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Today's Stories

August 10, 2004

William A. Cook
Silencing the Voice of the People

Richard Gott
Loathed by the Rich: Why Chavez is Headed for a Big Win

Toni Solo
Bluebeard's Castle: Disappearing the Right to Development

Patrick Cockburn
If the Chalabis Were Corrupt, They Weren't Alone

 

 

August 9, 2004

Tito Tricot
Pinochet Must Still be Tried: a Murderer and a Thief on the Loose

Ron Jacobs
In Memory of Deep Throat: the Day Nixon Was Gone

Norm Dixon
Crisis in Sudan: Oil Profits Behind West's Tears for Darfur

Kurt Nimmo
The Politics of Entrapment

Elaine Cassel
Welcome to Bush's America

Gary Leupp
Why Iraqi Christians are Moving to Syria

 

August 7 / 8, 2004

James Petras
The Anatomy of "Terror Experts": Meet the Mandarins of Abu Ghraib

Fred Gardner
Run Ricky Run: Football, Pot and Pain

Justin Delacour
Anti-Chavez Pollsters Panic: Fix Numbers; Reinvent Venezuela

Brian Cloughley
Persecuted by All; Supported by None: Who Would Be A Kurd?

Joshua Frank
The Outsider: a Talk with Ralph Nader

Iain A. Boal
On "Shame": Warmed-Over Orientalism and Racist Projection

Chris Floyd
All About Eve: Open Season on Women in DC and Rome

Andrew Fenton
Fighting for Democracy and Justice in Haiti

Aseem Shrivastava
Saga of an Anguished Afghan

Neil Corbett
See Cuba: Sometimes a Cigar is Just a Cigar, Mr. Bush

Carol Miller / Forrest Hill
Rigged Convention; Divided Party: How David Cobb Won with Only 12% of the Vote

Tarek Milleron
Breaking the Principled Voter

Donald Macintyre
The Battle of Najaf

Ron Jacobs
Spirits of The Dead: Why I Love My Petty Bourgeois Tendencies

Mickey Z.
Kid Gavilan's Grave: Propaganda Scores a TKO

Poets' Basement
Adler, Ford and Albert

 

Sex, Drugs & the Blues!
Serpents in the Garden

CounterPunch's Sizzling New Book on Culture and Sex is Now Available
Click here to purchase

 

August 6, 2004

Joshua Frank
David Cobb's Soft Charade: the Greens and the Politics of Mendacity

Derek Seidman
An Interview with Stan Goff

Mike Whitney
The Arbitrary Imprisonment of Jose Padilla

William S. Lind
Corruption in the Marine Corps

David Price
In the Shadow of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

 

August 5, 2004

Mike Ferner
The Kerry Show: When Peace is Off Message

Bruce Anderson
Two Rejections

Robert Fisk
The Tale of Saddam's Cameraman

Todd Chretien
Florida Comes to California: the Democrats' Plot Against Nader

Peter Linebaugh
Doing Time for Political Crime: Paul and Silas, Bound in Jail

 

August 4, 2004

Mickey Z.
Two Traditions: WMD and Disinformation

Justin Huggler
The Hunt for Bin Laden

John Ross
Mexico's Dirty War Never Ended: Inside Puente Grande Prison

 

August 3, 2004

Uri Avnery
The Oligarchs

Ray McGovern
The 9/11 Commission Chimera

Jack McCarthy
Sexual Politics in Jeb's Florida

Eric Ruder
Meet Barak Obama: the Democrats' New Liberal Star

John L. Hess
Crying Wolf: Orange Alert!

Elaine Cassel
Civil Liberties Elections: 1800 v. 2004

Jules Rabin
The Man Who Didn't Walk By

Website of the Day
No Wall

 

August 2, 2004

Robert Jensen
Kerry's Hypocrisy on the Vietnam War

Joshua Frank
Greens, Kerry and the Politics of Mendacity

Mike Whitney
The 9/11 Commission and Civil Liberties: "We Need an American Police State"

Gary Leupp
Beyond Good and Evil: Some Thoughts on Invasions

July 31 / Aug. 1, 2004

Alexander Cockburn
Kerry: He's the (Any) One

Merlin Chowkwanyun
Five Questions with Noam Chomsky: "The Savage Extreme of a Narrow Policy Spectrum"

David Lindorff
The Shame of the DNC

John Chuckman
The Disturbing Words of John Edwards

Brian Cloughley
All Slam and No Dunk; All Blame and No Responsibility

Christopher Brauchli
"Being Poor is a State of Mind": the Frowning Face of Compassionate Conservatism

Fred Gardner
A World of Pain

Michael Donnelly
How Big Pharma Bilks the Elderly

David Nally
Genocide in Darfur?

Joshua Frank
Forest Battles Escalate in Oregon

Sam Bahour
Colin Powell and My Grandmother

Diane Farsetta
The IMF and the Indonesian Elections: The Invisible Hand in the Voting Booth

Harold Gould
Was Iraq a Mutual Charade?

Van Bergen / Stephens
Election 9/11: Surreal Political Theater

Lee Sustar
A New Model for the Labor Movement?

Ron Jacobs
The Lost Art of Hitchhiking

M. Junaid Alam
An Interview with Palestinian-American Rapper, The Iron Sheik

Poets Basement
Albert, Ford, Krieger, St. Clair

Website of the Weekend
Cross Cultural Poetics

 

July 30, 2004

Kolhatkar / Ingalls
Shattering Illusions: Kerry's Speech Tells Anti-War Activists They're Not Wanted

Dave Lindorff
Murder Not So Foul?

Bruce Jackson
Walt Whitman on the Sound of Wolf Blitzer's Voice

Fidel Castro
The Pathology of George W. Bush

Maximilien Robespierre
Memo to Kerry and Bush: Why They Resist

Saul Landau
Bush Charges Castro with Sex Tourism; JFK Rolls Over in His Grave


 

July 29, 2004

Cockburn / St. Clair
Hail, the Conquering War Criminal: What Kerry Really Did in Vietnam

Frank Bardacke
What Michael Moore Left Out of F9/11

Tom Barry
Shallow and Formulaic: Kerry's Latin America Plan

Ron Jacobs
Kerry and Lennon: Hawking the CounterCulture

Robert Fisk
The Unreported War

Lichtman / Kellis-Borok
What Kerry Must Do to Win (But Probably Won't)

William S. Lind
The 9/11 Commission Report: Cashing in on Failure

CounterPunch Wire
Doonesbury Onto John Kerry in 1971!

Website of the Day
Jabbing JibJab: Copyright Madness

 

 

 

July 28, 2004

Robert Fisk
The Occupation at 114 Degrees: Baghdad is Swamped in the Smell of the Dead

Kevin Mink
Kerry's Misperception of Palestine

Ray McGovern
Israel and the Iraq War: How the 9/11 Report Soft-Pedals Root Causes

United for Peace & Justice
An Open Letter to John Kerry: Winter Soldiers and Summer Patriots

Mike Ferner
Vets Demand End to Occupation: "Pull the Troops or Face Impeachment Mvt."

Imraan Siddiqi
Turning Tricks with Ann Coulter

Alexander Cockburn
Candidate Kerry

Website of the Day
Iraq Vets Against the War

 


July 27, 2004

Alexander Cockburn
Why the Democrats Deserve Nader

Dave Lindorff
Back to the 19th Century: Globalization's Coming!

Mike Whitney
Control Room: Inside Al Jazeera

Ali, Anderson, Bello, et al.
If We Were Venezuelan, We'd Vote for Chavez

Stefan Wray
Texas Plan to Grab Los Alamos Takes Hold, as DOE Shuts Down Labs

Louis Proyect
Reflections on Nicaragua: First Came the Contra Butchers, Then the Sweatshops

Rick Giombetti
Faith in Freedom: the Challenge of Thomas Szasz

Bill and Kathleen Christison
The 9/11 Report and Its Weak-Kneed Consensus: Dogding Israel/Palestine; Blinkered on Causes of Terrorism

 

 

July 26, 2004

Todd Chretien
Green Resistance: a Reply to Normon Solomon & Medea Benjamin

Robert Fisk
Terror by Video

Richard Forno
Security Theater in Boston: Security Expert Harrassed by DHS for Exposing Flaws at the Fleet Center

Mitchel Cohen
Report from a Boston Demo: Arresting the Curious

Richard Moreno
Rockers for Justice: an Interview with Tom Morello and Serj Tankian

Alexander Cockburn
Boston Awaits a Dead Party

 

 

July 24 / 25, 2004

Alexander Cockburn
The Democrats and Their Conventions: Part One

Dennis Hans
Those 16 Words Still Smell, Mr. Bush

Patrick Cockburn
The Struggle for Iraq is Only Beginning

Josh Frank
The War Path of Unity: Dems Reject the Peace Movement

Justin E.H. Smith
Christianity and the Left: the Latin American Experience

Tariq Ali
What's at Stake in Venezuela

Fred Gardner
The Politics of Pot: Year of the Antagonist

Mark Scaramella
There's Dope and There's Dope

Ron Jacobs
The Weather Underground's Prairie Fire Statement...35 Years On

 

 

July 23, 2004

Lee Sustar
Revolution in Nicaragua: 25 Years On

Dave Lindorff
Battle for NYC: Bush 1, Protesters 0

Saul Landau
Zaniest President in US History: Bush Beats Reagan

Mike Whitney
The 9/11 Whitewash: Blaming No One

Mickey Z
Get On the Bus: 150 Years After Elizabeth Jennings

Gary Leupp
The 9/11 Commission and the Looming War on Iran

 

July 22, 2004

M. Junaid Alam
Ten Ways to Build a Better Democrat

Brian McKinlay
Rusted On Down Under: Howard, Bush and Sharon

Jason Leopold
Cheney Lobbied for Easing of Sanctions on Terrorist Regimes While CEO of Halliburton

Chris Floyd
Mob Rule: Ripping the Lid Off of America's Pious Myths

Uri Avnery
Chirac v. Sharon

 

July 21, 2004

Paula J. Caplan
The Emotional Casualities of War: Psychologists Can't Heal All the Damage

Joshua Frank
Nader Sleeping with the Enemy? Let's be Fair

Ron Jacobs
American Exceptionalism

Reza Ghorashi
The Elections, Iran and al-Qaeda

Amy Martin
Will Congress Rearm the Guatemalan Generals?

John Ross
Bush May Lose, But His Wars Will Go On and On

 

July 20, 2004

Stan Cox
The Bush / Kerry War Ticket

Chris Randolph
An Open Letter to Dr. Ehrenreich: It's Over, Barb!

Forrest Hylton
The Ghosts of Gonismo: "Popular Patricipation" and Bolivia's Gas Referendum

Mark Scaramella
It's Official! Mendocino County is Crazier and Fatter Than the Rest of California

Sam Bahour
The World is Knocking on Israel's Door

George Reiter
A Defense of David Cobb

John Ross
Burying Iraq, Burying Bush

John L. Hess
Girlie Stuff: Media Tolerance of Arnold & Co.

Website of the Day
This Land is Your Land

 

 

July 19, 2004

Uri Avnery
Marie and the Ghosts: the Hoax of Paris

Col. Dan Smith
What Has Been Accomplished?

Mike Whitney
Allawi: Our Puppet with a Pistol

Karyn Strickler
Just Marriage, Not Gay Marriage

Robert Fisk
The Crisis of Information in Baghdad

David Swanson
Media Blackout of US Labor Opposition to Iraq War

Jennifer van Bergen
The Death of the Great Writ of Liberty

 

July 17 / 18, 2004

Gary Leupp
Apocalypse Now: Why the Book of Revelations is Must Reading

Ghada Karmi
Vanishing the Palestinians

Lenni Brenner
When Cattle Unite, Lions Go Hungry: Notes for Ralph Nader

Ben Tripp
Man on a Bridge: a Ghost Story

Brandy Baker
What Would Elizabeth Cady Stanton Make of John Kerry?

M. Shahid Alam
Israel Builds Another Wall

Sasan Fayazmanesh
Nuclear Hypocrisy: Israel, Iran and the IAEA

Patrick Bond
The George Bush of Africa

Fred Gardner
Politics of Marijuana: Cannabiniod Therapuetics

William Blum
Bush and Thucydides

Ben Terrall
Carter and the Indonesia Elections: "I Don't See Anything Wrong with a General Running the Country"

Tom Barry
John Lehman on the War Path

David Vest
Dylan Without the Music

Phyllis Pollack
Return to Sin City: Keith Richards Does Gram Parsons

Ron Jacobs
Smearing Muhammad Ali: Bob Feller Strikes Out

Joshua Frank
Kerry to Edwards: "Let's Lose!"

David Nally
A Call for Sudan: Our Georgraphical Blindspot

Toni Solo
Bolivia's Gas Referendum

Landau, Hassan, Prashad & Lindorff
Three Reviews of Moore's F911

Poets's Basement
Ford, Smith and Albert

 

 

July 16, 2004

Dave Zirin
Adonal Foyle: Master of the Lefty Lay-Up

Shervan Sardar
Dershowitz, the ICJ and Jim Crow Laws

Ron Jacobs
The Lil' Engine That Couldn't: Kucinich Surrenders on Anti-War Plank

Robert Fisk
Iraq, According to Edgar Allen Poe: Coffin Bombs in Baghdad

Greg Moses
The Forts of Iraq

Mickey Z.
Ad Infinitum?: Presidential Campaigns in the Age of TV

Dan Bacher
A Landmark Win for Salmon and the Tribes

Dave Lindorff
The Mumia Case: Support from NAACP, But a Movement in Shambles

Paul McGeough
Did Allawi Shoot Inmates in Cold Blood?

Website of the Day
10 Reasons to Fire Bush (and 9 Reasons Kerry Won't Be Any Better)

 

 

 

July 15, 2004

Heather Williams
McMissing the Point: Supersize Me Crashes on Its Message

Werther
Iraq: Follow the Money

Tom Crumpacker
The Birds of Guantanamo

Brian Cloughley
What Does the Bush Regime Object To?

Bill Christison
Reorganize the CIA? Of Course, But...

 

July 14, 2004

Jeffrey St. Clair
Chronicle of a Nomination Foretold: the Green Deceivers

Neve Gordon
Of Socrates and the Apartheid Wall

Diane Christian
The Priesthood of Death

Stefan Wray
Who Benefits from Missing Data at Los Alamos Nuclear Lab?

Josh Frank
The Nader / Dean Debate

Conn Hallinan
Divide and Conquer as Imperial Rules

Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg
Bring My Brother Home!: Class, War and Education

Website of the Day
Hijacking Catastrophe: 9/11, Fear and the Selling of US Empire

 

 

July 13, 2004

Ray McGovern
The CIA and Iraq: an Intelligence Debacle...and Worse

Mark Donham
The Sierra Club's Inexplicable Treatment of Cynthia McKinney

Ben Tripp
Politus Interruptis: With Friends Like These, Who Needs Electorates?

Mark Gaffney
Slipping Towards Armageddon: Israel in Iraq

Dave Lindorff
Osama Wins! Election Postponed!

Chris White
Double Think: the Bedrock of Marine Indoctrination

 

 

July 10 / 12, 2004

Kathleen Christison
The Problem with Neutrality Between Palestinians and Israel

Janine Pommy Vega
Trail of the Comet: a Gathering of the World's Poets Against War

Sherry Wolf
From Maverick to Party Attack Dog: Howard Dean Gay-Bashes Nader

Saul Landau and Farrah Hassen
A Transfer of Power, Sort Of

Michael Donnelly
How to Steal an Election: the Green Version, 2004

Stanton / Madsen
Iraq Survey Group: Rumsfeld's al-Qaeda?

Richard Lichtman
The End of Innocence: Reflections on American Pathology

Gila Svirsky
Thank You, Your Honors: a Legal Blow to the Wall

Kurt Nimmo
Clinton's Life

Toni Solo
Empire-Speak: What Roger Noriega Really Means

Ron Jacobs
The Black Panthers and the Rest

Camelo Ruiz Marrero
Gene Warfare in Oaxaca: Genetic Mutation of Mexican Maize

Omar Barghouti
Wither the Empire: Rise of a Global Resistance

Poets' Basement
Curtis and Albert

 

July 9, 2004

Dave Zirin
Carlos Delgado on Deck: Blue Jays Slugger Stands Up Against War

Justin Delacour
Wishing Kerry Would Shut Up About Latin America

Robert Fisk
Iraq in Reverse: Martial Laws Fuel Insurgency

Boris Kagarlitsky
Two Congresses and a Funeral

William S. Lind
The October Surprises

Sibel Edmonds
Our Broken System: John Ashcroft's War on Truth

Ron Jacobs
Reading Tea Leaves: What Vietnam Tells Us About Iraq's Future

Gary Leupp
The Lie That Will Not Die: Cheney and the Iraq/al-Qaeda Link

 

July 8, 2004

Niranjan Ramakrishnan
The Inexplicable John McCain

Toufic Haddad
Protesting Israel's Apartheid Wall: a Letter from the Hunger Strikers' Tent

Dave Lindorff
Liberation as Martial Law

Joshua Frank
The Fall: How Beltway Dems Sank Howard Dean

Christopher Brauchli
Bush & Cheney Play the Hitler Card

James Petras
The Truth About Jimmy Carter

 

July 7, 2004

John Chuckman
Kerry's BBQ: a Deafening Silence of Meaning

Virginia Tilley
A Line in the Sand: Azmi Bishara's Hunger Strike

Susan Martinez
A Letter to Bill Cosby

Mickey Z
Elie Wiesel's Strange Parade

Michael Donnelly
Our Own Private Wilderness: Trusting the Land in the Inland Empire

Sean Donahue
Boston Social Forum: the Dems aren't the Only Show in Beantown

Diane Christian
Sovereignty and Freedom in Iraq

 

July 6, 2004

Lisa Viscidi
Fleeing Guatemala: Central Americans Risk Lives to Reach El Norte

Marc Norton
The Felonious Five Ride Again: the Supreme Court and Enemy Combatants

James Brooks
Chemical Warfare on the West Bank?

Ray McGovern
Porter Goss as CIA Director?

William Cook
Legacy of Deceit: If Dante Knew of Bush and the Neo-Cons...

 

July 5, 2004

Forrest Hylton
US Imperialism in Latin America: Sept. 11, July 4 and Systematic Torture

Chris White
A Former Marine Sgt. on the Meaning of Independence Day

Joe Bageant
Cranky Reflections on the 4th of July

Robert Jensen
Stupid White Movie: What Michael Moore Misses About the Empire

Kathy Kelly
"Two Days an' a Wake-Up"

 

July 3 / 4, 2004

Elaine Cassel
Bush's Police State and Independence Day

Stan Goff
ABC of Opportunism: "Progressive" Latin American Leaders Support the Coup in Haiti

Snehal Shingavi
"We Want Real Justice for Bhopal": Two Survivors Speak Out

Bruce Anderson
The Cheney-Leahy Metaphor and the Greens

Sharon Smith
Twilight of the Greens: the Chokehold of "Anybody But Bush"

Josh Frank
Ralph Nader's Revolt: an Interview with Greg Bates

Robert Fisk
Pentagon Tried to Censor Saddam's Hearing

Joe Bageant
Sons of a Laboring God: Leftnecks Unite!

Brian Cloughley
Fortress Bush and the One Law Doctrine

Justin Delacour
The Anti-Chavez Echo Chamber: Venezuela's Media Tycoons

William S. Lind
Saudi Spillover

Linda S. Heard
A Joke Called "Justice"

Greg Moses
"It's Illegal, But It's Our Right": Korean Labor Won't Back Down

Ron Jacobs
"Ain't You Proud to be White on Independence Day?"

Toni Solo
Weary of Indigenous Resistances? Just Pretend They're Not There

Dan Nagengast
Chicken Manure as Cattle Food: Safe, But Do We Want to Eat It?

Stew Albert
Brando, a Personal Recollection

Dave Zirin
From the Black Panthers to Sacheen Littlefeather: a Eulogy for Our Brando

Patrick W. Gavin
The Progressive Case for Dodgeball

Steven Rosenthal / Junaid Ahmad
The Problem is Bigger Than the Bushes: a Review of F911

Poets' Basement
Kearney, Ford and Davies

Website of the Day
Global Peace Solution

 

July 2, 2004

Jeffrey St. Clair
Suicide Right on the Stage: the Demise of the Green Party

Douglas Valentine
Fahrenheit 911: Mocking the Moral Crisis of Capitalism

Gary Leupp
"Just Because I Could": On Obscenities and Opportunities

Lee Ballinger
Illegal People: Kerry Opposes Immigrant Rights

Robert Fisk
Saddam in the Dock: Confused? Hardly

CounterPunch Wire
"What Law Formed This Court?": a Transcript of Saddam's Arraignment

Christopher Brauchli
Bush's Drug Card Lottery: the Price Ain't Right

Saul Landau
Buzz Words and Venezuela

 


July 1, 2004

Katherine van Wormer
Bush's Damaged Mind: the Madness in His Method

Joe Bageant
Is Our President a Whackjob? Does It Matter?

William James Martin
The Dogma of Richard Perle

Dave Lindorff
Bush's Evacuation Moment

Robert Fisk
Bread and Circus Trials in Iraq

Alan Maass
Green Party in Reverse

Website of the Day
Michael Moore and Israel: Blind or a Coward?

 

 

June 30, 2004

Kurt Nimmo
Nicholson Baker's Checkpoint: a New Kind of Anger About Bush

Tariq Ali
Getting Away with Murder in Iraq

Jennifer Van Bergen
Bush and the Detainees

Douglas Valentine
Apotheosis of the Psychopaths: Instead of Fahrenheit 9/11, Rescreen The Quiet American

David Price
Fahrenheit 9/11 Through the McCain-Feingold Looking Glass

Roger Normand
America's Criminal Occupation of Iraq

Stan Cox
Sanitized for Your Protection: Ashcroft's War on Art

Henry David Thoreau
On the Futility of Bush v. Kerry: All Voting is a Kind of Gaming

Ben Tripp
Who Dast Call Him Liar: a Rebuttal to Nicholas Kristof

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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August 10, 2004

Freedom is Not Safety

Police State, USA

By Rep. RON PAUL

Last week's announcement that the terrorist threat warning level has been raised in parts of New York, New Jersey, and Washington, D.C., has led to dramatic and unprecedented restrictions on the movements of citizens. Americans wishing to visit the U.S. Capitol must, for example, pass through several checkpoints and submit to police inspection of their cars and persons.

Many Americans support the new security measures because they claim to feel safer when the government issues terror alerts and fills the streets with militarized police forces. As one tourist interviewed this week said, "It makes me feel comfortable to know that everything is being checked." It is ironic that tourists coming to Washington to celebrate the freedoms embodied in the Declaration of Independence are so eager to give up those freedoms with no questions asked.

Freedom is not defined by safety. Freedom is defined by the ability of citizens to live without government interference. Government cannot create a world without risks, nor would we really wish to live in such a fictional place. Only a totalitarian society would even claim absolute safety as a worthy ideal, because it would require total state control over its citizens' lives. This doesn't stop governments, including our own, from seeking more control over and intrusion into our lives. As one Member of Congress stated to the press last week, "people who don't want to be searched don't need to come on Capitol grounds." What an insult! The Capitol belongs to the American people who pay for it, not to Congress or the police.

It is worth noting that the government rushes first to protect itself, devoting enormous resources to make places like the Capitol grounds safe, while just beyond lies one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in the nation. What makes Congress more worthy of protection from terrorists than ordinary citizens?

To understand the nature of our domestic response to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, we must understand the nature of government. Government naturally expands, and any crises ­ whether real or manufactured ­ serve to justify more and more government power over our lives. Bureaucrats have used the tragedy of 9/11 as an excuse to seize police powers sought for decades, such as warrantless searches, Internet monitoring, and access to bank records. It should be no surprise that the recently released report of the 9/11 Commission has but one central recommendation: bigger government and more spending at home and abroad.

Every new security measure represents another failure of the once-courageous American spirit. The more we change our lives, the more we obsess about terrorism, the more the terrorists have won. As commentator Lew Rockwell of the Ludwig von Mises Institute explains, terrorists in effect have been elevated by our response to 9/11: "They are running the country. They determine our civic life. They shape our private life. They decide how public resources are spent. They may dictate who gets to be the next president. It should be obvious that the government doesn't object. Not at all. The government benefits, by getting ever more reason for ever more money and power."

Every generation must resist the temptation to believe that it lives in the most dangerous time in American history. The threat of Islamic terrorism is real, but it is not the greatest danger ever faced by our nation. This is not to dismiss the threat of terrorism, but rather to put it in perspective. Those who seek to whip the nation into a frenzy of fear do a disservice to a country that expelled the British, fought two world wars, and stared down the Soviet empire.

Liberty is lost through complacency and a subservient mindset. When we accept or even welcome automobile checkpoints, random searches, mandatory identification cards, and paramilitary police in our streets, we have lost a vital part of our American heritage. America was born of protest, revolution, and mistrust of government. Subservient societies neither maintain nor deserve freedom for long.

Ron Paul is a Republican congressman from Texas.

Weekend Edition Features for August 7 / 8, 2004

James Petras
The Anatomy of "Terror Experts": Meet the Mandarins of Abu Ghraib

Fred Gardner
Run Ricky Run: Football, Pot and Pain

Justin Delacour
Anti-Chavez Pollsters Panic: Fix Numbers; Reinvent Venezuela

Brian Cloughley
Persecuted by All; Supported by None: Who Would Be A Kurd?

Joshua Frank
The Outsider: a Talk with Ralph Nader

Iain A. Boal
On "Shame": Warmed-Over Orientalism and Racist Projection

Chris Floyd
All About Eve: Open Season on Women in DC and Rome

Andrew Fenton
Fighting for Democracy and Justice in Haiti

Aseem Shrivastava
Saga of an Anguished Afghan

Neil Corbett
See Cuba: Sometimes a Cigar is Just a Cigar, Mr. Bush

Carol Miller / Forrest Hill
Rigged Convention; Divided Party: How David Cobb Won with Only 12% of the Vote

Tarek Milleron
Breaking the Principled Voter

Donald Macintyre
The Battle of Najaf

Ron Jacobs
Spirits of The Dead: Why I Love My Petty Bourgeois Tendencies

Mickey Z.
Kid Gavilan's Grave: Propaganda Scores a TKO

Poets' Basement
Adler, Ford and Albert

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