This issue of FlashPoint opens with a review of Robert Hobbs’ Mark Lombardi: Global Networks a monograph of the late Mark Lombardi’s ‘conspiracy art.’ Lombardi’s ‘Narrative Structures’ are unique for their literal and comprehensive expression of some of the grubbiest and most felonious episodes in American and international political/economic history.

Another individual who delved into the world of corporate and government conspiracy was the late Danny Casolaro. Casolaro began his researches looking into the infamous Ed Meese Justice Department Inslaw scandal but soon expanded his investigation to include many of the same events that intrigued Mr. Lombardi. Jack Foley is working on a play, "The Too Many Deaths of Danny C." based on Casolaro’s work and provides a glimpse into the final product.

Peter Dale Scott has authored and co-authored numerous books of poetry and as well as volumes on U.S. political history including Cocaine Politics: Drugs, Armies, & The CIA In Central America with Jonathan Marshall. His long poem Coming to Jakarta chronicles his metamorphosis from diplomat to a radical critic of U.S. foreign policy. In FlashPoint #8 his poem A BALLAD OF DRUGS AND 9/11 touched upon many of the same themes found in both Mark Lombardi’s work and Danny Casolaro’s researches. In fact, Mr. Scott’s phone number was found among Mr. Casolaro’s effects after the latter’s alleged suicide. From this insider's perspective Mr. Scott gives us two new works.

When Osama bin Laden recommended William Blum’s book Rogue State: A Guide To The World's Only Superpower as must reading for all Americans if they were to understand the murderous history of U.S. foreign policy and how such policies led to 9/11, the mainstream American press went on the attack. But Bill, utterly steeped in his subject and eloquent in his responses, continues to gain adherents. He has also authored Killing Hope: U.S. Military Intervention Since World War II. In this issue of FlashPoint we reprise several of his Anti-Empire Newsletters as way of introduction to his remarkable knowledge and insights into the hypocrisy and brutality of U.S. foreign policy.

The U.S. government has tried to bury him in the penal system but Leonard Peltier remains one of America’s most visible political prisoners. Despite reams of exculpatory evidence the U.S. government is determined to keep Mr. Peltier behind bars. His incarceration is meant to serve as a warning to others that would seek redress of injustices that the government and its corporate handlers out of naked self-interest have no intention of rectifying. In this selection from Have you thought of Leonard Peltier lately? I'm Still Here Mr. Peltier speaks from his prison cell.

Harvey Arden has been Leonard Peltier’s champion and friend for many years. They have co-authored PRISON WRITINGS: MY LIFE IS MY SUN DANCE together. In Welcome to Leavenworth Harvey tells us of the first time he met Leonard and the bond that was formed there.

Bob Miller has written a remarkable new book, Native America, Discovered and Conquered: Thomas Jefferson, Lewis & Clark, and Manifest Destiny, published by Praeger Publishers in 2006. Here we reprise several articles that provide background to researches into the legalist roots of the history of the abuse of treaty rights of Native American peoples: Lewis & CLark, The Doctrine of Discovery, and American Indians, American Indians & The United States Constitution, and Indian Treaties as Sovereign Contracts .

Joe Brennan gives us another piece of his monumental work in progress, ... Past relevance and emergence , a ‘long poem containing history’ that draws on many of the foreign policy issues above using Joe’s startling and highly original typographical/psychoanalytic Esperanto.

Lord Byron contributes a little known, spirited defense of the Luddites "An Ode to the Framers of the Frame Bill" and Vietnamese poet Phan Van Tri gives us his poem The Mosquito, his valentine to French colonial rule.

In keeping with the themes above Parcelli reviews Douglas Valentine’s history of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, The Strength of the Wolf: The Secret History of America’s War On Drugs. Mr. Valentine pays careful attention to the CIA’s role in the drug war. He’s also the author of The Phoenix Program, the best book yet written on the the subject.

Our peripatetic friend Bob Starkey gives us a tale of growth and illumination in his piece The Tower Above Loutro set on a Greek island.

After his brilliant and very popular piece on the neglected modernist poet Lynette Roberts which appeared in FlashPoint #8, Alan Tucker provides us with beautiful and eclectic translations of Motteti/Motets by Eugenio Montale.

In keeping with our modernist poetics core, Ellen Cardona presents us with Pound's Anti-Semitism at St. Elizabeths: 1945-1958, a study of Ezra Pound’s anti-Semitism based on documents found in the the correspondence housed at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center (HRC) at the University of Texas at Austin and in new material that was recently donated by Pound's son Omar to his and his father's alma mater, Hamilton College, in Clinton, New York, with some surprising results.

Craig Stormont in turn provides Charles Olson: The Political Ego Condemned, a piece based in part on original research. Mr. Stormont demonstrates that Olson put his money where his mouth was, working vigorously to preserve historic sites in Gloucester slated for development. Mr. Stormont’s research is original and calls into question a number of assumptions made about Olson’s activities & attitudes while residing in Gloucester.

Grace Davis gives us an affectionate overview of the poetry of Ezra Pound’s daughter Mary de Rachelwitz with "Our Heart's Gordian Knot": The Writing of Mary de Rachewiltz.

Charles Belbin reports on San Francisco's 100th Birthday Celebration for Kenneth Rexroth.

David Hickman, whose computer generated art pieces drew so many viewers in FlashPoint #8 gives us two poems: 2nd Collage of The princess and 7th Collage of The princess.

JR Foley reviews Lance Olsen's exuberant expedition into the dying brain of Friedrich Nietzsche, "Nietzsche’s Kisses".

We have several more poems from literary raconteur Kent Johnson The Corpse Lay Outside, 3 X Kent Johnson, and Theology , plus two manifestos, one literary and one political, Ed Baker's Manifesto #2230 and Joe Ahearn's The Port Huron Statement.

T.R. Wang & Charles Belbin have returned from another extended stay in China, and offer a translation of a "Couplet on the Wall" of a Tea House near the Cave of the Thousand Buddhas while Charles Belbin continues his explorations of the sensibility of the chinese lyric poem in his own work with Poems.

Finally, Carlo Parcelli, presents a valentine for the apocalypse with a shank from his latest poem Deconstructing the Demiurge: De Rerum Natura: Hearing Voices.

     Tell us what you think!

-- JR Foley & Carlo Parcelli