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Inside the New Print Edition of CounterPunch: a Special Report by David Price on the CIA on Campus The CIA's New Campus Spies: Meet "PRISP", it may be at work on a campus near you. Program doles out cash to train tomorrow's spooks ; they say it's like ROTC, only it's all secret; a hundred spooklets on campus today; thousands down the road; pay back your loan by translating for torturers in tomorrow's Abu Ghraibs; meet PRISP's Frankenstein, Prof Felix Moos; anthropologists and the CIA, a deadly embrace by David Price; ALSO Alexander Cockburn on Disaster Relief as Scam; air-conditioned tents for the NGOs and money to burn; how tourist "development" deepened tsunami's impact; why governments love "relief". AND Humans and Woodchippers: When small isn't beautiful. Remember these stories are available exclusively in the print edition of CounterPunch. 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! Call Toll Free 1-800-840-3683 or write CounterPunch, PO BOX 228, Petrolia, CA 95558

Wars of the Laptop Bombers   Today's Stories February 10, 2005 Greg Moses Taking Jesus Back from the Hijackers February 9, 2005 Jeffrey St. Clair Duck and Cover Redux: Bunker Busters and City Levellers Mickey Z. What Ward Churchill Didn't Say John Ross Hecho en Mexico: the Iraqi Election Tom Barry Ambassador of Lies: Elliott Abrams, the Neocon's Neocon Conn Hallinan The Coup in Nepal: Nursing the Pinion Patrick Cockburn Sistani's Vision for Iraq: Cricket is Fine, But Chess is "Absolutely Forbidden" Steen Sohn Danish PM Says It's OK for Israel to Violate UN Resolutions Tim Wise Reflections on Empire and Uppity Indians Website of the Day Support Antiwar.com   February 8, 2005 Patrick Cockburn Shia/Kurd Coalition to Dominate New Iraqi Govt.: "It's an Electoral Pact, Not a Party" Brian Cloughley Out of the Mouths of Generals: "It's Fun to Shoot Some People" Steve Breyman Against the Selfishness of the "Ownership Society" Harry Browne "Don't Get on that Plane!": Soldiers Seek Asylum in Ireland Doug Giebel "We Love Free Speech in America": the People, the President and Ward Churchill Nate Collins The Censorship of Ward Churchill and Dancehall Reggae: It's the Same Beast Dave Lindorff It's Time for a Labor-Oriented Newspaper David Smith-Ferri Sanctions and the Health Crisis in Iraq   February 7, 2005 Paul Craig Roberts Bush's War on Jobs Carolyn Baker The New McCarthyism on Campus: Churchill and the Attack on Higher Ed Joshua Frank Marc Cooper's Hit List: First Mumia; Now Ward Churchill Mickey Z. Warning: More Hate Speech from W. Churchill Patrick Cockburn The Kidnapping Gangs of Iraq Mike Whitney Tom Friedman: Scribe for New Age Imperialism Stacie Jonas Pinochet: Fit to be Tried Dave Zirin A Miserable Super Sunday: Clinton, Bush and the FBI Tariq Ali Imperial Delusions       February 5 / 6, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Ward Churchill and the Mad Dogs Kurt Nimmo A Ward Churchill Kind of Day Joshua Frank Liberals Trash Ward Churchill P. Sainath Mumbai's Man-Made Tsunami Patrick Cockburn Sistani's Triumph; Allawi's Bust Laura Carlsen Bush, Rice and Latin America Dave Lindorff How the NYT Killed the Bush Bulge Story Pamela Olson West Bank Story Behzad Yaghmaian The Future of Sudanese Refugees in the West Saul Landau / Farrah Hassen A Threatened UN in King George's Court Roger Burbach World Social Forum: a Tale of Two Presidents Robert Fisk History by Laptop David Swanson James Forman and the Liberal-Labor Syndrome Justin E.H. Smith Gay Marriage: a Report from Canada Cacie Hart The "State" of the Union: More War and a Ban on Love Ron Jacobs Chairman Bob Avakian: a Revolutionary Life Mickey Z. Viewing America from the Outside Ben Tripp Republican Heroes: a New Breed of Good Guy Ben Sonnenberg France at the End of the Devil's Decade: Renoir's Rules of the Game Poets' Basement Smith-Ferri, Davies, Collins, & Albert Website of the Weekend John Trudell: How to Earn a 17,000 Page FBI File February 4, 2005 Brian Cloughley The Army Symphonist: "Sometimes the Only Way to Change the Behavior of Someone Like That is to Kill Them" Bill Christison Election Parallels: Vietnam, 1967; Iraq, 2005 Elaine Cassel Did Zoloft Make Him Do It? Jacob Levich Chomsky and the Draft Kanak Mani Dixit Return of the Royalists in Nepal Ron Jacobs The Downward Spiral in Iraq     February 3, 2005 Ward Churchill On the Injustice of Getting Smeared: a Campaign of Fabrications and Gross Distortions Sharon Smith Resisting Soldiers Need Our Support Mickey Z. Leslie Gelb Asks Iraq: Who's Your Daddy? Mike Whitney President of Alienation: a Desperate State of the Union Jenna Orkin 9/11 the Sequel: the Toxic State of Lower Manhattan Saul Landau Elections Won't Prevent Civil War in Iraq Yitzhak Laor Strange is the Silence Dave Lindorff The Assault on Social Security: a New Campaign of Lies     February 2, 2005 David Domke / Kevin Coe Bush's Brand of Christianity Noam Chomsky Iraq After the Elections M. Shahid Alam O'Reilly's Fatwah on "Un-American" Professors: FoxNews Puts Me in Its Crosshairs Richard Oxman Ringing in 1984 with Ward Churchill and Derrick Jensen Joshua Frank The Suckering of Howard Dean Dave Lindorff A History Lesson from the NYT Nina Hartley Feminists for Porn Website of the Day War is a Racket     February 1, 2005 Joshua L. Dratel The Torture Memos Patrick Cockburn New Doubts About Allawi Robert Fisk "The Only Decent Food We Get is at Funerals" Uri Avnery The Stalemate Col. Dan Smith "W" Stands for Withdrawal Alison Weir Making America as "Secure" as Israel Alan Farago Heaven and Hell in the Everglades Ray Hanania Low Voter Turnout of Iraqi Expatriates: Less Than 10% of Qualified Voters Paul Craig Roberts American Police State Website of the Day Statisticians Refute Official Rationale for Exit Poll Errors       January 31, 2005 Dave Zirin Mr. Frank's Fatwah: New Republic Writer Calls for Death & Torture of Arundhati Roy and Stan Goff Robert Fisk Amid Tragedy, Defiance Chyng Sun Gonzales: Chief Prosecutor of Porn? Greg Moses The Real Scandals of the Texas Election Mike Whitney Cheney at Auschwitz Ali Tonak Turkey and the EU: Fantasies and Ultimatums Patrick Cockburn A Victory for the Shia Website of the Day Voting by the Script: Where Did the 8 Million Voter Turnout Figure Come From?     January 29 / 30, 2005 Manuel Yang / Peter Linebaugh A Dialogue About Murder in Toledo Gabriel Kolko Wilsonian and Neoconservative Myths Patrick Cockburn Baghdad: City of Empty Streets Robert Fisk This Election Will Change the World, But Not as the US Wanted Linn Washington, Jr. Con Job: Bush Pledges on Racism Lack Realism Bernard Chazelle Why the Children of Iraq Make No Sound When They Fall Gary Leupp "This Kind of Subject Matter": Bush's New Ed Secretary vs. Vermont's Lesbians JoAnn Wypijewski The Passion of Paul Shanley Alexander Cockburn The Case of Father Jerry Ron Jacobs Ballot of the Puppets in Iraq Brian Cloughley Smart Bombs; Wrong House: Iraq's Civilian Dead Fred Gardner Peron May Split Sister Dianna Ortiz Memo to Bush from a Survivor of the Guatemalan Torturers: Stop the Torture! Tom Reeves How Bush Brings Freedom to the World: the Case of Haiti Fran Quigley Report: Haiti Now "More Violent and More Inhuman" Suzan Mazur "Mr. Garsin from Kinshasa": an Old Hand Weighs In on the Murder of Lumumba Kurt Nimmo Condi Rice and the Neocon Plan for the Palestinians Lenni Brenner Holocaust History: Beyond the UN's Rhetoric Gilad Atzmon The Politics of Auschwitz Luis Gomez Power and Autonomy in Bolivia Mark Gaffney NASA Searches for a Snowball in Hell: Why Velikovsky Matters Ben Tripp Lament of the Mnemonopath Richard Oxman Meet the Fuqers Poets' Basement Louise, Collins, Shanahan and Albert Website of the Weekend Chemical Industry: Deceit and Denial       January 28, 2005 Rachard Itani Tsunami Aid By the Numbers: the US Really is a Miser Jensen / Youngblood Iraq's Non-Election Patrick Cockburn / Elizabeth Davies Attacks on Polling Places Leave 13 Dead Dave Zirin The Great Donovan McNabb: Proud "Black Quarterback" Dave Lindorff Suicide by State Execution? Karyn Strickler A Corporate Death Penalty Act? Jorge Mariscal Fighting the Poverty Draft     January 27, 2005 Seymour Hersh We've Been Taken Over By a Cult Cockburn / Sengupta The US's Bloodiest Day in Iraq Dave Lindorff Juke Box Journalism: Shilling for Bush Ignacio Chapela / John F. García The Laws of Nature Mike Whitney The Widening Chasm Among Conservatives Dr. Teresa Whitehurst Those Liberal Southern Baptists! Ray McGovern Reining In Cheney Russ Wellen Marginalizing Bin Laden Christopher Brauchli The FBI's Carnival of Errors Website of the Day Informed Eating         January 26, 2005 Saree Makdisi An Iron Wall of Colonization: Fantasies and Realities About the Prospects for Middle East Peace Scott Fleming In Good Conscience: an Interview with Concientious Objector Aidan Delgado Dave Lindorff Filling Saddam's Shoes: the Puppet Regime Return's to Torture Niranjan Ramakrishnan Salazar and Obama: Two Dismal Debuts Toni Solo The US and Latin America: a Not-So-Magical Reality William James Martin Condoleezza Rice: Confused About the Middle East William A. Cook Bush's Second Inaugural Address: the Lost Ur-Version Eric Hobsbawm Delusions About Democracy Alexander Cockburn The CIA's New Campus Spies     January 25, 2005 Brian Cloughley Iraq as Disneyland Mike Roselle Satan is My Co-Pilot Josh Frank / Merlin Chowkwanyun The War on Civil Liberties John Chuckman Freedom on Steroids Paul Craig Roberts A Party Without Virtue Dr. Teresa Whitehurst The Intolerance of Christian Conservatives James Petras The US / Colombia Plot Against Venezuela Website of the Day Lowbaggers for the Environment     January 24, 2005 Fred Gardner Last Monologue in Burbank Lori Berenson On the Politicization of My Case Uri Avnery King George January 22 / 23, 2005 Jennifer Van Bergen / Ray Del Papa Nuclear Incident in Montana Alexander Cockburn Prince Harry's Travails Jeffrey St. Clair The Company That Runs the Empire: Lockheed and Loaded Stan Goff The Spectacle Saul Landau Nothing Succeeds Like Failure Gary Leupp Official Madness and the Coming War on Iran Fred Gardner Is GW Getting the Runaround? Phil Gasper Clemency Denied: the Politics of Death in California Stanley Heller A Kill-Happy Government: Connecticut Chooses Death Greg Moses The Heart of Texas: an Inauguration Day Betrayal on Civil Rights Justin Taylor The Folk-Histories of John Ross Daniel Burton-Rose One China; Many Problems Elaine Cassel Try a Little Tyranny: Questions While Watching the Inaugural Mike Whitney Failing Upwards: the Rise of Michael Chertoff Mark L. Berenson My Daughter Has Been Wrongly Imprisoned Christopher Brauchli It Doesn't Compute: a $170 Million Mistake Gilad Atzmon Zionism and Other Marginal Thoughts Niranjan Ramakrishnan Day of the Rats Mark Donham The Secret Messages of Rahm Emmanuel Ben Tripp Adventures in Online Dating Walter Brasch Hollywood's Patriots: Soulless Kooks, Mr. Bush? Poets' Basement Wuest, Landau, Ford, Albert & Drum     January 21, 2005 Dave Lindorff A Great American Journalist: John L. Hess (1917-2005) Sharon Smith The Anti-War Movement and the Iraqi Resistance Don Santina Baseball, Racism and Steroid Hysteria Ron Jacobs Locked Out and Pissed Off: Protesting the Bush Inauguration Kurt Nimmo The Problem with Mike Ruppert Don Monkerud Once They Were Cults: Bush's Faith-Based Social Services Alan Farago Swimming Home from the Galapagos Derek Seidman An Interview with Army Medic and Anti-War Activist Patrick Resta       January 20, 2005 Paul Craig Roberts Dying for Sycophants William Cook The Bush Inauguration: A Mock Epic Fertility Rite Joshua Frank The Democrats and Iran: Look Who's Backing Bush's Next Eric Ruder Why Andres Raya Snapped: Another Casualty of Bush's War Mike Whitney Coronation in a Garrison State Robert Jensen A Citizens Oath of Office Peter Rost Bush Report on Drug Imports: Good Data, Bad Conclusions David Underhill Is It Torture Yet?: the Eclectic Fool Aid Torture Test James Reiss Adieu, Colin Powell: Pea Soup in Foggy Bottom CounterPunch Staff Voices from Abu Ghraib: the Injured Party       January 19, 2005 Marta Russell Social Security Privatization & Disability: 8 Million at Risk Mike Ferner Marines Stretching Movement: Protesting Urban Warfare in Toledo Nancy Oden The Nuremberg Principles, Iraq and Torture Tony Paterson A Catalogue of British Abuses in Iraq Dave Lindorff Bush's Divide-and-Conquer Plan to Destroy Social Security Doug Giebel BS and CBS: When 60 Minutes Helped Promote WMD Fantasies Alexander Cockburn Will Bush Quit Iraq?       January 18, 2005 Paul Craig Roberts How Americans Were Seduced by War: Empire and Militant Christianity Jennifer Van Bergen Federal Judge: Abu Ghraib Abuses Result of Decision to Ignore Geneva Conventions Douglas Lummis It's a No Brainer; Send Graner: a Rap for Our Time Ron Jacobs Syria Back in the Crosshairs? Seth DeLong Enter the Dragon: Will Washington Tolerate a Venezuelan-Chinese Oil Pact? Lance Selfa Stolen Election?: Most Democrats Didn't Even Bother to Inquire Paul D. Johnson Mystery Meat: a Right-to-Know About Food Origins Elisa Salasin An Open Letter to Jenna Bush, Future Teacher     January 17, 2005 Heather Gray Misconceptions About King's Methods for Social Change Robert Fisk Hotel Room Journalism: the US Press in Iraq Dave Lindorff What the NYT Death Chart Omitted: Civilians Slaughtered by US Military Jason Leopold Sam Bodman's Smokestacks: Bush's Choice for Energy Czar is One of Texas's Worst Polluters Gary Leupp A Message from the Iraqi Resistance Douglas Valentine An Act of State? the Execution of Martin Luther King Harvey Arden Welcome to Leavenworth: My First Encounter with Leonard Peltier Greg Moses King and the Christian Left: Where Lip Service is Not an Option   January 15 / 16, 2005 James Petras The Kidnapping of a Revolutionary Robert Fisk Flying Carpet Airlines: My Return to Baghdad Ron Jacobs Unfit for Military Service Brian Cloughley Smack Daddies of the Hindu Kush: Afghanistan's Drug Bonanza Fred Gardner The Allowable-Quantity Expert Dr. Susan Block The Counter-Inaugural Ball: Eros Day, 2005 John Ross Zapatista Literary Llife Suzan Mazur Unspooking Frank Carlucci M. Shahid Alam America's New Civilizing Mission Frederick B. Hudson Jack Johnson's Real Opponent: "That I Was a Man" Mike Whitney Bush's Grand Plan: Incite Civil War in Iraq Tom Crumpacker A Constitutional Right to Travel to Cuba Bob Burton The Other Armstrong Williams Scandal John Callender La Conchita and the Indomitable 82-Year Old Lila Rajiva Christian Zionism Saul Landau An Imperial Portrait: a Visit to Hearst's Castle Doug Soderstrom A Touch of Evil: the Morality of Neoconservatism Poets' Basement Davies, Louise, Landau, Albert, Collins and Laymon     January 14, 2005 Robert Fisk "The Tent of Occupation" Lee Sustar Bush's Social Security Con Job José M. Tirado The Christians I Know Dave Zirin The Legacy of Jack Johnson Sheldon Rampton Calling John Rendon: a True Tale of "Military Intelligence" Tracy McLellan Under the Influence Yves Engler The Dictatorship of Debt: the World Bank and Haiti Tom Barry Robert Zoellick: a Bush Family Man Website of the Day Ryan for the Nobel Prize?     January 13, 2005 Mark Chmiel / Andrew Wimmer Hearts and Minds, Revisited Joe DeRaymond The Salvador Option: Terror, Elections and Democracy Greg Moses Every Hero a Killer?...Not Dave Lindorff The Great WMD Fraud: Time for an Accounting Jorge Mariscal Dr. Galarza v. Alberto Gonzales: Which Way for Latinos? Christopher Brauchli Gonzales and the Death Penalty: the Executioner Never Sleeps Gary Leupp "Fighting for the Work of the Lord": Christian Fascism in America     January 12, 2005 Robert Fisk Fear Stalks Baghdad Josh Frank The Farce of the DNC Contest Jack Random Casualties of War: the Untold Stories John Roosa Aceh's Dual Disasters: the Tsunami and Military Rule Carol Norris In the Wake of the Tsunami Mike Whitney Pink Slips at CBS Alan Farago Can the Everglades be Saved? Paul Craig Roberts What's Our Biggest Problem in Iraq...the Insurgency or Bush?     January 11, 2005 Tom Barry The US isn't "Stingy"; It's Strategic: Aid as a Weapon of Foreign Policy James Hodge and Linda Cooper Voice of the Voiceless: Father Roy Bourgeois and the School of the the Americas Linda S. Heard Farah Radio Break Down: Joseph Farah's Messages of Hate and Homophobia Derrick O'Keefe Electoral Gigolo?: Richard Gere and the Occupied Vote Gila Svirsky A Tale of Two Elections Harry Browne Irish "Peace Process", RIP   January 10, 2005 Ramzy Baroud Faith-Based Disasters: Tsunami Aid and War Costs Talli Nauman Killing Journalists: Mexico's War on a Free Press Uri Avnery Sharon's Monologue Dave Lindorff Tucker Carlson's Idiot Wind Dave Zirin Randy Moss's Moondance Dave Silver Left Illusions About the Democratic Party Charles Demers Plan Salvador for Iraq: Death Squads Come in Waves William A. Cook Causes and Consequences: Bush, Osama and Israel     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 Walter A. Davis Bible Says: the Psychology of Christian Fundamentalism Victor Kattan The EU and Middle East Peace John Bolender The Plight of Iraq's Mandeans Robert Fisk The Politics of Lebanon Fred Gardner Situation NORML Joe Bageant The Politics of the Comfort Zone Mickey Z. I Want My DDT: Little Nicky Kristof Bugs Out Ben Tripp CounterClockwise Evolution Ron Jacobs Elvis and His Truck: Out on Highway 61 Saul Landau Sex and the Country Rep. Cynthia McKinney Time to End the Blackout Ellen Cantarow NPR's Distortions on Palestine Richard Oxman Bageantry Continued Poets' Basement Gaffney, Landau, Albert, Collins 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 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                                     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

February 10, 2005 Salvaging an Opposition The Pendulum Swings Both Ways By MICHAEL DONNELLY Election? What election? It was Skull versus Bones in ought-four. And we couldn't vote against the war. Steve "PWT with a GED" Spahr Recently I attended the opening soiree of a law office for civil/human rights attorneys in Eugene, Oregon. My friend Lauren Regan, one of the lawyers, is a stalwart, skilful defender of many heroic folks in legal hot water for their activist activities. (You can follow her effort to end the utterly oppressive "Interfering with an Agricultural Operation Act" -- which is used in Oregon exclusively against the First Amendment rights of forest protesters -- by regularly checking in on her defendant's writings on the Oregon vs. Roselle case. Lauren and her tireless colleagues at the Civil Liberties Defense Center need all the support they can get. cldc@efn.org "It's not Infighting. They're not us" Mike Bader It was billed as "An Inaugural Bawl," so there was much political discussion around the Vegan finger foods throughout the converted granary. While getting a sparkling cider (thoughtfully provided for us non-alcohol drinkers), I was cornered by a local wing-nut for a time. In between his haranguing me about CounterPunch and specifically, editor Alexander Cockburn and his buddies Noam Chomsky and Bruce Anderson, we got around to his views of where we're headed. The most shocking thing to me was how, despite his laundry list of issues where Cockburn, Chomsky and CounterPunch fall far short of his radical positions; he has decidedly skewed ideas about just what we're up against, and, consequently, little in the way of good ideas for how to combat it. His own latte-drenched, insular college town views of just what we're up against and how we should respond are strikingly at odds with those of the brilliant Joe Bageant  and most others who actually live and work in the Red States and counties. (I live in a Red county in a Blue state.) He fully believes that ABB won and all that has happened here is another stolen election. He believes that the public is firmly on our side and that only a minority really support BushCo and all that is needed to right things is for the Left to collectively get behind the "9-11 Cheney did it" and "ABB was robbed" bandwagon and happy days will return to the Empire. He angrily dismisses Bageant's notion that, yes, half the country does indeed support Bush and are loving it and will love fascism even more once it fully arrives. He can't abide that many, sadly, have come to Bageant's conclusion: there is no "Left;" merely a lot of disheartened individuals who wish there was. Such notions are inconceivable in the People's Republic of Eugene. Basically ALL of his arguments boiled down to this: we're losing simply because these, and other, Left icons don't get it and are failing to do their jobs educating a public which would otherwise be behind us 100%. And obviously, Cockburn, Chomsky, Bageant and I don't get it because we are part of a COINTELPRO operationwhen we aren't shilling for the CIA. This rant is delivered at fever pitch, while at the same time he blames Cockburn, Chomsky, Anderson, myself, et al. for "sowing dissension and division on the Left." Talk about needing to get away from the monitor screen and the central-casting hippie college town and out into the real world.   The Death of Environmentalism The envIRON triangle = big green; Dems; Foundations Andy Mahler As if this insular tone deafness wasn't enough, I got involved this week in a discussion thread as to the "Death of Environmentalism." As they used to say in my inner-city Flint neighborhood, even Ray Charles can see there have been no major environmental victories for a couple decades now. The last spate of proactive protection legislation came under Nixon and Carter, ferchrissakes! At a time when Big Green, Inc. has become a billion dollar per year industry employing thousands, environmental protection has been reduced to a few skirmishes here and there. And, the sole successful ones are always those fought by local defenders of their special places. Big Green environmentalism has, itself, like the invisible Peace Movement (I'll weigh in on that later), been reduced to a wing of the Democratic Party run top-down by high-paid entrenched tired bureaucrats(the big greens collectively have over 100 staffers pulling in over six figures) with the real heavy lifting always done by underpaid, if not volunteer, young folks (as I noted in an earlier essay). They cannot be counted on to help gain protection or stop degradation of anything. But, they'll jump right on board to use your local issue as a fund-raising ploy. And, they can always be counted on to apply a liberal coat of greenwash to whatever Democrat candidates are thrown up every election year.   Finding Success with the GOP in Power Of course, none of this analysis is new. What is new is that it is now being espoused by some who were collaborators in the decline. Adam Werbach, former golden boy president of the Sierra Club, who presided over and glossed over many Clinton-era losses, (and approved club CEO Carl Pope's $200,000 per year salary and benefits package) has recently leveled the same charges that Jeffrey St. Clair, Cockburn, Denise Boggs, Andy Mahler, Tim Hermach, Jeanine Blaeloch, John Borowski, Scott Silver, myself and many others have detailed for over a decade now. Werbach's piece, a New York Times piece  and a recent Oregonian article on environmentalism's decline, has created an internal movement firestorm of response; from denial, to attaboys, to some real soul-searching. But, as expected, most of the soul-searching comes from the grassroots activists and the denial from the paid professionals. The Oregonian article titled: "Activists' new cause: restoring their clout" acknowledges the decline in the public's trust of environmental organizations and notes the lack of real victories. But, the Oregonian reporter, like his colleagues at the New York Times, repeats one of the causes of the decline in that he interviews no one other than paid staffers of the ineffective organizations at the root of the decline. Perhaps the most shocking thing I read in the various e-mails it provoked was this from a paid staffer in obvious denial: "in the last 30 years, I don't think it is that we've lost touch with the public, rather I think it's that there's been a major religious movement that has converted millions of people in the country to a religion with a conservative ideology attached. We are also facing a much more organized opposition." Well, someone has obviously "lost touch" with something here. Time to get out of what Mike Roselle calls, "the vast cubicle wasteland." Where have they been? Have they never lived in a Red County? Have they even visited? The religious right and extraction industries have ALWAYS been intertwined. It was thus three decades ago when I was a timber millworker in rural Washington and long before that. Do they so easily forget Reagan's Secretary of the Interior James Watt? Anne Gorsuch? Rita Lavelle? Compared to them, Gail Norton is but a typical bureaucrat. Watt famously called for the using up of ALL natural resources as that would trigger the return of Jesus! What it did trigger was massive opposition AND proactive protection efforts. None of that fazed the activists of the time. Local activists gained a lot of protection in the dark days of Reagan. People didn't whine about the toughness of the opposition. They noted it and went to work. Major additions to designated Wilderness took place under Reagan even, as opposed to the paucity of such under Clinton. Similarly, opposition at the grassroots level has been fierce against Bush. While no victories have been forth-coming, a lot of bad proposals have been sidetracked, including the very one big green called "our greatest victory." Bill Clinton's vaunted "Northwest Forest Plan" actually called for over 1.1 billion board feet (35,000 acres) of Ancient Forest stump-creation per year in the Northwest's public-owned national forests. Al Gore vowed to carry it out and the big greens cheer-led his promise. However, under the big greens' nemesis Bush, just less than 200 million bf of Ancient Forest has been cut per year. Clinton's annual average was 1.9 billion bf! At the current rate, Bush won't even succeed in cutting one year's worth of Clinton cuts in his entire eight years, should he complete his term.   We Won the Last Time Which brings me to a final thought: Richard Nixon was reelected in 1972 with an unheard-of 62% of the vote. He carried every state but one. Within two years, he was gone and that era's Imperial war ended. (Note to Cheney: his vice-president, Spiro Agnew, was ousted before him.) And we had: a National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) (the Mother of all environmental legislation), a Clean Water Act, a Clean Air Act, an Endangered Species Act and on and on passed on his watch and signed into law by Nixon himself. But you won't hear big green talking about it. Imagine the Hosannas had it been Bubba, not the Trickster? The environmentalism thread concluded with a lot of advice from long-time activists. Here's my distillation: leave the Blue enclaves; leave the cubicles; smash the envIRON triangle; own up to the failures of the Democrats; admit the gains under Republicans; go after bad Democrats; get to know some loggers, miners and ranchers AND some grassroots activists; stand up for your local areas ­ no compromise; just lead ­ the rest will comeand then maybe we'll see some "restored clout." P.S. At the soiree, I trotted out Steve Spahr's rap. Naderite Jim Flynn piped up reminding me, "Some of us indeed voted against the War" MICHAEL DONNELLY is a grassroots activist who always fights equally hard against the depredations of Republicans and Democrats alike. He doubts the official 9-11 story. He finds Spahr's election re-cap the best summary of all. He can be reached at pahtoo@aol.com   WWW http://www.counterpunch.org