Today's Stories

December 11-13, 2009

Carl Ginsburg
The American Health Care Pyramid

December 10, 2009

William Blum
Yeswecanistan

John Ross
Loose in Obamalandia

Björn Kumm
Welcome to Norway: Where Peace, Like Obama, is Two-Faced

Jonathan Cook
Israel's Notorious Hannibal Procedure

Mike Whitney
Showdown in Athens

Jayne Lyn Stahl
Selective Subpoenas

Gareth Porter
Iran: the Road to Diplomatic Failure

Rannie Amiri
Why You Should Know About Ali Sibat

Norman Solomon
War is Not Peace

James Faris
On Population: Why the Climate Change Malthusians are Wrong

Website of the Day
Suckers!

December 9, 2009

Kevin Alexander Gray
Obama and Black America

Joe Bageant
The Devil and Mr. Obama

Stephen Soldz
The "Ethical Interrogation"?

Anthony DiMaggio
The Politics of Cynicism

David Swanson
Being Jay Bybee

Dave Zirin
The People Speak

Thomas Power
Clarifying the Tester Bill: Is It About Wilderness or Logging?

Martha Rosenberg
How to Kill a Carp

Susie Day
America Crashes the White House

US Peace Groups
On Obama's Peace Prize: an Open Letter to the Nobel Committee

Website of the Day
Logging Truths

December 8, 2009

Andrew Cockburn
Wall Street Snaps Its Fingers

Mike Whitney
Obama's "We Got No Money" Rap

Brendan Cooney
Obama and Honduras: The Man Who Wasn't There

Stephanie McMillian
The Buying and Selling of Jared Diamond

Ron Jacobs
The Baghdad Bombings

Benjamin Dangl
The Speed of Change in Bolivia

Kevin Mink
Religious Intolerance in Israel: Through the State Department Looking Glass

Dave Lindorff
Obama's Shameful War

Helen Redmond
Yes, This Health Care Bill Really is Worse Than Nothing

David Macaray
The Double Standard is Alive and Well

Franklin Lamb
Washington's New Lebanon Policy: a Christmas Guide

December 7, 2009

Margot Kidder
Ax Max

Patrick Cockburn
The March of Folly

Gareth Porter
The Taliban - Al Qaeda Schism

Marshall Auerback
Is the Government Out of Money or is Obama Out of His Mind?

Clancy Sigal
Obama's Mother and Mine

Jeffrey Blankfort
What the U.S. Elite Really Thinks About Israel

Jonathan Cook
Israel's Bedouins Denied Right to Elections

Brian McKenna
Even If Obama Passed Single Payer, Primary Care Doctors Still Wouldn't Get It

Bouthaina Shaaban
Burqa Committees and Minaret Referenda

Charlotte Laws
In Praise of Gate-Crashing

Harry Browne
Conspiracy, Blood and Filth

Website of the Day
Help Save Coal Country for Christmas

December 4-6, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
War Cries From a Defeated Man

Ishmael Reed
The Selling of "Precious": Hollywood's Enduring Myth of the Black Male Sexual Predator

Paul Craig Roberts
The Twin Frauds of Obama

Vijay Prashad
Children Afraid of the Night: the Regional Alternative to Escalation in Afghanistan

Muhammad Idrees Ahmad
Pakistan Creates Its Own Enemy

Linn Washington, Jr.
Juvenile Injustice in a Philly Suburb

Eamonn McCann
The Rape of Irish Children

Rannie Amiri Lebanon: an End to Sectarian Politics?

David Rosen
Top Sports Sex Scandals

Benjamin Dangl
Turning Activists Into Voters in Uruguay

Dave Lindorff
The Epicenter of Mendacity

Dan Meek
The Assault on Campaign Finance Reform

Geoff Berne
Barbarians at the Schoolhouse

Todd Alan Price
Milwaukee League Comes to the Defense of Public Schools

Frank Green
Slim Turnout at World Peace March

John Halle
Run, Ralph, Run

Brian Tokar
Repackaging Copenhagen

Brian M. Downing
Escalation and Exit in Afghanistan

Jim Goodman
The Trail of Broken Promises

Bruce E. Levine
Are Americans Too Broken for the Truth to Set Us Free?

Charles R. Larson
Obsession With Objects: Pamuk's Dazzling New Novel

Kim Nicolini
Fantastic Mr. Fox: Filming the Imagination

David Yearsley
A Mighty Fortress is Our Bach

Lorenzo Wolff
Owl City: From MySpace to the Billboard Charts

Poets' Basement
Three Poems by Greg Keeler

Website of the Weekend
Banana Land Campaign

December 3, 2009

Jeff Ballinger
Helping Dicatators Look Good

Paul Fitzgerald / Elizabeth Gould
What are We Fighting for in Afghanistan?

Christopher Brauchli
Innocent Dead Men Walking

Laura Flanders
All-Too-Familiar Line on Afghanistan

Franklin Lamb
Hezbollah's New Manifesto

Mark Weisbrot
Unavoidable Differences: Brazil vs. Washington

Gary Leupp
Obama's Tortured Rationale

Stephen Fleischman
Envisioning an Exit Strategy?

Bill Christison
Obama's Unjust Iran Policy

December 2, 2009

Paul Craig Roberts
The Obama Puppet

Gareth Porter
The Power Struggle Behind Obama's Speech

Zoltan Grossman
Afghanistan: the Roach Motel of Empires

Mike Whitney
The Path to Full Employment: an Interview with Marshall Auerback

Ron Jacobs
The Escalation Begins: an Exchange with Anand Gopal

M. Shahid Alam
The Groveling of Pakistani Elites

D.K. Wilson
Is Tiger Woods Black Enemy Number One?

Fran Shor
Obama and the Dying Empire

Susan Galleymore
African Realities in the Wake of World AIDS Day

Jayne Lyn Stahl
Caught in the Cross Fire

Website of the Day
Rebel Without a Conscience

December 1, 2009

David Price
Human Terrain Systems, Anthropologists and the War in Afghanistan

Afshin Rattansi
The Dubai Disaster: a Familiar Fall

Carlos Benemann
Dubai FUBAR

Dean Baker
Is "Helping Homeowners" Washingtonspeak for Bailing Out the Banks?

Bouthaina Shaaban Rejecting Westocentrism

David Rosen
America's Failing Sexual Health

Susan Galleymore
Global Connections and the Arc of War

David Macaray
Labor's Beating Heart

Miriam Pemberton
Bush-Style Military Spending Not Over Yet

Farzana Versey
Condoms, Hunks and the AIDS Celebrity Circus

Website of the Day
The Story of Cap and Trade

November 30, 2009

Gary Leupp
A "Necessary War" -- for a Gas Pipeline

Mara Ahmed /
Judith Bello
Pakistan and the Global War on Terror

Mike Whitney
Crisis in Dubai

Steven Higgs
Growing Up Toxic

P. Sainath
Pay-to-Print: "News" Stories for Cash Scandal Rocks India

Jonathan Cook
Israel's Arab Women Workers Need Not Apply

Norm Kent
On the Suicide of Mike Penner: Why the Transgendered Need Civil Rights Protections

Dave Lindorff
Obama as the Manchurian Candidate

Normon Solomon
The Hollow Politics of Escalation

David Michael Green How Dare You Clean Up Our Mess?

Website of the Day
The America's Program Needs Your Help

November 27 - 29, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
The Auld Triangle Goes Jingle Jangle

Carl Ginsburg
Planning for Poverty?

Mike Whitney
Blame Larry Summers

Franklin Spinney
Obama as LBJ

Joshua Frank
Coal Kills

Saul Landau
The True Price of Oil

Heather Gray
Overtly Racist Regimes in the 20th Century

John Ross
The Timeline for a New Mexican Revolution Comes Due

David Macaray
Adventures in Polarization

Franklin Lamb
Lebanon: 52 Words That Shook Washington

Shamus Cooke
The Devastating Consequences of the Corporate Health Insurance Bill

David Ker Thomson
The Transformers

Martha Rosenberg
Cash for Cheesedogs? The Recession Takes a Bite Out of Meat Consumption

Ramzy Baroud
A Paradigm Shift in Singapore?

Ron Ridenour
Post-War Internment Hell for Tamils

Amanda Mueller
Saving Grace: Negotiating Abortion and the Catholic Faith

James Rothenberg
China Kowtow

Travis Kelly
Mayday, 1960: the U2 Files

Don Monkerud
Big Beer Takes Over

Ron Jacobs
Science Fiction and Politics

Charles R. Larson
The Autumn of Chinua Achebe

David Yearsley
What Father Made Us Sing Before the Turkey

Poets' Basement
Catherine Zickgraf and Mickey Z.

Website of the Weekend
Good to Be Alive

November 26, 2009

Vijay Prashad
Mumbai in the Shadow of Kashmir

Greg Moses
We Remember the Popol Vuh

Jayne Lyn Stahl
How About a War on Poverty Instead?

Jeff Cohen
Get Ready for the Obama / GOP Alliance

John Blair
The Gasification of Indiana

Ann Robertson /
Bill Leumer
A Surge in Demands on Goverment for Jobs

Farzana Versey
The American East India Company

Sam Husseini
Moral Relativism at Fort Hood: Guilt, Therapy and the System

Tom Mountain
The Truth Behind the Turkey

Website of the Day
A Thanksgiving Prayer by William S. Burroughs

November 25, 2009

Dave Lindorff
The Bush-Blair Conspiracy on Iraq

Marjorie Cohn
The Case of Lynn Stewart

Belén Fernández
An Interview with Honduran Coup General Romeo Vásquez Velásquez

Ralph Nader
Weak-Kneed in China

Rannie Amiri
The Impending Release of Gilad Shalit: What Palestinians Deserve in Return

Missy Beattie
Finish the Job?

Rob Stone, MD Health Care Delusions: Better Than Nothing?

Norm Kent
In Praise of Adam Lambert

Binoy Kampmark Handing It to France: the Sporting Trial of Thierry Henry

Ron Ridenour
International Support for Sri Lanka

Website of the Day
The Credit Card Game

November 24, 2009

Mary Lynn Cramer
Health Care Reform and the Skinning of Seniors

Dean Baker
Too Big to Kill? The Vampire Banks Rise Again

George Ciccariello-Maher
Occupy Everything! Behind the Privatization of the UC, a Riot Squad of Police

Eric Walberg
Canada's Guantanamo

Andy Thayer
Lessons From a Lynching: the Murder of Jorge Steven Lopez-Mercado

David Macaray
The Delphi Incident: How the White-Collar Tribe Got Shafted

Laura Carlsen
The Perils of Plan Mexico

Gary Leupp
Obama as Hamlet

Adam Federman
Poisoning Dimock

William S. Lind Mission Creep: Counter-Insurgency in Salinas?

Website of the Day
Geography of the Recession

November 23, 2009

Paul Craig Roberts
A Trial That Will Convict Us All

Jonathan Cook
Have Israeli Spies Infiltrated International Aiports?

Edward S. Herman / David Peterson
Vulliamy's Smears

Bouthaina Shaaban
What's New? It's Always Been Like This

Helen Redmond
Health Care's Historic Flop

Rannie Amiri
Saudi Arabia's Attack on Yemen

Dave Lindorff
Abortion and Health Care

Rev. William E. Alberts
The Self-Delusionary American Tragedy

Mike Whitney
Is American Casino the Best Picture of the Year?

Mark Weisbrot
Honduran Dictatorship is a Threat to Democracy in the Hemisphere

David Michael Green
The Placeholder Presidency of Obama

November 20-22, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
CounterPunch Diary
It's Show Trial Time!

Gareth Porter
New Light on the Qom Facility

Mike Whitney
The Great Stimulus Debate of '09: Crybabies need not apply

Fred Gardner
Mammography
Pushes Back

James J. Brittain
It's Really a War on the Poor
A War on Coca Nobody Believes

Jonathan Cook
Rabbi Followers 'Terror Cell in Parliament'

Alan Farago
Bulletin from the Dark Side: Florida's Republican Ultras

David Macaray
A Hindu Version of the UAW
Labor Strife in India

Binoy Kampmark
The Israeli Exception: Gilo and East Jerusalem

Ben Sonnenberg
Ashes and Diamonds
Retirement Norwegian Style

Ron Jacobs
Judge Roy Bean Takes Manhattan

David Yearsley
200,000 Testicles Offered Up to the Gods of Song

Brenda Norrell
A Border Runs Through Them:
The Struggles of the Tohono O'odham

Ron Ridenour
The Tamils and Equal Rights of Self Determination

Weekend Edition
December 11-13, 2009

An Afghan Poppie Farmer Takes Obama’s Prize Nobel To Market
By CHARLES ORLOSKI

Dust fell from the sky
upon Hamid’s farm.
He had no idea Americans
Crashed a satellite into the Moon,
Caused a dust storm,
And dispatched another satellite
To collect Moon dust,
analyze for water.

Hamid’s land was my land,
thought the dry dust
was his land. 
Enlightened of origin,
He bagged and carried dust
To a Kabul market
tried selling it to
me for a million dollars.
He insisted the dust
Contained Moon water,
Offered me a drink.

I drank Hamid’s wet dust,
Got a rush,
Saw a silver spaceship,
Asked for more,
Obviously a prized commodity.

How much do you want for it? 

“Two children raised from dead,
A natural gas pipeline
I can call my own,
Rendition to Vegas,
And a peace train ticket

to Marrakesh.”

Charles Orloski lives in Taylor, PA.  While touring the Middle East in January 1981, an English speaking Jordanian vendor in a village outside Petra sold him a Zip-Lock bag containing multi-colored sand, smiled, and cheerfully said, "Americans -- they buy everything!"  He can be reached and propositioned for a sale at CCDJOrlov@aol.com.

Bertolt Brecht in Hollywood
By GARY CORSERI

Bertolt Brecht walks past Hollywood and Vine.
It’s 1947; Hitler’s toast,
the devil in the mushroom cloud
still laughs
over the doomed, domed cities;
Russia is restive, but contained.
The air is sultry and redolent
with orange fragrance wafting from
the San Fernando Valley,
mingling with the alchemical combustions of
film splicers and assorted mage-technicians.
(Not to mention the sweetly greased axles
of trolleys—susurrant, tingling …
startling him from reveries.)

The House Un-American Activities Committee
wants to ask him some questions. …

And he knows:
         whatever the trappings,
         whatever the sweet-as-chocolate
         words like “freedom,”
          “democracy,” and “justice” …
that there is never a refuge--
order is always violated;
words outstretch their meanings,
music splits apart
(like ice floes on the northern seas)
the certainties of the heart.

And it’s good--as Weill well knew,
shaping honky-tonk to opera--
this knocking and stretching of forms.

But now … he feels old. … He is older
than the century--but half opened
and already the blood-thirstiest.

He walks about Mann’s Chinese Theatre--
walks in his dreams--sees the shoe prints
of Claudette Colbert, hears
the starlets’ siren songs--
their thin, oblivious voices;

and he knows:
he must take Helene and--
before the premonitions of his early death
(felt as a caressing, valley breeze)
transfix him like a bug on velvet--
go! …  Abscond! …
to raise the fist of song once more
against enclosing silence.

Gary Corseri has published his articles and poems at CounterPunch and hundreds of other sites and publications worldwide.  His poems and dramas have been performed at the Carter Presidential Library and Museum and on Atlanta-PBS.  His books include Manifestations; Holy Grail, Holy Grail; and A Fine Excess.  He can be contacted at gary_corseri@comcast.net.

Editorial Note: (Please Read Closely Before Submitting)
To submit to Poets’ Basement, send an e-mail to CounterPunch’s poetry editor, Marc Beaudin at counterpunchpoetry@gmail.com with your name, the titles being submitted, and your website url or e-mail address (if you’d like this to appear with your work). Also indicate whether or not your poems have been previously published and where. Attach up to 5 poems and a short bio as a single Word Document (.doc or .rtf attachments only; no .docx). Expect a response within one month.

Please submit your poetry by Tuesday in order to be considered for the CounterPunch Weekend Edition of the Poets’ Basement. The Weekend Edition will now run on Fridays instead of Saturdays.

Marc does not archive poetry nor biographical sketches. (At the very least, tell us where you are from and how you can be reached through CP’s Poets’ Basement). For more details, tips and suggestions, visit crowvoicejournal.blogspot.com and search “poets basement.” Thanks!

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