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What You're Missing in Our Subscriber-only CounterPunch Newsletter Paul Craig Roberts on the Economy Dollar Dethroned by War and Red Ink Paul Craig Roberts on the mounting dollar crisis. Iran has dumped the dollar as its reserve currency. Arab nations are shifting reserves into Euros. "If foreigners take the next step and begin dumping their dollar holdings, there is nothing the U.S. government can do to avert the catastrophe." Roberts explains the options. Does the Koran really advocate an economic system different from the savage canons of capitalism? Thomas Naylor separates post 9/11 hysteria about terrorist money smuggling from the realities of Islamic charity today. Alexander Cockburn: cut war-enabling Democrats in Congress no slack! 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 towards the cost of this online edition. Remember contributions are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now Get CounterPunch By Email for Only $35 a Year

Today's Stories January 12 / 14, 2007 Patrick Cockburn "21,500 More Troops": Will America Ever Leave Iraq? Laith al-Saud The Ironies of Bush and Iraq Paul Craig Roberts Surge and Mirrors: What Bush Really Said John Ross Celebrating the "Sum of the World" in Chiapas Christopher Brauchli How to Avoid an IRS Audit: Become a Millionaire! Evelyn Pringle The Secrets in Eli Lilly's Cabinet Mike Whitney Baghdad Crackdown Saul Cohen Latin America's Real Mr. Danger: Negroponte's Latest Gig Missy Beattie A Day of Action and Questions Stephen Lendman Holiday Hypocrisy   January 11, 2007 Ismael Hossein-Zadeh The Profits of Escalation Paul Craig Roberts Carter's Inconvenient Truths Kathy Kelly Refugee Dreams Dave Lindorff Blood for Face Jeff Leys The War Widens Richard W. Behan Barrels and Bodies Col. Douglas MacGregor Surging Right Into Al-Sadr's Hands Website of the Day An Explanation from Google Speech of the Day Is There Even One Politician Alive Who Could Give This Speech? January 10, 2007 Peter Linebaugh A Walk in Oaxaca Robert Fantina Punishing Deserters: Prosecution or Persecution? Patrick Cockburn Why Troop Escalation Won't Bring Peace to Iraq Paul Craig Roberts Distracting Congress: Troop Escalation and Iran Col. Dan Smith Why U.S. Policy is Failing Ben Tripp The Politics of Bad Karma Evelyn Pringle How the FDA Protects Big Pharma Ron Jacobs Coalition of the Lunatics: Trying to Create the Next World War Mike Ferner If Not Now, When? Dave Zirin Judgment of the Juiced: Why McGwire Wasn't Elected to the Hall of Fame Website of the Day Revolting Students! Bootleg of the Day Bob Dylan: Live at Scotia Bank Place January 9, 2007 R. T. Naylor The Somalian Labyrinth Jonathan Cook Israel's Purging of Palestinian Christians Mike Ely and Linda Flores The Smithfield Strikers: No Longer Hidden, No Longer Hiding Joshua Frank The Democrats and Iran: More Bellicose Than Bush Norman Solomon The Headless Horseman of the Apocalypse Sen. Russell Feingold An Open Letter to President Bush: So Now You Want to Snoop Through Our Mail? Joe Allen Justice for the Omaha Two: Black Power, Racism and COINTELPRO in the Heartland James T. Phillips "Lasciate Ogne Speranza, Voi Ch'Intrate": The Hell That is Iraq Brian Concannon Resolutions for Haiti Leonard Peltier When the Truth Doesn't Matter: 30 Years of FBI Harassment and Misconduct Website of the Day Kick Out the Jams, MFers!: Meet the New RRC   January 8, 2007 Werther Why We Fight Jeff Leys The Occupation Project: a Campaign of Civil Disobedience to End Iraq War Funding Paul Craig Roberts Nuking Iran Shulamit Aloni Israeli Apartheid: Sorry, This Road is For Jews Only Dave Lindorff The Party of Invertebrates Reverts to Form Sunsara Taylor The Democrats' First Day: Same As It Ever Was Seth Sandronsky Syndicated Error: George Will and the Minimum Wage Dr. Susan Block Baghdad Cockfight Ends in Snuff Film Website of the Day Watch CounterPuncher Sunsara Taylor Take on Bill O'Reilly! January 6 / 7, 2007 Alexander Cockburn The War and the NYT Franklin C. Spinney Stalingrad on the Tigris Paul Craig Roberts The Urge to Surge Ralph Nader Democrats in the Spotlight Walden Bello Globalization in Retreat? Marleen Martin The Needle and the Damage Done: Tortured in the Death Chamber Brian Cloughley We Do What We Like: Return Our Rapist or Else ... Uri Avnery The Kiss of Death Saul Landau Fidel Castro in the Fields Ron Jacobs From Cointelpro to the Patriot Act: a Legacy of Torture Joseph Nevins Crimes Against Humanity from Ford to Saddam William S. Lind A State Restored? Somalia and 4GW Gary Leupp Attention John Conyers: Impeach the President! Elisa Salasin Bringing Life to Numbers George Ciccariello-Maher Beyond Chavistas and Anti-Chavistas: Deepening the Bolivarian Revolution Stefan Wray Confronting Recruiters: the Story of the Bush Street Raiders Michael Leonardi Toward an International Moratorium: Italy's Crusade Against the Death Penalty Richard Rhames Reality TV: Triumph of the Thugs Jeffrey St. Clair Playlist: What I'm Listening to This Week Barbara LaMorticella Two Poems Website of the Weekend FBI Witch Hunts Song of the Weekend End Times: a Soundtrack January 5, 2007 Jorge Mariscal Growing the Military: Who Will Serve? John Walsh Clash of the Elites: Beltway Insiders vs. Neo-Cons! Christopher Brauchli The Great Relaxer: Bush and Federal Regulations Travis Sharpe No More New Nukes, Please Tom Barry Hawk for Hire: Roger Noriega's New Gig Linda Schade / Kevin Zeese Americans Voted for Peace: Has the New Congress Already Let Them Down? Tiffany Ten Eyck Workers' Centers and Unions: a New Alliance Mahmoud El-Yousseph A Challenge to Pelosi Lucinda Marshall 3003 Funerals: "And They're Still Burying Ford!" Website of the Day Van the Man: Warm Love January 4, 2007 Patrick Cockburn The Martyrdom of Saddam Hussein Winslow T. Wheeler A Guide to Earmarks: Will the Democrats' Reforms Do Anything to Curb Pork Barrel Spending? M. Shahid Alam Has Regime Change Boomeranged? Raed Jarrar So This is Plan B? The US Attack on Saleh Al-Mutlaq's Headquarters Bert Sacks Can the US Legally Kill Iraqi Children?: a Challenge to the Supreme Court Kathy Rentenbach Report from Oaxaca Stephen Fleischman The Rain of Riches: Bonuses, Then and Now George Bisharat Carter's Truths Peter Rost, MD Hail the Hangman, Jail the Cameraman! Evelyn Pringle Can Eli Lilly be Held Criminally Liable for Zyprexa? Website of the Day Courage to Resist   January 3, 2007 Kathy Kelly Wrapped Around a Bullet Paul Craig Roberts His Last Hurrah: Bush Cuts and Runs from Reason William Johnson No Worker is Illegal: SEIU Members Push Their Union to Change Its Policy on Immigration Stan Cox Under a Brown Cloud: Money vs. the Monsoon Trita Parsi A Lose-Lose Situation with Iran Declan McKenna Ireland's Slavish Hostility Toward Cuba Joe Bageant Dispatch from the Chinese Landfill Nicola Nasser Somalia: New Hotbed of Anti-Americanism Missy Beattie Dead Wrong Website of the Day Pharmed Out January 2, 2007 Michael Watts Oil Inferno Amina Mire Return of the Warlords: Death and Destruction for Somalis James Brooks Pushing the Wedge in Palestine Alevtina Rea The Tyrant is Dead! Long Live ... ? Al Krebs Global Food Security: a Call to Action Peter Rost Invitation to a Hanging: the Saddam Hussein Execution Video Niranjan Ramakrishnan A Deadly December John Stanton Appetites for Destruction Website of the Day Out Now: Petition   January 1, 2007 Patrick Cockburn Iron Man, Tin God: the Meaning of Saddam Hussein Uri Avnery What Makes Sammy Run? Joshua Frank Eliot Spitzer's Constitutional Hang Up: Architect of New York's Patriot Act   December 30 / 31, 2006 Weekend Edition Alexander Cockburn 2006, Hard to Call It Vintage, But 2007 Could Finally Be Bobby Byrd's Year Patrick Cockburn Iraq 2006: a Nation Soaked in Blood Tears Itself Apart Paul Wolf Dying for Our Sins: A Lawyer for Saddam Describes How His Execution on the First of Eid May Transform Him Into a Martyr Manuel Garcia, Jr. Executing Saddam, Protecting the Rackets Tariq Ali Saddam at the End of a Rope Paul Craig Roberts The New Dark Age: Official Lies, Dogma and Unaccountable Power Douglas Valentine At the End of My Rope: Hanging With Saddam Brian M. Downing The New Iraq Policy: Escalation Michael Donnelly Injustice in Black and White: the Duke Non-Rape Case Stephen Lendman Did Sharon Order the Assassination of Arafat? The Revelations of Uri Dan Fred Gardner Comes Now the Ghost of "Decrim:" Nixon and Marijuana Bailly / Caudron / Lambert Who Owns Ikea?: the Opaque Legacy of Ingvar Kamprad Ralph Nader The Prospects for Progressive Politics Nick Dearden The War on Terror Hits Africa Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg The Third Degree: an Interview with AC Thompson on the Origins of the CIA's Secret Rendition Flights Missy Beattie In Harm's Way: How Our National Coward Describes War Ron Jacobs Sigh of the Oppressed: Religion and Politics Dan La Botz Defend Illegal Immigrants: Help Them! Harbor Them! Andrew Wimmer An Act of Contrition: the Peace Movement in 2007 Dr. Carol Wolman, MD Psychiatrist: Impeach Bush for Good of Country Martha Rosenberg New Year's Resolutions for Big Pharma Dick J. Reavis News Before It Happens: Bush's 2007 MLK Day Speech Jeffrey St. Clair Listening to James Brown and His Followers Poets' Basement Grima, Curtis, Davies, Orloski and Engel Website of the Weekend Charlie Fowler's Photolog: a Life at Altitude Music Video of the Weekend "We're Winning the War on Drugs!" December 29, 2006 Bill Quigley A Tale of Two Sisters: Why is HUD Spending Tens of Millions in Katrina Money to Bulldoze 4,534 Public Housing Apartments in New Orleans? Norman Finkelstein The Dershowitz Treatment John Borowski Curb Your Environmentalism: Laurie David and Me Abid Mustafa The Re-Talibanization of Afghanistan Greg Moses World Responds to Palestinian Family's Jailing Despite Media Blackout Uri Cohen Stand Up for Herod: a Seasonal Story of Ancient Palestine Bailly / Caudron / Lambert The Secrets in Ikea's Closet Website of the Day Justice for New Orleans   December 28, 2006 Norman Finkelstein The Ludicrous Attacks on Jimmy Carter's Book Anthony Cowell Highway Robbery: Privatizing New Jersey's Toll Roads John Ross Gateway to the Next Mexican Revolution? Hilaria Cruz I'm Going to Stay Right Here: Story of a Oaxacan Prisoner Greg Moses Palestinian Immigrant Jailings in Texas Brittany Bond The Blood Trail of Luis Posada Carriles, Washington's Preferred Terrorist Website of the Day Godfather of Soul and Father of Funk   December 27, 2006 Alexander Cockburn Farewell to Our Greatest President: Adieu, Gerald Ford Faruq Ziada Is There a Sunni Majority in Iraq? Christopher Brauchli Burning EPA's Books: What They Don't Want You to Read Might Save Your Life Michael Ortiz Hill Journey to Vietnam: Dare We Not Say Genocide? Nikolas Kozloff Saving Caracas Mark Schneider Why Hope? Reasons for Optimism December 26, 2006 Peter Stone Brown James Brown: Please Don't Go Tito Tricot Chile: the Ghosts of Torture Gary Leupp Cowboys Differ on Iran Attack: Cheney/Bush vs. the Baker Commission John V. Walsh Dershowitz vs. Carter in Beantown: Peace Movement AWOL, Again Reza Fiyouzat Red Christmas: Why Santa Was Hot in China This Year Ron Jacobs The Golem: a Conversation with Marc Estrin Website of the Day JB: Prisoner of Love December 25, 2006 Saul Landau A Jeep Trip with Fidel Lang / McGovern To Surge or Not to Surge? Michael Dickinson Should Stupid Thoughts Be Crimes?: Deny Santa If You Will, But ... Website of the Day James Brown, RIP December 23 / 24, 2006 Marjorie Cohn What's Going On? Jeffrey L. Gould The Capital of Salvadoran Memory: El Mozote After 25 Years Diane Christian The Rape of Iraq William Loren Katz From the Raid on "Fort Negro" to Iraq: Lessons from the First US Invasion Greg Moses This War Can't be Made Right by Winning M. Shahid Alam An Islamic Civil War: Chaos by Design? Fred Gardner Exposé as Inoculant: HRT, Zyprexa, Lilly and the Press Dave Lindorff Crime of the Century Azmi Bishara Ways of Denial Ralph Nader The BCS: a Monopoly on College Football Seth Sandronsky Fiscally Imperiled Social Security? William Hughes Cop Assaults Activists at Lockheed Protest Ron Jacobs Making Stones Weep Jeffrey St. Clair Playlist: What I'm Listening to on New Year's Eve   December 22, 2006 David Rosen Bush's Foreign Sex Policy: Imperialism's Second Front Christopher Brauchli When the Secret is the Question: Secret Prisons, Top Secret Interrogations John Ross Flashlights in the Tunnel of Hate J.L. Chestnut, Jr. Political Sell-Outs in Black and White Rahul Mahajan Dennis Kucinich: Maverick or Stalking Horse? Arthur Neslen Provoking Civil War in the Occupied Territories Peter Rost, MD The Secrets of His Success: Fired Pfizer CEO Walks Away with $198 Million Website of the Day 10 Ways to Change the World in 2007 December 21, 2006 Rosa Mariam Elizalde An Interview with Gore Vidal: "I am Jealous of Cuba" Arundhati Roy Breaking the News Brian Cloughley Poppies Rising: Afghanistan's Drug Catastrophe Daniel White Jimmy Carter in Austin: Time to Come Clean on the Shoot Down of That Itavia DC-9 John V. Whitbeck On Israel's Right to Exist Sam Smith Still Smearing Ralph Nader for 2000 Paris Reidhead GM Ice Cream: Something's Fishy in Your Good Humor Bar Kevin Wehr Denying Disaster: Katrina and the Case for Impeachment Website of the Day Pesticides and Amphibians: a Vital New Database December 20, 2006 Gabriel Kolko Rumsfeld and the American Way of War Winslow T. Wheeler The Pentagon Measures the Chaos in Iraq Tariq Ali The War is Lost Saree Makdisi Israel, Apartheid and Jimmy Carter Bruce Jackson Saying "Oh!": John Mohawk and the Power to Make Peace Dave Lindorff Democrats Walk Into a Bush Trap on Iraq Leslie Radford The Winter Harvest of the South Central Farmers Dave Jansson Divided We Stand, United We Fall: Secessionists Confront the Empire Johnny Barber Jesus is a Terrorist Website of the Day Is It for Freedom? December 19, 2006 Alexander Cockburn Democrats Prepare to Fund Longer War Jonathan Cook End of the Strongmen Greg Moses Globalized Gulag: Palestinian Refugees and Children Held in Hutto, TX Jail Sean Penn Georgie, There's a Crowd Downstairs Dave Lindorff Innocents Abroad: Cracking Down on Gitmo Detainees Despite Overwhelming Evidence Most Are Not Terrorists Ralph Nader Going Postal Laura Carlsen Latin America's Pink Tide? Carlos Villarreal The Well is Poisoned: Victory Requires an Immediate Pull-Out Website of the Day Chuck Spinney on the Pentagon December 18, 2006 Luis J. Rodriguez En Lak Ech: Chicanos, Mayans and Mel Gibson Norman Solomon Washington Refuses to End the War: Powell, Baker, Hamilton--Thanks for Nothing! Uri Avnery Lebanon: War Without a Plan Ron Jacobs More Troops, More Body Bags Phil Gasper Afghanistan: Bush's Other War Unravels Behrooz Ghamari-Tabrizi Iran's Elections: The World Isn't Florida and Bush Isn't Its Supreme Leader William Blum The United States of Punishment Jim Goodman So What's the Big Deal If Wal-Mart Makes a Mistake? James Brooks Talking Surge: Let's Kill Some More Before We Go Maria C. Khoury Walking Into the Art World: Designing a Palestinian Academy for the Arts Website of the Day Got Powell December 16 / 17, 2006 Weekend Edition Vijay Prashad A Perilous Way to Socialism Saul Landau Filming Fidel Anthony Arnove The US Occupation of Iraq: Act III of a Tragedy of Many Parts Paul Cantor The Puppet and the Puppeteer: Pinochet and Kissinger Annie Nocenti Baluchistan's Fight: The Khan of Kalat Gathers the Tribes Nicole Colson Hard Times on the Killing Floor: Smithfield's Rotten Record Stephen Gowans Tehran's Holocaust Conference Jordan Flaherty A Catastrophic Failure: Foundations, Nonprofits and the Second Looting of New Orleans Fred Gardner Dustin Costa Faces 15 to Life P. Sainath There's No Such Thing as a Free Cow Seth Sandronsky The Democrats and Social Security: Watch What the Party Says and Does Nadia Hijab An AIPAC Shot Across Baker's Bow? Deb Reich Dear Santa, (Or Someone): Greetings from the Occupied Holy Lands Susie Day Cops Shoot Another Rich White Man! Albert Wan Why Does It Take 50 Bullets? Missy Beattie Will the Next Leader Stand Up? Please! Martha Rosenberg Kicking the Wyeth Habit Saves Women's Lives Lee Ballinger The Devil's Highway: Clinton, Border Checkpoints and the Deaths of the Yuma 14 Michael Dickinson Kingdom of Fear Jeffrey St. Clair Live/Evil: Listening to Miles Davis Poets' Basement Davies, Buknatski and Ford Website of the Weekend "I Heard It Through the Grapevine"   December 15, 2006 Eliza Ernshire Palestinian "Civil War" and the Israeli Chocolate Ration Virginia Tilley What Are You Going to Do Now, Israel? Mike Ferner Roll Call for the Choir: If They Vote for War, Occupy 'Em! John Ross Mad Mel's Mayan Apocalypse Fred Wilhelms The Flip Side of Ahmet Ertegun: Where Did You Get Those Shoes? Kevin Zeese Dennis Kucinich's Strange Mission: Can You Be a Real Anti-War Candidate in a Pro-War Party? David Severn Social Engineering Begins at Home: Jeffrey Skoll, Billionaire Philantropist Dave Lindorff Sen. Tim Johnson Death Watch: Senate Gridlock May Be Best Outcome Sunsara Taylor As American as Shopping and Torture Website of the Day June 2, 2004: When Iraq Was There For The Looting   December 14, 2006 Jonathan Cook The Recognition Trap Riz Khan An Interview with Jimmy Carter Jason Hribal Kasatka, the Sea World Orca Pennick / Gray The Plight of Black Farmers: Racism in the US Farm Program Richard Levins That Embezzled Anti-Castro Money Pat Williams The College Crisis: Universal Access, Student Loan Debts and Pell Grants Peter Rost, MD Simply Irresistible: Do Women Prefer Bad Boys? Website of the Day The Sound of Rummy   December 13, 2006 Patrick Cockburn Iraq is Beyond Repair Greg Moses The Dixie Chicks Come Home to Roost Elizabeth Schulte Hungry for the Holidays Joshua Frank Death By Coke Debra Eschmeyer Corporations Control Your Dinner Leon Hadar Baker's Rescue Mission: Too Little, Too Late Peter Rost, MD I've Been a Very Bad Boy Margaret Knapke Mow bé and Malachi, Presenté! Reza Fiyouzat Are Cows Free? Fred Wilhelms A Last Minute Appeal: If You Know One of These Musicians Let Them Know They Are Owed Money--By Friday! Website of the Day The Crimes of Augusto Pinochet December 12, 2006 Fernando A. Torres The Last Man of the Junta: an Open Letter to Kissinger from One of Pinochet's Political Prisoners Paul Craig Roberts America's Injustice System is Criminal Stephen Soldz Abusive Interrogations Uri Avnery Baker's Cake William S. Lind Knocking Opportunity: From Vulcans to Vultures in Iraq Missy Beattie Convicted for Our Convictions: Trespassing for Truth at the UN Dave Lindorff The 35-Year Long Scream: Torture, Impeachment and a Vietnam Vet's Tears George Pyle Our Perverse Farm Plan: Where Christmas Comes Every Five Years Norman Solomon Is the USA the Center of the World? Website of the Day Citizens' War Tribunal   December 11, 2006 Virginia Tilley Banning Mandela Roger Burbach The Condor Model: the Atrocities of Pinochet and the US Col. Douglas MacGregor There's Only One Option Left: Leave! Fawwas Traboulsi Lebanon on the Brink Ron Jacobs Death of a Pig: Poetic Justice for Pinochet Gideon Levy The Cruel Line into Gaza: Elbow to Elbow, Like Cattle Mary McGrane Burning Books at Harvard Law Bernardo Ruiz The Disappeared of Oaxaca: a Message from One of the Actors in Apocalypto Website of the Day La Cancion de la Unidad Video of the Day Killing Castro: Congresswoman as Contract Killer?   December 9 / 10, 2006 Weekend Edition Alexander Cockburn Liberal Consensus for More Troops in Iraq Sen. Gordon Smith Out of Iraq: Cut and Run or Cut and Walk Greg Grandin Jeane Kirkpatrick, Mid-Wife of the Neo-Cons Paul Craig Roberts How Many More Will Die for Bush's Ego? Col. Dan Smith The Vietnamization of Iraq: Inside the Military Training Program Ralph Nader The Man from NAM: John Engler's Trail of Destruction Behrooz Ghamari The Donkey and the Date: Iran's Upcoming Municipal Elections Rev. Willliam Alberts Doing Unto Others: Pastor Haggard and President Bush James T. Phillips The James Gang: "Did You Kill Her?" Bennis / Leaver A Bi-Partisan Occupation Dave Lindorff A Congress of Hucksters and Pipsqueaks Nikolas Kozloff Robert Gates and Venezuela: Another Saber Rattler in Latin America Seth Sandronsky Activating White Racism Lucinda Marshall McKinney and Karpinsky: Silenced for Telling the Truth Mike Whitney Something's Gotta Give: James Baker vs. the Lobby John V. Whitbeck Recommendation No. 80 Faisal Kutty Is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights Merely a Western Construct? Hugh Sansom Smearing Jimmy Carter: an Open Letter to the New York Times Robert Gold My South American Journey: Impunity in Colombia Boots Riley Crash and Burn: an Urgent Message from The Coup Jeffrey St. Clair Playlist: What I'm Listening to This Week Poets' Basement Engel & Buknatski Website of the Weekend Alive in Mexico December 8, 2006 Patrick Cockburn The Iraq Study Group's Cautious Appraisal Leutisha Stills Just How Progressive is the Congressional Black Caucus? Norman Finkelstein The Media Lynching of Jimmy Carter Will Youmans Mr. Lieberman Comes to Washington: Brookings Hosts an Ethnic Cleanser Peter Rost, MD What Went Wrong at Pfizer? Jonathan Demme My Friend Bruce Langhorne: a Great Musician Needs Your Help! Ray McGovern Senate Democrats Give Gates a Free Pass Lucinda Marshall What She Wore Tariq Ali / Robin Blackburn The Lost John Lennon Interview Website of the Day John Lennon's FBI Files   December 7, 2006 Alex Friedman Rev. Phelps' Hate-Fueled Fanatics Find a Home in the Kansas Prison Industry Maureen Webb Risk Scoring and the National Insecurity State Paul Craig Roberts Catastrophe Still Awaits Dave Lindorff Prosecutor Admits: Mumia Abu-Jamal Had "No True Defense" Matt Vidal Drug Pushers, Inc.: Power and Profit in the Legal Drug Trade Yifat Susskind Looking for a Few Good Principles: What Should be Done in Iraq Rodriguez / Jones NYPD's Death Squads: From Diallo to Sean Bell Website of the Day 2006, Remixed December 6, 2006 Robert Bryce Omitting the Obvious with James Baker: From the S&L Crisis to the Iraq Study Group William S. Lind The Boomerang Effect: When Will the First IED Strike Cincy? Zoe Blunt The Clearcut Truth About the Great Bear Rainforest Corporate Crime Reporter The New Conventional Wisdom: Prosecute Individuals, Not Corporations Amira Hass A Regrettable Indifference: Israel's Treatment of Palestinian Prisoners Richard W. Behan The Surreal Politics of Premeditated War Sophie McNeill Why Hezbollah is Broadcasting Sunday Mass December 5, 2006 Virginia Tilley Apartheid Israel: a Beacon of Hope? Sharon Smith The New Washington Consensus: Blame the Victims in Iraq Joe Bageant Somewhere a Banker Smiles Ron Jacobs A War Washington Can't Win Norman Solomon Media Consensus, Stay in Iraq! Mike Whitney Rumsfeld's Final Snowflake: "I Was Just About to Change Everything ... " Derrick O'Keefe Regimes Unchanged: Chavez's Victory Strengthen's Cuba Julian Assange The Road to Hanoi Missy Beattie Bush, the Unhappy Helmsman Website of the Day Lessons of Suez and Iraq   December 4, 2006 Alexander Cockburn Gaza and Darfur George Ciccariello-Maher Tears of the Escualidos: Election Diary, Venezuela Ray McGovern Lame Ducks, Hold That Nomination!: a CIA Insider's Take on Gates John Ross Repression on the Menu in Mexico Walden Bello Hurricane Milton: Friedman, Bayonets and Markets Peter Rost, MD Pfizer's Clueless Executives Stephen Lendman The Withering of the Bush Dynasty Gideon Levy This Ceasefire will Go Up in Flames Website of the Day The "Babes" of Hizbullah?   December 2 / 3, 2006 Weekend Edition Barucha Calamity Peller The Dirty War of Oaxaca Paul Craig Roberts Is Bush Sane?: When Denial Goes Pathological Ralph Nader The Big Boys of Financial Crime Winslow T. Wheeler Committee of Enablers: Is Gates Fit to Serve? Are the Senators? Amira Hass The Checkpoint Generation Maymanah Farhat Depoliticizing Arab Art: Christie's and the Rush to "Discover" the Arab World Dave Lindorff Fighting the Iraq War--At Home Fred Gardner Dr. Jimenez Defends His Practice Methods Col. Dan Smith The Semantics of Civil War Raed Jarrar Maliki's Monopoly of Power Seth Sandronsky US Prison Nation: Locking Up Surplus Labor K.-Y. Taylor The Bride Wore Black: the Shooting of Sean Bell and the Resurgence of American Racism Yifat Susskind Greed, Dogma and AIDS David Rosen Made in China: the Global Trade in Sex Toys Ron Jacobs All Hands on Deck!: the New Pirates of the Caribbean Nikolas Kozloff Venezuela Prepares to Vote Talli Nauman Fighting La Choya: the Secret Toxic Dump on the Border Alan Gregory Shadow Trout: Why Hatchery Fish Aren't Real Joe Allen RFK and Hollywood Mythmaking: Emilio Estevez's Beatification of Bobby Kennedy St. Clair / D'Antoni Playlist: What We're Listening to This Week Poets' Basement Davies, Engel, Ford and Orloski Website of the Day Demo for Oaxaca   December 1, 2006 Greg Grandin Midnight in Mexico: Calderón's Inauguration Behind Closed Doors Linn Washington, Jr. The Mumia Case After 25 Years: Still More Keystone Kops Antics George Ciccariello-Maher Sleeping with the Enemy: At Home with the Anti-Chavistas Brian J. Foley Taking Responsibility for Iraq Dave Zirin Rebel Athletes: Organizing the Jocks for Justice Joshua Frank The Montana Formula: Jon Tester's Neopopulism Chris Floyd Hideous Kinky: Thomas Friedman Comes Undone Ingmar Lee Atomic Porker Strikes Indian Point Nuke Plant Manuel Garcia, Jr. Dark Fire: the Fall of WTC 7 Website of the Day No Gun Ri Revisited Video of the Day Drunken Hack Goes Ape at Aussie "Pulitzers"     Subscribe Online

Weekend Edition January 12 / 14, 2007 The Teen Abstinence-Only Crusade Bush's Domestic Sex Policy By DAVID ROSEN During the first one hundred hours of the new 110th Congress, the Democrats plan to defy expectations by showing that they have a backbone. They've announced their intention to introduce legislation that would toughen ethics rules, increase the minimum wage, increase support for student loans, back stem-cell research and authorize Medicare to negotiate drug costs with the pharmaceutical companies. Unfortunately, they have decided to avoid the grander failures of the Bush administration, notably the occupation of Iraq, immigration and the abstinence-only adolescent sex policy. The Bush administration's abstinence-only program toward teen sex codifies the deepest evangelical Christian fear of pleasure as public policy. It is the domestic corollary to its disastrous international PEPFAR Crusade. (PEPFAR is the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief; see Counterpunch, December 22, 2006.) According to the ACLU, the federal government has spent more than $700 million since 1997 on abstinence-only programs; this year alone it has allocated approximately $170 million. While only a handful of states like California, Pennsylvania and Maine have refused federal abstinence money, dozens have gladly taken it. One can only hope that Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), who has voiced strong concern over how the Bush administration has politicized public health, will push for a full investigation of the abstinence-only program backed by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Confounding the Bush camp's abstinence-only sex police, teens are engaging in extensive sex exploration and they are doing so in ways that have led to lower pregnancy and STD rates. Nothing speaks louder as to the failure of the abstinence-only policy than teen's rejection of it. * * * "We teach abstinence because it's the truth," insists Denny Pattyn. "We don't analyze ourselves based on reducing the risk [of STDs and pregnancy]." In 1995, Pattyn founded the Sewickley, PA, group, Silver Ring Thing (SRT), to promote an evangelical Christian abstinence program. Its mission is "to saturate the United States with a generation of young people who have taken a vow of sexual abstinence until marriage and put on the silver ring. This mission can only be achieved by offering a personal relationship with Jesus Christ as the best way to live a sexually pure life." The group's goal is to put two million rings on teens' fingers by 2010; in 2005, the Census Bureau estimated that there were 19.6 million teens in the U.S., so they've got a big well to draw from. Pattyn claims that about 60,000 youths have made virginity pledges after attending one of his three-hour rock concert (the "Thing"). Participants buy a $15 silver ring inscribed with a Biblical verse from First Thessalonians 4:3-4: "God wants you to be holy, so you should keep clear of all sexual sin. Then each of you will control your body and live in holiness and honor." The ring is a virginity symbol to be removed on the wearer's wedding day and given to his or her spouse. Like other pledge programs, SRT endorses the concept of "secondary virginity," by which a teenager who has "lost" her/his virginity can wipe the slate clean by taking the abstinence pledge. Beginning in 2003, SRT received over $1 million in federal funds until the ACLU sued HHS in 2005 contesting that SRT was promoting a religious agenda; in 2006, SRT decided to no longer accept federal support. But what is the evidence that the SST's Ring succeeds in keeping the bodies of pledging teens in a state of sex-free holiness? Pattyn assesses SRT's effectiveness by sending e-mails to participants four months after they take a pledge to measure if they are abstinent. SRT says that it is about to launch a study of its long-term effectiveness. According to researcher Paul Kennedy, SRT conducted a small online survey in March 2006 involving 2,500 youths who had attended SRT sessions and found that 97 percent reported having an improved understanding of the benefits of abstinence and an awareness that oral sex does not eliminate the risk of contracting an STD. * * * Adolescent sex education and practice are serious concerns that, like so much else in the age of Bush and the 4th Great Awakening, has become highly politicized. Unfortunately, the numbers paint a pretty sad picture. Every year in the U.S. close to one million young women under the age of 21 become pregnant; one seventh (13%) of all births are to teenagers; African-American teenage girls have higher pregnancy and out-of-wedlock birth rates than their white and Hispanic sisters; and, surprising to many, since 1980 these rates are rising faster among whites. Much of this can be traced to the lack of effective sex education. And here are other shocking statistics to make matters worse: ß A girl who does not use birth control the first time she has sexual intercourse is four times more likely to become pregnant than the person who uses birth control. ß 9 times out of 10, the sexually active female who does not use birth control will become pregnant within a year. ß In all likelihood, one-fourth to one-third of all teenage mothers will have a second child within two years of their first child. The Christian Right rarely discusses the role of poverty as a causal factor in early childbearing. Unfortunately, between 60 and 80 percent of the half million adolescent girls giving birth each year live in poverty and come from low-income families. Equally disturbing, compared to children born to mothers who are older, the children born to teen girls in poverty are more likely to suffer poor health, perform poorly in school, be neglected or mistreated and end up confronting the criminal justice system. The Christian Right is deeply hostile towards a secular approach that emphasizes unbiased scientific analysis, sound sex education and an ethical approach that empowers young people to make the most appropriate personal decision about their sex practice. The Right often invokes dubious if not false arguments to moralize against youthful sex. Not unlike campaigns against age-appropriate alcohol consumption (as exists in France) or non-legal drug experimentation (like in Holland), many conservatives use the fear of sex to terrorize young people, their parent, educators and public officials. If it was not so pathetic, the most disturbing example of this approach is the recent "scientific study" by Robert Rector, Kirk Johnson and Lauren Noyes, "Sexually Active Teenagers Are More Likely to Be Depressed and to Attempt Suicide," published by The Heritage Foundation's Center for Data Analysis. This is the same Heritage Society that has steadfastly championed the slaughter in Iraq: one can only wonder if they see a virgin American solider dying for his/her country as a patriotic hero? Its findings are quite disturbing: "Teenagers of both genders who are sexually active are substantially less likely to be happy and more likely to be depressed than are teen-agers who are not sexually active." It claims that 14.3 percent of girls and 6.0 percent of boys who are sexually active report having attempted suicide; this compares to 5.1 percent of girls and 0.7 percent of boys who were sexually inactive. (No corroborating peer-reviewed research can be found to validate these findings.) In conclusion, it champions abstinence until marriage: "[T]een abstinence is an important step lead-ing toward a loving marital relationship as an adult. Such abstinence education programs are uniquely suited to meeting both the emotional and the physical needs of America's youth." However, a study by Lydia Shrier, an assistant professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and director of clinic-based research for the division of adolescent/young adult medicine at Children's Hospital Boston, directly challenges the Heritage study. She shows that sexually active young people 15 to 21 years old report more positive feelings on the days they had sex than on the days they didn't. Shrier urges that "[w]e have to tailor the [sex education] messages to reflect our understanding that for many people, sex is not a bad thing or a thing that is ridden with guilt, but as a more positive and less negative experience, for some of these young people, than other things in their lives." * * * Like Shrier, few experts who work in youth healthcare or sex education believe that the abstinence-only approach works. Martha Kempner, vice president at the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS), argues against it. "This is a social agenda masquerading as teen pregnancy prevention," says Kempner. "They're going so far backwards in the messages they're giving women -- that purity is the most important thing and what you should be striving for is a wedding. Saying that the most important thing you can do is [to] get married and have children isn't the most empowering message." The American Academy of Pediatrics has also come out strongly against the abstinence Crusade. Dr. Jonathan Klein, chairman of the committee that wrote the AAP's new recommendations on teen pregnancy policy, stated: "Even though there is great enthusiasm in some circles for abstinence-only interventions, the evidence does not support abstinence-only interventions as the best way to keep young people from unintended pregnancy." With greater fury, James Wagoner, president of Advocates for Youth, a Washington, D.C.-based group that supports sex education, insists, "To be preaching abstinence when 90 percent of people are having sex is in essence to lose touch with reality. It's an ideological campaign. It has nothing to do with public health." A series of studies released over the last few years only reinforce this conclusion. The University of California San Francisco's AIDS Research Institute reported that in 2005 almost two-thirds (63%) of all high school seniors in the U.S. had engaged in sex. A 2004 youth risk assessment survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that just under half (46.7%) of high school students said they had had sexual intercourse; this was down from the 54 percent reported in 1991. Similar findings were reported in a 2003 CDC survey that found that half U.S. students in grades 9-12 have had sex. For the first time since the government began its National Survey of Family Growth in 1973, more girls (47%) say they have had sex than boys (46%). Girls also report a high use of contraceptives (83 percent). In 2002, the National Center for Health Statistics conducted a survey of 12,571 Americans aged 15 to 44 years. Among its findings was that, from the teens surveyed, more than half reported having engaged in oral sex, with an equal proportion among both girls and boys. Equally revealing, 11 percent of girls 15 to 19 reported that they had at least one same-sex encounter; this was the same percentage for women 18 to 44, but less than the 14 percent reported by the 18 to 29 subset. An analysis of this development, "Abstinence-Only Education: Politics, Science, and Ethics," by John Santelli of Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health (with Alan Guttmacher Institute support), confronts the Christian conservative argument head-on. He attributes the decline in teen pregnancy rates to increased use of contraceptives and argues: "Although advocates of abstinence-only government policy have suggested that psychological harm is a consequence of sexual behavior during adolescence, there are no scientific data suggesting that consensual sex between adolescents is harmful." In his study, he found that between 1995 and 2002, U.S. teen pregnancy rates declined by almost one-quarter (24%). He notes that most of the decline (86%) was due to more sexually active teens in 2002 using contraceptives, using more effective methods (e.g., condoms and birth control pills) and using multiple methods (e.g., the pill together with condoms) than in 1995. Finally, a longitudinal statistical analysis by Janet Rosenbaum, a Harvard doctoral candidate and published in the American Journal of Public Health, found that 53 percent of adolescents who said they made a virginity pledge denied doing so a year later, often after they had become sexually active. In addition, 10 percent of teenagers who said they had had intercourse and then made a pledge or became born-again Christians subsequently (i.e., "secondary virginity"), said they were actually virgins. She reports that previous studies found that teenagers who make pledges contracted STDs at nearly the same rate as those who didn't, but that they have fewer sexual partners, are less likely to use condoms and more likely to engage in anal or oral sex. These findings have drawn the ire of the pro-abstinence brigade. Leslee Uhruh, president of the National Abstinence Clearinghouse of Sioux Falls, S.D., called Rosenbaum's study "junk science." "These programs work," Unruh insists. "We see it all the time. I don't trust this data," she said. "Things have changed." Yes, things have changed. * * * Fifty years ago, Alfred Kinsey published his now (in)famous studies on American male and female sexuality. For all the methodological flaws in his research, Kinsey's twin studies remain the touchstone for understanding sexual life in American. One of the many reasons he was assailed (like Freud a half-century earlier) was his unblinking acknowledgment of youthful sexuality. As Kinsey wrote, " the onset of regular sexual performance is usually coincidental to the onset of adolescence." His words are as true today as when first written. This should not surprise anyone, least of all because we all experience this profound physical transformation of our own being. The political battle confronting young people today is over the meaning of this very personal, private experience. Under the incessant social pressure of the marketplace, youthful physical maturity, essentially the biological ability to sexually perform, has become exploited into highly eroticized commercial plunder. In Kinsey's day a half-century ago, young people were just beginning to be acknowledged as sexual beings--Dean, Elvis and Marilyn invoked a new, erotized sense of self, of possibility, of overcoming the scarcity culture that defined the previous quarter-century of depression and world war. Passion and pleasure were beginning to be mass marketed, suggesting a new sexual cultural available to all. During the intervening decades, passion and pleasure has become a banality of consumer society. And youthful sexuality has been increasingly pulled apart, at once a great blessing and a terrible curse. Corporate America, championing secular modernization, has made it the most prized demographic; Christian America, invoking a regressive, Puritan-era resistance to the commodification of sexual life, has made it a false purity. The market champions a notion of a powerful, all-too-human desire driving adolescent sexuality; it is a notion that infuses youth with a sense of passion that all is possible. Unfortunately, under the Christian Right's abstinence-only policy, the necessary knowledge and self-confidence needed to negotiate this torturous environment are denied. The Christian Right has state power, but its policies don't work. This failure is evident most vividly in the SRT virginity pledge and the Heritage study claims that adolescent sexual activity leads to depression and suicide. Both a group-think commitment at a high-tech rock concert or the use of a scare tactic long out of fashion (once masturbation was said to cause blindness and madness) cannot address the genuine challenges at the heart of youth sexuality. Bush was elected in 2000 and 2004 on the strength of Christian Evangelicals and Conservatives. He pledged to extend federal funding to religious groups that provide social services, especially those that promote abstinence to young people. (Nearly all monies go to Christian groups even though conservative Jewish and Islamic organizations share their values.) He fulfilled his pledge--and it has not worked. The Bush abstinence-only Crusade is a failure. Yet one more failure of a presidency defined by failure: whether Iraq and Katrina policies or its tax cuts, ever-rising national dept and the foreign PEPFAR program. One can only hope that the Democrats will remember their children and grandchildren, the sexual repression and lies that they live with, and move quickly to overcome Bush's abstinence-only adolescence sex policy. David Rosen is completing the manuscript for "Perversions: America's Secret Passion for Deviant Sexual Pleasures" and can be reached at drosen@ix.netcom.com. * * * Sources referred to can be found at: ß Advocates for Youth--at adovatesforyouth.org ß American Academy of Pediatrics -- at www.aap.org. ß Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics -- at www.cdc.gov/nchs. ß Alan Guttmacher Institute -- www.guttmacher.org. ß National Abstinence Clearinghouse--at www.abstinence.net ß Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States -- at www.siecus.org. ß Silver Ring Thing--at www.silverringthing.org ß University of California San Francisco's AIDS Research Institute -- at http://ari.ucsf.edu. Alfred C. Kinsey, Wardell B. Pomeroy and Clyde E. Martin, "Sexual Behavior in the Human Male," Philadelphia: W. B. Saunders Company, 1948, p. 219. Robert Rector, Kirk Johnson and Lauren Noyes, "Sexually Active Teenagers Are More Likely to Be Depressed and to Attempt Suicide," published by The Heritage Foundation's Center for Data Analysis (cda 0304)--at www.heritage.org. Janet Rosenbaum, "Reborn a Virgin: Adolescents' Retracting of Virginity Pledges and Sexual Histories," American Journal of Public Health, June 2006, vol. 96 issue 6, pp. 1098-1103. John Santelli, "Abstinence-Only Education: Politics, Science, and Ethics," Social Research, Fall 2006, vol. 73, issue. 3, pp. 835-58. Lydia Shrier, Mei-Cdiung Shih and Laura Hallar, "Improved Affect Following Coitus: A Functional Perspective on Adolescent Sexual Behavior," Journal of Adolescent Health, 2006, vol. 36 issue 2.

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