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WHO RULES: THE ISRAEL LOBBY OR UNCLE SAM?

The answer at last! Uri Avnery, former Knesset member, assesses the Lobby's power. "If the Israeli government wanted a law tomorrow annulling the 10 Commandments, 95 U.S. Senators (at least) would sign the bill forthwith." But, yes, in the end the dog wags the tail. Fifty years ago Allen Ginsberg's "Howl" blew the cobwebs out of millions of young minds and drove a stake through the heart of Eisenhower's America. Lenni Brenner remembers Ginsberg in the East Village. Dr Mengele died in exile, in disguise. Dr Ishii died rich and recognized, in his own Tokyo home. Christopher Reed on Japanese WW2 medical tortures and how the U.S. covered them up. 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 donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now!

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Roxanne Dubar-Ortiz in Portland, Seattle and Bellingham

Today's Stories

May 13 / 14, 2006

Kathy Kelly
Imagining Survival

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 Writer
the 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?

 

 

 

 

Subscribe Online

Weekend Edition
May 13 / 14, 2006

Those Were The Days
By ROBERT DAVIES

Myself in a bar on Charles Street
Was it The Colonial?
Staggering a blind man comes in
he'd been spotted as a queer
clobbered on the head and robbed.

A casual place
you might even address the stranger
next at the bar
especially if his knee was bumping
against your leg.
You could hear gay chatter.
(I'll never forget
a bar in New York: silent,
their guarded eyes.)

A couple young guys in khakis
step up to me: "Are you gay?"
"Are you a Communist."
This was in the 50s.
They are greatly disappointed.
At the time I could have said Yes
or What's it to you,
and gotten the shit beat out of me.

In the wildest places
police on the take were watching.

Those were the days
some would bring back: bring back
my Bonnie to me,
we love you says the preacher
we don't approve your degeneracy.

Robert Davies is a poet living in Portland, Oregon. He can be reached at: rjdavies@spiritone.com

 

 

A Story of Patriotic Surveillance
By FRANK B. FORD

Of a type we called
an old maid once,

she phones her mother
20 times a week

to check stocks of
DEPENDS, & whatnot.

Her steady, Carl, will
buy them at a warehouse

& deliver. Refuses
the old woman's

money & insists
"My treat!" Suspicious

word to use in this
connection, isn't it?

Your government has
concluded this through
necessary taps & tips.

It sounds so innocent.
But so much does. A lot!

The kicker (in the knickers?)
is the old woman claims
she doesn't need them. So?

What other use? We well
may ask! If she's lying,

satellites can sense
the dampness. Before

you scoff in your superior
way, look around your
Wendy's. Subversives,

blue-haired & other, &
in diapers or no, want
you to believe they

re
merely buying Frosties.

You

ve heard of Fools For Christ?
Well Fools For Bush will save
this nation, like it or not!

Frank Ford surveils in Florida, hopes to name some names of fishy citizens before they die.

 

 

The "DIVINE STRIKE" (OUT)
By HAMMOND GUTHRIE

 

Surrogate Holy Speak for:

Field testing 700 ton ammonium nitrate
nuclear tipped "bunker buster" bomb
penetration of hardened targets --

10,000-foot mushroom cloud/shock waves
agitating radioactive fallout conflicting with
obligations as signatory to the Test Ban Treaty.

Most controversial considering that all but one
of U.S. nuclear weapons if used as "bunker busters"
would result in massive clouds of radioactive debris.

So little is left of the Promised Land --

dispersing ill-defined electromagnetic pulse
vulnerabilities anywhere and everywhere
within the line-of-sight --

spent iodine 131 aluminum nitrate canisters
will not enhance the demographic horizon,
however "tactical" they might be.

The US has produced around 72,000 weapons
of nuclear mass destruction since their invention,
with roughly 12,000 such weapons in its arsenal

designed to eliminate doubt about the willingness
of the US to use weapons of mass destruction
by contemplating preemptive nuclear strikes.

Red light/Green light to the rest of the world
to begin developing their own nuclear arsenals --
wouldn't you?

Hammond Guthrie lives in Portland, Oregon.

© 2006 - Hammond Guthrie

 

 

The Riddle of What Stinx
By ADAM ENGEL

That clown Kinetic Microcephalous
rocking the cradle of civilization
by nukular degrees
the Ph.D. the better
down
to the letter of the law
erased
even as we seek an answer
to the riddle of what stinx:
why do the dumbest assholes
get the yellowest cake jobs?
No skill to say "yessir" to
The Man (whoever He may be in His
incorporate incorporeal dead carnation)
and telephone commands: "Blow them apart!
Uh...and don't ferget to steal their art"
-- like ordering a pizza -- then blame destiny or religion or
great Caesar's Ghost
as it appeared to Moses and his
seven Chinese goats of many colors
burning like a --
speaking of bush:
I wonder if the twins ever
got trashed got nekkid and got down...
why not? it's "safe sex" (relatively)
and they can do anything they want
and most importantly
it's incest
a family value
strictly adhered to for selling
goodies to baddies
-- Nazis, "Contras," Israelis and such --
it doesn't hurt to dream
only to wake up
mourning in America.

(I know, I know: it's sad
resorting to low humor and bad
puns; but in a world gone mad,
where tyrants have us by the buns,
the only "rebellious" 1st Amendment fun
is hurling words lumpy as rocks
at towers where they option stocks
like those trade centers on 9/11
when They winked
-- as brokers floated, atomized, to heaven --
decried talk of an "inside job"
-- the very notion! -- and set
the wars to never end all wars
in motion.) What a waste of lives
and words. Oh yeah, and "money."

 

Adam Engel can be reached at bartleby.samsa@verizon.net

 

They Asked for a King
By Charles Orloski


In his latest album, "Living with War," Neil Young favorably mentions Illinois Senator (D.) Barack Obama. In the song, "Lookin' for a Leader,"
Mr. Young contemplates America's need for a new leader, singing, "Yeah, maybe its Obama, but he thinks he's too young." Here is the reaction from citizens of Mr. Young's "Greendale, California":


"Look out, Sun Green, there's a white boat coming up the river,"
bearing big-red bacon, and a smile that'd make a hanging chad quiver.
It is he, Obama, the money raising Hall of Famer,
designed to make grandma and Joan Rivers shiver,
protect pensions and your fatty liver.
O Sun Green, its Obama, the cinnamon Shaker,
for whom Uncle Shakey commands, "Get out and register!"
Yeah, I can see a white boat coming up the river.
We can needle Cortez the killer, put him to sleep in rusty armor.
We'll tip-off brother Jeb, purchase a buck-skin brassiere,
deplore Nader for '04, watch the telescreen together,
kill a deer, have sex for food & a Boston lager,
and we''ll paint our faces with Braveheart powder.
Yeah, I can see a white boat down yonder!
Put on a sun dress, Sun Green, and bring down a big dinner!
Reckon Barack'll stay at Double E just a little bit longer,
and we will live with war much easier,
with young Obama's pinky finger on the trigger.

CHARLES ORLOSKI lives in Taylor, Pennsylvania

 

 

At Ease, Soldier
By TINA LOUISE

Soldier soldier fights for right
Launches bombs through the night
Takes the lives of terrorists
Takes his orders, doesn't resist

Soldier soldier marches on
Through the ever massing throngs
Of evil doers sent to steal
His perfect democratic deal

Soldier soldier stands for truth
Sacrifices his treasured youth
Does his bit cause he believes
That without war--there'll be no peace

Soldier soldier settling scores
Loyal, patriotic to his core
Does the bidding of governments
With no personal, evil intent

Soldier soldier weeps again
For the loss of his fellow men
Turns his grief to revenge
Fuels the fight to the bitter end

Soldier soldier mourns the loss
Of youth and time and other costs
Wonders when the end will be
And if he'll ever see his family

Soldier soldier burdened with pain
Stays his ground and remains
Till the explosion at his side
Takes him away from his short life

Soldier soldier we mourn for you
And we mourn the death of truth
The death of honour and bravery
The death of all you were destined to be

Soldier soldier did you ever know
That the reasons weren,t right to go
That your leaders chose this war
And there was no noble cause

Soldier soldier lost in Iraq
No hero's welcome when you come back
No thanks from the president for your life
Insufficient support for your wife

Soldier soldier we thank you
For doing what you thought you knew
Was the best for us at home
Taking dictators from their thrones

Soldier soldier rest in peace
Soldier soldier stand at ease
Free now from government manipulation
You still have my admiration


Tina Louise
lives in Blackpool, England. She can be reached at: tinalouise99@hotmail.com










 

 

 

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