This Can't Be Happening!: Resisting the Disintegration of American Democracy

by Dave Lindorff, Alexander Cockburn (Introduction)

Overview

Bush's Wars, Ashcroft's Constitution, a timid opposition and a media asleep at the switch. Where will it end?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781567512984
Publisher:	Common Courage Press
Publication date:	09/01/2004
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Award-winning investigative journalist Dave Lindorff is a coumnist for COunterpunch magazine, and is author of "Killing Time: An Investigation into the Death Penalty Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal." Alexander Cockburn is a colunist for the Nation and cofounder of Counterpunch

Table of Contents

	Foreword: Lighting Bonfires	xi
	Introduction: Shock and Awe at the Breakfast Table	1
Chapter 1	Mission Accomplished
	Liberating Iraqis...From Their Homes: IOUs for Looting	14
	And a Big Hand for...The Coalition of the Willing	16
	War and Peace in New York: Against the War at Ground Zero	18
	Bombing Saddam into Glory: A Hero Made in Washington	21
	America's Dirty Bombs: These WMDs are Right in Front of Their Noses	23
	Secret Bechtel Documents Reveal: Yes, It Is About Oil	29
	The Iraq Moneypot	36
	Consider the Parallels with Vietnam: An Iraq War and Occupation Glossary	39
	Legitimizing Terrorism? Making America Safer...for Iraqi Fighters	43
	Rumsfeld v. Belgium: "Leave Us Alone or We'll Move NATO	45
	Takoma Goes AWOL: The Dolphin Who Refused to Fight	47
	Paying For War: $2150 Per Family and Counting	48
Chapter 2	Occupation: Lost in the Bush
	Calling All Occupiers: Talking Turkey About Iraq	51
	Shooting Ali in the Back: Why the Pacification is Doomed	53
	From Occupation to Guerrilla War: A New Kind of Dancing in Iraq	55
	The Longer it Goes On, the Worse It Gets: Friendly Fire Will Doom the Occupation	58
	Hiding the Dead Babies: Infanticide as Liberation	60
	A Marine in Transit: "Spray and Pray" in Iraq	62
	Dumb and Dumber in Iraq: Human Trophies on the White House Wall	64
	Now What? The Saddam Dilemma	65
	Recalling LBJ in Vietnam: Bush's Baghdad Pit Stop	67
	Good Morning Vietnam! A Strategic Rhetorical Retreat	70
	The Bush Speech: Spinning a Fiasco	73
	A Draft in the Forecast? The Pentagon Puts Out the Help Wanted Sign	75
	Bush's War on Veterans: The White House Attack on the Troops	78
	Misers of War: Troop Strength and Chintzy Bonuses	80
	Weapons in Search of a Name: Let's Reserve WMD for the Really Big Ones. You Know, Those Made-in-America Bombs	82
	Coronado in Iraq: Laughter in the Dark	86
	Will He Replace Ari? The Catch and Release of "Comical Ali"	88
	The New Bush Slogan: "Case Closed. Just Move On"	89
	The Poll of the Shirt: Bush Isn't Wearing Well	91
	Bush's Torturous Logic: Shocked, Shocked, Shocked	94
	My Grandfather's Medal: A Final Memorial Day Thought	96
Chapter 3	Bush and Hitler: Gleich oder Anlich?
	Bush and Hitler: The Strategy of Fear	103
	Bush and Hitler...Compare and Contrast: A Response to the WSJ's James Taranto	107
	The Bush Election Strategy: The Politics of Fear and Blood	110
	RNC Plays the Hitler Card: MoveOn Shouldn't Apologize for Those Ads	113
	Scare Tactics and Elections: A Spanish Parallel	115
Chapter 4	The Assault on Civil Liberties
	When Neighbors Attack	121
	Grounded	126
	Snoops' Night Out: FEMA's Paranoid Communities	132
	Keeping Dissent Invisible: How the Secret Service and the White House Keep Protesters Safely Out of Bush's Sight--and off TV	135
	Reaping What Has Been Sown: Prisoners, Torture and Hypocrisy	142
	About Those Kids in Camp X-Ray: Day Care in the Name of National Security	145
	What's Next: You Call This Security?	146
	Expanding Power, Gutting Liberty: The Meaning of September 11	149
	Ashcroft Rebuked: Lynn Stewart's Big Win	152
	Fighting the Patriot Act: Alaska Turns a Cold Shoulder	154
	John Walker Lindh, Revisited: A First Glimpse at Bush's Torture Show	157
	That Terrorism Report: The Warning the State Department Sent Its Own People, But Not You	160
Chapter 5	The Inbedded Media
	The Failure of American Journalism: War, Protest and the Press	165
	Killing the Messengers: Deliberate or Accident, It Doesn't Really Matter	169
	Ari "the Fabulist" Fleischer Quits the Scene: The Liar's Gone, the Enablers Remain	171
	WMD Damage Control at The New York Times: Many Presidents Have Lied, But This Time the Press Went Along for the Ride	174
	The Importance of Tipping: Is the Media Finally Turning on Bush?	177
	War Dispatch from the NYT: God's On Our Side	180
	The Spinelessness of U.S. Journalism: No Solidarity Among the Scribes	182
	The Press and Fallujah: Barbaric Relativism	184
	Imagination Deficit Disorder: Finally, Bush Unites...the Resistance	187
	Chalabi as Prosecutor: An Appointment to Shock and Awe	190
	This Couldn't Have Been Happening! (But It Was): The Times' Okrent on the Credulous Judy Miller	193
Chapter 6	The So-Called Opposition
	Clinton, Bush and Impeachment: It was the Lying, Right?	197
	The Democrats in 2004: Perfect Storm or Same Old Doldrums?	200
	Facing the Music: Courage and the Democrats	202
	General Hysteria: The Clark Bandwagon	206
	A Black Day for Democracy: Schwarzenegger and the Failure of the Dems	208
	Take a Ride in God's Humvee: A General Theory of Theology	211
	Big Lies and Little Lies: The Meaning of "Mission Accomplished"	213
	Bush's Brand of Leadership: Putting Himself First	215
	Al Gore's Judas Kiss: Dean Joins the Party	218
	Histrionics about Howard: Dean and His Democratic Detractors	220
	Selling Out Democracy: Kerry's China Connection	224
	Dude! Where's Your Politics? Michael Moore Smears Kucinich	227
	Beware the Iraq Election Blowback: Rigged Votes and Puppet Governments	229
	Presidential Occupations: Bush and Kerry Share a Problem	232
	Where is John Kerry? A Campaign Coasting Toward Disaster	235
Chapter 7	Other Indignities, Assaults and Affronts
	Will Rendell Act? Race and the Death Penalty in Pennsylvania	237
	There He Goes Again! Michael Moore Proclaims Mumia Guilty	240
	Not My Day in Court: How the System Rigs the Jury Pool	243
	Bush's Scare Tactics May Backfire: The Coming Senior Revolution	245
	Social Insecurity: Fear Mongering for Privatization	250
	Hypocrisy at the Fed: Greenspan's Pension	253
	Marketplace Medicine: America's Healthcare Scandal	255
	Lights Out Baby: Where's Arnold when We Need Him?	258
	The Great Oil Gouge: Burning Up That Tax Rebate	260
	Beef, the Meat of Republicans: Deregulating Themselves to Extinction?	263
	Memorializing a President Who Could Really Lie: Put Reagan on the $3 Bill	266
	Saigon Revisited: Bush's Evacuation Moment?	268
	Epilogue
	Making Breakfast Safe Again	271
	Appendix
	Great Websites for Alternative News and Information	272
	Notes	273
	About the Author	274