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Today's
Stories
December 23, 2003
Uri Avnery
Sharon's
Speech: the Decoded Version
December 22, 2003
Jeffrey St. Clair
Pray
to Play: Bush's Faith-Based National Parks
Patrick Gavin
What Would Lincoln Do?
Marjorie Cohn
How to
Try Saddam: Searching for a Just Venue
Kathy Kelly
The
Two Troublemakers: "Guilty of Being Palestinians in Iraq"
December 20 / 21, 2003
Alexander Cockburn
How
to Kill Saddam
Saul Landau
Bush Tries Farce as Cuba Policy
Rafael Hernandez
Empire and Resistance: an Interview with Tariq Ali
David Vest
Our Ass and Saddam's Hole
Kurt Nimmo
Bush
Gets Serious About Killing Iraqis
Greg Weiher
Lessons from the Israeli School on How to Win Friends in the
Islamic World
Christopher Brauchli
Arrest, Smear, Slink Away: Dr. Lee and Cpt. Yee
Carol Norris
Cheers of a Clown: Saddam and the Gloating Bush
Bruce Jackson
The Nameless and the Detained: Bush's Disappeared
Juliana Fredman
A Sealed Laboratory of Repression
Mickey Z.
Holiday Spirit at the UN
Ron Jacobs
In the Wake of Rebellion: The Prisoner's Rights Movement and
Latino Prisoners
Josh Frank
Sen. Max Baucus: the Slick Swindler
John L. Hess
Slow Train to the Plane
Adam Engel
Black is Indeed Beautiful
Ben Tripp
The Relevance of Art in Times of Crisis
Michael Neumann
Rhythm and Race
Poets' Basement
Cullen, Engel, Albert & Guthrie
December 19, 2003
Elaine Cassel
Courts
Rebuke Bush for Trampling the Constitution
Robert Fisk
Raid
on Fantasyville: Shooting Samarra's Schoolboys in the Back
Zoltan Grossman
The
Occupation Has Failed to "Capture" the Loyalty of Iraqis
Mike Whitney
Bush's
Afghan Highway to Nowhere
Harold Gould
Has the Radical Arab Strategy Really Worked?
Gary Leupp
The
Neocon's Dream Memo
December 18, 2003
Ann Harrison
A
Landmark Victory for Medical Pot
John L. Hess
Catfish
Blues: The SOB's from Out of Town
Karyn Strickler
Ebola
is Good for You!
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Duryodhana
Dies
Harry Browne
Hail
Jim Hickey, the "Irish Hero" of the Colonial Occupation
of Iraq
Hammond Guthrie
Captured in Abasement
December 17, 2003
Robert Fisk
Saddam's
Cold Comforts
Gideon Levy
"Don't
Even Think About the Children"
Marjorie Cohn
The Fortuitous
Arrest of Saddam: a Pyrrhic Victory?
Andrew Cockburn
Saddam's
Last Act
December 16, 2003
Robert Fisk
Getting
Saddam...15 Years Too Late
Mahajan / Jensen
Saddam
in Irons: The Hard Truths Remain
John Halle
Matt
Gonzalez and Me
Josh Frank
The
Democrats and Saddam
Tariq Ali
Saddam
on Parade: the New Model of Imperialism
December 15, 2003
Robert Fisk
The Capture
of Saddam Won't Stop the Guerrilla War
Dave Lindorff
The
Saddam Dilemma
Abu Spinoza
Blowback on the Stand: The Trial of Saddam Hussein
Norman Solomon
For
Telling the Truth: the Strange Case of Katharine Gun
Patrick Cockburn
The
Capture of Saddam
Stew Albert
Joy to the World
December 13 / 14, 2003
Bill and Kathleen Christison
Chickenhearts
at Notre Dame: the Pervasive Fear of Talking About the Israeli
Connection
Stan Goff
Jessica Lynch, Plural
Tariq Ali
The Same Old Racket in Iraq
Jeffrey St. Clair
The Map is not the Territory
Marty Bender / Stan Cox
Dr. Atkins vs. the Planet
Christopher Brauchli
Mercury Rising: the EPA's Presents to Industry
Gary Leupp
On Marriage in "Recorded History", an Open Letter to
Gov. Mitt Romney
Sasan Fayazmanesh
The Saga of Iran's Alleged WMD
Larry Everest
Saddam, Oil and Empire: Supply v. Demand
William S. Lind
How to Fight a 4th Generation War
Fran Shor
From Vietnam to Iraq: Counterinsurgency and Insurgency
Ron Jacobs
Child Abuse as Public Policy
Omar Barghouti
Relative Humanity and a Just Peace in the Middle East
Adam Engel
Pretty Damn Evil: an Interview with Ed Herman
Kristin Van Tassel
Breastfeeding Compromised
Ben Tripp
On Getting Stabbed
Susan Davis
"The Secret Lives of Dentists", a Review
Dave Zirin
Does Dylan Still Matter? an Interview with Mike Marqusee
Norman Madarasz
Searching for the Barbarians
Poets' Basement
Guthrie and Albert
Website of the Weekend
Dean on Race
December 12, 2003
Josh Frank
Halliburton,
Timber and Dean
Chris Floyd
The
Inhuman Stain
Dave Lindorff
Infanticide
as Liberation: Hiding the Dead Babies
Benjamin Dangl
Another Two Worlds Are Possible?
Jean-Paul Barrois
Two States or One? an Interview with Sami Al-Deeb on the Geneva
Accords
David Vest
Bush
Drops the Mask: They Died for Halliburton
December 11, 2003
Siegfried Sassoon
A
Soldier's Declaration Against War
Douglas Valentine
Preemptive
Manhunting: the CIA's New Assassination Program
John Chuckman
The Parable of Samarra
Peter Phillips
US Hypocrisy on War Crimes: Corp Media Goes Along for the Ride
James M. Carter
The
Merchants of Blood: War Profiteering from Vietnam to Iraq
December 10, 2003
Kurt Nimmo
The
War According to Newt Gingrich
Pat Youngblood / Robert
Jensen
Workers
Rights are Human Rights
Jeff Guntzel
On Killing Children
CounterPunch Wire
Ashcroft Threatens to Subpoena Journalist's Notes in Stewart
Case
Dave Lindorff
Gore's
Judas Kiss
December 9, 2003
Michael Donnelly
A
Gentle Warrior Passes: Craig Beneville's Quiet Thunder
Chris White
A Glitch
in the Matrix: Where is East Timor Today?
Abu Spinoza
The Occupation Concertina: Pentagon Punishes Iraqis Israeli Style
Laura Carlsen
The FTAA: a Broken Consensus
Richard Trainor
Process and Profits: the California Bullet Train, Then and Now
Josh Frank
Politicians as Usual: Gore Dean and the Greens
Ron Jacobs
Remembering
John Lennon
December 8, 2003
Newton Garver
Bolivia
at a Crossroads
John Borowski
The
Fall of a Forest Defender: the Exemplary Life of Craig Beneville
William Blum
Anti-Empire
Report: Revised Inspirations for War
Tess Harper
When Christians Kill
Thom Rutledge
My Next Step
Carol Wolman, MD
Nuclear
Terror and Psychic Numbing
Michael Neumann
Ignatieff:
Apostle of He-manitariansim
Website of the Day
Bust Bob Novak
December 6 / 7, 2003
Alexander Cockburn
The
UN: Should Be Late; Never Was Great
CounterPunch Special
Toronto Globe and Mail Kills Review of "The Politics of
Anti-Semitism"
Vicente Navarro
Salvador Dali, Fascist
Saul Landau
"Reality
Media": Michael Jackson, Bush and Iraq
Ben Tripp
How Bush Can Still Win
Gary Leupp
On Purchasing Syrian Beer
Ron Jacobs
Are We Doing Body Counts, Now?
Larry Everest
Oil, Power and Empire
Lee Sustar
Defying the Police State in Miami
Jacob Levich
When NGOs Attack: Implications for the Coup in Georgia
Toni Solo
Game Playing by Free Trade Rules: the Results from Indonesia
and Dominican Republic
Mark Scaramella
How to Fix the World Bank
Bruce Anderson
The San Francisco Mayor's Race
Brian Cloughley
Shredding the Owner's Manual: the Hollow Charter of the UN
Adam Engel
A Conversation with Tim Wise
Neve Gordon
Fuad and Ezra: an Update on Gays Under the Occupation
Kurt Nimmo
Bush Gives "Freedom" Medal to Robert Bartley
Tom Stephens
Justice Takes a Holiday
Susan Davis
Avast, Me Hearties! a Review of Disney's "Pirates of the
Caribbean"
Jeffrey St. Clair
A
Natural Eye: the Photography of Brett Weston
Mickey Z.
Press Box Red
Poets' Basement
Greeder, Orloski, Albert
T-shirt of the Weekend
Got Santorum?
December 5, 2003
Jeremy Scahill
Bremer
of the Tigris
Jeremy Brecher
Amistad
Revisited at Guantanamo?
Norman Solomon
Dean
and the Corp Media Machine
Norman Madarasz
France
Starts Facing Up to Anti-Muslim Discrimination
Pablo Mukherjee
Afghanistan:
the Road Back
December 4, 2003
M. Junaid Alam
Image
and Reality: an Interview with Norman Finkelstein
Adam Engel
Republican
Chris Floyd
Naked Gun: Sex, Blood and the FBI
Adam Federman
The US Footprint in Central Asia
Gary Leupp
The
Fall of Shevardnadze
Guthrie / Albert
RIP Clark Kerr
December 3, 2003
Stan Goff
Feeling
More Secure Yet?: Bush, Security, Energy & Money
Joanne Mariner
Profit Margins and Mortality Rates
George Bisharat
Who Caused the Palestinian Diaspora?
Mickey Z.
Tear Down That Wal-Mart
John Stanton
Bush Post-2004: a Nightmare Scenario
Harry Browne
Shannon
Warport: "No More Business as Usual"
December 2, 2003
Matt Vidal
Denial
and Deception: Before and Beyond Iraqi Freedom
Benjamin Dangl
An Interview with Evo Morales on the Colonization of the Americas
Sam Bahour
Can It Ever Really End?
Norman Solomon
That
Pew Poll on "Trade" Doesn't Pass the Sniff Test
Josh Frank
Trade
War Fears
Andrew Cockburn
Tired,
Terrified, Trigger-Happy
December 1, 2003
Fawzia Afzal-Khan
Unholy
Alliances: Zionism, US Imperialism and Islamic Fundamentalism
Dave Lindorff
Bush's
Baghdad Pitstop: Memories of LBJ in Vietnam
Harry Browne
Democracy Delayed in Northern Ireland
Wayne Madsen
Wagging the Media
Herman Benson
The New Unity Partnership for Labor: Bureaucratizing to Organize?
Gilad Atzmon
About
"World Peace"
Bill Christison
US
Foreign Policy and Intelligence: Monstrous Messes
November 29 / 30, 2003
Peter Linebaugh
On
the Anniversary of the Death of Wolfe Tone
Gary Leupp
Politicizing War on Fox News: a Tale of Two Memos
Saul Landau
Lying and Cheating:
Bush's New Political Math
Michael Adler
Inside a Miami Jail: One Activist's Narrative
Anthony Arnove
"They Put the Lie to Their Own Propaganda": an Interview
with John Pilger
Greg Weiher
Why Bush Needs Osama and Saddam
Stephen Banko, III
A Soldier's Dream
Forrest Hylton
Empire and Revolution in Bolivia
Toni Solo
The "Free Trade" History Eraser
Ben Terrall
Don't Think Twice: Bush Does Bali
Standard Schaefer
Unions
are the Answer to Supermarkets Woes
Richard Trainor
The Political Economy of Earthquakes: a Journey Across the Bay
Bridge
Mark Gaffney
US Congress Does Israel's Bidding, Again
Adam Engel
The System Really Works
Dave Lindorff
They, the Jury: How the System Rigs the Jury Pool
Susan Davis
Framing the Friedmans
Neve Gordon
Arundhati Roy's Complaint for Peace
Mitchel Cohen
Thomas Jefferson and Slavery
Ben Tripp
Capture Me, Daddy
Poets' Basement
Kearney, Albert, Guthrie and Smith
November 28, 2003
William S. Lind
Worse Than Crimes
David Vest
Turkey
Potemkin
Robert Jensen / Sam Husseini
New Bush Tape Raises Fears of Attacks
Wayne Madsen
Wag
the Turkey
Harold Gould
Suicide as WMD? Emile Durkheim Revisited
Gabriel Kolko
Vietnam
and Iraq: Has the US Learned Anything?
South Asia Tribune
The Story
of the Most Important Pakistan Army General in His Own Words
Website of the Day
Bush Draft
November 27, 2003
Mitchel Cohen
Why
I Hate Thanksgiving
Jack Wilson
An
Account of One Soldier's War
Stefan Wray
In the Shadows of the School of the Americas
Al Krebs
Food as Corporate WMD
Jim Scharplaz
Going Up Against Big Food: Weeding Out the Small Farmer
Neve Gordon
Gays
Under Occupation: Help Save the Life of Fuad Moussa
November 26, 2003
Paul de Rooij
Amnesty
International: the Case of a Rape Foretold
Bruce Jackson
Media
and War: Bringing It All Back Home
Stew Albert
Perle's
Confession: That's Entertainment
Alexander Cockburn
Miami and London: Cops in Two Cities
David Orr
Miami Heat
Tom Crumpacker
Anarchists
on the Beach
Mokhiber / Weissman
Militarization in Miami
Derek Seidman
Naming the System: an Interview with Michael Yates
Kathy Kelly
Hogtied
and Abused at Ft. Benning
Website of the Day
Iraq Procurement
November 25, 2003
Linda S. Heard
We,
the Besieged: Western Powers Redefine Democracy
Diane Christian
Hocus
Pocus in the White House: Of Warriors and Liberators
Mark Engler
Miami's
Trade Troubles
David Lindorff
Ashcroft's
Cointelpro
Website of the Day
Young McCarthyites of Texas
November 24, 2003
Jeremy Scahill
The
Miami Model
Elaine Cassel
Gulag
Americana: You Can't Come Home Again
Ron Jacobs
Iraq
Now: Oh Good, Then the War's Over?
Alexander Cockburn
Rupert Murdoch: Global Tyrant
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
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|
December
23, 2003
Here They Come Again
Another
Big Green Election Year Raid
By MICHAEL DONNELLY
History lesson time -- again.
Anyone wondering how the hapless Big
Greens would respond to their latest defeat, the passage of the
Wyden/Feinstein Stealthy Timber Act (HFI), need look no further
than the foundation-sponsored agenda of the Headwaters 13th Annual
Forest Conference, set for this coming January 29th in Ashland,
Oregon.
With no current legislation slated (read:
DC-based fundraising opportunities), the Big Greens have once
again decided to mine the grassroots for issues they can take
over and grab the money. Also as important to the Big Greens
is delivering the grassroots vote to the Democratic Party.
FOREST ADVOCATE
Both these entrenched goals nicely fall
under the rubric of this year's conference -- titled, "Mobilizing
the Grassroots in 2004." It's there, as well, in the impossibly
inane choice of Les AuCoin featured in not one, but two two-and-a-half
hour "State of the Movement" plenary sessions. AuCoin
is titled, "Former Congressman and forest advocate"
in the conference agenda. Of course, as a Congressman, the only
forest advocating he did was for the forest to be horizontal.
Les AuCoin, famously described by Andy
Kerr as "always having a smile that never reached his eyes"
is one of the main Architects of Extinction, pure and simple.
Between 1984 and 1989, environmental laws were either limited
or eliminated for national forests in the Pacific Northwest nine
different times. AuCoin joined with the Republicans and voted
for every one of these assaults!
It was at AuCoin's behest that his staff
helped write the infamous Section 318 of the FY 1990 Appropriations
Act for the Department of Interior and Related Agencies, the
"Rider from Hell." This one act led to the sale of
over 9.6 billion board feet of timber in one year--130,000 acres
of clearcut Ancient Forest--with all the relevant environmental
laws suspended. The Rider from Hell suspended NFMA, NEPA, FLPMA,
but it expressly said that the Endangered Species Act (ESA) still
applied to those sales. That was only way they could get around
Rep. Gerry Studds (D-MA) who had jurisdiction over the ESA --
not that it mattered -- the chainsaws roared.
Though Section 318 was AuCoin's crowning
achievement in years of pimping for Big Timber, it was just a
fraction of what he did for the industry. AuCoin did all he could
to abet public Ancient Forest logging levels which were at their
all-time highest (up to 5 billion board feet per year) during
his 18 years in the House -- until 1992, when he barely beat
true conservationist Harry Lonsdale in the primary fight to choose
who would run against incumbent Senator Bob Packwood.
Upon launching his failed run for the
Senate, AuCoin came to real forest advocates and announced that
he "had found religion." He told me personally that,
"I was wrong. You guys were right." Gulled by this
lie, I even agreed to squire him around my downtown Salem one
night during the campaign, introducing him to dozens of environmental
and peace activists. During the campaign, Les AuCoin also pledged
that he would never work for the timber industry again. Yet,
within six months of his defeat, he took a job as a high-priced
Big Timber lobbyist. Upon leaving Congress, AuCoin took the job
of lobbyist/PR hack for a timber baron, Aaron Jones, who financed
not one, but TWO failed Recall efforts against courageousA Democrat
Governor Barbara Roberts. Seems sheA had the gall to tell the
truth about protecting spotted owls and old growth ecosystems.
Les AuCoin's never apologized for 318 or his other many votes
to suspend the laws to favor clearcutting our public Ancient
Forests, for lying about the Timber Lobbying positions or any
other of his timber toadying activities.
Forest advocate, indeed!
SHOW ME THE MONEY
As if reinventing Les AuCoin wasn't enough
for the foundation-dependent "greens," the conference
also features workshops on "Foundation Priorities in 2004"
led by the astoundingly arrogant and inept Bullitt Foundation,
part of the Seattle foundation Mafia that have been calling the
losing shots for some time now--ever since the infamous 1989
cocktail party in Portland when the foundations led by Donald
Ross of Rockefeller and Deb Callahan of the W. Alton Jones Foundation
came in and took over the Ancient Forest movement after grassroots
activists had elevated it to a national concern.
The line is direct from that takeover
to Section 318, to the 1993
Deal of Shame release of sales from Injunction by these foundations'
grant recipients, to resultant Big and Little Green approval
of the Clinton Option 9 liquidation plan in exchange for six-figure
"monitoring" grants, to last year's waste of some $10
million to fight the "Healthy Forest" Initiative that
morphed at the last minute into the Wyden/Feinstien Stealthy
Timber Act and passed with but 14 dissenting votes and only one
nay, Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI), on the crucial vote authorizing the
pseudo-Democrat Wyden's substitute bill.
Alexander Cockburn, in the 1996 book,
Washington Babylon, described the role of major foundations and
corporate philanthropy as "engulf-and-neuter" tactics
(the awarding of grants, ostensibly for grassroots issues, but
designed to co-opt those advocating such issues into positions
that ultimately sustain their opposite). This "engulf and
neuter" methodology was once described by activist Sam Hitt
as a "Death Star" for grassroots environmentalism.
So, skip the workshop session; this is still the definition of
"Foundation Priorities in 2004." Instead, jump ahead
to the other foundation workshop, titled, "Foundations:
Up Close & Personal--How to Work with Foundations to Fund
Your Forest Protection Efforts."
How well has this "close & personal"
stuff worked in the past? Well, Ashland, Oregon-based Headwaters,
the main sponsor of the event, has received millions of grant
dollars for its efforts. Yet, in 2001, their former executive
director Richard Lee Gwynallen pleaded guilty to a charge of
aggravated theft, admitting that he and his two wives, Marajai
and Allysen, stole $159,345 in grants to the organization over
an 18 month period in 1999--2000.
This little episode is enlightening for
a few reasons, primary among them--how could the funds not be
missed? How about the efforts the grants purported to support?
Well, it just proves that the foundations are buying inaction,
not protection. As long as Headwaters was receiving the grants
and doing nothing to upset the status quo, nobody noticed! Other,
far more worthy groups, who actually have caused heartburn in
the timber industry, never get the grants in the first place.
It has to be noted that the most recent
hotbed of timber extraction has been the very area Headwaters
was created to defend, Southern Oregon's Siskiyou region. This
year alone, the USFS is planning to sell off for "salvage"
logging up to 60,000 acres of the Biscuit Fire area. Given that
Headwaters earlier Clinton dealmaking sentenced the area grassroots'
precious Sugarloaf Mountain Ancient Forest to the saws, does
anyone really think that Headwaters is the group to defend against
this renewed assault?
FYI--Gwynallen? After his plea bargain
and slap-on-the-wrist probation, he was last seen working for
another nonprofit -- the National Federation for the Blind in
Baltimore. His Headwaters grant expertise cinched his hiring.
THE BOTTOM LINE
The message is clear: support the "Foundation
Priorities" -- i.e. "organize the grassroots"
to support the Democratic Party |or don't bother to apply. "Getting
Rid of Bush" is the unstated (but not for long) real theme
of the conference--a blind man on a galloping horse could easily
see that.
And, how will this organizing the grassroots
come about? Another workshop is titled, "Uniting the Tribe:
Revitalizing the Grassroots Movement for the Northwest's Ancient
Forests." For starters, one should ask how the movement
lost its vitality in the first place, as none of the six panelists
was around when the movement had much vigor and actually gained
protections for some areas and an Injunction against ALL Ancient
Forest logging. In fact, a couple of them come from one of the
worst foundation-dependent "engulf-and-neuter" groups
of them all. And, doesn't anyone wonder just where the folks
who have been at this for many years are -- someone who has actually
gained permanent protection for their favorite Ancient Forest?
After years of trying to get the DC Big
Greens to take on the issue of liquidation of old growth forests
and being told, "We'd like to help, but it's a regional
issue not a national one," activists set out to nationalize
it. Once James Montieth coined the term "Ancient Forests,"
hundreds of activists blockaded timber sales and Restraining
Orders and Injunctions were won, the Big Greens arrived in force.
The aforementioned Mau Mau-chic cocktail party was the watershed
event.
It was a quick hop from there to the
Deal of Shame and Clinton's Option 9 and Salvage Rider. Once
Clinton and the Big Greens colluded to get old growth again headed
down the road to the mills and export docks, the vitality of
the always-shaky larger coalition was sapped. Folks have been
fruitlessly trying to get that soufflA(C) to rise again for a
decade now.
Another panel titled, "Environmental
Outreach--What's Working & What Isn't?" -- is also on
the agenda. Again, save yourself the time you'd waste at this
one. What isn't working is obvious: constant whoring for grants
from hubris-ridden foundations that insist on failing campaigns,
thus destroying any possible esprit de corps in the process.
How many points on the data line does it take to get this? After
all, it was a foundation-dependent group (one of the Conference
cosponsors, Klamath Forest Alliance) that first brought up logging
for "Forest Health," not the timber industry which
then used that opening to drive log trucks through the laws --
the futile stopping of which was last year's stated Big Green
and Foundation Priority.
THE USUAL SUSPECTS
This year, the Big Greens and the foundations
have launched all of this "Revitalizing" posturing
under a front group called the United Forest Defense Campaign
(UFDC), really the grant-sucking creation of the Wilderness Society's
longtime grassroots neuterer, Mike Francis. Francis and acolyte
Mat Jacobsen will undoubtedly funnel a tiny fraction of moneys
raised to compliant grassroots groups through what they call
"mini-grants" of less than $3000 -- a practice akin
to the "walking around" money the Democratic National
Committee (DNC) funnels to black pastors in their attempts to
con African-American voters.
The UFDC defines itself as "A consortium
of national environmental organizations, operating as the Unified
Forest Defense Campaign, whose members include American Lands,
The Wilderness Society, Natural Resource Defense Council, Defenders
of Wildlife, National Environmental Trust, EarthJustice, US PIRG,
Trout Unlimited, the Alaska Rainforest Coalition, and the Sierra
Club are interested in determining how they can best work together
with grassroots forest defense organizations to achieve these
goals."
The short answer? Dissolve and never
darken the grassroots' door with your Enron-worthy scams again.
Let me say it again: Lining up your group's
goals to match foundation priorities in order to get mini-grants
DOES NOT WORK for protection of forests. It NEVER HAS.
A DOSE OF IRONY
Perhaps the greatest irony is that the
forests have fared far better under Bush than they did under
his Democrat predecessor. Under Clinton's Option 9 Extinction
Plan, some 1.1 billion board feet of Ancient Forest stumps were
authorized annually. Much to industry's chagrin, under Bush,
around 200 million per year has been cut. Already, that means
that 2.7 billion board feet LESS has been cut under Bush than
would have been under a Gore administration with the Big Greens'
usual silence regarding Democrat stump-creation. (At least with
a Republican in the White House, the Big Greens will mount some
defense!)
Let's put that in further perspective:
once Bush is elected this time around and if his logging success
rate stays the same, then in eight years Bush's total cut of
Ancient Forests will be 1.6 billion board feet, exactly what
was cut in just one year under Clinton's 1995 "Salvage Rider."
CONFERENCE HISTORY
It was at the same Headwaters Conference
in 1993 that the foundations and Big Greens unveiled their flack,
Bob Chlopak, as their choice to run the Ancient Forest Campaign.
This Democratic Party factotum then proceeded to choose "our"
representatives to the upcoming Clinton Forest Conference (read:
Timber Summit). "Our" undemocratically selected representatives
sat silently then, and later, while Clinton and Big Timber presented
the blueprint for his eventual Option 9 Extinction Plan, their
silence bought by those "monitoring" grants.
It was the next year, 1994, when Mark
Ottenad of the successful grassroots group, Friends of Opal Creek,
polled the assembled crowd at the Headwaters Conference. He first
asked, "How many people here think it's time for Zero Cut--an
end to all commercial logging on public lands?" About half
the hands present shot up. He then asked, "How many, for
whatever reason, oppose such an effort?" Again, half the
hands were raised.
A murmur went through the crowd when
it became apparent that the second set of hands were all foundation-dependent
paid staffers of one group or another, fearful of losing their
grants if they embraced Zero Cut. The first set of hands belonged
to the front-line, unpaid/underpaid activists who were doing
all the real grassroots defense efforts the Big Greens were claiming
in their grant applications. Same as it ever was. The Truth has
been out there for a decade!
And, now the grants are drying up. The
Big Greens have failed to get positive protection legislation
passed -- the Sierra Club even undermined the grassroots National
Forest Protection Act and, thus, its own stated "End Commercial
Logging" policy. And this year, with nary a "bad"
industry-sponsored forest destruction bill (Wyden/Feinstein handsomely
takes care of that for now, thank you) to send out the shrill
fundraising letters over, the Big Greens have chosen, once again,
to mine the "organizing the grassroots" shaft. A The
added benefit of this raid is the mailing lists of forest defenders
which will quickly arrive on the desks of the DNC's Dean/Clark
presidential campaign.
In order for the forests and their defenders
to avoid the shaft themselves, the true grassroots must rise
up and sever the abused spouse-like connections with the defeated
DC Green/Foundation/Democrat cartel and move on--poorer maybe,
but stronger with integrity.
Send the failed green establishment a
message. Refuse to participate in any more diversionary political
and economic games. Take the case directly to the public. Fundraise
one advocate at a time. It's now or never for the forests.
And, send Les AuCoin, phony smile and
all, packing -- back to his timber industry masters.
MICHAEL DONNELLY
was instrumental in the successful 20-year-plus effort to gain
Wilderness status for the spectacular Opal Creek Ancient Forest,
an effort Rep. Les AuCoin consistently refused to embrace. He
can be reached at: pahtoo@aol.com
Weekend
Edition Features for Dec. 20 / 21, 2003
Alexander Cockburn
How
to Kill Saddam
Saul Landau
Bush Tries Farce as Cuba Policy
Rafael Hernandez
Empire and Resistance: an Interview with Tariq Ali
David Vest
Our Ass and Saddam's Hole
Kurt Nimmo
Bush
Gets Serious About Killing Iraqis
Greg Weiher
Lessons from the Israeli School on How to Win Friends in the
Islamic World
Christopher Brauchli
Arrest, Smear, Slink Away: Dr. Lee and Cpt. Yee
Carol Norris
Cheers of a Clown: Saddam and the Gloating Bush
Bruce Jackson
The Nameless and the Detained: Bush's Disappeared
Juliana Fredman
A Sealed Laboratory of Repression
Mickey Z.
Holiday Spirit at the UN
Ron Jacobs
In the Wake of Rebellion: The Prisoner's Rights Movement and
Latino Prisoners
Josh Frank
Sen. Max Baucus: the Slick Swindler
John L. Hess
Slow Train to the Plane
Adam Engel
Black is Indeed Beautiful
Ben Tripp
The Relevance of Art in Times of Crisis
Michael Neumann
Rhythm and Race
Poets' Basement
Cullen, Engel, Albert & Guthrie
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