How
the Press &
the CIA Killed Gary Webb's Career
Today's
Stories
December 25
/ 26, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Yup,
It's Moral Outrage Time
December 24,
2004
Diane Christian
Winning:
Rummy and John Milton
Chad Nagle
Ukraine's
Real Underdog
Saul Landau
My Friend Richard Barnet
Greg Moses
Ramsey Muniz Speaks
Joe DeRaymond
The Endless War in Colombia: a View From Within
Borzou Daragahi
Iraq's Christians: Tolerated by Saddam; Targets Under Occupation
Mike Whitney
Rummy's Quagmire of Lies
Francis A. Boyle
O Little Town of Bethlehem: Another Christmas Under Occupation
William Loren
Katz
Florida 1837: Christmas Eve Resistance to the First US Occupation
December 23,
2004
Chad Nagle
Report
from Kiev: Yushchenko's Not Quite Ready for Sainthood
David Smith-Ferri
The
Real UN Disgrace in Iraq
Bill Quigley
Death
Watch for Human Rights in Haiti
Mickey Z.
Crumbs
from Our Table
Christopher Brauchli
Merck's Merry X-mas
Greg Moses
When
No Law Means No Law
Alan Singer
An
Encounter with Sen. Schumer: a Very Dangerous Democrat
David Price
Social
Security Pump and Dump
Website of the Day
Gabbo Gets Laid
December 22,
2004
James Petras
An
Open Letter to Saramago: Nobel Laureate Suffers from a Bizarre
Historical Amnesia
Omar Barghouti
The Case for Boycotting Israel
Patrick Cockburn / Jeremy Redmond
They Were Waiting on Chicken Tenders When the Rounds Hit
Harry Browne
Northern Ireland: No Postcards from the Edge
Richard Oxman
On the Seventh Column
Kathleen Christison
Imagining
Palestine
Website of the Day
FBI Torture Memos
December 21,
2004
Greg Moses
The
New Zeus on the Block: Unplugging Al-Manar TV
Dave Lindorff
Losing
It in America: Bunker of the Skittish
Chad Nagle
The View from Donetsk
Dragon Pierces
Truth*
Concrete
Colossus vs. the River Dragon: Dislocation and Three Gorges Dam
Patrick Cockburn
"Things Always Get Worse"
Seth DeLong
Aiding Oppression in Haiti
Ahmad Faruqui
Pakistan and the 9/11 Commission's Report
Paul Craig
Roberts
America
Locked Up: a System of Injustice
December 20,
2004
Gary Leupp
Japan
in Iraq
Robert Fisk
An
Army Without Compassion
Uri Avnery
The Mountain and the Mouse
Francisco Letelier
My Case Against Pinochet
Patrick Cockburn
The Polls of Fear
Bill Conroy
Charles Bowden on the Legacy of Gary Webb: "He Drew Blood"
Yoshie Furuhashi
Chokeholds of a Giant: Attacking Wal-Mart's Supply Chain
David Swanson
Media Blackout of Bush's War on Labor
Chad Nagle
Did Yushchenko Poison Himself?
December 18
/ 19, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Why
They Hated Gary Webb
Saul Landau
Gen.
Pinochet Should Also Face Charges in DC
Patrick Cockburn
Losing
Mosul: Once They Called It a Model for the Occupation
Douglas Valentine
Wolves
and Revolution in Venezuela: a Caracas Romance
Ray McGovern
Laughing Dragon, Dancing Bear: the New China / Russia Alliance
Fred Gardner
DEA Upholds Grower's Marijuana Monopoly
Jean-Guy Allard
Locked Up Naked in a Hole Within a Hole: Have the Cuban 5 Been
Tortured in US Prisons?
Ron Jacobs
Drifters Escape, Again: Encounters with Berkeley's Police
Raymond G.
Helmick, S.J.
The Law and Peace in the Middle East
Sean Sellers
Values Voters, Desperate Housewives and Sweatshop Tacos
Lee Sustar
Christmas
on the Picket Line at CNH: "They Want to Break Our Unions"
Richard Thieme
Webb's Wife: "Gary Was Never the Same After They Attacked
Him"
Sam Bahour
WANTED:
Middle East Negotiator
Joshua Frank
The
Spin Doctor: an Interview with Mickey Z.
Dave Lindorff
A Man Who Confers with God Should Have Good Hearing
Stan Cox
What Kids Cost: Dallas v. Delhi
Chris Frasier
Farming By Numbers: More Poets, Fewer MBAs
Poets' Basement
Katz, Melek, Harley, Albert and Ford
December
17, 2004
Cockburn /
St. Clair
CounterAttack:
How the Press and the CIA Killed Gary Webb's Career
Dave Lindorff
Racism:
Philly Style
Dan Bacher
Bush Abandons Salmon Restoration
Marisa Jacott
NAFTA and the Environment: Trade Still Runs Roughshod
Francis Thicke
How Now, Industrial Cow?
Rupert Cornwell
The Inuit Strike Back
Website of the Day
Franz Boas Unrolls Over in His Grave
December
16, 2004
Michael
Neumann
How We Became Barbarians
Merlin
Chowkwanyun
An Interview with Ralph Nader
Gabriel
Espinoza Gonzales
The Dubious Career of John Bolton
Christopher
Brauchli
Louis Freeh's New Gig: Usurer
Patrick
Cockburn
Allawi's Pre-Election Ploy: Putting "Chemical Ali"
on Trial
Mike
Whitney
Gearing Up for a Draft?
Walter
Brasch
Hillbilly Humvees and Rumsfeld's New Physics
Bill
Conroy
How Gary Webb Saved My Ass from the FBI
Website
of the Day
Saturday Memorial for Gary Webb
December
15, 2004
Robert
Fisk
Who Killed Baha Mousa?
Jennifer
Van Bergen
The Monster Under the Bed
Heather
Gray
Will the Real Christians Please Stand?: a Personal Testimony
Dave
Lindorff
The DNC, Albright and the Iraq Elections
Luis
Hernandez Navarro
To Die a Little: Migration and Coffee
in Mexico and Central America
Joshua
Frank
The Ohio Recount: an Exercise in "Dumbocracy"
Greg
Moses
Eighty-Sixing Civil Rights in Ohio?
George
Caffentzis
The Petroleum Commons
December
14, 2004
Dave
Lindorff
DNC Meddling in the Ukraine Elections
Larry
Birns / Seth DeLong
Haiti is Unraveling and No One is Saying
Anything
Richard
Thieme
My Last Talk with Gary Webb: "I Knew It Was the Truth and
That's What Kept Me Going"
Patrick
Cockburn
A Year After Saddam's Capture, Iraq
is Getting Worse
Chris
Floyd
Client State: Moral Values and Voluntary Servitude in Bush's
America
Akiva
Eldar
A One-time Hanukkah Miracle
Burbach
/ Cantor
The Legacy of Pinochet: Kissinger
and the Teflon Tyrant
December
13, 2004
Cockburn
/ St. Clair
Gary Webb: a Great Reporter, Trashed
by the CIA's Claque
David
Phinney
"Contract Meal Disaster" for Iraqi Prisoners: Rancid
Food Sparked Abu Ghraib Riots
Paul
Craig Roberts
A Dose of Non-Delusional Reality
for Douglas Feith
M.
Junaid Alam
The War is the War Crime
Robert
Jensen
The US Has Lost the Iraq War...and That's a Good Thing
Richard
Oxman
Kafkaesque Lessons for the Left
Greg
Moses
Send No Messengers of Defeat
Douglas
Lummis
The Pentagon's Neurosis: Fallujah
Gulag
December
11 / 12, 2004
Alexander
Cockburn
Running an Empire on the Cheap
Ron
Jacobs
The Drugs of War: Getting High in the Green Zone?
Saul
Landau
Listening and Talking to God About
Invading Other Countries
Gary
Leupp
Bush's Capital
Sharon
Smith
The Horrible Toll on US Troops
Dave
Lindorff
Deja Vu All Over Again: 5,000 Desertions and Counting
Uri
Avnery
The Boss Has Gone Crazy
Jude
Wanniski
The Neo-Con Smear on Kofi Annan: What Food-for-Oil Scandal?
Heather
Gray
How the South Became Republican: an Interview with John Egerton
Patrick
Cockburn / Ken Sengupta
Fallujah: the Homecoming and the Homeless
John
Pilger
Return to Kosovo: Calling the Humanitarian Bombers to Account
Joshua
Frank
All the Rage: Mr. Solomon, Say You're Sorry
Ben
Tripp
O Canada!: the Truth About the Election of 2004
John
Stanton
God Speaks!
Laura
Nathan
Porn Stars are People, Too: a Talk with Christi Lake
Poets'
Basement
Capaccio, Davies, Louise, Ford and Albert
Website
of the Day
Fallujah Photos: Killed in Their Beds
December
10, 2004
Ralph
Nader
President Bush, Stop Destroying the
Mosques of Iraq
Greg
Moses
Whitewashing Voter Fraud
Nicole
Colson
Rebellion in the Ranks: Grunts Are Resisting Stop-Loss Orders
Frederick
B. Hudson
"They Still Got Those Dogs": A New Book Probes Old
Civil Rights Lessons
Patrick
Cockburn
Iraq's Insurgents Oppose the Occupation, Not the Elections
Kathy
Kelly
From Haiti to Iraq: Burying Water
December
9, 2004
Greg
Moses
Ask Not Who Bankrolled Fallujah
Joshua
Frank
Cobb and the Ohio Recount: Vote Fraud as Fundraiser!
Ralph
Nader
An Open Letter to Bush: It's Time to
Disclose the Real Casualty Figures
Lee
Sustar
Bhopal: the Making of a Disaster
Tom
Barry
Restrictionist Resurgence
Mickey
Z.
Sander Hicks and the 9/11 Truth Movement
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush in the Bubble
Mark
Donham
Why are House Democrats Trying to
Deny Cynthia McKinney Seniority?
Gary
Corseri
On the Anniversary of John Lennon's Death, 2012
Paul
de Rooij
The Voices of Sharon's Little Helpers
December
8, 2004
Ralph
Nader
Will the Real Michael Moore Ever Re-Emerge?
Ann
Harrison
The Ohio Recount: Reluctant Officials
and Few Rules
Paul
Craig Roberts
War Crime
Dave
Lindorff
They've Got a Secret: Inside the $40 Billion Black Budget for
Spying
Patrick
Cockburn / Andrew Buncombe
CIA Warning on Iraq: Fallujah Did Not Break the Back of the Insurgency
Col.
Dan Smith
Rules of Engagement in Iraq
Emily
Alves / Michael Johnson
Paradise Lost: Corruption and Clientelism in Costa Rica
Richard
Oxman
The Dylan Bob Wouldn't Mention: Up With Dylan Thomas
Ron
Jacobs
In Fallujah, Freedom Isn't Free
December
7, 2004
Patrick
Cockburn
Running Battles in Baghdad
Behrooz
Ghamari
Lost Muslim Voices of Dissent
Dave
Lindorff
American Fantasies: Psst! Hey Buddy,
Did You Hear How Well the War's Going?
Joshua
Frank
Dean at the DNC?
Richard
Oxman
Down with Dylan: the Insufferable Interview
Ray
McGovern
All Mosquitoes, No Swamp
John
Chuckman
The Invasion of Hallifax: The Imperial Wizard Visits Canada
James
Petras
Latin America: the Empire Changes Gears
Website
of the Day
ToxMap: Who's Poisoning You
December
6, 2004
Paul
Craig Roberts
Paranoia and Pre-emption: Is the
Bush Administration Certifiable?
December
4 / 6, 2004
Alexander
Cockburn
Politicize the CIA? You've Got to
be Kidding
Joe
Bageant
Dining with the Rhinos
Alan
Maass
Reporting from the Ground in Iraq: an Interview with Patrick
Cockburn
Brian
Cloughley
Democracy, Bush-style, in the Gulf
Laura
Carlsen
Latin America Shifts Left
Lenni
Brenner
Jefferson, Madison, Bush and Religion
Anna
Ioakimedes
Brazil's Haitian Mission: Doing God's Work or Washington's?
Uri
Avnery
Widow of Opportunity?
Fred
Gardner
Supreme Court Hears Medical Pot Case
Dave
Zirin
Steroids to Heaven
Jackie
Corr
Mining Camp Blues: the Red State Variation
Don
Fitz
Will Greens Abandon IRV?
Lucy
Herschel
"Art can be a Weapon of the Oppressed": an Interview
with Artist Anthony Papa
Richard
Oxman
No Angels in America: Bashing the Gay Play
Ron
Jacobs
Holiday Greeting Card
Poets'
Basement
Collins, Albert, LaMorticella
December
3, 2004
Dave
Lindorff
Lie Then Escalate
Ben
Tripp
Fun With Boycotts: How to Shop in a
Time of Crisis
Joe
Allen
Murder in El Salvador: the Assassination of Teamster Organizer
Gilberto Soto
Matthew
B. Riley
Human Rights Court Fails Lori Berenson
Meir
Shalev
In the End, It is the Violin that Wins
Bob
Wing
The White Elephant in the Room: Race and Election 2004
Christopher
Brauchli
When McCain Bit His Tongue
Sasan
Fayazmanesh
The EU, the US, Israel and Iran
December
2, 2004
Tito
Tricot
No Justice in Chile: I'm a Torture
Survivor in a Country Where Torturers Still Run Free
Behzad
Yaghmaian
The Murder of Theo Van Gogh and Muslim Migration
Dr.
Susan Block
Lana and Me: Meetings with Remarkable Apes
Frank
/ Chowkwanyun
Liberalism and Its Bounds
Lee
Sustar
Standoff in Ukraine: the Bad v. the Corrupt
Patrick
Cockburn
Another Grim Record in Iraq
Mark
Engler
Seattle at Five
Michael
Donnelly
Something Stinks in South Bend: the Firing of Tyrone Willingham
Nate
Collins
The Bay Area Mall on an Ohlone Burial Grounds
Saul
Landau
The Assassination of Danilo Anderson
December
1, 2004
Phillip
Cryan
Associated with Whom? Rightist Bias
in Wire Coverage of Colombia
Dave
Zirin
What's the Matter with "Leon"?:
Budweiser's Racist Commercial
Ghali
Hassan
Iraq's Health Care Under the Occupation:
200 Children Die Every Day
Donna
J. Volatile
Beware Western Nations Threatening "Democracy"
Patrick
Cockburn
How Saddam Tried to Arm the Insurgency
Nick
Meo
Chemical War Over Afghanistan
Mike
Ferner
The Battle of Toledo
Mokhiber
/ Weissman
Shame and Determination on Global AIDS Day: 40 Million and Rising
Kathy
Kelly
Looking the Other Way: the Real Crimes
of the UN in Iraq
November
30, 2004
Jennifer
Van Bergen
The Veil of Secrecy
Toni
Nelson Herrera
Meeting Kurtz: When Art is a Crime
Paul
Craig Roberts
The Bush Delusions: Successful at Incompetence
Patrick
Cockburn
The Insurgency Strikes Back: There Are No Safe Havens in Iraq
Chuck
Munson
WTO Protests Five Years Later: Seattle Weekly Trashes Anti-Globalization
Movement
Adam
Williams
Citizenship Sold: Back to Business in Indiana
Gregory
Elich
A Dangerous Turn in the US Plans for
North Korea
Website
of the Day
Read Lynne Cheney's Lesbian Novel Online!
November
29, 2004
Dave
Lindorff
Blowback in Ukraine: The Hand of
the CIA?
Omar
Barghouti
"The Pianist" of Palestine:
Roadblock Concerto at Gunpoint
Mike
Whitney
The US Media and Fallujah: How to
Market a Siege
Uri
Avnery
The Abu Mazen Style: "Give Me
Some Credit!"
Matt
Vidal
Globalization and Economic Inequality: a Look at the Numbers
Patrick
Cockburn
An Interview with Iraq's Foreign
Minister
Alan
Farago
Sex Change and Salvation: God, Girly Men and Endocrine Disrupters
Justin
Huggler
Bhopal 20 Years Later
Antony
Loewenstein
How Australia Reported Arafat's Death and Legacy
Gary
Leupp
Ukraine: Poll Results Aren't the Real
Issue
Website
of the Day
Mosul: Images from a Kill Zone
November
27 / 28, 2004
Peter
Linebaugh
Torture & Neo-Liberalism with
Sycorax in Iraq
Alexander
Cockburn
What Happened to O'Reilly's Loofa?
Fred
Gardner
Ashcroft v. Raich: Medical Marijuana and the Supreme Court
Kathy
Kelly
What We Can Control
Diane
Christian
The Other Cheek: "Empire Doesn't Analyze, It Acts"
Gary
Leupp
One More Neocon Target: South (Yes, South) Korea
Lenni
Brenner
Equality and Rights of Return: Jefferson Instructs the New York
Times
Ron
Jacobs
Death Squads and Iraq's Elections: the Mysterious Murders of
the AMS Clerics
Joshua
Frank
An Interview with Kevin Zeese on Nader, Kerry and the ABB Crowd
Toni
Solo
The Murder of Danilo Anderson
Saul
Landau
Fallujah, the 21st Century Guernica
JoAnn
Wypijewski
Matthew Shepard Case 6 Years Later: Why Hate Crimes Laws are
No Cure for Homophobia
Justin
Taylor
Empire's Lawless Opportunities
Amos
Harel
The Case of Captain R.
Walter
A. Davis
Tabloid Justice
Stephen
Hendricks
God's Kind of Men
Poets'
Basement
Albert, LaMorticella and Ford
November
26, 2004
Peter
Feng
Gavin Newsom: Man or Machine?
Greg
Moses
It's the White Vote, Stupid
Liaquat
Ali Khan
The Devil's Work: Bush's Minority Appointments
Michael
Mandel / Gail Davidson
Why Bush Should Be Banned from Canada: a Memo to the Ministry
of Immigration
Dave
Lindorff
Nation of Sheep, Turkey of an Election: Urkrainians Show the
Way
Gary
Corseri
When Black Friday Comes...
Paul
Craig Roberts
Whatever Happened to Conservatives?
Website
of the Day
Iraq Pipeline Watch
November
25, 2004
Willliam
Loren Katz
Giving Thanks to Whom?: "Thanks
to God We Sent 600 Heathen Souls to Hell Today"
Mitchel
Cohen
Why I Hate Thanksgiving
Mike
Ferner
An Uncommon Mom
November
24, 2004
Gila
Svirsky
License to Kill: the Example of Violence
is Set by the State
Winslow
T. Wheeler
The
Other Mess in Congress
Christopher
Brauchli
The Company He Keeps: the Syndicate of Tom Delay
Dave
Lindorff
Double Standards on Exit Polls: Hypocrisy Sans Irony
Ron
Jacobs
The Occupation of Iraq is the Root of t he Problem
Ken
Sengupta
Witnesses: War Crimes in Fallujah
Diana
Barahona
The Final Holocaust or Why I Voted for Ralph Nader
John
L. Hess
Safire the Shameless
Jason
Leopold
Did Harvard Hire (Another) War Criminal?
Jeffrey
St. Clair
The Mark of McCain: the Senator Most Likely to Start a Nuclear
War
Map
of the Day
Now and Then: 2004 v. 1860
November
23, 2004
Forrest
Hylton
Bush and Uribe at the Beach
November
22, 2004
Dave
Zirin
Fight Night in the NBA: Selective Outrage
in Detroit
Paul
Craig Roberts
On to Iran: We Won't Get Fooled Again?
Michael
Mandel / Gail Davidson
Why Bush Should be Banned from Canada
Kathie
Helmkamp
Our Son: a Marine Who Won't Kill
Ken
Sengupta
The Triangle of Death: "This is Now the Most Dangerous Place
in Iraq"
Mike
Whitney
Greenspan's Hammer
Roger
Burbach
Why They Hate Bush in Chile
Website
of the Day
Fed Up with Government Lies and Corporate Spin?
November
20 / 21, 2004
Alexander
Cockburn
The Poisoned Chalice
Todd
May
Religion, the Election and the Politics of Fear
Abbas
Ahmed Ibrahim
The Horrors of Fallujah: a First-Hand Account
Kevin
Zeese
Mishandling Nader
Landau
/ Hassen
After Arafat
Tom
Barry
The Vulcans Consolidate Power: The Rise of Stephen Hadley
Fred
Gardner
Pot Shots: Ask Dr. Todd
Justin
E.H. Smith
Triumph of the Will: the Sequel
Carl
Estabrook
Where We Are Now
Gary
Leupp
Imperial History-Making vs. Reality-Based Thought: a Dialogue
Dave
Lindorff
Apocalypse Soon
Jenna
Michelle Liut
Plans Colombia and Patriota: Wanton Wastes of Money, Manpower
and Lives
Mickey
Z.
The Granma Moses of Radical Writing: an Interview with William
Blum
Greg
Moses
The Same Old Struggle Against Imperial America
Sharon
Smith
Abortion Rights and the Election: What Now?
Ron
Jacobs
Sandwiches and Car Bombs
Ben
Tripp
Raising d'Etre: Finding Money in Hollywood These Days
Richard
Oxman
Basketbrawl Two Pointer: Iraq Rules!
Gilad
Atzmon
Politics and Jazz
Poets'
Basement
LaMorticella, Albert, Ford, & Anon.
Website
of the Day
Voice of the Forest
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.
|
Christmas Weekend
Edition
December 25, / 26 2004
Don't They Know It's Christmas?
Yup,
It's Moral Outrage Time; Animals Don't Vote: Conservation and
Mike Korchinsky
By
ALEXANDER COCKBURN
"Which is more revolting?"
an editor e-mailed me last week, "Rupert Murdoch spending
$44 million for a triplex at 834 Fifth Avenue with 20 rooms and
a monthly maintenance of $21,469.07, as narrated on the front
page of the newspapers, or King Mswati III of Swaziland spending
$690,000 on a Daimler-Chrysler Maybach 62?"
Mention of the Great Beast
buying his three-floor pad on Fifth Ave. sent me sauntering down
Memory Lane. I think Murdoch had one floor of that building back
in the late 1970s, when his only properties in the United States
were the Star and a newspaper in San Antonio, Texas. Then he
bought the New York Post and duly made it onto either the cover
of Time or Newsweek, I can't remember which. Maybe both. He was
depicted as King Kong, clinging to the Empire State building.
Then Murdoch bought the Village
Voice, where I was working at the time. He came down to 80 University
Place, pledged not to fire the editor, climbed back into his
limo, went back uptown and fired the editor the next day. Jack
Newfield and I took a taxi uptown, knocked on the door of his
apartment at, I think, 834 Fifth, and Murdoch opened it with
a broad smile, saying everything was back the way it had been
and that the editor could stay on another year.
Here we are today, and I just
heard that Jack died of kidney cancer earlier this week. Though
we later battled mightily over Israel, anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism,
he was supportive when I was fresh off the boat at the Voice
in the early 1970s.
Rupert has fired hundreds more
editors and now has three floors instead of one. I don't grudge
him his triplex. He's the one who has to climb up and down endless
stairs or wait for the elevator so he can go to bed.
Besides, there are so many
billionaires around these days it's hard to be affronted by Murdoch
throwing his spare change around.
King Mswati's costly Daimler-Chrysler
doesn't bother me much either. Last time I looked out of the
window, I counted four old Chryslers of mine, spanning the glory
years between 1959 and 1967, and I bet they all are more fun
to drive, more reliable and certainly less costly to fix than
Mswati's latest rig. It's up to the people of Swaziland. If this
is the car (he has many others) that finally sprains the camel's
back, they can shoot him, put his fleet up for auction in Scottsdale,
Ariz., early next year and have a good party on the proceeds.
Let the people decide. They're the ones who have to look at their
king driving in and out of his palace.
When it comes to moral outrage
we all have our specialties. To me there's more evil festering
in one square millimeter of the balance sheet of a major pharmaceutical
company than in all the sheet metal of every car of every African
tyrant of the past one hundred years.
It's a matter of judicious
allocation of one's yearly moral outrage budget. In the old days,
that budget was way bigger. People didn't have to work so hard,
and so they had more time to get pissed off at the unfairness
of it all, to sneer at the gross-outs of the rich. Those were
the days when people gasped in outrage as Craig Claiborne reported
on the front page of the New York Times that he and Pierre Franey
dropped $4,000 on a 31-course, nine-wine dinner at Chez Denis
in Paris, a feast offered by American Express at a charity auction.
This was back in November of
1975, when columnists kept whole stables of moral high horses
pawing the ground in their stalls. Espying the $4,000 binge,
Harriet Van Horne stabbed furiously at her typewriter, "This
calculated evening of high-class piggery offends ) an average
American's sense of decency. It seems wrong , morally, esthetically
and in every other way." Over the column I remember one
editor ran the head "Edunt et Vomant" (they eat and
they vomit). It must have been in the pre-Murdoch New York Post
when Dolly Schiff's op-ed page looked like the reading room of
the Athenaeum.
Oh, for the Seventies, when
optimism abounded and, as Steve Earle said, they tried to have
cocaine classified as a vegetable. There was more social idealism
back then, too. Senator William Proxmire of Wisconsin, demon
foe of government fraud and waste, used to give out Golden Fleece
awards. Month after month they'd make the papers, and the sums
weren't so big. These days, you have to steal at least half a
billion and have the name Halliburton on your corporate letterhead
even to get noticed on the CNN newstape. Oh, I know John McCain
makes a big show of denouncing his colleagues for priming the
defense budget with pork. But it doesn't raise a stir and only
irks his fellow senators because they know he doesn't really
mean it and, when he's finished grandstanding, will vote the
budget.
Do I have a line in the sand?
OK, I do. I resent, and I hereby protest money in the defense
budget going for war crimes, which, as stipulated in a 1996 law
for which Republicans voted, could put the commander in chief
in the death cell. Under U.S. law. What war crimes? In Iraq,
they're happening every day. In the recent glorious conquest
of Fallujah, irked at the reports of casualties from Fallujah
General Hospital, the U.S. military shut "the propaganda
weapon" down. U.S. soldiers tied up the medical staff and
patients.
Now, as Noam Chomsky, alluding
to the Falluja hospital shut-down, reminds us, the Geneva Conventions
state: "Fixed establishments and mobile medical units of
the Medical Service may in no circumstances be attacked, but
shall at all times be respected and protected by the Parties
to the conflict." So put Bush and the defense secretary
he recently declared to be a sensitive and wonderful human being
on trial for their lives. Who cares about Murdoch's triplex or
Mswati's cars? There are much, much worse expenditures, rolling
out day after day, to get furious about.
ANIMALS DON'T
VOTE
The end of the tax year approaches,
and mass mailings cram my letterbox, many of them urgently seeking
write-off dollars to keep Noah's Ark afloat. In next year's calendars,
affecting photographs of endangered species clamor for our attention:
black rhinos, elephants, blue whales, gorillas, condors, otters,
hairy-nosed wombats, western giant elands. And people do the
right thing, hauling out their checkbooks, taking their charitable
deductions.
But as the big conservation
outfits will tell you, the costs of protecting habitats soar
up and up. Reportedly, in Africa, they double every year. The
great goal of all conservation is sustainability, but charitable
conservation by definition is not sustainable. Noah's Ark is
sinking faster than the donors can bale.
In 1996, Mike Korchinsky, 34
years old at the time, sat in an eco-tour campsite in Kenya,
looked around him and, as he remembers, concluded that "high-end
ecotourism clearly wasn't saving the land I was on".
Being an ardent conservationist
and also a businessman who'd made a big pile in market consultancy,
Bay Area-based Korchinsky started looking at the various models
dreamed up in recent decades to save species and environment.
Ecotourism means putting guards round a forest or a stretch of
savannah, and coaxing rich people to come and take photographs
of protected nature. It's low volume and, for the Africans servicing
the tourists, it offers low dollar jobs and not many of them.
"They're not jobs Africans want," Korchinsky says,
"making beds, cleaning toilets. The cost of the tours may
go up, but the wages stay the same." In other words, the
locals don't have any great stake in the eco-tourism, or in deterring
the poachers or the charcoal burners waiting for the tour or
the guards to move on.
"Sustainable" is
always the buzzword, but most of the models -- marketing Amazon
rainforest products, for example -- haven't worked out that way.
Similarly, Korchinksy points out that donating 1 percent of one's
profits, as many busineses do, means you might need a $250 million-a-year
business to support one sanctuary.
Korchinsky kept circling around
a few core premises. If you can't depend on the charity of good
people and good government, then you have to look at a self-sustaining
business model, one that the locals could connect with. "People
act in their best interests, whether they're wealthy Americans
or poor Africans. Everyone wants a job, a better life for their
kids. So how do you connect jobs and education to preserving
wildlife and wilderness?"
Korchinsky leased and, in 1999,
ultimately bought 80,000 acres in Kenya, about 100 miles northwest
of Mombasa, off the highway to Nairobi. It's a stretch of land
that connects two national parks. Simultaneously he sat down
with the elders of the two tribal groups, some 35,000 in all,
who lived on the boundary of his land. He outlined his motive
-- a preserve -- and his plan, namely to build a factory, hence
provide jobs. "Jobs are great politics. Remember, animals
don't vote, but if you offer jobs, the local politicians support
you."
Korchinsky's quid pro quo was
that the elders agree to protect the land and the wildlife. The
elders saw the point. Poaching stopped, and Korchinsky's small
ranger force patrolling the preserve is unarmed, unique in Africa.
It's not a big factory, but the 56 jobs have a substantial multiplier
effect in terms of economic benefit in the area, and Korchinsky
has made available 5,000 acres, which locals can buy into, at
a dollar an acre.
The factory makes high end
T-shirts, which is the other end of Korchinsky's business plan.
"Marginal places are where we tolerate wildlife and marginal
people. Now we want to connect people here to these marginal
places." Korchinsky's T-shirts, under his Wildlife Works
logo, form the connection. "Brands in modern times have
become increasingly disconnected from place, but we want to make
people aware of where our T-shirts are made, to connect them
with the wildlife and the place."
Wildlife Works started selling
its T-shirts in 2001. "We wanted to say to the consumer,
the factory is working, the wildlife is coming back." And,
in fact, the moment poaching stopped, animals started moving
over the preserve from one park to another with an alacrity that
startled Korchinsky, who says it took only two years for the
eco-system, previously ravaged by hunting and charcoal burning,
to recover. The elephants came back first, these days, 500 of
them, then the lions, of which there are now five prides, and
beyond them, leopards, giraffes, wild dogs and, in all, 47 species
of large mammal, including four endangered species.
"The idea of a green consumer
is an oxymoron. Green people don't consume. It's hard to build
a business on people who love you and won't buy your product.
We're after an audience that's not engaged right now in environmental
issues." And how do you persuade the 20-year-old girl in
the mall to buy a Wildlife Works T-shirt? Wildlife Works tries
to have point-of-sale signage to tell the story, and has persuaded
celebrities like Charlize Theron and Paris Hilton to wear their
product. (http://www.wildlifeworks.com)
Korchinsky says that the plan
called for them to do somewhere between $2.5 and $5 million in
sales to support the sanctuary and that he's "encouraged".
Now he's trying to get some giant corporations, normally horrified
at the idea of reminding consumers where their factories are,
to recognize the potential of a positive link between their brand
and the place it was made.
"I'm not," he insists,
"a person who always thinks the business approach is always
the best answer to a problem. In health care or the arts, it's
not." Can his success be duplicated? That's hard to say.
Korchinsky is a smart man who had the empathy to persuade the
elders in the Taita and Duruma tribes that here was someone who
could look at conservation with their interests in mind, and
not just draw a line in the dirt, put an armed ranger behind
it and tell them to Keep Out. That's no way to sustain anything,
but it's sad how many people think it's the only solution.
Weekend Edition
Features for November
27 / 28, 2004
Peter
Linebaugh
Torture & Neo-Liberalism with
Sycorax in Iraq
Alexander
Cockburn
What Happened to O'Reilly's Loofa?
Fred
Gardner
Ashcroft v. Raich: Medical Marijuana and the Supreme Court
Kathy
Kelly
What We Can Control
Diane
Christian
The Other Cheek: "Empire Doesn't Analyze, It Acts"
Gary
Leupp
One More Neocon Target: South (Yes, South) Korea
Lenni
Brenner
Equality and Rights of Return: Jefferson Instructs the New York
Times
Ron
Jacobs
Death Squads and Iraq's Elections: the Mysterious Murders of
the AMS Clerics
Joshua
Frank
An Interview with Kevin Zeese on Nader, Kerry and the ABB Crowd
Toni
Solo
The Murder of Danilo Anderson
Saul
Landau
Fallujah, the 21st Century Guernica
JoAnn
Wypijewski
Matthew Shepard Case 6 Years Later: Why Hate Crimes Laws are
No Cure for Homophobia
Justin
Taylor
Empire's Lawless Opportunities
Amos
Harel
The Case of Captain R.
Walter
A. Davis
Tabloid Justice
Stephen
Hendricks
God's Kind of Men
Poets'
Basement
Albert, LaMorticella and Ford
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