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EXCLUSIVE! HOW THE FBI SPIED ON EDWARD SAID First look at secret files: How G-Men kept Said under surveillance from 1971. David Price traces years of snooping on US's best known Palestinian Bush says 30,000 dead in Iraq but real number caused by 2003 US attack is AT LEAST 180,000, maybe twice that as Andrew Cockburn digs out the real numbers Is the US Constitution worth saving? Hmmm, maybe ... New York Times takes a year to make up its mind. Cockburn and St Clair on NYT and NSA ... 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! or write CounterPunch, PO BOX 228, Petrolia, CA 95558 |
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January 5, 2006 Gilad Atzmon January 4, 2006 Ron Jacobs Lila Rajiva Huibin Amee
Chew Pat Williams Linda Milazzo Nick Dearden James Petras Website of
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Roberts Clancy Sigal Cindy Sheehan Alexander Cockburn
Dec. 31 / Jan. 1, 2005/6 Patrick Cockburn Alexander Cockburn Ralph Nader James Petras Peter Montague J.L. Chestnut, Jr. Vijay Prashad P. Sainath James Brooks Eileen E. Schell Christopher
Brauchli Jo Guldi Fred Gardner Ben Tripp St. Clair /
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December 30,2005 Evo Morales Earl Ofari
Hutchinson Dave Lindorff Gary Leupp Ron Jacobs Brian Concannon Sandra Lucas T.W. Croft Website of
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Beattie Dave Zirin Kevin Zeese Derrick O'Keefe Sam Bahour Macdonald Stainsby Bill &
Kathleen Christison Website of the Day
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Clair Lila Rajiva Amira Hass Joshua Frank David Swanson Richard Thieme Paul Craig
Roberts Website of the Day
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December 26, 2005 Lawrence R.
Velvel Lance Olsen Ben Terrall Scott Boehm Charlie Ehlen Tom Kerr
December 24/25, 2005 Aleander Cockburn James Petras Ralph Nader Lila Rajiva Fred Gardner Ron Jacobs Dave Lindorff Gary Leupp Saul Landau John Chuckman Dr. Susan Block St. Clair / Vest / Pollack
/ Donnelly Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend
December 23, 2005 John Ross Chris Floyd Lawrence Mishel
/ Ross Eisenbrey Joanne Mariner Eric Johnson-Debaufre Ray McGovern J. L. Chestnut,
Jr. Website of
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Brauchli Robin Blackburn Evelyn Pringle Amira Hass Francis A.
Boyle Stew Albert Website of
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December 17 / 18, 2005 Cockburn /
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January 5, 2006 Buried Lives, Big Easy ProfitsBulldozing the Dead in New OrleansBy SCOTT BOEHM Joyce Green died on the roof of her Lower 9th Ward home as her New Orleans neighborhood flooded during Hurricane Katrina. Helplessly, her son watched her die as the water rushed dangerously below them. Just last week he was able to return to their collapsed house on Tennessee Street for the first time, and found her skeletal remains amidst the ruins. He was able to identify them because they were wrapped in the clothes she was wearing the day she died. During Katrina, the Lower 9th Ward was deluged due to breaches in the Industrial Canal levee. Additionally, an enormous barge that was illegally left in the canal was launched into the neighborhood, destroying lives and property during its reckless trajectory. Four months later, many questions remain unanswered regarding the destruction in the Lower 9th Ward, including the question of possible criminal negligence. However, before those questions have been fully investigated, let alone answered, the City of New Orleans is rushing to bulldoze much of the neighborhood--without informing homeowners. On the eve of the holiday season, Greg Meffert, the city's chief technology officer, revealed that the city would immediately demolish about 2,500 "red-tagged" homes in the Lower 9th Ward. Before Meffert's announcement, a red-tag merely meant that a home was unsafe to enter. The City of New Orleans website specifically states in bold italicized text that "a red sticker does not indicate whether or not a building will be demolished, only that the structure is currently unsafe to enter." Yet the City decided to bulldoze red-tagged homes without informing homeowners of the new meaning of the red tags or the demolition order. This is a clear violation of due process, guaranteed under federal and state constitutions, which protects property owners from the unlawful destruction of their property. It is also a clear, opportunistic attack on the Lower 9th Ward community, whose historically black roots run deep in the neighborhood. Boasting the highest level of black homeownership in the nation, the area is also where many black New Orleanians have traditionally been able to purchase their first homes. Due to the massive destruction of the Lower 9th Ward, neighborhood survivors have been scattered across the country. Most residents have not been able to evaluate the damage to their homes due to their displacement. FEMA's fly-back program for evacuees, which could have been expanded to allow homeowners the opportunity to return to New Orleans in order to view their property, expired on New Year's Eve. Furthermore, the Lower 9th Ward was closed until December 1st, making it impossible for residents to visit their homes until quite recently. Residents missing loved ones know that there are more dead yet to be uncovered in the debris, whose bodies would be wrongfully buried by demolition. Adding insult to injury, a history of redlining has left the land in the Lower 9th Ward not only low-lying, but also lowly valued. Leveling homes would not only further demoralize a diasporic community that has had no voice in the decision-making process concerning their property, it would also strip them of most of their assets, render them gravely vulnerable to speculators, and raise the threat of eminent domain. Considering how slow the City has been to respond to the needs of its citizens during the four months since Hurricane Katrina, we must ask why it is now rushing to bulldoze the Lower 9th Ward. Is it to cover up unlawful tampering with the levees during Katrina? Is it to avoid an accurate body count of the area? Is it because the City intends to forcibly remove residents from their land to make way for a glitzy Cajun Casinoland? Or is it simply due to the blatant racism and classism that characterizes so much of this tragic disaster? Concerned community members are not ceding their rich cultural heritage without a fight. On December 28th, Kirk v. The City of New Orleans won a temporary restraining order against the City to halt the demolition of property until the court hearing to be held this Friday. Ishmael Muhammad, an attorney working on the suit for The People's Hurricane Relief Fund and Oversight Coalition, summed up community sentiment by saying that "there can be no justice in the rebuilding process unless the residents and homeowners can fully participate." If New Orleans is to rise from the piles of rubble strewn unevenly across the city, the often-drowned out voices of poor blacks must dictate the terms of the rebuilding process. City planners and developers who may attempt to capitalize upon a disaster largely manufactured by negligent funding, poor planning and a criminal response must not further desecrate the memory of those silenced in its wake, indiscriminately bulldozing over unclaimed bodies and haphazardly demolishing what remains of the Lower 9th Ward. To do so would be the final insult to a community deluged not only by floodwaters, but also by injustice. Much more than the ubiquitous cookie-cutter houses that characterize suburban sprawl, homes in the Lower 9th Ward are the historic connections to a multigenerational community that has deep roots laid in the land presently under threat. Bulldozing a person's most emblematic tie to that land without their consent is not only plainly unlawful, it is a covert step towards the ethnic cleansing of New Orleans. Turning a natural disaster into an opportunity to whitewash one of the world's most multiethnic cities is not only the lowest form of racism, it would also spell municipal suicide for a city whose integrity resides in the preservation of its most dynamic neighborhoods. No other neighborhood better exemplifies the cultural uniqueness of New Orleans than the Lower 9th Ward"Fats Domino lives there, as do many Mardi Gras Indians, and countless French Quarter musicians, mimes and waiters commute to Bourbon Street from their Lower 9th homes. These people should decide if and when demolition is necessary, and they ought to determine the future of one of America's most vibrant neighborhoods. If any American city exemplifies the genius of everyday people, it is certainly New Orleans. And if the city is to truly recover from this disaster, the local people who created its international reputation must lead its reconstruction. Scott Boehm is working on his Ph. D. in Literature
at the University of California, San Diego. He can be reached
at: sboehm@ucsd.edu
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from CounterPunch Books! The Case Against Israel By Michael Neumann  Grand Theft Pentagon: Tales of Greed and Profiteering in the War on Terror by Jeffrey St. Clair                           Sick of sit-on-the-Fence speakers, tongue-tied and timid? CounterPunch Editors Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St Clair are available to speak forcefully on ALL the burning issues, as are other CounterPunchers seasoned in stump oratory. Call CounterPunch Speakers Bureau, 1-800-840-3683. Or email beckyg@counterpunch.org. |
