home / subscribe / donate / about us / books / archives / search / links / feedback / events

New Reagan Memorial Edition Exclusively in the Print Edition CounterPunch Pentagon Cartoons; Hollywood Fantasies into Political Policy; From Fort Wacky to Bitburg; Star Wars, the Enron of Its Day; Touching the Gipper's Hair; How Reagan Made Clinton by Alexander Cockburn; When Reagan Was King and AIDS Was Raging: Joking About the Terminally Ill by Larry Speakes and the White House Press Corps; Parallel Lives: Watt, Reagan and Brower: by Jeffrey St. Clair; Fortress Baghdad; Iraqi Fury by Patrick Cockburn; Troy, the Iliad and Iraq by Jeffrey St. Clair. In May, CounterPunch Online was read by over 20 million viewers! 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! Call Toll Free 1-800-840 3683 or write CounterPunch, PO BOX 228, Petrolia, CA 95558

Cockburn / St. Clair's Scorching New History of a Decade of War Now Available! Today's Stories July 5, 2004 Kathy Kelly "Two Days an' a Wake-Up" July 3 / 4, 2004 Elaine Cassel Bush's Police State and Independence Day Stan Goff ABC of Opportunism: "Progressive" Latin American Leaders Support the Coup in Haiti Snehal Shingavi "We Want Real Justice for Bhopal": Two Survivors Speak Out Bruce Anderson The Cheney-Leahy Metaphor and the Greens Sharon Smith Twilight of the Greens: the Chokehold of "Anybody But Bush" Josh Frank Ralph Nader's Revolt: an Interview with Greg Bates Robert Fisk Pentagon Tried to Censor Saddam's Hearing Joe Bageant Sons of a Laboring God: Leftnecks Unite! Brian Cloughley Fortress Bush and the One Law Doctrine Justin Delacour The Anti-Chavez Echo Chamber: Venezuela's Media Tycoons William S. Lind Saudi Spillover Linda S. Heard A Joke Called "Justice" Greg Moses "It's Illegal, But It's Our Right": Korean Labor Won't Back Down Ron Jacobs "Ain't You Proud to be White on Independence Day?" Toni Solo Weary of Indigenous Resistances? Just Pretend They're Not There Dan Nagengast Chicken Manure as Cattle Food: Safe, But Do We Want to Eat It? Stew Albert Brando, a Personal Recollection Dave Zirin From the Black Panthers to Sacheen Littlefeather: a Eulogy for Our Brando Patrick W. Gavin The Progressive Case for Dodgeball Steven Rosenthal / Junaid Ahmad The Problem is Bigger Than the Bushes: a Review of F911 Poets' Basement Kearney, Ford and Davies Website of the Day Global Peace Solution July 2, 2004 Jeffrey St. Clair Suicide Right on the Stage: the Demise of the Green Party Douglas Valentine Fahrenheit 911: Mocking the Moral Crisis of Capitalism Gary Leupp "Just Because I Could": On Obscenities and Opportunities Lee Ballinger Illegal People: Kerry Opposes Immigrant Rights Robert Fisk Saddam in the Dock: Confused? Hardly CounterPunch Wire "What Law Formed This Court?": a Transcript of Saddam's Arraignment Christopher Brauchli Bush's Drug Card Lottery: the Price Ain't Right Saul Landau Buzz Words and Venezuela July 1, 2004 Katherine van Wormer Bush's Damaged Mind: the Madness in His Method Joe Bageant Is Our President a Whackjob? Does It Matter? William James Martin The Dogma of Richard Perle Dave Lindorff Bush's Evacuation Moment Robert Fisk Bread and Circus Trials in Iraq Alan Maass Green Party in Reverse Website of the Day Michael Moore and Israel: Blind or a Coward?     June 30, 2004 Kurt Nimmo Nicholson Baker's Checkpoint: a New Kind of Anger About Bush Tariq Ali Getting Away with Murder in Iraq Jennifer Van Bergen Bush and the Detainees Douglas Valentine Apotheosis of the Psychopaths: Instead of Fahrenheit 9/11, Rescreen The Quiet American David Price Fahrenheit 9/11 Through the McCain-Feingold Looking Glass Roger Normand America's Criminal Occupation of Iraq Stan Cox Sanitized for Your Protection: Ashcroft's War on Art Henry David Thoreau On the Futility of Bush v. Kerry: All Voting is a Kind of Gaming Ben Tripp Who Dast Call Him Liar: a Rebuttal to Nicholas Kristof     June 29, 2004 Patrick Cockburn The Cloak-and-Dagger Handover Robert Fisk Alice in an Iraqi Wonderland Troy Selvaratnam New York Times Boosts Pet Developer Harry Browne Bush in Ireland Ray McGovern The CIA According to Anonymous Elaine Cassel Hamdi, Padilla & Rasul: Who Really Won?     June 28, 2004 Patrick Cockburn / Leyla Linton Grisly Rituals in Iraq Amira Hass Confronting Myths and Deadly Power   June 26 / 27, 2004 Alexander Cockburn Venezuela: the Gang's All Here Patrick Cockburn Iyad Allawi, the CIA's New Stooge in Iraq Dennis Hans Once They Were Sweethearts: Cheney, the NYTs and the Myth of an Iraq Link to 9/11 Ben Tripp Adventures in Fuel Efficiency Dave Lindorff That State Department Terrorism Report: What They Knew, But Didn't Tell You Chris Floyd Cold Irons Bound: the Russian Gambit Ali Tonak Contamination at Berkeley: Profit Motives, Academic Freedom and the Case of Ignacio Chapela Keith Rosenthal The Withering of the Anti-War Movement Bryan Sacks The Failure of the 9/11 Commission Wayne Madsen Another Case of Blowback Thomas St. John L. Frank Baum, Racist: Indian-Hating in the Wizard of Oz Niranjan Ramakrishnan American Swadeshi   June 25, 2004 Stephen Gowans US to North Korea: "Trust Us" Saul Landau 2006 Pentagon Budget as Sacrilege: Bush Invests the National Treasure in Death and Destruction Amir Butler Iraq: the Deadly Embrace Jack McCarthy Another Times Plagiarism Scandal? Did Maureen Dowd Lift from the World Weekly News? Greg Bates Chomsky and Zinn Plan to Vote Nader     June 24, 2004 Gary Leupp John Lehman on the Iraq / al-Qaeda Links Patrick Cockburn A Day in the Life of Col. Abu Mohammed: Defusing Bombs, Facing Death Threats Harry Browne On the Rebound: Bush Bounces Back...in Europe Bill Kaufman Another Marxist for Kerry: Joel Kovel's Sad Smear of Ralph Nader Christopher Brauchli Bush, Cheney and the 9/11 Commission: What Did They Know? What Did They Tell? Rick Gioimbetti Andrea Yates: Victim of Psychiatric Violence? John Chuckman Call Center ID Hypocrisy Diana Johnstone Kerry and Kosovo: the Lie of a "Good War"     June 23, 2004 Laura Carlsen Bush and Castro Face Off Dave Zirin Barry Bonds vs. Boston: "A Flea Market of Racism" Kurt Nimmo From Saddam, With Love Patricia Wolff Foundation Wars Mahboob A. Khawaja "They Had Me Arrested and Shackled My Son" Patrick Cockburn The Pretense of an Independent Iraq Website of the Day The Road to Abu Ghraib June 22, 2004 Dave Lindorff The Meaning of Putin's Pronouncement: Mutually Assured Pre-emption Ron Jacobs Nuclear Plants in US Protectorate of Iraq? Vanessa Jones Coogee, Peter Garrett and Valium Earrings Mickey Z An Open Letter to the People of Iraq John L. Hess Clinton Exhales Pedro Marset/Ex-Solidarity Committee for Pacho Cortés An Exchange on the Case of Pacho Cortés Bruce Jackson Saying No to Prosecutors: Why Steve Kurtz's Colleagues Refused to Testify Website of the Day From Boot Camp to Boot Hill   June 21, 2004 Gary Leupp Putin's Helpful Remarks Lucson Pierre-Charles Haiti After the Press Went Home: Chaos Upon Chaos Cockburn / Khan Saddam May Face Death Penalty Uri Avnery Irreversible Mental Damage     June 19 / 20, 2004 Patrick Cockburn Inside the Green Zone: US is Paranoid and Isolated Bruce Anderson Frozen Gringos Diane Christian Morality and Death: a Meditation on Bush and Blake Walter A. Davis Passion of the Christ in Abu Ghraib Josh Frank How Democrats Helped Bush Rape Mother Nature Col. Dan Smith Respectable Genocide?: the Crisis in Sudan Brian Cloughley A Profound Disruption of the Senses Christopher Brauchli Bush and the Timken Plant, a Year Later Prudence Crowther Mr. Ashcroft, Deport Me! Poets' Basement Iqbal/Alam, Krieger and Albert Kathy Kelly Dying to See Their Kids     June 18, 2004 Chris Floyd Blood Victory Dave Zirin Danielle Green, Basketball Player & Disabled Vet, Speaks Out Against War Justin E.H. Smith The Christian Question in American Politics Gary Leupp The "Long-Established" Link?: Iraq, al-Qaeda, and al-Zarqawi   June 17, 2004 Noel Ignatiev Zionism, Anti-Semitism and the People of Palestine Kurt Nimmo The Bush-Kerry Conundrum Ed Cardoni The Persecution of Steve Kurtz Ron Jacobs Power Relations: Rounding Up Everyone Who Knows More Than They Do Dave Lindorff Philly Daily News: "Four Wasted Years" Greg Moses Geneva Ignored Norm Dixon How Reagan Armed Saddam with Chemical Weapons     June 18, 2004 Noel Ignatiev Zionism, Anti-Semitism and the People of Palestine Kurt Nimmo The Bush-Kerry Conundrum Ed Cardoni The Persecution of Steve Kurtz Ron Jacobs Power Relations: Rounding Up Everyone Who Knows More Than They Do Dave Lindorff Philly Daily News: "Four Wasted Years" Greg Moses Geneva Ignored Norm Dixon How Reagan Armed Saddam with Chemical Weapons     June 16, 2004 Lenni Brenner A Question for Kerry Supporters Davey D Hip Hop Reflections on Reagan Daniel Wolff Why Did Michael Moore Withhold Video Evidence of US Prisoner Abuse? Bruce Jackson Harry Levin and the Penultimate Manuscript of Finnegans Wake Patrick Cockburn Boom! Boom! Out Go the Lights: Bombings Target Oil and Power Facilities Gary Handschumacher Mourn Ben Linder, Not His Killer: Reagan's Death Squads JG Turning Haiti into One Big Sweatshop Mario Benedetti Obituary with Cheers Vicente Navarro Meet the New Head of the IMF: Who is Rodrigo Rato? Website of the Day Iraqi Oil Revenue Watch     June 15, 2004 Harry Browne Ireland Adds a Brick to Fortress Europe Neve Gordon The Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited David Palmer Richard Armitage, Abu Ghraib and CACI John Blair Lovelock's Misguided Call: Nukes Are No Solution to Global Warming Dave Lindorff God Wins in TKO Bill Quigley Blood-Pouring Peace Activists: State Charges Dropped; Feds Step In Patrick Cockburn Carbombs and Street Dances: 13 More Killed in Baghdad Blast John Chuckman John Kerry, Political Placebo   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. Prison Bitch Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber True Lies: the Use of Propaganda in the Iraq War Wendell Berry Small Destructions Add Up CounterPunch Wire WMD: Who Said What When Cindy Corrie A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter I Can't Hear From Gore Vidal The Erosion of the American Dream Francis Boyle Impeach Bush: A Draft Resolution Click Here for More Stories.     Subscribe Online

July 5, 2004 "Two Days an' a Wake-Up" Lupe By KATHY KELLY Pekin Federal Prison, Peoria. "Two days an' a wake-up, Ms. Kelly," sings a prisoner as my out date approaches. In 90 days at Pekin Federal Prison Camp I've spun through a revolving door compared with realities experienced by most of the 2.1 million inmates currently housed in US prisons. A friend sent me an inscription carved over the entrance of a Polish prison. "When you enter here," it reads, "do not despair. When you leave here, do not rejoice." I shared this quote with my co-defendant, Cynthia Brinkman, whom the whole compound calls "My Nun." ("Where's my nun?" someone yells. "I need a prayer." "She's not your nun," another argues. "She's MY nun!") Cynthia read the inscription, gave me a knowing look, and said, "You're rejoicing." She's right. I'm ready to leave, and perhaps I've had one foot out the door during much of my time here. But I'm also subdued by the realization that by any rational assessment I shouldn't be the next one out the door--not when many mothers incarcerated with me haven't seen their children in years. Lupe, for instance. Yesterday, Lupe was thrilled because I gave her my "TV Day," which meant uninterrupted access to three hours of Hispanic "soaps." Later that same afternoon, Lupe came to see me while I was doing laundry. "Look, Kathy, I brought my gang to come and thank you." The "Gang" is the sweetest trio of young mothers imaginable. "Are you going to write about us before you go?" asked Lupe, as she and her friends helped me fold laundry. "C'mon, ask me questions." Q and A with Lupe brought nervous giggles, tears, and a rush of memories. "They don't treat you like a person. You're just a number to them," she said, recalling her court date in Indianapolis three years ago, when a judge sentenced her to nine years in prison on drug charges. Her supporters had filled the courtroom. Among them was her grandfather, who had traveled all the way from Mexico for the trial. Many people had written letters asserting that Lupe was indeed a good girl, that she had never gotten in trouble before. "The tough girls, they used to beat me up," said Lupe, laughing, "because I didn't do bad things." It wasn't until she met and later married her boyfriend that she became involved with drugs. "But the lawyers, the judge--they don't care about your past life. My public defender didn't try to help me. He never told me what was going on. I didn't know what to say or do. And the judge made fun of all the people who came to the sentencing hearing. He said I'd need them more while I was in prison than while we sat in his court." Now, with her daughters, Alexandra, aged 5 1/2, and Lizette, 4, living in Mexico, Lupe does need help. She needs someone to bring them to Pekin for a visit. "I miss my daughters so much," lamented Lupe, who hasn't seen her girls since July 2001. "It's driving me crazy." Each 15 minute phone call to Mexico costs $8.35. Lupe works hard to earn enough to manage a weekly call. Even though she is the main orderly for our unit, her wages, which have risen from 12 to 20 cents an hour during her confinement, are barely enough to cover this one brief conversation. "I call every Monday, at 1 p.m. Sometimes they forget to have my daughters there," said Lupe, referring to her in-laws, who are now raising the girls.(Lupe's husband is himself serving a 27 year sentence.) "I can understand; they're getting bigger now, doing things. Still, it hurts. I live for that phone call." The pain in her voice is all too evident. "The other thing that hurts bad--my younger daughter, she doesn't want to talk to me. The older one says, 'Mommy, Lizette doesn't love you, but I do.' And the older one says, 'Mommy, I don't want you to be in prison any more; I want you to come home.' " Each day, Lupe walks between four and six miles on the oval track. "That's where you can go to think a little more, and to cry," she says. "I think about what I'll do when I get out. Everything will be for my daughters. I can't wait to take them to the Brookfield Zoo, and to the Mexican Day parade." "There are so many things I think about. What would it be like to fix their hair, to take them to the park, to make meals for them? I don't even know my daughters' favorite colors. I know Alexandra's favorite song." Tears spilled down Lupe's cheeks. "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star." "When I get out, I'll think three times before I do anything. I'll ask myself how it will affect my daughters, our future. Will it help them grow up strong? I want them to grow up strong, not weak, like me." I asked Lupe if she really believed she was weak. She flashed her brilliant smile, dark eyes still filled with tears. "No," she said. "I'm strong." Cynthia and the others whom I left behind at Pekin FPC carefully monitor the daily news, looking for updates about legislation that would revive systems of parole for federal inmates (see http://site.fppr.us). Prisoners across the US are also keenly interested in a proposal being considered by the American Bar Association to abolish mandatory minimum sentencing. "Kathy, tell me the truth," said Lupe. "Do you think there's a chance I could go home before my time is up?" I've no idea, but I promised Lupe I would join efforts to reform a system that condemns first time offenders charged with nonviolent crimes to harsh mandatory minimum sentences. As it stands now, Lupe must wait 53 months before she'll hear "two days an' a wake-up." Kathy Kelly co-coordinates the Voices in the Wilderness campaign. She has completed a three month sentence for protesting at the US army military combat training school in Fort Benning, GA. To contact Lupe or Kathy, write kathy@vitw.org Weekend Edition Features for June 12 / 13, 2004 Peter Linebaugh Remembering the Common Hood: Soweto and Runnymede Team CounterPunch CP's Favorite Albums Jeffrey St. Clair Troy, Now and Then Gary Leupp Not Really a Puppet Government in Iraq? Brian Cloughley US Military in Crisis Antonio Ponvert, III Iraqi Prisoner Abuse: the Connecticut Connection Ben Tripp The Polls Get Stupider Joe Bageant Mash Note to the "Girl with the Leash" Ron Jacobs The Return of the Hip Hop Insurgency Forrest Hylton Object Lessons from the Case of Francisco Cortés Christopher Brauchli Federal Bureau of Errors Kurt Nimmo Going After Qaddafi, Again Wayne Madsen Israel's Slap at Reagan Anthony Loewenstein Al Jazeera Awakens the Arab World Michael Donnelly A Lightship in the Forest: Greenpeace Docks in the Siskiyous Greg Moses Who Will Tell Us More About the Workers of Nasiriyah? Susan Davis Harry Potter & the Prisoner of Azkaban Joseph Ramsey Weather Report: a Review of The Weather Underground Niranjan Ramakrishnan The 18th Brumaire in the 21st Century Wayne Saunders The Gipper, D-Day and the Stanley Cup Poets' Basement Richey, Ford, La Morticella, Albert Website of the Weekend Insurgent Music WWW http://www.counterpunch.org   Keep CounterPunch Alive: Make a Tax-Deductible Donation Today Online! home / subscribe / about us / books / archives / search / links /