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Today's
Stories
October
3 / 5, 2003
Bruce
Jackson
Addio
All Armi
October
2, 2003
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
What's
So Great About Gandhi, Anyway?
Amy Goodman
/ Jeremy Scahill
The
Ashcroft-Rove Connection
Doug Giebel
Kiss and Smear: Novak and the Valerie Plame Affair
Hamid
Dabashi
The Moment of Myth: Edward Said (1935-2003)
Elaine Cassel
Chicago Condemns Patriot Act
Saul Landau
Who
Got Us Into This Mess?
Website of the Day
Last Day to Save Beit Arabiya!
October 1, 2003
Joanne
Mariner
Married
with Children: the Supremes and Gay Families
Robert
Fisk
Oil,
War and Panic
Ron Jacobs
Xenophobia
as State Policy
Elaine
Cassel
The
Lamo Case: Secret Subpoenas and the Patriot Act
Shyam
Oberoi
Shooting
a Tiger
Toni Solo
Plan Condor, the Sequel?
Sean Donahue
Wesley
Clark and the "No Fly" List
Website of the Day
Downloader Legal Defense Fund
September
30, 2003
After
Dark
Arnold's
1977 Photo Shoot
Dave Lindorff
The
Poll of the Shirt: Bush Isn't Wearing Well
Tom Crumpacker
The
Cuba Fixation: Shaking Down American Travelers
Robert
Fisk
A
Lesson in Obfuscation
Charles
Sullivan
A
Message to Conservatives
Suren Pillay
Edward Said: a South African Perspective
Naeem
Mohaiemen
Said at Oberlin: Hysteria in the Face of Truth
Amy Goodman
/ Jeremy Scahill
Does
a Felon Rove the White House?
Website
of the Day
The Edward Said Page
September 29, 2003
Robert
Fisk
The
Myths of Western Intelligence Agencies
Iain A. Boal
Turn It Up: Pardon Mzwakhe Mbuli!
Lee Sustar
Paul
Krugman: the Last Liberal?
Wayne Madsen
General Envy? Think Shinseki, Not Clark
Benjamin
Dangl
Bolivia's Gas War
Uri Avnery
The
Magnificent 27
Pledge
Drive of the Day
Antiwar.com
Recent
Stories
September
26 / 28, 2003
Alexander
Cockburn
Alan
Dershowitz, Plagiarist
David Price
Teaching Suspicions
Saul Landau
Before the Era of Insecurity
Ron Jacobs
The Chicago Conspiracy Trial and
the Patriot Act
Brian
Cloughley
The Strangeloves Win Again
Norman Solomon
Wesley and Me: a Real-Life Docudrama
Robert
Fisk
Bomb Shatters Media Illusions
M. Shahid Alam
A Muslim Sage Visits the USA
John Chuckman
American Psycho: Bush at the UN
Mark Schneider
International Direct Action
The Spanish Revolution to the Palestiniana Intifada
William
S. Lind
How $87 Billion Could Buy Some Real Security
Douglas Valentine
Gold Warriors: the Plundering of Asia
Chris
Floyd
Vanishing Act
Elaine Cassel
Play Cat and Moussaoui
Richard
Manning
A Conservatism that Once Conserved
George Naggiar
The Beautiful Mind of Edward Said
Omar Barghouti
Edward Said: a Corporeal Dream Not Yet Realized
Lenni Brenner
Palestine's Loss is America's Loss
Mickey
Z.
Edward Said: a Well-Reasoned Voice
Tanweer Akram
The Legacy of Edward Said
Adam Engel
War in the Smoking Room
Poets' Basement
Katz, Ford, Albert & Guthrie
Website
of the Weekend
Who the Hell is Stew Albert?
September
25, 2003
Edward
Said
Dignity,
Solidarity and the Penal Colony
Robert
Fisk
Fanning
the Flames of Hatred
Sarah
Ferguson
Wolfowitz at the New School
David
Krieger
The
Second Nuclear Age
Bill Glahn
RIAA Doublespeak
Al Krebs
ADM and the New York Times: Covering Up Corporate Crime
Michael
S. Ladah
The Obvious Solution: Give Iraq Back to the Arabs
Fran Shor
Arnold and Wesley
Mustafa
Barghouthi
Edward Said: a Monument to Justice and Human Rights
Alexander Cockburn
Edward Said: a Mighty and Passionate
Heart
Website
of the Day
Edward Said: a Lecture on the Tragedy of Palestine
September 24, 2003
Stan Goff
Generational
Casualties: the Toxic Legacy of the Iraq War
William
Blum
Grand Illusions About Wesley Clark
David
Vest
Politics
for Bookies
Jon Brown
Stealing Home: The Real Looting is About to Begin
Robert Fisk
Occupation and Censorship
Latino
Military Families
Bring Our Children Home Now!
Neve Gordon
Sharon's
Preemptive Zeal
Website
of the Day
Bands Against Bush
September
23, 2003
Bernardo
Issel
Dancing
with the Diva: Arianna and Streisand
Gary Leupp
To
Kill a Cat: the Unfortunate Incident at the Baghdad Zoo
Gregory
Wilpert
An
Interview with Hugo Chavez on the CIA in Venezuela
Steven
Higgs
Going to Jail for the Cause--Part 2: Charity Ryerson, Young and
Radical
Stan Cox
The Cheney Tapes: Can You Handle the Truth?
Robert
Fisk
Another Bloody Day in the Death of Iraq
William S. Lind
Learning from Uncle Abe: Sacking the Incompetent
Elaine
Cassel
First They Come for the Lawyers, Then the Ministers
Yigal
Bronner
The
Truth About the Wall
Website
of the Day
The
Baghdad Death Count
September
20 / 22, 2003
Uri Avnery
The
Silliest Show in Town
Alexander
Cockburn
Lighten
Up, America!
Peter Linebaugh
On the Bicentennial of the Execution of Robert Emmet
Anne Brodsky
Return
to Afghanistan
Saul Landau
Guillermo and Me
Phan Nguyen
Mother Jones Smears Rachel Corrie
Gila Svirsky
Sharon, With Eyes Wide Open
Gary Leupp
On Apache Terrorism
Kurt Nimmo
Colin
Powell: Exploiting the Dead of Halabja
Brian
Cloughley
Colin Powell's Shame
Carol Norris
The Moral Development of George W. Bush
Bill Glahn
The Real Story Behind RIAA Propaganda
Adam Engel
An Interview with Danny Scechter, the News Dissector
Dave Lindorff
Good Morning, Vietnam!
Mark Scaramella
Contracts and Politics in Iraq
John Ross
WTO
Collapses in Cancun: Autopsy of a Fiasco Foretold
Justin Podur
Uribe's Desperate Squeals
Toni Solo
The Colombia Three: an Interview with Caitriona Ruane
Steven Sherman
Workers and Globalization
David
Vest
Masked and Anonymous: Dylan's Elegy for a Lost America
Ron Jacobs
Politics of the Hip-Hop Pimps
Poets
Basement
Krieger, Guthrie and Albert
Website of the Weekend
Ted Honderich:
Terrorism for Humanity?
September
19, 2003
Ilan Pappe
The
Hole in the Road Map
Bill Glahn
RIAA is Full of Bunk, So is the New York Times
Dave Lindorff
General Hysteria: the Clark Bandwagon
Robert Fisk
New Guard is Saddam's Old
Jeff Halper
Preparing
for a Struggle Against Israeli Apartheid
Brian J. Foley
Power to the Purse
Clare
Brandabur
Hitchens
Smears Edward Said
Website of the Day
Live from Palestine
September
18, 2003
Mona Baker
and Lawrence Davidson
In
Defense of the Boycott of Israeli Academic Institutions
Wayne
Madsen
Wesley
Clark for President? Another Neo-Con Con Job
Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
Wesley Clark and Waco
Muqtedar Khan
The Pakistan Squeeze
Dominique
de Villepin
The
Reconstruction of Iraq: This Approach is Leading Nowhere
Angus Wright
Brazilian Land Reform Offers Hope
Elaine
Cassel
Payback is Hell
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Leavitt
for EPA Head? He's Much Worse Than You Thought
Website
of the Day
ALA Responds to Ashcroft's Smear
September 17, 2003
Timothy J. Freeman
The
Terrible Truth About Iraq
St. Clair / Cockburn
A
Vain, Pompous Brown-noser:
Meet the Real Wesley Clark
Terry Lodge
An Open Letter to Michael Moore on Gen. Wesley Clark
Mitchel Cohen
Don't Be Fooled Again: Gen. Wesley Clark, War Criminal
Norman Madarasz
Targeting Arafat
Richard Forno
High Tech Heroin
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Website of the Day
The Ultimate Palestine Resource Site!
September 16, 2003
Rosemary and Walt Brasch
An
Ill Wind: Hurricane Isabel and the Lack of Homeland Security
Robert Fisk
Powell
in Baghdad
Kurt Nimmo
Imperial Sociopaths
M. Shahid Alam
The Dialectics
of Terror
Ron Jacobs
Exile at Gunpoint
Christopher Brauchli
Bush's War on Wages
Al Krebs
Stop Calling Them "Farm Subsidies"; It's Corporate
Welfare
Patrick Cockburn
The
Iraq Wreck
Website of the Day
From Occupied Palestine
The Great Alejandro Escavedo Needs Your Help!
September 15, 2003
Stan Goff
It Was
the Oil; It Is Like Vietnam
Robert Fisk
A Hail of Bullets, a Trail of Dead
Writers Bloc
We
Are Winning: a Report from Cancun
James T. Phillips
Does George Bush Cry?
Elaine Cassel
The Troublesome Bill of Rights
Cynthia McKinney
A Message to the People of New York City
Matthew Behrens
Sunday Morning Coming Down: Reflections on Johnny Cash
Uri Avnery
Assassinating
Arafat
Hammond Guthrie
Celling Out the Alarm
Website of the Day
Arnold and the Egg
September 13 / 14, 2003
Michael Neumann
Anti-Americanism:
Too Much of a Good Thing?
Jeffrey St. Clair
Anatomy of a Swindle
Gary Leupp
The Matrix of Ignorance
Ron Jacobs
Reagan's America
Brian Cloughley
Up to a Point, Lord Rumsfeld
William S. Lind
Making Mesopotamia a Terrorist Magnet
Werther
A Modest Proposal for the Pentagon
Dave Lindorff
Friendly Fire Will Doom the Occupation
Toni Solo
Fiction and Reality in Colombia: The Trial of the Bogota Three
Elaine Cassel
Juries and the Death Penalty
Mickey Z.
A Parable for Cancun
Jeffrey Sommers
Issam Nashashibi: a Life Dedicated to the Palestinian Cause
David Vest
Driving in No Direction (with a Glimpse of Johnny Cash)
Michael Yates
The Minstrel Show
Jesse Walker
Adios, Johnny Cash
Adam Engel
Something Killer
Poets' Basement
Cash, Albert, Curtis, Linhart
Website of the Weekend
Local Harvest
September 12, 2003
Writers Block
Todos
Somos Lee: Protest and Death in Cancun
Laura Carlsen
A Knife to the Heart: WTO Kills Farmers
Dave Lindorff
The Meaning of Sept. 11
Elaine Cassel
Bush at Quantico
Linda S. Heard
British
Entrance Exams
John Chuckman
The First Two Years of Insanity
Doug Giebel
Ending America as We Know It
Mokhiber / Weissman
The Blank Check Military
Subcomandante Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Website of the Day
A Woman in Baghdad
September 11, 2003
Robert Fisk
A Grandiose
Folly
Roger Burbach
State Terrorism and 9/11: 1973 and 2001
Jonathan Franklin
The Pinochet Files
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Postcards to the President
Norman Solomon
The Political Capital of 9/11
Saul Landau
The Chilean Coup: the Other, Almost Forgotten 9/11
Stew Albert
What Goes Around
Website of the Day
The Sights and Sounds of a Coup
September 10, 2003
John Ross
Cancun
Reality Show: Will It Turn Into a Tropical Seattle?
Zoltan Grossman
The General Who Would be President: Was Wesley Clark Also Unprepared
for the Postwar Bloodbath?
Tim Llewellyn
At the Gates of Hell
Christopher Brauchli
Turn the Paige: the Bush Education Deception
Lee Sustar
Bring the Troops Home, Now!
Elaine Cassel
McCain-Feingold in Trouble: Scalia Hogs the Debate
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Hammond Guthrie
When All Was Said and Done
Website of the Day
Fact Checking Colin Powell
Hot Stories
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
William Blum
Myth
and Denial in the War on Terrorism
Standard Schaefer
Experimental Casinos: DARPA and the War Economy
Uzma
Aslam Khan
The Unbearably Grim Aftermath of War:
What America Says Does Not Go
Paul de Rooij
Arrogant
Propaganda
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click Here
for More Stories.
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Weekend
Edition
October 3 / 5, 2003
Send Us Your Scribblings,
Win Glory & $$$!
The
Great American Writing Contest
By ADAM ENGEL
People, especially Bored College Professors and
Golf Pros, say Literature is dead, that Americans are too illiterate
and hypnotized by mass media to create great poetry and prose.
Here is YOUR chance to prove them wrong, and win big $$$, by
entering the PEN GREAT AMERICAN WRITING CONTEST. Note: This contest
is not sponsored by Counter Punch or any other publication. All
prize $$$ comes straight from the abysmal coffers of Patriots,
Entrepreneurs and Nationalists (PEN).
So, got your pencils sharpened? Your
Microsoft WORD updated, licensed and ready to roll?
Let's go Grapho-MANIAC!
Part One: The Beginning of History
Choose ONE of the three starter-paragraphs
below and complete. Maximum 3000 words.
A) ALL ABOUT SHERMAN
Sherman's march of flame and slaughter.
Sherman's slash and burn. Sherman's big cigar. Sherman ruthless.
"War is Hell." Sherman, Grant's right arm. Grant and
Sherman and their big glowing cigars. March through cities leave
a trail of ashes. Sherman's receding hairline. Scraggly beard.
Lean, tough man. Sherman inventing modern warfare. Scorched earth.
Prometheus gave man fire and Sherman smeared it all over Atlanta.
Lincoln in Washington waited. Stanton waited. They waited for
Grant and Sherman. They waited for it all to finish. Lincoln
gangly and obscenely tall. Warm hearted storyteller. Stanton
squat and cold. Abrupt. Means business. These men had work to
do. Grant and Sherman in their muddy uniforms. Lincoln and Stanton
in their musty suits. Orchestrating slaughter to preserve the
Union. Now we are living in the union they preserved. No such
men as Lincoln and Stanton. No such men as Grant and Sherman.
Or so we think, as we tell ourselves "We don't need 'em.
We don't want 'em." Once, the Yankees beat the Braves in
four straight games. The burning of Atlanta. Who must we burn
now?
B) FIRST COMPLEX
We dropped nuclear weapons on Hiroshima
and Nagasaki and damned if we'll apologize because they started
it by bombing our war ships at Pearl Harbor sneaky bastards and
anyway something about saving a million lives if we had to invade
Japan even though we'd already firebombed Tokyo and fifty other
major cities to ash and cinder and only five years after the
greatest generation fought the war to end all wars We went into
Korea to save the South from the North or both from China or
something I mean look at us we were coming apart at the seams
communists everywhere thank god for Patriots like Ronald Reagan
and Elia Kazan for standing up to HUAC and ratting out their
friends, spilling their guts like Jabba the Hut on ipecac for
the good of democracy, for us, for WE the people We loved Elvis
but were somewhat concerned about his influences and rock n'
roll in general because it was bringing elements of black culture
into our teenagers' lives and we hadn't told them black people
exist yet (except for the maids, bus drivers, dishwashers etc.
who made life more convenient). We liked Ike, despite his rather
unfortunate relationship with the Dulles brothers and the CIA.
Then again, we didn't know exactly what the CIA was doing then,
so why would we expect Ike and the CIA from protecting OUR interests
against communism by offering a square deal to any piss ant country
who should have welcomed U.S. Corporate military complex with
open arms. After all, better to be exploited by genial US than
dour THEM. But the old guy went batty on the way out and mumbled
something industrial and coporate and so complex only the military
could comprehend...
C) THE BIG FEAR
The big fear. Discussed since we were
kids. Peering through the shutter slats. Waiting for the bombs
to fall. But it won't be bombs we don't think, now, discussing
the big fear for the nth time before the television. What then?
Collapse. The Big Collapse. Of the system, the network, the order
of things. Retro-Mind. Anti-psychotic Paranoid Narcosis. Death
squads. The man at the end of the hallway has a gun. Sudden collapse,
or gradually. Words cannot describe what words cannot. The drug
just might work. Side effects? Acquiescence. So what? Cows seem
relatively happy. Content. Not overly concerned. Until they herd
them to the slaughterhouse. Bad scene. Moo moo mooing for their
lives. Is that the core of the Big Fear? Not long sleep of Oblivion,
but anguished moment of awareness that precedes the blow? Old
hat. But really too big to be cliche. There will be a point when
time runs out. No mercy then. The pain might be minor, or it
might be bigger than all the life you've ever lived, that is,
a concentrate of feeling, mostly negative. The fear, the node
of all emotions past. Insatiable Future. Irrevocable Now. Crouched
before the television, confronting the Big Fear. Death Alive.
Pay Per View. After a while even Death becomes redundant. But
always manages to horrify. Link to the real and final Home Page.
Remember the Old Days? Remember mother? No, we do not. Puff our
smokes like graybeard fictions. Patient as Tolstoy for the Word.
Part Two: Body of Work
Here is a Beginning and End. Fill in
the missing Body with Your Own Life Story. Maximum: 3000 words.
What's Inside
Enter. Open. Look inside. Where will
the young people go, now that all Homelands have been conquered?
They disappear within. Inner space. The final frontier. Let us
go then you and I... The freedom of an egg. An orb of possibilities.
Be a nice Muse. Tell me a story. About the man in his house.
Middle-aged, middle-class man. He has a daughter. Sixteen. Real
wild child. His wife left two years ago to see where Life is.
He goes to work, returns to his suburban home. He tries to be
a good father. But he's confused. His daughter goes to the Night
Mall to take pictures. To have her picture taken. Or maybe not.
Maybe she just goes out at night and.... He tries to control
her. But he is involved with his work. And his thoughts. Can
he protect his child, or is she already corrupt? His son is eighteen.
Next year he'll go away to college. Jonathan, the awkward lad.
Awkward, but studious. Smart. Nose in the books. This is the
beginning of his possibly.
[your body of experience goes right here,
in the middle, between beginning and end; you're middle America,
aren't you? send your body (heh, heh) Maximum: 3000 words.]
Of course the daughter wound up dead
in a dark schoolyard. Raped and strangled. Went off to see what
she could see, as usual, beyond the safety of the neighborhood.
Thing is, she was on her way home and deep into the safety of
the neighborhood, not far from home when the creature, the nice
boy next door, of course, struck. How many times has that one
been done? Sensationalism. Shock value. Where is that good, clean
country the Muse promised?
Part Three: Poetry Laura Might Dig
Read Decadent Poem below and answer questions
in terse, witty, erudite Heroic Couplets. Maximum: 100 lines/50
couplets.
At the Motel
before Now became Then
sudden autumn
drunk, wondering
we were all so
special
Paula alone in the motel room
years like shooting stars
Paul out shopping for booze
and mussels
"We're twice the age we were then.
The time that's passed between
now and then
is equal to the total
of our lives - then."
Paula by the pool
its not the season yet
just algae scum and leaves
She practiced yoga
and foreclosure law.
He'd kept his figure
and his hair.
Reunion of virgins.
"It wasn't a disastrous marriage
merely a failed one."
Her son is eight years old
and with his grandmother
Mussels, sauce, snacks; wine.
Anti-depressants and Cigars.
Promise me.
See what develops.
"I can try to explain things,
but I'd rather not."
Questions: Why are Paul and Paula so
sad now that neither is married? Will they get together and be
happy? Can't anybody just chill out and be happy? What is Paula
trying to explain? Form follows function. Might Paul and Paula
be bummed because they are blowing light as feathers in a decadent
wind of "free" verse? Rewrite the events of this poem.
Bind this bleak scenario in strong, Heroic Couplets befitting
this, the age of heroes.
Part Four: New Age Metaphysical Essay
Here, you see?
Know what you know inside, but not outside.
What others know, even if knowing is forgetting what was known
before and is no longer known to be true depends on outlook but
can be changed since it is not knowing to be known. Eternal focus
on in-look not out-look. What is outside will be there always
and always change, but in-look is finite and must focus on shaping.
Rearranging outlook according to need. Your need to be sure,
despite change, of what is true and eternal within your self.
Not outside looking in, which will shape you through contortions
and con-torture you, but inside looking out. Projecting eternal
true you upon the ever-changing there out there. Here, you see?
Essay: You understand any of this? Me
neither. I am often asked, "Are you willing to die to defend
your beliefs?" Well, sure. Give me something to believe
and I'll die defending it. Write an essay expressing genuine
belief in...I dunno, in SOMETHING. Max, 2000 words
Adam Engel ("Peaking: Voyeurism
and the CIA," and "Get a Job (for Life): An Unauthorized
Biography of Clarence Thomas"), Founder and President of
PEN, is hardly qualified to judge his own writing, much less
yours. But he's bored and needs something to read, so he figured,
"Hell, why not hitchhike on that famous information turnpike
and see what's out there, eh?" Sure, he could have done
that "On the Road/Blue Highways/In-Search-Of-America"
thing, but really it all looks the same: fast-food chains; motel
chains; supermarket chains; retail chains; pharmacy chains. America
in chains. Yuck. Anyway, he knows what he thinks - sort of; he
wants to know what YOU think. No guarantee he'll actually read
your stuff, and if he does and likes it, there's no guarantee
he won't steal it and claim it for his own. So enter this contest
at your own risk. Good luck. What do you win? Whaddya think you
win? Why, fame and immortality, of course. Celebrity. Every writer's
dream. Okay, maybe some big $$$ too.
Send submissions to the PEN Pad at bartleby.samsa@verizon.net
Weekend
Edition Features for Sept. 26 / 28, 2003
Alexander
Cockburn
Alan
Dershowitz, Plagiarist
David Price
Teaching Suspicions
Saul Landau
Before the Era of Insecurity
Ron Jacobs
The Chicago Conspiracy Trial and
the Patriot Act
Brian
Cloughley
The Strangeloves Win Again
Norman Solomon
Wesley and Me: a Real-Life Docudrama
Robert
Fisk
Bomb Shatters Media Illusions
M. Shahid Alam
A Muslim Sage Visits the USA
John Chuckman
American Psycho: Bush at the UN
Mark Schneider
International Direct Action
The Spanish Revolution to the Palestiniana Intifada
William
S. Lind
How $87 Billion Could Buy Some Real Security
Douglas Valentine
Gold Warriors: the Plundering of Asia
Chris
Floyd
Vanishing Act
Elaine Cassel
Play Cat and Moussaoui
Richard
Manning
A Conservatism that Once Conserved
George Naggiar
The Beautiful Mind of Edward Said
Omar Barghouti
Edward Said: a Corporeal Dream Not Yet Realized
Lenni Brenner
Palestine's Loss is America's Loss
Mickey
Z.
Edward Said: a Well-Reasoned Voice
Tanweer Akram
The Legacy of Edward Said
Adam Engel
War in the Smoking Room
Poets' Basement
Katz, Ford, Albert & Guthrie
Website
of the Weekend
Who the Hell is Stew Albert?
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