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Today's
Stories
March 2, 2004
William Blum
If Kerry's the Answer, What's the
Question?
March 1, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Morris
Thanks War Criminal in Front of Billions
Richard Oxman
Oscar's
Obit: Thanking Bob McNamara
Elaine Cassel
Writing and Reading as "Terrorism"
Mickey Z
Thomas Friedman's Education
Mike Whitney
George Will and Anti-Semitism: a Cul-de-Sac of Prejudice
Heather Williams
Haiti
as Target Practice: How the US Press Missed the Story
Cathy Crosson
Chanson d'amour haïtienne
Website of the Day
God Hates Shrimp
February 28 / 29, 2004
Stephen Green
Serving
Two Flags: Neo-Cons, Israel and the Bush Team
Gary Leupp
Another Senseless Bush Battle: Defining and Protecting Marriage
William A. Cook
Israel:
America's Albatross
Ron Jacobs
Kucinich: Good Fight; Wrong Battlefield
Ben Tripp
A Nosegay of Posies: Queer Weddings at Last!
Leilla Matsui
Dances with Crucifixes
Mike Whitney
Dismantle
the Military Goliath
Yoel Marcus
Down and Out in the Hague
Uri Avnery
The Dancing Bear
Linda S. Heard
Britons and Americans Condemned to a Hobson's Choice
Al Krebs
Unmasking a Secret American Empire: Land, Water & Cotton
Stan Cox
Life (Pat. Pend.): Genetic Commandeering
JG
The Haiti Boomerang: "After The Looting & Pillaging,
Your Hunger Will Remain"
Rick Giombetti
Censorship at the Seattle P-I on Forced Psychiatry
Keith Hoeller
The Bankruptcy of Mental Health Insurance Parity
Dave Zirin
Colorado Football: Buffalo Swill
NADERAMA
Alan Maass
Nader and the Politics of Lesser
Evils
Michael Donnelly
Regime
Rotation: Anybody But Bush...Again?
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Exeunt Serenaders; Enter Nader
Doug Giebel
So Nader's Running? Get Over It
Bruce Jackson
An Open Letter to Naderites
CounterPunch Wire
Stalinists for Kerry! and Other Roars from the Crowd
Poets' Basement
Davies, Scarr, Kearney & Albert
February 27, 2004
Thomas C. Mountain
A
White Jesus During Black History Month?
Laura Carlsen
Americans
Abroad: Bush is Persona Non Grata
John B. Anderson
Nader's Campaign Brings Back Memories: Creating an Open Electoral
Process
Jason Leopold
Spying
on Kofi Annan
John Chuckman
Nader,
Risk and Hope
Standard Schaefer
An
Interview with Michael Hudson on Putin's Russia
Ray McGovern
Punished
for Honest Intelligence
Saul Landau
The
Haiti Redux
Website of the Day
Bush: Why I'm Running for Re-election
February 26, 2004
Brandy Baker
Is Nader
on to Something?
Jacques Kinau
AEI
to Colombia: "Can't Give You Anything But Guns, Baby"
Norman Solomon
Bugging Kofi Annan: UN Spying
and the Evasions of US Journalism
Greg Weiher
A Purloined Letter: the Zarqawi Gambit
Walt Brasch
Janet Jackson, Bush & No. 542: There are No Halftime Shows
in War
Shadi Hamid
The Music World Explodes in Anger
Norman Madarasz
As Canadian as Corruption
Chris Floyd
Bullets and Ballots
Virginia Tilly
The
Deeper Meaning of the Wall
Amy Goodman / Jeremy
Scahill
Haiti's
Lawyer Says US is Arming Haiti's Anti-Aristide Paramilitaries
Website of the Day
Clear Channel Sucks
February 25, 2004
Dr. Susan Block
Saddam's
Sex Therapist and the Rape of Free Speech
Bruce Anderson
Treacherous Bastards: The Greens and the Dems and Nader
Ron Jacobs
Our Power is on the Streets and
in Our Hearts
Mike Whitney
Bush
and Gay America: the Politics of Duplicity
Sam Husseini
Jesus in 100 Words
John L. Hess
Kick Off or Flub?
Sam Hamod
Bush's Newest Red Herring
Cockburn / St. Clair
Winning
with Nader
Website of the Day
VotePact
February 24, 2004
Ralph Nader
Why
I'm Running for President
Greg Moses
Rally
the Mob! Bush, Gay Marriage and the Constitution
Douglas O'Hara
The
Merchants of Fear: Smearing Nader
Phillip Cryan
Frozen in Time: The WSJ's Paranoid
Lens on Latin America
David Lindorff
John Kerry's China Connection
Jason Leopold
Cheney's Shame: Halliburton Faces New Charges
Gary Younge
Haiti: Throttled by History
Kromm, Masri & Purohit
Why No Democracy in Iraq?
Steve Perry
Tangled Up in Red and Blue: Beware the Electoral College
February 23, 2004
Neve Gordon
Israel's Apartheid Wall on Trial
at The Hague
Kurt Nimmo
Richard Perle, Executioner: "Heads Should Roll"
Jonathan Franklin
US Soldier Seeks Refugee Status in Canada
Al Krebs
The Liberal "Intelligentsia" v. Nader
Josh Frank
Nader's Nadir? Not a Chance
Bruce Jackson
Nader, Another View: "He's as Evil as Bush"
Gary Leupp
A Misguided
Attack, The Passion, Rabbi Lerner and the Gospels
February 20 / 22, 2004
Cockburn / St. Clair
Kerry:
He's Peaking Already!
Derek Seidman
Chasing
Judith Miller from the Stage: Watch Her Run!
Ghada Karmi
Sharon is not the Problem
Vanessa Jones
This Week in Redfern, a Boy Dies, Chased by Cops
Ben Granby
Anatomy of a Night Raid on Balad, Iraq
John Holt
An Air That Kills: Greed, Apathy, Dead People
Saul Landau
Entry from a White House Diary
Tom Jackson
Why They Couldn't Wait to Invade Iraq
Frederick B. Hudson
Slave Power and the Constitution: Jefferson, Slaves, Haiti and
Hypocrisy
Roger Burbach
Argentina Fights Back
Kate Doyle
Lessons on Justice from Guatemala
Mike Whitney
Operation Enduring Misery: the Afghanistan Debacle
Greg Moses
What Gives Texas A&M the Right to Trample the Civil Rights
Act?
David Krieger
US Elections: an Opportunity to Debate Nuclear Weapons
Sam Bahour
Palestinian Issue Riddles Bush's Budget
David Grenier
You Could Get 10 Years in Prison Just for Reading This
Charles Sullivan
Corporatism vs. Single Party Politics
Poet's Basement
Hilda White, Larry Kearney & Stew Albert
Website of the Weekend
The Rumsfeld Fighting Technique
February 19, 2004
Cecilie Surasky
Anti-Semitism
at the World Social Forum? That's Not What I Saw
Ray McGovern
Iraq
Hawks and Deceptive Intelligence: Did They Really Think They'd
Get Away With It?
Tariq Ali
How Far
Will Bush Go in Iraq?
Ralph Nader
Whither
the Nation?
Wayne Madsen
Would Kerry Purge the Neo-Cons?
Norman Solomon
The Collapse of Dean's Cyber-Bubble
Christopher Brauchli
Cheney, Halliburton and the NYT
Mike Whitney
Bush's Iraq Strategy: "I Hope They Kill Each Other"
Lewis Carroll
Bush the Mighty Helmsman from Yale
Website of the Day
Sex Toy Horoscope
February 18, 2004
William Wilgus
Bush:
AWOL and Dereliction of Duty
William Blum
Mush-Minded
Liberals
Dave Lindorff
Bush's China Syndrome
Greg Weiher
Why
is Kerry Getting a Pass?
Mike Griffin
Killing the Messenger: the AFL-CIO's Attack on Harry Kelber
Mark Hand
Kerry Tells Peace Movement to "Move On"
February 17, 2004
Mike Ferner
The
Countryside Murders in Iraq
Mokhiber / Weissman
Corporation
as Psychopath
Marjorie Cohn
DrakeGate:
a Victory for Free Speech
Kurt Nimmo
Bush's
Endgame: a Review of Chalmers Johnson's "Sorrows of Empire"
Greg Bates
Nader Ambush: a New Low for The
Nation
Ximena Ortiz
A Bush
Doctrine, of Sorts
Gary Leupp
Whatever Happened to Gen. Khazraji?
Sen. John Kerry
"The Cause of Israel is the Cause of America"
Steve Perry
Kerry
1, Drudge 0
February 16, 2004
James Johnston
Huddling
with the Cheeseheads in a NASCAR World
Sara Eltantawi
To
Wear the Hijab or Not
Bruce Anderson
Kevin
Cooper and the Midnight Needle
Elaine Cassel
Feds
on Campus: the Drake Subpoenas
Rahul Mahajan
Bush,
Is the Tide Finally Turning?
Kevin Cooper
The Ritual of Death
Stan Cox
Goodbye, Howard Dean
Larry David
My War
Steve Perry
Bush and the Guard: the Cover-Up's the Thing
Website of the Day
Prison Patriots: Help This Vital Film Get Made
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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March
2, 2004
Merle Haggard &
the Politics of Salmon
"Clearcutting
is Rape"
By DAN BACHER
During the battle to save the pristine salmon
and steelhead habitat of Headwaters Forest in 1998, I got a phone
call one morning from Mike Sherwood, then the California Director
of the Sierra Club. He told me that country legend Merle Haggard
and actor Woody Harrelson would be appearing at the State Capitol
for a noon time rally.
"Thanks for the information,"
I told Sherwood and drove from Elk Grove to the Capitol to check
the event out. I arrived about a half hour early, so I went to
a small circle of a dozen activists standing around and talking
on the capitol lawn. I scanned the area around the capitol on
the lookout for Haggard, Harrelson and the folks from the Environmental
Protection Center of Garberville, the event's organizers.
I was ready to ask the guy next to me,
a short, laid back, bearded man, about when Haggard and Harrelson
were supposed to appear when suddenly realized that he was Merle
Haggard!
"Please to meet you, Merle,"
I said as I held out my hand and got a hard, firm shake from
the country bard, known for the outspoken lyrics of "Okie
from Muskogee," the "Fightin' Side of Me,"and
many, many other songs. Haggard explained to me that he was there
to stop the logging of redwood and Douglas-fir forests on the
North Coast by Pacific Lumber Company.
Haggard, a long time angler and hunter
who lives on Lake Shasta, was there to urge the Legislature to
not fund the Headwaters Forest deal between the federal government
and Pacific Lumber unless measures protecting forest watersheds
were adopted. He also recommended the removal of state and federal
officials responsible for the destruction of forest habitat.
"Clear cutting is rape," said
Haggard. "Several years ago I drove along the coast from
Coos Bay to Crescent City and the destruction I saw made me sick
to the stomach. I've fished in the streams of the North Coast
since I first came to Eureka to work in a plywood mill in 1955.
The problem is that many of the people who work in the mills
aren't aware of what logging companies like Pacific Lumber are
doing."
Haggard continued, "The people responsible
for this destruction (government officials and timber company
owners) should be taken out of their positions. These forests
support the grandest life on earth; to have no feeling for it
is criminal. Only money is being heard now, not the voice of
the people." Haggard spoke his mind like a true sportsman
and environmentalist in his simple, but powerful and poetic way
that makes him such a great songwriter.
Haggard's appearance there was very important
because he demonstrated the necessity for environmental groups
and sportsmen to work together in the cause to protect our fisheries
from destruction by the timber industry, agribusiness and oil
and chemical industries. Haggard realized that to restore fisheries,
anglers must work with environmental groups to achieve common
goals, even though they may disagree at times.
Unfortunately, over the past decade I
have witnessed a disturbing "enviro-bashing" trend
among some members of the fishing and hunting community. Unlike
Merle, these folks seem to link their fortunes with the wise-use
movement rather than conservation groups.
Anglers who side with environmental protection
are often bashed on internet message boards and on list-serves
as "watermelons" (green on the outside and red on the
inside), "Sierra Clubbers," "tree huggers,"
or other alienating - and completely inaccurate descriptions.
Some editors and writers of regional and national outdoor magazines
often lapse into the mob mentality of "enviro-bashing,"
particularly when talking about the Endangered Species Act and
forestry issues.
I absolutely oppose enviro-bashing,"
since it is destructive and counter-productive to the cause of
fishery restoration. Some of the current "enviro-bashing"
originates from the support of some environmental groups, such
as the National Resources Defense Council and the Ocean Conservancy,
for marine reserves.
Many sportsmen have rightfully opposed
blanket reserves on the California coast because they don't solve
the core problem - the intensive industrial gill netting, long
lining, trawling and inshore fish traps that have devastated
rockfish populations. Personally, I favor the creation of state
marine parks - where sustainable recreational boats are allowed
and commercial groundfish boats aren't. For right now, the establishment
of MPAs has been put on hold by the Governor.
However, because you disagree on one
issue doesn't mean you can't work with organizations on other
issues. Environmental groups, along with Indian tribes and commercial
fishing groups, have been key partners with sportsmen's organizations
in achieving victories for fishery restoration. Here's just a
few examples.
1. The Hoopa Tribe, Environmental Defense,
Friends of the River, Friends of the Trinity River, United Anglers
of California, Federation of Fly Fishers and other groups worked
in a highly successful campaign to force the Sacramento Municipal
Utility District to withdraw from a lawsuit blocking Trinity
River salmon and steelhead restoration last April. Since then,
the cities of Palo Alto and Alameda and the Port of Oakland have
also pulled out of the lawsuit.
2. The large numbers of steelhead that
we are now seeing return to the American River are the direct
result of conservation measures taken by Save the American River
Association, United Anglers, California Sportfishing Protection
Alliance and California Trout in the early 1990's. Now anglers
can catch and release big, bright wild steelhead right in the
heart of a bustling metropolitan area.
3. The Central Valley Project and Improvement
Act, which made fish and wildlife a purpose of the project for
the first time, passed in 1992 as a result of the participation
of a wide coalition of environmental groups, including NRDC and
the Sierra Club, commercial fishermen and recreational angling
groups. The change in water management polices through the CalFed
process, even with all of its problems, has resulted in the restoration
of striped bass and sturgeon populations to historical levels,
as well as improving winter, spring chinook and fall chinook
populations.
These are just a few examples of dozens
I could give on how environmental groups and fishery conservation
organizations have worked together to restore and enhance the
state's fish populations. We should take a cue from Merle Haggard
in making the "voice of the people" heard by working
in broad coalitions of anglers, hunters, environmental groups,
Indian tribes, recreational boaters, commercial fishermen and
sustainable farming advocates. "Enviro-bashing" only
serves those who aim to divide and conquer us from achieving
our goal of restoring fisheries and the environment.
Dan Bacher
can be reached at: danielbacher@hotmail.com
Weekend
Edition Features for February 28 / 29, 2004
Stephen Green
Serving
Two Flags: Neo-Cons, Israel and the Bush Team
Gary Leupp
Another Senseless Bush Battle: Defining and Protecting Marriage
William A. Cook
Israel:
America's Albatross
Ron Jacobs
Kucinich: Good Fight; Wrong Battlefield
Ben Tripp
A Nosegay of Posies: Queer Weddings at Last!
Leilla Matsui
Dances with Crucifixes
Mike Whitney
Dismantle
the Military Goliath
Yoel Marcus
Down and Out in the Hague
Uri Avnery
The Dancing Bear
Linda S. Heard
Britons and Americans Condemned to a Hobson's Choice
Al Krebs
Unmasking a Secret American Empire: Land, Water & Cotton
Stan Cox
Life (Pat. Pend.): Genetic Commandeering
JG
The Haiti Boomerang: "After The Looting & Pillaging,
Your Hunger Will Remain"
Rick Giombetti
Censorship at the Seattle P-I on Forced Psychiatry
Keith Hoeller
The Bankruptcy of Mental Health Insurance Parity
Dave Zirin
Colorado Football: Buffalo Swill
NADERAMA
Alan Maass
Nader and the Politics of Lesser
Evils
Michael Donnelly
Regime
Rotation: Anybody But Bush...Again?
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Exeunt Serenaders; Enter Nader
Doug Giebel
So Nader's Running? Get Over It
Bruce Jackson
An Open Letter to Naderites
CounterPunch Wire
Stalinists for Kerry! and Other Roars from the Crowd
Poets' Basement
Davies, Scarr, Kearney & Albert
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