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Today's Stories April 14, 2006 Ishmael Reed The Colored Mind Doubles: How the Media Uses Blacks to Chastize Blacks April 13, 2006 CounterPunch News Service Powell's "Bitch"? Norman Solomon The Lobby and the Bulldozer Stanley Heller Time to Shake Up the Peace Movement Jeff Birkenstein Bush and Freedom of Speech Evelyn J. Pringle Not So Fast, Mr. Powell Michael Donnelly The Week the Bush Administration Fell Apart Kamran Matin Synergism of the Neo-Cons: What's Going On In Iran? Website of the Day "Don't Be Afraid of the Neo-Cons"   April 12, 2006 Vijay Prashad Resisting Fences Alan Maass The Suicide of Anthony Soltero Dave Lindorff Bush's Insane First Strike Policy: If You Don't Want to Get Whacked, You'd Better Get Your Nation a Nuke ... Fast Ron Jacobs Resistance: the Remedy for Fear Ramzy Baroud The Imminent Decline of the American Empire? Randall Dodd How a Wal-Mart Bank will Harm Consumers Missy Comley Beattie The Boy President Who Cried "Wolf!" P. Sainath The Corporate Hijack of India's Water Website of the Day "The System is Irretrievably Corrupt"   April 11, 2006 Al Krebs Corporate Agriculture's Dirty Little Secret: Immigration and a History of Greed Lawrence R. Velvel The Gang That Couldn't Leak Straight Sonia Nettinin Palestinian Health Care Conditions Under Israeli Occupation Willliam S. Lind The Fourth Plague Hits the Pentagon: Generals as Private Contractors Robert Ovetz Endangered Species in a Can: the Disappearance of Big Fish Pratyush Chandra Nepalis Say, "Ya Basta!" Grant F. Smith The Bush Administration's Final Surprise? Laray Polk Loud, Soft, Hard, Quiet: Marching Through Dallas for Immigrant Rights Francis Boyle O'Reilly and the Law of the Jungle: How to Beat a Bully on His Home Turf José Pertierra A Glimpse into the Mindset of Terrorists: Posada Carriles, Orlando Bosch and the Downing of Cubana Flight 455 Website of the Day The Dead Emcee Scrolls   April 10, 2006 Ralph Nader Tinhorn Caesar and the Spineless Democrats Heather Gray Atlanta and the Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. Uri Avnery The Big Wink Joshua Frank Big Greens and Beltway Politics: Betting on Losers Seth Sandronsky Immigration and Occupations Michael Leonardi The Italian Elections: "Reality is No Longer Important" Evelyn Pringle Did Bush Pull a Fast One on Fitzgerald? Tom Kerr FoxNews Does Ward Churchill Lucinda Marshall The Lynching of Cynthia McKinney Website of the Day Brown Berets April 7 -9, 2006 Alexander Cockburn If Only They'd Hissed Barack Obama Jeffrey St. Clair The Saga of Magnequench: Outsourcing US Missile Technology to China Patrick Cockburn The War Gets Grimmer Every Day David Vest The Rebuking and Scorning of Cynthia McKinney Dave Lindorff The Impeachment Clock Just Clicked Forward Gary Leupp "Ideologies of Hatred:" What Did Condi Mean? Elaine Cassel The Moussaoui Trial: What Kind of Justice is This? Saul Landau Vietnam Diary: Hue Without Rules James Ridgeway "This is Betty Ong Calling": a Short Film Ron Jacobs Why Iran was Right to Refuse US Money John Walsh Kerry Advocates Iraqization: Too Little, Too Late Ramzy Baroud The US Attitude Toward Hamas: Disturbing Parallels with Nicaragua Christopher Brauchli Bush Finds Democracy Has Its Limits Todd Chretien What the Pentagon Budget Could Buy for America Jonathan Scott Javelins at the Head of the Monolith John Bomar What They're Saying About Bush in Arkansas Michele Brand Iran, the US and the EU Ronan Sheehan Remember When the Irish First Met the Chinese? Mickey Z. Let Us Now Praise OIL Don Monkerud March of the Bunglers Michael Dickinson The Rich Young Man: a Miracle Play Website of the Weekend The Case Against Israel and Munich: Compare and Contrast     April 6, 2006 John Ross Mexico's Most Toxic Presidential Election Ever Dave Lindorff Time to Get on Message with the Sissy French Don Monkerud The Strange Case of the American Worker Robert McDonald The Texas Railroad to Death Row: How Prosecutors Fabricated a Case Against Rodney Reed Boris Kagarlitsky A Marriage of Convenience in Ukraine Remi Kanazi The Assault on Cynthia McKinney Niranjan Ramakrishnan Untangling the Issues in the Immigration Debates Robert Fisk A Lesson from the Holocaust for Us All   April 5, 2006 Dick J. Reavis Pancho Bin Laden and the Terrorists' Tombs Mark Brenner Workers in the Aftermath of Katrina: Survival of the Fittest Brian Cloughley Nailing the Lies: Come Clean, Mr. Bush Jozef Hand-Boniakowski Why Democrats Are At Least Half of the Problem Matt Vidal Republican Bliss: the Selfish Road to Happiness Juan Santos The Politics of Immigration: a Nation of Colonists and Race Laws Alan Maass Week of the Walkouts JoAnn Wypijewski Malevolent Power at Ft. Sill: the Army Slays Its Own Website of the Day My Life in the Bush of Ghosts   April 4, 2006 Jackson Thoreau How the Hammer Got Nailed: Taking Down Tom DeLay Gary Corseri Osama's Favorite Writer?: an Interview with William Blum Dave Lindorff Provocative Humanitarianism?: Bashing Hugo Chavez at the NYT Paul Craig Roberts Belligerent to the Bitter End Norman Solomon When War Crimes Are Unspeakable: Bush, Always the Accuser, Never the Accused Michael Carmichael The Christocrat: Condi Does Britain Winslow T. Wheeler Is the F-22 Worth the Price-Tag? Ingmar Lee Is Another World Possible?: Report from Karachi Michael Neumann The Israel Lobby and Beyond Website of the Day West Point Graduates Against the War   April 3, 2006 Saul Landau Vietnam Diary: "What Socialism?" Richard Thieme The CIA: Cowboys, Indians and Whistleblowers, an Interview with David MacMichael Timothy B. Tyson Race, Class and Rape at Duke Omar Barghouti The Israeli Elections: a Decisive Vote for Apartheid Iwasaki Atsuko "As Israelis, We Also Fight for Palestinians:" an Interview with Jeff Halper Julian Edney A Terrible Weapon in the Hands of the Rich Roger Morris Catfight Among the Conservatives   April 1 / 2, 2006 Alexander Cockburn Truth and Fiction in Elie Wiesel's "Night" Ralph Nader Exxon/Mobil: the Corporate Superpower of Superpowers Dave Zirin The Press Mob, Their Rope and Barry Bonds: Damn Right Race Matters David Underhill Walkin' to New Orleans Earl Ofari Hutchinson Do Immigrants Really Take Jobs from Urban Poor? Dave Lindorff Sen. Orrin Hatch: Defender of Presidential Lawlessness P. Sainath Where India's Brave New World is Headed Fred Gardner Debunking "Amotivational Syndrome" Clancy Chassay Hamas or Al Qaeda? The Gun or the Ballot Box? Heather Gray The Inspiring Face of Immigration: Australia and the American Rural Southeast Greg Moses Austin Students Walkout: "We're a Group This Country Needs" John Chuckman When the Violent Enforce the Peace: America's Brutal Tactics in Iraq Ron Jacobs Leaving Iraq Now is the Only Sensible Solution Jeffrey St. Clair Playlist: What I'm Listening to This Week Poets' Basement Holt, Engel, Subiet, Ford and Davies Website of the Weekend Pentagon Thievery   March 31, 2006 Gary Leupp Better Off Under Saddam: an Inventory Patrick Cockburn Mosul Slips Out of Control Saree Makdisi Israeli Elections Big Winner: Avigdor Lieberman Ron Jacobs Where Capital is Not God: France Shows the Way Mark Engler There's Much More to be Done on Third World Debt Relief Curtis F.J. Doebbler An Appeal to International Lawyers: Hold Bush Accountable for Flauting International Law Laith al-Saud Iraq is Not in Civil War (Yet); It's Under Occupation Website of the Day Boobies, Dolphins and Flying Fish: Sailing the African Coast     March 30, 2006 Uri Avnery Israeli Elections: What the Hell Has Happened? Sen. Russell Feingold A Fact Check on a Presidential Crime: Myth vs. Reality on Bush's Warrantless Wiretapping Program Winslow T. Wheeler The Saga of the Joint Strike Fighter: Just Because Its High Tech and Costs $247 Billion Doesn't Mean It Works Dave Lindorff A Strategy of Massacres? Juan Santos The Ghost of George Wallace: Immigration and White Racism Frida Berrigan Privatizing the Apocalypse Joshua Frank War in Search of a Justification Vonnie Edwards Letter from the LA County Jail Neve Gordon Does Kadima's Victory Put the Peace Process in Reverse? Website of the Day The Women of New Orleans Speak   March 29, 2006 CounterPunch News Service Fake Saddam Interview Put Out by Israel Lobby Catspaw, Endorsed by NeoCons' Pet Cassandra, Now Wiping Egg From Face Patrick Cockburn Bush's Call for Ouster of Iraq PM Widens Rift with Shias John Ross When Water is Not a Human Right Omar Barghouti When is Killing Arab Civilians Considered a Massacre? William S. Lind Truth in Advertising from the Army? Missy Comley Beattie Missing in America Earl Ofari Hutchinson AWOL: Black Leaders and Immigration Website of the Day Colombia Support Network Needs Your Help   March 28, 2006 Sharon Smith Liberal Hypocrisy on Immigration: Krugman and Clinton Say Shut the Door Paul Craig Roberts Bush is No Conservative Tariq Ali Karachi Social Forum: NGOs or WGOs? Manuel Garcia, Jr. God's Torturers: from Torquemada to Opus Dei Ramzy Baroud False Impressions: the Media and the Middle East Evelyn Pringle Fentanyl's Body Count: the FDA's Math Problem Seth Sandronsky Inflation and Speculation Patrick Cockburn Shias May Now Turn on US Forces   March 27, 2006 Patrick Cockburn War Crime in a Mosque Joshua Frank The Democrats' Daddy Warbucks Ron Jacobs The Case of the Anti-Minutemen Five Jeff Lays Eternal Spending for a Never-Ending War Davey D. We Didn't Cross the Border, the Border Crossed Us Robert Billyard "I Did Not Join the British Army to Conduct US Foreign Policy" Jim Rigby Why We Let an Atheist Join Our Church Lisa Viscidi Justice and Impunity in Latin America: the Case of Rios Montt Nick Dearden Refugees: Thirty Years in the Western Sahara Gideon Levy Are We Done Killing Children, Yet? Website of the Day "Love Me, I'm a Liberal " (Updated) March 25 / 26, 2006 Alexander Cockburn Why There's No Strategy to End This War Patrick Cockburn The Battle for Baghdad: It's Already Begun Ralph Nader Bush's Divorce from Reality Christopher Reed Slave Labor and Hell Ships: Mitsubishi Awaits Judgment for Its War Crimes Jeff Ballinger Memo to Walter Mosley: the Crisis in Black Leadership Joseph Massad Blaming the Israel Lobby Brian Cloughley The Fifth Afghan War Chris Floyd Death in the Village of Isahaqi Elaine Cassel Abortion Politics: The FDA and Plan B Dave Zirin Death Row Talks Back to Etan Thomas John Chuckman Sorry, Prime Minister, Afghanistan is Not Canada's War Sharon Smith "Si Se Puede!": On Chicago's Streets Christopher Fons A City With Latinos Chris Kromm Coretta Scott King a Communist? There's a History Here John Bomar Neurotic-in-Chief: Bush's "Change of Course" Ron Jacobs More Than Just a Band Maymanah Farhat What MoMA Does to "Islamic" Art St. Clair / Walker / Vest Playlists: What We're Listening to This Week Poets' Basement Harley, Davies, Engel and Subiet Website of the Weekend Peacecast   March 24, 2006 Cockburn / Sengupta / Duff How the CPT Hostages were Freed P. Sainath Bribe or Die Todd Chretien Jim Crow Goes Fishing: the Racist War on Immigrants Marty Omoto The Other California Michael Carmichael Islamophobia at Downing Street: Tony Blair's Bipolarity Peter Phillips Impeachment Movement Grows; Media Yawns Gabriel Kolko The US Empire vs. Reality Website of the Day Music for Peace   March 23, 2006 Charles V. Peña Bush's Pro-Terrorism Defense Budget Joe DeRaymond El Salvador 2006: a Broken Nation Robert Fisk "US Authorities Say..." Jonathan Cook The Emerging Jewish Consensus in Israel Tom Engelhardt Whatever Happened to Congress?: an Interview with Chalmers Johnson Joshua Frank Political Lemmings: the Democrats and the Precipice Norman Solomon The Ultimate Scapegoat: Blaming the Media for Bad War News Robert Fitch / Joe Allen An Exchange on the State of Organized Labor Patrick Cockburn Kirkuk's Dr. Death CounterPunch News Service On the Proper Way to Address a Bible-Waving Republican State Senator from Maryland Website of the Day Bird-Dogging Kerry   March 22, 2006 David MacMichael Iranian Nuclear Showdown: an Unnecessary Crisis Juan Santos Brown Skin, Yellow Star: Making Latinos Illegal Paul Craig Roberts Hollow Nation: Americans Don't Live Here Anymore Patrick Cockburn Iraq's My Lai?: Shooting Any Iraqi Who Moves Ramzy Baroud The Jericho Raid Jason Leopold The Mysterious "Official One": Woodward's Plame-Leak Deep Throat Dennis Perrin Killer Lies from Cheney's Harlot William Blum The Cuban Punching Bag Jeffrey St. Clair Contract Casino Website of the Day Bird Flu: Will It Cross Over?   March 21, 2006 Paul Craig Roberts Bush's Delusional Speech Winslow Wheeler Lipstick on the Pig: the Fiasco of Congressional Earmark Reform Tom Engelhardt Cold Warrior in a Strange Land: an Interview with Chalmers Johnson Arnold Oliver To the Guy Who Called Me a Traitor: Dissent and the Iraq War Earl Ofari Hutchinson When Black Cops Go Bad: the Killing of Elio Carrion Mike Whitney Death Squad Democracy William A. Cook Israeli Human Rights: Starve the Palestinians 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         Subscribe Online

April 14, 2006 How the Media Use Blacks to Chastise Blacks The Colored Mind Doubles By ISHMAEL REED ITivo Don Imus as much as I can because his putrid racist offerings are said to represent the secret thinking of the Cognoscenti. Maybe that's why journalists like Jeff Greenfield and others admire him so much. He says what they think in private. On any day, you might find Bernard McGirk, the man, who, according to "60 Minutes," Imus hired to do "nigger jokes," doing a lame imitation of New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, using a plantation type dialect. The blacks who are satirized by McGirk and others are usually displayed as committing malaprops, but, though white writers appear daily on the show, I've rarely seen a black author. In the last twenty years, black authors have received every prize available to authors. His idea of a black author must be the same as the producers of the movie, "The Tenants:" Snoop Dogg. Recently, McGirk referred to Rev. Joesph Lowery as a "shameless skunk," and a joke was made about the manner in which Betty Shabazz, Malcolm X's window, was murdered. Black athletes are referred to as "knuckle draggers," which, the Irish and and Scotts Irish members of Imus's crew--they discussed their ethnic heritage on C-Span--might be surprised to learn, was the way that the British referred to their groups. When an exhibition of great apes was presented in London, the British commentators said that the exhibition showed the Irish to be the link between ape and man. But their being Irish and Scots-Irish makes sense because it was members of these groups who used to entertain the Anglos by blackening up. Maybe that's why Imus has listeners in Kennebunkport. Bush I is a fan. Another fan is Congressman Harold Ford (D-TN), whom Imus endorses so as to deflect attention from the show's lowbrow racism. I'm sure that Ford understands what Imus is all about, but he needs the country and western vote in rural Tennessee in order to gain a senate seat. Imus has a big following among this constituency. So did James Earl Ray. But why pick on Imus? His approach to the treatment of black issues and personalities has become mainstream, the only difference being that instead of using the Irish and Scot-Irish, the traditional white-trash mercenaries, who stand between the Other and the Anglos, when, given their social and economic position, they should strike common cause with blacks, the network and newspaper executives use people who resemble blacks to chastise blacks. This colored auxiliary function as their mind doubles and iPod people. I'll bet the executives got the idea from the cynical packagers of President Bush's political strategies. The administration's advocates of torture for example are Vietnamese, Chinese and Mexican Americans. The former domestic policy advisor who was recently arrested for scamming a department store is black, and the secretary of state is black. When they come before congressional committees, the idea is that congressmen would be reluctant to submit them to harsh questioning for fear of being called racist. That way, they can promote the administration's megalomaniac foreign policy with very little criticism. I'm sure that's Karl Rove's thinking. Unlike Ms. Rice, who I, in a heated public exchange with her, dubbed "the Manchurian Candidate" about a year before she joined the Bush campaign, journalist Barbara Reynolds is a progressive. She said that she was fired from USA Today because she didn't appeal to the demographic group from which the paper gets its sales: Angry White Men. Those black syndicated columnists who have remained must fit the bill. They have become the go-fers for backlash journalism, all of them competing with each other to blame the country's social problems on black behavior. Clarence Page and others are regularly blaming the victim. Harvard's Orlando Patterson is also brought in by the Neo Con op-ed editors at the Times to characterize the problems of African-Americans as self-inflicted, using the kind of argument that would be ripped to shreds in a freshman class room. Even Bob Herbert, a liberal and the token black on the New York Times' Neo Con editorial page, has to take the brothers and sisters to the woodshed from time to time in order to maintain credibility with his employers. He too says that Gangsta Rap is the cause of society's woes. (David Brooks, who promotes some of the same ideas as David Duke, but has a more opaque writing style, even blamed the riots in France on Gangsta Rap). For these writers, black peoples' style is the irritant. If we could only get Rep. Cynthia McKinney to a new hair stylist. Michel Martin, who was assigned to beat up on Ms. Mckinney by the producers of" Nightline," spent half the interview on Ms.McKinney's hair even though Ms.McKinney has been outspoken on a number of serious issues. Can you imagine Ms. Martin conducting an interview with Trent Lott, the last person on the planet to use Wild Root Cream Oil, or Joe Biden, and spending half the time on his hair? If "Nightline's" Martin had subjected a white male congressman to this kind of hostile sarcastic interview, sarcastic not only in words but in body language, to which she subjected Cynthia McKinney, Martin would have gotten the same treatment from her bosses that Connie Chung received when she interviewed Newt Gingrich's mom, who denounced Hillary Clinton as "a bitch". (Ms. Martin knows whom to aggress upon. When she appeared on a program with "white militant" Joe Klein and Klein,who lied about his authorship of Primary Colors, talked about "the poverty of values within the inner city," she just sat there and took it.) Before Chung's interview with Newt's mom, the network executives, according to a media publication issued by the Freedom Forum, wanted someone like Connie Chung for their shows. She still hasn't recovered and has been assigned to a Saturday morning show on MSNBC. Oblivion. Cynthia Tucker of the Atlanta Constitution was also solicited by "Nightline" to join in on the ambush of Ms. McKinney. Ms.Tucker, who blames the Hudlin brothers, producers at Black Entertainment Network, for the problems confronting some black kids, is the syndicated columnist who relied on the usual inflammatory and racist reporting to describe those who sought refuge in the New Orleans Astrodome as "bestial." The New York Times, the New Orleans Time-Picayune and the LA Times all discounted these rumors and the LA Times even apologized, saying that such reporting would never have occurred had there been white middle class inhabitants of the Astrodome. Ms.Tucker never retracted her false accusation, nor did Jeff Koinange, the reporter whom CNN has assigned to cover all of Africa. He replaced the African-American reporter who was covering the Astrodome because this reporter presumably wasn't sensational enough. While one can see African leaders, intellectuals, and scientists, sessions of parliaments, cultural events on the B.B.C., CNN's view of Africa is on par with that found in the Tarzan movies. When CNN bade Koinange farewell on the occasion of his new assignment, they presented the highlights of his Africa coverage. One picture showed him staring at a crocodile. Another showed him grinning at a monkey. No wonder the American public's knowledge of the world is on par with that of their president's. You'll also notice that the moderator of the "Nightline" show where Congressperson McKinney was grilled was of South Asian origin. According to a memo I have from a Cuban reporter, who was fired from CNN, the executives there, led by Jonathan Klein (the new head of CNN who is trying to boost his ratings by running mug shots of black males all day, while dropping the story about the middle class white kids, who were caught on video beating up homeless people, killing one of them; they were sent to psychiatric counseling) prefer South Asians as anchors, especially the women, and particularly on CNN International. CNN Atlanta features a South Asian anchorwoman who giggles while the male correspondents exchange remarks with her that are loaded with sexual innuendo, certainly an issue that feminists should take up. Even C-Span, the only network where you can obtain a variety of viewpoints from African Americans, though they give disproportionate time to think-tank blacks like Shelby Steele, has gone Imus. Last week, Jadish Bhaghati, a South Asian professor at Columbia who supports Bush's plan to bring Mexican slave labor into the United States to serve his big agri-businesses contributors, shared laughs with host Pedro Echevarria and a caller, a white employer, who was voicing the kind of jokes about black work habits that one reads at the Klan's "Nigger Watch" website. Both Bhaghati and host Echevarria are black, but that didn't prevent them from enjoying the kind of barbs against African-Americans one hears on the Imus show. Of course, one should avoid generalizing about South Asians, but obviously the British, who, referred to them as "niggers," trained some of them very well and they're not the only "people of color" who serve as stooges for the corporate media. Michel Malkin, instead of a hard-hitting anti-establishment writer like Emil Gulliermo of Asia Week, represents Filipino Americans. For Muslim Americans they give us Irshad Manji, who refuses to debate the young playwright Wajahat Ali. For Mexican Americans we are awarded the syndicated Ruben Navarrette, Jr., who believes that black people are too dumb to compete with the cheap Mexican labor that has been brought into New Orleans. People who work off the books, for less than the minimum wages, and who are subject to blackmail by their employers. People who threaten to wipe out all of the gains that American workers have fought for over the last one hundred years. Apparently, there is no room for the views of Patricia Gonzales and Roberto Rodriquez, who are to the left of Navarrette, Jr. African-Americans have a number of individuals who are willing to serve as mind doubles. Some are supported by right wing think tanks like the Manhattan Institute's John McWhorter, black front man for the Eugenics movement. The Manhattan Institute boasts that they can provide enormous publicity for their fellows--the kind of clout that enables them to impose their viewpoints upon discussions about black issues--by using proxies who are unknown to black Americans. When McWhorter attacks me in Commentary, a magazine that praised Charles Murray's "The Bell Curve," or in his books, where do I go to get equal time? He once challenged me to a debate, threatening "to wipe up the floor with me," but when I accepted, he backed out. Another proxy person-of-color intellectual for right wing interests is Shelby Steele of the Hoover Institute. He just got three hours on C-Span to explain his one-note theory that blacks complain too much about their "victimization." He accused blacks of expressing "victimization" when they complained about being robbed of their votes in Florida during the Presidential election of 2000, even though there is abundant evidence that they were victimized. But even Shelby Steele isn't as popular with the right as Ward Connerly who is so firmly associated with proposition 209, the measure that ended Affirmative Action in California, that lazy journalists claim he started the drive that led to its being passed. He didn't. He was brought on when the real sponsors suffered a lapse in their notion of a color-blind society long enough to realize that a black face on their proposition would aide in its adoption. Before Connerly came on, the proposition was failing. (One of the two white founders of the proposition said that he did so because a woman got the job that he was qualified for (Lydia Chavez, the author of "The Color Bind: The Campaign to End Affirmative Action" Paperback, April 1998) an excellent book about the sinister maneuvering that led to proposition 209 says the woman has never been found.) Connerly, viewed as by the media as as martyr who braved the scorn of his black accusers to follow his conscience, only agreed to support the proposition if its supporters raised $500,000. Newt Gingrich helped to raise the money. He was also supported financially by President Clinton's nemesis Richard Mellon Scaife. Rupert Murdoch contributed 200,00 dollars and the Pioneer fund contributed thirty five thousand dollars to the campaign to end Affirmative Action in California, so that now Duke University and "Old Miss" have a higher black enrollment than the University of California and California State University. In his book, The Nazi Connection, Stefan Kuhl says that "Today, the Pioneer Fund is the most important financial supporter of research concerning the connection between race and heredity in the United States." Its largest contributor, until the 1960s, was textile magnate Wickliffe Draper, who worked with the United States House Un-American Activities Committee to demonstrate that blacks were genetically inferior and ought to be 'repatriated' to Africa." The Pioneer Fund also supported Charles Murray's "The Bell Curve," the book beloved by publications that hate Minster Louis Farrakhan so much. In this book, Charles Murray floats some of the same stereotypes about blacks that were once aimed at his Scots-Irish ancestors. Another supporter was Andrew Sullivan, who came to the attention of the mainstream electronic media after he did such a good job bashing blacks at the New York Times Magazine section, which describes blacks as cannibals and crack addicts. Obviously Ward Connerly, who has made millions from being associated with proposition 209, is supported by such ultra right individuals and groups that he has been reluctant to list his contributors. Such is the power of their right wing backers that Steele, Connerly, and McWhorter get more media attention than black elected officials. When Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr. and Connerly appeared on C-Span, on the same day, it was Connerly who was featured. I remember the press conference held by David Duke when he announced that he was abandoning his quest for the presidency. Only a few news people attended. Duke complained that he had to quit because the mainstream candidates had co opted his program all about a growing black underclass threatening civilization. (His Nazi colleague, Tom Metzger disagreed with him. He said on Larry King's show that the average woman on welfare is a white woman whose husband has abandoned her.) The same might happen to Don Imus, whose "nigger Jokes" are sponsored by American Express and other famous brand names. Who needs a white man when there are plenty of people of color willing to take up the slack. Ishmael Reed is a poet, novelist and essayist who lives in Oakland. His widely-accalimed novels include, Mumbo Jumbo, the Freelance Pallbearers and the Last Days of Louisiana Red. He has recently published a fantastic book on Oakland: Blues City: a Walk in Oakland and Carroll and Graf has just published a thick volume of his poems: New and Collected Poems: 1964-2006. He is also the editor of the online zine Konch. Reed can be reached at: reed@counterpunch.org.

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