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CounterPunch
January
11, 2003
In the Glass, Darkly
by SYDNEY BERNARD SMITH
Outside the plateglass
human wrecks,
with tattered sneakers, scrawny necks
now falling-off, now lurching on-course,
graced the P.A. Terminal Concourse.
Inside, early cocktail hour
for those with advertising power
(the smallest talk is half a million.)
They wait for some Greyhound Postillion,
to whisk them to Westchester County,
Wall Street's dividend & bounty.
Between the windows on the wall
a poster visible to all
within, exuding wealth & class:
--a Silver Rolls, a diamond glass
of vodka - is it? - Kenny Czar!
(Who he? Nice suit! - & that's his car?)
Lower caption: Poverty Sucks.
--They might have added: Finance Fucks.
Sydney Bernard
Smith
lives in Dundalk, Ireland and can be reached at: sydneybernard@esatclear.ie
Holding The Center
by M. SHAHID ALAM
I taped it to the black board
a map of the world
Rand McNally
printed in USA.
It split Asia
right down the middle:
the truncated moieties
exiled to the right
and left edges
of this fixed habitat.
It was necessary
this sundering: so
USA could sit
right spat
at the center
of subjected memory.
It isn't easy
holding the Center,
mind you.
See to it
that they
see you holding it.
You have to
charge the cavalry
of cartographers
the hired guns
of history
to center
the world on you.
M. Shahid Alam teaches economics at Northeastern University.
His last book, Poverty from the Wealth of Nations was
published by Palgrave (2000). He may be reached at m.alam@neu.edu.
Copyright: M. Shahid Alam
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January
4, 2003
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Something
About Butte
Saul Landau
The Bush Vision and the Culture of Power
Annie Higgins
Six Soldiers
Michael Ortiz
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Bush's Armageddon Obsession
Francisco Armada and Carlos
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Venezuela: Chomsky's Tropical Nightmare
James T. Phillips
Targeting Americans
Jack Bice
A Fresh World Vision
Robert Fisk
Double Standards in the War on Terror
Chris Clarke
Is a Blue Rose a Rose?
Frank Fugate
How the West (Bank) Was Won
Anis Shivani
Bleak Prospects for Dems
Ben Tripp
Does Bush Know Korean?
Adam Engel
Les Miserable and the Hackers from Hell
Read
Whiteout and Find Out
How the CIA's Backing of the Mujahideen Created the World's Most
Robust Heroin Market and Helped to Finance the Rise of the Taliban
and Osama bin Laden
Whiteout:
CIA, Drugs & the
Press
by Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
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