Exclusively in the new print issue of CounterPunch
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.
Outside, Looking In

Not One of the Gang

by JOHN SNIDER

You are not one of the gang.

You are not a regular fellow.

Confess, at least, to yourself that you hate regular fellows. You do not care if the home team wins.

Secretly, you despise yourself for standing when the flag is raised.

You do not think that your home town is any better or any different from any other home town.

You hate parades.

You know the mayor lies and the alderman lies and the senator lies and the college president lies and the priest and minister lie.

You know the policeman is not your friend, and lies as well.

And late at night you see them all gathered, and not in your dreams but for real, behind the courthouse sodomizing a child and then setting her aflame, all so they can have enough light to read the evening papers.

JOHN SNIDER lives in Havre, Montana. He can be reached at: snider@msun.edu