paul Craig Roberts Their Own Economic Reality Website of the Day This Ain't No Video Game February 15, 2006 Brian Conacnnon, Jr. Haiti's Elections: Chaos, Supression and Fraud Dave Lindorff Democrats Shoot Their Own, Too Saree Makdisi Israeli Ultimatums Joshua Frank The Rhetorical Gore Amira Hass Down the Expulsion Highway CounterPunch Wire Winter of Discontent: a 34-Day Fast Against the War Robert Bryce The United States of Enron Website of the Day Osama's Game: an Interview with Michael Scheuer February 14, 2006 John Sugg Those Cartoons and the Neo Con: Daniel Pipes and the Danish Editor Don Santina DiFi and the Royal Democrats: the Curious Withdrawal of Cindy Sheehan William A. Cook Shaming Sharon Ray McGovern Who Will Blow the Whistle About Iran? John Ross Bush's Mexican Poodle Website of the Day Willie Nelson Records CPer Ned Sublette's "Cowboys Are Frequently Secretly" February 13, 2006 Lila Rajiva Axis of Child Abusers: UK Troops Beat Up Barefoot Iraqi Teens Christopher Brauchli Whistleblowers and Witch Hunters: the Bush Inquisition Dave Lindorff Deadeye Dick: If Stupidity Were Impeachable, Cheney Would Be History Ron Jacobs Black Liberation Mike Whitney Riding High with Hugo Chavez Michael Neumann Respectful Cultures and Disrespectful Cartoons Website of the Day Virtual Resistance   February 11 / 12, 2006 Alexander Cockburn How Not to Spot a Terrorist Ralph Nader Bringing Democracy to the Federal Reserve Paul Craig Roberts Nuking the Economy Pat Williams John Boehner's Dirty Little Secret: Flying Lobbyist Air at $4,000 a Junket Fred Gardner Dr. Mikuriya's Appeal: a Last Minute Twist Saul Landau From Munich to Hamas John Chuckman Cartoons and Bombs: Was Rice Right for Once? Roger Burbach Evo Morales: the Early Days Seth Sandronsky Economy on Ice Website of the Weekend Just Say Know   February 10, 2006 Carl G. Estabrook A US War Plan for Khuzestan? Sen. Russell Feingold A Raw Deal on the Patriot Act Roxanne Dunbar----Ortiz How Did Evo Morales Come to Power? Saree Makdisi The Tempest Over the Hamas Charter Website of the Day The New York Art Scene: 1974----1984     February 9, 2006 Dave Lindorff Bush and Yamashita: War Crimes and Commanders-in-Chief Mike Marqusee The Human Majority was Right About Iraq Paul Craig Roberts How Conservatives Went Crazy: the Rightwing Press Peter Phillips Inside the Global Dominance Group: 200 Insiders Against the World William S. Lind Rumsfeld the Maximalist: the Long War Christine Tomlinson Innocent Targets in the "Long War": False Positives and Bush's Eavesdropping Program Will Youmans Church of England Votes to Divest from Israel Robert Robideau An American Indian's View of the Cartoons Richard Neville The Cartoons That Shook the World: All This from the Danes, the Least Funny People on Earth Peter Rost The New Robber Barons Website of the Day Eyes Wide Open   February 8, 2006 Ron Jacobs The Once and Future Sly Stone: Soundtrack to a Riot Stan Cox Making and Unmaking History with General Myers Sen. Russ Feingold Why Bush's Wiretapping Program is Illegal and Unconstitutional Robert Jensen Horowitz's Academic Hit List: Take a Class from One of the CounterPunch 16 Rep. Cynthia McKinney Bush Should Have Wiretapped FEMA and Chertoff Niranjan Ramakrishnan Alberto Gonzales Channels Mark Twain Don Monkerud Covenant Marriage on the Rocks David Swanson Inequality and War C.L. Cook Nuking Ontario Christopher Fons Chill Out Jihadis: They're Just Cartoons! Jeffrey Ballinger The Other Side of Nike and Social Responsibility Website of the Day Encyclopedia of Terrorism in the Americas   February 7, 2006 Edward Lucie-Smith An Urgent Plea to Save a Small Estonian Museum from Neo-Nazis Robert Fisk The Fury: Now Lebanon is Burning Paul Craig Roberts Colin Powell's Career as a "Yes Man" Neve Gordon Why Hamas Won Joshua Frank The Hillary and George Show: Partners in War Peter Montague The Problem with Mercury: a History of Regulatory Capitulation Jackie Corr The Last Best Choice: Public Power and Montana Jeffrey St. Clair Rumsfeld's Enforcer: the Secret World of Stephen Cambone Website of the Day Negroes with Guns   February 6, 2006 Christopher Brauchli Spilling Blood: Two Sentences Robert Fisk Don't Be Fooled: This Isn't About Islam vs. Secularism John Chuckman What Did Stephen Harper Actually Win? Jenna Orkin Judge Slams EPA for Lying About 9/11's Toxic Air Paul Craig Roberts Who Will Save America: My Epiphany   February 4 / 5, 2006 Alexander Cockburn "Lights Out in Tehran": McCain Starts Bombing Run Mike Ferner Pentagon Database Leaves No Kid Alone James Petras Evo Morales's Cabinet: a Bizarre Beginning in Bolivia Alan Maass Scare of the Union: Dems Collaborate with Bush on Surveillance Fred Gardner Annals of Law Enforcement: a Look Inside the San Francisco DA's Office Ralph Nader Bush's Energy Escapades Bill Glahn RIAA Watch: Speaking in Tongues Saul Landau Freedom 2006: Buying Sex on the Net or Those Older Freedoms? Laura Carlsen Bad Blood on the Border: Killing Guillermo Martinez James Brooks Our Little Shop of Diplomatic Horrors Mike Roselle Hippies and Revolutionaries in Carcacas John Holt Black Gold, Black Death: Canada's Oil Sands Frenzy Sarah Ferguson Cops Suing Cops ... for Spying on Cops William S. Lind Beware the Ides of March Niranjan Ramakrishnan The Price of Globalization: Free Trade or Free Speech? Seth Sandronsky The Color of Job Cuts in the Auto Industry Derrick O'Keefe Rumsfeld's Hitler Analogy Michael Donnelly Hop on the Bus Ron Jacobs Religion and Political Power Elisa Salasin RSVP to Bush St. Clair / Vest Playlists: What We're Listening to This Week Stew Albert God's Curse: Selected Poems Poets' Basement Guthrie, LaMorticella and Engel Website of the Weekend Killer Tells All!   February 3, 2006 Toufic Haddad A Parliament of Prisoners Heather Gray Working with Coretta Scott King Tim Wise Racism, Neo-Confederacy and the Raising of Historical Illiterates Conn Hallinan Nuclear Proliferation: the Gathering Storm Eva Golinger Rumsfeld and Negroponte Amp Up Hositility Toward Venezuela Daniel Ellsberg The World Can't Wait: Invitation to a Demonstration Dave Zirin Detroit: Super Bowl City on the Brink Robert Bryce The Problem with Cutting US Oil Imports from the Middle East Website of the Day The Chavez Code   February 2, 2006 Winslow T. Wheeler Pentagon Pork: How to Eliminate It Stan Cox Outsourcing the Golden Years Rachard Itani Danes (Finally) Apologize to Muslims (For the Wrong Reasons) Mike Whitney Afghanistan Five Years Later: Buildings Down, Heroin Up Amira Hass In the Footsteps of Arafat: an Interview with Hamas' Ismail Haniya Norman Solomon When Praise is Desecration: Smothering King's Legacy with Kind Words Michael Simmons Stew Lives! Christopher Reed Japan's Dirty Secret: One Million Korean Slaves Website of the Day State of Nature   February 1, 2006 Sharon Smith The Bluff and Bluster Dems: Alito and the Faux Filibuster Jason Leopold Enron and the Bush Administration Cindy Sheehan Getting Busted at the State of the Union: What Really Happened Joseph Grosso Oprah and Elie Wiesel: a Match Made in "Neutrality" Earl Ofari Hutchinson Coretta Scott King was More Than Just Dr. King's Wife Steven Higgs Life After Roe. v. Wade Robert Robideau "God Given Rights": Palestine and Native America R. Siddharth Tales of Power: When Gandhi Rejected a Faustian Bargain with Henry Ford Jim Retherford Remembering Stew Albert: the Quiet Genius Rep. Cynthia McKinney The Legacy of Coretta Scott King Paul Craig Roberts The True State of the Union Website of the Day Candide's Notebooks     Subscribe Online

March 21, 2006 The Assault on Higher Education The Conservative Push for the Right Student By SOPHIA A. McCLENNEN The news of right-wing assaults on higher education keeps coming: The state of Pennsylvania has a congressional board set up to investigate cases of bias in the classroom, the State University of New York System's Board of Trustees voted unanimously to allow white students to apply for scholarships originally earmarked for black, Hispanic, and American Indian students. Barely a day passes when those of us who work in higher education are not forced to face yet another example of the increasing power of the right's ability to push its educational agenda. These assaults, of course, are not new. Most of them have been circulating since the culture wars. But it was the attacks of 9/11 and the war on terror that gave them newfound power. Stanley Kurtz, the conservative critic who argued for government oversight of area studies programs, makes the point: "The war has unquestionably brought a new level of scrutiny to our politically correct campuses. Once the initial years of the campus culture war had passed, the public decided that campus leftism was either beyond the reach of anyone who hoped to do something about it, or irrelevant. The war changed that" (2002). What lends force to these attacks is that they are presented as stemming from a desire to protect student rights. The public has been regaled by tales of the helpless student who was victimized by a left-leaning faculty member who forced her class to watch Fahrenheit 9/11 and then penalized students who didn't like the movie with bad grades. Or we hear of freshman classes who have had to suffer through reading texts sympathetic to Islam. In addition, the media reports that university faculty are overwhelmingly leftist and hell-bent to indoctrinate their students. There have been many counter-arguments posed that suggest that these attacks rest on faulty research, that the nature of teaching lends itself to left-leaning politics, that seeking political diversity among faculty members is impractical, etc but not enough attention has been paid, in my view, to the right's characterization of the student as a helpless victim. These attacks have typically been disguised as a defense of student rights -- such as the right to academic freedom, the right to transparency in reporting facts about universities, the right to fairness and balance in courses and curricula, the right to be taught about the greatness of the nation and of Western civilization, the right to exposure to conservative faculty, etc. -- but really the assault is on the student. Let me briefly list some of the claims being made by the right regarding the assault on the student: * Students are victims of indoctrination. "For some time now, conservatives have watched anxiously as tenured leftists have conducted mind experiments on American campuses, regulating speech and punishing ideas that are politically incorrect." ­David Horowitz (The Art of Political War 2000, 73). * Students have been denied access to conservative faculty. The "About Campus Watch" site claims that "[t]he Middle East studies professorate is almost monolithically leftist due to a systematic exclusion of those with conservative or even moderately liberal views" (n.p.). * Student ideas are often discounted by professors, which is a violation of their academic freedom. "Rather than fostering intellectual diversity-the robust exchange of ideas traditionally viewed as the very essence of a college education-our colleges and universities are increasingly bastions of political correctness, hostile to the free exchange of ideas" (Anne Neal, co-president of the ACTA, Congressional testimony, 2003, n.p.). These three points interconnect and reveal important premises that underpin the right's assault. Similar to the McCarthy period the right now claims that students are victims of indoctrination. Brainwashing and mind control in classrooms constitute a parent's worst fears. Merely accusing a professor of indoctrination sends shivers throughout public consciousness. It is, without a doubt, the most effective way to cripple the progressive potential of higher ed, because it immediately makes the public suspicious of professors. But let's consider for a moment what such charges presume, especially when they are bundled with the second claim that students need more access to conservative faculty. Throughout the Bush reign the public has been repeatedly asked to uncritically believe, to have blind faith, to sacrifice, and to obey. The connections between the type of public ideally imagined by the administration and the nation's youth should be obvious. If you require an obedient populace, then it is essential that you begin training the youth accordingly. Favoring tests over critique, memorization over engagement, loyalty over social commitment, individualism over community, and so on implies a student educated to passively consume what the government provides rather than actively participate in the construction of a democratic society. This negative view of the unthinking student repeatedly appears in arguments that assume that students are docile and submissive, easily persuaded to accept their professors' politics. The right also confuses the necessary confrontations that arise in an atmosphere of critical pedagogy with hostility towards student's views. What is most revealing is that the right suggests that political affiliations of faculty seamlessly transfer into classroom dogma and that students readily accept anything a professor says. If that were true, and if it were also true that the academy was dominated by the left, then wouldn't the nation be overwhelmingly leftist? If professors control their students, and if the left controls the universities, then why are there so many college-educated Republicans? And, if it is abundantly clear that such arguments make no sense whatsoever, then what is it exactly that does worry the right? Not left-leaning faculty I contend, but, rather, the intellectually sophisticated students left-leaning faculty hope to encourage. In fact a recent study by April Kelly-Woessner and Matthew Woessner that will soon to be published in PS: Political Science & Politics - finds that students are the ones with bias and they are more likely to judge their professors on political beliefs than on merit. The study shows that students do not change political affiliations because of classroom experiences. The next three ideas coalesce around the concept of intellectual unity and diversity: * Students have not been presented with a diversity of ideas and competing viewpoints. Article 4 of the Academic Bill of Rights: "Curricula and reading lists in the humanities and social sciences should reflect the uncertainty and unsettled character of all human knowledge in these areas by providing students with dissenting sources and viewpoints where appropriate" (n.p.). * Students have not been presented with sufficient faculty unity regarding the war on terror because academia is dominated by faculty who support terrorists. `` colleges and university faculty have been the weak link in America's response'' to terrorism (ACTA Defending Civilization: How Our Universities Are Failing America and What Can Be Done About It, 2002, 1). " many U.S. scholars of the Middle East lack any appreciation of their country's national interests and often use their positions of authority to disparage these interests" ("About Campus Watch" n.p.). * Students have been deprived of a strong, solid education by the multicultural curriculum. "Instead of broad courses on the full sweep of American history, many universities require a narrow focus on racism and inequality" (Restoring America's Legacy, Anne D. Neal and Jerry L. Martin 3). "Instead of solid core requirements, many colleges now offer students a cafeteria­style menu of hundreds of often narrow and even odd courses." (Jerry Martin Congressional testimony on accreditation). The American Council of Trustees and Alumni or ACTA quickly exploited the public panic after 9/11 in order to accuse academia of anti-Americanism, to claim that curricula did not prepare students to defend American values or understand American history, and to suggest that general education has abandoned a "solid" "core" in favor of a "cafeteria style" selection of "odd" topics (2002). ACTA argues that faculty must be united in their defense of American civilization against terrorism but they also argue that students are not presented with sufficient "diversity" of opinions. So, which is it? Is the university united or not? Does ACTA support the "robust exchange of ideas" that would logically result from a nation's decision to go to war, or not? Consequently the term "intellectual diversity" as it has been used in these assaults is code for right-wing views because diverse opinions about the war on terror are unacceptable. Again, it is clear that these claims do not support student's rights, but rather right-wing politics aimed at suppressing the student's right to dissent. The last and possibly most important attack reveals the economic side of these assaults: * Students and parents are not getting their money's worth, because increasing tuition costs go to supporting left-wing curricula and faculty. "By empowering the consumers of higher education--students and parents--with information, we will ensure they can fully exercise their power in the marketplace of higher education. Be it adding transparency to college costs or adding sunshine to the accreditation process, the bill will give consumers access to significant new information to help them make their own best decisions about higher education" (Representative John Boehner's introduction to HR 609 2005, n.p.). This last issue, regarding consumer protection for students and parents, exposes one of the most potentially devastating features of the right-wing assault, because it reminds us that this assault is ultimately an attack on funding and public support for higher ed. These assaults have often been accompanied by major cuts in state and federal support for higher education. With efforts to eradicate minority scholarships and to slash financial aid, it becomes clear that these assaults hope to eliminate the notion of the university as a public good that should be available to all. As education becomes increasingly privatized and our students increasingly consider education as a consumer product, it will become more and more difficult to encourage students to use the university as a site of social engagement and collective critique. On the positive side, the greatest advantage the left may have in this battle is its respect for the student. Fostering wakefulness over dreams, engagement over loyalty, vigilance over obedience, political activism over passive consumption, and hope over fearfulness may very well be our best weapon. Sophia A. McClennen, author of The Dialectics of Exile: Nation, Time, Language and Space in Hispanic Literatures, is Associate Professor of Comparative Literature, Spanish, and Women's Studies and Co-Director of the Graduate Program in Comparative Literature at Pennsylvania State University. She can be reached at: sam50@psu.edu

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