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Calling All CounterPunchers!
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Calling All CounterPunchers!
Heading Into the Home StretchWe are now entering our third week of fundraising. As you can see from the donation gauge there on
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Today's Stories November 12, 2008 Johanna Berrigan November 11, 2008 James G. Abourezk Allan J. Lichtman Eric Toussaint Ron Jacobs Peter Montague Corporate Crime Reporter Laura Carlsen Col. Dan Smith Morton Skorodin David Michael Green Charles R. Larson Website of the Day November 10, 2008 David Roediger Paul Craig Roberts Peter Lee Corey D. B. Walker Jeff Halper Bill Hatch Andy Worthington Bill Quigley Peter Morici Anthony Olszewski Kim Nicolini Cpt. Paul Watson Website of the Day November 7 / 9, 2008 Alexander Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair Vijay Prashad Tariq Ali Jean Bricmont John V. Whitbeck Saul Landau Peter Morici Lawrence Velvel Karyn Strickler Nativo V. Lopez Christopher Fons Alan Farago David Yearsley Christopher Brauchli Samah Sabawi Dave Lindorff Deepak Tripathi Beth Sherouse Patrick Irelan Stephen Martin Richard Rhames J. Murray Lorenzo Wolff Kim Nicolini Poets' Basement Website of the Day
November 6, 2008 Frank J. Menetrez John Chuckman P. Sainath Joshua Frank Edna Canetti John Ross Norman Solomon Fawzia Afzal-Khan Robert Weissman Harvey Wasserman Website of the Day
November 5, 2008 Cockburn / St. Clair Chuck Spinney Ishmael Reed Chris Floyd Binoy Kampmark Michael Donnelly David Macaray Peter Morici Manuel Garcia, Jr. William Willers Website of the Day November 4, 2008 Kathleen Christison James Ridgeway Winslow T. Wheeler Mike Whitney Conn Hallinan Holly M. Barker Ashley Smith Andy Worthington Martha Rosenberg Stephen Martin Doug Lummis Carlos Fierro Website of the Day November 3, 2008 Patrick Cockburn John Kennedy O'Hara Peter Montague Steve Conn Andrew Gebhardt Ron Jacobs Ralph Nader Niranjan Ramakrishnan Uri Avnery Dave Lindorff Fred Gardner DC Larson David Michael Green Val Strange Tuli Kupferberg / Website of the Day
October 31 , 2008 Alexander Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair Douglas Valentine Ismael Hossein-Zadeh Dr. Ignacy Nowopolski Alan Maass William P. O’Connor Patrick Irelan Brian Cloughley Mats Svensson Binoy Kampmark Steve Conn Alan Farago Morton Skorodin Robert Bryce Wajahat Ali David Yearsley Dennis Loo Pam Martens Stephen Martin Richard Rhames Ramzy Baroud Missy Beattie Howard Lisnoff Richard Neville Saul Landau / Kim Nicolini Lorenzo Wolff Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend October 30, 2008 Cockburn / St. Clair Vijay Prashad Paul Craig Roberts Glen Ford Stanley Heller William Loren Katz Joshua Frank James McEnteer Felice Pace Jonathan Cook Reza Fiyouzat Website of the Day
October 29, 2008 Arno J. Mayer Eric Toussaint Matt Gonzalez Steven Conn Jonathan Cook Patrick Bond Ramzi Kysia Douglas Valentine Stephen Martin Margaret Dooley-Sammuli Amee Chew Website of the Day
October 28, 2008 James G. Abourezk Andy Worthington Gary Leupp Paul Craig Roberts Mike Whitney Gregory V. Button Ralph Nader P. Sainath Martha Rosenberg Charles R. Larson Website of the Day October 27, 2008 Michael Hudson Barbara Rose Johnston John Dinges Mike Whitney Mary Lynn Cramer Greenspan's Higher Power Alan Farago David Michael Green Andy Worthington George Wuerthner Niranjan Ramakrishnan Website of the Day October 24 / 26, 2008 Alexander Cockburn Ishmael Reed Mike Whitney Don Santina Scott Boehm Saul Landau Ron Jacobs Binoy Kampmark Linn Washington Jr. Nicole Colson Bernard Chazelle Brian Jones Christopher Brauchli Benjamin Dangl Val Strange Steve Early David Macaray Allison Kilkenny Richard Rhames Jim Bell Kris De Welde Barry Clemson Adam Engel Mark Scaramella Tuli Kupferberg Lorenzo Wolff Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend October 23, 2008 Allan J. Lichtman Todd Chretien John Ross Peter Morici Mats Svensson Marlene Martin Robert Jensen / Margaret Kimberley Deepak Tripathi David Morris Website of the Day October 22, 2008 Brian Cloughley Heather Gray Jeff Birkenstein Ralph Nader DC Larson David Swanson Keeanga-Yamatta Taylor Race and the Election: When the "Real" America Enters the Voting Booth Larry Everest Robert Fantina Martha Rosenberg Stephen Martin Website of the Day October 21, 2008 Vijay Prashad Paul Craig Roberts Corey D. B. Walker Steve Breyman Eric Toussaint Wajahat Ali Robert Weitzel Brendan Cooney Dave Lindorff Marqueece Harris-Dawson / Bob Wing Patrick B. Barr Omar Barghouti Website of the Day October 20, 2008 Michael Hudson Anthony DiMaggio Tariq Ali Uri Avnery Bill Quigley Ben Rosenfeld David Michael Green William S. Lind Chris Genovali Stephen Martin Howard Lisnoff David Yearsley Website of the Day October 17 / 19, 2008 Alexander Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair Pam Martens Paul Craig Roberts Mike Whtney Michael D. Yates Suzanne Smith Carl Boggs Ralph Nader Fidel Castro Dave Marsh Saul Landau Jo Guldi Kevin Zeese Larry Everest Steve Early David Macaray Ben Terrall Missy Beattie Don Monkerud Helen Redmond Dan Bacher Wajahat Ali Farzana Versey Vladimir Frolov Kim Nicolini Poets Basement Website of the Day
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November 12, 2008 Tyranny in the TankBreak Up Big OilBy KARL GROSSMAN This summer, the price of gasoline had skyrocketed in the United States in a few short months to $4.50 a gallon. The oil companies were claiming the fault was China and India going car-crazy and guzzling up gas, problems in the Middle East, then it was refinery capacity and, all along, if the ban on drilling in areas on the continental shelf offshore was only lifted, everything would be different. Filling up a car, at 40 or 50 bucks a shot, was hurting people badly. And it was impacting on the economy. The oil companies were raking in record, indeed obscene profits—billions upon billions of dollars. People were getting angrier and angrier thinking that some kind of price-rigging was going on. Then, suddenly, just in recent weeks—the price of gas went down and down. Now it’s about half the price a gallon it was in the summer. The price of a barrel of crude oil has dived—from a high of $145 a barrel in July to as of this week less than $60 a barrel. And people are still car-crazy in China and India, problems continue in the Middle East and no new refineries have been built in the last several weeks. As to that ban on drilling on the continental shelf offshore, it was lifted by Congress—but, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, if drilling starts ASAP, it wouldn’t “have a significant impact on domestic …prices before 2030.” Would you believe? Do you think the oil industry is manipulating the market, grabbing our money to make windfall profits and is deep in deception? I’ve thought so for years. Decades ago I received my first lesson in oil industry honesty—an oxymoron—when I broke the story of the oil industry exploring in the Atlantic. I was a reporter for the Long Island Press, and I got a tip from a fisherman out of Montauk who said he had seen the same sort of vessel as the boats he observed searching for oil when he was a shrimper in the 1940s in the Gulf of Mexico. I spent the day telephoning oil companies. Public relations people for each said, no, we’re not involved in looking for oil in the Atlantic. I was leaving the office when there was the yell that a public relations man from Gulf was on the phone. The PR man at Gulf’s headquarters in Pittsburgh said he checked and, yes, Gulf was involved in searching oil in the Atlantic—in a “consortium” of 32 oil companies. These included the companies that all day issued flat denials. Later on, I looked into whether offshore drilling was really as safe as the oil industry claimed. I visited the first rig set up in the Atlantic—off Nova Scotia. Some safe. My article began: “The rescue boat goes round and round…as the man from Shell concedes, ‘We treat every foot of hole like a potential disaster.’” On the rig were capsules to eject crew members in an accident. “Workers may all be kept in one piece, but erupting oil won’t, the man from Shell admits.” The Shell executive acknowledged that “curtains, booms and other devices the oil industry flashes in its advertising ‘just don’t work in over five-foot seas.’” So, he said, there are “stockpiles of clean-up material on shore. Not straw as in the States. Here we have peat moss.” As the President’s Council on Environmental Quality in a report on offshore Atlantic drilling later stated: “A major spill along the beaches of Cape Cod, Long Island or the Middle or South Atlantic states could devastate the areas affected…the Atlantic [is a] hostile environment for oil and gas operations. Storm and seismic conditions may be more severe than in the North Sea or the Gulf of Mexico.” That’s why there was that prohibition on drilling on the continental shelf for 26 years—as of now, as a result of our most recent oil crisis, gone. Meanwhile, the price of gas has come down with about as much logic and sense as it went up. One of the best clues to a part of what has happened was a mention in a front-page piece in the New York Times on June 14. "Plan Would Lift Saudi Oil Output," was the headline, about Saudi Arabia increasing its oil production. There in the fourth paragraph was the statement that the Saudis were concerned that "current prices are also making alternative fuels more viable, threatening the long-term prospects of the oil-based economy." I’ve seen no mainstream media investigation into the wild gyrations in the price of oil, the Great Gas Rip-Off of 2008. In her fine new book, The Tyranny of Oil: The World’s Most Powerful Industry—and What We Must To Do Stop It, Antonia Juhasz, writes: “The masters of the oil industry, the companies known as ‘Big Oil,’ exercise their influence…through rapidly and ever-increasing oil and gasoline prices, a lack of viable alternatives, the erosion of democracy, environmental destruction, global warming, violence, and war.” She cites a Gallup poll on “public perceptions of U.S. industry” and reports that the oil industry “earned the lowest rating of any industry.” Americans are on to the oil industry—and we all need to do a lot about it! A full-scale investigation (perhaps by Congress, although the dependence of its members on oil industry campaign contributions make any tough, thorough Congressional probe questionable), or by criminal prosecutors (on the federal level, that’ll have to wait for the Obama administration considering the intimate links of the Bush administration to the oil industry), through lawsuits or some other mechanisms. Big Oil in the United States needs to be broken up as it was by the U.S. Supreme Court nearly a century ago after the muckraking of Ida Tarbell, but this time the requirement of competition must hold. And we need to consider whether the production of petroleum in the U.S. should remain with a bunch of hyper-greedy corporate liars. “Most countries in the world place ownership and control of oil in the hands of the public,” notes The Tyranny of Oil. “Doing so in the United States would simply put us in line with the majority of people on the planet.” Karl Grossman is a professor of journalism at the State University of New York/College at Old Westbury, author of books on energy and the environment, chief investigative reporter at WVVH-TV and host of the nationally-aired television program Enviro Close-Up (www.envirovideo.com).
New in the Print Edition of CounterPunch For his 20-year stretch as Fed chairman, they all fawned on him – presidents, Congress, the press. Only a handful of left economists said he was pushing the economy over the cliff. Now Greenspan admits it in a humiliating confession. As the world’s financial structure tumbles in ruins, guess what? “I found a flaw in the model… To the extent that I figure out where it happened and why, I will change my views.” Read Frederic Claremont’s savage assessment of the fool who has plunged millions into misery. Also in our new issue: Bill Hatch on the story of one foreclosure; Kristian Williams on police torture in Chicago. Only in CounterPunch newsletter! Get your copy today by subscribing online or calling 1-800-840-3683 Contributions to CounterPunch are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now! CounterPunch books and gear make great presents. Order CounterPunch By Email For Only $35 a Year !
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New in the CP Print Edition! For his 20-year stretch as Fed chairman, they all fawned on him – presidents, Congress, the press. Only a handful of left economists said he was pushing the economy over the cliff. Now Greenspan admits it in a humiliating confession. As the world’s financial structure tumbles in ruins, guess what? “I found a flaw in the model… To the extent that I figure out where it happened and why, I will change my views.” Read Frederic Claremont’s savage assessment of the fool who has plunged millions into misery. Also in our new issue: Bill Hatch on the story of one foreclosure; and Kristian Williams on police torture in Chicago. Only in CounterPunch newsletter! Get your copy today by subscribing online or calling 1-800-840-3683 Now Available from CounterPunch Books! Waiting for Lightning
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