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Inside Iraq's Resistance HOT HOT HOT New CounterPunch Print Edition! Meet actual Iraqis and not just Western caricatures. Laith al-Saud interviews top man in Iraq's national resistance. It's not just Abu Ghraib and bids to kill Fidel Castro. Torture and assassination are integral parts of America's imperial machine. Don't miss Andrew Wimmer's searing journey into the soul of a nation that tortures as a way of life. Plus Alexander Cockburn on the killing of General Kassem. PLUS Sam Sillen's rollicking exhumation of Edmund Wilson as Malthusian Trostskyite. Get the answers you're looking for in the latest subscriber-only 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! Get the Email Edition of CounterPunch for Only $35 a Year Call Toll Free 1-800-840-3683 or write CounterPunch, PO BOX 228, Petrolia, CA 95558

Today's Stories September 24 / 25, 2005 Kathy and Bill Christison Polluting Palestine: Settlements & Sewage September 23, 2005 CounterPunch News Service In Which, Phil Donahue Demolishes Bill O'Reilly Diane Farsetta Katrina and Right-Wing Think Tanks Robert Sandels Militarizing the Market Christopher Brauchli Bush: the Good Samaritan for Corporations Alan Farago Bird Flu Takes Flight Dave Zirin When Sports & Politics Collided: Redeeming the Olympic Martyrs of 1968 Maxine Conant A Simple Test for Bush David Price Workers Get Hit Twice: Katrina and Davis-Bacon Profiteering   September 22, 2005 Smith, Wood, Leas, and Greenfield Which Way Forward for the Green Party? a Report from Tulsa Patrick Cockburn Iraqis: This Government has No Authority Manuel Garcia, Jr. Thinking is Religious Freedom Lucia Dailey Trial of the St. Patrick's Four: Day One Mokhiber / Weissman Are You a Speed Freak? Russell D. Hoffman The Nukes in Rita's Path Kona Lowell God's Hurricane? Jason Leopold GOP Fiscal Policy and Katrina Website of the Day Robert Pollin on the Global Economy   September 21, 2005 Jorge Mariscal Military Recruiters: Counselers or Salesmen? Linda S. Heard Double Standards in Iraq: Basra Brit Jailbreak Joshua Frank NYPD Unplugs Cindy Sheehan Eric Ruder "The Problem in Iraq is the US": an Interview with Camilo Mejia Pierre Tristam The Struts and Bull Presidency Dave Lindorff The Real Story of the German Elections Mike Ferner Sit Down in DC Missy Comley Beattie Bush's Katrina Bling Bling Jeffrey St. Clair W Marks the Spot Website of the Day New Orleans: Survivor Stories   September 20, 2005 Steve Breyman Toxic Gumbo: Katrina and Environmental Justice George Galloway Et Tu, Greg Palast? Patrick Cockburn What Happened to Iraq's Missing $1 Billion? M. Shahid Alam Gen. Musharraf and Israel: Is Pakistan Selling Out? Mike Whitney The Gitmo Hunger Strikers Winslow T. Wheeler It's Not Rocket Science Niranjan Ramakrishnan Back to the Future: North Korea's Gambit Paul Craig Roberts Will Neocon Fanaticism Destroy America?   September 19, 2005 Gary Leupp Their Patience and Ours: Khalilzad Threatens Syria Rev. William E. Alberts Mainstream Religious Leaders in Bushtime: Guardians of the Status Quo Tom Gorman Padilla and the Death of the Republic: the Power to Hold Anyone Leigh Saavedra The Anti-War Movement Goes on Trial Mike Whitney Hurricane Hugo at the UN Ingmar Lee Compromise with a Chainsaw in the Rainforests of BC Katrina Yeaw Anti-War Mvt. in Italy: Hunger Strike Against Censorship Kathleen and Bill Christison Travels in Palestine: Horror Story   September 17 / 18, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Levee Town Ralph Nader The CEO's Chief Justice Diane Christian Abortion and the Politics of Death Ned Sublette Mr. Bush's Tuba William Cook Katrina and Poverty: the Poor Have No Lobbyists Barbara Ehrenreich Finding a Coach in the Land of Oz Nikolas Kozloff Demeaner of the Faith: Pat Robertson and Gen. Rios Montt Dave Lindorff One Big Sham: New Orleans as Potemkin Village Heather Gray Wake Up White America! C.A.N. "This is Solidarity, Not Charity": a Student Report from Louisiana James Petras From Victims to Vandals: Katrina and the Mass Media Bill Pahneles Born Again in New Orleans? Jeff Chapman Katrina's Victims and the Minimum Wage Dave Zirin Eton Thomas Rises to the Challenge Ron Jacobs The Politics of Withdrawal from Iraq Fred Gardner The Millworker's Argument Peter Harley The Wall and the Holes in the Wall Matthew Koehler Battering the Bitterroot National Forest Ben Tripp Some Optimistic Thoughts Poets' Basement Nettnin, Albert, Engel and Louise Website of the Weekend How to Identify Misinformation   September 16, 2005 Ishmael Reed Race, Katrina and the Media J.L. Chestnut, Jr. Bush's Judges and Black America James Petras The St. Patrick Four: the Feds Confront the Anti-War Movement Louis Proyect Brawl at Baruch: Hitchens vs. Galloway Christopher Brauchli Baked Brownie: Cooking a Resumé Naomi Archer "It's Not that the Government isn't Responding, They are Obstructing Responses" Edward Gibbon The Patron Saint of Defense Contractors Francis Boyle Grounds for Impeachment? Paul Craig Roberts America is in the Clutches of Autocrats   September 15, 2005 Jeffrey St. Clair Flirtations with Disaster Brian J. Foley The Profit-Driven War Justin E.H. Smith Frances Newton and the Prospects for a New Abolitionism Dave Lindorff Sacrificial Murder by Texas: Frances Newton Died for Bush's Sins Kevin Zeese Katrina and Iraq: the War Comes Home to Roost Jason Leopold Funeral Gate in New Orleans Todd May There are Palestinians Here!: the Demographic Factor Niranjan Ramakrishnan Brawl in the Family Pat Williams Lewis and Clark in Montana William S. Lind Swept Away in Iraq Saul Landau Bush, God and Katrina   September 14, 2005 Gary Leupp Managing Perceptions of Presidential Ignorance Evelyn Pringle Iraqis to Bush: Where Did All Our Money Go? Jordan Flaherty Back Inside New Orleans Jeff Chapman The WJS's Flawed War on the Minimum Wage Ramzy Baroud The Perils of Normalization with Israel Manuel Garcia, Jr. The Power of Water Mickey Z. Eugene V. Debs and the Legacy of Dissent Sam Husseini A Statement from Mother Nature Ralph Nader Questioning Judge Roberts   September 13, 2005 Uri Avnery Who Murdered Arafat? Werther Jackals and Jackasses JG Where's the Outrage Over the Jailing of Kevin Pina? Marlene Martin The Texas Killing Machine: Will Another Innocent Woman be Executed? Joshua Frank Katrina's Political Aftermath: Blame More Than Bush Ron Jacobs Saving America's Serengetti Dave Lindorff Compassion for the Camera Ben Tripp It's an Ill Wind Dave Zirin Galloway Goes to Washington Billy Sothern How the Other Half Lived in New Orleans Website of the Day Save the Life of Frances Newton   September 12, 2005 Bill Glahn Tears of Rage in New Orleans Jason Leopold How Michael Brown Helped Bush Win Florida Bill Simpich Confronting Nancy Pelosi Mike Whitney Padilla and the Death of Personal Liberty Justin Felux Free Kevin Pina!: US Journalists Arrested in Haiti Rep. Cynthia McKinney No One Came to Get Them Carol Norris Let Them Eat Toxins Robert Jensen Our Grief is Not Special Gideon Levy The Mean Streets of Tel Rumeida Paul Craig Roberts Power Grab in New Orleans Website of the Day New Orleans Artists Relief Fund   September 9 / 11, 2005 William A. Cook From New Orleans to Palestine Saul Landau How the US Supplied Iran with Nuclear Know-How Lance Selfa Confederacy of Dunces: Why FEMA Failed Col. Dan Smith Paying the Piper Elaine Cassel Judge Roberts: On the Far Right of a Far Right Party Ron Jacobs Food as Govt. Weapon in New Orleans Elisa Salasin My September 11th Christopher Brauchli When "Action" is Delay: Bush's Picnic & Plan B Evelyn Pringle War Pays: Douglas Feith's Platinum Parachute Tom Crumpacker The Posada Case: When Injustice is Justice Dave Lindorff The Big Blowback Robert Jensen Race Stories: the Heart of Whiteness Gary Bass A Civics Lesson from Katrina Dr. Susan Block Katrina Speaks! Steven Sherman The American Left and the Battle of New Orleans Col. Douglas A. Macgregor Escape from Oz: the Pentagon's Light Show Barghouti / Grima Re-Thinking the Mediterranean Jeff Berg Katrian and the Baghdad Dead: Bush's Tipping Point? Fred Gardner Marijuana Might Really Make You Cool Charles Sullivan It's Not Easy Being King Dan Vojir God's Ambulance Chasers Website of the Weekend On the Road in Louisiana September 8, 2005 John Chuckman Lessons from Hell Dan La Botz Rehnquist: the Chief Injustice Carol Norris The Psychological Aftermath of Katrina David Krieger Cindy, Katrina and Iraq Irma Thomas An SOS from the Soul Queen of New Orleans Roger Morris Legacy of Neglect September 7, 2005 Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz John Wayne and the New Orleans Indians Werther Victor Davis Hanson: Bard of the Booboisie Chris Floyd No Direction Home Jason Leopold The Rich and the Dead Michael Donnelly Cassandra, Apollo and the Red Queen Niranjan Ramakrishnan Clueless in Crawford; Witless in Washington Linda Milazzo / John Stern Idiot Wind: Haley Barbour, Katrina and Hiroshima Gary Leupp Nepal: the Prachanda Path Pierre Tristam Commander-in-Zilch Fails New Orleans Kevin Zeese Kucinich Speaks: Dem Leadership Needs to Get Out of the Way Charmaine Neville How We Survived the Flood   September 6, 2005 Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor Our Birmingham: Did Katrina Blow Off the White Sheets of American Racism? Dan La Botz Katrina: State Failure and Human Solidarity Larry Bradshaw / Lorrie Beth Slonsky Trapped in New Orleans: First By Floods, Then By Martial Law Chuck D. Hell No We Ain't Alright Debbie Dupre / Bill Quigley Thank God There's No One to Bomb in Retaliation Omar Wariach Edward Said vs. Orwell and Hitchens: "It's Racism at the Bottom" Mike Whitney Why Rehnquist Doesn't Deserve to be Buried on US Soil Carol Norris In the Wake of Katrina Norman Solomon Firing Mike Brown is not Enough Michael Neumann But What About the Snipers? September 5, 2005 Paul Craig Roberts Resurrecting Karl Marx David Vest The Battle of New Orleans:It's Looking a Lot Like Fallujah John Blair Don't Rebuild New Orleans, At Least Where It Was Fidel Castro What Cuba Has Offered the People of the Gulf Coast Mike Whitney 80,000 Rodney Kings in New Orleans Alan Farago Talking Points for a City of Corpses Doug Giebel Bush's New Orleans: "So This is Where He Used to Come to Get Drunk" Mark Chmiel Beatitudes for This New American Century Carol Wolman, MD God to Bush: "You Blew It" Norman Solomon Bush's Answer to Cindy Sheehan: "It Was About Oil" Eli Stephens An Administration Without Shame Peter Linebaugh Loo! Loo! Lulu! Loot!   September 3 / 4, 2005 Alexander Cockburn From Mitch to Katrina Paul Craig Roberts Failure on Every Front Gary Leupp New Orleans and the System that Destroyed It Dave Lindorff Profiteering from Disaster: the Real Looters Wear Pinstripes Dan La Botz Time for the U.S. to Start Over Jonathan M. Feldman From Iraq to New Orleans: the U.S. as a "Failed State" Landau / Hassen The Cuban 5: In Prison for Fighting Terrorism Tim Wise In the Name of the Lord: "Those Looters Should be Shot" Mitchel Cohen People of the Dome: "Let Them Eat Shit..." Dave Zirin The Superdome: the Earth's Most Damnable Homeless Shelter Mike Ferner Waiting on the Outside World: Who Will Rescue America? Rep. Cynthia McKinney Shame on the Bush Administration Jason Leopold Bush's Demented Priorities: the State of Marriage Over the State of Louisiana Justin Felux Kayne West is My Hero: "Bush Doesn't Care About Black People" Monica Benderman Iraq War as Thrill Ride: Getting Off the Rollercoaster Ben Tripp Grab a Towel, You're Next Jordan Flaherty Notes from Inside New Orleans Bill Pahnelas A Rising Tide has Swamped All Boats Seth Sandronsky Hurricane Katrina Exposes the True Face of Capitalism Mark Donham Where's Karl Rove? Fred Gardner CHP Agrees to Follow Law; Justice Stevens Apologizes Joshua Frank Winning the West Jackie Corr The Privatization Mob Poets' Basement Albert, Engel, Louise   September 2, 2005 Evan Jones Katrina and the Corps of Engineers: Manufacturing Disaster David Stocker How Good is Your Levee? Frankly, Scarlet I Don't Think He Gives a Damn Dave Lindorff Baghdad on the Big Muddy Norman Solomon The Smirk of a Killer: Ending the Impunity of the Bush White House Mike Whitney How Bush Deals with a Disaster He Helped Create: Blame the Looters Eli Stephens What They Should Have Learned from Hurrican Ivan Ron Jacobs Katrina, Iraq and Blood Profits Christopher Brauchli Onward Christian Assassins Harvey Wasserman Bush to New Orleans: Drop Dead CounterPunch Wire Faith-Based FEMA? Feds Directing Katrina Money to Pat Robertson Glen Ford Will the "New" New Orleans be Black?   September 1, 2005 Dr. Greg Henderson, MD Situation Critical: a Doctor in the Flood Paul Craig Roberts How New Orleans Was Lost Mike Whitney Hurricane Donald: How Rumsfeld Smashed the National Guard Lee Sustar Left Behind to Drown: the Poor and Hurricane Katrina Dave Lindorff The Real Disaster: Bush and the Democrats Lynn Gonzalez The Cindy Spark: Mainstream America Stirs Chris Floyd The Perfect Storm August 31, 2005 Cockburn / St. Clair New Orleans After Katrina John Walsh Democrats and the War Bernstein / Mishel Bush Economy: Incomes Down; Poverty Up! Alan Farago What are the Hurricanes Trying to Tell Us? Norman Solomon The National Guard Belongs in New Orleans, Not Baghdad Bryan Newbury "Hey, Shoot that Black Guy Running Off with the Bottled Water!" Jason Leopold What's Eating Cindy Sheehan? Website of the Day The Swiftboating of Cindy Sheehan   August 30, 2005 Gary Leupp Venezuela: Launch Pad for Muslim Extremism? Joshua Frank Bunny and the War Profireers Evelyn Pringle The Woman Who Blew the Whistle on Halliburton Gets Canned Urariano Mota To Die by Mistake: the Killing of Jean Claude de Menezes Ron Jacobs High Water Everywhere CP News Service An Open Letter to Alberto Gonzales: Free the Cuban 5 Roger Morris The War for the Future   August 29, 2005 Seth Sandronsky Pat Robertson, Big Oil's Televangelist Norman Solomon War Liberals and Cindy Sheehan Charles Sullivan Nation of Fools Paul Craig Roberts Does Anyone Know What We're Doing in Iraq? Website of the Day Monsanto Threatens "Bitter Greens" August 27 / 28, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Assassination: as American as Apple Pie (and Torture) Ricardo Alarcon The Cuban 5 in Atlanta: a Long March Towards Justice Diane Christian The Politics of Death: Assassination M. Shahid Alam How to be a Good Victim Laith al-Saud Baghdad Circus: Iraq's Constitutional Process Diane Farsetta School of the Americas Fights Back: PR Plan for Pentagon's "Demonstration Village" Saul Landau Reagan and Bottled Water: the Privatization of Everything Tom Barry Hurricane Hugo: Relating to Venezuela Nicholas Rowe Barenboim in Ramallah: an Unfinished Symphony George E. Bisharat Enforce the Ban on Settlements Dave Lindorff Another Mother for War: the Exploitation of Tammy Pruett Fred Gardner Pot Shots: Doing the Right Thing, Even If You Are Fearful John Francis Lee The Juggernaut of Jingo Evan Jones I.F. Stone on the Perils of Empire Ali Khan Defining Aggression Poets' Basement Albert, Nettnin, Engel, Ford, Krieger, Louise August 26, 2005 Lee Sustar Showdown at Northwest Ramzy Baroud Cindy Sheehan and the Power of the Ordinary Christopher Brauchli The Return of Edwin Meese Peter Harley The Wall as a Good Thing? John Snider Not One of the Gang Kathleen Christison Can Palestine be Put Back in the Equation?     August 25, 2005 Paul Craig Roberts Hegemony Lost: the American Economy is Destroying Itself Cockburn / St. Clair Loewenstein's Big Mail Bag: Gaza and "the Shame of It All" J.L. Chestnut, Jr. Racial Politics in California They May Vote for You, But They Won't Have Lunch with You Chhandasi Pandya Libeling Venezuela Richard Ward Impressions from Camp Casey Norman Solomon Exploiting the 9/11 Anniversary: Will the Media Help Bush, Again? Joshua Frank Will the Real Leaders Please Stand Up? Seth Sandronsky GM, the UAW and US Health Care Lucinda Marshall The Democratic Unraveling: How Not to Mention the War VIPS Memo to Bush: Try a Circle of Wise Women Ralph Nader It's Time to Make the Iraq War Personal     August 24, 2005 Stan Goff Containing the Anti-War Movement: the Hayden Plan Rachard Itani Papal Double Standards Elisa Salasin The Militarization of Our Children Ron Jacobs Who Would Jesus Assassinate? John Chuckman Robertson and Posada: Bush's Kind of Terrorists Leibowitz / Heller Gaza: Disengagement or Military Redeployment? Douglas Valentine Suicide as Sacrament Thomas Nagy Congress Should Go to Crawford: an Open Letter to Cindy Sheehan Alexander Cockburn Hitchens Backs Down, Says Sheehan "Not a La Rouchie" Website of the Day Stations of the Cross       August 23, 2005 Rev. Graylan Scott Hagler Pat Robertson is Not a Christian Karen Kilroy Pittsburgh and Salt Lake City Protests: Violent Echoes of Kent State Stew Albert Fascism in America: Are We There Yet? Joshua Frank The Democrats and Cindy Sheehan Dave Zirin Pedaling Away from Principle: Lance Armstrong Cozies Up to Bush Julia Olmstead Our Reckless Chemical Dependence: A Little Round-Up With Your Precautionary Principle? CounterPunch Wire Prosecuting Bush in Canada for Torture: a Legal Update Jason Leopold Bush's Lips Move, But He Says Nothing Diane Christian The Politics of Death     August 22, 2005 Sonia Nettnin Gaza Stripped, the Occupation Remains Mike Whitney "Shoot to Kill": Tony Blair's First Trophy Kevin Zeese The Latest Falsehood: the US is in Iraq to "Stablize It" Norman Solomon Bush's Bloody Option: Escalate the War in Iraq Christopher Brauchli Secret Talkers Jeff Bale The Left's Challenge in Germany Greg Moses Raw Talk Revival at Camp Casey Two     August 20 / 21, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Can Cindy Sheehan End the War? Saul Landau Terrorism Then and Now: Townley Talks Kevin Zeese an Interview with Tom Hayden Greg Moses A Daytrip without Cindy Ray McGovern Cindy Sheehan and Creative Protest Fred Gardner Merck Gets Whacked Martin Smith Rebellion in the Ranks: the Soldiers' Revolt in Vietnam Benjamin Granby Gaza's Economy: the Key to Sharon's Strategy? Frankie Lake Dirty Tricksters: How the Federalist Society Operates Joshua Frank Failing Nature: the Democrats and the Environment Ron Jacobs When Sympathy is Not Enough Tom Crumpacker Moral Values and the CIA Mike Ferner "All of Our Stories are Sad" James Petras Suicide Bombers: the Sacred and the Profane Col. Dan Smith The President's Dilemma Dr. Teresa Whitehurst What de Menezes Didn't Know Ben Tripp Moses on Top of Old Smokey Poets' Basement Landau, Albert, Engel and Louise     August 19, 2005 Alexander Cockburn A Short History of Meat, Part 4: Cutting Up Mochie Neve Gordon After the Withdrawal Gary Leupp The Pandora's Box of Iraq's Constitution William S. Lind Getting Swept Vijay Prashad The Rosa Parks of the Anti-War Movement Dave Lindorff Something Has Happened Pat Williams Social Security and the American West John Pilger Free Speech and the War on Terror Elaine Cassel Judge Roberts and the Death Penalty     August 18, 2005 Alexander Cockburn A Short History of Meat, Part 3: Vegetarians, Nazis for Animal Rights, Blitzkrieg of the Ungulates Greg Moses Cindy, the Peace Train and the Little Ditch that Could Ramzy Baroud Theatrics in Gaza: the Disengagement That Isn't Joshua Frank Bush's Emotional Incapacities Monica Benderman For Cindy: There's No Glory in Dying Paul Craig Roberts Courthouse Jackboots: Corrupted Justice   August 17, 2005 Alexander Cockburn A Short History of Meat: Part Two, the March to Porkopolis Robert Jensen America's Good Germans? Carl G. Estabrook News Notes from the Global War on Terrorism Mike Whitney Greenspan and the Housing Bubble Niranjan Ramakrishnan Shaming the Shameless Norman Solomon Slurs, Lies and Innuendos: Blaming the Antiwar Messengers Dave Zirin In Defense of Felipe Alou Jennifer Loewenstein The Shame of It All: Watching the Gazan Fiasco CounterPunch Clarification     August 16, 2005 Greg Moses Mona in a Field of Crosses at Camp Casey, Texas Thomas Larson The Unmitigated Gall of Dinesh D'Souza Diana Barahona Uneasy Standoff in Venezuela's Media Wars Dave Lindorff The Inquirer's Minds Don't Want to Know Rep. Cynthia McKinney A Letter to President Bush: Meet with Cindy Sheehan Elisa Salasin Hitchens Slimes Cindy Sheehan David Krieger Amazing Grace and Cindy Alexander Cockburn A Short History of Meat: Part One, Peter's Dream Website of the Day Reclaiming Appalachia: a Mountain Takeover     August 15, 2005 Greg Moses Pilgrims of Protest in Crawford Paul Craig Roberts Slouching Toward Armageddon? Mike Whitney Failing in Iraq Robert Jensen The Challenges We Face CounterPunch Wire Judge Fines Voices in the Wilderness $20,000 for Taking Medicine to Iraq; Voices Refuses to Pay Norman Solomon Someone Tell Frank Rich the War Isn't Over Kathleen Christison Camp David Redux: Anatomy of a Frame-Up   August 13 / 14, 2005 Cockburn / St. Clair When Down is Up: the "Stricken" President William Blum The al-Dubya Training Manual Gary Leupp High Tide for the Neocons? Jack Z. Bratich Secreting the News: Anonymous vs. Confidential Sources Brian Cloughley The Ridiculous Rice Ron Jacobs Klan Justice: Mississippi is Still Burning John Farley "Beyond Chutzpah" Too Hot for Harvard Bookstore? Dave Lindorff Making the World Safer...for Nukes Tim Wise Animal Whites: PETA and the Politics of Putting Things in Perspective J.L. Chestnut, Jr. There's Not One Real Liberal or Conservative in the Senate John Gershman The Bolton Opportunity Felice Pace Saving Northwest Forests: Time for a Fresh Look Fred Gardner Feds Takeover Prosecution of Dustin Costa David Krieger The Fable of the Emperor and the Grieving Mother Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz Being a Protestant Fundamentalist Ben Tripp GWAT: a Tone Poem Poets' Basement Reiss, Nettnin, Engel and Louise     August 12, 2005 Christopher Brauchli Courting God: Justice Sunday II Greg Moses A Crawford Peace House Morning with Cindy Sheehan Ramzy Baroud Israel's Nuclear Puzzle Norman Solomon Cindy Sheehan's Message: Repudiating Bush and Dean Chris Genovali Why is a Canadian Politician Trying to End Protections for US Grizzly Bears? Chris Floyd Cheney and Halliburton, the Stench Gets Worse Tariq Ali Blair's New Authoritarianism     August 11, 2005 Saul Landau Globalization and Its Discontents Dave Lindorff Privatization will Harm Same Sex Couples Ralph Nader Dear Cindy Sheehan: May You Prevail Where Others Have Failed Talli Nauman Radioactive Border: the Hot Mounds of Samalayuca Gary Leupp Politics of an Outing: Plame, Ledeen and Iran Sharon Smith The New Anti-War Majority Paul Craig Roberts Why is Cheney Lobbying for a Boost in China's Nuclear Capability?     August 10, 2005 Tim Wise Indian Mascots and White Rage Ron Jacobs Rumsfeld's Delusions Joshua Frank Dean and the PDA: Don't Believe the Hype Cynthia McKinney The 9/11 Op-Ed the Atlanta Journal-Constitution Refuses to Run Rick Wilhelm Peter Jennings, Excuse Maker for War and Empire Stan Goff Homegrown Resistance     August 9, 2005 Mike Ferner What One Mom has to Say to Bush: Cindy Sheehan in Dallas Monica Benderman Is Being a Conscientious Objector Now Criminal? Mike Marqusee Making Excuses for Killing De Menezes Rep. Cynthia McKinney Strange Fruit and Tree-Shakers Paul Craig Roberts Watching the US Economy Crumble     August 6-8, 2005 Alexander Cockburn How the British Destroyed India Jason Leopold Halliburton and Iran: Still Doing Business After All These Years? Ray McGovern Iran, Truth-Tellers and the Devotees of Preemption David Krieger From Hiroshima to Humanity Sharon K. Weiner / Robert Jensen From Hiroshima to Iraq and Back Fred Gardner The Budtender's View of a Rip-Off     August 5, 2005 Bill Christison New NIE Report on Iran's Nukes will Not Deter US's Posture of Extreme Aggressiveness Paul Craig Roberts Kelo: a Supreme Assault on Personal Liberty Alexander Cockburn The Taj Mahal as Kitsch; the Editor and the Water-Walking Guru     August 4, 2005 Tom Barry Inside Bush's "World Democracy Movement" Lila Rajiva John Bolton's New Internationalism Greg Moses Bush Teaches Intelligent Design in Prison Alexander Cockburn Indian Journal: Why Indian Farmers Kill Themselves August 3, 2005     August 3, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Broken Arrows and Iran: a B-52 Pilot Remembers Paul Craig Roberts The Kelo Calamity: Money, Power and Eminent Domaine William A. Cook Innocent Victims: From Hiroshima to Lower Manhattan Dave Zirin Bush's Texas Rangers: a Crackhouse for Juiced Players? Dave Lindorff Court Packing and Worker Rights José Pertierra Why Hamdi Isaac Yes and Posada Carriles No?   August 2, 2005 Ramzi Kysia Disengagement and Diaspora: High Walls and Razor Wire in the Hebron William A. Cook Words Without Meaning: Torturing Bodies and Language Paul Craig Roberts When Armageddon Gets No Press Mike Whitney Chertoff's Preemptive Crackdown: 600 Arrests, Only 76 Charged Ron Jacobs Be a Hero: Demand That Johnny Come Home Norman Madarsz Before the Stun Gun: Jean Charles de Menezes, RIP Tim Wise The Faulty Logic of "Terrorist" Profiling     August 1, 2005 Virginia Rodino Why Bono and Geldof Got It Wrong: War and Global Poverty are Linked Diana Barahona Return to Venezuela: Land Reform and Neighborhood Doctors Joshua Frank Gitmo's Kangaroo Courts: First Torture Them, Then Rig Their Trials Mike Whitney The Consolidation of Powers: Rubber Stamp Roberts Norm Dixon The Worst Terror Attacks in History Norman Solomon Operation Withdrawal Scam James Petras The Corruption of Lula's Regime     July 30 / 31, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Lost Nuclear Warheads Now in Iran? JoAnn Wypijewski Scenes and Silver Linings from Labor's Crack-Up: a Special Report from Chicago Sheldon Rampton War is Fun as Hell: the Video Games Recruiters Play Jack Z. Bratich Fingerprints of Power: a Summer of Double Super Secrecy Greg Moses How to Cool Your Heels in Texas When It's Late July Across the World Jordan Green From Woolworth to Wal-Mart: Economics and the Race Divide in a Southern City Patrick Cockburn Getting Out of Iraq: 5,000 US Troops Have Gone AWOL Brian Cloughley The Bush-Cheney Fixation on Iran Justin Taylor Harry Potter and the War on Terror Saul Landau Enhancements for the Imperial Life: Fashionism Takes Command! John Walsh Dems Field Another Pro-War Candidate: Meet Hack the Hawk Joshua Frank Color-Coded Justice: John Roberts's Racial Hang Up Ron Jacobs Who Needs Feminism? We Have Condi Rice! Fred Gardner The Ethan and Gavin Show John Chuckman Friedman on Terrorism: the Dumbest Story Ever Written Liaquat Ali Khan Lessons City Bombers Need to Learn from Newton and Donne Remi Kanazi Annexing Justice in Palestine Naveen Jaganathan The Gurgaon Riots Rock India Richard Heinberg Where is the Hirsch Peak Oil Report? Max Watts Francis Ona, the Napoleon of Mekamui Ben Tripp Write Your Own Editorial! Poets' Basement Whalen & Engel, Landau, Albert and Krieger       July 29, 2005 Cockburn / St. Clair Who's the Real Martyr? Judy Miller or Jim DeFede? P. Sainath The Class War in Gurgaon Niranjan Ramakrishnan How the West Was Lost: CAFTA and the Disassembling of America Dave Lindorff Marvelous Marvin Bush J.L. Chestnut, Jr. America's Racist Inventory: Oppression Breeds Violence Pat Williams Giving Away the Last Best Place Norman Solomon In Praise of Kevin Benderman: a Moral Leader of the Nation Goes to Prison Sen. Russ Feingold The Bad News About the Energy Bill     July 28, 2005 Paul Craig Roberts Departing Iraq William S. Lind The Duke of Alba and George W. Bush Gilad Atzmon Blair the Camera Man Joshua Frank Passing CAFTA: Blame the Democrats Lila Rajiva Vision Mumbai Submerged Amina Mire Pigmentation and Empire: the Emerging Skin-Whitening Industry Website of the Day Gateway to Underground News     July 27, 2005 Roger Morris The Source Beyond Rove: Condoleezza Rice at the Center of the Plame Scandal Gary Leupp Is Iran Being Set Up? Paul Craig Roberts US Falling Behind Across the Board Jackie Corr Class War on the Ruby River: the Billionaire with His Foot in His Mouth Mike Whitney The Coming End of the Housing Bubble Dave Zirin Why Lance Armstrong Must Break with Bush Christopher Bradley Why I Have Trouble Reading the News Norman Solomon Thomas Friedman, Liberal Sadist? Website of the Day Stormin' Norman                   Subscribe Online

Weekend Edition September 24 / 25, 2005 In the Wake of Katrina America's Shame By VIJAY PRASHAD At 11 p.m. on Thursday, August 25, the National Hurricane Centre in Miami, Florida, reported that the storm, which it had tracked from Tuesday and named "Katrina", had made landfall. The high winds struck parts of Florida, but this was going to be the prologue. The meteorologists reported, "Katrina is expected to gradually strengthen once in the Gulf of Mexico as suggested by all guidance," and "all indications are that Katrina will be a dangerous hurricane in the northeastern Gulf of Mexico in about three days." At 4-13 p.m. on August 28, the National Weather Service station in New Orleans provided a chilling forecast of what was to come. The scientists looked at the size of the hurricane and provided this analysis: "Most of the area will be uninhabitable for weeks, perhaps longer. At least one half of well constructed homes will have roof and wall failure. All gabled roofs will fail leaving homes severely damaged or destroyed. The majority of industrial buildings will become non-functional. Partial to complete wall and roof failures is expected. All wood-framed, low-rising apartment buildings will sustain major damage, including some wall and roof failure. High-rise office and apartment buildings will sway dangerously... a few to the point of total collapse. All windows will blow out. Airborne debris will be widespread. Power outages will last for weeks as most power poles will be down and transformers destroyed. Water shortages will make human suffering incredible by modern standards." The National Weather Service warned, "Preparations [for evacuations and relief] should be rushed to completion." President George W. Bush had declared a state of emergency in Louisiana the day before. However, the entire federal structure that should have gone into motion languished. The National Guard, which should have been mobilised immediately to set up relief, was not available. "Where is the National Guard?" asked the Sun Herald (Biloxi, Mississippi). "Why hasn't every able-bodied member of the armed forces in Southern Mississippi been pressed into service?" (August 31). Six thousand members of the Louisiana and Mississippi National Guard are currently in Iraq. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) experienced a major communications breakdown, and its leader Michael Brown appeared as befuddled at this job as he had been at the helm of the International Arabian Horse Association. The National Situation Update from FEMA's technicians on August 26 had warned of catastrophic consequences, but, according to Leo Bosner of the office, the lack of attention from the government shocked the staff. FEMA is part of the Department of Homeland Security, set up in the wake of 9/11 as the omnibus agency for national defence. The Department floundered, as it became known that it had diverted funds meant for natural disasters towards terrorist attacks. On August 29, the Category 5 hurricane made landfall near Buras, Louisiana. Before the day was over, the storm had smashed into New Orleans. By nightfall it appeared that the worst had passed, and that the storm had not truly devastated the city. Those who could leave the city had left following a mandatory evacuation order, but many remained trapped. On August 30, a massive storm surge overwhelmed the ancient levees and began to flood the city. The Gulf of Mexico flowed down Canal Street, and those who had to remain in the city rushed towards the Superdome (the sport's stadium) and the Convention Centre. Tens of thousands of people waited for governmental help, trapped as they were in these fragile islands with minimal water and food, and with the winds on high again. Fear and exhaustion created mayhem inside these badly equipped shelters. On September 2, the New Orleans police superintendent Edwin Compass entered the Superdome and told the 30,000 refugees: "We've got food and water coming. We've got buses that are going to take you out of here." Disbelief and anger flooded the vast space where people had experienced governmental inaction for a week. "Disease, germs," one woman told reporters, "we need help. We don't live like this in America." Another woman yelled out to Compass, "We're ready to go now. We don't need food. Get us out of here." The palpable anger in the room had cause. The previous evening, Brown admitted on television that he had not known about the refugees in the Superdome and the Convention Centre until that day, despite the widespread media reports. The faith in the government decreased when Brown lied the next day about the well-being of the refugees, "We've provided food to the people at the Convention Centre so that they've gotten at least one, if not two meals, every single day." How could FEMA have fed the people if it did not know they existed? The Mayor of New Orleans and the Governor of Louisiana called for federal assistance as the water level rose and the people remained in the city. On August 31, Senator Mary Landrieu told the press that when she asked for federal help, "I started to sense they were thinking I was a little overwrought, that maybe I was exaggerating a little bit." The next day, Mayor Rick Nagin fulminated, "They're thinking small, man. And this is a major, major, major deal." The local administration tried to do what it could, given the paucity of resources, as the federal government and its agencies congratulated each other but produced nothing. Aaron Broussard, president of Jefferson Parish (a town within Greater New Orleans), put it bluntly on the National Broadcasting Corporation's (NBC) "Meet the Press". He said: "We have been abandoned by our own country. Hurricane Katrina will go down in history as one of the worst storms ever to hit an American coast, but the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina will go down as one of the worst abandonments of Americans on American soil ever in U.S. history. Bureaucracy has committed murder here in the greater New Orleans area." When the levees broke, President Bush said, "I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees." The Times-Picayune, New Orleans' main newspaper, now being printed outside the city, quickly retaliated, "No one can say they didn't see it coming. Now in the wake of one of the worst storms ever, serious questions are being asked about the lack of preparation." The Times-Picayune need only have gone into its own archives to show that discussion over the state of the levees had reached fever pitch since 2001, although the problem has a longer history. New Orleans is an impossible city. Birthed in the Mississippi delta hundreds of years ago, it lives on the goodwill of the natural levees, wetlands and flood plains. It has always been a city in danger, more so as the city expanded into the flood plain and the Gulf of Mexico eroded the coastline. The ingenious work of the Army Corps of Engineers (ACE) after a catastrophic flood in 1927 brought stability to the relationship between city and nature. The Corps built floodgates, emergency spillover canals and levees to control surges from the river and the Gulf. When a flood threatened the city in 1973, the Corps went to work and diverted water. The remarkable power of Hurricane Georges in 1998 endangered the system again, and if it had not veered slightly off course it might have devastated the levees and the city. Alfred Naomi of the Corps told the press at that time: "Had [Georges] hit us directly, our levees would not have protected us. A tidal surge from such a storm would have topped the levees by several feet." The U.S. Congress heeded the warning, and sent money to the Corps to study the problem and fix it. In October 2001, Mark Fischetti, a contributing editor to Scientific American, wrote in the magazine: "New Orleans is a disaster waiting to happen. If a big slow-moving hurricane crossed the Gulf of Mexico on the right track, it would drive a sea surge that would drown New Orleans under 20 feet of water. Scientists at Louisiana State University, who have modelled hundreds of possible storm tracks on advanced computers, predict that more than 100,000 people could die." The Corps, Fischetti reported, has a plan to transform the "terminally ill city dependent on non-stop pumping to keep it alive," but nobody wanted to fund the work. Where would the money come from? The U.S. Congress and other sources had allocated $480 million to the Corps to shore up the levees and build pumping stations. Before the work could be completed, the government sought to cut the funds both to the Corps and to the regional authorities. The cuts are such, Naomi noted, that his team could do no more than pay salaries. During the discussion about the cuts, the Houston Chronicle reported (December 1, 2001) that FEMA had "ranked the potential damage to New Orleans as among the three likeliest, most catastrophic disasters facing the country". The other two were an earthquake in San Francisco and a terror attack on New York City. By 2003, the federal government had essentially frozen any projects to save New Orleans from an inevitable hurricane and storm surge. The government's tax cuts and war on Iraq sucked up any funds needed for domestic infrastructure projects. Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, told The Times-Picayune (June 8, 2004): "It appears that the money has been moved in the President's budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that's the price we pay. Nobody, locally, is happy that the levees can't be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for us." Ten days later, Naomi told the same paper, "The system is in great shape, but the levees are sinking. Everything is sinking, and if we don't get the money fast enough to raise them, then we can't stay ahead of the settlement. The problem that we have isn't that the levee is low, but that the federal funds have dried up so that we can't raise them." The situation deteriorated to such an extent that Louisiana's Governor threatened to sue the federal government. She didn't. The war in Iraq and the domestic war on terrorism partly account for the lack of funds. Since the Reagan administration, the federal government cut these projects because it has followed a philosophy to scale back government. The government has cut back on social programmes and on infrastructural development at the same time as it has enhanced its military capacity. One of the ideological gurus of this movement, Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform, once wrote, "My goal is to cut government in half in twenty-five years, to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub." The massive failure of the government in the protection of New Orleans is an indication that the government has drowned along with the people of the city. On September 4, The Times-Picayune (founded in 1837) published its third print edition since the flood. "We're angry, Mr. President," the editors wrote, "and we'll be angry long after our beloved city and surrounding parishes have been pumped dry. Our people deserved rescuing. Many who could have been were not. That's to the government's shame." The main agency to deal with relief efforts after a natural disaster is FEMA. Created in 1979, FEMA merged a host of governmental agencies that had emerged since the 1930s to confront one disaster after another. With the formation of the Department of Homeland Security in the aftermath of 9/11, many federal agencies found their work absorbed by the logic of the war on terrorism. FEMA became part of the Department, and its budget priorities moved from response to earthquakes, floods, hurricanes and other natural disasters to response to terror attacks. George Haddow, a former FEMA deputy chief of staff, told Miami Herald (September 3): "There are no emergency managers at any level in the Department of Homeland Security. It's all law enforcement." The Department's July 2005 review dismantled FEMA's Emergency Preparedness and Response Directorate. In the new dispensation, the Department of Homeland Security centralised power. In the event that the government recognises "that a catastrophic incident condition exists," the Department's own protocol insists, "the Secretary of Homeland Security immediately designates the event an Incident of National Significance and begins, potentially in advance of a formal presidential disaster declaration, implementation of the National Response Plan." No such thing happened. The storm struck, the levees overflowed, and the government watched the television coverage. (The Department of Homeland Security implemented the Plan on August 30.) When the Mayor ordered a mandatory evacuation of the city, many people left, but tens of thousands remained. In 2003, a Louisiana State University poll found that a third of the city's population would not leave in the event of a Category 4 Hurricane. Stubbornness is not a sufficient explanation for this because those who would not leave could not. They, typically, had little disposable income to evacuate the city (28 per cent live under the federal poverty line), they did not own cars (50,000 households have none) and many of them are disabled (24 per cent of the city's population). Malik Rahman, a former Black Panther Party member and a New Orleans community activist, reports that the government abandoned those who could not leave as Katrina approached. "If you ain't got no money in America, you're on your own. People were told to go to the Superdome, but they have no food, no water there. And before they could get in, people had to stand in line for four to five hours in the rain because everybody was being searched one by one at the entrance. The Hurricane hit at the end of the month, the time when poor people are most vulnerable. Food stamps don't buy enough but for about three weeks of the month, and by the end of the month everyone runs out. Now they have no way to get their food stamps or any money, so they just have to take what they can to survive." When Hurricane Ivan approached New Orleans in September 2004, the highways out of the city were rapidly filled up with affluent people, most of whom are white. The poor, who are predominantly black or Latino, could not leave. At that time, The Times-Picayune ran a story about the working poor who lived in congested neighbourhoods, but who had no means to evacuate the city. At the last minute, the Mayor opened the Superdome as a shelter (he prevaricated because in 1998 the 14,000 refugees from Hurricane Georges "nearly did more damage than the storm itself. Countless television sets, seat cushions and bar stools were stolen [from the Superdome], and workers spent months cleaning graffiti off the walls," the Associated Press reported). It is this same population that suffered the most during Katrina. For most people outside the city, New Orleans is known for its French Quarter. About 11 million tourists visit the city annually, and they enjoy what has come to be called the "Creole Disneyland". In 1999, The Times-Picayune's Coleman Warner wrote, "The quality of residential life in the Quarter seems to wane by the year, residents say. Longtime Quarter residents continue to complain about rowdy drunks, T-shirt shops, crowded sidewalks, loud bar music and a pervasive loss of privacy." None of this was of importance to the city officials, who enjoyed the $5 billion in revenue brought in by the tourists (98 per cent of whom visited the Quarter). Part of the strategy of the city officials has been to ensure that the Quarter maintains its allure, and that every unpleasant element is removed to the other side of the Mississippi. Among that which is unpleasant is poverty, and the city has spent a generation to move the mainly black poor away from the tourist hub. Blacks make up close to 84 per cent of New Orleans' population, but if you only went to the French Quarter or to the up-market and highland residential districts you would miss this fact. Since the days of slavery, blacks have lived in the battures, the backswamp areas where they have enjoyed neither flood protection nor property ownership. Most of the black population lives in substandard federal housing, and since the 1990s the federal government has sought to evict them from these as well. In the late 1990s, the city went after the St. Thomas Housing Project, which abutted an affluent white neighbourhood. The war against the black poor had rarely seemed so blatant. The fate of blacks in New Orleans should remind us of other "disposable people" (about 1.5 billion across the planet) who live in slums, work in alternative economies and earn the disdain and fear of the well-heeled. The distance between these people and the aristocrats who run the system became clear when the President's mother, Barbara Bush, faced the nation after her visit with refugees in Houston, Texas. "What I'm hearing which is sort of scary is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And so many of the people in the [Houston Arena] here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this is working very well for them." They should, in other words, be pleased that the hurricane has allowed them to live in better conditions than before. Writing in Los Angeles Times (September 7), Professor Rosa Brooks pointed out, "Today there are two Americas: the First World one, with its Starbucks and SUVs, and the Third World one, which is generally out of sight and out of mind." Professor Cornel West of Princeton University wrote in London Observer: "New Orleans was Third World long before the hurricane... . People were quick to call them refugees because they looked as if they were from another country. They are. Exiles in America. Their humanity had been rendered invisible so they were never given high priority when the well-to-do got out and the helicopters came for the few. Almost everyone stuck on the rooftops, in the shelters, and dying by the side of the road was poor black. From slave ships to the Superdome was not that big a journey" (September 11). Among America's poor (13 per cent by the federal rates, about 37 million people), the social indicators are appalling: high infant mortality rates, low literacy rates, high unemployment rates, and low rates of health insurance. This reality accompanied by the decimation of social welfare and of federal relief schemes left a vulnerable population to drown in the Gulf of Mexico. The official death toll is expected to rise into the thousands. Instead of compassion, the government went on the rampage. When whites scrounged for food, the media pointed to their resilience, whereas blacks were called looters. On August 31, the government ordered the police to stop searching for survivors and to fight against the looting (they were ordered to shoot at sight). Governor Kathleen Blanco, in her most pointed message, noted, "I have one message for these hoodlums: These troops know how to shoot and kill, and they are more than willing to do so if necessary and I expect they will." Two days later, the police killed at least four people. Meanwhile, the former head of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, Linda Chavez, offered an explanation both for poverty and for the lack of a general evacuation. "In New Orleans you are dealing with the permanently poor people who don't have jobs, are not used to getting up and organising themselves and getting things done and for whom sitting and waiting is a way of life. This is a natural disaster that is exacerbated by the problems of the underclass. The chief cause of poverty today among blacks is no longer racism. It is the breakdown of the traditional family." This chief ally of the "compassionate conservative" President provided a way to exculpate the system from its responsibility. Her words are the verbal equivalent of the shoot-at-sight order. When the shoot-at-sight and the racist frameworks did not work, Bush turned against his own government. "I am satisfied with the response," he said, "I'm not satisfied with all the results." He first praised the head of FEMA, "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job," only to withdraw his long-time political crony to Washington a few days later (Brown eventually resigned on September 12). Finally, Bush resorted to an old technique, to denounce the "blame game" and to claim to be about results ("One of the things that people want us to do," he sneered on September 6, "is to play a blame game"). The New York Times responded to this with a strong editorial on September 7. It said: "This is not a game. It is critical to know what `things went wrong', as Mr. Bush put it. But we also need to know which officials failed, not to humiliate them, but to replace them with competent people." Even this liberal paper did not ask for a national dialogue over poverty and its causes, surely one of the issues raised by the aftermath of Katrina. In the midst of all this wrangling, Bush announced the creation of a White House commission to study the failures. Houston Chronicle, the hometown paper of Bush's father, offered a harsh editorial against this proposal. It said: "The President should make every effort to educate himself about what went wrong, a list that would include his own failure to perform effectively as commander-in-chief. However, it doesn't take a doctorate in jurisprudence to realise that a President can't credibly investigate his own administration"(September 9). While the citizens suffered in the Superdome, the federal government began to plan for the rebuilding of the city. Lobbyist Joe Allbaugh, a former FEMA employee and Bush's campaign manager in 2000, represents two of the main firms that will benefit from the contracts to rebuild the city: the Shaw Group and Halliburton. On September 7, Allbaugh visited the Gulf Coast, where he told reporters, "I don't do government contracts. I'm just trying to lend my shoulder to the wheel trying to coordinate some private-sector support that the government always asks for." Nevertheless, Halliburton, Vice-President Cheney's former firm and major beneficiary in Iraq, has been tapped to clean up the Navy bases along the Gulf coast (at a cost of $29.8 million). Shaw earned a $100 million from the Corps of Engineers to rebuild homes (Bechtel, another major player, has been called in to build homes). These are all no-bid contracts. Meanwhile, in Dallas, 40 members of the New Orleans elite (all established, moneyed, white families) met to discuss the fate of their city. "Those who want to see this city rebuilt want to see it done in a completely different way: demographically, geographically, and politically," said James Reiss to The Wall Street Journal's Christopher Cooper (September 8). "I'm not speaking for myself here," he continued. "The way we've been living is not going to happen again, or we're out." Incidentally, when Reiss fled the city before the storm, he flew in an Israeli security firm by helicopter to protect his Audubon Park mansion. The government and these established families have tried to remove the black poor from the city for several decades. The hurricane's destructive force has done their job for them. Now they will try to keep the poor blacks out. The federal government has already shipped people across the country. Inside the Houston astrodome, military recruiters went among the refugees. On September 7, the military conducted a Job Fair inside the astrodome "as a blatant effort to exploit the despair of masses of Americans evacuated from the Gulf coast", in the words of a community organiser. Not only would blacks not have access to the rebuilding of the city, says Sandra Robertson, who heads the Georgia Hunger Coalition, but the scattered resettlement will "dilute the vote that has been traditionally Democratic and ensure that there is nobody here who can vote en mass to punish Bush". The rich want to cleanse New Orleans ethnically (and politically). Within the Superdome rumours flew that the establishment had diverted the floodwaters from the French Quarter into the Ninth Ward, where the black poor lived. Whether this is true or not, the poor blacks have a very good sense that they are survivors of a system that views them as disposable. After the 1927 floods in New Orleans, the federal government, led by the Republican Calvin Coolidge, did nothing. Incensed, the populist Huey Long challenged the spirit of the times. He demanded that an accountable government undertake to "share the wealth". Long revived the morbid Democratic Party, became Governor of Louisiana, and pushed forward the federal interventionist agenda that brought Franklin D. Roosevelt to the presidency in 1932. FDR's New Deal of the 1930s owes a lot to Huey Long's populism, which itself was partly a reaction to the government's reaction to the floods. Will there be a new New Deal this time? It appears unlikely. However, a group of community and labour groups from New Orleans hastily called a meeting, formed themselves into Community Labour United, and released a statement. They called for the "formation of the New Orleans People's Committee, composed of hurricane survivors from each of the shelters, which will demand to oversee FEMA, the Red Cross and other organisations collecting resources on behalf of the black community of New Orleans; demand decision-making power in the long-term redevelopment of New Orleans; and issue a national call for volunteers to assist with housing, health care, education and legal matters for the duration of the displacement." They have a vision to reshape New Orleans out of its social and natural tragedy, and to create a humane city. The hungry tide has demolished their anchor, but it might yet provide them with the opportunity to build a real ship. Vijay Prashad teaches at Trinity College, Hartford, CT. His latest book is Keeping Up with the Dow Joneses: Debt, Prison, Workfare (Boston: South End Press). His essay, "Capitalism's Warehouses", appears in CounterPunch's new book, Dime's Worth of Difference. He can be reached at: vijay.prashad@trincoll.edu This article originally appeared in Frontline, the magazine of The Hindu.                                                                         CLARIFICATION ALEXANDER COCKBURN, JEFFREY ST CLAIR, BECKY GRANT AND THE INSTITUTE FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF JOURNALISTIC CLARITY, COUNTERPUNCH We published an article entitled "A Saudiless Arabia" by Wayne Madsen dated October 22, 2002 (the "Article"), on the website of the Institute for the Advancement of Journalistic Clarity, CounterPunch, www.counterpunch.org (the "Website"). Although it was not our intention, counsel for Mohammed Hussein Al Amoudi has advised us the Article suggests, or could be read as suggesting, that Mr Al Amoudi has funded, supported, or is in some way associated with, the terrorist activities of Osama bin Laden and the Al Qaeda terrorist network. We do not have any evidence connecting Mr Al Amoudi with terrorism. As a result of an exchange of communications with Mr Al Amoudi's lawyers, we have removed the Article from the Website. We are pleased to clarify the position. August 17, 2005

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