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HOLLYWOOD AND THE CIA — Film historian Ed Rampell details Hollywood’s entangled relationship with the CIA and the Pentagon; HOUSES OF THE DEAD: Nancy Kurshan exposes the cruel human rights offenses taking place inside America’s vast gulag of Control Unit Prisons; BROTHERHOOD OF SUMMER:  David Macaray charts the history of the most powerful union in the US: the Baseball Players Association; TAR SANDS COME TO AMERICA: Steve Horn explains how the Keystone Pipeline debates have diverted  attention from Big Oil’s other plans to transport Alberta’s oil into the US. PLUS: Jeffrey St. Clair on CONSTITUTIONAL ENTROPY; Mike Whitney on HOW THE BANKS TARGETED BLACKS; Chris Floyd on THE RISE OF BRITAIN’S TEA PARTY; Kristin Kolb on THE NEEDLE AND THE DAMAGE DONE; Kim Nicolini on the FILMS OF WILLIAM FRIEDKIN; and Lee Ballinger on POETS VS. THE ONE PERCENT.
 

On Hearing About a Plot to Assassinate President Bush

by JAMES REISS

I think that I shall never see
A president as great as he.

A Bush upon whose bristly limbs
War hawks sit singing Gospel hymns.

A Bush which lifts its limbs to pray
No same-sex marriage gets away

From laws that halt stem cell research,
Free choice, and everything the church

Forbids. This Bush knows how to hide a
Killer bee for each Al Qaeda

Terrorist and Democrat.
Its shrubby branches’ rat-a-tat

Is heard throughout the world, and I
Am here to praise this Bush or die.

Pencils may be meant to push.
Only God has pull with Bush.

JAMES REISS is Poet-in-Residence and Professor of English at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. His most recent book is Riff on Six: New and Selected Poems (Salt Publishing). He’s He can be reached at: reissja@muohio.edu