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Why Hillary Clinton Has Always Been a Republican In the first of a series of profiles, Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair chart the formative years of Hillary Clinton. Watch her as she zigzags from Nixon campaigner and vote-fraud investigator in 1960 to Goldwater Girl and President of Young Republicans at Wellesley to her internship for Gerald Ford and campaigner for Nelson Rockefeller. Witness her reaction to the student protests at Yale and the demonstrations at Grant Park during the Democratic Convention in 1968. Learn how she and Bill vowed to "remake" the Democratic Party--using the Nixon model HRC learned about as a member of the House impeachment staff. And much more! Plus: David Price on anthropologist Andre Gunder Frank.
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Today's Stories July 2, 2007 Andy
Worthington Paul
Craig Roberts Bill
Williams Louay
Safi June 30 / July 1, 2007 John
Ross Alan
Farago Peter
Quinn Christopher
Brauchli Robert
Fisk Uri
Avnery Judith
Siers-Poisson Saul
Landau Abbas
Zaidi Ron
Jacobs Ralph
Nader Donald
Worster Mike
Whitney Jacob
Hill Kenneth
Couesbouc Missy
Beattie Mohammad
Kamaali Ramzy
Baroud Leonard
Peltier Phyllis
Pollack Poets'
Basement Website
of the Weekend
June 29, 2007 St.
Clair / Frank Brian
Cloughley Patrick
Cockburn Gilad
Atzmon Dave
Lindorff Jennifer
Matsui / Kevin
Zeese Daniel
Klimek David
Michael Green John
Chuckman Website
of the Day
June 28, 2007 Bill
Quigley Vijay
Prashad Margaret
Kimberley Winslow
T. Wheeler Philip
Rizk D.
K. Wilson Bill
Williams Mahmoud
El-Yousseph Richard
Rhames Paul
Krassner Website
of the Day
Marjorie
Cohn Dr.
Susan Rosenthal, MD Alan
Farago Carla
Blank Matthew
Abraham Sunsara
Taylor Russell
D. Hoffman Robert
Weissman Sen.
Russ Feingold Paul
Buchheit Website
of the Day
June 26, 2007 Jonathan
Cook Ralph
Nader Corporate
Crime Reporter Ron
Jacobs Martha
Rosenberg John
Chuckman Denny
Haldeman Anthony
DiMaggio Stephen
Fleischman William
S. Lind Website
of the Day
Paul
Craig Roberts Jennifer
Loewenstein Bob
Anderson Robert
Pollin Patrick
Cockburn Eva
Liddell Dan
Bacher Larry
Atkins Mark
Brenner James
Rothenberg Website
of the Day June 23 / 24, 2007 Alexander
Cockburn Jeff
Taylor Oren
Ben-Dor Gary
Leupp Robert
Fisk David
Rosen Russell
Mokhiber Alison
Weir Robert
Fantina D.
K. Wilson Nicole
Colson Stephen
Soldz, Steven Reisner and Brad Olson Dave
Lindorff Benjamin
Dangl Michael
Dickinson Poets'
Basement Website
of the Weekend
June 22, 2007 Andy
Worthington Sherwood
Ross Eliana
Monteforte Robert
Weissman Richard
Rhames Christopher
Brauchli Ramzy
Baroud Ehud
Krinis, David Shulman and Neve Gordon David
Michael Green Kathryn
Webber Website
of the Day
June 21, 2007 Peter
Linebaugh Natsu
Saito Ron
Jacobs Saree
Makdisi John
Stauber Scott
Liebertz Tom
Clifford Robert
Jensen Michael
J. Smith Jeb
Sprague Website
of the Day
Omar
Barghouti Andy
Worthington Margaret
Kimberley Robert
Weissman Russell
D. Hoffman Rannie
Amiri Stephen
Lendman Dave
Lindorff David
Swanson Anne
Dachel Website
of the Day
June 19, 2007 Ralph
Nader Dr.
Shepherd Bliss Bill
and Kathleen Christison Jeff
Leys Dave
Zirin Chris
Floyd Ben
Terrall Anthony
Papa VIPS Linda Flores Website
of the Day
John
Ross Paul
Craig Roberts Martha
Rosenberg Norman
Solomon Don
Santina Isabella
Kenfield James
Brooks Eva
Liddell Sam
Husseini Akiva
Eldar Website
of the Day
Alexander
Cockburn John
Halle Robert
Fisk Andy
Worthington Uri
Avnery Fred
Gardner Saul
Landau P.
Sainath Missy
Comley Beattie Alan
Gregory Walter
Brasch Website
of the Weekend
June 15, 2007 Alan
Farago Andy
Worthington Michael
Simmons Franklin
Lamb Gary
Leupp John
Ross Website
of the Day
June 14, 2007 Michael
Donnelly
Faisal
Kutty Harry
Browne Charles
Jonkel Steven
Higgs Bruce
Dixon Bruce
K. Gagnon
Website
of the Day June 13, 2007 Glen Ford Marjorie Cohn Bill Christison Charles Jonkel Silvia Cattori Richard Gott Firmin DeBrabander William S. Lind Keith Rosenthal Website of the Day June 12, 2007 Jeffrey St.
Clair Paul Craig
Roberts P. Sainath Ralph Nader Omar Waraich Dave Lindorff Harvey Wasserman Malini Johar
Schueller Ramzy Baroud Website of
the Day
June 11, 2007 Patrick Cockburn Paul Craig
Roberts Uri Avnery Norman Solomon Eva Liddell Rannie Amiri Rachel Voss Christopher
Brauchli D. K. Wilson Website of
the Day
Alexander Cockburn George Ciccariello-Maher Saul Landau Robert Fisk Brian Cloughley Ron Jacobs Ward Boston Conn Hallinan Leonard Peltier Lawrence Davidson John Ross Kate Allan Fred Gardner Stephen Fleischman Monica Benderman Geoff Bailey Missy Beattie Patrick Dyer Tim Lengerich James Irani
Gary Leupp Michael Tillery Michael Simmons Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend
June 8, 2007 Serge Halimi Patrick Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair
Paul Craig Roberts William Blum Joshua Frank Lance Selfa Dave Lindorff Lawrence Ferlinghetti Website of the Day
Marjorie Cohn Soldz, Reisner
and Olson: Soldz, Reisner
Paul Craig Roberts Bill Quigley Silvia Cattori Carl G. Estabrook Ellen Taylor Corporate Crime
Reporter Brenda Norrell D. K. Wilson Kevin Zeese Website of
the Day
Alain Gresh Gary Leupp Steven Sherman Bruce Dixon Corporate Crime Reporter Brian M. Downing Ron Jacobs George Bisharat Nicole Colson Bruce K. Gagnon Website of the Day
June 5, 2007 Michael Neumann Jonathan Cook David Vest Robert Fantina Hoffman, Parsneau and Chowdhury John V. Walsh Richard Cretan Adam Engel William S. Lind Myles Hoenig Jim Minick Website of
the Day
Nizar Latif Diana Johnstone Gregory Wilpert Paul Watson Susan Rosenthal,
MD Richard Ward Eva Liddell Zahi Khouri Evelyn Pringle China Hand Karyn Strickler Website of the Day
June 2 / 3, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Marc Levy Martin Smith Diana Johnstone John Ross Uri Avnery Sunsara Taylor Richard Neville P. Sainath Missy Comley
Beattie Nisrine Abiad Rannie Amiri Margot Pepper Eric Stewart Ralph Nader Dan Bacher Shaun Harkin Richard Rhames Frederick Hudson Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend
Dave Marsh Saul Landau David Phinney Robert Jensen Stanley Heller Yifat Susskind Robert Weissman Paul Buchheit William S.
Lind Sherwood Ross Stephen Lendman Website of the Day
Robert Bryce Patrick Cockburn Gary Leupp Kathy Kelly Marjorie Cohn Chris Kutalik
Corporate Crime Reporter Dave Lindorff Website of the Day
May 30, 2007 James Ridgeway Franklin Lamb Terrence E. Paupp Uri Avnery Alan Maass Rock and Rap
Confidential Ralph Nader Nirmal Ghosh Jean Daniels Tom Barry Website of the Day
Stephen Soldz Eliza Ernshire Ron Jacobs Dave Lindorff Evelyn Pringle Mike Whitney David Swanson John Holt Cynthia McKinney Martha Rosenberg Website of the Day
Bill Quigley Col. Dan Smith Cindy Sheehan Dr. Susan Block Jeeni Criscenzo Douglas Valentine Website of the Day 
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July 2, 2007 The Assassination of a PoetMemories of Roque DaltonBy NINA SERRANO I first met Roque Dalton in Havana in
July of 1968. He claimed he was a descendant of an outlaw, and
he turned me into a writer and a poet. I was walking down the hall of Casa de Las Americas, when a man popped out of one of the rooms, following me and quickly catching up. He introduced himself and said his name was Roque Dalton, a Salvadoran poet. He'd been in a meeting of male poets and they noticed me go by. So, he was sent to see who I was. Until then, I thought of poets as a very serious bunch. Now, I saw that clearly they indulged in the favorite Cuban pastime of the era- girl watching. I commented that in my country, the United States, the Dalton Gang members were legendary folk heroes, like Jesse James. "Yes," he said." I am related to them." We walked back to my hotel for lunch, He was very witty, and we laughed with every step under hot sun and palms trees, passing the Caribbean splashing against the malecon, dodging cars, and entering the limply air-conditioned Habana Libre Hotel. It was the year when the entire island was gearing up for a campaign to produce a record-breaking ten million tons of sugar cane harvest. The previous year had been the year of the "Heroic Guerrilla." referring to recently killed Che Guevara, whose picture hung every where. Sacrifice abounded. Schools, work centers, and whole families dedicated themselves to volunteer sugar cane cutting. The "Diez miliones van" campaign ultimately reaped only six million tons. However, it set new norms in socialist participation and volunteerism and promoted the Guevara concept of the "New human being," one who worked enthusiastically for the common good. Roque joined my family for lunch and immediately we were all laughing. He told us that he and his wife, and three boys had only recently moved from this hotel and were now installed in a Havana apartment, mentioning that his sons missed the use of the pool. As we moved down the cafeteria line, we continued talking about his connections to the Dalton gang. I was enthralled and suggested we write a television play of the story together using Brechtian theater ideas. "Television?" he scoffed, "As a poet and polemicist, I worship at the altar of the novel." "But television reaches the masses," I countered. "And Cubans with only two dull channels to watch deserve better. It will set a model for intellectuals to bring their skills and talents to the people." He agreed and after lunch, we went across the street to ICR, the Cuban broadcasting system and arranged with Abraham Masiques, that we would come back in ten days with a completed script for "The Daltons Ride South." If it passed muster with the political assessor, it would be videoed in their studio. Every morning, Roque arrived with his sons, Roque, Juan Jose, and Jorge, carrying their bathing suits. The kids would go down to the pool and then come up to play Monopoly, while we worked. We sat at a big table that we periodically cleared throughout the day for room service family meals and snacks. Roque sat at my Olivetti typewriter, since the script had to be in Spanish, while I handed him precious sheets of carbon paper. Cuba had severe shortages of everything. We often resorted to the dictionary and pantomime to work out linguistic problems between us, as we were neither totally fluent in the other's language. On the appointed day, we arrived with a completed script at the TV station. There were a few annoying rewrites demanded by the assessor, but we were too thrilled to protest. A production team hastily formed; slides produced, music composed, shots plotted, costumes assembled, and rehearsals scheduled. One night after a rehearsal,
Roque and I were walking back to the hotel around the lively
La Rampa night-life, when plain-clothes police surrounded the
crowd. He grabbed my arm: "Follow me, I am expert in escaping
police." He deftly led us back to safety, although several
people were arrested that night. We thought the raid was part
of the campaign against homosexuals. He told me he'd written a prose piece about being threatened by the CIA saying that they would kill him, and then spread the word that he was a CIA agent. He would die disgraced, as a traitor. As I listened deeply, I vowed to myself that if such a terrible event were to happen, I would help tell the world that Roque was honest and good. We mounted our television drama in four days. The rehearsal time was so short that when the camera went into a close-up of a talking decapitated head, the actress froze. She'd forgotten her lines because of the quick turn-around time to learn them. She stared out on the screen in real terror- which was quite effective really- but Roque and I were dying because our precious words were lost. The program was very well received, though at the reception party, we sat in a corner on the floor with tears of disapointment. We had anticipated the production like a Hollywood cowboy movie, quick moving with lively action. But, the Cuban TV acting at that time was exaggerated, and the editing style was very slow. Immediately after, I rushed into the filming of Fidel and his entourage on a jeep caravan across the island. Roque too had pressing deadlines to meet from Cuban publishers. He was to write an answer to the Regis Debray's book on Cuba at Fidel's personal request. He was also proof reading the printer's copy for his new poetry anthology. When I left for California, we arranged to stay in touch through letters and invented a code for collect calls. My children loved a TV animation program called "Rocky and Bullwinkle." He would phone and say his call was from "The Flying Squirrel," which was the cartoon character "Rocky's " persona. A year later in 1969, our family returned to Cuba to screen the Fidel film and begin researching for a fiction film about the Salvador Allende election in Chile. If Allende won, it would be a non-violent democratic revolution. This fostered even more discussions between Roque and me, about armed struggle and if it was the only path to revolution. The "Fidel" documentary was lauded. We watched the first human being land on the moon. Our Cuba stay was short, only two weeks. Roque was frequently tied up with mysterious meetings. I worried about him, because it was rumored that he was involved with a Salvadoran guerrilla grouping. When I asked him about it, he said he could not discuss it, which I respected. We began a continuous dialogue about violence and terrorism. I was afraid of them. He felt it was unfortunate, but that sometimes for the sake of a greater good, they were necessary. Some people described his group to me as "adventurist" and "Maoist." Those were frequent charges in Havana in those days, against any non-Communist Party leftist group. The Mao influence was popular that year world-wide. Even the Black Panthers at a San Francisco rally had waved Mao's little "Red Book." I visited Roque's apartment and was happy to finally meet his wife, Aida. On one of his visits to our hotel, he saw a copy of a San Francisco alternative newspaper, "The San Francisco Good Times" with its flamboyant graphics and high spirits. The only words in it he could readily understand were the headlines: Los Siete De La Raza." "Who are they?" he asked. "They are a group of Salvadoran immigrant youth, who are accused of killing a San Francisco policeman. Their defense has become a rallying point for organizing the Latino barrio, in the way the Black Panthers have done in nearby Oakland and the Young Lords in New York City. "When you go home," he said, "you work with them." I promised I would, and I did. That is how I became a poet. Returning to San Francisco, I continued to worry about Roque. Our conversations replayed in my head. Emboldened by having written the video play, I wrote a poem about my concern for his safety and his life, The editors of the "Good Times" splashed it on the front page, and it was published as "To R. Before leaving to Fight in Unknown Terrain." Thus I became a poet. To R. Before Going to Fight in Unknown Terrain 1969 Mass media I adore you. Women die too. I stand by a puddle in Havana When I contacted the Los Siete de La Raza Defense Committee in San Francisco, they dismissed me as an "artist type." They sent me to work with Roberto Vargas, a Nicaraguan born poet living in the Mission District, San Francisco's barrio. "Roberto Vargas has a crazy idea about organizing a fundraising poetry reading." Scribbling poems on café napkins and backs of envelopes, I was by now, obsessed with words. But, I had never participated in a poetry reading, though I had heard many Cuban poets like Pablo Armando Fernandez and Nicolas Guillen read in Havana. I'd even heard the great Welsh poet Dylan Thomas, when I was a teenager in New York City. In San Francisco, in the 60's, I'd listened to Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Michael McClure, and Alan Ginzburg read, as well as the Soviet poet, Yevtechenko. Roberto invited me to participate in the poetry reading, and I read my poem to Roque. Writing poems and reading in community poetry readings became a vital part of my life. I met the other poets and joined Editorial Pocho Che, a Latino poetry publishing collective, that used stapled mimeographed or Xerox, or any means necessary, to publish broadsides and booklets. I reported regularly on the "Los Siete" trials for the San Francisco Good times. When I returned to Havana in 1974 with my daughter Valerie, now 16, we met Roque Jr. by chance, the first night at the hotel. He told me that his father was in Viet Nam and was expected back in May. That May, Roque jr. came to our new house by the Havana Zoo to deliver a letter for me from Roque Sr. and perhaps in hopes of finding Valerie. Roque's handwritten letter said that he was a war correspondent in Vietnam and told of the perils of warfare in a very humorous way. He included his funny little cartoon drawing. It reminded me of one I had received from a friend, in my teens, who had been forced into the navy during the Korean/US war. A few days after I received the letter from Korea, my friend's parents phoned to tell me he had been killed. Roque's letter reassured me he would see me soon in Havana. What I did not know then was that Roque was not in Viet Nam as a war correspondent, but rather was in El Salvador as a guerrilla fighter, as a murdered guerrilla fighter. I looked forward to seeing him, but he was already dead when I read the letter, written months earlier. We left Havana in the fall of 1975. Soon after, in San Francisco, I read of his death in the international edition of the Cuban newspaper, "Gramna". Though deeply grieved, I took the article as a signal to honor Roque's name, so that the infamous CIA threat of smearing him would not happen. I told my friends, Daniel del Solar, and Alejandro Murguia, who had been co-editing the new bi-lingual literary magazine "Tin Tan" published by Editorial Pocho Che in San Francisco. We created a flyer and poster, which included the Gramna obituary. Countless community people helped to post it on every corner of the Mission district. Of special help were the Sandinistas who by then had their newspaper, La Gaceta Sandinista, headquarters on 22nd and Valencia Streets. We dedicated community events to Roque's memory and created a small insert about him for our magazine A few years later, Alejandro Murguia and other San Francisco poets, like Jack Hirschman formed the Roque Dalton Cultural Brigade. Today, over thirty years after his death, we still do not know the whole story of his death.. I join with his family, friends, and supporters in asking for the daylighting of the terrible and treacherous truth about horrible events leading to his murder by some of his fellow comrades in arms. I hope that day comes in my life time. Roque was a great friend, co-worker, father, and renown writer and poet. I still miss him. This month The Nation magazine ran a piece attacking Hugo Chavez by Joaquin Villalobos, the assassin of Rogue Dalton. Click here to read San Francisco poet laureat Jack Hirschman's response. Nina Serrano lives in San Francisco. Copyright Nina Serrano 2007 Please do not republish (paper
or electronic media) without permission of the author. Thank
you.
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CounterPunch Books of the Crossroads: HOW THE IRISH INVENTED SLANG By Daniel Cassidy  Click Here to Buy! How the Press Failed The Gang's All Here: Judy Miller, Bob Woodward, Rupert Murdoch, Bill O'Reilly...End Times Leaves No Reputation Unstained!  Buy End Times Now! CounterPunch Books! Saul Landau's Bush and Botox World with a Foreword by Gore Vidal  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           The Occupation by Patrick Cockburn   Humanitarian Imperialism By Jean Bricmont               CITY BEAUTIFUL By Tennessee Reed        Bruce Springsteen On Tour By Dave Marsh                   |
