Today's Stories

July 12 / 13, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Lock and Load--It's the Law!

Nicole Colson
The Ethanol Scam

Stan Cox
Fixing a Broken Agriculture

Ismael Hossein-Zadeh
Is There an Oil Shortage?

Wajahat Ali /
Omid Safi
The Future of Iran: an Interview with Iranian Nobel Laureate Shirin Ebadi

John Stauber
There May be a Left, But is it Moving? An Interview with David Sirota

Alan Farago
The Crash of the King of Liquidity

Missy Beattie
Dark Neighborhoods

Robert Fantina
Bush's Last Yes Man: Canada, Guantanamo and Yankee Poodles

Rannie Amiri
Mubarak Hires the Mosque

Gregory Kafoury
After the Obama Betrayal

Fran Shor
The Audacity of Hype

Martha Rosenberg
Why Heifer International is Rolling in Dung

David Macaray
Will There be an Actors Strike?

Andrew Wimmer
No Lies! No War!

Farzana Versey
The Kashmir Chiaroscuro

Website of the Weekend
Parsing Jesse Ventura

July 11, 2008

Kevin Alexander Gray
Why Does Barack Obama Hate My Family?

Sasan Fayazmanesh
Historical Amnesia and the Shoot Down of Iran Air Flight 655

Peter Morici
Breaking Down the Trade Deficit

Mike Whitney
Worse Than McCain?

Manuel Garcia, Jr.
Oiling the War Machine

Robert Weissman
Crime, Punishment and ExxonMobil

Ramzy Baroud
The Not-So-Historic Barak-Talabani Handshake

Kelly Overton
If There is a Chimp Heaven

Adrian Burgos
In Praise of Jules Tygiel

Website of the Day
Wendell Berry on Mountaintop Removal

July 10, 2008

Brian McKenna
McCain's Melanoma Cover-Up

Paul Craig Roberts
Watching Greed Murder the Economy

Saul Landau
Mississippi River Blues

Ron Jacobs
Who Will Leave Iraq First?

Joshua Frank
Cutting Deals with Big Timber's Darth Vader

Peter Morici
What's Driving the Wall Street Rout

Alan Maass
Jesse Helms Finally Does the Right Thing

Robert Weissman
Humanitarian Failure at the G8

William Blum
Dr. Strangelove

Alan Farago
Coral Reef Meltdown

Website of the Day
Lieberman Must Go!

July 9, 2008

Ismael Hossein-Zadeh
Are They Really Oil Wars?

Luis Rodriguez
The Deadly Fallout from Gang Injunctions

Sheldon Richman
What's Wrong with Selling Your Vote?

Fatemeh Keshavarz
Lessons from Sa'di of Shiraz on "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques"

Chad Hanson
Blowing Smoke: Logging Industry Lies on Forest Fires and Climate Change

Sen. Russ Feingold
The Problems with the FISA Bill

Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Defining Deviancy Down with FISA

Dave Lindorff
Paul Krugman's Blind Spot

Stanley Heller
A Damned Good Assembly

Philip Rizk
Sick at the Gaza Crossing

Website of the Day
Mumia on Nader

July 8, 2008

Nikolas Kozloff
Riding the Colombia Gravy Train

Laura Carlsen
North America Doesn't Exist: the New Geography of Trade

Mike Whitney
Bush's Rampage in Somalia

Andy Worthington
Scandal at Diego Garcia

Patrick Irelan
The Empire Goes to the Movies

Chellis Glendinning
The Un-tied States of America

David Macaray
A Union Story

Dave Lindorff
Mumia's Long-Shot Appeal

John Chuckman
The Myths of Independence Day

Phillip Doe
FISA and the Decline of America

Website of the Day
Daniel Ellsberg on Warrantless Wiretap Bill

July 7, 2008

Patrick Bond
Can Reparations for Apartheid Profits be Won in US Courts?

Kathy Kelly
Cold Shoulders

Andy Worthington
Repatriation as Russian Roulette

Clifton Ross
A Rescue Staged for the Screen

Elizabeth Schulte
Obama's War Room

Ralph Nader
The Patriotism of Deeds

Dave Lindorff
Keeping Count

Binoy Kampmark
The World According to Jesse Helms

Stephen Fleischman
Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Change

Website of the Day
Time for a Change

July 5 / 6, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Could Anyone be "Worse" Than Bush?

Jeffrey St. Clair /
Joshua Frank
Preliminary Notes from No Man's Land

Patrick Cockburn
Blowback from a Strike on Iran

Mike Whitney
Hunkering Down in Afghanistan with Field Marshall Obama

Robert Fantina
Obama, Iraq and Change

Binoy Kampmark
The Anwar Case: Snitching and Sodomizing

Rannie Amiri
Can Nasrallah Unite Lebanon?

Eric Ruder
Hidden Casualties

Brian Cloughley
Israel Flexes Its Muscles

William Blum
Some Thoughts on Patriotism

Frank Barat
The One-Word Solution

Christopher Brauchli
Bush's Phony Pollution Accounting

David Yearsley
Rubbert Shines, as US Envoy Puts Foot in His Mouth

Ron Jacobs
U.S. Blues

Karim Makdisi
On Soccer and Politics in Lebanon

Wendy Thompson /
Chris Kutalik
What Can We Learn from the American Axle Strike?

N.D. Jayaprakash
The NPT as a Roadblock to Disarmament

Ramzy Baroud
Journalistic Imperatives

Kelly Overton
Animal Rights and Obama

Richard Neville
Bitch Fights and Tomorrow's Top Model

Poets' Basement
Anderson, Gibbons, Matson and Buknatski

Website of the Weekend
Ginsberg and Cassady on "Extremists"

July 4, 2008

Kathy Kelly
Istiklal

Dave Lindorff
My War Story

Paul Krassner
Confessions of a Barista

Jackie Corr
In the Footsteps of Evel Knievel: Obama Heads Back to Butte

Laray Polk
Military-Industrial Convergence

Dan Bacher
Dead Runs: Salmon Fishing Banned in Central Valley Rivers

Walter Brasch
The Rocket's Red Glare--May be Chinese

Charles Modiano
Hall of Fame Hypocrisy

Website of the Day
Springsteen: Independence Day

July 3, 2008

Sharon Smith
Exxon's Legal Guardians

Andy Worthington
Another Torture Victim Gets Charged

Laura Carlsen
NAFTA and the Elephant in the Room

Peter Morici
Crisis Grips the Jobs Market

Ramzi Kysia
Breaking Into a Prison

Martha Rosenberg
Mandatory School Milk and the Early Death of Football Players

Anne Landman
Who Really Benefits From Voluntary Codes of Corporate Conduct?

Dave Zirin
Grand Theft Hoops

Kristin Bricker
US Contractor Leads Torture Training in Mexico

Website of the Day
Bush Tours America to Survey Damage from His Presidency

July 2, 2008

Patrick Irelan
Holy Obama

Vijay Prashad
Lunch with Karzai

Brian Cloughley
Sense of Honor, French and US Style

Ralph Nader
Economic Domino Theory

Robert Fantina
General Stupidity: McCain, Obama and Clark

Dave Lindorff
What's So Special About Veterans?

Parvez Ahmed
Obama and Those Pesky Muslim Rumors

Robert Bryce
The Democrats and Off-Shore Drilling

Website of the Day
King Corn: Q&A

July 1, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Two Months Later, Seymour Hersh Strains to Catch Up With CounterPunch

Mike Whitney
Getting to the Heart of America's Economic Crisis: an Interview with Michael Hudson

Douglas Macgregor
Obama's General?

Steven Higgs
Fighting the NAFTA Super-Highway

Andy Worthington
Guantánamo as Alice in Wonderland

Binoy Kampmark
The Global Seed Police

Dave Lindorff
Blood Money Democrats

Roger Burbach
Fighting Food Fascism

Richard W. Behan
The Story Behind George Bush's Lies

Gary Leupp
The McCain Edge Among Voters on Iraq

Website of the Day
Mountaintop Removal and the Fight for Coalfield Justice

June 30, 2008

Peter Lee
Did a Plutonium Generator End Up in the Ganges?

Jeff Sommers
Burying the Bloody Shirt; A New Age for Latvia Dawns? "Astatu Loskutovu!"

David Macaray
The AFL-CIO Votes to Endorse Obama

Martha Rosenberg
Sex Work is Different from Sex Slavery, aver Carnal Toilers

David Price
Blind Whistling Phreaks and the FBI's Historical Reliance on Phone Tap Criminality

Alexandra Early
Report from El Salvador: Why They All Keep Coming

June 28 / 29, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Guess What "Surprise" Republicans Yearn For

Jeffrey St. Clair
Nike's Bad Air

Joan P. Mencher
The Human Right to Eat

Nikolas Kozloff
Nader, Obama and White Talk

Jason Hribal
Tillie, Elephants and the Zoo

Alan Maass
Obama Swerves Right

Robert Fantina
Iraq and the New York Times

Bill Moyers /
Michael Winship
It Was Oil, All Along

Mike Whitney
A Glimmer of Light in Television Wasteland

Justin E. H. Smith
Collective Guilt and the Fate of Kosovo

Pham Binh
The Mendacity of Hope

David Yearsley
The Rest is Noise

Christopher Ketcham
19 Aphorisms

Jeremy R. Hammond
Bush and the Press vs. the Constitution

Kathleen M. Barry
An Open Letter to Barney Frank on Israel

Walter Brasch
Politics and Animal Cruelty in Pennsylvania

Brett Drugge
A Field Trip to the Reagan Library

Susie Day
Sex Sans the City

Website of the Day
How to Expose a Hypocritcal Politician

June 27, 2008

Franklin C. Spinney
The Defense Reform Trap

Jonathan Cook
Israel's Encaging of Gaza

Brian Cloughley
Chaos in Afghanistan

Saree Makdisi
Occupation by Bureaucracy

Liliana Segura
Reactionary Change: Obama and the Death Penalty

Paul Krassner
Remembering George Carlin

William S. Lind
The War and the Yellow Press

Candace Cohn
Embracing Big Brother

Ron Jacobs
What's a Voter to Do?

Binoy Kampmark
Beached in Chile

Website of the Day
Zoom Uganda

June 26, 2008

Patrick Cockburn
Who's Actually Winning in Iraq?

Nikolas Kozloff
Kinder and Gentler Assassination Techniques? Obama Waffles on School of the Americas

William P. O'Connor
The Drone of Experts

Saul Landau
McClellan's Mini Mea Culpa

Ashley Smith
Which Way Forward for the Antiwar Movement?

Dave Lindorff
Our Kids and Their Kids: Terrorists or Victims?

David Macaray
A Brief History of Union Negotiations

Binoy Kampmark
Warming Seats at the Hague: John Howard and War Crimes

Matt Reichel
There's No Hope at the Ballot Box

Remi Kenazi
You Don't Mess With the Racism!

Website of the Day
A Movement Afoot in the Heartlands

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Weekend Edition
July 12 / 13, 2008

Victor Jara (1932-1973)
BY CAROLYNE L. WRIGHT

"Son años pasados, presentes en mí,
Era ya en Santiago, y te conocí. . ."
--Isabel Parra

So I'm here again, five feet away
from you, on the makeshift stage
of the Peña de los Parra,
and you're singing The Right to Live
in Peace, still in your actor's
leather jacket, embracing your shadow
in the guitar, the darkened room
taking its shape around you.
You tell us of Camilo Torres
and of Amanda--the young woman
who ran through your town's wet streets
to meet her lover, and found him
gunned down at the factory gate.

What do you think of us, students
hunching forward to listen
in the smoky light, glasses
of vino tinto beside us, the room
deep and wine-colored, Allende's photo
behind you on the wall?
We follow your lead,
singing the chorusses over and over.
We stand when you do, chanting
Otra! Otra! till you play another,
the fields of Chile in your voice,
your guitar speaking its human song.

I never talk to you then.
I'm shy as rain in your country,
the language too much yours.
You stand between sets
in the crowded patio, one
among many, those who sing
La Nueva Canción. You're not even
one of my favorites.

Did you know then that shadows
would swallow the back galleries
like memories no one could get used to?
That you'd sleep in shifts
those last days, taking your turns
at the locked gate, the shortwave
radio crackling with surveillance?

You'd refuse the last chance
to destroy the tapes, your songs
filled with those who did
what they had to, lined up against walls
of the Estadio Nacional.
How could you believe it
when the time came, and your voice
grew too big for the cell
where they broke your hands
because they couldn't make you stop?

Once again it's September,
and I sit in this small kitchen
listening to Isabel Parra sing
Como una historia, her lament
for your death. Her voice breaks
in the tape, telling the names
that make nothing easier, our words
that cannot reach you, foghorns
sounding all night on the river
like a story from someone else's life.

(Originally published in "Poetry, " © The Modern Poetry Association)
Reprinted in "Seasons of Mangoes and Brainfire," Lynx House Press, 2000.

CAROLYNE WRIGHT has published eight books and chapbooks of poetry, a collection of essays, and three volumes of poetry translated from Bengali and Spanish. A graduate of Seattle University’s Humanities Honors Program with masters and doctorate in English and Creative Writing from Syracuse University, Wright has received awards from the Poetry Society of America, Seattle Arts Commission, and the New York State Council on the Arts. Wright currently serves on the faculty of the Whidbey Writers Workshop MFA Program.

Leviathan, Loosed on the World
BY RICH FLEMING

leviathan, loosed on the world.
not all of it, neccesarily.
chunks at a time.
mesopotamia.
used to be iraq, before the attack.
neverending? sending missiles, armor and troops,
rending reality, history--memory?
constucting its lair, layer upon layer,
base after base.
who/what will stop it or even alter its pace?
stand up, stand down, stand back, about face.
control's a defect,
built into the breed
a myriad of minds that need to be freed
 myriad paths, none guaranteed.
suit up, saddle up, goodluck, godspeed.

RICH FLEMING, aspiring counterpoet, wannabe bassist, scion of the sixties with three kids and three grandkids(so far), lives in Fort Myers Beach, Florida and can be reached at dic4rock@yahoo.com.

  
The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight:
The Early Years
BY K.H. SOLOMON

Area aiming is not acceptable. 
Your gun must be “sighted in.”
There are many situations
that require a precise shot.
— Texas Gun & Surplus Magazine

Sighting in a gun aligns
sights to barrel so bullets
strike where the shooter aims: 
mount the gun solidly in a rest; 
fire at the target;  adjust sights
so shooter’s eye looks
to bullet’s strike.

-------------

Back in the day, young George
chanced upon this intel
as he was perfecting his
later-to-become legendary
study skills.  Voraciously he
skimmed over instructions
for sighting in and set out
for the gun range.

--------------

There,
he fixed his gun
firmly in the rest,
squeezed off a shot,
and carefully noted
where his bullet
struck the target.
----------
Then,
certain of his strategy
— as he was to remain,
even into his later years —
he commanded
the range attendant adjust
the target
till the bullet’s mark
matched the vision
in his sights.

K.H. Solomon is a retired agricultural engineer, whose career specialized in water management.  He published poems in Art/Life, English Journal, and ZYZZYVA. K.H. lives in Morro Bay, California and can be reached at khsolomon@charter.net.

Flower Power
BY JANE BIRNBAUM

Today, the Ides of March, the first daffodils bloom.
I buy eight closed ones, and hope they will open.
In a blue bowl I threw myself, I put five cheerful lemons.
For once, I do not feel green, the liverish color of anger,
But yellow. Even though I do not have a husband,
I feel the yellow of marital love and hope for the best.

--------------

Hope is all we have left, even though the powers
That be have trademarked it now. 
If I couldn’t laugh, I would cry for the suffering.
“Hope is a molecule,” John used to say.
I never understood what he meant by that.
But I comprehend yellow, and the power of flowers.

JANE BIRNBAUM is a financial journalist and an old hippie from Bethesda, Maryland. She can be reached at jbirnbaum@earthlink.net.

Editorial Note: Submit your poems as a word document to CounterPunch's poetry editor, Kimberly Willson at: willsons53@gmail.com

To be considered for Saturday's Poetry Basement, please send your poems by Wednesday of that week and please include a short bio.

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