Today's Stories

December 19 - 21, 2008

Jeffrey St. Clair
Salazar and the Tragedy of the Common Ground

December 18, 2008

Phillip Doe
The Man in the Hat: Salazar and the Status Quo

Ronnie Cummins
Vilsack: Another Shill for Monsanto

Jesse Sharkey
No School Left Unsold: Arne Duncan's Privatization Agenda

Saul Landau
Postcard from Venezuela

Peter Morici
What's Next for the Fed?

Dave Lindorff
Prosecuting Bush and Cheney for Torture

Panos Petrou
Days of Rage in Greece

Jeff Cohen /
Norman Solomon
The 2008 P.U.-litzer Prizes: the Stinkiest Media Performances of the Year

Worthy Group of the Day
Organic Consumer Alliance

December 17, 2008

Peter Lee
Pushing Pakistan Over the Edge

Conn Hallinan
Angels and Demons in Mumbai

Mike Whitney
Bernanke's Fatal Flaw

Jeff Halper
Obama and the Israel-Palestine Conflict

Alan Farago
The Audacity of Parkland

Peter Morici
The Big Hole

Norm Kent
Obama Lights Up

Col. Douglas MacGregor
The Price of Expediency

Margaret Kimberley
Blacks and Gay Rights

Ron Jacobs
The Myth of the Good Guy: Waiting on a President to Do the Right Thing

Worthy Group of the Day
Campaign to End the Death Penalty

December 16, 2008

Vicente Navarro
A Forgotten Genocide: the Case of Spain

Patrick Cockburn
Each Shoe was Worth a Thousand Words

Thomas Michael Power
Back to the Pump: an Economic and Environmental Dead End

Jason Hribal
Orangutans, Resistance and the Zoo: the Story of Ken Allen and Kumang

Farzana Versey
Straw Warriors and the Pantomime of Patriotism

Wajahat Ali /
Ahmed Rashid
Indian Muslims: Defining Their Loyalty

Mats Svensson
The Order to Destroy has been Given

Paul Fitzgerald /
Elizabeth Gould
Mumbai Terror's Afghan Roots

David Macaray
Workplace Violence and Termination Etiquette

Howard Lisnoff
Left Control of Academia? The Case of William Felkner

Worthy Group of the Day
AWR: the Last, Best Hope for Saving the Big Wild

December 15, 2008

Andy Worthington
Hit Me Baby One More Time: a History of Music Torture in War on Terror

Franklin Lamb
Why Hezbollah Stiffed Carter

Karl Grossman
Dr. Chu's Nuclear Prescription

Brian Cloughley
Land of the Free (To Torture and Imprison Without Trial)

Mary Lynn Cramer
Stiglitz's Foolishly Flawed Morality

Steve Early
From Nicky Pockets to Blago: Why Pay-to-Play is Bad for Labor

Thomas Christie
Pentagon Train Wreck Awaits Obama

Ken Paff
Remembering Ron Carey: a Great Labor Leader

Niranjan Ramakrishnan
What is India to Do?

Dave Lindorff
A Hero of Our Time: Muntadar al-Zaidi

Alan Farago
The Artless Dodger

Worthy Group of the Day
Davis-Putter Scholarship Fund

December 12 / 14, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Hail to Chicago, Beacon of American Values

Michael Hudson /
Jeffrey Sommers
The End of the Washington Consensus

David Price
The Leaky Ship of Human Terrain Systems

Jeffrey St. Clair
Nukes Up the Hudson

Frank Barat
An Israeli in Gaza: an Interview with Jeff Halper

John Ross
Writing a Thesis in Blood

Binoy Kampmark
Humanitarian Imperialism: Obama and the Genocide Task Force

David Macaray
Killing the Auto Bailout: a Dagger to the Heart of Organized Labor

Ralph Nader
Antidotes to Plunder: a Holiday Reading List

Eamonn Fingleton
Whatever Happened to Iris Chang?

Lawrence Velvel
Why Blagojevich Might Be Acquitted

Behzad Yaghmaian
The Housing Crisis: a Timebomb China Can't Defuse

Sam Husseini
Putting the Pro in Protest

Tom Barry
Incentives to Detain: How Immigrants Drive Prison Profits

Howard Lisnoff
Why I Went to Jail

Laura Carlsen
Mexico's Immigration Problem

Raj Patel
The WTO and Other Fairy Tales

Ron Jacobs
The Manufacturing of History

Paul Watson
Risky Business Down Under

David Yearsley
They Also Serve Who Only Pull or Tread

Lorenzo Wolff
So You Want Be a Rock 'n' Roll Star...

Kim Nicolini
Finally, a Vampire Movie You Can Sink Your Teeth Into

Susie Day
Proposition 1984: the Problem with Heterosexuals

Poets' Basement
Gibbons, Lerch and Crete

Worthy Group of the Weekend
Energy Justice

December 11, 2008

Patrick Cockburn
Total Defeat for U.S. in Iraq

P. Sainath
After Mumbai

Vicken Cheterian
The Zarqawi Generation

Ray McGovern
Will Obama Buy Torture-Lite?

Dedrick Muhammad
Post-Racial Racism at the Post: the Undying Obsession with Black Family Values

Lee Sustar
Victory at Republic

Peter Morici
The Big Drag

Ayesha Ijaz Khan
Must They Hate Us So?

George Wuerthner
Another Subsidy to Big Timber?

Christopher Brauchli
Mr. Berg's Strange Obsession

Worthy Group of the Day
Animal Balance

December 10, 2008

Ismael Hossein-Zadeh
Whose Interests Will Shape Obama's Change?

Mary Lynn Cramer
The Multi-Trillion Dollar Question

Manuel Garcia, Jr.
Nuclear Weapons Obsolescence

Joshua Frank
Breaking the Stranglehold on Middle East News Coverage

Jack Ely
Stop Sobbing About Free Music Downloads: a Message to the Music Industry from the Lead Singer of the Kingsmen

Steve Conn
An Obama Public Works Program?

Lee Sustar
Republic Workers Target Bank of America

Glen Ford
The Die is Cast

Stephen Lendman
The Persecution of Syed Fahad Hashmi

Nadia Hijab
The Face of America

Dave Lindorff
We All Need a Union

Website of the Day
This One's For You, Senator Dodd

December 9, 2008

Mike Whitney
Card Check

Fawzia Afzal-Khan
Us vs. Them

Ghada Karmi
The UN Resolution That Time Forgot

Dave Lindorff
A Car Dealer Explains Why the Bailout is a Raw Deal

Steve Breyman
Notes on a Green Economy: Managing Stuff in the 21st Century

Lee Sustar /
Nicole Colson
Raising the Stakes at Republic

Rev. William E. Alberts
God of Our Fathers

Martha Rosenberg
Bill Richardson: Secretary of Bloodsports

Sam Husseini
How Holbrooke Lied His Way Into a War

David Macaray
The UAW in Peril

Website of the Day
This Toxic Life

December 8, 2008

Steve Early
Is Obama Backing Off a Crucial Pledge to Labor?

Michael Hudson
Obama's Favoritism: Wall Street, Not the Auto Industry

Patrick Cockburn
Talking to a Lashkar Militant

Diane Farsetta
An Officer and a Conflicted Man: McCaffery, the Pentagon and Fleishman-Hillard

Paul Craig Roberts
Chapters in Imperial Hypocrisy

Daniel Gross
The Chicago Sit-Down Strike

Saul Landau
To Bail or Not to Bail?

Harvey Wasserman
Why John Bryson is Unfit for Energy Secretary

Mike Ferner
The New Generation of "Non-Lethal" Weapons

Norman Solomon
The Silent Winter of Escalation

David Michael Green
The Other Foot

Website of the Day
The Remains of Detroit

December 5 / 7, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Honeymoans From the Left

Brian Cloughley
Shambles in Afghanistan

Paul Craig Roberts
Muslim Revolution: How Washington Arrogance Helped Drive the Mumbai Attacks

Liaquat Ali Khan
Mumbai and the Kashmir Tinderbox

Farzana Versey
Mumbai's Charge of the Lightweight Brigade

Peter Lee
Pakistan Nears the Breaking Point

Peter Morici
Slouching Toward a Depression?

Ralph Nader /
Toby Heaps
Junk Cap-and-Trade

Yinon Cohen /
Neve Gordon
Obama Could End the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: Will He Meet the Challenge?

Wajahat Ali
Perverse Justice: the Holy Land Foundation Convictions

Johnny Barber
Aswad's Story: Illegal Detention and the Declaration of Human Rights

Alan Farago
Fallout from the Pass-Through Economy

Jeremy Scahill
Obama Doesn't Plan to End Occupation of Iraq

Mike Whitney
Powergrab in Ottawa

Ranjit Hoskote
Jahiliyya Versus Jihad

Carl Finamore
Thank God I'm an Atheist! (Or Boy is Bill O'Reilly in for a Big Surprise)

Marjorie Cohn
Obama and Women's Rights

Norm Kent
Tommy Chong, the Unanticipated Warrior

Missy Beattie
What Lies Ahead

Binoy Kampmark
Committing Suicide On-Line: the Briggs Case

David Macaray
The Best and the Brightest Redux: Too Many Brains, Not Enough Humility

Nancy Stohlman
Relational Activism

Ron Jacobs
Irreverent Politics Then and Now

David Yearsley
Thematics From the Golden Past

Lorenzo Wolff
Troubled Songs of Home and War

Poets' Basement
Orloski: The Door Opener

Website of the Weekend
In Prison My Whole Life

December 4, 2008

Ece Temelkuran
Inside the Ergenekon Case

Ralph Nader
Turning Crisis into Opportunity: Who Will Seize the Moment?

Harry Browne
The Bush-Obama National Security Strategy

Eamonn Fingleton
The American Car Industry: a Riposte to the Knockers

Conn Hallinan
The Syria Attack

Mike Whitney
Fiasco in Somalia: Another CIA Cock-Up

Stewart J. Lawrence
Obama and Latinos: Richardson, Alone, is Not Enough

Paul Fitzgerald /
Elizabeth Gould
Message to Obama: Stop Killing Afghanis

Karyn Strickler
Show Us the Green, Before We Show You the Money

Jennifer Matsui
Obama-Cola: the Great National Temperance Beverage

Website of the Day
"He Ain't Got Laid in a Month of Sundays..."

December 3, 2008

Andrew Cockburn
What's Wrong with the U.S. Military

Sheldon Rampton
Mormon Homophobia: Up Close and Personal

Robert Weissman
Nationalize GM

Yifat Susskind
From Mumbai to Washington

William Blum
The Obama Bummer: Vote First, Ask Questions Later

Alan Singer
The Ghost of the Defunct Economist

David Macaray
Trampled Under Foot at Wal-Mart

Martha Rosenberg
Born With a Statin Deficiency? Line Forms to the Left!

Mats Svensson
The Crimes Have No Period of Limitations

Website of the Day
Why Bill Richardson's Nomination Should be Opposed

December 2, 2008

Jeremy Scahill
Obama's Kettle of Hawks

Paul Craig Roberts
The New Arms Race

Ayesha Ijaz Khan
The Mumbai Terror Attacks: Is Pakistan to Blame?

Sarah Anderson /
John Cavanagh
Skewed Priorities: How the Bailout Dwarfs Spending on Other Global Crises

William Blum
The Mythology of the War on Terrorism

John Ross
Mexico's Drug War Goes Down in Flames

Dave Lindorff
A Tale of Two Terror Attacks

Nicola Nasser
A Peace Process That Makes Peace Impossible

Steve Conn
Operation Redskin Removal

Robert Bryce
Coal Hard Facts

Website of the Day
Country, Funk, Soul

December 1, 2008

Patrick Cockburn
From Baghdad to Mumbai, by Way of Pakistan

Damien Millet /
Eric Toussaint
Obama's Economic Team: Records of Failure

Vijay Prashad
The Fires in South Asia

Deepak Tripathi
Obama's Foreign Crises

Joshua Frank
Madam Secretary Clinton and the Middle East

P. Sainath
The Unlikely Martyrdom of Free Market Jihad

Alan Farago
The Right's War on Regulators

Binoy Kampmark
Sydney's Ball and Chain

Chris Genovali
Silent Fall

David Michael Green
Hope You Die Before You Get Old

Stephen Martin
The Chinese are Coming, the Chinese are Coming!

Website of the Day
Robert Rubin: Coward, Liar or Both?

November 28-30, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
In Time of Trouble

Mike Whitney
The Obama "Dream Team": Rubin Clones and Other Fakers

Ted Honderich
What is the Meaning of Obama's Election?

Tom Kerr
Preserving Filthy Lucre (Or Becoming My Dad)

Mike Ely
The Conquest of New England

David Yearsley
Hymns of the Conquest

Deepak Tripathi
Uproar in Police-State Britain

Sonja Karkar
Gaza's Death Throes

Ramzy Baroud
Salvation in a News Broadcast

Robert Weitzel
Israel's Settlement on Capitol Hill

Robert Roth
Can We Create a Movement for Change?

Carlos Fierro
Obama and the End of Racism?

David Macaray
How to Kill a Union

David Rosen
A New Sexual Agenda

James Cockcroft
Indigenous People Rising

Stan Cox
The Most Disappointing Gift

Steve Conn
Talking Turkey About College Basketball

Stephen Martin
The Electromagnetic Pulse and Economic Warfare

Richard Rhames
Busty Bimbettes, Bombs and Brand Obama

Kim Nicolini
Women as Products and Cannibalistic Achievers

Lorenzo Wolff
A Battle Cry for the Confused and Vulnerable

Poets' Basement
Woods, Harrison and Corseri

Weekend Edition
December 19 - 21, 2008

Obama's Appointments Reveal What's Wrong with the Environmental Establishment

Green Myopia

By FELICE PACE

Several of the environmental movement’s deep problems were displayed during the December 18th edition of Democracy Now.  During the broadcast Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzales conducted interview/debates on two Obama appointments which are critical to the environment – Agriculture Secretary and Interior Secretary. In each case a representative of National Audubon supported the nominations. Opposing the appointment of Tom Vilsack for Ag Secretary was Ronnie Cummins of the Organic Consumers Association ; Kieran Suckling of the Center for Biological Diversity  critiqued the nomination of Colorado Senator and rancher Ken Salizar as Interior Secretary.

Vilsak’s appointment is opposed by many in the organic and sustainable agriculture communities who point to his record as a strong supporter of industrial agriculture, ethanol over food production and genetically engineered crops. Vilsak is reported to accept rides on Monsanto corporate jets – a cozy relationship. Rather than make common cause with progressive agriculture, however, National Audubon and the other members of the environmental establishment support Vilsak’s appointment. Democracy Now wanted to know why and the Audubon spokesperson offered Vilsak’s support for limits on payments to rich farmers and his support for USDA’s conservation programs as reasons.

Apparently National Audubon is clueless about the strategy of big agriculture to shift from crop subsidies to “conservation” subsidies in order to advance free trade agreements at the same time that the USDA “conservation programs” are transformed from benefiting the environment to mainly benefiting Ag producers. This trend was evident in the 2008 Farm Bill process. In the House of Representatives, for example, language in the Farm Bill which would have required a 15% reduction in on-farm water consumption in order for an Ag producer to qualify for EQIP water conservation funding was gutted. Several national environmental groups were complicit in what they called “a compromise” on EQIP. 

The Democracy Now debate over the appointment of Salazar as Interior Secretary showcased another fundamental division within the environmental community. Representing the environmental establishment, National Audubon explained its support for Salazar as motivated by a desire to preserve “access” to the Secretary. In contrast the Center for Biological Diversity – which is a product of the movement by grassroots environmental activists to create alternatives to the environmental establishment – is critical of Salazar because of his terrible record on public land issues and the Endangered Species Act.

It appears clear that Salazar will not bring the kind of change that environmental activists would like to see at Interior. The environmental establishment’s support for the appointment, therefore, speaks volumes about that establishment’s low expectations, overly close identification with the Democratic Party and myopic fixation on “maintaining access”.   

The environmental establishment’s support for Vilsak and Salizar also reveals a much more fundamental problem: their lack of interest in making common cause with progressive movements. The need for alliances of environmental groups and other progressive movements has been emphasized recently in the writings of one of the movement’s most distinguished elders – Gus Speth. Now the dean of the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, Speth is a founder of NRDC and was head of the Council on Environmental Quality during the Carter Administration. 

Writing this October in the Nation, Gus Speth notes that “the environmental community has grown in strength and sophistication, but the environment has continued to deteriorate.”  Speth finds the cause of the deterioration in “modern capitalism” which he says not only degrades the environment but degrades society and democracy at the same time. In response to this  “inherently ruthless, rapacious system,”  Gus Speth finds “the best hope for change” in “a fusion of those concerned about the environment, social justice and strong democracy into one powerful progressive force.” Speth also tells us that “this fusion must occur before it is too late.”

If Gus Speth’s prescription for saving the planet and democracy had been applied to efforts to influence the Agriculture and Interior appointments we would not see the environmental establishment represented by National Audubon taking a position which isolates it not only from progressive agriculture but also from the environmental movement’s own grassroots.  Instead we would have seen those who want to save the environment, small, organic agriculture and democracy united in support of truly progressive candidates.   

So what can be done to change the current myopia of the environmental establishment, to get the big environmental groups to embrace and prioritize “a fusion of those concerned about the environment, social justice and strong democracy into one powerful progressive force”?

There are no easy answers. For one thing we need to be careful that in seeking to reform the environmental establishment we do not destroy institutions whose work in the trenches in Washington DC and state capitals across the country needs to continue. With all their problems the national environmental establishment continues to do good work on a myriad of specific issues. Rather than destroy the environmental establishment we need to radically reform it. How can this be accomplished?

Perhaps the environmental movements own grassroots can show the way. If groups like the Center for Biological Diversity, for example, were to forge strong alliances with other progressive movements – with the peace, justice, democracy, sustainable agriculture movements – the big national groups, the environmental establishment, might wake up and take notice. And if the foundations which fund the environmental establishment began shifting funding to such progressive alliances, then the establishment would not only take notice but would begin to change.

This sort of change has, in fact, happened before. In the 1990s National Audubon and the rest of the environmental establishment were too timid and too concerned about “maintaining access” to consider petitioning to secure Endangered Species Act protection for the Northern Spotted Owl, Coho Salmon or a host of other imperiled species. Instead of accepting that timidity, however, grassroots forest and salmon activists took matters into their own hands. The Northern Spotted Owl was petitioned by a small, little known group from Maine; Coho salmon where petitioned by Northwest and Northern California grassroots activists and scientists. Soon foundation funding began flowing away from the big, establishment groups and toward the dynamic grassroots. One group of those activists became the Center for Biological Diversity.

What happened next is instructive. The environmental establishment suddenly woke up and became less timid. They moved to link up with the grassroots in alliances and coalitions which brought some of the funding back their way and allowed them to continue to claim that they were leading the highest profile environmental and public land movements -  including the movements to protect Ancient Forests and Pacific Salmon.

Persuading the environmental establishment to form alliances with other progressive movements will likely require something the establishment will see as equally threatening to their bottom line. Whether coming from foundations or from members who begin to question their performance, funding is a powerful motivator for the environmental establishment.  

However it occurs, the grand alliance of movements which Gus Speth envisions is likely the only way to effectively counter the entrenched power of the modern corporate elite and save the earth from the fate those corporate interests ordain. Getting the environmental establishment to embrace such a grand alliance, however, will require a radical shake up – a shake up which demands that the environmental establishment once again become part of a movement with a vision and agenda that is much broader than the narrow objectives of its constituent organizations.

Felice Pace has been a grassroots environmental, peace and justice activist since 1967. He lives and writes near the mouth of the Klamath River in Northwest California.

Now Available from CounterPunch Books!

Waiting for Lightning
to Strike:
The Fundamentals
of Black Politics
Kevin Alexander Gray

Click Here to Buy!

The Inside Story of the Shannon Five's Smashing Victory Over the
Bush War Machine
By Harry Browne

Born Under a Bad Sky:
Notes from the Dark Side
of the Earth
By Jeffrey St. Clair

Buy End Times Now!

Click Here to Buy!

Click Here to Buy!

Click Here to Order!

Humanitarian Imperialism
By Jean Bricmont