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Coming in October
From Common Courage Press

 

Today's Stories

Ron Jacobs
The Darkening Tunnel

 

Recent Stories


August 21, 2003

Robert Fisk
The US Needs to Blame Anyone But Locals for UN Bombing

Virginia Tilley
The Quisling Policies of the UN in Iraq: Toward a Permanent War?

Rep. Henry Waxman
Bush Owes the Public Some Serious Answers on Iraq

Ben Terrall
War Crimes and Punishment in Indonesia: Rapes, Murders and Slaps on the Wrists

Elaine Cassel
Brother John Ashcroft's Traveling Patriot Salvation Show

Christopher Brauchli
Getting Gouged by Banks

Marjorie Cohn
Sergio Vieira de Mello: Victim of Terrorism or US Policy in Iraq?

Vicente Navarro
Media Double Standards: The Case of Mr. Aznar, Friend of Bush

Website of the Day
The Intelligence Squad

 

August 20, 2003

Robert Fisk
Now No One Is Safe in Iraq

Caoimhe Butterly
Life and Death on the Frontlines of Baghdad

Kurt Nimmo
UN Bombing: Act of Terrorism or Guerrilla War?

Michael Egan
Revisiting the Paranoid Style in the Dark

Ramzi Kysia
Peace is not an Abstract Idea

Steven Higgs
NPR and the NAFTA Highway

John L. Hess
A Downside Day

Edward Said
The Imperial Bluster of Tom Delay

Jason Leopold
Gridlock at Path 15: the California Blackouts were the "Wake Up Call"

Website of the Day
Ashcroft's Patriotic Hype

 

August 19, 2003

Jeffrey St. Clair
Blackouts Happen

Gary Leupp
"Our Patch": Australia v. the Evil Doers of the South Pacific

Sean Donahue
Uribe's Cruel Model: Colombia Moves Toward Totalitarianism

Matt Martin
Bush's Credibility Problem on Missile Defense

Juliana Fredman
Recipe for the Destruction of a Hudna

John Ross
Fox Government's Attack on Mexican Basques

Sasan Fayazmanesh
What Kermit Roosevelt Didn't Say

Website of the Day
Tom Delay's Dual Loyalities

 

August 18, 2003

Uri Avnery
Hero in War and Peace

Stan Goff
The Volunteer Military and the Wicked Adventure

Cathy Breen
Baghdad on the Hudson

Michael Kimaid
Fight the Power (Companies)!

Jason Leopold
The California Rip-Off Revisited: Arnold, Milken and Ken Lay

Matt Siegfried
The Bush Administration in Context

Elaine Cassel
At Last, A Judge Who Acts Like a Judge

Alexander Cockburn
Judy Miller's War

Harvey Wasserman
The Legacy of Blackout Pete Wilson

Website of the Day
Fire Griles!

 

Congratulations to CounterPuncher Gilad Atzmon! BBC Names EXILE Top Jazz CD

 

August 16 / 17, 2003

Flavia Alaya
Bastille New Jersey

Jeffrey St. Clair
War Pimps

Saul Landau
The Legacy of Moncada: the Cuban Revolution at 50

Brian Cloughley
What Has Happened to the US Army in Iraq?

William S. Lind
Coffins for the Crews: How Not to Use Light Armored Vehicles

Col. Dan Smith
Time for Straight Talk

Wenonah Hauter
Which Electric System Do We Want?

David Lindorff
Where's Arnold When We Need Him?

Harvey Wasserman
This Grid Should Not Exist

Don Moniak
"Unusual Events" at Nuclear Power Plants: a Timeline for August 14, 2003

David Vest
Rolling Blackout Revue

Merlin Chowkwanyun
An Interview with Sherman Austin

Adam Engel
The Loneliest Number

Poets' Basement
Guthrie, Hamod & Albert

Book of the Weekend
Powerplay by Sharon Beder

 


August 14, 2003

Peter Phillips
Inside Bohemian Grove: Where US Power Elites Party

Brian Cloughley
Charlie Wilson and Pakistan: the Strange Congressman Behind the CIA's Most Expensive War

Linville and Ruder
Tyson Strike Draws the Line

Jim Lobe
Bush Administration Divided Over Iran

Ramzy Baroud
Sharon Freezes the Road Map

Tom Turnipseed
Blowback in Iraq

Gary Leupp
Condi's Speech: From Birgmingham to Baghdad, Imperialism's Freedom Ride

Website of the Day
Tony Benn's Greatest Hits

August 13, 2003

Joanne Mariner
A Wall of Separation Through the Heart

Donald Worster
The Heavy Cost of Empire

Standard Schaefer
Experimental Casinos: DARPA and the War Economy

Elaine Cassel
Murderous Errors: Executing the Innocent

Ralph Nader
Make the Recall Count

Alexander Cockburn
Ted Honderich Hit with "Anti-Semitism" Slur

Website of the Day
Defending Yourself Against DirectTV Lawsuits: 9000 and Counting

 

August 12, 2003

 

Ron Jacobs
Revisionist History: the Bush Administration, Civil Rights and Iraq

Josh Frank
Dean's Constitutional Hang-Up

Wayne Madsen
What's a Fifth Columnist? Well, Someone Like Hitchens

Ray McGovern
Relax, It Was All a Pack of Lies

Wendy Brinker
Hubris in the White House

Website of the Day
Black Mustache

 

Hot Stories

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

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August 23, 2003

Zonked
a villanelle
By JAMES REISS

I never thought a war would wake me up
From dreams of olive branches by the sea.
I sip black coffee from a bitter cup.

The commandant pontificates, "A-yup,
Now's not the time for dozing. Look at me.
I never thought a war would wake me up."

His minions listen. While they sit to sup
On sweet potatoes and molasses tea,
I sip black coffee from a bitter cup.

His mistress knows at heart he's just a pup
In need of petting. "Woof!" she snarls; then she,
Who never thought a war would wake her up,

Yawns over her pink lady--hic, hiccup!--
And draws him to her bosom drowsily.
I sip black coffee from a bitter cup,

Which runneth over every time I sip.
I'm lost between the letters A and Z.
I never thought a war would wake me up.
I swig black Lethe from a loving cup.

James Reiss is a poet and editor at the University of Miami in Oxford, Ohio. His new book of poems, RIFF ON SIX: NEW AND SELECTED POEMS (Salt Publishing) will be published in September 2003. This volume includes his Iraq War poems from "A Child's Garden of Evil". Reiss can be reached at: reissja@muohio.edu

 

Neos Con Dios
By LARRY KEARNEY

the soul won't die but lies
in head with wounded

child on the path to the
fire. the great

folding up and burning the
big boys want. the end of half-thought

thought is the fire. and the big
noise. they make big

noises it's
what they want. the big

flaming noise. the whirlwind.
they think. they try

to think. dead
small-time with flag pins and dead

eyes and dead
syntax and breathless

cruelties. tacky little
office guys grown

to power slot
machine mysticisms they

got God.
really think it's not quite cool to think

that way but what
the hell? there's the fire. coming.

pissant matchhead
bombs they love. they really

think. hey.
here's the whirlwind look

.

at me. the real

whirlwind.
of course.

hardly moves at all to pick
their minds up one by one like jacks.

and fling them clinking through real
God brooding lovely in powerless

love as they
accelerate. talking. being.

knowing. nothing. hot
damn. really secret. hot

damn. here
we go. Georgie.

hang on tight.

Larry Kearney can be reached at: defoe43@comcast.net

 

The Presentense of the Past
By HAMMOND GUTHRIE

Once upon a time (8-21-2003),
a man (the President of the US),
flew over a Central Oregon forest fire
and cried out: "It's the holocaust!"

Once upon another time (1933-1945),
another man (the Chancellor of Germany),
flew all over Central and Eastern Europe
and cried out "Kill all the Gypsies and Jews!"

Was this a forest fire in disguise--
or am I mistaking history for idiocy?

Hammond Guthrie is the author of AsEverWas: Memoirs of a Beat Survivor. He is the editor of the great online journal The 3rd Page. He can be reached at: writenow@spiritone.com

© 2003--Hammond Guthrie

 

One Way Street
By STEW ALBERT

Go right to jail
for the thoughts
in your head.

Why are you in China?
To compare wanton soup
in Peking
with Portland?
Or do you want to tour Afghanistan
and
join the Taliban?

It doesn't matter
that you never ever
got to Kabul
or
met a Taliban
Uncle Allah Wants You
recruiter.
You came home looking silly
the Jihad that couldn't shoot straight.

Now
you are facing life in prison
for your fantasy
so are your traveling buddies
and maybe your mosque.

Ashcroft insisting
imagination is a crime
without rights.
One citizen
One dimension
only.

Stew Albert runs the Yippie Reading Room. He can be reached at:
stewa@aol.com

 

Arab Eyes
By M. JUNAID ALAM

The glares of the oppressed
Shoot out from shadows writhing
under black war boots strapped on white skin
Arab-dirtied in desert sands.

Rising in the nascent sandstorm
of national struggle
can these angered Arab eyes
these
twin towers
of Resistance
stare down
buildings stretching into the sky
and
empires digging into the (s)oil.

Dark Eyes, yes, of
Bandits, bastards, Ba'athists
of Renegades, rocket-repelled
'Remnants'
of a
family
village
city
nation
bombed into oblivion;
Exploding from obsidian
bursting brightly into tears, anguish and
Revolt.

These sorrowful, spiteful eyes stare out
Stinging and soaking in
the fatal fumes of Freedom:
depleted uranium mayhem
cluster killers and
napalm neurotics
released on the breath of
two-bit Crusaders
three-star generals
five-sided war bureaus
and six-sided stars.

America: Let us look into those Arab eyes, those tinted mirrors!
And weep for our tainted souls
descending down the war path
to a faintly calm doom:
a last hurrah of fireworks
and freedom
fries
As we fizzle out in the fires
of nationalist flatulence
sizzling to the death-tune
of cascading arrogance.

M. Junaid Alam is a student at Northeastern University and manager of the MSALM website. He can be reached at: junaidalam@msalam.net

 

Weekend Edition Features for August 16 / 17, 2003

Flavia Alaya
Bastille New Jersey

Jeffrey St. Clair
War Pimps

Saul Landau
The Legacy of Moncada: the Cuban Revolution at 50

Brian Cloughley
What Has Happened to the US Army in Iraq?

William S. Lind
Coffins for the Crews: How Not to Use Light Armored Vehicles

Col. Dan Smith
Time for Straight Talk

Wenonah Hauter
Which Electric System Do We Want?

David Lindorff
Where's Arnold When We Need Him?

Harvey Wasserman
This Grid Should Not Exist

Don Moniak
"Unusual Events" at Nuclear Power Plants: a Timeline for August 14, 2003

David Vest
Rolling Blackout Revue

Merlin Chowkwanyun
An Interview with Sherman Austin

Adam Engel
The Loneliest Number

Poets' Basement
Guthrie, Hamod & Albert

Book of the Weekend
Powerplay by Sharon Beder

 

 

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