How
the Press & the CIA
Killed Gary Webb's Career
Today's
Stories
January 8 /
9, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
Say,
Waiter, Where's the Blood in My Margarita Glass?
John H. Summers
Chomsky
and Academic History
Greg Moses
Getting Real About the Draft
Robert Fisk
The Politics of Lebanon
Fred Gardner
Situation NORML
Joe Bageant
The Politics of the Comfort Zone
Ben Tripp
CounterClockwise Evolution
Saul Landau
Sex
and the Country
January 7,
2005
Omar Barghouti
Slave
Sovereignty: Elections Under Occupation
Kent Paterson
The Framing of Felipe Arreaga: Another Mexican Environmentalist
Arrested
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Old
Vijay Merchant and the Tsunami
David Krieger
Cancel the Inauguration Parties
Gideon Levy
New Year, Old Story
Dave Lindorff
Ohio Protest: First Shot Fired by Congressional Progressives
Christopher
Brauchli
Privatizing the IRS
Roger Burbach
/ Paul Cantor
Bush,
the Pentagon and the Tsunami
January 6,
2005
Brian J. Foley
Gonzales:
Supporting Torture is not His Greatest Sin
Greg Moses
Boot
Up America!: Gen. Helmly's Memo Leaks New Bush Deal
Petras / Chomsky
An
Open Letter to Hugo Chavez
Alan Maass
The Decline of the Dollar
Dave Lindorff
Colin Powell's Selective Sense of Horror
Jenna Orkin
The EPA and a Dirty Bomb: 9/11's Disastrous Precedent
P. Sainath
The
Tsunami and India's Coastal Poor
January 5,
2005
Alan Farago
2004:
An Environmental Retrospective
Winslow T.
Wheeler
Oversight
Detected?: Sen. McCain and the Boeing Tanker Scam
Jean-Guy Allard
Gary Webb: a Cuban Perspective
Fred Gardner
Strutting, Smirking, As If The Mad Plan Was Working
David Swanson
Albert Parsons on the Gallows
Richard Oxman
The Joe Bageant Interview
Bruce Jackson
Death
on the Living Room Floor
January 4,
2005
Michael Ortiz
Hill
Mainlining
Apocalypse
Elaine Cassel
They
Say They Can Lock You Up for Life Without a Trial
Yoram Gat
The
Year in Torture
Martin Khor
Tragic
Tales and Urgent Tasks from the Tsunami Disaster
Gary Leupp
Death
and Life in the Andaman Islands
January 3,
2005
Ron Jacobs
The
War Hits Home
Dave Lindorff
Is
There a Single Senator Who Will Stand Up for Black Voters?
Mike Whitney
The Guantanamo Gulag
Joshua Frank
Greens and Republicans: Strange Bedfellows
Maria Tomchick
Playing Politics with Disaster Aid
Rhoda and Mark
Berenson
Our Daughter Lori: Another Year of Grave Injustice
David Swanson
The Media and the Ohio Recount
Kathleen Christison
Patronizing
the Palestinians
January 1 /
2, 2005
Gary Leupp
Earthquakes
and End Times, Past and Present
Rev. William
E. Alberts
On "Moral Values": Code Words for Emerging Authoritarian
Tendencies
M. Shahid Alam
Testing Free Speech in America
Stan Goff
A Period for Pedagogy
Brian Cloughley
Bush and the Tsunami: the Petty and the Petulant
Sylvia Tiwon
/ Ben Terrall
The Aftermath in Aceh
Ben Tripp
Requiem for 2004
Greg Moses
A Visible Future?
Steven Sherman
The 2004 Said Awards: Books Against Empire
Sean Donahue
The Erotics of Nonviolence
James T. Phillips
The Beast's Belly
David Krieger
When Will We Ever Learn
Poets' Basement
Soderstrom, Hamod, Louise and Albert
December 31,
2004
Farrah Hassen
The
Palestinian Right of Return: a View from Syria
Dave Lindorff
US Air's Bold New Idea: Work for Your Boss for Free!
George Capaccio
Tsunami Hits Iraq
Mike Whitney
Iraq v. Tsunami: Media Duplicity
Peter Phillips
The Tsunami and the Corporate Media: Waves of Hypocrisy
Christopher
Deliso
War
and the Tsunami: Putting It in Perspective
December 30,
2004
Lila Rajiva
Unnatural
Disaster? Earthquakes, Tsunamis and Nuclear Testing
Robert Fisk
The
Ghosts of Vietnam
Roger Burbach
Argentina
v. the IMF
Stan Cox
9/11 and 12/26: How to React
Walter Brasch
Bush and Tsunamis: Heartless in Crawford
Christopher Brauchli
Empire of the Misers
Alexandra Spieldoch
NAFTA Through a Gender Lens: "Free Trade" Pacts and
Women
Paul Kincaid Jameison
Grief, Relief and the Stingy West
Dan Bacher
The Water Kings of California
Paul Craig
Roberts
Unbecoming
Conduct
December 29,
2004
Dave Lindorff
Us,
Stingy?: It's All Relative
M. Shahid Alam
America
and Islam: Seeking Parallels
Ronald D. Hoffman
Tsunamis
and Nuclear Power Plants
Sam Bahour
/ Todd May
Elections
Without Democracy
Fred Gardner
Ricky Does 60 Minutes
Ali Khan
Who's Feeding the Bin Laden Legend?
John Hansen
Family Farms Are Being Fed to Corporate Sharks
Sam Lewin
How the Justice Department Continues to Screw the Sioux
Richard Oxman
As Time Goes By With Andy Goldsworthy
Mickey Z.
A Wave of Questions: Putting a Disaster in Context
Website of the Day
Banking While Muslim
December 28,
2004
Brian Cloughley
The
Chief Weirdo at the Pentagon: Rumsfeld Must Go
Joshua Frank
Privacy Piracy? What Howard Dean May Bring to the DNC
Jessica Leight
The
Chilean Miracle: Less Than Meets the Eye
Dave Lindorff
A
Shameful Response to Disaster
John Walsh
Disappearing the Anti-War Movement at the NYTs
Dave Zirin
The Death of Reggie White: an Off the Field Obituary
Dr. Teresa Whitehurst
Be Careful Not to Get Too Much Education: It's Happened to a
Lot of Good Christians
Ron Jacobs
Iran
2004: The Resistance and the Western Anti-War Movement
December 27,
2004
M. Junaid Alam
"Civilization
v. Barbarism": an Interview with Noam Chomsky
Michael Donnelly
Greens and Greenbacks: How Nonprofit Careerism Derailed the "Revolution"
Greg Moses
Texas Election Scandal: Forty Faxes and a Whisper
Toni Solo
Colombia's Appalling Vista: Justice With Eyes Wide Open
Brian Kwoba
Blaming the Victims of the 2004 Elections
Genna Goodman-Campbell
Honduras Validates Its Banana Republic Status, Again
Mike Whitney
Disappearing Act: Fallujah and the Media
Ari Shavit
"Zionism Has Exhausted Itself": an Interview with Amos
Elon
Richard Oxman
Reflections on a Handful of Activists
Saul Landau
James
Cason's Cuban Delusions
December 25
/ 26, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Yup,
It's Moral Outrage Time
Diane Christian
The Christmas Christ
Dr. Susan Block
Faith-Based Sex
Gary Leupp
Rumsfeld, His Critics and the Draft
Ron Jacobs
Music in Wartime
Elaine Cassel
Articles I Didn't Write
Jim Minick
Beyond Organic
Poets Basement
Louise, Landau, Orloski, Albert
and Collins
December 24,
2004
Diane Christian
Winning:
Rummy and John Milton
Chad Nagle
Ukraine's
Real Underdog
Saul Landau
My Friend Richard Barnet
Greg Moses
Ramsey Muniz Speaks
Joe DeRaymond
The Endless War in Colombia: a View From Within
Borzou Daragahi
Iraq's Christians: Tolerated by Saddam; Targets Under Occupation
Mike Whitney
Rummy's Quagmire of Lies
Francis A. Boyle
O Little Town of Bethlehem: Another Christmas Under Occupation
William Loren
Katz
Florida 1837: Christmas Eve Resistance to the First US Occupation
December 23,
2004
Chad Nagle
Report
from Kiev: Yushchenko's Not Quite Ready for Sainthood
David Smith-Ferri
The
Real UN Disgrace in Iraq
Bill Quigley
Death
Watch for Human Rights in Haiti
Mickey Z.
Crumbs
from Our Table
Christopher Brauchli
Merck's Merry X-mas
Greg Moses
When
No Law Means No Law
Alan Singer
An
Encounter with Sen. Schumer: a Very Dangerous Democrat
David Price
Social
Security Pump and Dump
Website of the Day
Gabbo Gets Laid
December 22,
2004
James Petras
An
Open Letter to Saramago: Nobel Laureate Suffers from a Bizarre
Historical Amnesia
Omar Barghouti
The Case for Boycotting Israel
Patrick Cockburn / Jeremy Redmond
They Were Waiting on Chicken Tenders When the Rounds Hit
Harry Browne
Northern Ireland: No Postcards from the Edge
Richard Oxman
On the Seventh Column
Kathleen Christison
Imagining
Palestine
Website of the Day
FBI Torture Memos
December 21,
2004
Greg Moses
The
New Zeus on the Block: Unplugging Al-Manar TV
Dave Lindorff
Losing
It in America: Bunker of the Skittish
Chad Nagle
The View from Donetsk
Dragon Pierces
Truth*
Concrete
Colossus vs. the River Dragon: Dislocation and Three Gorges Dam
Patrick Cockburn
"Things Always Get Worse"
Seth DeLong
Aiding Oppression in Haiti
Ahmad Faruqui
Pakistan and the 9/11 Commission's Report
Paul Craig
Roberts
America
Locked Up: a System of Injustice
December 20,
2004
Gary Leupp
Japan
in Iraq
Robert Fisk
An
Army Without Compassion
Uri Avnery
The Mountain and the Mouse
Francisco Letelier
My Case Against Pinochet
Patrick Cockburn
The Polls of Fear
Bill Conroy
Charles Bowden on the Legacy of Gary Webb: "He Drew Blood"
Yoshie Furuhashi
Chokeholds of a Giant: Attacking Wal-Mart's Supply Chain
David Swanson
Media Blackout of Bush's War on Labor
Chad Nagle
Did Yushchenko Poison Himself?
December 18
/ 19, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Why
They Hated Gary Webb
Saul Landau
Gen.
Pinochet Should Also Face Charges in DC
Patrick Cockburn
Losing
Mosul: Once They Called It a Model for the Occupation
Douglas Valentine
Wolves
and Revolution in Venezuela: a Caracas Romance
Ray McGovern
Laughing Dragon, Dancing Bear: the New China / Russia Alliance
Fred Gardner
DEA Upholds Grower's Marijuana Monopoly
Jean-Guy Allard
Locked Up Naked in a Hole Within a Hole: Have the Cuban 5 Been
Tortured in US Prisons?
Ron Jacobs
Drifters Escape, Again: Encounters with Berkeley's Police
Raymond G.
Helmick, S.J.
The Law and Peace in the Middle East
Sean Sellers
Values Voters, Desperate Housewives and Sweatshop Tacos
Lee Sustar
Christmas
on the Picket Line at CNH: "They Want to Break Our Unions"
Richard Thieme
Webb's Wife: "Gary Was Never the Same After They Attacked
Him"
Sam Bahour
WANTED:
Middle East Negotiator
Joshua Frank
The
Spin Doctor: an Interview with Mickey Z.
Dave Lindorff
A Man Who Confers with God Should Have Good Hearing
Stan Cox
What Kids Cost: Dallas v. Delhi
Chris Frasier
Farming By Numbers: More Poets, Fewer MBAs
Poets' Basement
Katz, Melek, Harley, Albert and Ford
December
17, 2004
Cockburn /
St. Clair
CounterAttack:
How the Press and the CIA Killed Gary Webb's Career
Dave Lindorff
Racism:
Philly Style
Dan Bacher
Bush Abandons Salmon Restoration
Marisa Jacott
NAFTA and the Environment: Trade Still Runs Roughshod
Francis Thicke
How Now, Industrial Cow?
Rupert Cornwell
The Inuit Strike Back
Website of the Day
Franz Boas Unrolls Over in His Grave
December
16, 2004
Michael
Neumann
How We Became Barbarians
Merlin
Chowkwanyun
An Interview with Ralph Nader
Gabriel
Espinoza Gonzales
The Dubious Career of John Bolton
Christopher
Brauchli
Louis Freeh's New Gig: Usurer
Patrick
Cockburn
Allawi's Pre-Election Ploy: Putting "Chemical Ali"
on Trial
Mike
Whitney
Gearing Up for a Draft?
Walter
Brasch
Hillbilly Humvees and Rumsfeld's New Physics
Bill
Conroy
How Gary Webb Saved My Ass from the FBI
Website
of the Day
Saturday Memorial for Gary Webb
December
15, 2004
Robert
Fisk
Who Killed Baha Mousa?
Jennifer
Van Bergen
The Monster Under the Bed
Heather
Gray
Will the Real Christians Please Stand?: a Personal Testimony
Dave
Lindorff
The DNC, Albright and the Iraq Elections
Luis
Hernandez Navarro
To Die a Little: Migration and Coffee
in Mexico and Central America
Joshua
Frank
The Ohio Recount: an Exercise in "Dumbocracy"
Greg
Moses
Eighty-Sixing Civil Rights in Ohio?
George
Caffentzis
The Petroleum Commons
December
14, 2004
Dave
Lindorff
DNC Meddling in the Ukraine Elections
Larry
Birns / Seth DeLong
Haiti is Unraveling and No One is Saying
Anything
Richard
Thieme
My Last Talk with Gary Webb: "I Knew It Was the Truth and
That's What Kept Me Going"
Patrick
Cockburn
A Year After Saddam's Capture, Iraq
is Getting Worse
Chris
Floyd
Client State: Moral Values and Voluntary Servitude in Bush's
America
Akiva
Eldar
A One-time Hanukkah Miracle
Burbach
/ Cantor
The Legacy of Pinochet: Kissinger
and the Teflon Tyrant
December
13, 2004
Cockburn
/ St. Clair
Gary Webb: a Great Reporter, Trashed
by the CIA's Claque
David
Phinney
"Contract Meal Disaster" for Iraqi Prisoners: Rancid
Food Sparked Abu Ghraib Riots
Paul
Craig Roberts
A Dose of Non-Delusional Reality
for Douglas Feith
M.
Junaid Alam
The War is the War Crime
Robert
Jensen
The US Has Lost the Iraq War...and That's a Good Thing
Richard
Oxman
Kafkaesque Lessons for the Left
Greg
Moses
Send No Messengers of Defeat
Douglas
Lummis
The Pentagon's Neurosis: Fallujah
Gulag
December
11 / 12, 2004
Alexander
Cockburn
Running an Empire on the Cheap
Ron
Jacobs
The Drugs of War: Getting High in the Green Zone?
Saul
Landau
Listening and Talking to God About
Invading Other Countries
Gary
Leupp
Bush's Capital
Sharon
Smith
The Horrible Toll on US Troops
Dave
Lindorff
Deja Vu All Over Again: 5,000 Desertions and Counting
Uri
Avnery
The Boss Has Gone Crazy
Jude
Wanniski
The Neo-Con Smear on Kofi Annan: What Food-for-Oil Scandal?
Heather
Gray
How the South Became Republican: an Interview with John Egerton
Patrick
Cockburn / Ken Sengupta
Fallujah: the Homecoming and the Homeless
John
Pilger
Return to Kosovo: Calling the Humanitarian Bombers to Account
Joshua
Frank
All the Rage: Mr. Solomon, Say You're Sorry
Ben
Tripp
O Canada!: the Truth About the Election of 2004
John
Stanton
God Speaks!
Laura
Nathan
Porn Stars are People, Too: a Talk with Christi Lake
Poets'
Basement
Capaccio, Davies, Louise, Ford and Albert
Website
of the Day
Fallujah Photos: Killed in Their Beds
December
10, 2004
Ralph
Nader
President Bush, Stop Destroying the
Mosques of Iraq
Greg
Moses
Whitewashing Voter Fraud
Nicole
Colson
Rebellion in the Ranks: Grunts Are Resisting Stop-Loss Orders
Frederick
B. Hudson
"They Still Got Those Dogs": A New Book Probes Old
Civil Rights Lessons
Patrick
Cockburn
Iraq's Insurgents Oppose the Occupation, Not the Elections
Kathy
Kelly
From Haiti to Iraq: Burying Water
December
9, 2004
Greg
Moses
Ask Not Who Bankrolled Fallujah
Joshua
Frank
Cobb and the Ohio Recount: Vote Fraud as Fundraiser!
Ralph
Nader
An Open Letter to Bush: It's Time to
Disclose the Real Casualty Figures
Lee
Sustar
Bhopal: the Making of a Disaster
Tom
Barry
Restrictionist Resurgence
Mickey
Z.
Sander Hicks and the 9/11 Truth Movement
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush in the Bubble
Mark
Donham
Why are House Democrats Trying to
Deny Cynthia McKinney Seniority?
Gary
Corseri
On the Anniversary of John Lennon's Death, 2012
Paul
de Rooij
The Voices of Sharon's Little Helpers
December
8, 2004
Ralph
Nader
Will the Real Michael Moore Ever Re-Emerge?
Ann
Harrison
The Ohio Recount: Reluctant Officials
and Few Rules
Paul
Craig Roberts
War Crime
Dave
Lindorff
They've Got a Secret: Inside the $40 Billion Black Budget for
Spying
Patrick
Cockburn / Andrew Buncombe
CIA Warning on Iraq: Fallujah Did Not Break the Back of the Insurgency
Col.
Dan Smith
Rules of Engagement in Iraq
Emily
Alves / Michael Johnson
Paradise Lost: Corruption and Clientelism in Costa Rica
Richard
Oxman
The Dylan Bob Wouldn't Mention: Up With Dylan Thomas
Ron
Jacobs
In Fallujah, Freedom Isn't Free
December
7, 2004
Patrick
Cockburn
Running Battles in Baghdad
Behrooz
Ghamari
Lost Muslim Voices of Dissent
Dave
Lindorff
American Fantasies: Psst! Hey Buddy,
Did You Hear How Well the War's Going?
Joshua
Frank
Dean at the DNC?
Richard
Oxman
Down with Dylan: the Insufferable Interview
Ray
McGovern
All Mosquitoes, No Swamp
John
Chuckman
The Invasion of Hallifax: The Imperial Wizard Visits Canada
James
Petras
Latin America: the Empire Changes Gears
Website
of the Day
ToxMap: Who's Poisoning You
December
6, 2004
Paul
Craig Roberts
Paranoia and Pre-emption: Is the
Bush Administration Certifiable?
December
4 / 6, 2004
Alexander
Cockburn
Politicize the CIA? You've Got to
be Kidding
Joe
Bageant
Dining with the Rhinos
Alan
Maass
Reporting from the Ground in Iraq: an Interview with Patrick
Cockburn
Brian
Cloughley
Democracy, Bush-style, in the Gulf
Laura
Carlsen
Latin America Shifts Left
Lenni
Brenner
Jefferson, Madison, Bush and Religion
Anna
Ioakimedes
Brazil's Haitian Mission: Doing God's Work or Washington's?
Uri
Avnery
Widow of Opportunity?
Fred
Gardner
Supreme Court Hears Medical Pot Case
Dave
Zirin
Steroids to Heaven
Jackie
Corr
Mining Camp Blues: the Red State Variation
Don
Fitz
Will Greens Abandon IRV?
Lucy
Herschel
"Art can be a Weapon of the Oppressed": an Interview
with Artist Anthony Papa
Richard
Oxman
No Angels in America: Bashing the Gay Play
Ron
Jacobs
Holiday Greeting Card
Poets'
Basement
Collins, Albert, LaMorticella
December
3, 2004
Dave
Lindorff
Lie Then Escalate
Ben
Tripp
Fun With Boycotts: How to Shop in a
Time of Crisis
Joe
Allen
Murder in El Salvador: the Assassination of Teamster Organizer
Gilberto Soto
Matthew
B. Riley
Human Rights Court Fails Lori Berenson
Meir
Shalev
In the End, It is the Violin that Wins
Bob
Wing
The White Elephant in the Room: Race and Election 2004
Christopher
Brauchli
When McCain Bit His Tongue
Sasan
Fayazmanesh
The EU, the US, Israel and Iran
December
2, 2004
Tito
Tricot
No Justice in Chile: I'm a Torture
Survivor in a Country Where Torturers Still Run Free
Behzad
Yaghmaian
The Murder of Theo Van Gogh and Muslim Migration
Dr.
Susan Block
Lana and Me: Meetings with Remarkable Apes
Frank
/ Chowkwanyun
Liberalism and Its Bounds
Lee
Sustar
Standoff in Ukraine: the Bad v. the Corrupt
Patrick
Cockburn
Another Grim Record in Iraq
Mark
Engler
Seattle at Five
Michael
Donnelly
Something Stinks in South Bend: the Firing of Tyrone Willingham
Nate
Collins
The Bay Area Mall on an Ohlone Burial Grounds
Saul
Landau
The Assassination of Danilo Anderson
December
1, 2004
Phillip
Cryan
Associated with Whom? Rightist Bias
in Wire Coverage of Colombia
Dave
Zirin
What's the Matter with "Leon"?:
Budweiser's Racist Commercial
Ghali
Hassan
Iraq's Health Care Under the Occupation:
200 Children Die Every Day
Donna
J. Volatile
Beware Western Nations Threatening "Democracy"
Patrick
Cockburn
How Saddam Tried to Arm the Insurgency
Nick
Meo
Chemical War Over Afghanistan
Mike
Ferner
The Battle of Toledo
Mokhiber
/ Weissman
Shame and Determination on Global AIDS Day: 40 Million and Rising
Kathy
Kelly
Looking the Other Way: the Real Crimes
of the UN in Iraq
November
30, 2004
Jennifer
Van Bergen
The Veil of Secrecy
Toni
Nelson Herrera
Meeting Kurtz: When Art is a Crime
Paul
Craig Roberts
The Bush Delusions: Successful at Incompetence
Patrick
Cockburn
The Insurgency Strikes Back: There Are No Safe Havens in Iraq
Chuck
Munson
WTO Protests Five Years Later: Seattle Weekly Trashes Anti-Globalization
Movement
Adam
Williams
Citizenship Sold: Back to Business in Indiana
Gregory
Elich
A Dangerous Turn in the US Plans for
North Korea
Website
of the Day
Read Lynne Cheney's Lesbian Novel Online!
November
29, 2004
Dave
Lindorff
Blowback in Ukraine: The Hand of
the CIA?
Omar
Barghouti
"The Pianist" of Palestine:
Roadblock Concerto at Gunpoint
Mike
Whitney
The US Media and Fallujah: How to
Market a Siege
Uri
Avnery
The Abu Mazen Style: "Give Me
Some Credit!"
Matt
Vidal
Globalization and Economic Inequality: a Look at the Numbers
Patrick
Cockburn
An Interview with Iraq's Foreign
Minister
Alan
Farago
Sex Change and Salvation: God, Girly Men and Endocrine Disrupters
Justin
Huggler
Bhopal 20 Years Later
Antony
Loewenstein
How Australia Reported Arafat's Death and Legacy
Gary
Leupp
Ukraine: Poll Results Aren't the Real
Issue
Website
of the Day
Mosul: Images from a Kill Zone
November
27 / 28, 2004
Peter
Linebaugh
Torture & Neo-Liberalism with
Sycorax in Iraq
Alexander
Cockburn
What Happened to O'Reilly's Loofa?
Fred
Gardner
Ashcroft v. Raich: Medical Marijuana and the Supreme Court
Kathy
Kelly
What We Can Control
Diane
Christian
The Other Cheek: "Empire Doesn't Analyze, It Acts"
Gary
Leupp
One More Neocon Target: South (Yes, South) Korea
Lenni
Brenner
Equality and Rights of Return: Jefferson Instructs the New York
Times
Ron
Jacobs
Death Squads and Iraq's Elections: the Mysterious Murders of
the AMS Clerics
Joshua
Frank
An Interview with Kevin Zeese on Nader, Kerry and the ABB Crowd
Toni
Solo
The Murder of Danilo Anderson
Saul
Landau
Fallujah, the 21st Century Guernica
JoAnn
Wypijewski
Matthew Shepard Case 6 Years Later: Why Hate Crimes Laws are
No Cure for Homophobia
Justin
Taylor
Empire's Lawless Opportunities
Amos
Harel
The Case of Captain R.
Walter
A. Davis
Tabloid Justice
Stephen
Hendricks
God's Kind of Men
Poets'
Basement
Albert, LaMorticella and Ford
November
26, 2004
Peter
Feng
Gavin Newsom: Man or Machine?
Greg
Moses
It's the White Vote, Stupid
Liaquat
Ali Khan
The Devil's Work: Bush's Minority Appointments
Michael
Mandel / Gail Davidson
Why Bush Should Be Banned from Canada: a Memo to the Ministry
of Immigration
Dave
Lindorff
Nation of Sheep, Turkey of an Election: Urkrainians Show the
Way
Gary
Corseri
When Black Friday Comes...
Paul
Craig Roberts
Whatever Happened to Conservatives?
Website
of the Day
Iraq Pipeline Watch
November
25, 2004
Willliam
Loren Katz
Giving Thanks to Whom?: "Thanks
to God We Sent 600 Heathen Souls to Hell Today"
Mitchel
Cohen
Why I Hate Thanksgiving
Mike
Ferner
An Uncommon Mom
November
24, 2004
Gila
Svirsky
License to Kill: the Example of Violence
is Set by the State
Winslow
T. Wheeler
The
Other Mess in Congress
Christopher
Brauchli
The Company He Keeps: the Syndicate of Tom Delay
Dave
Lindorff
Double Standards on Exit Polls: Hypocrisy Sans Irony
Ron
Jacobs
The Occupation of Iraq is the Root of t he Problem
Ken
Sengupta
Witnesses: War Crimes in Fallujah
Diana
Barahona
The Final Holocaust or Why I Voted for Ralph Nader
John
L. Hess
Safire the Shameless
Jason
Leopold
Did Harvard Hire (Another) War Criminal?
Jeffrey
St. Clair
The Mark of McCain: the Senator Most Likely to Start a Nuclear
War
Map
of the Day
Now and Then: 2004 v. 1860
November
23, 2004
Forrest
Hylton
Bush and Uribe at the Beach
November
22, 2004
Dave
Zirin
Fight Night in the NBA: Selective Outrage
in Detroit
Paul
Craig Roberts
On to Iran: We Won't Get Fooled Again?
Michael
Mandel / Gail Davidson
Why Bush Should be Banned from Canada
Kathie
Helmkamp
Our Son: a Marine Who Won't Kill
Ken
Sengupta
The Triangle of Death: "This is Now the Most Dangerous Place
in Iraq"
Mike
Whitney
Greenspan's Hammer
Roger
Burbach
Why They Hate Bush in Chile
Website
of the Day
Fed Up with Government Lies and Corporate Spin?
November
20 / 21, 2004
Alexander
Cockburn
The Poisoned Chalice
Todd
May
Religion, the Election and the Politics of Fear
Abbas
Ahmed Ibrahim
The Horrors of Fallujah: a First-Hand Account
Kevin
Zeese
Mishandling Nader
Landau
/ Hassen
After Arafat
Tom
Barry
The Vulcans Consolidate Power: The Rise of Stephen Hadley
Fred
Gardner
Pot Shots: Ask Dr. Todd
Justin
E.H. Smith
Triumph of the Will: the Sequel
Carl
Estabrook
Where We Are Now
Gary
Leupp
Imperial History-Making vs. Reality-Based Thought: a Dialogue
Dave
Lindorff
Apocalypse Soon
Jenna
Michelle Liut
Plans Colombia and Patriota: Wanton Wastes of Money, Manpower
and Lives
Mickey
Z.
The Granma Moses of Radical Writing: an Interview with William
Blum
Greg
Moses
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Weekend Edition
January 8 / 9, 2005
The Oxman/Bageant Interview, Part 2
Bageantry
Continued
By
RICHARD OXMAN
I conducted interviews
with Franz Kafka and Joe Strummer on separate occasions recently...in
preparation for my first interview with Joe Bageant. We're roughly
the same vintage, me just pre- and him just post-Nagasaki. Same
diff between Kafka and Strummer, with just a wider range. But
one thing we all have in common is --from grave complaint to
mild musing-- our collective tsk tsk tsk vis-a-vis America's
momentum/abominations. The fascinating rascal-sage, G.I. Gurdjieff,
in All and Everything, provides some words which are a good introduction
to the continuation of my interview with the marvelous Bageant:
"The sole means now for
the saving of the beings of the planet Earth would be to implant
again into their presences a new organ...of such properties that
every one of these unfortunates during the process of existence
should constantly sense and be cognizant of the inevitability
of his own death as well as the death of everyone upon whom his
eyes or attention rests....Only such a sensation and such a cognizance
can now destroy the egoism completely crystallized in them."
ROX: I understand you spent
New Year's Eve at a classic East Coast literati party...at the
Willa Cather abode. Happy so-called New Year, by the way, Joe.
Well, my first question for this Part II has to do with her nostalgia
respecting lost or unfulfilled love. To wit, Cather suggests
in A Lost Lady and My Antonia that there's an illusion
of happiness that we think we've seen...which we never find.
Are there any illusions of love that lost leftists harbor, puppy
love waves they're riding...that we should bring them home from
the sea on?
JB: Actually, it was New Year's
Day, one of those beautifully haunting bright winter East Coast
days with the cold sun slicing through the high windows of that
huge old house...imagining Willa Cather walking those great clattering
hallways...marvelous! As for the rest of it, I dunno. Leftists
come in as much variety as any other stripe of humanity. I don't
think we can generalize like that. And I certainly would never
assume that we could ever 'bring anyone home from the sea"
about anything. To me it's like the Buddhist "big-boat/little
boat" thing. We may go together, we may go alone, but the
important thing is to make the journey. To go beyond silly mortal
strife and striving toward the realization of both self- and
others. If you live in your head in this sterile corporatized
state, you will just come up with mechanistic theories about
how to help mankind. You will waste time coming up with non-solutions
based too much on reaction to the corporate state. To hell with
playing defensive ball. We need to go on the attack. Break the
law like the Republicans did to steal the elections. Revolt.
Burn some stuff down. Then they will crush us like bugs because
we will have broken the law. But at least sleeping Americans
and the world can see the face of the beast, the brutal repression.
No matter how you split this puppy, oppressive regimes never
give anything up without a fight. And it is a very old fight,
one that dates back to the European investors in Columbus, Cortez
and Captain John Smith, whose jobs were to kill indigenous people
and take away their land and goods. It goes back to the emerging
global money based economy of the 15th Century, which is coming
to ultimate fruition now, with the attempted enslavement of the
entire world by a powerful few, now that there are no new continents,
lands and peoples to discover and exploit. Isabella and King
George are now become Halliburton and Exxon. Regarding "puppy
love waves" and "illusions of lost love" held
by the left, I wish to hell there were that much sentimental
capability these days. I wish we were all that human. There is
a connective tissue of the human community that has been completely
obliterated in the U.S. and much of the supposedly advanced Western
world. Lest you think "connective tissue of the human community"
is just another grandios liberal phrase, think about all those
cities in Asia that have no street names or street addresses,
yet the mail gets accurately delivered every day to hundreds
of thousands because there is a web of humanity functioning,
breathing and making the city work as a living thing. Now how
the fuck does that mail get from the post office to all those
people without addresses and street names? Because people know
people who know people and everybody knows the people in their
neighborhood. Or at least someone knows all of them. They are
not plugged in at the brainstem to media that drives them to
consume, make war, believe state ideology and live in fear of
those they do not know. The state is a myth perpetuated to make
people believe it is in their interest to support the wars of
the rich and the powerful interests of commerce. All that exists
are human beings and their environment---everything else is a
manufactured belief system, propaganda of one sort or another,
to marshal human energies in one direction or another. The best
we can hope for is to marshal them conservatively for the planet
and expansively toward the self-realization of all men. Maybe
we are under illusions. The entire notion of a real left in this
country is an illusion. But hell, the whole world is an illusion.
As Edwin Arnold said in "Light of Asia:" Sink not the
string of thought into the fathomless For this is the world of
illusion He who asks, errs And he who answers errs [more]
I'll take my own illusion,
thank you. It took a lot of dope, heartbreak and fast living
to create it, so I am going to go down with it.
ROX: Oh...I think this is gonna
be a gooood interview. On that note of illusion, what
about the Hickey Factor? As in Hickey of The Iceman Cometh...when
we're simply getting into a "talk" with a neighbor...or
stranger at a pub...and tryin' to bring someone around. What
about the everyday resistance one encounters...short of a barricades
situation? Whereby you don't want to lose them 'cause of a shock
to the system, but you want to engage. What do you advise there?
JB: Please don't paint my ridiculous
political and philosophical flatulence as "advice."
I have no advice for anyone. Just a big mouth and a lot of opinions.
As for "bringing someone around," in this bitter age
of hardened political battle lines, I don't think that is about
to happen. At least noit very often. The business of productive
political dialogue between opposing views is mostly capitalist
state generated illusionary horseshit. That doesn't happen any
more. Yet the illusion is maintained that it is still part of
the process. The lines are drawn, the neo-conservatives are slipping
on their brass knuckles and hoods, while the left is playing
dialectic games at Starbucks and weeping like a bunch of mock
turtles about the elections. It was all over long before the
elections.
We have to ask ourselves how
in the hell can the classes in America live in such parallel
unibverses? The rich liberals and neoconservatives, the West
coast lefties and the massive unacknowledged working class in
this country? How can we remain so oblivious and unconnected
with our fellow Americans? Answer: Americans, rich or poor, now
live in a culture entirely perceived through, simulacraómedia
images and illusions. We live inside a self-referential media
hologram of a nation that has not existed for quite some time
now. Our national reality is held together by images, the originals
of which have been lost or never existed. The well-off with their
upscale consumer aesthetic, live inside gated Disneyesque communities
with gleaming uninhabited front porches representing some bucolic
notion of the Great American home and family. The working class,
true to its sports culture aesthetic, is a spectator to politics
Ö politics which are so entirely imagistic as to be holograms
of a process that has not existed for decades in America, if
ever. Social realism is a television commercial for America,
a simulacran republic of eagles, church spires, heroic firemen
and ìfreedom of choiceî between holograms. Americaís
citizens have been reduced to balkanized consumer units by the
corporate stateís culture producing machinery. We are
all transfixed on and within the hologram and cannot see one
another in the living breathing flesh.
ROX: Those have to be some
of my...among my favorite Bageant lines. Including the Buddhist
"big-boat/little boat" thing...and the business of
"We may go together, we may go alone, but the important
thing is to make the journey"....clarifies a lot too. Yet
I know readers...will cling to old Starbucks paradigms. I've
often thought that new models for action won't emerge until those
disgusted with The System embrace what Rimbaud was getting across
in...to go back to the sea...in The Drunken Boat: "Bathed
in your weary waves, I can no longer ride In the wake of cargo
ships of cotton, Nor cross the pride of flags and flames, Nor
swim beneath the killing stares of prison ships." Did you
read Stan Goff's piece in Counterpunch this past weekend, and,
if so, do you think he's taking that stance...or simply doing
a Starbucks dance...with his Two-Year Pedagogical Plan
for "getting citizens to come around?"
JB: I don't think we should
drag personalities into this. It's just not worth the effort.
Ah, The Drunken Boat! He was marvelous wasn't he! Let's
talk about the myth of the middle class...What gets me is the
power of illusion, when it comes to the class divide in this
country. The entertainment media, which is to say the most important
one, television, leads us to believe that most Americans are
in the middle class and that the middle class is some kind of
majority in American society. Which of course is bullshit. Most
of America is working class. A broad look around us confirms
that the middle class by television's definition can't be more
than 20-25%. The working class would necessarily be defined as
those who work for wages rather than salaries, have a boss and
do not choose when we work or how we do our work. As opposed
to the salaried middle class, professional middle class, or the
professional managerial class, entrepreneurs. By that definition
70% of us are working class. One of the slickest things that
ever happened was how capitalism convinced all those working
slobs they were middle classe. As in, "Your car is being
fucking repoed, you don't have any health insurance, your kids
don't know shit because their schools are shit, you are overweight
and one payday away from being homeless ...WELCOME TO THE GREAT
GIUILDED AMERICA MIDDLES CLASS! (You dumb nose picking fools!)
News media used to call them the "traditional working class,"
and the political left used to be right down there on the picket
lines getting their noses broken alongside the working mooks.
Now the working class lives with its mindscape wired into NFL
bread and circuses and the soft little eunuchs in the political
left grope one another on the internet in interviews like this
one. It ain't pretty. But what the hell can ya do?
ROX: I'm fine with not dragging
personalities into the fray here. But I would like to address
the business of "what can you do?" in light of what
many on the left suggest...that one only needs the 25% (middle
class contingent) to force change. And my concern there is also
coupled with suggestions from some quarters that guns can make
a difference here if push comes to shove. However, you may have
put all that to bed already...and as a courtesy...to be respectful...and
bowing to the possibility that my Alzheimers may be kicking in...I'll
ask you to decide whether or not you'd prefer to pick up a ball
you threw in my court a short while back instead. To wit, you
said something beautiful --while reminiscing about the sixties--
about how consciousness was the only thing that mattered.
JB: Well....all you guys are
far more intellectual about these things than I am. Not knocking
it, just acknowledging it. To address the points in the order
you presented them: --This last election proved the fallacy
of going after the middle class vote to force change. We also
hear that if the left had registered more working class nonvoters
Bush would not have won. But from what I see out here in ordinary
America, if more working class folks had voted, Kerry would just
have gotten his ass kickled much harder. It is a precious myth
of the left and liberals that there are millions of lefties and
"progressives" out here waiting to be registered. What
I see are a bunch of mindless ass scratchers who would have voted
for Bush if they had the motivation to get up off the couch and
register. Liberals are afriad to call stupid stupid, but I'm
not. I was raised white trash and these are my people and I must
say that they have been reduced to the dumbest goddamned mob
of sports loving, beer sucking nitwits imaginable. They would
have voted for Bush. Hell, Bush only got 19% of the fundamentalists.
Right? Imagine if they had all voted! ---About guns making
a difference when push comes to shove: yer goddamned right, buster!
I mean, let's use our fucking heads here. Just how far are we
willing to let these repressive bastards beat on us? At some
point violence DOES enter the picture, doesn't it? I have absolutely
no problem with committing a violent act against despotism under
the right circumstances (as in, can I get away with it!) ---Consciousness?
Well godamighty son! Ain't that all we have? Praise the lord
and pass the peyote buttons! Ain't no big deal.
ROX: Well, now that we've put
THAT baby to bed, I'd like to get back to eunuchs groping
one another in interviews like this....What think you about
the Publish or Perish Syndrome...whereby writers/activists must
decide whether or not to go for survival bucks with established
publications or put the word out to as many...as quickly...as
possible...with virtually no recognition...no $$$ exchanged in
Virtual Land? Is there any way for a self-respecting activist
to carve out a career with the pen these days? I know you've
got loads of experience on this count...and miles of bumpy roads
you've gone down on this.
JB: Oh hell! You've punched
a hole in the dike with that one! It is goddamned near impossible
to make a living saying anything meaningful in print in this
country. Oh there are a few good mags left, Harper's, Mother
Jones, Free Inquiry, etc. But these days anything written and
published is a "commercial product" aimed at certain
demographic consumer groups as perceived by a goddamned bunch
of pud pounding bean counters in management whose literary experience
is limited to a fifth grade book report on "Mice and Men"
and one chapter of Toqueville in college. I have been in and
out of the magazine business for 30 years and I've never seen
things worse. It's come down to sports, pussy and personalities.
I have published hundreds and hundreds of magazine articles in
my time, but have published nothing but paint-by-number garbage
since the mid-1980s. That is all you can sell. So now I say screw
the money. Give me the web. Any time I want to speak the truth
as I know it, I do it on the web.
Any activist who thinks he
can make a decent living with the pen these days had better be
pretty goddamned good. I haven't seen anyone do it right since
the advent of Ralph Nader decades ago. I find it interesting
that Nader could publish his scathing indictments of corporations
in all the major magazines back then. Now all you have is Mother
Jones and one or two others. When you look at the magazines of
the 1960s with the excitement of what they were calling "the
new journalism," and the sheer fun of the novel ideas ...
well, it makes today's magazines look like damned newspaper inserts
written by ditzy advertising hacks (because they are.) It's
too bad people started getting degrees in journalism, too bad
the universities managed to set up hack writer factories to serve
the corporate state. I liked it better when writers and reporters
were tough guys knocking back shots and hammering out the truth
as they saw it. I saw the end of that era and I'm here to tell
you that today's reporters and writers are mostly a bunch of
gutless pussies by comparison. Like I said, give me the web.
There may not be any money in it, but by god that's where the
big dogs run these days. That's where the real balls and ideas
are, and that's where ALL the young talent is today, if you can
wade through the tripe to find them.
ROX: In the January 3rd issue
of The Nation (I usually hate to give that rag a plug,
except for Cockburn's contributions...and a very few others),
William Deresiewicz points out that Faulkner, Joyce, Miller,
Nabokov and Burroughs all had watershed works in English...published
first in France. I know you mentioned last time the possibility
of going overseas for personal reasons. Is there still good
reason for writers/activists to venture abroad...so that they
don't have to have 15 years worth of lag time (in getting
"recognized') like Faulkner?
JB: Yes, Mother Jones is getting
limper these days. It's the American publishing environment.
It eventually dilutes or co-opts all resistance. As far as "lag
time in getting recognized" as a writer in the U.S., I say
fuck'em all. To hell with the celebrity obsession and being
recognized in this country. That's how this system nails your
ass. I'd rather just do good work. Interestingly though, the
French do seem to respond well to what I have tosay. Which is
not much, so god bless the friggin French! I really want to have
some kind of scene abroad. Something creative, full of ideas
and dynamic people exercising their creative energies. I haven't
seen that in years.
ROX: Got a Big Thing blooming
at present in Paris...vis-a-vis Underground Theatre et plus;
I'll keep you and others posted. However, your reference to peyote
took me back to Burroughs...and the hallucinatory carnival that
he delineates. The incessant traffic that he injects into
Naked Lunch...the maelstrom of activity and stimuli there...has
really taken over our lives today. Its become quite clear that
everyone is overwhelmed by air, disease, others' words, images...culture
itself, and...I'm wondering whether you can say anything to readers
to instill hope vis-a-vis the "connective tissue" your
alluded to earlier...so that there's some sense of being able
to move in solidarity...internationally. No one seems to have
time for bonding. Are we doomed to do our dance alone? In Jackson
Browne's For a Dancer (written out of his wife's
suicide), he says, "No matter how close to yours another's
steps have grown...In the end there is one dance you'll do alone."
I see people on the left...leaving one another...out of step
with one another...alone...long before their individual ends.
This is not at variance with what you've said here, oui? By
the way, I won't drive you crazy with too much more...maybe one
or two more, as you like.
JB: I think one of the big
aspects of our modern alienation is that as a social animal we
can no longer answer a very basic human question: "Who are
my people?" As an old line, ancestor obsessed Virginian,
I have always been much more aware of who my people are than
most modern Americans....aware of the chain of blood and history,
raised in close traditional family and friendship ties. There
was 250 years of connective social tissue that linked everyone
in this town and county in one way or another. I saw the end
of the agricultural era and its values here. We were intensely
dependent upon one another...on each other's help in getting
things done, kids babysitted, vcars fixed, rides to work. People
did not own so much, it was still that post-war era when if a
person had a TV, a car, a fridge and a couple decent changes
of clothing, he was an average middle class American. People
lived near each other practically all their lives and for generations
on end. It was a neighborhood, a culture and a society with fairly
natural underpinning. Connective social tissue. And I am convinced
that America has now completely destroyed the connective social
tissue that is inherent in man in his natural social state. Our
differences between one another are merely what we consume. A
yuppie liberal is as defined by what he consumes as the gun toting
redneck with his truck. And living here among the reddest of
necks, I can tell you that these days rural and small-town people
are no warmer, nicer or better connected with their neighbors
and relatives and families than the most career obsessed urbanite.
Big spook America done gobbled de hearts out of all her chillun.
We're talking night of the living dead, only the dead don''t
know they are dead because they cannot remember ever being alive.
Even older people's memories have been cleansed. I remind my
elderly mother of the way life was then, and she can barely find
the memory. When she does she cries. Some younger people suspect
it should be a lot warmer and more fun around this joint called
the U S of A, but they have never seen proof it ever was so.
Only the bullshit propaganda of the movies. It's a cold-assed
place and getting colder, spookier and more ominous by the day.
But Americans seem to be accepting it. We few who feel otherwise
are seen as odd, as aliens. Unpatriotic. Eventually we will be
classified as dangerous.
ROX: And so...you've answered
one of the questions that at least one of your fans --writing
to me to ask you-- has been losing sleep over...the possible
potential of linking up with the likes of Bloods, Crips...or
anybody...to do anything in solidarity. The neighborhood/connective
tissue talk brings up so much of Ward Churchill's words about
what plagues the indigenous and what, perhaps, they have to offer.
Permit me to conclude with pointing out that some Sterling Professor
of Humanities at Yale...who I also detest giving a plug to...has
said Beckett provided a Purgatorio to Kafka's Inferno, making
up two-thirds of a 20th century Dante...suggesting that
that's all that's now available to us, that Paradiso can't be
posted, published or prevail. When Moliere's Alceste (from the
Misanthrope) rejects his society, his only rock-bottom sustenance...and
takes off toward solitude...risking insanity...we have reason
to believe he'll...be back on...traditional terms. Going about
change like the RCP, Code Pink, MoveOn and the various million-person
marches is what I'd call traditional. But...today...far
removed from the realm that so many of us have been so influenced
by...so much traditional possibility dead...is all that
remains the madness of art? Its personal payoff?
JB: You lost me.
ROX: Fair enough, Joe, this..."losing
you" what with all the blah blah. Put another way...now
that I've put out a lot of intellectual play/contortions for
readers to digest at their leisure...do you see any light at
the end of the tunnel? Or, better yet, to use Faulkner's
Light in August as a point of departure...when Lena Grove...one
of his characters in that novel...anticipates giving birth...the
idea is that she'll be "light in August" when the baby
comes. Do you see any baby being born in the near future? Do
you see any hope whatsoever? Any relief in sight? Can we conclude
our Game of Eunuchs here...with any sweetness?
JB: Geesh, you're strange!
Well, Tim Leary used to tell me that the key to moving on with
one's evolution is the same as the key to a good acid trip: not
to cling to anything you see. Let it all go. He believed you
cannot stop the forward roll of evolutionary events and that
the earth is destined to become a used-up dead cesspool at some
point. Consequently, he was into space migration during the later
years of his life. I think down inside everyone understands the
finite limits of the ecosystem now. Even the dumbest, meanest
Republican have a less-than-confident look on his face now when
he tells you global warming is a myth. Nearly everything from
the Christian "Left Behind" book series to movies and
ecological predictions have an apocalyptic tone these days. But
there is a mentality among some people, particularly the rich---which
is to say most Americans compared to the rest of the world---that
says, "Grab all you can. Build armed and gated communities,
deploy the armies to loot resources, and let the rest of the
world starve in the dark if need be. Kill'em if they come over
here." Do I see any hope? Do you? We're all in the same
boat. We're all looking at the same seas before us, the same
probable outcome for humanity. The difference is in how we deal
with what we see. To my mind, it is best to see it like that
little starving Buddha with the ash in its eye sockets and the
candle in its chest...which is to say with eyes as cold as ashes
and a compassionate fiery heart.
ROX: Gotta follow up on that
strange stuff some time. To conclude with the O'Neill work
I invoked earlier, however, when Hickey shows up for his semi-annual
bender...he's a changed man. He has sworn off liquor, yet instead
of crusading temperance he is on a higher mission ó to
convince the booze-soaked burnouts that guilt-cleansing "truth"
is the only deliverance from "the lie of the pipedream."
On the other side of the bar is aging anarchist Larry, who counters
that it's raw truth that beats men down, their happiness
hanging on a desperate need for illusions/fantasy. You don't
have to touch any of that, but I sure as hell would like to know
what percentage of American citizens, including the left, you
think are "soaked-burnouts" on something. I
come across cartons of clinical cases myself, daily. I'll say
my goodbyes now...leavin' you to say au revoir to one
and all for the both of us...after you respond. It's been great,
Joe. I've learned a lot from you before and during the interview
process...and I look forward to getting more from you in the
future, driving you crazier. Drive carefully...people are strange
when you're a estranged behind the wheel...but do
violate some rules.
JB: Well...I just get lost
trying to find what you are getting at. Got a simple one line
question?
ROX: No problems; it's easy
to understand how I can make things difficult. Here's one for
the road: To what extent do you think that the personal baggage
that leftists carry around precludes there being anything significant...by
way of national movement in solidarity...being carried out?
JB: Heck, why pick on the poor
old lefties about that one? We all have personal baggage, deep
unresolved problems. The goal is to understand them and turn
them toward something constructive. For example, I know that
being raised poor made me obsessed with class and money and inequity.
And I know that being raised up under the police court judge
Christian Jehova made me fearful and moralizing. And I know that
a constant sense of alienation made me become a writer in a desire
to communicate. To me, it's not about the load you are born
to carry, but how you carry it in this short life. Yeah, I know
that sounds sophomoric. But it's sho' nuff true
ROX: Hey, call me Freshman,
freshmaniacal! Got one last personal ditty to run by you. Can't
help but ask if any of the mail you received on our Part l said
anything about me. I've been getting huge amounts of the good
and the odd. This is just so's I can leave here and go look
in the mirror at my own baggage with a little perspective.
JB: I only got two emails.
Neither commented on you or me, just that they were glad to see
the interview. Remember, my email address wasn't on the article.
So what did you get that was "good"and "odd?"
ROX: Well, I won't go into
the good...'cause I'm hopin' that's obvious for one and all.
But I will note, in closing, that some have questioned my sanity.
"Are you crazy?," asked one.
JB: Questioned your sanity?
Big deal. I much prefer the company of mad men. (1)
NOTE: (1) On this point,
I recommend Henry Miller's Time of the Assassins, particularly
the Afterword...in which he delineates how hard it was for madmen/artists
in the 19th century; 2005 is not a helluva lot different in that
respect.
FOOTNOTES:
(1) Joe's collected downloadable
essays can be accessed at <>www.coldtype.net
(2) "Sleepwalking to Fallujah"
has been used too.
(3) Joe tips his hat to Tim
Leary heary.
Richard Oxman can be found
these days reading Joe Bageant's material in Los Gatos, California;
contact can be made at dueleft@yahoo.com.
The Ox's never-before-revealed "biography"
is available at http://news.modernwriters.org/Some
of his recent writing can be found in his Arts & Entertainment
section and Features (under Social) there.
Weekend Edition
Features for November
27 / 28, 2004
Peter
Linebaugh
Torture & Neo-Liberalism with
Sycorax in Iraq
Alexander
Cockburn
What Happened to O'Reilly's Loofa?
Fred
Gardner
Ashcroft v. Raich: Medical Marijuana and the Supreme Court
Kathy
Kelly
What We Can Control
Diane
Christian
The Other Cheek: "Empire Doesn't Analyze, It Acts"
Gary
Leupp
One More Neocon Target: South (Yes, South) Korea
Lenni
Brenner
Equality and Rights of Return: Jefferson Instructs the New York
Times
Ron
Jacobs
Death Squads and Iraq's Elections: the Mysterious Murders of
the AMS Clerics
Joshua
Frank
An Interview with Kevin Zeese on Nader, Kerry and the ABB Crowd
Toni
Solo
The Murder of Danilo Anderson
Saul
Landau
Fallujah, the 21st Century Guernica
JoAnn
Wypijewski
Matthew Shepard Case 6 Years Later: Why Hate Crimes Laws are
No Cure for Homophobia
Justin
Taylor
Empire's Lawless Opportunities
Amos
Harel
The Case of Captain R.
Walter
A. Davis
Tabloid Justice
Stephen
Hendricks
God's Kind of Men
Poets'
Basement
Albert, LaMorticella and Ford
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