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Today's
Stories
February 12, 2004
Saul Landau
Elegy to the Salton Sea
February
11, 2004
Cockburn
/ St. Clair
Hail, Kerry: Senator Facing-Both-Ways
Steve Perry
Bush
v. Bush?
February
10, 2004
Kurt
Nimmo
Inquisition in Iowa
Ron Jacobs
Politics and the Beatles: Don't
You Know You Can Count Me Out (In)
Elizabeth
Schulte
The Many Faces of John Kerry
Mickey
Z
Meet the Oxmans: "The Rich
Shouldn't Sleep at Night Either"
February
9, 2004
Michael
Donnelly
Will Skull and Bones Really Change
CEOs? Inside John Kerry's Closet
Chris Floyd
Smells Like Team Spirit: the Bush
B-Boys Replay Their Greatest Hits
Bill
Christison
What's Wrong with the CIA?
Dr. Susan
Block
Janet Jackson's Mammary Moment:
Boob Tube Super Bowl
February
7/8, 2004
Kathleen
Christison
Offending Valerie: Dealing with
Jewish Self-Absorption
Jeff Ballinger
No Sweat Shopping
Dave
Lindorff
Spray and Pray in Iraq: a Marine
in Transit
Alexander
Cockburn
McNamara: the Sequel
February
6, 2004
Ron
Jacobs
Are the Kurds in the Way?
Joanne
Mariner
Anita Bryant's Legacy
Saul
Landau
Happiness and Botox
Kurt Nimmo
Horror Non-fiction: A How-To Guide
from Perle and Frum
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
The Real Intelligence Failure:
Our Own
February
5, 2004
Benjamin
Shepard
Turning NYC into a Patriot Act Free
Zone
Khury
Petersen-Smith
A Report from Occupied Iraq: "We Don't Want Army USA"
Mokhiber
/ Weissman
The 10 Worst Corporations of 2003
Teresa
Josette
The Exeuctioner's Pslam? Christian Nation? Yeah, Right
David Krieger
Why Dr. King's Message on Vietnam is Relevant to Iraq
Christopher
Brauchli
Monkey Business: Of Recess and Evolution in Georgia Schools
Norman
Solomon
The Deadly Lies of Reliable Sources
Cockburn
/ St. Clair
Presenting President Edwards!
February
4, 2004
Brian
McKinlay
Bush's Australian Deputy: Howard's
Last Round Up?
Mark
Gaffney
Ariel Sharon's Favorite Senator: Ron Wyden and Israel
Judith
Brown
Palestine and the Media
Frederick
B. Hudson
Moseley-Braun and the Butcher: Campaign for Justice or Big Oil's
Junta?
Kurt Nimmo
Bush's Independent Commission: Exonerating
the Spooks
M.
Junaid Alam
Philly School Workers Fight for Fair Contract
Fran Shor
Whose Boob Tube?
Kevin
Cooper
This is Not My Execution and I Will Not Claim It
February
3, 2004
Alan
Maass
The
Dems' New Mantra: What They Really Mean by "Electability"
Nick
Halfinger
How the Other Half Lives: Embedded
in Iraq
Rahul
Mahajan
Our True Intelligence Failure
Neve Gordon
The Only Democracy in the Middle East?
Laura
Carlsen
Mexico: Two Anniversaries; Two Futures
Jordan
Green
Democratic Patronage in Northern New
Mexico
Terry
Lodge
An Open Letter to Michael Powell from the Boobs & Body Parts
Fairness Campaign
Hammond
Guthrie
Investigating the Meaningless
Website
of the Day
Waging Peace
February
2, 2004
Gary
Leupp
The Buddhist Nun in Tom Ridge's Jail
Justin
E.H. Smith
The Manners of Their Deaths: Capital Punishment in a Smoke-Free
Environment
Tom
Wright
The Prosecution of Captain Yee
Winslow
Wheeler
Inside the Bush Defense Budget
Lee Ballinger
Janet Jackson's Naked Truth
Leonard
Pitts, Jr
For Blacks, the Game of Justice is
Rigged
Jeffrey
St. Clair
The Hollow Candidate:
The Trouble with Howard Dean
Website
of the Day
Resistance:
In the Eye of the American Hegemon
Jan. 31 / Feb 1, 2004
Paul
de Rooij
For Whom the Death Tolls: Deliberate
Undercounting of Coalition Fatalities
Bernard
Chazelle
Bush's Desolate Imperium
Jack
Heyman
Bushfires on the Docks
Christopher
Reed
Broken Ballots
Michael
Donnelly
An Urgent Plea to Progressives: Don't Give in to Fear
Rob Eshelman
The Subtle War
Lee
Sustar
Palestine and the Anti-War Movement
George
Bisharat
Right of Return
Ray
McGovern
Nothing to Preempt
Brian Cloughley
Enron's Beady-Eyed Sharks
Conn
Hallinan
Nepal, Bush & Real WMDs
Kurt Nimmo
The Murderous Lies of the Neo-Cons
Phillip
Cryan
Media at the Monterrey Summit
Christopher
Brauchli
A Speech for Those Who Don't Read
John
Holt
War in the Great White North
Mickey
Z.
Clueless in America: When Mikey Met Wesley
Mark
Scaramella
The High Cost of Throwing Away the Key
Tariq Ali
Farewell, Munif
Ben
Tripp
Waiter! The Reality Check, Please
Poets'
Basement
LaMorticella, Guthrie, Thomas and Albert
January 30, 2004
Saul
Landau
Cuba High on Neo-Con Hit List
Michael
Donnelly
Bush's Second Front: The War in
the Woods
Elaine
Cassel
Worse Than Jacko: Child Abuse at Gitmo
David Vest
More Halliburton News, Brought to You by Halliburton
Mike
Whitney
The Kay Report: Still Defending Aggression
David
Miller
The Hutton Whitewash
Sam
Husseini
How Many People Must Die Because of This "Mistake",
Senator Kerry?
January 29, 2004
Patricia
Nelson Limerick
John Ehrlichman, Environmentalist
Ron
Jacobs
Homeland Security and "Legalized"
Immigration
Rahul Mahajan
New Hampshire v. Iraq
Greg
Weiher
Bush Calls for Preemptive Strike on
Moon and Mars
Norman
Solomon
The State of the Media Union
Cockburn
/ St. Clair
Does NH Mean Anything?
January
28, 2004
Kathy
Kelly
Bearing Witness Against Teachers of
Torture and Assassination
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.
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February
12, 2004
The Nature of Capitalism
Elegy
to the Salton Sea
By SAUL LANDAU
In 19th Century England, William Wordsworth strolled
through his garden. "I am at one with Nature," he declared.
Hemingway's 20th Century hero Nick paddled with his father in
a canoe in the unspoiled Michigan lakes. He put his hand into
the ice cold water "It was good." I sometimes try to
kid myself like the great writers who felt they had some organic
relationship with Nature despite the pervasive encroachment of
industrial technology on all areas of life.
Could I aspire to become a 21st Century
Nick, as I looked at the unruffled picture post card water? The
pristine blue landscape reflected the desert sun. The tamarisk
trees cast flimsy shadows on the lake's surface. Southern California's
largest body of water, the Salton Sea, exudes calm and natural
beauty as long as you have a clothes pin on your nose.
Pull it off and the stench threatens
to ramrod its way through your sinuses. This invasive redolence
combines residues from agricultural runoff (pesticide and chemical
fertilizer), sewage from surrounding desert cities (Palm Springs,
Coachella and Indio) and even some toxic waste from maquiladoras
in nearby Mexicali across the border.
The lake measures 35 miles in length,
up to 15 miles in width and has about 115 miles of shoreline.
On the western shore, tens of thousands of carcasses of dead
and festering birds  and fish belie its tranquil image and
add to the pernicious odor.
In 1996, government agencies affirmed
that 1,200 endangered brown pelicans died of avian botulism.
In addition, 19,000 waterfowl and shore birds from 63 species
perished. In 1997, 10,000 plus birds from 51 species died. From
January through April, 1998, 17,000 birds from 70 species caught
Newcastle's disease and avian cholera. The immune systems of
thousands of eared grebes became weak, probably from ingesting
selenium, and they succumbed to avian infirmities. Their carcasses
decompose on the shore alongside the skeletons of fish. Some
biologists predict that all the fish will begin to die as salt
levels increase.
But a flood in the 1960s preceded the
overwhelming stink. Surrounding agribusiness owners had irrigated
their overly-chemical drenched soil with a huge increase of water.
They did not consider the impact of their action on the Salton
Sea. Residents had to abandon modest retirement homes and vacation
cottages. These vacant edifices loom like graveside monuments
to the lake side community that had mushroomed on the edge of
Salton City after World War II.
The origins of the predicament date back
to 1905 when a dam in the Colorado River broke and water raced
through mineral heavy canals for two years to collect in a pre-historic
dried-up lake bed. The new body of water contained a high salinity
level. This new culture proved ideal for certain saltwater fish,
as well as a place where birds and ducks and geese could migrate
and breed. Indeed, scientists have observed almost 400 species
of birds at the sea. During the 1950s, experts estimated that
in winter some four million birds used this artificial water
body. Indeed, for flying non-insects, it became the most utilized
sea in the nation. New flora grew on the shore: Desert scrub,
creosote bush, saltbush, and tamarisk.
Developers and speculators built tourist
facilities that serviced some 200,000 visitors a year, including
campsites, trails, playgrounds and boat ramps. The lake became
a virtual speedway for boat racers who took advantage of the
high salt content that gave their craft more buoyancy. Water
and jet skiers roared past annoyed fisherman. By 1958, the North
Shore of the lake sported a Yacht Club, with one of the largest
marinas in Southern California. In the 1950s, Jerry Lewis docked
his boat there. Desi Arnaz and Johnny Weissmuller played on the
18 hole course and hung around Salton Bay Yacht Club. Bulldozers
paved the streets.
These forsaken structures have shed their
paint. Motels and yacht clubs, places from which water skiers
once took off, have also lost their essence: the neon has dripped
out of their signs.
Like other ghost towns that once vibrated
with life and crackled with festivity, some of the Salton Sea
communities now symbolize ecological disaster: conditions that
arise when hustlers attempt to manipulate Nature for profit without
acknowledging that the future may involve very high costs. Like
Melville's white whale, the Salton Sea today threatens to become
a metaphor for Biblical punishment. "You have gone too far,"
the great voice in the sky might have roared. "You are threatening
Nature!"
"Hey, that's the nature of capitalism,"
the developers might well have replied.
To regain their profitable relationship
with people and Nature on the Salton Sea, the "men of progress"
call upon "science," the ubiquitous magician, to solve
environmental messes.
"Fix it," they metaphorically
order the men in white lab coats. "And get the government
[taxpayers, not corporations] to pick up the tab." So, EPA,
The Department of the Interior, the Bureau of Land Management
and various California agencies contacted scientists who dutifully
began to study this putrid body of water more than three decades
ago. They differ about how to apply their magic to sections of
the lake, in some areas fifty feet deep, covered with thick layers
of viscous silt. Some marine biologists wonder if anyone can
clean up this peanut butter like deposit of chemical slurp that
looms as a major ecological calamity.
Nature seemed to rebel in the form of
an ecological chain reaction. Altering the flow of Colorado River
water to create the Salton Sea also led to the diversion of River
water to irrigate the Imperial Valley. The ensuing runoff flowed
naturally into the unnatural Salton Sea. When farmers poured
their "excess" water into the Sea, the Sea rose having
no outlet for the excess water -- and flooded the shoreline residents,
including those on land belonging to the Torres-Martinez reservation.
Geologists call the Salton Sea a "terminal"
water body, one that receives water flow, but has not outlet.
So, it had no place to send the agricultural run off, post irrigation
water that contains chemical fertilizers, pesticides, selenium
and other minerals and salts other than onto the shore, with
its people and edifices.
The levels of poisonous materials have
risen steadily. The Sea diminishes only through evaporation.
Allowing it to dry up would mean that poisonous selenium dust
would infect all living things in the area. In 2004, scientists
estimate that the Salton Sea contains 25% more salinity than
the ocean. Even most saltwater fish cannot survive in it. Today,
the Sea's ecosystem suffers from significant stress. Several
million fish and birds have already died from disease and depressed
levels of dissolved oxygen.
Not all the nearby residents have fled,
however. In the eastern shore communities of Bombay Beach and
the Slab City trailer community, some people live on meager social
security checks. "I like it better here than in rural Alabama,"
says a man with confederate flag sewn on his trucker's cap.
The bar flies at Bombay Beach's Ski Inn
drink, smoke and gossip about daily life. They have become accustomed
toliving in an environmentally challenged area. From the bar,
they drive in Mad Max vehicles to their trailers or small homes.
The disgusting odor that pervades the western bank occasionally
infiltrates their community as well. It seems worse in the summer
when the thermometer rises above 110 degrees.
Some fishermen still drop their line
in the lake and duck hunters hide in the blinds on the lake shore.
"I sure hope they don't eat what they catch or shoot,"
says a man who has watched the Sea deteriorate over the decades.
The residents wait for the conflicting
interests, like urban water authorities, conservationists, agribusiness,
and native peoples, to figure out a "cure" for their
ecologically diseased Sea.
One interested party, the Torres Martinez
tribe, had to change their life in 1905 when the Colorado River
water overflowed their reservation. Like the fauna, flora and
people in the area, these Native Americans adapted to the new
environment and abandoned their traditional hunting and gathering
culture for fishing and modest farming, as they debate whether
to build a Casino. In the 1960s more flooding and increasing
salinity and pollution of the Sea further threatened their future.
The Salton Sea, like the Aral Sea in
Central Asia, which is 400 times its size and shrinking fast,
symbolizes ecological catastrophe. Soviet industrial "planners"
had treatedNature just as the California capitalist developers
did: they employed "productive" technology without
calculating or even thinking about consequences. Nearby residents
animals and plants suffered horrendous consequences.
But humans learn slowly. They know that
reproduction of the species requires a healthy environment --
clean air and water and uncontaminated soil. But some of the
smartest engineers can lose sight of that truism when offered
the chance to manipulate Nature for short-term profits.
Indeed, these "forward looking"
individuals view Nature as something to dominate, not nurture.
Will it take the rule of romantic poets to teach that tornadoes,
hurricanes, El Ninos scream metaphoric messages? "Hey, there's
something more powerful than all of you!"
Environmental nightmares like the Salton
Sea have not humbled those who exude "progress" but
lack the sensitivity to understand that serious lessons follow
the modification of the earth's ecology.
Wordsworth's Nature was:
"the language of the sense,
The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse, The guide, the guardian
of my heart, and soul
Of all my moral being."
"Lines Composed a Few Miles Above
Tintern Abbey"
Saul Landau
is a fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies. He teaches at
Cal Poly Pomona University. For Landau's writing in Spanish visit:
www.rprogreso.com.
His new book, PRE-EMPTIVE
EMPIRE: A GUIDE TO BUSH S KINGDOM, has just been published
by Pluto Press. His new film is Syria: Between Iraq and a Hard
Place. He can be reached at: landau@counterpunch.org
Weekend
Edition Features for February 1, 2004
Paul
de Rooij
For Whom the Death Tolls: Deliberate
Undercounting of Coalition Fatalities
Bernard
Chazelle
Bush's Desolate Imperium
Jack
Heyman
Bushfires on the Docks
Christopher
Reed
Broken Ballots
Michael
Donnelly
An Urgent Plea to Progressives: Don't Give in to Fear
Rob Eshelman
The Subtle War
Lee
Sustar
Palestine and the Anti-War Movement
George
Bisharat
Right of Return
Ray
McGovern
Nothing to Preempt
Brian Cloughley
Enron's Beady-Eyed Sharks
Conn
Hallinan
Nepal, Bush & Real WMDs
Kurt Nimmo
The Murderous Lies of the Neo-Cons
Phillip
Cryan
Media at the Monterrey Summit
Christopher
Brauchli
A Speech for Those Who Don't Read
John
Holt
War in the Great White North
Mickey
Z.
Clueless in America: When Mikey Met Wesley
Mark
Scaramella
The High Cost of Throwing Away the Key
Tariq Ali
Farewell, Munif
Ben
Tripp
Waiter! The Reality Check, Please
Poets'
Basement
LaMorticella, Guthrie, Thomas and Albert
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