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Today's Stories

September 9/10, 2006
Weekend Edition

Alexander Cockburn
The 9/11 Conspiracy Nuts: How They Let the Guilty Parties of 9/11 Off the Hook

Jeffrey St. Clair
The Remaking of Cataract Canyon: In the Footsteps of Vladimir Putin (Part Six)

Greg Grandin
Good Christ, Bad Christ: Testament of the Death Squads

Peter Stone Brown
Bob Dylan's Swing Time Waltz in the Face of the Apocalypse

Ralph Nader
X-Raying Greed

Brian Cloughley
Rumsfeld at the American Legion: Dead Babies and Nazi Propaganda

Col. Chet Richards
Crossroads at the Litani

David Model
Tailoring the Case Against Iran: Cut from the Same Old Pattern

Dave Himmelstein
From Bil'in to Birmingham

Ron Jacobs
War and the Power of Words

Fred Gardner
Is Medical Pot Image a Turn-Off to Teens?

Mike Whitney
America's Economic Meltdown

Josh Gryniewicz
In the Belly of the Bentonville Beast: Working for Wal-Mart

Daniel Gross /
Joe Tessone
An IWW Story at Starbucks

Joe Bageant
Inside the Iron Theater

Nicole Colson
The Colbert Factor: Some Truthiness, At Last

Alexander Billet
Thirty Years of "White Riot": Long Live The Clash!

 

September 8, 2006

Uri Avnery
"I'm a Leftist, But ...": the Liberals' War on Lebanon

Paul Craig Roberts
Books Are Our Salvation

Bill Quigley
Judge Says: "No Clowning Around Our WMDs!"

Robert Jensen
Parallel Purges: Academic Freedom in Iran and the US

Norman Solomon
Perception Gap: The War on Terror as Others See It

Keith Bolin
The Future of the Family Farm

Kristin S. Schafer
The Global Trade in Deadly Pesticides

Jeffrey St. Clair
The Remaking of Cataract Canyon (Part Five)

Patrick Cockburn
Gaza is Dying

Website of the Day
Help the Bismark 3!


September 7, 206

Marjorie Cohn
Why Bush Really Came Clean About the CIA's Secret Torture Prisons

Sharon Smith
Downward Mobility: No Recovery for Workers

René Drucker Colín
The Fraud in Mexico

Michael Donnelly
Bush Family Values: About Those Nazi Appeasers

John Borowski
Scholastic Peddles a Fictitious Path to 9/11 to Kids

Lucinda Marshall
Bombing Indiana

Charles Sullivan
Katrina and the New Jim Crow: Ethnic Cleansing in New Orleans

Jeffrey St. Clair
The Remaking of Cataract Canyon: Part Four

Jonathan Cook
How Human Rights Watch Lost Its Way in Lebanon

Website of the Day
Rasta! Reggae's Joe Hill

 

September 6, 2006

Stephen Soldz
Protecting the Torturers: Bad Faith and Distortions frm the American Psychological Assocation

Dave Zirin
Cops vs. Jocks: the Shooting of Steve Foley

Ramzy Baroud
The Gaza Maze: Who Gained Most from the Fox Reporters' Kidnapping

Noel Ignatiev
Democrats, Pwogs and the Lesser Evil Folly

Dave Lindorff
Bombing Without Regrets: The US and Cluster Bombs

Norman Solomon
Spinning Troop Levels in Iraq

Binoy Kampmark
The Death of Steve Irwin and the Politics of the Zoo

Jeffrey St. Clair
A Premature Burial: the Remaking of Cataract Canyon (Part Three)

John Ross
The Death of Mexican Presidency

Website of the Day
Flaming Arrows

 

September 5, 2006

Jonathan Cook
Will Robert Fisk tell us the whole story? Time For A Champion of Truth to Speak Up

Patrick Cockburn
Better Not Meet at the Casbah

Mike Whitney
The Worst Secretary of Defense in U.S. History? You Be the Judge

Roland Sheppard
The Civil Rights Movement is Dead and So is the Democratic Party

James Petras
As Bush Regime Faces Twilight Slide, How Much Havoc Can Paulson Wreak?

Alexander Cockburn
Will Bush Bomb Teheran?

 

September 4, 2006

Clancy Sigal
The Women Who Gave Us Labor Day

Jeffrey St. Clair
The Remaking of Cataract Canyon: Part 2

Anthony Alessandrini
The Great Debate about Aroma Coffee: Why I Boycott

Dennis Perrin
The Great Debate in Tarrytown: Straight Zion, No Chaser

Daniel Cassidy
'S lom to Slum

Paul Craig Roberts
The War Is Lost

 

September 2 / 3, 2006

Uri Avnery
When Napoleon Won at Waterloo

Jeffrey St. Clair
A Premature Burial: the Remaking of Cataract Canyon

Ralph Nader
The No-Fault White House

Noam Chomsky
Viewing the World from a Bombsight

Allan Lichtman
Arrested Democracy: Letter from the Baltimore County Jail

Stanley Heller
When Criticism of Cluster Bombs is "Anti-Semitic"

Rana el-Khatib
Invasion's Child: the Making of Issa

Peter Montague
Taking on the Pentagon: Chemical Weapons to Burn

Laura Carlsen
Mexico on a Collision Course

Dr. Susan Block
Bush Hate Rising

Joe Bageant
Roy's People: Why Progressives Need to Listen to Orbison, Not Policy Wonks

Scott Stedjan / Matt Schaaf
A New Generation of Landmines?

Gary Leupp
The Emperor Has Been Exposed

Stephen Fleischman
The Great American Oligarchy

Paul Balles
Has Ahmadinejad Already Checkmated Bush?

Ingmar Lee
Canada's $450 Million Gift to Bush: the Softwood Lumber Slush Fund

Jane Stillwater
Burning Man: the Good, the Bad and the Evil Twin

Ron Jacobs
Dylan Faces the Apocalypse, Again

St. Clair / Bossert
Playlist: What We're Listening to This Week

Poets' Basement
Grima, Engel, Orloski and Davies

Website of the Weekend
To New Orleans: a Photo Journal

 

September 1, 2006

Uri Avnery
Olmert Agonistes

Paul Craig Roberts
Of Wolves and Men (and Impotent Democrats)

Bill Ayers
Exclusionary Signs of the Times

Kevin Zeese
The Best War Ever

Xochitl Bervera
The Forgotten Children of New Orleans

Norman Solomon
Bush vs. Ahmadinejad: a TV Debate We'll Never See

Alexander Cockburn
Hezbollah Denounces Nasrallah Interview as a Fake

Richard Neville
Rupert Murdoch's Victims

Website of the Day
The Uranium Flood

 

Weekend Edition
September 9/10 , 2006

Home Entertainment
By ADAM ENGEL

History,
the full fifteen --
(or is that Fame? two nuts
"fallen" from the same tree?
'they left no note,' admitted the
Police Chief, no 'minutes'
mention debts, affairs or ruts;
'and what of that GASH' --
the word alone caused
eyes to flash --
'on said tree's side?'
'Whose tree? Whose tree?'
journalists shoved to see)
-- history history history's tree --
is knotted, leafless at
the Home Entertainment Center
(sign above reads "Do Not Enter"),
"Chapel" of anguish and dismay,
even to the claw-less cat.
Save the screens, batten the door.
If you've the means,
retile the floor,
(with stones)
and if there's time for more
repeat the score,
direct and from the top
(forget the dimes you'll drop)
lest "The Chapel" remain
a Screen of pain,
where doors slide at will
unstopping unstopped,
and panels won't stay still,
when left unfolded and unlocked.
Formica-searing sun-rays sample dishes
in bitty-bytes, like nervous fishes,
shuck laser disks, both new and old,
from fertile rabbit wombs of code,
resurrected from light's smoldering ember:
(like old songs made new, when first remembered)
after-emmissions of ghostly glowing tombs;
spiced decay of childrens's rooms --
often the girl, so unexpectedly deprived of breath,
takes years to learn she can't simply "go home" from death
(the heat the heat down there, it's murder
for mere spirit to withstand and ghost on further).
Children relive their own sad dreams
on ultra-wide gray digi-screens.
Random, desultory clicks of a mouse
summon blockbusters to the house:
horror, romance, comedic shtick
every genre's "important" flick,
and TV renderings of tumid books
where prudery and furtive looks
empurple every puerile page,
hallmarks of "Victoria's" age,
when every writer, laureate or runt,
agreed: a pretty face must never own a c---;
and mounds of fabric hiding pricks
were common among many tricks
these "classic" authors used throughout their tomes
to render them Christian in the privacy of private homes.

NO ONE, whether on a goof or dare, thrill or lark,
visits The Chapel alone; certainly not after dark.
Childish childhood Ghosts live there;
pre-pubescent urchins with dark hair
consort with photon phantoms of the screen.
The most frightening, tragic, thing I've seen
was the projection of a beautiful, though long-dead, queen
of film, caressing a darling, creepy girl of eight
who shared a similar birth date:
day and month, but not the year --
and here is something real to fear --
the girl was "Native," of the wild,
the house was built, the bathroom tiled,
over her tomb, perhaps a sign for more than one
of her kind, snuffed for the American Dream of fun:
to build a Home Entertainment Center
which, usually, the whole family can enter
to watch "immortal" stars perfom our favorite stories,
especially horror flicks in which the villain glories
in the blood of a young -- nubile -- "innocent,"
as if our own drab lives were heaven-sent,
our entertainment the Center not just of the home
but of the world, that is, wherever our armies roam
and corporations set up shop -- powerful, free --
and sell the junk demanded by Democracy,
like digital machines where taxpayers play host
to every variety of high-tech, cinematic ghost.
But every so often life will catch us by surprise
and from our floors real spirits rise
to warn us we're not really all that good,
that everything we own is soaked in blood.
There are even some among the jealous and unfree
who claim a drum is beating constantly,
though we can't hear it with our scientific ears,
heralding the worst of our fears:
that soon will come a time we'll cease to be,
and even ghosts and all their memories
weep for this alleged command of fate,
for much as they've reason to despise and hate
us for our mockery of every sacred place they'd known
and all the lies in Entertainment Centers shown,
and libel in the flashy novels on our shelves --
because we feel not, fear not for our selves,
they pity us, as centuries of loathing melts to air;
they see how deep yet meaningless is our despair;
they'll watch us die like children, drowned in wet cement;
impervious to death as life; oblivious of the event;
concerned only that this is not like that horrendous dream:
stuck inside with spouse and kids and NOTHING on the screen.

Adam Engel can be reached at bartleby.samsa@verizon.net


Sacred Space
By TINA LOUISE


Warm breath breezes neck
Wet sweat drips trips
Erogenous switches
Trickles into creases
Weaving bridges over fleshy gaps
Glistening glimmering moist map
Ever changing with embracing
Tracing routes soothing
The burning pulsing aching
Sensation snaking downward
With gyration
Legs wrap forced back
Arch clasped in large
Hand rough warm firm grasp
Pulls the space from between
Unseen fire ignites fusewire
Veins with pleasure pain coursing
Reaching entire range
Every pore ever born
Stormed stirred to rhythmic
Core of passion pleading
Throbbing incantation
Calling seeking
Satisfaction dreaming
Heart crescendos
White heat
Ease gently
Decrease
Collapse flat wrapped
Packed together
Breathing easing
Relieving tremors
Soften soften
Cotton sheet embrace
Face to face lover’s
Sacred space

Tina Louise lives in Blackpool, England.

The Privileged
By PETER BUKNATSKI

In the ordinary hours
of idle social chatter
and everyday responsibility
I do not dwell on the evil
that hides in the shadows
beyond all common sense
I must not let it get to me
or all is lost and taken away
They have a plan and power
and I have neither
only the knowing of what is wrong
and a sense of humor
How can I make it stop
and still enjoy the way the world
comes up with head shaking surprises
making the stomach go all soft
as if the moral were a punch line
It is privilege of course
that embraces these thoughts
I should know better
and think instead of the cadres
fighting through death and despair
to save us all from ourselves
and the world from becoming a joke
In the ordinary hours who would
not save a child from taking a fall
or walk away from a cry for help
belittling innocence with a shrug
too busy to be human anymore
In the world there are people
whose joy is stopping the pain
who make it their everyday task
to lift the shadows from life
and not be surprised by what they find
Theirs is the true privilege
never to be afraid of the wrong
never to be overwhelmed by it
but to deal with it as a matter of fact
not to die in laughter
but to live in it

Peter Buknatski lives in Montpelier, Vermont.

 

On the Subject of Heart
By ROBERT A. DAVIES

She has my heart and I have hers
but she is not a Renaissance lover,
instead a witch
stepped out of Macbeth
to steal my heart
and I have picked up hers
there being little choice, any
heart better than none;
so here I am with a throwaway heart,
one that runs slow
runs faster then skips
and one that for all I know
is faithless as wind
stiff as stone.

Robert Davies lives in Portland, Oregon.

 

Cheney in Sherwood Forest
By Charles Orloski


"Vice President Dick Cheney will visit Northeastern Pennsylvania later this month to raise money for U.S. Representative Don Sherwood. The fundraiser -- costing $1,000 per person and $1,500 a couple -- is set for Sept. 18 at the Dallas, PA farm of Mr. Harold Flack." The Scranton Times-Tribune, Headline, page 1, Sept. 7, 2006.

The passing of Mercury comets:
Robin's in the hood,
so put on dinner Flack jackets,
when you could, 'cause
the Veep's aim is not very good.

Vergissmeinnicht, TonysnowIchbinnicht.(1.)

Friar Tuck's unhappy with Congressman Don's
passion for a Maryland lass "half his age," --
& confessing all along that his tights were on,
and the "massage" issue and Starr-like outrage,
are off the local election stage, like Nicholas Cage.

Vergissmeinnicht, TonysnowIchbinnicht.

William Tell launched a test-banned arrow
through the core of an incumbent apple.
Yo Ho, Don -- your poll margins are narrow!
'Tis frightful to see Nottingham rattle.

Vergissmeinnicht, TonysnowIchbinnicht.

Maid Marion, beautiful Maid Marion,
independent diva of William Penn.
Where shall ye spend? Where shall ye drink?
Remember, Maid Marion,
they took alcohol away from Cheney's merry-men!

(1.) Forget me not, Tony Snow I am not ( German ).

Charles Orloski lives in Pennsylvania.

Now Available
from CounterPunch Books!
The Case Against Israel
By Michael Neumann

Click Here to Order Michael Neumann's Devastating Rebuttal of Alan Dershowitz


Grand Theft Pentagon:
Tales of Greed and Profiteering in the War on Terror

by Jeffrey St. Clair