Today's
Stories
May 20 / 21,
2006
Patrick Cockburn
iraq
is Disintegrating
May 19, 2006
Winslow T. Wheeler
Democrats
and the Defense Budget: Just as Ruinous as the Republicans
José Pertierra
Posada
Carriles: Extradite or Prosecute, There's No Other Option
John Ross
The Marcos Factor: Mexico's Electoral Wildcard
Dave Lindorff
Virtual America
Jeff Juel
Ecological Extortion in the National Forests?
Alan Farago
Defanging the Endangered Species Act
Eric Johnson-DeBaufre
Building a New Sanctuary Movement
José Martî
Letter to Manuel Mercado: "The Revolution Desires Complete
Freedom"
Jonathan Cook
Marriage
Ban Closes the Gates to Palestinians
Website of the
Day
Fix the Movie and Revolutionize the Movie Industry!
May 18, 2006
Bill Simpich
Building
a Movement that will be Stronger After the US is Out of Iraq:
Lessons from the 1970 Student Strike
Patrick Cockburn
The
Carnage in Basra
Christopher Brauchli
The Needle and the Damage Done: the Death Penalty's Ministers
Nora Barrows-Friedman
The Nakba in Palestine
Victoria Buch
In the Name of Israel's State Security
Eric Ruder
Nuclear Hypocrites
George Wuerthner
The Ice Cream Wilderness?
Juan Santos
The
Border War Comes Home
Website of the Day
Help Stop Animal Torture at Devore
May 17, 2006
Lenni Brenner
The
Lobby and the Great Protestant Crusader
Carlos Villarreal
Immigrant Scapegoats and the Manufacturing of a Crisis
Larry Everest
Catching
Rumsfeld Red-Handed: an Interview with Ray McGovern
CounterPunch News Service
Hugo Chavez: the London Sessions
Lee Sustar
Compromise
and Conquer? Inside the Senate Immigration Bill
Anthony Papa
Dealing
with the Rockefeller Drug Laws: a Tale of Two DAs
William S. Lind
Ink Blots and Super Fortresses: More Contradictions from Iraq
War
Bruce K. Gagnon
Where are the Real Leaders?
JoAnn Wypijewski
Has
Anything Really Changed at Fort Sill?
Website of the Day
The Pacific Northwest:
Animated
May 16, 2006
Ward Churchill
Punishing
Free Speech
Ted Honderich
The
Moral Barbarism of Blair and Bush
Paul Craig Roberts
Ministry
of Fear
Annie Nocenti
"Jesus was a Zombie?": Letter from Haiti
Charles V. Peña
Regime Change Redux: US Plans for Iran Go Far Beyond Nuclear
Efforts
Ron Jacobs
Circling the Wagons and Building Walls: Bush and Co.'s Immigration
Policy
Norman Solomon
A Sick, Hungry Well-Armed Nation
Harvey Wasserman
Why the Fundamentalists Are Freaking Out Over the Da Vinci Code
Michael George
Smith
Bush, Immigration and the Democrats
Harry Browne
New
Frontiers of Shamelessness: Bono's Independent
Website of the
Day
Seeger: "Bring Them Home"
May 15, 2006
Alexander Cockburn
Abe
Rosenthal's Times
William Blum
Appealing to the US is Not Very Appealing
Tanya Golash-Boza
and Douglas A. Parker
Dehumanizing the Undocumented: an Immigration Policy Statement
by Sociologists Without Borders
Dave Lindorff
Gen. Hayden's Sedition Against the Consitution
Debra Schaffer
Hubert
The Battle Cry of G.I. Jesus: Capital Punishment for Gays?
Patrick Cockburn
Now It's Shia Troops Versus Kurdish Troops in Iraq
Tom Turnipseed
The Messianic Presidency
Ken Livingstone
Welcome to London, President Chavez!
Gideon Levy
Game Theory: Hamas is Winning
Mickey Z.
Is Impeachment Too Good for Bush?
Jeff Faux
What Bush's Speech Will Miss: Immigration and the Desperate Mexican
Economy
Website of the Day
Iraq War
Images Uncensored
May 13 / 14,
2006
Vijay Prashad
The
Indian Road: Left Triumph
Joan Roelofs
Why
They Hate Our Kind Hearts, Too
Kathy Kelly
Imagining
Survival
Michael Neumann
On the Value and Stability of Israel
Dr. Susan Block
Hookergate
Daniel Cassidy
How the Irish Invented Poker
Christopher Reed
Rebel Journalist: the Memoirs of Wilfred Burchett
Mike Roselle
The Fallacies of Greenpeace
Saul Landau
Up the Mekong to Cambodia
Robert Fisk
The Inescapable Beat: US Military Bases in Brazil
Ralph Nader
Sally Mae and the Student Loan Swindle
Evelyn Pringle
Rove and Fitzgerald Play Monopoly
Fred Gardner
The Marketing of "Cannabis Americana"
Stanley Heller
Is Another Mass Murder of Arabs in the Offing?
Conn Hallinan
China: a Troubled Dragon
Valentina Palma Novoa
"They Ordered Me to Lay My Head in a Pool of Blood"
David Krieger
Why Nuclear Weapons Should Matter
Col. Dan Smith
The Senate's Peace Quilt
Christopher Brauchli
Mister Bush and Mister Zarqawi: Video Stars
Jeffrey St. Clair
Playlist: What I'm Listening to This Week
Poets' Basement
Davies, Ford, Engel, Guthrie, Orloski and Louise
Website of the Weekend
Not Your Soldier!
May 12, 2006
Michael Snedeker
Death
by Snitch: the Attempted Murder of Michael Morales
Dave Lindorff
What Fourth Amendment?
Leah Fishbein
/ RJ Schinner
Santorum
vs. Santorum-Lite: In Pennsylvania, Abortion is Absent from the
Debate
Brian Kwoba
The Immigrant Rights Movement: Birth of a New New Left?
Chris Kromm
Why
Southern Progressives Should Support an Estate Tax
Kai Diekmann
45
Minutes with Bush: the BILD Interview
David Swanson
Bush Tops Nixon: the Most Despised President in History
Virginia Tilley
Hamas
and Israel's "Right to Exist"
Website of the
Day
The CounterPunch Story That Made the Front Page of the NYT Today
May 11, 2006
Sunsara Taylor
Battle
Cry for Theocracy: Meet the Shock Troops of the Christian Youth
Jonathan Cook
A
Short History of Unilateral Separation
Tariq Ali
High-Octane Rocket-Rattling Against Iran Won't Work
Wayne S. Smith
Recycled Non Sequiturs: State Dept. Presents No Evidence Cuba
is a "Terrorist State"
Mike Whitney
Secretary of Lies
Pratyush Chandra
The Royal Nepalese Army and the Imperialist Agency
Joshua Frank
Save Darfur? Not So Fast
Mickey Z.
Does Property Destruction Equal Eco-Terrorism?
Francis Boyle
Abe Rosenthal Stole My Kill Fee!
Edward S. Herman
/ David Peterson
US
Aggression-Time Once Again: Target Iran
Website of the
Day
The Missing Papers of John Roberts
May 10, 2006
Werther
Axiom
of Evil
Larry Birns / Michael Lettieri
Is Venezuela the New Niger?: the Bush Administration is Trying
to Link Hugo Chavez to Iran's Nuclear Program
Ramzy Baroud
Iran and the US: Nuclear Standoff or Realpolitik?
Kevin Zeese
The Corporate Takeover of Iraq's Economy
Evelyn Pringle
Peter Rost vs. Goliath: an Ex-Pfizer VP Takes on Big Pharma
Amira Hass
Hungry and Shell-Shocked
Michael Donnelly
Nature Loses a Champion
Ron Jacobs
Singers in a Dangerous Time: Dylan and Haggard Take the Stage
Sharon Smith
Abstinence
Backfires
Website of the Day
Camp In with Ray and Cindy
May 9, 2006
Ray McGovern
My
Encounter with Rumsfeld
M. Shahid Alam
The
Muslims America Loves
Moshe Adler
Mayor Bloomberg: Even Worse Than Giuliani
Walter MIgnolo
Beyond Populism: Natural Gas and Decolonization of the Bolivian
Economy
Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor
Blacks, Latinos and the New Civil Rights Movement
William S. Lind
The Other War Heats Up: Fighting on Afghan Time
Todd Chretien
Does It Really Matter Who Runs the CIA?
Dave Lindorff
Pelosi is in for a Big Surprise in November
Ishmael Reed
Furor
Over the "Colored Mind Doubles"
Website of the
Day
Two Years for One Joint
May 8, 2006
Kate McCabe
"No
Less Courage": Political Prisoners' Resistance from Ireland
to Gitmo
Paul Craig Roberts
A
Nation of Waitresses and Bartenders
Col. Dan Smith
Privatizing
West Point: "Duty, Honor, Trademarks..."
Norman Solomon
Gag and Smear: the Misuses of "Anti-Semitism"
Ingmar Lee
Bush's Destabilizing Nuke Deal with India
Robert Jensen
"Covering" and the Law
Ricardo Alarcon
The Struggle for Immigrant Rights in a Neo-Liberal Economy
Will Youmans / M. Kay Siblani
The Danders of Misunderstanding Sudan
Alexander Cockburn
The
Row Over the Israel Lobby
Website of the
Day
Labelle Does The Who: We Don't Get Fooled Again
May 6 / 7, 2006
Jeffrey St. Clair
The
Rise and Possible Fall of Richard Pombo
Ariel Dorfman
Mission Akkomplished: the Secret History of George W. Bush
Joe Allen
Death Row at the "Castle": Inside the Military's Judicial
System
Fred Gardner
From Ritalin to Cocaine: Steve Howe's Untold Story
Jeff Taylor
Democratic Masqueraders: Plutocracy and the Party of the People
Saul Landau
The Immigration Malaise
Stephen Philion
Lessons from the Fordham 9: Challenging CIA and Military Recruiters
on Campus
Trish Schuh
Islamophobia, a Retrospective
Ralph Nader
The Tragedy of False Confessions
Robert Fisk
Through a Syrian Lens: Is the US Provoking Civil War in Iraq?
Paul Cantor
Parody of a Protest: We Came, We Marched, And ... ?
John Holt
"This Goddamn Place Looks Like Hell"
James Ryan
When is a West Point Grad, No Longer a West Point Grad?
Lawrence R. Velvel
Harvard and Its Presidents: Plagiarism, Ghostwriting, and the
Character of Larry Summers
Greg Moses
Canto for a Cinco de Mayo Weekend
Laray Polk
Homeland Security Spending: a Dallas Case Study
Ron Jacobs
Subterranean Fire: a Review
Ben Tripp
No News is Good News
Mickey Z.
9/11 Movies, Anti-War Protests and "Illegal" Humans
Jeffrey St. Clair
Playlist: My Own Private, Springsteen-Free JazzFest (Week Two)
Poets' Basement
Kirbach, Landau, Davies, Engel, Buknatski, Subiet, Ford and Thoreau
Website of the Week
Lawrence Welk Meets the Velvet Underground
May 5, 2006
Vijay Prashad
The
Charmless Inconveniences of the Bourgeoisie
Robert Fisk
Sy Hersh versus the Bush Administration (and the DC Press Corps)
David Swanson
Washington Post Writer Rushes to Rummy's Defense Against Ray
McGovern
Mearsheimer / Walt
The Storm Over "the Israel Lobby"
Dave Lindorff
They're Back!: The Looters of Social Security
Sarah Ferguson
A Day Without Gringos: Immigrants Flooded the Streets of NYC
on May, But Where Were the White Peaceniks?
CounterPunch
News Service
Costs
of US Wars: Bush's GWOT Now Fifth Most Expensive in US History
Corporate Crime Reporter
David Sirota: Still Shackled to the Democrats
Website of the
Day
Watch Ray KO Rummy
May 4, 2006
John F. Sugg
Sami
al-Arian's Final Persecution
Will Potter
Green is the New Red: How the Bush Administration is Using Terror
Laws to Prosecute Nonviolent Environmental Activists
Jonathan Cook
The
Long Path Back to Umm al-Zinat
Roger Burbach
Bolivia's Radical Realignment
Chris Dols
Colbert's
Moment (And Why the Beltway Gang Didn't Get It)
Christopher Brauchli
Sen. Frist Without Clothes
Tony Swindell
"Our
Descent into Hell has Begun"
Website of the Day
The
Two Lobbies
May 3, 2006
Robert Bryce
The
Self-Locking F-22
Paul Craig Roberts
John
Kenneth Galbraith, a Great American
James Petras
The
Rise of the Migrant Workers' Movement
Lee Sustar
Democrats and Immigrants: the Grand Evasion
David Bolton
The War on Drugs is a War on Ourselves
Joshua Frank
Challenging Hillary
Jeffery R. Webber
Evo
Morales' Historic May Day: Bolivia Nationalizes Gas!
Website of the
Day
Happy Birthday, Pete Seeger!
May 2, 2006
Evelyn Pringle
Gouge
and Profit: Will Big Oil Destroy
Tariq Ali
On the Death of Pramoedya Ananta Toer: Indonesia's Greatest Writerthe US Economy?
Saul Landau
Life
in the Mekong Delta
Paul Craig Roberts
Endgame for the Constitution
Gary Leupp
"Out
of Iraq, Into Darfur?"
Ron Jacobs
May
Day in Asheville
Sen. Russell
Feingold
Our Presence is Destabilizing Iraq
Anthony Papa
Rush Limbaugh and the Politics of Drug Addiction
Website of the
Day
Rainbow Books
May Day, 2006
Norman Finkelstein
The
Israel Lobby: It's Not Either / Or
Christopher Reed
Mercury's
Message, 50 Years On
Michael Donnelly
Rummy's Not the Only One Who Should Go: What About the War's
Liberal Enablers?
Dave Zirin
A Day Without Pujols
Mike Whitney
The "N' Word: Take Back the Oil Companies!
Gilad Atzmon
Self-Haters Unite!
Missy Comley Beattie
Marching for Peace
Alexander Cockburn
The
War on Terror on the Lodi Front
Website of the
Day
In
Your Face, Mr President
April 29 / 30,
2006
Peter Linebaugh
May
Day with Heart
Ralph Nader
Break Up the Big Oil Cartel
Robert Bryce
The Scandal of the V-22: It Kills, It Crashes, But It Won't Die
Rev. William
Alberts
Praying for Peace or Preying on Peace? Time for People of Faith
to Censure Bush
Lee Sustar
Opening a New Movement
John Chuckman
Xenophobia in a Land of Immigrants
Eric Ruder
An Interview with Camilo Meija on the War and Immigrants
Seth Sandronsky
Securing the Homeland for Whom
Ron Jacobs
Neil Young's Call to Arms
Ben Tripp
A Fork in the American Road
Fred Gardner
Forgotten Memories: Personal and Political
Don Monkerud
Corruption Reform in the Age of Abramoff: Not a Roar, But a Whimper
Tommy Stevenson
JazzFest, Tears and the Renewal of New Orleans
Lettrist International
Proposals for Rationally Improving the City of Paris
Contratiempo
Back to the Back of the Yards: the Jungle, 100 Years Later
St. Clair, Vest
and D'Antoni
CounterPunch Playlist: What We're LIstening to This Week
Poets' Basement
Engel, Orloski and Guthrie
Website of the
Weekend
Survival
of the Fattest
April 28, 2006
James Ridgeway
What
You Won't See in Flight 93, the Film
Ramzy Baroud
Hamas'
Impossible Mission
Sarah Knopp
An
Interview with Nativo Lopez on the May Day Protests
William S. Lind
Off
With His Head!: But Rumsfeld's Should Not be the Only One That
Rolls
Werther
Operation
Canned Meat and Its Derivatives
April 27, 2006
Winslow T. Wheeler
How
Much is the War Costing? How Many US Troops are Really in Iraq?
Robert Fisk
The
United States of Israel?
Juan Santos
Immigration
Endgame
Robert Jensen
Why
Leftists Distrust Liberals
Dave Lindorff
Making
America Safer: One Released War Crime Victim at a Time
Jose Pertierra
Honor
and Injustice:the Case of the Cuban Five
April 26,2006
Robin Philpot
The
Rich Life of Jane Jacobs
Sherry Wolf
Democrats,
Their Apologists and Abortion: the Jig is Up
Pratyush Chandra
Nepal:
a Saga of Compromise and Struggle
Joshua Frank
Zig-Zagging
Through the War With John Kerry
Gary
Leupp
The Neo-Cons and Iran: No Negotiations
Bill
Quigley
Katrina: Eight Months Later
April
25, 2006
Gary
Leupp
Wilkinson Speaks Out About the Coming
War on Iran
Paul
Craig Roberts
The World is Uniting Against the Bush Imperium
Linda
S. Heard
Is the US Waging Israel's Wars?: the Prophecy of Oded Yinon
Ralph
Nader
Political Science: Gingrich, "Futurism" and the Abolition
of the OTA
Mike
Whitney
Preparing for the Economic Typhoon
Michael
Donnelly
Lutherans Betray Michigan's Loon Lake Wetlands for Pieces of
Silver
Sharon
Smith
Breathing New Life Into May Day
Website
of the Day
SDS Ver. 2
April
24, 2006
Tim
Wise
What Kind of Card is Race?
John
Stanton
Strike Iran, Watch Pakistan and Turkey Fall
Dave
Lindorff
Dangerous Times Ahead
Steve
Shore
Berlusconi Defeated: The Long Wait is Over ... Or Is It?
Amadou
Deme
Hotel Rwanda: Setting the Record Straight
Mickey
Z.
15 Minutes of Radical Fame: America Meets Bill Blum and Ward
Churchill
Ralph Nader
Lee
Raymond's Unconscionable Platinum Parachute
Alexander
Cockburn
Obama's Game
Website
of the Day
Too Stupid to Be President?
Weekend
Edition
May 20 / 21, 2006
CounterPunch
Playlist
What
I'm Listening to This Week
By JEFFREY ST. CLAIR
A Short History of Funk
Sun Ra: The
Magic City (Evidence)
Sun Ra didn't invent funk or
even play it until his twilight years. His music was sui generis,
a kind of space age swing, Duke Ellington on acid. But without
Sun Ra there would be no George Clinton.
James Brown: The
Payback (Polydor)
JB calls himself the Godfather
of Soul, but he is truly the father of funk--the creator of the
most dangerous sounding music of its time.
Sly and the Family Stone:
Stand!
(Sony)
Maybe Sly didn't change the
world. But he revolutionized the sound of pop music as profoundly
as Elvis, Dylan, or Hendrix. The most visionary artist and greatest
musician I've ever heard live. Yes, Sly fell into darkness, but
it was from a height few have ever even aspired to, let alone
actually reached.
Herbie Hancock: Headhunters
(Sony)
If you want to hear how Latin
music played a decisive role in shaping the sound of funk listen
to Hancock's two versions of his self-penned "Watermelon
Man", one from his debut album, which is polished hard bop,
and the other an electrified version throbbing with polyrhythms
on Headhunters. The missing link here is the great Mongo Santamaria,
who released a danceable version of the song in the intervening
years. Just as Hendrix taught Dylan how to play "All Along
the Watchtower," Mongo schooled Hancock on how "Watermelon
Man" should sound. It's a measure of Hancock's genius that
he knew exactly how to exploit such advice.
Paliament: Chocolate
City (Mercury)
Back when that meant Washington
DC. Old school funk from George and Bootsy.
Bootsy Collins and the Rubber
Band: Ah,
the Name is Bootsy Baby (Warner)
As dated as a lot of 70s funk
now sounds, some of these songs just never grow old. Check out:
"What's a Telephone Bill" and "Pinocchio Theory."
Miles Davis: On
the Corner (Sony)
Miles demonstrates his debt
to funk and lays the groundwork for hip hop, all on one neglected
masterpiece from the early 1970s. Far superior and more adventurous
than Bitches Brew.
Earth, Wind and Fire: The
Need of Love (Warner)
Maurice White could write and
sing any kind of music, from sweet soul to free jazz. But in
the late 1970s, he became the greatest hit writing machine in
the history of funk and supervised one of the most awesome stage
shows in the history of popular music. This early outing is my
favorite EWF album: raw, risky and spontaneous.
Mandrill: Fencewalk
(Polydor)
Here is the sound of the streets
of Bedford Stuyvesant in the 1970s: gritty funk seasoned with
hot salsa beats and sultry Caribbean rhythms.
Ohio Players: Skin
Tight (Mercury)
Growing up in the Midwest,
I adopted the Dayton-based Ohio Players as my funk band. And
they weren't just about those album covers. But those salacious
covers weren't bait-and-switch, either. Their edgy brand of horn-driven
funk really was all about sex--sex with just a hint of S&M.
War: Why
Can't We Be Friends? (Avenue)
After Eric Burden came and
went, War became the Chicano funk band that defined the
East LA sound for much of the 70s. I've always thought that this
album would make the perfect soundtrack for a film of our book
Whiteout: the CIA, Drugs and the Press .
Charles Wright and the Watts
103rd Street Rhythm Band: Express
Yourself (Warner)
The most unjustly neglected
band of the 1970s (or any decade, for that matter).
Stevie Wonder: Talking
Book (Motown)
Q. Aren't you even the slightest
bit embarrassed to publicly proclaim your devotion to Stevie
Wonder?
A. Fuck you, moron.
Rufus: Rufusized
(MCA)
Chaka Khan's voice remains
the epitome of sex appeal for me, as unfailingly alluring as
the opening shot of BB in Godard's Contempt.
Little Feat: Feats
Don't Fail Me Now (Warner)
The best album by the best
(mostly) white southern funk band.
Neville Bros: Fiyo
on the Bayou (A&M)
The greatest New Orleans funk
band rarely sounds as good on record as they do live. This album
is the glorious exception to that unfortunate rule.
Bohannon: Dance
Your Ass Off (Rhino)
One of Motown's signature drummers,
Hamilton Bohannon, transformed funk into a polyrhythmic species
of disco that was actually fun to listen to outside of clubs
and without being juiced on cocaine.
Prince: 1999
(Warner)
Prince reclaimed funk from
the manufactured dreck of the disco floors with a double album
on which he plays nearly every instrument. 1999 is an unabashed
carnival of carnality that resurrected the promise of rock music.
Prince really was the most audacious and talented artist of the
1980s, the second coming of Sly Stone--and not a moment too soon.
Jeffrey St. Clair's music writings (as well as CPers Ron
Jacobs, David Vest and Daniel Wolff) can be found in Serpents
in the Garden . He can be reached at: sitka@comcast.net .
Now
Available
from CounterPunch Books!
The Case
Against Israel
By Michael Neumann
Click Here to Order Michael Neumann's
Devastating Rebuttal of Alan Dershowitz
WHAT'S
INSIDE
Grand
Theft Pentagon:
Tales of Greed and Profiteering in the War on Terror
by Jeffrey St. Clair
CounterPunch
Speakers Bureau
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The Book on 9/11 the White House Denounced
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