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Bush's Worst Appointment Yet? Read Jeffrey St Clair's blazing expose of the new Interior Secretary nominee , Dirk Kempthorne, and make up your own mind. Even in the dingy history of Idaho's predators, Kempthorne stood proud as the dingiest of them all. Now he's poised to seize his place in history. Will he be the sleaziest Interior Secretary in history, sleazier than Watt, fouler than Fall? More on the great Israel Lobby debate! Norman Finkelstein blazes a new path, asks "Are the Neo-Cons really committed Zionists?" "Bliss was it in that dawn" Not in Michigan! Raymond Garcia describes Dem governor's appalling plan to scapegoat youth and teachers. Plus the full print version of Virginia Tilley's savage dissection on this website of the double-standard onslaught on Hamas by the US and EU. 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! |
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Today's Stories May 19, 2006 Jonathan Cook May 18, 2006 Bill Simpich Patrick Cockburn Christopher Brauchli Nora Barrows-Friedman Victoria Buch Eric Ruder George Wuerthner Juan Santos Website of the Day
May 17, 2006 Lenni Brenner Carlos Villarreal Larry Everest CounterPunch News Service Lee Sustar Anthony Papa William S. Lind Bruce K. Gagnon JoAnn Wypijewski Website of the Day
May 16, 2006 Ward Churchill Ted Honderich Paul Craig Roberts Annie Nocenti Charles V. Peña Ron Jacobs Norman Solomon Harvey Wasserman Michael George
Smith Harry Browne Website of the
Day
May 15, 2006 Alexander Cockburn William Blum Tanya Golash-Boza
and Douglas A. Parker Dave Lindorff Debra Schaffer
Hubert Patrick Cockburn Tom Turnipseed Ken Livingstone Gideon Levy Mickey Z. Jeff Faux Website of the Day
May 13 / 14, 2006 Vijay Prashad Joan Roelofs Kathy Kelly Michael Neumann Dr. Susan Block Daniel Cassidy Christopher Reed Mike Roselle Saul Landau Robert Fisk Ralph Nader Evelyn Pringle Fred Gardner Stanley Heller Conn Hallinan Valentina Palma Novoa David Krieger Col. Dan Smith Christopher Brauchli Jeffrey St. Clair Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend
May 12, 2006 Michael Snedeker Dave Lindorff Leah Fishbein
/ RJ Schinner Brian Kwoba Chris Kromm Kai Diekmann David Swanson Virginia Tilley Website of the
Day
May 11, 2006 Sunsara Taylor Jonathan Cook Tariq Ali Wayne S. Smith Mike Whitney Pratyush Chandra Joshua Frank Mickey Z. Francis Boyle Edward S. Herman
/ David Peterson Website of the
Day
May 10, 2006 Werther Larry Birns / Michael Lettieri Ramzy Baroud Kevin Zeese Evelyn Pringle Amira Hass Michael Donnelly Ron Jacobs Sharon Smith Website of the Day
May 9, 2006 Ray McGovern M. Shahid Alam Moshe Adler Walter MIgnolo Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor William S. Lind Todd Chretien Dave Lindorff Ishmael Reed Website of the
Day
May 8, 2006 Kate McCabe Paul Craig Roberts Col. Dan Smith Norman Solomon Ingmar Lee Robert Jensen Ricardo Alarcon Will Youmans / M. Kay Siblani Alexander Cockburn Website of the
Day
May 6 / 7, 2006 Jeffrey St. Clair Ariel Dorfman Joe Allen Fred Gardner Jeff Taylor Saul Landau Stephen Philion Trish Schuh Ralph Nader Robert Fisk Paul Cantor John Holt James Ryan Lawrence R. Velvel Greg Moses Laray Polk Ron Jacobs Ben Tripp Mickey Z. Jeffrey St. Clair Poets' Basement Website of the Week
May 5, 2006 Vijay Prashad Robert Fisk David Swanson Mearsheimer / Walt Dave Lindorff Sarah Ferguson CounterPunch
News Service Corporate Crime Reporter Website of the
Day
May 4, 2006 John F. Sugg Jonathan Cook Roger Burbach Chris Dols Christopher Brauchli Tony Swindell Website of the Day
May 3, 2006 Robert Bryce Paul Craig Roberts James Petras Lee Sustar David Bolton Joshua Frank Jeffery R. Webber Website of the
Day
May 2, 2006 Evelyn Pringle Tariq Ali Saul Landau Paul Craig Roberts Gary Leupp Ron Jacobs Sen. Russell
Feingold Anthony Papa Website of the
Day
May Day, 2006 Norman Finkelstein Christopher Reed Michael Donnelly Dave Zirin Mike Whitney Gilad Atzmon Missy Comley Beattie Alexander Cockburn Website of the
Day
April 29 / 30, 2006 Peter Linebaugh Ralph Nader Robert Bryce Rev. William
Alberts Lee Sustar John Chuckman Eric Ruder Seth Sandronsky Ron Jacobs Ben Tripp Fred Gardner Don Monkerud Tommy Stevenson Lettrist International Contratiempo St. Clair, Vest
and D'Antoni Poets' Basement Website of the
Weekend
April 28, 2006 James Ridgeway Ramzy Baroud Sarah Knopp William S. Lind Werther April 27, 2006 Winslow T. Wheeler Robert Fisk Juan Santos Robert Jensen Dave Lindorff Jose Pertierra
April 26,2006 Robin Philpot Sherry Wolf Pratyush Chandra Joshua Frank Gary
Leupp Bill
Quigley
April 25, 2006 Gary
Leupp Paul
Craig Roberts Linda
S. Heard Ralph
Nader Mike
Whitney Michael
Donnelly Sharon
Smith Website
of the Day
April 24, 2006 Tim
Wise John
Stanton Dave
Lindorff Steve
Shore Amadou
Deme Mickey
Z. Ralph Nader Alexander
Cockburn Website
of the Day
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May 19, 2006 The Lessons of El SalvadorBuilding a New Sanctuary MovementBy ERIC JOHNSON-DEBAUFRE
Responding to Novalis's claim that philosophy is homesickness, Agnes Heller, Hannah Arendt Professor of Philosophy and Political Science at the New School for Social Research, writes in A Radical Philosophy
That such a world has not yet come into being must surely stand as one of the great indictments of neoliberal capitalist societies generally and of affluent countries like the United States particularly. That we are currently witnessing in the United States a reversion of the philosophical project Heller describes, the intensified creation not of a humanity at home in the world but of a humanity increasingly homeless, must stand as only the most recent of its many and appalling failures. Such is the situation, however, being created by the recent spate of legislation aimed at deporting millions of migrant people in residence in the United States. This legislation-the subject of Juan Santos's fine critique and rousing call to action in "The Border War Comes Home" (CounterPunch May 18, 2006)-aims to punish those who are in fact the unwilling victims of America's murderously interventionist and rapaciously predatory military and economic policies towards Central and South America. The record of these crimes, as well as their magnitude, has been meticulously documented by various justice and human rights organizations as well as by noted intellectuals such as Noam Chomsky. It is the danger and urgency of the present, however, rather than the crimes of the past that concern me most today. For what we are facing, should the present administration and its allies prevail in its designs, is nothing less than the emergence of a full-blown human catastrophe. That is, unless we organize ourselves quickly. Reading Mr. Santos's stirring declaration of resistance, I was reminded of the defiant actions undertaken by Central American activists during a similar state of emergency in the 1980s. As a young college student and activist during those years, I recall the decision our church made to become a Sanctuary church for refugees fleeing the U.S. backed war in El Salvador, a war that eventually resulted in the deaths of more than 70,000 people. I remember vividly the long conversations we had as a congregation about the possible legal ramifications of making this step-the government had just brought a 71 count criminal indictment against leaders of the Sanctuary Movement in the southwest and there were other indications that the U.S. was becoming increasingly serious in its efforts to destroy the larger Central American solidarity network. "If the government were to indict our church for harboring 'illegal aliens' and conspiring to transport them to places throughout the United States," we were asked, "would we be willing to accept the possible consequences of our decision?" After all, we were all embarking on this path of declaring ourselves a Sanctuary Church together, and all of us needed to be willing to share the fate that might befall any one of us. Soberly, hesitantly, and not without trepidation, we agreed that this was the path we were called to follow. It was not long afterwards that our church became home to the first of several Salvadoran refugees. The decision to become a Sanctuary Church, undertaken with a certain understandable fear during those days when the Reagan administration was bent on both destroying a tiny country to the South and disabling a network of North American solidarity stretching across the continent, proved to be one of the most transformative of my life. Having once made the decision to place myself on the opposite side of the law from our government, I felt truly free. But my freedom-and the experience of it-was not the point then nor is it the point today. The point now, as then, is the ability of other human beings simply to secure for themselves the means to sustain themselves and their loved ones. The point, in other words, is to ensure that our sisters and brothers are at home in the world, that the world might be transformed into "a home for humanity." This is precisely what the present administration and its allies threaten and precisely what we must in turn secure for those residing in the United States. To achieve this we must build a new Sanctuary Movement. Building such a movement will not be easy, but it is absolutely necessary if we are to move towards that redeemed image of the world Heller describes. Like its predecessor, the New Sanctuary Movement will address itself primarily to the threat being posed to our Latin American brothers and sisters, but it ought to extend itself to all undocumented people in the United States targeted by this administration, human beings whose only "crime" is violating this country's immigration laws because they are driven to do so by economic or political necessity. Likewise, the New Sanctuary Movement will need to build a network of support between its members in order to share strategies and information vital to its success. But a New Sanctuary Movement will also need to address itself to the very different circumstances prevailing in the country at the present. This is undoubtedly one of its greatest challenges. Aside from the obvious threats posed by the presence of organized racist/nativist groups such as the Minutemen, the New Sanctuary Movement must take stock of both the vastly different social circumstances giving rise to the new migration and the different legal arguments needed to address it. Where the old Sanctuary Movement had an arguably clearer legal basis for its defiance of U.S. immigration laws-providing refuge to those fleeing war is recognized by UNHCR convention-the New Sanctuary Movement is in the more difficult position of having to argue that current economic and political conditions within the home countries of undocumented workers, conditions brought about largely as a result of American interests and policy interventions in the form of trade agreements, constitute such a danger to their well-being that migrants are forced to illegally enter the United States simply to ensure their own survival. Convincing sympathetic Americans as well as international agencies such as the UNHCR that certain economic practices arguably constitute a low-level form of modern warfare and that those forced to flee their home countries as a result of such practices ought to be regarded as "refugees" will be difficult. Unfortunately, the 1951 convention of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees recognizes as a "refugee" only one who "owing to well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality." The narrowness of this definition-its inability to contemplate the possibility that comparative poverty might constitute a recognizable social group deserving protection or that "persecution" might take the form of profound socio-economic transformations that imperil the securing of the means of one's economic survival-displays the liberal bias that informs the convention. Nevertheless, it is precisely to these texts members of the New Sanctuary Movement must appeal and these texts that they must re-interpret if they wish to convince others of the rightness of their position. While the challenges of building the New Sanctuary Movement are considerable, we can take strength from the continued presence of so many former members of the original Sanctuary Movement. It is to them that we should first turn, both for the wisdom they might offer regarding our prospects and strategies and for the more active role they might play in any new Sanctuary Movement. To turn away from this looming crisis out of a mistaken belief that we lack the power is to forget our own history and to overestimate the power of those arrayed against us. We are many and they are few. El pueblo unido jamás será vencido! Eric Johnson-DeBaufre is a doctoral candidate in English
at Boston University. He currently lives in Madison, New Jersey
and can be reached at ericjd@optonline.net.
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from CounterPunch Books! The Case Against Israel By Michael Neumann Grand Theft Pentagon: Tales of Greed and Profiteering in the War on Terror by Jeffrey St. Clair Sick of sit-on-the-Fence speakers, tongue-tied and timid? CounterPunch Editors Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St Clair are available to speak forcefully on ALL the burning issues, as are other CounterPunchers seasoned in stump oratory. Call CounterPunch Speakers Bureau, 1-800-840-3683. Or email beckyg@counterpunch.org. |