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Special Report (for Adults Only) on the Politics of Oil by Jeffrey St. Clair in the New Print Edition of CounterPunch!

Kerry and the Oil Men: "Drill Everywhere Like Never Before"; Bush's Oil Cabinet: 27 Political Appointees from Big Oil; Getting Paid for Plunder: the Profitable Life of Steve Griles; The Race for the Arctic: How Clinton Opened the Gate; Enron's Political Partners: Bush Gave Ken Lay His Nickname and Teresa Heinz Gave Him a Seat on Her Green Foundation's Board; Kerry's Energy Guru: How He Screwed California and Oregon. CounterPunch Online is read by millions of viewers each month! But remember, we are funded solely by the subscribers to the print edition of CounterPunch. Please support this website by buying a subscription to our newsletter, which contains fresh material you won't find anywhere else, or by making a donation for the online edition. Remember contributions are tax-deductible. Click here to make a (tax deductible) donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now!

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Today's Stories

October 9 / 10, 2004

Alexander Cockburn
"There Are No Innocents"

October 8, 2004

Jennifer Loewenstein
The Israeli Invasion of Gaza

Moshe Adler
Edwards' Gambit: He Hoped No One Would Notice the Similarities

David Swanson
Media Blackout: Press Continues to Ignore Labor's Opposition to Iraq War

Dave Zirin
CounterPunch Contest: Let's Name the New DC Baseball Team!

Rep. Ron Paul
The Draft is a Form of Slavery

William S. Lind
Keeping Our SA Up

Samar Assad
Kerry v. Bush: No Difference When It Comes to Israel / Palestine

Jim Ingalls and Sonali Kolhatkar
The Elections in Afghanistan

 

October 7, 2004

Dave Lindorff
All Out of Volunteers: A Draft is in the Air

Masha Hamilton
Fear in Kandahar

Christopher Brauchli
Master of Corruption: the Ripening Scandals of Tom Delay

Jason Leopold
Is There Still Time to Impeach Bush?

Bruce K. Gagnon
Bombing the Panhandle: Fighting the Pentagon in Rural Florida

Meredith Kolodner
Where is the Urgency?: The Anti-War Movement's Election Year Challenge

October 6, 2004

Jeffrey St. Clair
"Please, Dude, Can I Take Them Out?": Targeting Civilians in Fallujah

Ron Jacobs
Going Nuclear: the Ghost of Edward Teller Lives

Michael Colby
The National Flip-Flop: Suddenly Bush is Unfit to Lead?

Tarif Abboushi
More of the Same: Israel Wins the Debates

Matthew Behrens
Canadian Firms Profit from Iraqi Blood

Mike Whitney
Rethinking WMDs

John Pilger
Stealing Diego Garcia

Ben Tripp
Kerry's "Triumph"

Kevin McKiernan
Cheney's Poison Lab: Wrong Time, Wrong Target

Patrick Cockburn
Elections Will Not End the Fighting in Iraq

Website of the Day
Is There an Islamic Problem?

October 5, 2004

Anthony Loewenstein
Rupert Murdoch and the Marginals: "Personally Creating Outcomes"

Mark Clinton and Tony Udell
The Suicide of an Iraq War Veteran

Greg Bates
Trading Idiots: an Open Letter to Eric Alterman

Dave Lindorff
What's the Frequency, Karl?

Norm Dixon
Why Washington Won't Save Darfur Villagers

Larry Kearney
God Talk and Burning Children

Bill Linville
Dirty Politics in the Land of "Clean" Government

Gary Leupp
What Edwards Should Ask Cheney

Website of the Day
A Guide to Halliburton for Tonight's Debate

 

 

October 4, 2004

Diane Christian
The Gates of Hell

Joshua Frank
An Interview with David Cobb

Doug Giebel
Incurious George: What If Bush Didn't Lie?

John Chuckman
Strange Victory: Sen. Obvious and the Pathetic Lump

Ramzy Baroud
Reverse the Picture: Anatomy of a Palestinian Outrage

Julia Stein
Remembering Mario Savio and the FSM

Sean Donahue
Outsourcing Terror: Kerry and Special Forces

Website of the Day
Mapping Mt. St. Helens as She Rocks

 

October 2 / 3. 2004

Paul Wright
John Kerry on Criminal Justice

Kathleen and Bill Christison
An Exchange with Israeli Historian Bennie Morris

Kathie Helmkamp
My Son Trent: a Marine Who Doesn't Want to Kill

Phillip Cryan
Indigenous Mobilization in Colombia

Lenni Brenner
The First Ex-Catholic Saint: Memories of Mario Savio

Fred Gardner
Pot Shots: In Case You Missed "Montel"

Ron Jacobs
It Did Happen Here: When Neo-Nazis Terrorized Olympia

Ben Tripp
Sticker Shock

William S. Lind
The Grand Illusion: Iraqi Security Forces

Dave Zirin
The Swindle of the Century: Baseball Comes to DC

Dave Lindorff
Lies from the Great Debate

Luscon Pierre-Charles
Haiti's Elections: a High-Tech Sham is Underway

Zoe Moskovitz & Sasha Kramer
Separating Lies from Truth About Haiti

Nelson P. Valdes
Habana Night vs. Latin American Scholars in Vegas: 61 Banned Cuban Academics

Alan Farago
The "Ownership Society" and the End of the Everglades

Nancy Haley
What is the Historical Jesus Trying to Tell Us?

Alex Billet
Long Live The Clash: London Still Calling After 25 Years

Steve Fesenmaier
Save and Burn: The War on Libraries

Poets' Basement
Smith, Holt, Albert

 

October 1, 2004

Steve Breyman
Kerry's Missed Opportunities

Rose Gentle
My Son Died for a Lie

Lee Sustar
Iran in the Crosshairs

Ralph Nader
What We Didn't Hear at the Debate: Where's the Exit Strategy?

Walter Andrews
We Are Less Secure Now Than Ever

Mike Whitney
Pandora's Government

Mickey Z.
Debate This

Saul Landau
The Iraq Invasion: Lessons from the Pinochet Cases

 

September 30, 2004

Ralph Nader
10 Ways to Beat Bush: a Gift to the Kerry/Edwards Campaign

Patrick Cockburn
The Kidnap Capital of the World: Iraq's One Growth Industry

Gideon Levy
When You Have Breast Cancer in Gaza

Joshua Frank
Presidential Debates? Pass the Remote

Niranjan Ramakrishnan
I Dreamed They Had a Debate

Ali Khan
Dershowitz's Jihad: Inventing Exceptions to International Law

Steve Perry
An Interview with Sibel Edmonds

 

September 29, 2004

Behrooz Ghamari
Playing Politics with Nukes: A Collision Course with Iran?

Ray McGovern
More Troops to Iraq...After the Election

Walter Brasch
Tinseltown Traitors?: Applauding Only the Right Entertainers

Chris Floyd
The Deceivers: Chronicle of a Quagmire Foretold

Stacey Reynolds
The Story of a Mercury-Poisoned American

M. Junaid Alam
Disrupting America's Fateful Non-Debate on the Roots of Terrorism

John L. Hess
They've Already Called It

Paul Craig Roberts
Delusion Rules: War, Outsourcing an Debt

 


September 28, 2004

Mike Whitney
Kerry's Moral Compass

Fred Gardner
Pot Shots: the Civics Teacher

Dan Meek
How Democrats Kicked Nader Off the Oregon Ballot

Greg Bates
Choking on Progressives for Kerry

Alan Farago
Jeanne in Haiti: Where is the World?

Lori Berenson
The Cajamarca Protest

Wayne Madsen
Where is the Florida National Guard?

Robert Fisk
Why Have We Suddenly Forgotten Abu Ghraib?

 

 

September 27, 2004

Gary Leupp
The Expulsion of Cat Stevens

Patrick Cockburn
As British Muslims Plead for Bigley's Life, US Airstrikes Pound Fallujah

Sam Husseini
The Problem with Public Opinion Polls

Lee Sustar
Putting Bosses First: Latter Day Democrats and Labor

Dave Lindorff
A Progressive Case for (Gag) Kerry?

Norman Madarasz
Talking International: Contra Kerry

Kevin Pina
The Tragedy of Gonaives, Haiti

 

September 25 / 26, 2004

Alexander Cockburn
C'mon Ralph, You've Got Nothing to Lose

Dave Zirin
The Courage of the NBA's Etan Thomas: "I Am Totally Against This War"

Saul Landau
The Reality of Empire and Campaign Rhetoric

Dave Lindorff
Our Heroic Baby-Killers

Brian J. Foley
Bush at the UN: the Sound of No Hands Clapping

William Blum
Progressives and the Election

Alan Maass
Why is Kerry Running Such a Lame Campaign? You Can't Blame It All on Bob Shrum

Lucson Pierre-Charles
Haiti: Another Lost Story

Solange Echeverria
An Interview with Kevin Pina on the Floods in Haiti

Nicole Colson
What About the Supreme Court?

Justin Smith
The New Sparta

Joshua Frank
Iraq: From Clinton to Bush

Karyn Strickler
Momma, Don't Let Your Babides Grow Up to be Cannon Fodder

Michael Donnelly
Rather Disingenuous: "Remember in November"

Greg Bates
The Politics of Nader's Republican Support

Todd Chretien
Lesser Evilism: We Are Living in the Logical Conclusion

William Loren Katz
Dire Warnings from the Past: From Wilson to Bush

Omar Barghouti
Americans, You've Lost Your Alibi!

Poets' Basement
Holt, Clarke, Albert, Laymon and Ford

Website of the Weekend
Carnival of Chaos

 

September 24, 2004

Dr. Teresa Whitehurst
The Value of One Life: Keeping Up Appearances and Leaving Hostages to the Wolves

William S. Lind
Destroying the National Guard

Mike Whitney
The Bush Tent Show

Nancy Welch
What's at Stake for Women in 2004?

Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Logical Limbo

Joshua Frank
Fear Mongering 101

Victor Kattan
An Interview with Afif Safieh

Ben Terrall
Kerry and Haiti: Will He Stand Up?

Kathleen and Bill Christison
"Finally It Broke My Heart": Random Impressions from Palestine

 

 

September 23, 2004

Patrick Cockburn
Why Are They Still Holding "Mrs. Anthrax?"

Christopher Brauchli
Ashcroft's "Distressing Lack of Care": Hamdi and the Phony War on Terrorism

Derek Seidman
Fighting for a Union at Starbucks: an Interview with Daniel Gross

Michael Neumann
Three Years and Counting? How Time Flies

 

September 22, 2004

Patrick Cockburn
Zarqawi's War: the Mysterious Sadist from Jordan

Neve Gordon
The Wall, the Court and Sharon

Joshua Frank
History Repeating: New York, 1832 and Now

Ron Jacobs
Stormy Seas on the Citizen Ship

Jack Random
Defending Dan? Rather Not

Tarif Abboushi
Kerry's Final Straw: Confessions of a Despairing Voter

Mickey Z
Stupid White Guy Quiz

John L. Hess
Faking the Difference: a Serious Debate?

Jeffrey St. Clair
High Plains Grifter: The House Rules

 

 

September 21, 2004

Gary Leupp
"We Are Not Secure": Kerry's "Unwavering Commitment" to Securing a Middle East Realm

Robert Jensen
Large Dams in India: Temples or Burial Grounds?

Elaine Cassel
Fourth Circuit to Moussouai: Ask Your Questions; Prepare to Die

Stanley Heller
Reagan and the Killing Fields of Lebanon

Adam Federman
America Will Disappoint the World, Again

David Whitehouse
What's Behind the Horror in Darfur?

M. Junaid Alam
How to Avoid Becoming an Anti-American

Paul Craig Roberts
Attention Deficit America

Website of the Day
True American War Heroes: the Iraq Refuseniks

 

 

September 20, 2004

Cockburn / Buncombe
Get Fallujah

David Price
Relying on Phonies: What If The Problem with Phone Polls is That They Are Phone Polls

Dave Lindorff
How Dems Fight: Tigers Against Nader, Pussycats Against Bush

Harry Browne
Pre-Nup at Leeds: Talked Out, But Does IRA Give Up?

Mark Wesibrot
Bush's Ownership Society: No Taxes for Owners, Only Workers

Karyn Strickler
The Keys to the White House v. the Shrum Curse?

Uri Avnery
The Temple Mount Bombers

 

 

 

September 18 / 19, 2004

Alexander Cockburn
Forgeries, Fingerprints and Forensic Fakery

Jeffrey St. Clair
High Plains Grifter: Bush's Mask of Anarchy

Patrick Cockburn
Into the Abyss: the Week Iraq's Dream of Peace Fell Apart

Fred Gardner
Pot Shots: Financial Torture (Asset Forfeiture)

Joe Allen
The Comrades Kerry Abandoned: the Real Story of Vietnam Vets Against the War

George Corsetti
Poletown Revisited: Finally, Some Vindication

Scott Handleman
The Knock-Knock of a Sledgehammer: Sequestered in Nablus

Richard Ward
Two Weeks in Beit Arabiya

Conn Hallinan
Ashcroft and Indonesia

Lori Smith
Health Care in America: And Then I Got Sick...

Dave Zirin
Hold the Booyah!: SportsCenter Out of the Middle East

John L. Hess
Rather Will Take the Heat, As Bush's War Deteriorates

Brian J. Foley
W is for Wimp: So Why do Manly Men Love Him?

Mickey Z.
Pat Tillman and Osama bin Laden: Odd Juxtapositions

Poets' Basement
Vest, Landau & Albert

Website of the Weekend
Eye on the NYTs

 

 

 

Septemeber 17, 2004

Ray McGovern
Gossing Over the Record

Patrick Cockburn
The New Iraqi Economy: Baghdad's Thriving Kidnapping Industry

Lee Sustar
The State of Working America: an Autopsy of the American Dream

Mike Whitney
John Kerry: 195 Lbs. of Political Helium, Not an Ounce of Sincerity

Victor Kattan
Black September

Ray Hanania
Israel's Demographics

Greg Bates
Nader's Victories: a Mid-Campaign Assessment

Website of the Day
The Road to Hell

 

 

September 16, 2004

Landau / Hassen
Meet the New Villain: Syria

Joanne Mariner
Inside Darfur: a Photo Essay

Patrick Cockburn
US Offers Conflicting Accounts of Baghdad Bloodbath

Greg Moses
Four Million Children Might Be News

Joshua Frank
Nader in the Battleground States

Christopher Brauchli
The Bush Drug Lottery Flops

David Himmelstein
Folke Bernadotte: a Rosh Hashonah Remembrance

Website of the Day
The Abu Ghraib Index

 

 

September 15, 2004

Patrick Cockburn
Hell on Haifa Street

Ron Jacobs
Oppose War, Not Just Bush

David Lindorff
Blanking Out Dissent

Joanne Mariner
Talking About Darfur: Is Genocide Just a Word?

Angela Godfrey-Goldstein
An Open Letter to Madonna: Please Don't Support Israeli Apartheid

Dave Zirin
Is the NFL Ready for Us?

Yigal Bronner
"They Are Building Walls Around Us"

 

 

September 14, 2004

Gary Leupp
The Problem of Chechnya

Jennifer van Bergen
What's Wrong with Torture?

Stan Goff
Wake Up and Smell the Jungle Rot

Patrick Cockburn
The Punishment of Fallujah: US Precision Strickes...on Ambulances

Anis Memon
Nader in Michigan

Michael Donnelly
The Nuance Comes Off: Former Naderites Beg for Kerry Votes

Werther
Zell Miller: the Peckerwood Pericles

Website of the Day
Osama Bin Forgotten?

 

 

 

September 13, 2004

Gabriel Kolko
Elections, Alliances and the American Empire

Phillip Cryan
How Do You Say "Death Squad?": Language in Colombia's War

Patrick Cockburn
One of Baghdad's Bloodiest Days: "I'm a Journalist! I'm Dying! I'm Dying"

Noah Leavitt
The War on Civil Liberties

Robert Jensen
Highjacking Catastrophe: Bush, the Neo-Cons and 9/11

Mike Whitney
Alan Greenspan: Fed-Master to the Wealthy

John Chuckman
Stop Talking About the "Election"

Mike Burke
Kerry/Edwards Website Censors Discussion of Israel/Palestine Issues

CounterPunch Wire
The Quotations of David Cobb: "I Don't Care How Many Votes I Get"

Website of the Day
Keep It In Your Pants: the Bush Plan to Combat Teen Promiscuity

 

 

September 11 / 12, 2004

Alexander Cockburn
Swatting at Flies

Fred Gardner
Yet Another Prozac Scandal

Saul Landau
When Our Assassins Go Free

Jennifer Van Bergen
How to Beat Bush: a Simple Strategy for the Average American

Roger Burbach / Jim Tarbell
The Real Dead Enders: Iraq and the Crisis of Empire

Christopher Reed
9/11 in an Historical Context: a Minor Event When Compared to Worldwide War Casualties

Francisc Catalin
An ABC of American Interventions

Carl Estabrook
Big Science and Government Terror

Bernard Chazelle
Anti-Americanism: a Clinical Study

Sharon Smith
Third Party Blues

Dave Lindorff
Perhaps This Time We're the Silent Majority

Mike Whitney
Fallujah: an Iraqi Beslan?

Frederick B. Hudson
Their Sons Perished in the Flames, But Not Their Faith

Mickey Z.
Round Up the Usual Suspects: a Look Back at 9/11

Ron Jacobs
Redneck Music for the New Century

Greg Moses
Soap Opera Moments in Texas School Funding Trial

Benjamin Dangl / Andrew Kennis
An Interview with Leslie Cagan

Poets Basement
Del Papa, Albert, Gelman

 

 

September 10, 2004

Patrick Cockburn
Disappointment at Samarrah?

Michael Donnelly
Democrats v. Democracy

Alan Farago
Mosquitoes in a Hurricane

Doug Giebel
Karl Rove's Terror Playbook

Mike Whitney
Bob Graham's Political Tsunami

David Domke
God's Will, According to the Bush Administration

 

 

 

September 9, 2004

Joe Bageant
Karaoke Night in Bush's America

Ed Kinane
Abducted in Baghdad

Peter Bohmer
The Cuban Revolution: Present and Future

Todd May
The Emerging Case for a Single-State Solution

Jeremy Scahill
The New York Model: Indymedia and the Text Message Jihad

Joshua Frank
Green House Party Gasses

Fran Shor
The Crisis in Public Dissent: When Protest is Considered a Terrorist Act

Patrick Cockburn
Welcome to the Dirtiest City in the World: Despair in Baghdad

Website of the Day
Liberty Street Protest: No to War at Ground Zero

 

September 8, 2004

Patrick Cockburn
This Doesn't Smell Like Victory: A War on Two Fronts in Iraq

Dave Lindorff
Bush Confuses; Kerry Mute: Spinning 1000 Dead

Bulent Gokay
Russian and Chechnia After Beslan

Lisa Viscidi
Land Reform and Conflict in Guatemala

Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Byrd's Eye View

Mike Whitney
Afghanistan: American's Drug Colony

Stan Goff
Body Count: 1001

Website of the Day
Bush and the Love Doctors

 

 

September 7, 2004

Diane Christian
Hostage Tactics: a Game of Mortal Poker

Joshua Frank
Greens Unravel from Within

Patrick Cockburn
Fallujah Erupts Again: US Death Toll in Iraq Nears 1000

Ron Jacobs
Bush and Putin: "We're Not Girlie Men"

Chris Floyd
Cry Havoc: Bush's Own Personal Janjaweed

Dr. Carol Wolman
No Blood for Oil at Paul Bunyan Day Parade

John Ross
The Politics of Darkness North / South

 

 

September 6, 2004

Alexander Cockburn
An Anti-Labor Day That Lives in Infamy: How Many Democrats Voted For Taft-Hartley?

Ralph Nader
The Cruel Legacy of Taft-Hartley: a Labor Day Call for Rights for Working People

Lee Sustar
What's Driving the Attack on Pensions?

Kathleen and Bill Christison
Dual Loyalties: the Bush Necons and Israel

 

 

September 4-5, 2004

Alexander Cockburn
Elephants and Gramsci

Ted Honderich
The Way Things Are

Sasan Fayazmanesh
The Holy Empire: Who We Are and What We Do

Douglas Valentine
What the World Should Know About Guantanamo

Patrick Cockburn
New Iraqi Police State Flexes Its Muscles

Gary Leupp
Neo Cons Under Fire

Fred Gardner
Pot Shots: the Hempstead T-Shirt

William A. Cook
The Day of the Lemming

Dave Zirin
Kobe Bryant and the Price of Freedom

John Chuckman
The Day the World Ended

Karyn Strickler
God Save the Endangered Species Act

Vanessa Jones
Bad Day with an Ikea Cup

Mike Whitney
Kerry: the "Better" War Candidate

Mark Donham
Dear John (Kerry): Start Explaining and Fast

Mickey Z.
McBypass Nation: Feeling Clinton's Pain

Alan Farago
Can the Everglades be Fixed?

Poets' Basement
Landau and Albert

 

 

September 3, 2004

Jeffrey St. Clair
High Plains Grifter: Jesus Told Him Where to Bomb

Rahul Mahajan
Bush's RNC Speech: an Annotated Response

Carl Estabrook
The Book of Slaughter and Forgetting

Joshua Frank
The Florida of the Northwest: Oregon Dems Sabotage Nader Again

Gary Leupp
Music to My Ears: Sunday's March

James Hollander
Deja Vu in Manhattan: Assisted Political Suicide?

Mark Engler
Republicans Among Us: a Week at the RNC, Inside and Out

Jesse Sharkey
Making Students and Teachers Pay for the Crisis in Education

Jane Stillwater
Calling the Cops on Your Own Kid

Stephen Green
Serving Two Flags: the Bush Neo-Cons and Israel

 

 

September 2, 2004

Jeffrey St. Clair
High Plains Grifter: Part 3: More Pricks Than Kicks

Max Gimble
Et Tu, Menchu? Extrajudicial Killings and Clandestine Graves in Guatemala

James Petras
President Chavez and the Referendum: Myths and Realities

Christopher Brauchli
Bush and the Afghan Electoral Model: "If They Want to Vote Twice, Let Them"

Todd Chretien & Jessie Muldoon
Will the Democrats Expel Zell Miller?

Jack Random
Spite and Venom Day: the Turncoat and the Profiteer

Alan Maass
The Real Vietnam

Christa Allen
Contre Bush

Website of the Day
[Redacted]

 

 

September 1, 2004

Alexander Cockburn
The Stench of Doom

Kathleen and Bill Christison
Poor Larry Franklin

Dave Lindorff
Kerry's Litmus Test

Josh Frank
Protest in White: Not All of New York Rises Up

John L. Hess
Moles, Scoops and Flip Flops

Mike Whitney
Deconstructing Arnold

Jack Random
Kindergarten Night at the RNC

Andrew Wilson
War on the Pachyderms: Why Do Elephants Hate Us?

Jeffrey St. Clair
High Plains Grifter: Part Two: Mark His Words

 

 

August 31, 2004

Joseph Nevins
Escapism and Global Apartheid: The Dominican Republic & the NYTs

Matt Vidal
Beyond Bush's Rhetoric on the Economy

Neve Gordon
Kerry and the Middle East

Dave Lindorff
Bush the Peace Candidate?

Mike Whitney
NPR Leads the Charge for War Against Iran

Jack Random
Opening Night: Playing the War Card

Jeffrey St. Clair
High Plains Grifter: the Life and Crimes of George W. Bush (Part One)

CounterPunch Photo of the Day
Pete Seeger in NYC

 

 

August 30, 2004

Justin Podhur
The Disappeared Mayor

Shaun Joseph
The Hypocrites at TheNaderbasher.com

Mike Whitney
Israeli Moles in the Pentagon: What More Could They Possibly Want?

Ron Jacobs
Live, From New York: the Majority of Protesters Claimed No Candidate

David Lindorff
Sunday in Manhattan: the Sound of Marchin', Chargin' Feet, Boy

Dave Zirin
USA Basketball: The Team White America Loved to Hate

Sam Husseini
Israeli Spying on the US: a Long History

 

 

August 28 / 29, 2004

Alexander Cockburn
Zombies for Kerry

Patrick Cockburn
Najaf Ceasefire Good for Iraq, But Weakens Allawi and US

Ray McGovern
Blowing Smoke on Intelligence

Dr. Juan Romagoza
From El Salvador to Abu Ghraib: Reflections of Torture Survivor

Ray Hanania
An Israeli Spy in the Pentagon? Ridiculous!

Fred Gardner
Eddie Lepp Busted by DEA: Facing Life for Growing Medical Pot

Diane Christian
Big Men: the Better Leader Lets You Live

William S. Lind
The Desert Fox

Paul D'Amato
The Left Takes a Dive for Kerry

Joshua Frank
Greens at the Crossroads

Mickey Z.
Media Declares War on Anti-War Protests

Winslow T. Wheeler
Sen. McCain's Pork Chops: an Exchange

Justin E.H. Smith
The New Age Racket and the Left

Thomas St. John
Burning Slaves at the Stake: On "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God"

Ali Tonak
Help the NYPD?

Mark Engler
New York Says "No"

Justin Felux
Haiti: the Attica of the Americas

Poets' Basement
Gelman, Albert, Ford and Hamod

 

 

August 27, 2004

Gary Leupp
Neocon Musings

Robin Cook
The Ghosts of Abu Ghraib

Diane Christian
Disarming

Michael Donnelly
Situational Democracy: the Show Me the Green Party?

Jack Random
4F and Other Heroes: an Army of War Resisters

Mike Ferner
"To the Swift Boats!"

Mazin Qumsiyeh
7000 Palestinian Political Prisoners

Veronza Bowers, Jr.
"You Won't Be Leaving Tomorrow"


 

August 26, 2004

M. Shahid Alam
The Clash Thesis: a Failing Ideology?

Diane Christian
War Rules: Bush is No Sun Tzu

Derek Seidman
"They're As Bad As Wal-Mart:" Starbucks Workers Get Organized

David Lindorff
Court to RNC Protesters: Drop the Rally

Christopher Brauchli
Signs of Dissent: the Bush in the Bubble

Stew Albert
Reporting Suspicious Activity

Mark Donham
Judgement in Athens: Give the Koreans Their Day in Court

Saul Landau
Pinochet: the Al Capone of the Southern Cone

Website of the Day
The Kerry 527 Ad You'll Never See

 

 

August 25, 2004

Amelia Peltz
Can I Have 9.8 Seconds of Your Time?

Noah Leavitt
Defining and Redefining Torture

Ron Jacobs
Takin' It to the Streets: It's Not About the Election, It's About Democracy

James Brooks
Coronado Crosses the Jordan

Akiva Eldar
How to Win the Jewish Vote: Turn Gaza into a "Mini-Afghanistan"

Gemma Araneta
Chavez's New Brand of Populism

Philip Cryan
Uribe's Boys: the Death Squads of Colombia

CounterPunch Wire
Cheney Opens the Closet Door

 

 

August 24, 2004

Jeremy Scahill
John Kerry: the Warchurian Candidate

Gary Leupp
"We Want Them to Go Away"

David Domke
God Willing: an Echoing Press and Political Fundamentalism

William Loren Katz
The Meaning of Hugo Chávez: Black and Indian Power in Venezuela

Jonah Gindin
With Chavez? Reading the International Private Media

Fran Schor
Denying Atrocities: From Vietnam to Fallujah

Joe Bageant
Driving on the Bones of God

Website of the Day
The Great America Lockdown: a Primer for the RNC


 

August 23, 2004

Winslow Wheeler
Don't Mind If I Do: Porkbarrel and the War on Terror

John Pilger
Bush May Be the Lesser Evil

Stan Goff
Swift Boat Dogfight

Bill and Kathleen Christison
Notes from the West Bank: Build, Demolish, Rebuild

Mike Whitney
The Unraveling of Afghanistan

William Blum
Brave New World of Iraqi Sovereignty

Ralph Nader
A Letter to the Washington Post: a Shameful and Unsavory Editorial

 

 

August 21 / 22, 2004

Cockburn / St. Clair
"They Want Blood:" The Bi-Partisan Origins of the Total War on Drugs

Landau / Hassen
Failing the Mission? Form a Commission

Brian Cloughley
The Bush Team in Iraq: Moral Cowardice, as Practiced by Experts

Josh Frank
Nader as David Duke? The ADL Wants You to Think So

Mike Whitney
Reincarnating Mengele: the Torture Doctors of Abu Ghraib

Ron Jacobs
Day Labor Blues

Mickey Z.
Shooting at Whales: 40 Years After Tonkin

Fred Gardner
Dr. Wolman Comes Out: The Cannabis Consultants

Dave Zirin
Uprising in Athens: Iraqi Soccer Team Gives Bush the Boot

Josh Saxe
Witnessing Police Brutality in LA

Yanar Mohammed
Letter from Baghdad: a Democracy of Killings and Bombings

Helen Williams
Ali's Story: a Taste of Reality from Baghdad

Michael Donnelly
Elemental and NaturalForests, Fire and Recovery

Elizabeth Schulte
The Crisis in Affordable Housing

Poets' Basement
Adler, Albert, Virgil, Ford and Krieger

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hot Stories

Alexander Cockburn
Behold, the Head of a Neo-Con!

Subcomandante Marcos
The Death Train of the WTO

Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens as Model Apostate

Steve Niva
Israel's Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?

Dardagan, Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians

Steve J.B.
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Weekend Edition
October 9 / 10, 2004

London Calling: Twenty Five Years Later

'Twas No Crank Call Love Affair

By Phyllis Pollack

Twenty-five years after the release of the landmark album, London Calling, this commemorative 3-disc package has been issued, containing the original CD, as well as a 45-minute documentary DVD about the making of the album. Its third disc contains tracks that are the long lost Vanilla Tapes, named for the studio in which the rehearsal sessions it contains were recorded. Found roughly six months ago by the band's guitarist Mick Jones, it yields five new songs, one of which is a remake of Bob Dylan's "The Man In Me." Also among the newly uncovered tracks made during the Vanilla sessions are the countrified "Lonesome Me," and a very roots rock influenced "Walking The Sidewalk," dripping with a relentless guitar solo.

The DVD, directed by John Letts, is a further reminder of what a great band this was. Rolling Stone had named this disc "the most important album of the '80's," to which the late Joe Strummer is seen responding, "I thought it came out in 1979."

Among the group's other achievements, the eponymous first album released by "the only band that matters" still holds the record of having the most sales of any import album ever in America. The film yields an intimate portrait of rebel rock at its finest, as it is being created in the studio. The documentary's tone is largely set by the late producer, Guy Stevens, who had the goal of extracting the band's emotions on onto vinyl. Mind boggling footage emerges as he throws a ladder and smashes chairs during sessions. Amused band members watch him as he angrily wrestles with the sound engineer during a heated scene about the sound of the bass. Another Stevens outburst is captured on film as the producer pours a bottle of wine onto a keyboard, causing six thousand pounds in damage, all while Joe Strummer is playing it.

The mesmerizing, raw concert footage in the film is nothing short of captivating. Music videos in the set include "Clampdown" and the title track.

Strummer is asked about his feisty brand of combat rock, which is often mixed with politics. He modestly responds, "We didn't have any solutions to the world's problems," and that they were just four musicians from London. He then adds, "But we did try." We know this story well. A street fighting man, what can a poor boy do but to sing for a rock and roll band?

Certainly, the time is still right for "Revolution Rock" 25 years later, and somehow, this album still feels like a "Brand New Cadillac."

The disc, with its indelible tracks like "Train In Vain," was originally slated to be titled "The Last Testament." This would ultimately have been a fitting moniker, as the resulting tracks would be the final word on rock that influenced a slew of countless new bands for years to come.

Photographer Pennie Smith's photo of Paul Simonon smashing his bass out of frustration, which was used for the album cover, reverberates much like an image of Moses smashing the tablets, before delivering that which would change the face of the world. As if by yet another heavenly decree, in delivering their "Last Testament," the Clash would forever change the face of rock and roll.

Phyllis Pollack is a publicist and music critic based in Los Angeles, California.

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