How reliable is counterpunch.com?

[Rick Myers]

On a scale of 1 to 10, is it reliable? There is some really good info there, but they seem to run to extremes quite regularly. Just wonder what others think? :shrug:

I give it about a 5 or 6.

[IndyOp]

1. Examples of unreliable articles?

Are those articles 'news' or 'opinion'?

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

2. Well in the 00 election they were using the "Al Gore claimed he

discovered Love Canal" line. I don't really find them reliable at all..I think they are a body blow from the left and funded by the right.

[MH1]

16. Agreed.

In October 2004 they were running articles about "why you shouldn't vote for Kerry."

[cmkramer]

54. Mena, Arkansas

They were also big on the Mena, Arkansas story which has been debunked by Gene Lyons.

That's the one where Bill Clinton as governor supposedly allowed an Arkansas airstrip to be used as part of the "IranContra" program. Allegedly it was a big hub of illegal drug activity that Clinton was bribed to keep quiet about. A few of the more imaginative stories featured him smoking pot with Oliver North.

And many of the people on the "Arkancide" list are people who supposedly either witnessed or knew too much about the alleged drug running going on.

I recall the FREEPERS were all over this story, and the fact that COUNTERPUNCH was too was all the proof they needed.

[The Magistrate]

3. It Can Be Relied On, Sir

To promote the line most likely to disrupt and divide the left, and best calculated to ensure impotence at the polls for left and progressive elements in any election season. A thoroughgoing Leninist would have no hesitation to declare them agents in fascist pay....

"LET'S GO GET THOSE BUSH BASTARDS!"

[blm]

5. I concur with nsma and The Magistrate. It's hits aren't worth the

avalanche of misses and disinformation.

[pinto]

7. LOL...

Hi Mag, well said.

[librechik]

58. it's more pornography for progressives

and about as reliable a reference.

[karynnj]

4. Far closer to 1

Being to the left, does not make them accurate or ethical. They have printed baseless attacks on both John Kerry and Al Gore during their campaigns - I have no problem with valid critisism, but baseless sheer nastiness is over the line. (Their review of the Tour of Duty book was so incredibly distorted that if you didn't read the book - where Brinkley came away as immensely impressed with John Kerry - you would think it more like O'Neil's book.)

[w13rd0]

6. I find them exceptionally...

...bombastic and divisive. There's some good info on Judicial Watch on occassion too, but I wouldn't trust them. I give them a 4, with Faux News being a 4 as well, and NewsMax and WorldNetDialy being a 3, FreeRepublic a 2...for comparison purposes. This site I'd give a 7 to. There's nothing out there I'd give a 9 or 10 to, or a 1 really, wait, no, hatesites like Stormfront and NatAll I'd give a 1 to.

[cliss]

8. A point:

1) this is not a news site. It's an opinion web site. They have featured writers like Alexander Cockburn & Jeffrey St. Clair. They have a gamut of contributing writers. They do provide links, but they make it clear they're expressing their opinion.

2) Counter Punch is not a huge supporter of the Dem's. In fact, they seem to hate them. But they hate the right even more, in my opinion.

I don't know how to classify them: right-and-left haters, but definitely not libertarians. Just don't know...

But I still like reading the articles.

[seemslikeadream]

9. Compared to what?

Did their lies help with the war effort? :shrug:

[Octafish]

62. Zactatackalackally

If you know what to look for, you can get a "10" out of the place. If you read and remember the junk, it's worthless.

As for all sources -- online, print, eyewitness, etc -- Counterpunch must be evaluated for truthfulness and accuracy. The magazine and website publish some real heavy hitters -- from CIA analyst McGovern (remember Plamegate, 'Dreamy?) to former Reagan Treasury Asst Sec Roberts (attacked by Bush brownshirts) to MI-Complex contemplations from St. Clair {Grand Theft Pentagon) and a lot of navel gazing and fact-mongering from Alexander Cockburn and his kin.

Cockburn, BTW, has a biweekly column in The Nation, "Beat the Devil." Love the title and lots of time, I like what he writes about.



My problem with Cockburn and Counterpunch: Like the true intellectual giant Noam Chomsky, A Cockburn believes Oswald shot President Kennedy from the TSBD and that JFK would basically have escalated the war in Vietnam, like his successor LBJ was itching to do. That's utter bullshit, based on the facts from other sources (John Newman), who found Kennedy had signed orders getting the U.S. out of Vietnam. For years, the likes of the war party have done all they could to make those the central historic facts of our existence as a nation today topics unworthy of discussion in polite company.

[firefox]

10. I give it a 10

Alexander Cockburn is an intellectual on par with Chomsky and is a believer that how it is said is important as what is said. He is an exceptional writer and I read everything he writes at CounterPunch. He has a past with "The Nation" and still contributes to that magazine. I have to believe that long before the Nation announced they would not support anymore pro-Iraq war candidates, Alexander Cockburn was ahead of them.

But all you have to do is read the website occassionally to see that CounterPunch is about giving voices to those that are shut out by the mainstream media. They have news that nobody else reports.

It is an excellent website and I do not know of a better writer anywhere than Alexander Cockburn.

[MH1]

17. Cockburn is an ass who hates the Democratic party.

Sorry, but you expressed your opinion, now I'll express mine.

He specifically lied about both Gore and Kerry and I saw articles where he incited people to vote against Kerry, even on the eve of the election.

I don't know how any Democrat could give Alexander Cockburn the time of day, after the lies and distortions he printed about Gore and Kerry. He as surely helped put and keep Bush in office as any mouthpiece of the right.

[The Stranger]

27. Give us a link.

You know the routine.

[meganmonkey]

30. Truth hurts, huh?

:shrug:

[blm]

35. The 10% of truth they use doesn't hurt a bit. Too bad they wrap it in

so much hyperbole, rumor and baseless charges.

[meganmonkey]

38. "Hyperbole, rumor, and baseless charges"

are all I see in the criticisms of counterpunch on this thread.

I haven't seen one link to something they said that was untrue, or a debunking of all these supposed lies that they print.

:shrug:

[The Magistrate]

51. His Hate Runs A Good Deal Deeper Than That, Sir

The apple seldom falls far from the tree, and that is particularly true in this case....

This fellow is the son of a prominent English Stalinist of the thirties, who Mr. Orwell criticized specifically in "Homage to Catalonia" as a liar and apologist for police terror against leftists who were not Communists.

Though hardly an especial favorite of mine, the World Socialist Web Service has an interesting take on the fellow....

"Cockburn's attitude of "Après Clinton le déluge--and a good thing too!" might remind someone familiar with the history of the workers movement in the twentieth century of another strident, but demoralized slogan advanced some 65 years ago. The German Communist Party proclaimed "First Hitler, then us" as it was careening toward catastrophe in the early 1930s. Its ultra-leftism, summed up in the refusal to organize a United Front with the Socialist workers to combat the Nazis, concealed a deep-seated resignation and fatalism.

"And Cockburn, prominent in the New Left and anti-Vietnam War protests in Britain in the 1960s, indeed has family roots in the Stalinist milieu. His father, Claud Cockburn, played a leading role in the British Communist Party in the 1930s and 1940s. Under the name Frank Pitcairn he covered the Spanish Civil War for the British Daily Worker, producing scurrilous articles about the POUM and other left-wing opponents of Stalinism. At the time of the bourgeois-Stalinist suppression of the POUM in 1937 he justified the jailings and murders of its leaders, describing the party as "'Franco's Fifth Column'--a 'Trotskyist' organization working in league with the Fascists."

"While in Spain, according to the editor of a volume of his writings, Claud Cockburn formed a close relationship with Mikhail Koltsov, "then the foreign editor of Pravda and at that time, in Cockburn's view, 'the confidant and mouthpiece and direct agent of Stalin in Spain'." In other words, Cockburn made friends with one of the GPU's chief spokesmen in Spain, while leftists were being hunted down, tortured and murdered in special GPU prisons."

http://www.wsws.org/news/1998/sep1998/cbrn-s02.shtml

"LET'S GO GET THOSE BUSH BASTARDS!"

[annabanana]

69. Sir, you delight.

As ever, I am enlightened by your posts. Thank you.

[Karmadillo]

71. To be fair, My Friend,

the WSWS follows the Trotsky line, so I'm guessing they would not be all that well-disposed towards someone working for the British Stalinist Daily Worker in the 1930s (or, for that matter, his son, who is, not surprisingly, a big admirer of his dad). I'm not sure I would take their account as complete. Perhaps Claud Cockburn thought the actions of the Anarchists and Trostkyists against the Republican government were genuinely counterproductive given the nature of their joint enemy. All beyond my knowledge, I'm afraid, but I wouldn't necessarily dismiss Cockburn on the basis of the cited article.

Here's an interesting discussion of the dispute between the Republican government and the POUM that suggests Orwell's view can be reasonably opposed:

http://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/88/abe-brigade.html

<edit>

The historical debate over the Spanish Civil War has been lively, to put it mildly. It very quickly became caught up in the politics of the Cold War and decanted into a dichotomy in which some historians argued that the defeat of the Spanish Republic was due largely to the meddling of the Comintern, while others argued that the Communists and other political groups in the Republican zone who shared their views were correct and that their efforts were undermined by the insistence of anarchists and non-Stalinist communists who put prosecuting the war against Francisco Franco behind making and sustaining a social revolution. The former view was most famously argued by George Orwell in Homage to Catalonia (1938) and restated by Ken Loach in his 1995 film, Land and Freedom. Much of the debate has centered on the figure of Juan Negrín, the socialist who was prime minister of the Spanish Republic from May 1937 until the end of the war. Was he a Communist puppet or a clear-sighted statesman who followed the only policies that might have led to the defeat of Franco?

Within this simplified picture, Graham falls into the second group. As she has continued working on the Civil War, she has developed an increasingly sophisticated analysis, and her current book is a powerful attempt to refute the long-standing interpretation, most recently argued by Ronald Radosh, Mary R. Habeck, and Grigory Sevestianov in Spain Betrayed: The Soviet Union in the Spanish Civil War (2001), that the Republican defeat was the product of scheming by Spanish Communists, and especially the Comintern, to use Spain for their own purposes. For Graham, what really mattered in determining the future of the Republic were not the machinations of Communists but "the war itself," and especially the impact of the non-intervention charade imposed by Britain and France that steadily eroded "not only ... the Republic's military capacity, but ... its political legitimacy as well" (p. xi).

In general terms, Graham's approach is to restore needed complexity to the history of the Civil War, and especially to some of its most controversial episodes. Part of this entails recalling that Spain's political organizations had a history that antedated July 18, 1936, that this history included frequent conflicts, and that these conflicts did not magically disappear once the war started. The result is a better rounded picture of some of the political actors than is often the case. Her discussion of the Partido Obrero Unificado Marxista (POUM), generally presented as a Trotsykist formation, brings out the contradiction between its revolutionary ideology and its social constitutency, a large part of which was the Catalan lower-middle class.

One of Graham's principal themes is that the republican government, and especially Negrín, were at the same time prosecuting a civil war and struggling to construct a liberal state. This was, perhaps, an impossible task, but Graham feels that historical judgments of the republic have applied completely unrealistic standards. She makes a useful comparison to the performance of other democracies under the strain of war and argues, correctly in my view, that the republic does not come off so badly. In both world wars, more fully established democracies than the Spanish Republic seriously infringed the rights of their citizens. (Both Canada and the United States went so far as to intern citizens who originated from what were, for the moment, enemy states.) One could also mention, which Graham does not, the assault on democratic and civil rights in the United States during the current "war on terrorism" embodied in the infamous Patriot Act.

And if we're going to dismiss Cockburn, who at least supported the Republican government, what do we do for the United States?

http://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/88/abe-brigade.html

The reaction of Western governments to the war was ambivalent and duplicitous. They agreed to a nonintervention pact and the United States embargoed aid to the Spanish belligerents, policies intended to de-escalate the war but whose selective enforcement undermined the Republic. While Germany and Italy supplied Franco with troops, tanks, submarines, and a modernized air force (the first to bomb open cities, most notably Guernica), the nonintervention policy only prevented arms from reaching the Republic. General Motors, Texaco, and other American corporations further assisted Franco with trucks and fuel. The Soviet Union and Mexico were the only governments to sell armaments to the Republic, although much of them were impounded at the French border. Throughout the war, a vociferous political and cultural movement in America rallied to the Republic by raising money for medical aid and demanding an end to the embargo. Such participants as Albert Einstein, Dorothy Parker, Gene Kelly, Paul Robeson, Helen Keller, A. Philip Randolph, and Gypsy Rose Lee reflected the wide base of support for the Republican cause.

I'm not sure if Graham Greene is more credible than the WSWS, but here's what he thought about Claud Cockburn:

10) Graham Greene wrote about Claude Cockburn on his death in 1981.

If I were asked who are the two greatest journalists of the twentieth century, my answer would be G.K. Chesterton and Claud Cockbum. Both are more than journalists: both produced at least one novel which will be rediscovered with delight, I believe, in every generation - The Man who was Thursday and Ballantyne's Folly. Both are manic characters, writing with what some sad fellows may find even an excess of high spirits. Perhaps Claud Cockbum will prove to have been more influential, for he discovered the influence that can be wielded by a mimeographed news-sheet.

And finally, for a more interesting analysis of Alexander Cockburn than, one might want to read this (it's kinda long, though):

http://pubs.socialistreviewindex.org.uk/isj78/keach.htm

<edit>

Cockburn specialises in uncompromising denunciations of liberals and soft-leftists who try to defend themselves in The Nation's Letters column from his attacks. When Patricia Scott, executive director of Pacifica Radio, writes to defend her organisation's commitment to 'alternative viewpoints, freedom of the press', Cockburn replies with, 'Don't make me laugh... Gag orders and secret board meetings...should not be procedures associated with public radio'.4 Many a Nation reader over the years has written in to protest at Cockburn's unmannerly assault on his or her favourite liberal or social democratic intellectual or politician, only to have Cockburn respond with a savage refusal to be nice.

The best of Cockburn's recent work as muckraker and gadfly is to be found in Washington Babylon. The obvious pleasure Cockburn takes in his role as maverick journalist seems to enable, rather than impede, his collaborative research and writing with Ken Silverstein, both in this book and in Counterpunch. Washington Babylon specifically targets the national press and media establishment, the Congress, the lobbyists, the presidency - those key institutions of ruling class power and manipulation that most Americans rightly see as corrupt. 'Both major political parties', Cockburn and Silverstein say in their introduction,

have been bought up by big money from corporations and wealthy Americans... More than 100 corporate political actions committees contribute to both 'liberal Democrat' Richard Gephardt and 'right wing Republican' Newt Gingrich. Never have Tweedledee and Tweedledum been so indistinguishable.5

Quoting Hal Draper's famous article, 'Who's Going to be the Lesser Evil in 1968?', Cockburn and Silverstein show that Draper's argument against the politics of 'lesser evilism' in 1968 applies even more decisively to the US today. Democratic Party politicians widely believed to offer a respectable alternative to Clintonian sleaze are revealed as offering no such thing. Recently retired Senator Bill Bradley of New Jersey fought long and hard to defend the interests of the huge drug companies based in his state. That he did so is not surprising: 'The pharmaceutical industry spends about $10 billion a year on advertising and promotion'.6 In 1993, when Clinton himself proposed to make the government the sole buyer of childhood vaccines and to distribute them free to all children, it was Bradley who led the successful fight against this reform - despite the fact that US drug companies have raised vaccine prices by 1,000 percent in the last 15 years, and that fewer than two thirds of two year old children receive the full spectrum of recommended immunisations. It's this kind of analysis and exposure, aimed at politicians and institutions who tend to evade widespread public anger, that makes Washington Babylon, and Cockburn's writing generally, important.

more...

[The Magistrate]

72. Thank You For The Thoughtful Reply, Sir

What makes this an apt line of attack to me is that our current Mr. Cockburn seems to be maintaining in political strategy a line similar to that of the Comintern in late Weimar Germany, namely that the greatest fire of the left should be concentrated on center-left organizations, with two benefits expected to follow: first, that only the left stripe he favors will be left as credible, and second, that the progress made by the reactionaries will drive the masses to unrest, which only his stripe will then be available to lead. The historical results of this line reveal it as folly, and the worst of its folly is simply that it under-rates what the reactionaries will do with the state power made available to their unhindered use by destruction of the center-left elements as a political power. Revolutions are never made succesfully against an entrenched power with the organs of a functioning state in its hands; the success of revolution requires a condition of chaos and upheaval be already present in sufficient degree to upset the orderly function of the state, and revolutionists have never in history managed on their own efforts to create such a circumstance. In all instances it has been produced by external factors quite beyond them, and they have succeeded only when able to react opportunistically to such events.

The Spanish Civil War is something all on left ought to study closely, as it reveals a great deal we need to learn from. Whatever the rights and wrongs of the disputes between Anarchist and Communists and Socialists and the rest within the Republic, it is abundantly clear that disunity on the left was a leading cause of Franco's success. The unwillingness of the various left factions to take the reactionaries as their sole enemy, even in time of war with their very survival at stake, points to the endemic nature of fragmentation on our side of this ancient war between "those who work, and those who eat," and contrasted with the willingness of the reactionaries to sink their quarrels in crisis and act as a bloc, suggests the real reason why the necessarily minority position of the right tends to prevail. We on the left will not prevail until we are able to act in unison, and direct our fire outwards only towards those even the mildest and the most radical can agree at least are proper foes.

Two leading reasons suggest themselves for this enduring difficulty.

The first is that leftism is largely a theoretical exercise, as there has been very little actual power held by elements we could even mostly agree were real leftist groups. The business of represion and rule engaged in by the right from time immemorial is, in contrast, a practical matter with a sound body of craft experience built up over time. It is much easier to quarrel over theoretical differences, especially when these have had no test in practical experience that might shed light on what really worked best, than it is to quarrel over the application of rules of thumb. Even fights over the division of spoils tend to be less fierce than fights over differences in hypothetical constructions to which the disputants are emotionally committed.

The second is a difference in character among persons committed to the right and the left. Persons committed to the right tend to be more authoritarian in nature than the average run. Such a character is not only more willing to give orders but more willing to obey them, and this fosters unity of action and purpose. Persons committed to the left tend to be more individualistic than the average run, and to place a very high value on individuallity as a positive good in its own right. This is detrimental to group identification and hence to unified action. Unfortunately, political action, like war itself, is largely an exercise in group identification, and success at it requires cohesion above all else.

[MrPrax]

40. Agreed...

Cockburn, especially so, has a keen idea for political comment and hypocrisy and, though I could be wrong, he seems to have more poison for the DLC than grassroots Democrats, who I presume, he thinks are being lead by self-serving politicians who bear little substance from Republicans.

But most in this thread seem to think that CP is some news portal or something...there are a lot of sites similar to CP...

http://www.axisoflogic.com/
http://www.commondreams.org/
http://www.tompaine.com/

etc...

I would have figured it is best to read wide assortment of opinions and news and make up your own mind...me dumb ;-)

[karynnj]

43. I for one cancelled my subscription to the Nation because of him

His comments on Kerry and other Democrats are inaccurate and obnoxious - I read many writers who have different prefered candiates but slander is not ok.

[Name removed]

11. Deleted message

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

[blm]

36. Your story fits in with the summation of those who believe that

counterpunch is funded by the right to keep the left divided, not an interest to inform.

[High Plains]

41. Did you forget your anti-paranoia pills?

[TheBaldyMan]

45. it would be interesting to see who they did get their funding from

I don't know if Counterpunch is a registered charitable foundation or some private or commercial concern. Does Counterpunch have published accounts?

[TheBaldyMan]

47. correction to my post

I got my web sites mixed up. The site I should have reffered to was NOT counterpunch.org

I apologize to all and will get my post deleted asap.

I should make clear that the site that rejected my story was spinsanity.org

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

12. It's not picky about attacking sacred cows. Even ones with (D).

Tsk. Tsk. I'd give it about an 8-9.

[oblivious]

22. Exactly, no sacred cows.

John Pilger, Robert Fisk, Chris Floyd, Robert Jensen, Cynthia McKinney, Noam Chomsky, John Chuckman .... what's not to like?

[Rick Myers]

13. Thanks

Most of you seem to see them as I do, I'm glad for that!!!

[Karmadillo]

14. It is certainly no New York Times, that's for sure.

1. It failed to support Republicans and "Leading" Democrats and assist with the media's appointed task of cheerleading us into an illegal war in Iraq. Damn Counterpunch.

2. If failed to print Judith Miller's White House press releases and, even worse, it refused to present her as a martyr on behalf of Journalistic Freedom. Damn Counterpunch.

3. It's critical of the Democratic Party for failing to live up to the liberal ideals it uses to empty our wallets every four years. Damn Counterpunch. McCain/Bayh in 2008!

Here's an example of why one should never read anything from this most disreputable source:

http://www.counterpunch.com/cockburn12242005.html\

Who Will Fight for the Constitution?
The Year of Vanished Credibility
By ALEXANDER COCKBURN

<edit>

Now Bush is saying that the job will be done when Iraqis enjoy the democratic freedoms guaranteed Americans. We should say, They do! Bought news stories, secret surveillance of phone calls, emails and faxes, arrest without warrant, disappearances, torture You've brought our democracies into sync. Call it a day, bring the troops home, and then we can start impeaching you.

But who would do the impeaching? The Democrats have lost as much credibility as the President and the Republicans. Ever since the New York Times loitered a year late into print with its disclosure about the NSA spying program (only the latest in a sequence of unconstitutional infamies by that Agency stretching back for decades, mostly against domestic political protesters) I've seen it argued that if the Times had gone with the story last year, Kerry might be president.

But if the Democrats had cared about the Constitution they could have broken the story themselves last year. Democratic congressional leaders knew, because the whistleblowers from the NSA desperately tried to alert them, only to get the cold shoulder. Kerry's prime advisers ­ Richard Clark and Rand Beers ­ on such matters knew, because they'd previously been Bush's top functionaries in the war on terror.

We're heading into a year when the Democrats could be making hay, by actually doing the right thing. In 2005 is a pointer, they never will. The latest evidence is that Rahm Emanuel, in charge of selecting Democratic Congressional candidates for 2006, is choosing millionaires and fence-straddlers on the war. He shunned Christine Cegelis, who nearly beat sixteen-termer Henry Hyde in 2004, and whom Illinois polls show to be a popular contender to succeed Hyde. But Cegelis has the disadvantage in Emanuel's eyes of not being very rich and of agreeing with John Murtha on immediate withdrawal of US troops from Iraq. Emanuel picks Tammy Duckworth, who embodies the cynicism of the "Democratic strategists", being a double-amputee woman Iraq veteran who is not from the district, has a hot-air position on the war and is thought to espouse a "pro-business/centrist platform".

For years Democrats have been dreaming of having a brawny, non-nonsense type, preferably draped in medals, lead them into political battle. They picked a clunker last year, in the form of John Kerry, who had a glass jaw, six houses, a silly billionaire wife and an infinite capacity for talking out of both sides of his mouth. Along comes Murtha, who was actually a Marine drill sergeant at Parris Island, who has 100 per cent credibility on military matters, who showed how to talk about the war, how to say It's quitting time. And they fled him like a poisoned thing. They still do.

I watched Murtha put Bush away last Sunday. It was effortless.

more...

[MH1]

19. See my post #17

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=5690817&mesg_id=5691239

But, it only is relevant if you actually wanted Kerry to beat Bush in 2004. If you didn't want Kerry to win, then you agreed with Alexander Cockburn, and I'm not sure what either of you would be doing hanging aroung "Democratic" Underground.

[Karmadillo]

21. Just to clarify,

I'm hanging around Democratic "Underground", not "Democratic" Underground.

[karynnj]

46. Sounds to me that Cockburn is just jealous of Kerry

look at the critisism - 6 houses, a "silly" billionaire wife - now the 6 houses are of course Teresa's. To refer to a well respected philanthrapist, who has always sounded intelligent, caring and insightful in things I've read that she's written and in the CSAN covered campaign events as silly IS pretty silly.

I assume that Mr. Cockburn, assuming anyone would marry him, has a wife smart enough to look at his detailed medical results, remember the results from previous years and identify a worrisome trend, not seen by his doctor. Teresa very likely saved her husband's health if not his life - sounds like a silly woman to me.

I've read analyses that have suggested that Kerry may have carried PA partially because of the respect that people in the Pittsburgh area have for Teresa. I read Kerry's answers when asked for words he would use to describe his wife - silly was never there - nurturing, brilliant, sexy were.

As to speaking out of both sides of his mouth - Rove couldn't have said it better, except it wasn't true. As to having a glass jaw - I assume he is saying there was something not real about Kerry heroism - there isn't, no matter what Rove and the SBVT slime have to say. But I don't remember hearing of any courageous stances Mr Cockburn ever took - Kerry knowingly when up against Nixon.

[Jim Sagle]

15. It's quite reliable.

You can rely on it to bash Democrats from the "left" even harder than Republicans do from the right.

It's a staunch opponents of "left gatekeepers" - meaning any Democrat who's prosemitic.:puke:

[High Plains]

42. "Prosemitic"?

Uh, does that mean Zionist?

[Jim Sagle]

48. No.

[madfloridian]

18. They equally dislike all Democrats.....

so most of us here don't quote from them about Democrats. They often use half quotes and partial truths.

[emulatorloo]

20. To me, it reads like Karl Rove attacking from the Left

w the net result of more power for Republicans. Sorry to me harsh, but JMHO.

[wellst0nev0ter]

23. I'm Not Going To Discount Counterpunch Because It Criticizes Democrats

With the number of appeasers on the Democratic side, I think they might have a point.

[ComerPerro]

24. Can't give it a 1 to 10 rating. Sometimes its news, sometimes its opinion,

sometimes its satire.

Never just stick to one source.

But they are usually a good place to go.

[long_green]

25. I read it every day

and enjoy it. Believe everything on it? No.

[The Stranger]

26. Sometimes the truth is difficult to take.

Unfortunately, this is the reason why some do not like Counterpunch, not as a result of its journalism or journalistic integrity.

Also, it openly criticizes Israel's extremist right-wing expansionist government, which automatically puts it on a blacklist with some supposedly "Progressive" posters.

[meganmonkey]

32. Yep - the truth hurts

:thumbsup:

The most unfortunate thing is that if we don't start with the truth, real solutions to our current political nightmare are impossible. But it is easier, I suppose, to vote for people when you stubbornly believe the best of them despite evidence to the contrary. And it is also easier to call those who speak the truth 'liars' than it is to actually quote them and contradict them.

[Dr Ron]

28. How reliable is Ann Coulter or Rush Limbaugh?

They are about as reliable, just coming from the other side of the political spectrum.

[Karmadillo]

29. Really? Coulter or Limbaugh? You have an analysis you're prepared

to post to back up the assertion, right?

[Dr Ron]

39. That's not the question

The person posting asked what others think of the site, and that's the impression which I (and by the posts here, others) have based upon reading them. It was a request for opinions of readers only.

It wasn't asked if we had such an analysis, and nobody has claimed to have spent the time to prepare one. The site just isn't signficant enough to waste such time on.

[Karmadillo]

50. You have an opinion of the site, but you can't post anything to

support your opinion?

[The Magistrate]

53. One Problem With That Line, Old Friend

Is that after repeated exposure to a thing, that leads to the drawing of a conclusion, people tend just to recall the conclusion, thre being no need to preserve the steps of its drawing....

[Karmadillo]

61. Certainly, My Friend, one can post one's opinion without

supporting evidence. Doing so while pretending Counterpunch is the left equivalent of Coulter and Limbaugh, however, reflects kind of poorly on the poster. If one is familiar enough with a site to draw such harsh conclusions regarding its worth, it shouldn't be that difficult to back up one's claims if asked to do so.

[Dr Ron]

63. Sure I could

But why waste my time digging up old material on a site of limited significance? That is not what was asked by the person asking the question.

Many of the posters here already have already expressed comparable opinions and have seen this. You do not appear to be interested in either facts or intelligent discussion.

[Karmadillo]

64. Let's see. It's too much trouble for you to provide support for your

claims, but I'm the one who appears uninterested in facts or intelligent discussion?

[Dr Ron]

65. Plenty of examples were already given

You clearly appear more interersted in grand standing than to consider the numerous examples proving you wrong.

If others were looking to this for information it might be worth pulling up yet more examples. As it is a virtually dead thread where most realize that the site is not at all credible, there isn't any point.

[Karmadillo]

68. Not at all credible? And you still can't provide links?

I understand your desire to take protection in the arms of "most", but if you read the posts you're referring to, you'll find very little evidence to support the sweeping claims made against Counterpunch.

[meganmonkey]

31. I love it. I read it regularly

and I give it more credibility than most editorial news sources.

[jonnyblitz]

52. it's one of the first sites i check out daily. DEM loyalists hate it

and, of course the usual folks call it anti-semitic because the site champions the rights of the palestinians. yeah, how dare they criticize kerry and gore. :sarcasm: they MUST be funded by the right. :tinfoilhat: mr cockburn, I am sure, would get a kick out of that one.

[rman]

33. Reality is extreme - it's good someone is writing about it

I don't exactly see how it being extreme at times, would affect its reliability.

[Desertrose]

34. Yup- reality is extreme...but the truth can be an uncomfortable fit...

Whats wrong with broadening one's point of view?

Ultimately (hopefully) we still have a brain to figure it all out...right?

DR

[mattclearing]

37. It depends on the author.

They run a lot of different people over there. As with any other publication that prints multiple points of view, you have to know the writer and weigh their words accordingly.

It's no different than Charles Krauthammer, E.J. Dionne, and Colby King at the Washington Post. Each has their own point of view, and they ascend in truthfulness and sensibility pretty much in that order.

[KG]

44. counterpunch is a website of analysis and opinion, not news.

but the fact that it has the dem party loyalists whining about how it 'bashes democrats' just confirms my opinion that its content is spot on.

[Clara T]

49. It is has numerous excellent authors that post there -Here is an example:

To criticize or worship any site that puts up a large number of opinion pieces misses the big picture. To dismiss Counterpunch due to some ideological bent one stubbornly holds onto will then leave one to miss out on some excellent pieces. Some folks like to do that so as to keep their dearly held shibboleths safely guarded under glass.


The Psychology of Christian Fundamentalism

By WALTER A. DAVIS

"I know you're a Christian, but who are you a Christian against."

Kenneth Burke

In Apocalypse, a patient study of Christian fundamentalism based on extensive interviews over a five year period with members of apocalyptic communities Charles Strozier identifies four basic beliefs as fundamental to Christian fundamentalism. (1) Inerrancy or biblical literalism, the belief that every word of the Bible is to be taken literally as the word of God; (2) conversion or the experience of being reborn in Christ; (3) evangelicalism or the duty of the saved to spread the gospel; and (4) Apocalypticism or Endism, the belief that The Book of Revelations describes the events that must come to pass for God's plan to be fulfilled. <1> Revelations thus becomes an object of longing as well as the key to understanding contemporary history, to reading the news of the day and keeping a handle on an otherwise overwhelming world. Each of these categories, Strozier adds, must be understood not doctrinally but psychologically. What follows attempts to constitute such an understanding by analyzing each category as the progression of a disorder that finds the end it seeks in Apocalyptic destructiveness.

Before undertaking that examination a note on method. My goal is not to number the streaks of the tulip with respect to Christian fundamentalism but to get to the essence of the thing by offering a psychoanalytic version of the method Hegel formulated in the Phenomenology of Mind. My effort will be to describe the inner structure of the psyche implied by fundamentalist beliefs by examining those beliefs in terms of the psychological needs they fulfill. The examination of each belief will reveal its function in an evolving "logic" that traces the sequence of internal operations required for the fundamentalist psyche to achieve the form required to resolve the conflicts that define its inner world. The difference between my method and Hegel's is this: Hegel's effort was to describe the sequence of rational self-mediations required for the attainment of absolute knowledge. Mine is to record the sequence of psychological transformations that must take place for another kind of certainty to be achieved: one in which, as we'll see, thanatos and not reason attains an absolute status, freed of anything within that would oppose it. In effect, my goal is to offer fundamentalists a self-knowledge they cannot have since it is precisely the function of the belief structure we shall examine to render it unconscious and all the more powerful and certain of itself by virtue of that fact. What after all is religion but a desire displacing itself into dogmas all the better to assure the flock that what they desire is writ into the nature of things?

Who does the structure we'll examine describe? George W. Bush and some of those closest to him? The 42% or 51% of those Americans who now call themselves fundamentalists? The 80 or 90% of practicing Christians, the over 1 billion viewers worldwide, who found Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ a singularly compelling expression of their faith and who are thus already far more fundamentalist in their hearts than they realize? The power of any religious belief system derives from how deeply it taps into collective needs and discontents. In this regard we may already be living in a fundamentalist Zeitgeist with the collective Amerikan psyche now defined, even among those who have never (or seldom) seen the inside of a church, by the emotional needs and principles of operation that find their most seductive realization in fundamentalism. We may in fact find the same "faith" informing a project that initially appears to have nothing to do with fundamentalism--global capitalism.

Though he does not share their beliefs Strozier often comments on the charity and gentleness of his interviewees seeing in that a sign that we should always temper any criticism of fundamentalism by acknowledging the good things it does for people, many of whom would be lost or miserable without it. Be that as it may, in terms of the psyche a far different condition might maintain with a pronounced dissonance between the sincerity of the surface and the depths where something quite different has taken hold of the psyche. Moreover, in the psychoanalysis of a belief system the primary concern must be not with the sheep but with the Grand Inquisitors. Or, to put it in psychoanalytic terms, with those who fashion the Super-ego which is the agency essential to the hold that any religion assumes over its followers. Our concern, in short, must be with fundamentalism not as a pathetic phenomena, a halfway house for drug addicts and a panacea for those who find in it the infantalization they seek, but for those who have fashioned in it what Nietzsche would call (though with horror) a strong valuation, an attempt to take up the fundamental problems of the psyche and fashion a will to power out of one's resentment by developing a faith that will make one strong and righteous in that resentment, like Falwell, smug in its smug certitudes like Dubya, confident in the right to rule over those it reduces to the status of sheep, dumb and blissful in their blind obedience to the will that is collectively imposed on them.

http://www.counterpunch.org/davis01082005.html

[NaturalHigh]

55. I read it for entertainment.

They post some really nutty articles on that site.

[clitzpah queen]

59. I agree with ALL of Karmadillo's posts on this!

You really have to wonder about the vitriole against Cockburn -- one of the most consistent and thorough INVESTIGATIVE journalists -- and yes, someone who makes no bones about having a viewpoint.
There is a polarization of members in DU - as Karmadillo points out:
I'm hanging around Democratic "Underground", not "Democratic" Underground
Are people here justifiably critical of ineffectual Democratic Party leadership having to fear the same bashing as from Bush lovers? It is CLEAR that folks like Cockburn, who canNOT be bought off like so many American journalists can, have to be demonized and demeaned by the Right Wing, their agents, sympathizers -- and by stupid people. Thank god for MEGANMONKEY, KARMADILLO and the others who are holding your feet to the fire.

[Kralizec]

56. Figure it out yourself.

Do some research. Quit relying on what other people tell you to base your decisions.

Groupthink affects any political parties.

Quit asking stupid questions like this and do some research on your own. Trust yourself, in the end.

[JohnLocke]

57. 0 is being generous (nt).

[rman]

67. that doesn't explain much.

but maybe you weren't practicing your hobby.

[Coastie for Truth]

60. I prefer Mad Magazine to Counterpunch-more veracity, analysis, humor

<>

[fujiyama]

66. You'll find a good editorial

every now and again.

It's not really a news site. It's an extremely ideaological site filled with editorials, and they have an inherant hatred for Democrats and republicans. Sometimes the criticisms are warranted, other times they are petty, and obnoxious, and you wonder if they live in reality.

Cockburn does some decent journalism once in a while, but I dislike extreme leftists that turn a blind eye toward Islamic terrorism. Cockburn is a bit too close to being an apologist for extremists for my tastes.

[NaturalHigh]

70. It's not just Cockburn.

At least half of the contributors on the site are radical leftists who make no sense whatsoever. Dave Zirin and some dumbass called Mickey Z get on my nerves as much as Cockburn.

[AnnieBW]

73. I read them occasionally

But they seem to be out on the fringe more than other sites. I think they're too left even for the Greens. :D

[MisterP]

74. Commies! Quick, under the bed!!!

since when do we play the red card on DU, eh??