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October
4, 2001
Robin Blackburn
Road
to Armageddon
Noam
Chomsky
Chatting
with Chomsky
Tony
Blair
The
Dossier on bin Laden
Norman
Madarasz
Canada
Kow-Tows to US
Lorenzo Ervin
No Palestinian
Ever
Called Me Nigger
October
3, 2001
Peter Bell
Hitchens
and Coulter:
Love at Last?
Patrick
Cockburn
Waiting
Is the Hardest Part
Jeff
Chang
Clear
Channel Fires
Davey D!
John Chuckman
War
on Terror:
Crusade Without a Definition
Mahajan/Jensen
Tough
Talk Won't Solve
Problems of Terrorism
Ariel
Dorfman:
America
the Wounded
Lennie
Brenner
Dr.
Watson in Afghanistan
Steve
Perry:
Ashcroft's
Scare Tactics
October
2, 2001
Patrick
Cockburn:
Inside
an Afghan Hospital
Richard
Manning:
A
Vietnam Vet on Patriotism
St. Clair/Cockburn:
Tarnished
Star,
Tom Ridge in Vietnam
October
1, 2001
Noam
Chomsky:
Memo
to Hitchens
Hizam
Bitar:
Refuting
Michael Kinsley
David Grenier:
The
Good, The Bad,
and the Ugly
Douglas
Valentine:
Homeland
Insecurity
Carl
Estabrook:
Stop Bush's Killing
Mahajan/Jensen:
Food,
Fear and War
Patrick
Cockburn:
Ready
to Strike
Cockburn/St.
Clair:
Things
Could Be Worse
Terry
Allen:
Early
Profit-taking and 9/11
Resources:
100s of Links
About 9/11
CounterPunch:
Complete
Coverage of 9/11 and Its Aftermath
Five
Days That
Shook The World:
Seattle and Beyond
By
Alexander Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
Photos by Allan Sekula
(Click Here to Order from CounterPunch
Online at 20% Off Amazon.com's price!)
INSIDE
EXCLUSIVE
TO
COUNTERPUNCH
SUBSCRIBERS
Published Oct. 3, 2001
8-Page Special
Issue
Aftermath
Diary
Ashcroft's Onslaught
on
Civil Liberties
Ridge Long Groomed
for
Cheney's Job
Those CIA Killing
Bids
Never Stopped
The Not-So-Great
Mayor Giuliani
Crop Duster
Ban
Will Save Lives
Madeleine Albright's
Deadly Legacy
How the Bin
Laden Women
Fled Bel Air
Tom Ridge's
Vietnam
Same as Kerrey's?
A CounterPunch
Journey
to Ramallah
A Word About
God
Nostrodamus
Jam-maker
Search
CounterPunch
Read Whiteout and Find Out
How the CIA's Backing of the Mujahideen Created the World's Most
Robust Heroin Market and Helped to Finance the Rise of the Taliban
and Osama bin Laden
Whiteout:
CIA, Drugs & the
Press
by Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
A Pocket Guide to
Environmental Bad Guys
by James
Ridgeway
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The
Phoenix Program
by Douglas
Valentine
Al
Gore:
A User's Manual
by Cockburn
and St. Clair
Buy
This Explosive
New Book at an
Amazing Discount!
Reviews of Gore:
a User's Manual
New Stories:
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October 11,
2001
Dylan and 9/11
Love, Theft and
Evidence
By David Vest
Let's say you woke up on Sept. 11 and
saw the World Trade Towers collapse on television. Later that
morning, numbed and confused, you tried to get back to normal
life so you went out and bought Love and Theft, the new Bob Dylan
album. You didn't feel much like listening to music, but you
put it on anyway. And soon you were asking yourself:
Did he write these songs this
morning?!? How could he get this album in the stores within moments
after these  things happened?
Maybe you picked up the Village
Voice, where Greg Tate was asking, "What did Dylan know,
and when did he know it?"
Man, he knew it before we were
born.
"Things are breaking up
out there," he sings. Unbelievable. But you better believe
it.
"My Captain, he's decorated.
He's well-school, and he's skilled," he sings. "He's
not sentimental. Doesn't bother him at all, how many of his pals
have been killed."
Incredible. He released an
album about what's going on today, and somehow he did it today.
But you'd have felt the same
way, wouldn't you, had he released it on July 5, or August 9
-- or March 12, 2012.
This record will sound prophetic
a hundred years from now. That's what prophets are all about.
It's not that they predict what will happen tomorrow. Anyone
can claim to do that. It's that they show you what's coming down
right now.
"One day, you'll open
up your eyes, and you'll see where we are," he sings.
You will, too. Might even be
today.
And who's that singing "meet
me in the moonlight, alone"? Is it Dylan? Is it some gentleman
in a dustcoat (whose voice is dry and faint as in a dream)? Is
it Death who kindly stops his carriage? Satan your Adversary?
Tiny Tim? Bin Laden? Zorro?
"I know when the time
is right to strike," he sings.
Something's happening here,
and you still don't know what it is.
But you know one thing: Shakespeare
is our co-pilot. And Charley Patton. And Spencer Tracy, too.
"I been in trouble ever
since I set my suitcase down," he sings. It's a bad day
in Black Rock, and you've stayed in Mississippi a day too long,
and it's your turn to cry awhile.
It's not that he turns out
some new phrases that instantly enter the language like they
owned it. It's more that he shows you what's been there all the
time, if you could only hear it.
High water everywhere. And
poison wine, and sugar-coated rhyme.
"The game's the same,
it's just up on another level," he sings. And you know there's
no one else on this level, no one at all. You hear that voice
and you know that any other voice would be utterly humbled by
these songs. Who else is going to sing them? Who else could have
built up all that tension in those guitars and never released
it, never spilled it, never let it dissipate?
And who but Dylan could have
released a masterpiece on September 11, of all days?
"I can see what everybody
in the world is up against," he sings, but not like a man
boasting, no, not at all.
Besides, you have the evidence.
CP
David Vest is a writer, poet and piano player
for the Cannonballs. A native of Alabama, he now lives in Portland,
Oregon. Visit his webpage for samples of the Cannonballs' brand
of take no prisoners rock & roll and other Vest columns:
http://www.mindspring.com/~dcqv
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