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Today's
Stories
January
27, 2004
Mike
Ferner
"We're All Lied To": an
Interview with Bruce Cockburn in Baghdad
January
26, 2004
Sean
Donahue
The Toxic Career of Rand Beers: Kerry's
Drug War Zealot
Gary
Leupp
David Kay's Admission
January
24/5, 2004
Patrick
Cockburn
Iraq's Shia: "Our Day Has
Come"
Laura
Flanders
State of the Conservative Union
Simon Helweg-Larsen
Enter Berger: Signs of Hope in
Guatemala
Dave
Lindorff
Ground Control to Maj. George
Susan Davis
The Birdwatcher Menace
Alexander
Cockburn
The Fog of Cop Out: McNamara 10,
Morris 0
January
23, 2004
Yonathan
Shapira
An Israeli Pilot Speaks Out
Standard
Schaefer
Italian Philosopher Giorgio Agamben
Protests US Travel Policy
Josh
Frank
In Defense of Polluters: Howard Dean's
Vermont
William
A. Cook
Rule by the Corrupt and the Capricious
January
22, 2004
Sam
Smith
Howards End?
Patricia
Koyce Wanniski
Lost in Space
Alexander
Lukin
Putin and the Clans
Katherine
van Wormer
Dry Drunk Confirmed: O'Neill's
Revelations and Bush's Mind
Forrest
Hylton
The Prisoner, the President and the
Mafia
January 19, 2004
Justin E. H. Smith
Inside
America's Prisons: From Corrections to Retribution
Richard W. Behan
The GOP, Inc.
Ray McGovern
Bush's
State of the Union: Humility or More Hyperbole?
Werther
SOTUS:
the Stalin Moment of America's Nomenklatura
Phillip Cryan
Media Collusion in Colombia's War
Lee Sustar
A New Strategy to Reverse Labor's Decline?
Arthur Versluis
Great Lakes as Commodity: Privatizing Water
Uri Avnery
Anti-Semitism:
a Practical Manual
Steve Perry
Fresh Crack from Hawkeye State
January 17 / 18, 2004
Fadi Kiblawi and Will
Youmans
The
Use and Abuse of MLK Jr by Israel's Apologists
Joshua Muldavin
and Joseph Nevins
Blaming the Symptoms
Jeffrey St. Clair
Bad Days at Indian Point: Inside America's Most Dangerous Nuclear
Plant
Brian Cloughley
Iron Hammers in Iraq
Saul Landau
Fog of War: Vietnam and Iraq
M. Shahid Alam
Lerner, Said and the Palestinians
Richard Manning
Food Poisoning as Background Noise
Marjorie Cohn
The Guantanamo Concentration Camp
Mike Whitney
Scalia and Opus Dei: Radicals on the Court
Sadik Kassim
Meet Our New Saddam: Islam Karimov
Carol Norris
Arnold
and Bush's Numbers Don't Add Up
Joe Quandt
Suicide
Bombers: The Clash of Absurdities
David Krieger
Imagining MLK Jr at 75
Bruce Jackson
Making War, Making Movies
Ron Jacobs
Revolution in the Air: a review
Richard Edmondson
Rupert Murdoch and My Sister
Richard Forno
Apologizing for Preemption: Evil, Perle and Frum
Poets' Basement
Holt, Mickey Z, Albert & Guthrie
January 16, 2004
Kathy Kelly
A Visit
to Umm Qasr Prison
William S. Lind
More
Thoughts on 4th Generation Warfare
Gillian Russom
So.
Cal Grocery Strikers Speak Out: "We Need Action!"
Ari Shavit
Survival
of the Fittest? An Interview with Benny Morris
Adi Ophir
Genocide Hides Behind Expulsion: a Response to Benny Morris
Dave Lindorff
The General's Henchman: Michael Moore Smears Kucinich
Steve Perry
Iowa Death Trip 2
January 15, 2004
Veteran Intelligence
Professionals for Sanity
Memo
to the President: Your State of the Union Address
John Chuckman
Dry
Hole in the Oval Office: President from Podunk Drilling, Inc
Chris Floyd
Mind Over Matter
Gil-Scott Heron
Whitey on the Moon
Gary Leupp
The
Silk Road: Random Thoughts on the Bam Earthquake and Satan
January 14, 2004
Greg Moses
Happy
Birthday, Dr. King: To Write Off the South is to Surrender to
Bigots
Kurt Nimmo
Bush and the Supremes: Amputating the Bill of Rights
Dave Lindorff
Preview of Iowa? Pennsylvania Straw Poll Spells Trouble for Traditional
Dems (and Dean)
Jason Leopold
O'Neill Claims Backed by Rumsfeld / Wolfowitz War Letters to
Clinton
Alexander Cockburn
Bush,
Oil and Iraq: Some Truth at Last
January 13, 2004
William S. Lind
How 2004
Looks from Potsdam
M. Junaid Alam
Do Iraqis Have a Right to Resist?
Mickey Z
Snipers:
No Nuts in Iraq
Adolfo Gilly
Chonchocoro:
The Prisoner and the Presidents
Steve Perry
You Love God, Right?
January 12, 2004
Ben Tripp
No Stan
for the Kurds
Norman Solomon
The
Dixie Trap: Democrats and the South
Mike Whitney
O'Neill's Revenge
Jason Leopold
From the Very First Instant It Was About Iraq
Uri Avnery
Syria's
Peace Proposal
January 10 / 11, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Bush
as Hitler? Let's Be Fair
Susan Davis
Dangerous Books
Diane Christian
On Lying and Colin Powell
Lisa Viscidi
Exhumations: Unearthing Guatemala's Macabre Past
Daniel Estulin
Destroying History in Iraq
Saul Landau
Homeland Anxiety
Elaine Cassel
Who's Winning the War on Civil Liberties?
Bruce Jackson
Making the Shit List
Christopher Brauchli
Baptizing Hitler's Ghost
Francis A. Boyle
The Deep Scars of War
Lee Ballinger
Cold Sweat: Sweatshops and the Music Industry
Patrick W. Gavin
Hillary's Slur: Mrs. Lott?
Ramzy Baroud
What Invaders Have in Common
Michael Schwartz
Inside the California Grocery Strike
Gary Johnson
An Interview with Former Heavyweight Champ Greg Page
Dave Zirin
An Interview with Marvin Miller on Unions and Baseball
Mark Hand
A Review of Resistance: My Life for Lebanon
Poets' Basement
Thomas, Daley, Curtis, Guthrie and Albert
January 9, 2004
David Lindorff
The
Misers of War: Troop Strength and Chintzy Bonuses
Kurt Nimmo
Saddam's Defense: Summon Bush Sr. to the Stand
Mike Whitney
Orange Jumpsuits for the Bush Clan?: The Carnegie Report on Iraq's
Non-existent WMDs
Deb Reich
Palestinians and Israelis: This War is Unwinnable
David Vest
Disabled
Vets Fire Back at Rumsfeld
January 8, 2004
Neve Gordon
Israeli
Refuseniks Sentenced to Jail
Lenni Brenner
Dr.
Dean and the Godhead
Ray McGovern
Bush: Driving Without Breaks
Mark Scaramella
Inside
the DA's Office: Lies, Errors and Tedium
Yves Engler
Bush's Mexican Gambit
James Hollander
Journalists
Under Fire: the Death of José Couso in Baghdad
January 7, 2004
Democracy Now!
Uncharitable
Care: How Hospitals are Gouging and Even Arresting the Uninsured
Greg Weiher
The
Bush Administration's Ongoing Intelligence Problem
Ben Tripp
The Word of the Year, 2003
Dave Lindorff
Dean and His Democratic Detractors
Michael Leon
The NYT Does Chomsky
Bob Boldt
God Talk
Ramon Ryan
Small
Victories and Long Struggles: the 10th Anniversary of the Zapatista
Uprising
January 6, 2004
Dave Lindorff
RNC
Plays the Hitler Card: MoveOn Shouldn't Apologize for Those Ads
Ron Jacobs
Drugs
in Uniform: Hashish and the War on Terrorism
Josh Frank
Coffee and State Authority in Colombia
Doug Giebel
Permanent Bases: Leave Iraq? Hell No, We Won't Go
John Chuckman
Sick Puppies: David Frum's New Neo-Con Manifesto
Rannie Amiri
The Politics of the Iranian Earthquake
John L. Hess
A Record
to Dissent From
Thacher Schmid
A Cheesehead's Musings on the Sunday NYT
David Price
"Like
Slaves": Anthropological Thoughts on Occupation
January 5, 2004
Al Krebs
How
Now Mad Cow!
Kathy Kelly
Squatting
in Baghdad's Bomb Craters
Jordy Cummings
The Dialectic of the Kristol Family: Putting the Neo in the Cons
Fran Shor
Mad Human Disease: Chewing the Fat Down on the Farm
Fidel Castro
"We Shall Overcome": On the 45th Anniversary of the
Cuban Revolution
Gary Leupp
North
Korea for Dummies
January 3 / 4, 2004
Brian Cloughley
Never
Mind the WMDs, Just Look at History
Vice Admiral Jack Shanahan
The Wrong War at the Wrong Time
William Cook
Failing to Respond to 9/11
Glen Martin
Jesus
vs. the Beast of the Apocalypse
Robert Fisk
Iraqi Humor Amid the Carnage
Ilan Pappe
The Geneva Bubble
Walter Davis
Robert Jay Lifton, or Nostalgia
Kurt Nimmo
Ashcroft vs. the Left
Mike Whitney
The Padilla Case
Steven Sherman
On Wallerstein's The Decline of American Power
Dave Lindorff
Bush's Taiwan Hypocrisy
William Blum
Codework Orange!
Mitchel Cohen
Learning from Che Guevara
Seth Sandronsky
Mad Cow and Main Street USA
Bruce Jackson
Conversations with Leslie Fiedler
Standard Schaefer
Poet Carl Rakosi Turns 100
Ron Jacobs
Sir Mick
Adam Engel
Hall of Hoaxes
Poets' Basement
Jones, Albert & Curtis
January 2, 2004
Stan Cox
Red Alert
2016
Dave Lindorff
Beef, the Meat of Republicans
Jackie Corr
Rule and Ruin: Wall Street and Montana
Norman Solomon
George Will's Ethics: None of Our Business?
David Vest
As the Top Wobbleth
January 1, 2004
Randall Robinson
Honor
Haiti, Honor Ourselves
David Krieger
Looking
Back on 2003
Robert Fisk
War Takes an Inhuman Twist: Roadkill Bombs
Stan Goff
War,
Race and Elections
Hammond Guthrie
2003 Almaniac
Website of the Day
Embody Bags
December 31, 2003
Ray McGovern
Don't
Be Fooled Again: This Isn't an Independent Investigation
Kurt Nimmo
Manufacturing Hysteria
Robert Fisk
The Occupation is Damned
Mike Whitney
Mad Cows and Downer George
Alexander Cockburn
A Great Year Ebbed, Another Ahead
December 30, 2003
Michael Neumann
Criticism
of Israel is Not Anti-Semitism
Annie Higgins
When
They Bombed the Hometown of the Virgin Mary
Alan Farago
Bush Bros. Wrecking Co.: Time Runs Out for the Everglades
Dan Bacher
Creatures from the Blacklight Lagoon: From Glofish to Frankenfish
Jeffrey St. Clair
Hard
Time on the Killing Floor: Inside Big Meat
Willie Nelson
Whatever Happened to Peace on Earth?
December 29, 2003
Mark Hand
The Washington
Post in the Dock?
David Lindorff
The
Bush Election Strategy
Phillip Cryan
Interested Blindness: Media Omissions in Colombia's War
Richard Trainor
Catellus Development: the Next Octopus?
Uri Avnery
Israel's
Conscientious Objectors
December 27 / 28, 2003
Alexander Cockburn
A
Journey Into Rupert Murdoch's Soul
Kathy Kelly
Christmas Day in Baghdad: A Better World
Saul Landau
Iraq
at the End of the Year
Dave Zirin
A Linebacker for Peace & Justice: an Interview with David
Meggysey
Robert Fisk
Iraq
Through the American Looking Glass
Scott Burchill
The Bad Guys We Once Thought Good: Where Are They Now?
Chris Floyd
Bush's Iraq Plan is Right on Course: Saddam 2.0
Brian J. Foley
Don't Tread on Me: Act Now to Save the Constitution
Seth Sandronsky
Feedlot Sweatshops: Mad Cows and the Market
Susan Davis
Lord
of the (Cash Register) Rings
Ron Jacobs
Cratched Does California
Adam Engel
Crumblecake and Fish
Norman Solomon
The Unpardonable Lenny Bruce
Poets' Basement
Cullen and Albert
Website of the Weekend
Activism Through Music
December 26, 2003
Gary Leupp
Bush
Doings: Doing the Language
December 25, 2003
Diane Christian
The
Christmas Story
Elaine Cassel
This
Christmas, the World is Too Much With Us
Susan Davis
Jinglebells, Hold the Schlock
Kristen Ess
Bethlehem Celebrates Christmas, While Rafah Counts the Dead
Francis Boyle
Oh Little Town of Bethlehem
Alexander Cockburn
The
Magnificient 9
Guthrie / Albert
Another Colorful Season
December 24, 2003
M. Shahid Alam
The Semantics
of Empire
William S. Lind
Marley's
List for Santa in Wartime
Josh Frank
Iraqi
Oil: First Come, First Serve
Cpt. Paul Watson
The
Mad Cowboy Was Right
Robert Lopez
Nuance
and Innuendo in the War on Iraq
December 23, 2003
Brian J. Foley
Duck
and Cover-up
Will Youmans
Sharon's
Ultimatum
Michael Donnelly
Here
They Come Again: Another Big Green Fiasco
Uri Avnery
Sharon's
Speech: the Decoded Version
December 22, 2003
Jeffrey St. Clair
Pray
to Play: Bush's Faith-Based National Parks
Patrick Gavin
What Would Lincoln Do?
Marjorie Cohn
How to
Try Saddam: Searching for a Just Venue
Kathy Kelly
The
Two Troublemakers: "Guilty of Being Palestinians in Iraq"
December 20 / 21, 2003
Alexander Cockburn
How
to Kill Saddam
Saul Landau
Bush Tries Farce as Cuba Policy
Rafael Hernandez
Empire and Resistance: an Interview with Tariq Ali
David Vest
Our Ass and Saddam's Hole
Kurt Nimmo
Bush
Gets Serious About Killing Iraqis
Greg Weiher
Lessons from the Israeli School on How to Win Friends in the
Islamic World
Christopher Brauchli
Arrest, Smear, Slink Away: Dr. Lee and Cpt. Yee
Carol Norris
Cheers of a Clown: Saddam and the Gloating Bush
Bruce Jackson
The Nameless and the Detained: Bush's Disappeared
Juliana Fredman
A Sealed Laboratory of Repression
Mickey Z.
Holiday Spirit at the UN
Ron Jacobs
In the Wake of Rebellion: The Prisoner's Rights Movement and
Latino Prisoners
Josh Frank
Sen. Max Baucus: the Slick Swindler
John L. Hess
Slow Train to the Plane
Adam Engel
Black is Indeed Beautiful
Ben Tripp
The Relevance of Art in Times of Crisis
Michael Neumann
Rhythm and Race
Poets' Basement
Cullen, Engel, Albert & Guthrie
Hot Stories
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
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
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click Here
for More Stories.
|
January
27, 2004
An Interview with
Bruce Cockburn
"We're
All Lied To"
By MIKE FERNER
Oriental Palace Hotel, Baghdad
Recently I interviewed singer, songwriter and
musician, Bruce Cockburn, at the end of his weeklong visit to
Iraq hosted by the American Friends Service Committee. As I write
this introduction in a Baghdad hotel on Karrada Street, a diesel
generator roars on the sidewalk below, providing power for an
electrical system savaged by a decade of sanctions and two wars.
The generator is drowned out only when U.S. fighter planes and
helicopters roar overhead.
Cockburn's latest release, "You've
Never Seen Everything," is one of over two dozen discs
the Montreal artist has released, including "Breakfast in
New Orleans, Dinner in Timbuktu," "Dancing in the Dragon's
Jaws," and "Trouble with Normal." Cockburn had
a few choice comments on some of his favorite topics and then
we got down to some questions.
On what he hears from people in Iraq:
Increasingly, people will tell you that
they feel one dictatorship has been replaced by another; that
they have more freedom of thought now than they had before but
they don't have freedom of movement.
On truth in advertising:
We were all lied to. The Iraqi people
were all lied to. And I guess we're still being lied to. I mean,
Tony Blair is still trying to say there were weapons of mass
destruction even when the Bush administration is admitting little
by little that there weren't. It's so much bullshit and at such
a price.
Q: Why are you here in Iraq?
A: Officially I'm part of a delegation
that includes Bishop Gumbleton of Detroit and we've come here
to assess the humanitarian situation in Iraq. I just wanted to
see it up close and I want to understand as much as I can of
what's going on here. I don't think the media has given a very
fair reporting of what's happened, although the Canadian media
has generally been better than the U.S. In a way, that's an after-the-fact
rationale, because as an artist, I feel it's my responsibility
to witness things and try to grasp them. Once in a while I get
lucky and my understading of those things become songs. That's
not a given and I think it would be self serving to the point
of obscenity to come to a place like this looking for song material,
but I hope that a song can be inspired by what I see
Q: During the U.S.-backed war against
the government of Nicaragua in the 1980's, you wrote the song
"Rocket Launcher." if it's fair to say that that was
an angry song, a) what were you angry about when you wrote it;
and b) do you feel as though you'd write a similar song today?
A: "If I Had a Rocket Launcher"
was written about a particular time and place. The situation
that inspired it called for outrage--at least that's what it
elicited from me. I think it's fair to say that outrage is an
appropriate response. Had I had a rocket launcher on that particular
ocassion, I don't know that I'd have used it and I'm glad I didn't
because I didn't have to make the choice.
The situation was that I'd spent three
days in a couple of different Guatemalan refugee camps in Chiapas,
in southern Mexico. All the while we were in one of them we could
hear one or more helicopters patrollling the border. The week
before we were there and the week after we left, this helicopter
strafed the camp--as if these people had not suffered enough
with the incredible violence they were fleeing in the mountains
of Guatemala. The eyewitness accounts they told us were just
horrendous...their food ration was only three tortillas a day...
no medicines...but still, sitting there with courage and a capacity
to celebrate. When they found out I was musician, they brought
a marimba that they had carried in pieces from their village...they
all got out their best clothes, the kids danced, and they had
a party.
It just made me cry and still does when
I think about it. That spirit they showed in face of such incredible
difficulty...the implications of that helipcopter going back
and forth, made me feel that the people in the helicopter had
forfeited any claim to humanity and I just felt this incredible
outrage...I felt it much more strongly than the Mayans did. I
didn't hear a word of anger from anyone about anything they'd
experienced, but I felt it. After I got out of the camp I was
sitting in my hotel, drinking and crying and writing that song.
For me, writing the song was just to get it off my chest and
I wrestled with whether to record it or ever perform it in front
of anyone. I thought if I don't, that's self censorship which
is inherently bad, but also, the feelings I had were probably
not very much different from those that anybody of my background
would have had in those circumstances, so it seemed important
to share it with people of my background--with my audience. I
think most people understood that it was not a call to arms but
a cry of outrage. Yes, it was cathartic for a lot of people.
I remember meeting Charlie Clemons, a doctor and a Viet Nam vet,
when Rocket Launcher was being played on the radio. I felt a
little sheepish, because here was this guy who'd been in a war,
and I had not, and he'd decided to be a pacifist. I felt kind
of weird knowing he was in the audience when I was singing this
song, and I asked him about it later. He said, "It was what
we all wanted to hear!"
I don't know if I'd ever write another
song like "If I Had a Rocket Launcher." That experience
(in southern Mexico) was really my first experience with the
real third world. That first time in the refugee camp was my
first experience seeing such poverty up close like that. Since
then I've seen it lots of times in lots of parts of the world,
so things don't hit me with quite the same vividness after the
first time. But that being said, there's a lot going on here
to be outraged about, certainly, among them the hypocrisy of
the American administration who claim to be Christians and operating
from a basis of faith, and who are conspicuously not loving their
neighbor in this country. It's hard to get words around the enormity
of what's going on here, and I'm not sure if I have much perspective
on it yet, but clearly the war in Iraq was not about freeing
the people of Iraq from an onerous dictatorship. It was not about
weapons of mass destruction. It was not about a relationship
between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaida. That's obvious without coming
to Iraq, but it's doubly obvious when you come here and you see
who's paying the price for this war. Aside from the American
taxpayers, who I don't think fully realize the price they are
paying, it's the people of Iraq that are paying--the increasing
numbers of homeless people living in bombed-out buildings, whole
families strugling as best they can with 60% of the population
out of work, the economy just absolutely shattered and nothing
being done to rehabilitate it...who knows what the future holds,
but from the point of view of the aveage Iraqi it's clear that
everything being done is about Bush's potential in the next election.
Every Iraqi I talk to says that. It's very clear to them that
it's all about electioneering.
Q: What difference does it make if
an artist expresses anger or dissatisfaction with political policies?
A: In terms of commenting on government
policy, I'm a citizen talking, not an artist. I'm a citizen of
Canada but also a citizen of the world and obviously, the decisions
made by the United States effect all of us greatly. As an artist
I feel it's my job to grasp whatever I can of the human condition
and distill it into some communicable form, through song, and
in so doing, create a vehicle for the sharing of experiences
among people. Everybody filters a song through their own experience
when they hear it. But allowing for that, there's still a common
bond especially in a live performance, where you have a group
of people in a room together and the song then becomes a vehicle
for the sharing of their feelings in that room at that time.
I think that's a really important part of what I do. With that
in mind it's down to me to try to grasp as much of the human
experience as I can and keep that distillation process going.
Q: What do you feel you've gotten
from the people of Iraq while you've been here, and what do you
hope to give?
A: Well, I'd like to think I can offer
some help to people who can use it. We will have made a great
step forward if we can communicate the humanity of people here
to the human instincts of friends back home. Too often I think
North Americans see Iraqis as a bunch of camel herders. I don't
think people have a very good idea of who lives here. And who
lives here are just like the people of North America--doctors
and lawyers and architects and farmers and laborers and people
of all walks of life, just like home. The educational system,
until the sanctions took hold in the early 90's was just exellent,
so there' a lot of really well educated people in this country.
But that's another sore point with the Iraqis--none of that education
and technical ability is being tapped by the Americans at all.
Iraqis aren't being tapped for anything other than menial jobs
and security forces in the case of the police. There are people
here in this country perfectly capable of rebuilding the country
if they just have the resources, but they're not being allowed
to participate.
It always gives me a big boost to be
in a place like this. It kind of reminds me of what I'm here
for, if I was in danger of forgetting it. I've been touring from
June until mid-December, and have another tour starting two days
after I get back. In that context, it's sort of easy to lose
sight of the real world sometimes. So just from a personal point
of view it's been very beneficial to be here and keep my feet
on the ground. Being face to face with the need of the homeless
people we spent time with yesterday, and being in the presence
of the clear manifestation of earthly power--these are sobering
things. The human spirit, the resourcefulness that people show...the
way people have used these bombed out building to try and create
some semblance of home for themselves is at once impressive and
terribly touching because they're working with so little. Even
there, there's pride. People have gone out of their way to make
it as pleasant as they possibly can and something to give a sense
of privacy. The fact that people are willing to die for these
horrible hovels...what do you make of that? On one hand it's
a testimony to the human spirit, to people's willingness to hang
on to their self respect at all costs. I guess why I brought
that up is that issue of the human spirit is the biggest gift
that the Iraqis could ever give me...to be reminded of our capacity
to get by in even the worst of circumstances. On the personal
level that's what I hope to take back. Of course I hope to have
some effect beyond my personal interest and what I can take back.
But whatever else happens I know that much.
Q: As an artist that actively addresses
his concerns, do you find it frustrating that more of your colleagues
don't use their craft in a similar way?
A: I can't make choices for anybody else.
I think it would be more useful if there were more people in
the arts willing to be heard on these kinds of issues--but there
are a lot of people who are. I mean, if I start feeling alone,
all I have to do is look at Ani DiFranco, and I know Ani feels
alone sometimes, too. We all do. But there's two of us that are
doing this kind of thing on a regular basis. There are other
people who come and go from it on specific issues. Around the
landmine issue, for instance, we did a series of concerts for
five years starting on the anniversary of the treaty banning
landmines, that were the brainchild of Emmylou Harris. There
was a sort of changing cast of characters in these concerts,
including songwriters like Mary Chapin Carpenter, Sheryl Crow,
Steve Earl, Nancy Griffith, John Prine, Emmylou, me, Chris Kristofferson--there
were a lot of people. There's Jackson Browne, who's always working
on stuff behind the scenes or publicly, to mention a guy who
really spends his time on things that matter. They're around.
So while on the one hand you've got the artists who are being
celebrated on MTV, hustling products, and up to their neck in
cross-marketing, there's a lot of us that are actually offering
something that I consider to be of greater integrity. But I don't
claim to be able to judge the choices that other people make.
It's not for me to say. I don't know what their background is
or where they're coming from; what colored their experiences
to make them make those choices. I think if you're going to call
yourself an artist--and there's a lot of things we can call ourselves--we
can be entertainers or this or that...I grew up in an era when
art was considered to be something that had value that transcended
its commercial value. I feel that way about it and I feel like
what I want to do with my songs is something that isn't about
the commercial value it has...that's my choice.
Mike Ferner
spent the month of February, 2003 in Baghdad and Basra, with
Voices in the Wilderness, a Chicago-based campaign to nonviolently
resist economic and military warfare against Iraq. He returned
recently to write about the current situation in Iraq. He is
a former Navy Hospital Corpsman and a member of Veterans for
Peace. He can be reached at: mferner2003@yahoo.com
Weekend
Edition Features for January 10 / 11, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Bush
as Hitler? Let's Be Fair
Susan Davis
Dangerous Books
Diane Christian
On Lying and Colin Powell
Lisa Viscidi
Exhumations: Unearthing Guatemala's Macabre Past
Daniel Estulin
Destroying History in Iraq
Saul Landau
Homeland Anxiety
Elaine Cassel
Who's Winning the War on Civil Liberties?
Bruce Jackson
Making the Shit List
Christopher Brauchli
Baptizing Hitler's Ghost
Francis A. Boyle
The Deep Scars of War
Lee Ballinger
Cold Sweat: Sweatshops and the Music Industry
Patrick W. Gavin
Hillary's Slur: Mrs. Lott?
Ramzy Baroud
What Invaders Have in Common
Michael Schwartz
Inside the California Grocery Strike
Gary Johnson
An Interview with Former Heavyweight Champ Greg Page
Dave Zirin
An Interview with Marvin Miller on Unions and Baseball
Mark Hand
A Review of Resistance: My Life for Lebanon
Poets' Basement
Thomas, Daley, Curtis, Guthrie and Albert
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