Counterpunch slams Kerry

[cryofan]

Ya'll gonna love dis:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>




Dean made his own mistakes and spent much of his $40 million foolishly on lousy campaign ads but it’s clear that in Iowa and New Hampshire he was up against the Democratic Party machine and lacked the experienced operators who might have saved the day. It was the party machine that pulled it out for Kerry, and once Kerry had got those two crucial victories, the overwhelming eagerness of Democratic voters to annoint an uncontested champion to go up against Bush carried him forward.


....


Kerry reminds us of no one such as Mr Facing-Both-Ways, in Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress. Unlike Bush, who sensibly took a vacation from the perils of conflict in the National Guard, Kerry enlisted for combat in Vietnam and shuttled up and down the Mekong river commanding a Swift Boat, deployed for the sort of counter-insurgency missions that had Kerry’s former senatorial colleague, Bob Kerrey of Nebraska, slitting the throats of Vietnamese villagers.

Kerry returned to the US, thrust himself forward as a leader of the antiwar movement, but made a point of distancing himself from the Vietnam Veterans Against the War. Like Clinton trying to figure out how to dodge the draft respectably, Kerry was zealous to preserve his political viability within the system. “The agenda of some of the folks within the veterans’ movement ultimately became confused and went way beyond trying to end the war,” Kerry later told the Boston Phoenix. “There was a lot of rhetoric about every social ill and evil there was.” The media got the point. Morley Safer of CBS applauded Kerry as “a veteran whose articulate call to reason rather than anarchy seemed to bridge the gap between Abbie Hoffman and Mr Agnew’s so-called Silent Majority.” From Abbie to Agnew, now there’s a leap!

Distaste for anarchy notwithstanding, when the VVAW forced a senate hearing on the war, Kerry pushed himself to the front to deliver the high-profile testimony before the tv cameras and, later, at a Vets’ demonstration at the White House similarly took advantage of the heavily covered event to join other vets in throwing war medals over the White House fence. The ones tossed by Kerry actually belonged to someone else, thus permitting the prudent Kerry to preserve his own for later proud display in his various offices and for their ultimate deployment as blazing reproaches to Bush.

...

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn02112004.html

[PROGRESSIVE1]

1. Another assault on Kerry. If this keeps up, I predict that....

Dubya will be LEGITIMATLY ELECTED to a second term.

Do we really want that?

[Padraig18]

7. Can't take the heat?

Too bad.

[Cheswick2.0]

10. this is the primary season, we have to do this

That is what all The Kerry folks said when Dean was being attacked for the last three months. This is how we get the candidate ready to run against bush. That is what I am told.

[IndianaGreen]

37. Swift boats were used in counter-insurgency operations

and there was such a thing as the Phoenix Program, a CIA run operation that used Green Berets for little things like torture and death squads.

BTW, Bob Kerrey was a Navy Seal, and there is enough evidence to convict Kerrey of war crimes committed by troops under his command.

I am totally opposed to resurrecting the Vietnam ghost, for doing so will reopen a lot of wounds, including a lot of well-documented stories that reflect very badly on us.

[DinahMoeHum]

2. "Nothing-But-The-Best-For-The-Oppressed" strikes again !!

meaning:
"the perfect is the enemy of the good enough"

Ask Counterpunch if they really want another 4 years of *.


:evilfrown:

[phillybri]

3. Your title should read: "Counterpunch slams Kerry..."

"....and I'm Helping Them Do It!"

[helleborient]

4. Sometimes truth is more important than a bandwagon...

Particularly when the nominating race is far from over.

[Padraig18]

8. awwwww, pooor widdle Senatuh Kewwy!

:nopity:

[Cuban_Liberal]

23. LOL!

:P

[library_max]

40. Wow.

Who are you, and what have you done with the real Padraig18? You know, the ABB guy who was always trying to uplift the debate and persuade people to be sensible. I remember being allies with that guy about a month ago.

[cryofan]

29. Aw, quitcher bitchin'

I don't really have a real strong candidate in this race, so I am not doing this so that kerry can be overtaken by my candidate. I think Kerry wins the nomination, and I will back him.

I just thought the article would be interesting to the readers here. Now go cry in your beer some more. Jeez....

[WilliamPitt]

5. Vomit

"Kerry enlisted for combat in Vietnam and shuttled up and down the Mekong river commanding a Swift Boat, deployed for the sort of counter-insurgency missions that had Kerry’s former senatorial colleague, Bob Kerrey of Nebraska, slitting the throats of Vietnamese villagers."

Counterpunch = assholes.

[NewYorkerfromMass]

15. Actually Cockburn is the asshole

I hope the Village Voice has been done with his sorry ass for a long time now. His buddy Ridgeway got thrown out for plagerism about 20 years ago.

on edit: A quick check and I see now Ridgeway is back with the Voice. Oh well...

[Red_Storm]

19. Cockburn writes a column for NY Press........

a worthless free weekly rag........

[meegbear]

6. You should post this here too

You reference it from your website.

http://www.mylinuxisp.com/~cryofan/dean.html

[cryofan]

Yeah, I am familiar that page--I wrote it. But what is its relevance here?

Hmmmm?

[The Magistrate]

9. 'Counter-Punch', Sir

Can be relied on to spew whatever swill will seem to the perverse minds behind it likely to do the most harm to left and progressive electoral prospects. These cretinous insects have no interest whatever save posturing in attitudes of moral purity before the mirror of their vanity, and seek only to wreck the prospect of any real improvement in the situation of the people and the country. A thoroughgoing Leninist would have no difficulty asserting they are agents in fascist pay: objectively, everything they do works to the benefit of the reactionaries.

"THere will be a holiday in our street soon!"

[Cheswick2.0]

11. seems like they just don't like him

but you can't really claim they are lying about his record.

[The Magistrate]

13. They Like Nothing, My Friend

Nothing but their own tarted up reflection through a glass redly.

My distaste for this publication was whelped down in Israel v. Palestine, where it was often cited, and was a most reliable purveyor of out-right lies in matters of fact, and of imflammatory and bigoted rhetoric. The thing, and its creators and staff, have no redeeming qualities whatever. They are the best friends reaction has, for they do nothing but harm to the left.

[redqueen]

18. I'm sure I'll get flamed all to hell

but could a case not be made that they might be trying to help, by warning us of the neo-liberals in liberal clothing?

I know they have more than a few writers, are they all prone to publish error-ridden diatribes? If this is a consistent problem with the org, fine, but I'm wondering...

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

22. I'd be more concerned that neo-conservatives are funding ultra-liberal

publications to vet their propaganda for them and would bet my hat my ass and my overcoat that that's how Counterpunch butters their bread.

[redqueen]

26. I have read similar opinions and wouldn't be surprised in the least

Thanks for your answer.

http://www.questionsquestions.net/

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

27. That article is accurate. If you are interested in reading more

a great book is by Frances Stoner Saunders called,"The CIA and the Cultural Cold Wars" It offers a great deal of insight in how the CIA plants people on the right and the left to keep them from going too far right or left. That is why Poppy coming to power was one of the worst things to happen to them as an organization.

One of the more humorous aspects of it is that the CIA thought Irvong Kristol was a tightly strung asshole who was apt to blow their cover.

[RogueTrooper]

38. it should be oft cited

;)

[Name removed]

31. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[The Magistrate]

33. If, Sir, Your Intent

Is to vote for the nominee of the Democratic Party in the general election, we can have no substantive quarrel.

"Counter-Punch" is an excellent example of why Lenin wrote the monograph "Left Wing Communism, An Infantile Disorder", which you would find well repaid the hunting up. Purist sectarianism on the left has done more than just about anything in reach of the left itself to advance the cause of reaction thpough the last century and a half of history. That is a fact, and this scurrilous and destructive journal stands in all its fecal glory fouraquare upon that distressing tradition of self-defeat.

"LET'S GO GET THOSE BUSH BASTARDS!"

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

34. I wholeheartedly concur

and I like your victorian gig. It's so you. :D

[The Magistrate]

36. That It Is, Ma'am

Rather an antique, in both attitude and interests, and perhaps that rarest of the rara avis in the political beastiary: the Tory Red....

"Better one tyrant three thousand miles away than three thousand tyrants within a mile of my door."

[oasis]

12. BRING IT ON (eom)

[DuctapeFatwa]

14. Could someone point out factual inaccuracies and misquotes?

If Kerry did not throw someone else's medal, or command that particular boat, or did not say what is quoted, someone from his office should notify Counterpunch and demand a retraction.

edit spelling

[Cuban_Liberal]

25. They'll get to that after they disavow the Toricelli/OsamaAd connection...

...or not.

[tinanator]

16. I liked the end best-

The Heinz Foundation put Ken Lay in charge of their global-warming initiative. When Enron went belly up, the Foundation stuck by their man: “Whatever troubles he had at Enron, Ken Lay had a good reputation in the environmental community for being a business man who was environmentally sensitive. When someone does wrong in one past of their life, it doesn’t mean they can’t do good in another part of their life.”

[sandnsea]

17. W - The President - Bush/Cheney '04!!!!

Yeehaaaa!!!

I don't know what the hell some people are thinking.

[corporatewhore]

20. Oh fuck the dreaded liberal media has struck again

[kiahzero]

21. Things I've learned in GD2004, #5

5) Counterpunch is simultaneously horrendously inaccurate and the absolute truth.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=293810

[DuctapeFatwa]

28. Is Kerry the editor?

couldn't resist ;)

[cindyw]

24. Are you kidding me?

Bush " who sensibly took a vacation from the perils of conflict in the National Guard"

Do you have to read any more than this to know this author's opinions are total shit?

This article is an extension of the smear tactics by the Nixon administration. It is a proven fact that Nixon and his henchmen spread lies about kerry being an efite who was looking for his own fame in this. Good to see Cockburn jumping on the Nixon bandwagon. We'll all remember this in the future.

edit: to add thought

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[dsc]

32. I tried to tell you all that these people are bad journalists

but since it was when they were attacking Dean you treated me like a bitter parisan.

[LiberalBushFan]

35. As a Kerry-hater

I still have to ask why we haven't banned counterpunch here yet.

[IndianaGreen]

39. "under the vacant banner, Anybody But Bush"

It’s the kind of sublime indifference to the messy realities of politics and life that is now inspiring Democrats to rally behind Kerry, under the vacant banner, Anybody But Bush.

Excellent piece, and good point!