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THE INSIDE HISTORY OF THE ISRAEL LOBBY Former top CIA analysts Kathleen and Bill Christison give CounterPunchers the real scoop on the Israel lobby and precisely how powerful it is. Read how US presidents from Wilson, through FDR to Truman were manipulated by the Zionist lobby; how Israel bent LBJ, Reagan and Clinton to its purpose; how Bush's White House has been the West Wing of the Israeli government; how Washington's revolving doors send full-time Israel lobbyists from think-tanks to the National Security Council and the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans. For all who want a true measure of the Lobby's power, the Christisons' 8-page dossier, exclusive to CounterPunch newsletter subscribers, is a MUST read. 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! |
Today's Stories June 3, 2006 Robert Fisk James Petras Ron Ridenour
June 2, 2006 Kathy Kelly Alan Maass Mickey Z. Dave Lindorff Chris Kutalik Sunsara Taylor Sam Husseini Mike Ferner Website of the
Day
June 1, 2006 Brian Cloughley David Peterson Lee Ballinger Jonathan Cook Mike Whitney Paul Rockwell Clifton Ross Kevin Zeese Website of the
Day
May 31, 2006 Dave Lindorff Joshua Frank Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz P. Sainath Ramzy Baroud Seth Sandronsky Mickey Z. Ralph Nader Jeffrey St. Clair Website of the Day
May 30, 2006 Lee Ballinger Jonathan Cook Gary Leupp John Ross Robert Jensen Michael Dickinson Michael Carmichael Tim Wise Harry Browne Website of the
Day
May 27 / 29,
2006 Paul Craig Roberts Kathleen Christison Kathy Kelly Christopher
Reed Lawrence R. Velvel Tom Barry Gary Leupp Col. Dan Smith Ron Jacobs Don Fitz Fred Gardner Peter Montague Raymond Garcia John Farley Seth Sandronsky Tia Steele Lenni Brenner Dr. Susan Block Scott Michael Perey Jeffrey St. Clair Poets' Basement Recipe of the
Weekend Website of the Weekend
May 26, 2006 Col. Douglas
MacGregor Brian J. Foley Michael Dickinson Missy Comley Beattie Pierre Tristam Joe Allen Kona Lowell Roger Burbach Website of the
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May 25, 2006 Les AuCoin Jeff Halper Dave Lindorff Ron Jacobs Bob Wing Elise Gould Robert Bryce Website of the Day
May 24, 2006 Michael Donnelly Patrick Cockburn Lucinda Marshall Dave Lindorff Shmuel Rosner Moshe Adler Heather Gray Pratyush Chandra Paul Craig Roberts Floyd Rudmin Website of the Day
May 23, 2006 Paul Craig Roberts Sharon Smith Sunsara Taylor Joel Whitney Alice Cherbonnier Ron Jacobs Kristen Ess Patrick Cockburn Website of the
Day
May 22, 2006 Alan Maass William Blum Elaine C. Hagopian Stan Cox Chris Floyd Alexander Cockburn Website of the Day
May 20 / 21, 2006 Patrick Cockburn Kathy Kelly Ralph Nader Hugh O'Shaughnessy Greg Grandin P. Sainath Greg Moses Stephen Philion Landau / Hassen Fred Gardner Missy Comley
Beattie Michael Dickinson Seth Sandronsky Luke Young John Zavesky Ben Tripp Jeffrey St. Clair Poets' Basement
May 19, 2006 Winslow T. Wheeler José Pertierra John Ross Dave Lindorff Jeff Juel Alan Farago Eric Johnson-DeBaufre José Martî Jonathan Cook Website of the
Day
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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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May 2, 2006 Evelyn Pringle Tariq Ali Saul Landau Paul Craig Roberts Gary Leupp Ron Jacobs Sen. Russell
Feingold Anthony Papa Website of the
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May Day, 2006 Norman Finkelstein Christopher Reed Michael Donnelly Dave Zirin Mike Whitney Gilad Atzmon Missy Comley Beattie Alexander Cockburn Website of the
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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
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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
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April 24, 2006 Tim
Wise John
Stanton Dave
Lindorff Steve
Shore Amadou
Deme Mickey
Z. Ralph Nader Alexander
Cockburn Website
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Weekend
Edition A Graduation FarceFinal ExaminationBy DAVE PATTEN Writing about the 106th commencement at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth raises a serious question: in a country fascist in all but name, with institutions brimming over with corruption, ignorance, racism, and violence, where even a small victory like finishing a bachelor's degree should be celebrated and notice given to the skills and kindnesses of faculty and staff, how can one express outrage that marks your university as special and deserving of notice, one which sinks deeper in this rotting social milieu? Certainly my journey through higher education hasn't been a model of timeliness or efficiency. However, exposure to many different academic settings, from public community colleges to a sub-Ivy League private college, has given me a keen appreciation of institutional values. I've come to recognize the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, as an example of how to devolve a degree-granting institution into a culturally-bleached wafer of conformity and acquiescence. When I first applied in 1989, Southeastern Massachusetts University was an interesting and independent place, diverse in race and class without the need to advertise as such, and offering a wide variety of programs at an affordable price. My attendance elsewhere by necessity did not erase this first, positive impression, and I returned there in 1997 to witness a campus turning away from its public mission: "improved" admission standards were closing off access, especially to people of color, and the joining of the UMass system had resulted in a staggering increase in fees (over 300% during the first biennium, if memory serves) the proceeds of which continue to disappear, Mafia-like, into some dark recess. The names and amounts of these fees, which evade both the state-mandated limits in tuition increases and serious public analysis, went through some gyrations before reaching the current state of accounts, as follows, for a full-time Massachusetts resident student:
Throw in one-time orientation and transcript fees and you're north of $8000 per year, exclusive of housing. Only the MASS PIRG fee is waiveable, if you prefer an atom of financial accountability to help wash down the rest (I never found out how that money was spent on campus, either). Amid a culture of administrative contempt, underscored by examining bloated salaries in the library's archives, a student's love of learning and desire for advancement, held so rhetorically high, is regularly smashed with the bludgeon of financial brutality and harebrained priorities. Again, the question: does UMass Dartmouth stand out from the rest of this country's public universities? A recurrent theme is double standards. The electronic commons is a prime example. Leave aside for the moment the craven surrender of academic sovereignty over the music file-sharing issue of recent years; the policy release of Computing and Information Technology (CITS) was heavily cribbed from the RIAA, though ironically uncredited. Even as simple an issue as spam escapes understanding. For my thoughtful response to spam, a 1970's-era feminist lesbian now ensconced in a position of authority, complete with Pastor Martin Niemoller's famous quote in her office, found it more advantageous to attempt to intimidate me than fairly address the issue at hand. Score one for jackbooted Baby Boomer liberals with political memory loss. Another vacant file on campus is the student newspaper. On three separate occasions, I labored in vain to contribute an informed response to a policy or issue at hand: taxation and support for public higher education, the history of the fee structure before and after the UMass takeover (complete with closed-door meeting between the student representative and chancellor), and the file-sharing fiasco mentioned above. Not only was The Torch unequipped to edit and print informed dissent, but had trouble identifying it. Gone are the years of The Graffiti, an independent student newspaper. Score one for institutional memory loss and the embedded, Emmy- and Pulitzer-whoring reporters of tomorrow. Nonetheless, for those lacking educational choices, time spent at UMass Dartmouth could be stimulating: watching the bureaucracy and buildings grow like bacteria in null-gravity; taking a class on race almost entirely filled with white students; narrowly avoiding another class putatively about the environment but dedicated to twisting the truth about the same; witnessing an expensive, unnecessary, and inept computer software package imposed, apparently "because"; wondering how many overpaid bodies could be hidden in the wasted architectural space of perhaps the ugliest campus in North America (a friend who grew up in East Germany attended commencement and confirmed, yes, it is truly hideous). Indeed, the distance between reality and policy is where my UMass heart will always be. Which brings us back to commencement. Never expecting in a dozen lifetimes that I would actually muster the patience (or stifle my spirit enough) to graduate, my expectations of the day were modest. Like several seniors I know, were it not for proud family members' attendance, a day gardening or hammering nails into one's own feet was more appealing. Then, in April, the commencement speaker was announced: the president and CEO of the New York Times Company would come to speak at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Amphitheater. Er, make that the Vietnam Veterans Peace Memorial Amphitheater. On reading the press release that this locally-grown aide-de-empire would descend on us, I said "Where's the Peace?" A message to public relations yielded no response or correction to this splashy homepage announcement. Ahh, this must be the UMass Dartmouth commencement speaker! In the event, it didn't matter much. There was no more talk of Vietnam or Peace than there was of skateboarding on Mars. The Chair of the UMass Board of Trustees spoke of the "incredible" chancellor (How about 'invisible'? I could have grown potted plants in her reserved parking space) and the need to challenge established principles and push the envelope... and mind the chancellor's admonition to put aside our own feelings about two illegal invasions and just support the troops who are clearly killing and being killed in support of the ideals of higher education. The President of the Alumni Association assured us of the huge community of successful UMass graduates, none of which was available to stand in for the CEO graduated from a private religious university, and told us of the blue and gold blood that pumped through his veins. Capping off the bit players was the Vice President of the University of Massachusetts thundering that "people LOVE this place." Through the nausea, I thought hopefully to myself 'Perhaps he's talking about another place.' To my fellow students, I often did. The CEO spoke about choices. Specifically, eight kinds of them, presumably to be made in a timely fashion by people other than herself. The keynote was FDR's response to the ruling class gnawing on itself as The (First)Great Depression got underway. The stock market and banks were shut down, and average people were informed and angry enough to take action. "As the newly-elected President, he could assume wartime authority and call out the Army to keep order. Or...he could assemble a private force of veterans to enforce a kind of martial law. But to do either would deal an extraordinary blow to capitalism and to democracy." (Hmmm... perhaps then.) But by using the radio, FDR worked his civic magic and "In the words of a New York Times editorial dated March 14, 1933: "The fear and panic... appear to have almost entirely passed." Clearly this woman was not a history major or familiar with her flagship property's atrocious record on just about any public issue of import. Still, we could choose to quote from Winston Churchill, keep learning (as she claimed Tom Friedman did before penning his odious "The World Is Flat"), change your mind (strictly about your career, that is), be ethical (choose a friend's health insurance over a career move), and work for the greater good (as long as it doesn't endanger your career). Aside from being a corporate accomplice to two illegal invasions and other civic crimes large and small, with such noble ideas one could argue that she deserved to be released from prison sometime before the end of her life. The graduates cheered the imminent end of her appearance and the Class of 2006 walked across the stage to accept their degrees. I shook the hands of two officials who had earned my respect and gratitude. Afterward, a friend quipped that the commencement was like my undergraduate work: long, arduous, and frustrating, but finally over. To end on a positive note and make clear the obvious, public higher education is of dire importance to the working class and must be made accountable to the same. There were certainly enough disgusted students at UMass Dartmouth to have chosen this course of action. But as with the United States, the pain or desperation have not reached high enough levels to overcome indoctrination and prompt unified corrective action. The times I valued the most at UMD, again, like the nation which I have widely explored, were the small acts of rebellion or humanity which freely rejected the otherwise numbing dehumanization of the place (I omit details to prevent the stifling of such crucial outlets). If the culture of contempt which strangles humanity will be overturned, it will not be by asking politely or quoting from past struggles now safely in history. To those that assisted the Class of 2006 both on and off campus, it's the only repayment in kind that will do. David Patten '06 graduated magna cum laude from the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth. He can't be reached, but you can e-mail him at zen.lens@yahoo.com -- Copyright 2006
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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. |