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Today's
Stories
January 2,
2008
Jeff Taylor
The
Left and Ron Paul
January 1,
2008
Iain A. Boal
City
of Disappearances
B. R. Gowani
Benazir's Death in Crisistan
Shahid Mahmood
Bhutto and the Press
Linn Washington,
Jr.
Old Injustices Endure: From Crack Sentences to Racial Profiling
Harvey Wasserman
Taking Leonard Peltier to Iowa: the Moral Low Point of the Clinton
Era
John Ross
2008, Already a Year to Forget
Website of the Day
The Thrill is Gone: BB and Gladys
December 31,
2007
Alexander Cockburn
Goodbye
2007 and Good Riddance!
Tariq Ali
Pakistan, the Aftermath
Liaquat Ali Khan
The Perfidy of Pakistan's Rulers
Wajahat Ali
After Bhutto, a Nuclear Pakistan?
Robert Fisk
Who Killed Bhutto?
Ajai Sahni
Myths and Realities About Benazir Bhutto and Pakistan's Dark
Future
Marwan Bishara
You Say Talk, I Say Attack: The Middle East and the US Presidential
Election Campaigns
Uri Avnery
The Beilin Syndrome
Mark T. Harris
Does This Happen in Canada?
Brenda Norrell
Resistance and Censorship
Website of the Day
A People United Will Never Be Defeated
December 29
/ 30, 2007
Alexander Cockburn
Options
in America: Kill Yourself or Have a Baby
Tariq Ali
Indignation and Fear Stalk Pakistan
Fawzia Afzal-Khan
My Encounter with Benazir Bhutto
Gary Leupp
The U.S. and Pakistan After 9/11: Blowback from an Unholy Alliance
China Hand
Pakistan Stares Into the Abyss
Jacob Hornberger
Stop Medddling in Pakistan
John Chuckman
Pakistan and the Failure of Quick-Fix Politics
Missy Beattie
Evaluating Bush with the Bhutto Corruption Standard
Ralph Nader
Who Will Take the Next Step?
Fidel Castro
There Hasn't Been a Day in My Life When I Haven't Learned Something
Robert Fantina
The Sham of Homeland Security
Greg Moses
Beauty from the Heart of Texas
Catherine Lutz
What We Can Not See: Art and Bombing
Kristin Van
Tassel
Seeing in the Dark
Kim Nicolini
Redacted: Brian DePalma's Scream of Outrage
Phyllis Pollack
Keith Richards Runs With Rudolph Once More
Poets' Basement
Landau, Gibbons and Davies
Website of
the Weekend
Driving Karachi in Search of the Perfect Naan
December 28,
2007
Farzana Versey
The
Complex Electra
Wajahat Ali
A
Pakistani Requiem
Binoy Kampmark
Death in Rawalpindi: Bhutto and Her Legacy
Ayesha Ijaz
Khan
Not Dead Yet: The Pakistan People's Party Still Survives
Anthony DiMaggio
Turkey's Bombing of Iraq
Ray McGovern
Creeping
Fascism
Jim Goodman
Biofuels, the Biggest Scam Going
Ron Jacobs
Transcending the Colonizer's History: Iran, a People Interrupted
Russell Hoffman
Mini-Nukes by Toshiba
John Murphy
Greens Gone Wild
Website of the Day
Guiliani Campaign Official: "Only Rudy Can Defeat the Muslims"
December 27,
2007
Dilip Hiro
A
Tragedy Foretold: Will Bhutto's Death be a Boost for Her Party?
Murtaza Shibli
Who Killed Bhutto?
Stephen Soldz
Fallujah,
the Information War and U.S. Propaganda
Bill Quigley
Locked
Outside the Gates
Paul Craig Roberts
The Great American Lock-Up
Omer Subhani
Killing Bhutto: What Happens Next in Pakistan?
Marjorie Cohn
The Torture Tape Cover-Up: How High Does It Go?
Allan Nairn
Cataclysm By Money Whim
Jacob G. Hornberger
Smearing Ron Paul: Shame on the NYT
Norman Solomon
Channeling Suze Orman
Patrick Irelan
Rumsfeld Spills the Ink
Ben Tripp
Pass the Razor Blades
Website of the Day
Quagmire, For What It's Worth
December 26, 2007
Charles Tripp
From
One Saddam to Fifty
Paul Armentano
No-Knock, You're Dead
Rannie Amiri
Lebanon in Search of a Government
Stanley Heller
Brzezinski and Charlie Wilson's War
John Walsh
Two Unreasonable Men
Martha Rosenberg
The Strange Career of Scott Gottlieb
Norman Madarasz
Bolivia Amends New Constitution and Faces Mutiny from Within
Website of
the Day
Cockburn at the Battle of Ideas
December 25,
2007
Patrick Cockburn
Conscience
and Empire
December 24,
2007
Andrea Peacock
A
Dark Ride on the Border
Tariq Ali
Thinking of Edward Said
Uri Avnery
Help! A Ceasefire!
Jill Jameson
Burma is Not Back to Normal: A Trip from Rangoon to Mae Sot
Steve Melendez
Russell Means Goes to Washington
Mike Whitney
The Big Fix
Chuck Munson
Not Getting It About New Orleans
John Walsh
Clueless Crusaders
Farzana Versey
Tony Blair and the Hawking of Religion
Richard Neville
Dreaming of a White House Christmas
Website of the Day
Back in the USSR
December 22 / 23, 2007
Alexander Cockburn
Mike
Huckabee's Ascending Chariot
Ralph Nader
Politics
and Profits: How the Oil Cartel Gets Its Way
Andy Worthington
Intelligence Failures, Battlefield Myths and Unaccountable Prisons
in Afghanistan
Ahmad Faruqui
The Comedian of Pakistan
Bill Moyers
Society on Steroids
Rev. William
E. Alberts
Blessed are the Peacemakers
Timothy J. Freeman
From Kant to Lennon: Can War Really be Over?
Anthony DiMaggio
Democrats Continue to Capitulate on Iraq
Fred Gardner
Molecule of the Year, Cannabiodiol
Paul Krassner
Enhanced Hazing Techniques
Seth Sandronsky
17 Years of Meanness: Repealing California's Three Strikes Law
William Loren
Katz
Christmas Eve Freedom Fighters: Recalling the Battle of Lake
Okeechobee
Michael Dickinson
In the Dungeon of the Zabita
Ron Jacobs
Why Leon Russell Still Matters
David Vest
Doyle Bramhall's "Is It News?"
Poets' Basement
Orloski, Davies and Ford
Website of the Weekend
George W. Hates Santa
December 21,
2007
John Ross
New Massacres Loom in Mexico
Jacob Hornberger
Nothing Can Morally Justify the Invasion of Iraq
Dick J. Reavis
A
Way Out of the Newspaper Abyss
Jeff Cohen
and Norman Solomon
The 2007 P.U.-litzer Prizes
Peter Morici
Business as Usual as Recession Looms
Jack McCarthy
Let Us Now Praise Judith Regan (Even If She Did Sleep with Bernie
Kerik)
Raúl Zibechi
Sex and Revolution
Steve Early
How the Presidential Candidates Made Me an Atheist
David Macaray
Union Aftermath
Patrick Bond
Zuma, the Center-Left and the Left-Left in S. Africa
Lakota Freedom Delegation
A Declaration of Independence from the USA
Website of
the Day
Solomon v. Beck: Tale of the Tape
December 20,
2007
David Rosen
Mitt
Romney's Secret Life as a Pornographer
Alan Farago
The
Huckster and the Wreckage: Jeb Bush and the Subprime Mortgage
Crisis
Laura Carlsen
Standing Up to NAFTA
Ashley Dawson
The Return of the Bread Riot
Wayne Smith
and Jennifer Schuett
Cuba Changes, US Policy Stagnates
Website of
the Day
How to Talk to a FoxNews Reporter
December 19,
2007
Saul Landau
Is
the NIE Bush's Watergate?
Paul W. Lovinger
Hillary the Hawk
Norman Solomon
The Mad Corporate World of Glenn Beck
Dave Zirin
George Mitchell's Drugs of Choice
Marjorie Cohn
Bush Still Spinning Iranian Nukes
Sen. Russell
Feingold
The Iraq War is Exhausting Our Nation
Sonja Karkar
A Christmas Reflection on Palestine
Anthony Papa
Open the Drug Gulags
Christopher Ketcham
Pave the Holy Lands with Good Intentions
Davey D
Britney's Little Sister is Pregnant: Should We Blame Hip Hop?
Website of
the Day
When Republicans Use the F-Word on TV
December 18,
2007
R. F. Blader
The
Politics of Teen Pregnancy
George Wuerthner
Gunning for Wolves in Idaho
Steven Higgs
Can the NAFTA Superhighway be Stopped?
Vijay Prashad
Encounters with Ghadar
David Macaray
The Free Rider Problem
Ralph Nader
Nine Books That Make a Difference: a Reading List for the Holidays
Eva Liddell
Privatizing War Abroad, Invading Privacy at Home
Martha Rosenberg
While the Bodies are Still Warm: Drugs, Shrinks and Shooters
Dave Lindorff
When Impeachment is Out of Print
Peter Morici
The Consequences the Trade Deficit
Website of
the Day
Ron Paul: How Fascism Will Come to America
December 17,
2007
Mike Whitney
Staring
Into the Abyss
Tom Barry
Planning
the War on Immigrants
Uri Avnery
A
Gaza Masada?
Greg Moses
Crossing the Line in Texas
Allan Nairn
Terrorism; Counter-
Terrorism: Excuses for Murder
Patrick Bond
South Africa's Fight Between Hostile Brothers
Stephen Lendman
Police State America
Charles Jonkel
Grizzly Right of Way
Laray Polk
An Inside-Out Crisis in Gaza
Stephen Fleischman
Pawns in Their Game
December 15
/ 16, 2007
Peter Linebaugh
A
People's Penny for the Magna Carta
Howard Zinn
Bomb After Bomb
Standard Schaefer
The Greening of Big Tobacco
Raymond J.
Lawrence
Let's Take Christ Out of Christmas
Alan Farago
Down on Desolation Row: the Vultures and the Growth Machine
Saul Landau
Lord Byron and the Bad Tourists
Jenna Orkin
Lying to "Reassure" the Public: Bush's EPA and the
Post-9/11 Toxic Air Cover-Up
Ahmad Samih
Khalidi
Why a Palestinian "State" is a Punitive Construct
Robert Fantina
Politics By Photo-Op
Missy Comley
Beattie
Resistance Amid the Ruins
Ramzy Baroud
Of Mormons and Muslims
James L. Secor
A Vision for China's Future
Elijah Wald
Ike Turner's Music Won't be Forgotten
Website of
the Weekend
The Alliance for the Wild Rockies Needs (and Deserves) Your Support
December 14,
2007
JoAnn Wypijewski
The
Dirty Cad: What Giuliani's Sex Life Tells Us About Him
John Ross
Iraqi
Refugees Return: One Cruel Hoax
Jacob Hornberger
Terror Suspects Belong in Federal Court
Andy Worthington
Guantánamo and the Supreme Court: What Happened?
Allan Nairn
"Shoot Them on the Spot": Rewarding War Crimes
Dave Zirin
The Mitchell Report: Absolving the Owners
Dave Lindorff
The First Cut is the Deepest
Misty MacDuffee
Toxic Grizzlies
Ben Terrall
What Happened to Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine?
Dr. Mustafa
Barghouthi
Prerequisites for Peace
Website of the Day
Sen. Kit Bond: "Waterboarding is Like Swimming"
December 13,
2007
Paul Craig
Roberts
Shrinking
the Dollar from the Inside-Out
Mike Whitney
Dershowitz for the Defense--of Waterboarding
Ron Jacobs
Blank Check DemocratsL the Great War Funding Conspiracy
Norman Solomon
The USA's Human Rights Daze
Peter Morici
The Dragon and the Toothless Dog: China Doesn't Flinch
Sandy Mayes
Blocking the Strykers: 13 Days of War Resistance at Port Olympia
Franklin Lamb
The UN in Lebanon: Whose Mission Is It Fulfilling?
Jacob Hornberger
Don't Reform the CIA, Abolish It
Nadim Rouhana
An Interloper in My Own Land
Dave Zirin
On Pigskin and Petrol
Website of the Day
Rachel's Needs (and Deserves) Your Support!
December 12, 2007
Allan
Nairn
US Intelligence is Tapping Indonesian
Phones
Alan
Farago
How Sprawl Eats Its Young
Ray
McGovern
Torture, Lies and Videotape
Winslow
T. Wheeler
The Phony Pentagon Budget Cuts
Evan
Jones
The Raid on Great Western: Why an Australian Bank Might Spell
Doom for the US Farm Belt
James
Petras
An Open Letter to Sarkozy on the Exchange of Political Prisonsers
Joel
Hirschorn
The Horserace Fiction: Clinton, Obama and the Democratic Machine
Joshua
Frank
Why Ron Paul Deserves Our Attention
Sherry
Wolf
Why the Left Should Reject Ron Paul
Dan
Bacher
Survey of a Fish Graveyard
Website
of the Day
Men Eating Bugs
December
11, 2007
Patrick
Cockburn
What's Really Happened During
the Surge?
Diana
Johnstone
The Next Kosovo War
Paul
Craig Roberts
It's Waco All Over Again: Preventive Detention and the Constitution
David
Macaray
Impasse in Hollywood
Ralph
Nader
Gail Collins Versus the Underdogs
Andy
Worthington
Guantánamo Britons to be Released: a Mixed Result
Martha
Rosenberg
No Holiday for High Risk Sex Workers
Steve
Champion /
Anthony Ross
Words for Our Brother, Tookie Williams
Kim
Nicolini
Tangled Up in Dylan
Michael
Dickinson
Say Goodbye to Purgatory: Pope Rat Gets Indulgent
Website
of the Day
A Charming (and Worthy)
Pitch
December 10, 2007
Uri
Avnery
How They Stole the Bomb From Us
Debbie
Nathan
The Perils of Journalism and Child
Porn
JoAnn
Wypijewski
Is There a Left Here Left?
If So, What Can It Do?
Steve
Kelly
Cheap Chips, Counterfeit Wilderness
Donna
J. Volatile
Welcome to the Revolution
December
8 / 9, 2007
Alexander
Cockburn
The Coup Against Bush and Cheney
Brenda
Norrell
Seize the Land, Chain the Peace Activists
Saul
Landau
The Ruins of Empire
R.
F. Blader
A Rape in Every Drink?
Ray
McGovern
Spinning Iran's Centrifuges
Allan
Nairn
Imposed Hunger in Gaza, the Army in
Indonesia
Linn
Washington, Jr
Spotlight on Death Row
Paul
Craig Roberts
When Will Bush Come Clean?
December
7, 2007
Sean
Penn
Piano Wire Puppeteers
Arthur
Versluis
Mining Water in the Desert
M.
G. Piety
Racism and the American Psyche: Some
Thoughts on Race and Intelligence
Pam
Martens
Banksters Gone Wild
Alan
Farago
Will the Free Market Kill Suburbia?
Sprawl and the Credit Crisis
Allan
Nairn
It Takes (Out) a Village
Col.
Dan Smith
Bush, Iran and the Politics of Doomsday
Alice
Slater
The Iran Opening
Robert
Weissman
The Story of Stuff
Website
of the Day
Something
About Mitt
December
5, 2007
Mike
Whitney
Why the CFR Hates Putin
Sharon
Smith
The Anti-War Enablers: Tom Hayden
and the Dead End Democrats
James
Petras
Venezuela in the Aftermath
Ron
Jacobs
The Iran Charade
Dave
Zirin
Kicking a Dead Man: the Sliming of Sean Taylor
John
V. Whitbeck
Two States or One? Time to Choose
Peter
Zinn
Covered in New Orleans
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
Impeach Pelosi Instead
Alan
Farago
The Credit Bomb Detonates in Florida
Heather
Gray
US Meddling in Australian Politics
Website
of the Day
A Donner Summit Night Before Xmas
December
4, 2007
Alexander
Cockburn
Jackboot State Stubs Its Toe in
Ann Arbor
Andy
Worthington
Guantánamo and the Supreme
Court
Paul
Craig Roberts
The Lies at the End of the American
Dream
Ray
McGovern
No-Nuke Iran
Winslow
T. Wheeler
Admiral Mullen and the Defense Budget: When White Elephants are
Too Small
Allan
Nairn
The Regime Still Stands in Burma, Where "the People Just
Want Food"
Russell
Mokhiber
The USA v. Al Arian
Nikolas
Kozloff
As Chávez Falters: Raising the Stakes for the South American
Left
John
V. Walsh
Peace Movement Paralyzed
Ghada
Ageel
Will Peace Cost Me My Home?
Stephen
Soldz
The Facts be Damned!: Psychologists' President Defends Psychologist
Involvement in Interrogations
Website
of the Day
Hands Off the People of Iran
December
3, 2007
Tariq
Ali
Venezuela After the Referendum
Bill
Quigley
New Orleans: Bulldozers for the Poor,
Tax Credits for Developers
Eric
Walberg
The Bible and Middle East History
Uri
Avnery
After Annapolis
Marjorie
Cohn
Operation Iraqi Freedom Exposed
Dave
Lindorff
Vengeance Isn't Sweet
Stephen
Fleischman
Homeless in Paradise
Martha
Rosenberg
Perp Walks for the Mink Clad on Chicago's Mag Mile
Website
of the Day
So Just Lead!
December
1 / 2, 2007
Alexander
Cockburn
Emblems of the Bush Age: Adrift
in a Sea of Booze
Jeffrey
St. Clair
The Bear Minimum: the Grizzly and
the Future of the Rocky Mountain West
Mike
Whitney
"Iraq Doesn't Exist Anymore": an Interview with Nir
Rosen
Shemon
Salam
A Visit From the FBI
Roger
Burbach
The Battle in Bolivia
Benjamin
Dangl
New Politics in Old Bolivia
Brian
M. Downing
The Quiet on the Middle Eastern Front: How Much Credit Goes to
the Surge?
Greg
Moses
Night of the Living Redneck: a Texas Horror Story
Sonja
Karkar
The "Never-Never" Peace Conference
Saul
Landau
Ethics and Evil in South Boston
Margaret
Kimberley
Black America Left Behind
John
Ross
What are the Prospects for a New Mexican Revolution?
Reza
Fiyouzat
Exit on the Left: When Che's Children Visited Iran
Judith
Scherr
Berkeley Turns Right for the Holidays
Lance
Olsen
Of Forests and Finance: Logging for the Wealthy
Christopher
Brauchli
Mr. Bush and the Despots
Robert
Fantina
Iraq as U.S. Colony
Dan
Bacher
Fish Triage on Prospect Island
Michael
Donnelly
Remembering How to be Human: John Trudell and the Music of Urgency
Website
of the Weekend
Appalachian Voices
November
30, 2007
Peter
Stone Brown
The Re-Packaging of Bob Dylan
Wajahat
Ali
The Volatile Mistress: an Interview with Javed Jabbar, Pakistan's
Former Minister of Information
Allan
Nairn
Cold-Blooded Celebrity: Thomas L. Friedman and the Bali Bombers
Alan
Farago
The Sorrows of Suburbia: Politics, Sprawl and the Housing Crash
John
Ross
The Death of Latin America's First Revolution
Corporate
Crime Reporter
America's Corporate Crime Capitals
Lucia
Alvarez
Diego Gonzalez
Argentina's Political Future
James
Rothenberg
The Iraqi Miracle
Website
of the Day
Bio-Bling?
November
29, 2007
R.
F. Blader
The Most Dangerous Kind of Bribe
Ismael
Hossein-Zadeh
Distorting Fascism to Demonize Iran
Stephen
Soldz
War on the Couch: Fear, Aggression and Empire
Sheldon
Richman
Iraq 3.0
George
Wuerthner
Forest Fires, Lies and Chainsaws
Felice
Pace
Did All Things Considered Self-Censor on Annapolis?
Col.
Dan Smith
The Meaning of Annapolis
Harvey
Wasserman
Terror Target Nukes
Nikolas
Kozloff
Primetime Hate Debate: Lou Dobbs, Immigration and Campaign '08
Paul
Krassner
Huffington Post Bloggers Go On Strike!
Dave
Lindorff
News Not Fit to Print: US Coup Planned for Venezuela?
CP
News Service
The One State Declaration
Website
of the Day
A Native View of Yellowstone Bison Slaughter
November
28, 2007
James
Petras
CIA Destabilization Memo Surfaces
on Venezuela
Jeff
Halper
Annapolis: When the Roadmap is a One
Way Street
Pam
Martens
Crashing Citigroup
Peter
Morici
Economy in Crisis: Avoiding a Recession
Mohammed
Khatib
Separate and Unequal in Palestine
Helen
Redmond
The Horror and the Hope: Health Care in America
William
S. Lind
In the Fox's Lair: Quiet Before a New Iraq Storm?
Ben
Tripp
We, the People: a Trope for All Seasons
Liaquat
Ali Khan
Pakistan: First, Restore the Constitution and Reinstate the Judges
Jeff
Berg
Holbrooke Says Bush Won't Attack Iran
Website
of the Day
The Lies of Joe Klein
November
27, 2007
Joe
DeRaymond
On the Road to the Torture School
Paul
Craig Roberts
Meet the Only Two Candidates Worse Than Bush and Cheney: Hillary
and Rudy
Marjorie
Cohn
Remembering Victor Rabinowitz
Mike
Whitney
A Dollar the Size of a Postage Stamp
Ron
Jacobs
The Myths of Military Progress
Col.
Dan Smith
The Pentagon's "People System" Still Doesn't Work
Ralph
Nader
Family Learning
Karim
Makdisi
Annapolis and the Unholy Alliance: the View from Beirut
Christopher
Ketcham
Memo to Hollywood Writers: Strike Until You Drop
Ronan
Bennett
Martin Amis Does a Coulter
Website
of the Day
Celebrating the Uncensored Media
November
26, 2007
Kathleen
and Bill Christison
Heading for Annapolis
Paul
Craig Roberts
The End of All That
David
Macaray
Enter Mediator
Sameer
Dossani
Pakistan's Wounded Dictator
Roger
Burbach
The Final Battle in Bolivia
Mark
Scaramella
Guns and Greed in the Emerald Empire
Brian
McKinlay
Howard's End
Rick
Kuhn
The Fall of a Racist Union Buster
Binoy
Kampmark
Ruddslide and Dull Alec
Monica
Benderman
What Do You Know of War?
Brenda
Norrell
Return to Alcatraz
Website
of the Day
Ghostworld by DJ Spooky
November
24 / 25, 2007
Alexander
Cockburn
The Ordeal of Catherine Wilkerson,
MD
Robert
Fisk
Darkness Falls on the Middle East
Saul
Landau
Norman Mailer will Not R.I.P.
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Justice Stephen Breyer, Cancer Bonds and the Origins of Neoliberal
Environmentalism
Rannie
Amiri
Beirut's Black Friday
Christopher
Brauchli
Iraq Embassy as Gilded Palace
Daniel
Gross
The Gap and Black Friday
Mike
Whitney
"A Generalized Meltdown of Financial Institutions"
Marjorie
Cohn
Iran and the 2008 Elections
David
Rosen
Senior Sex: the Real Sexual Life of Aging Americans
David
Michael Green
If Conservatism is the Ideology of Freedom ....
Kenneth
Rexroth
When Euripides Played the Hindu Kush: Greeks and Buddhists in
Afghanistan
Muhammad
Iqbal
Trans. Shahid Alam
Ghazal
Website
of the Day
Aerial Footage of Delta Fish Kill
November 23, 2007
Gary
Leupp
Killing the Buddha in Pakistan's Swat
Valley
Laura
Carlsen
Coming to Terms with Diversity in
Bolivia: an Interview with Alvaro Garcia, Bolivia's VP
David
Macaray
Keeping Labor Unions Out
Andy
Worthington
Former Guantánamo Detainee Seeks Asylum in Sweden
Clifton
Ross
Trashing Chavez: Keith Olberman's Toxic Rant
Seth
Sandronsky
Battling Sodexho
Dan
Bacher
Death in the Delta: Thousands of Fish Stranded by Bureau of Reclamation
William
A. Cook
The Myth of Middle East Peace
Website
of the Day
Waiting for the Guards: Stress Techniques as Torture, a Short
Film
November
22, 2007
Alan
Farago
Who Lost America's Everglades?
Greg
Moses
A Thanksgiving Basting
Dave
Lindorff
Impeachment is Back on the Table
Mike
Ely
Native Blood: the Myth pf Thanksgiving
Omar
Azfar
Gore for President of Pakistan?
November
21, 2007
Vijay
Prashad
Our Dictator, Their Democracy
Martha
Rosenberg
Undercover at a Turkey Slaughtering Plant
Manuel
Garcia, Jr.
Epiphany on the Glacier
John
Ross
The Last Days of Mexican Corn
Brian
McKenna
Cancer Terrorists Unmasked
Stephen
Soldz
Isolation Torture Routine at Guatánamo
Monica
Benderman
Needing Peace
Ben
Terrall
Slavery in the Fields: The Real Price of Sugar
Website
of the Day
Mercy for Animals
|
January
2, 2008
John Gofman vs.
the Nuclear Cowboys
Dr.
Strangelove's Nemesis
By FRED GARDNER and
SHOBHIT ARORA
Dr. John Gofman left us in 2007 at the
age of 88. Edward Teller called him "the enemy within"
the nuclear research establishment because Gofman warned the
public about the dangers inherent even in peaceful uses. (Teller
was proud of his own sobriquet, "father of the H-bomb."
Peter Sellers used Teller as a model when he played Dr. Strangelove
in Stanley Kubrick's great black comedy.)
In the early 1940s, while getting his PhD in physics at UC Berkeley,
Gofman co-discovered Uranium 233 and demonstrated its slow and
fast neutron fissionability. At the request of J. Robert Oppenheimer,
Gofman and Robert Connick produced plutonium for the Manhattan
Project. (Not even a quarter-milligram existed at the time of
Oppie's request.)
After the war Gofman got his MD from UCSF and began research
that linked heart disease to the lipoproteins that transport
cholesterol in the bloodstream.
In 1963 the Atomic Energy Commission asked him to establish a
Biomedical Research Division at Lawrence Livermore Laboratory
to evaluate the health effects of all types of nuclear radiation.
Before long, however, the nuclear establishment was ignoring
his warnings about the real dangers of low-dose ionizing radiation.
Gofman returned to full-time teaching at Berkeley, and took early
retirement in 1973. This interview, which ran in the AVA in 1994,
was conducted by Shobhit Arora, a second-year medical student,
with me sitting in. We started out discussing a Wall St. Journal
item: "The White House was surprised --and chagrined-- by
Energy Secretary O'Leary's comment about paying compensation
to atomic-testing victims. With a super-tight budget, the White
House is now scrambling to head off a costly new entitlement."
--FG
Gofman: Secretary Hazel O'Leary is undoubtedly the first breath
of fresh air that we've seen in the atomic era. I think what
she's doing is great and I hope millions --hundreds of millions
of people back her-- because she's going to face a ferocious
opposition. It's going to be like a nuclear firestorm in opposition
to her, because she's doing something constructive. I have for
25 years been an intense critic of the Department of Energy.
I say this because Hazel O'Leary stands for compassion, candor
and credibility --not because I've changed my mind about the
DOE, which I think is one of the worst organizations in the history
of our government. Unless it's cleaned out, we're going to have
worse things in the future. The human experimentation that has
been done is bad. And it's good that that's being cleared away.
But for 25 years the DOE has not shown any concern for the health
of Americans. Their concern has been for the health of the DOE.
Their falsehoods concerning the hazards of ionizing radiation
have put not thousands of people at risk, not millions of people,
but billions of people.
The worst-case scenario is this. Ever since its inception, the
Atomic Energy Commission --then called ERDA, then called DOE--
has had one thing in mind. "Our program is sacrosanct."
And they recognize, as I've recognized, that their entire program
will live or die based upon one thing. If the public should come
to learn the truth about ionizing radiation, nuclear energy and
the atomic energy program of DOE is going to be dead. Because
the people of this country --and other countries-- are not going
to tolerate what it implies. The key thing --it's everything
in the DOE program-- is: "We must prove that low doses of
radiation are not harmful..." They have been conducting
a Josef Goebels propaganda war, saying there's a safe dose when
there has never been any valid evidence for a safe dose of radiation.
Yet the DOE and others continue to talk about their "zero-risk
model."
After Chernobyl, I estimated that there were going to be 475,000
fatal cancers throughout Europe --with another 475,000 cancers
that are not fatal. That estimate was based on the dose released
on the various countries of fallout from Cesium-137. The DOE
put out a report in 1987 --and I don't think it's any credit
to the University of California that part of this report was
done in the Livermore Lab, where I once worked, and part in Davis--
saying "our zero-risk model says that at these low doses,
nothing will happen, because low doses are safe."
How would a safe level of radiation come about? It could come
about in theory if the biological repair mechanisms --which exist
and which will repair DNA and chromosomes-- work perfectly. Then
a low dose of radiation might be totally repaired. The problem,
though, is that the repair mechanisms don't work perfectly. There
are those lesions in DNA and chromosomes that are unrepairable.
There are those where the repair mechanisms don't get to the
site and so they go unrepaired. And there are those lesions where
the repair mechanisms simply cause misrepair. We can say that
between 50 and 90 percent of the damage done by ionizing radiation
is repaired perfectly. What we are then seeing is harm done by
the residual 10 or 40 or 50 percent that is not repaired perfectly.
The evidence that the repair mechanism is not perfect is very
solid today. What we wanted to have was evidence that as you
go down to very low doses --a raed, or a tenth of a rad-- is
that going to produce cancer? Determing the answer by standard
epidemiological studies would take millions of people, and we
don't have that. So it creates a field day for the DOE to say,
"Well, we don't know." But I looked very carefully
in 1986 for any studies that could shed light on that all-important
queston. And I presented that evidence at the American Chemical
Society meeting in Anaheim.
Q: That the lowest doses will produce cancer?
Gofman: The answer is this: ionizing radiation is not like a
poison out of a bottle where you can dilute it and dilute it.
The lowest dose of ionizing radiation is one nuclear track through
one cell. You can't have a fraction of a dose of that sort. Either
a track goes through the nucleus and affects it, or it doesn't.
So I said 'What evidence do we have concerning one, or two or
three or four or six or 10 tracks.' And I came up with nine studies
of cancer being produced where we're dealing with up to maybe
eight or 10 tracks per cell. Four involved breast cancer. With
those studies, as far as I'm concerned, it's not a question of
"We don't know." The DOE has never refuted this evidence.
They just ignore it, because it's inconvenient. We can now say,
there cannot be a safe dose of radiation. There is no safe threshhold.
If this truth is known, then any permitted radiation is a permit
to commit murder.
What other things does the DOE use as crutches? "Well,
maybe if you give the radiation slowly it won't hurt as much
as if you give it all at once." Now if you have one track
through a cell producing cancer, what is the meaning of slowly?
You have the track or you don't. It comes in on Tuesday or it
comes in on Saturday. To talk about slow delivery of one track
through the nucleus is ludicrous. But they do it anyway.
There is a more radical fringe that says, "A little radiation
is good for you. And all this stuff about radiation causing harm
is bad for society because it's going to prevent the program
we think should be instituted, and that program is to give everybody
in the country radiation every day as a new vitamin." This
program is called hormesis. "A little radiation will give
your immune system a kick and help you resist cancer and infectious
disease." The chief exponent is a man named Thomas Luckey,
formerly of the University of Missouri. He bemoans the fact that
we can't get this program into high gear.
Q: Is anybody taking him seriously?
Gofman: The idea is manifestly absurd. But that didn't prevent
the DOE from helping to sponsor a conference in 1985 in Oakland
on the beneficial effects of radiation, hormesis. And the nuclear
enterprise is really at it all the time. They had another such
conference in 1987, and another in 1992.
Q: What are the implications of there being a safe dose of
radiation?
Gofman: They don't have to worry about nuclear waste. NO problem
--there's a safe dose, nobody's going to get exposed to more
than the safe dose. The clean-up and disposal of waste has been
estimated to be in the billions, if they're really going to clean
up Hanford and Savannah River and all the rest. Recently, Dr.
Robert Alexander in an exchange of letters in the Health Physics
Journal --he was with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and
former president of the Health Physics Society-- said there's
no proof that low level radiation is harmful... Anybody who gets
half a rad a year from waste disposal shouldn't be counted, they
don't matter. They don't matter for somebody who's apologizing
for the nuclear industry. But they matter! And they're going
to matter in the millions, tens of millions and hundreds of millions
if, because of statements like Alexander's, it becomes okay to
give people 10 rads. You won't have to bury things in these fancy
vaults. You won't have to worry about transport. You can even
dispose of it in ordinary landfills. That will be the result.
That's what the future will be. If low doses don't matter, the
workers can get more and their families can get more by being
in the vicinity. That's what we face.
Q: What are the limits for lab technicians and other workers
wearing badges? What's the limit now?
Gofman: Five rems per year. That's going to be cut down to one
or two rems per year. By the way, medical radiation, from x-ray
machines, is roughly twice as harmful per unit dose as Hiroshima-Nagasaki
radiation.
Q: Why is that?
Gofman: It's the effect of linear energy transfer. When gamma
rays or x-rays set electrons in motion, the electrons are traveling
at a lower speed than the electrons coming out of cesium-137.
And as a result, when they're traveling at a lower speed, they
interact much more with each micrometer of path they travel.
Therefore the local harm is much greater. So medical x-rays set
in motion electrons that are traveling at a lower speed and hence
producing about twice the linear energy transfer, and hence twice
the biological effect. That's why alpha particles from radium
or plutonium are so much more devastating than beta rays set
in motion from x-rays. The alpha particles, with their heavy
mass and plus-2 charge, just rip through tissue so strenuosly
that they don't go very far. A deception of the crassest sort
are the lectures by pro-nuclear people showing a plutonium or
radium source and putting up a piece of paper and showing that
the alpha-particle radiation on the other side is zero. "You
see, a piece of paper will stop those alpha particles, folks,
there's no problem with plutonium." Except when that alpha
particle is lodged next to an endosteal cell in the bone and
producing a horrendous amount of interaction. Or that alpha particle
is lodging on the surface of the bronchi --that's why we've got
an epidemic of lung cancer among the uranium miners! The fact
that they don't travel far is because they interact like hell!
Q: Do you think medical professionals really appreciate how
much potential there is for damage? Regardless of who you are,
you go into the hospital and you get a chest x-ray as a routine
diagnostic procedure.
Gofman: I'm sad to say, I don't think 90% of doctors in this
country know a god-damned thing about ionizing radiation and
its effect. Somebody polled some pediatricians recently and said
"Do you believe there's a safe dose of radiation?"
And 45% said "Yes." They weren't asked, "What
papers have you ever read on this subject that led you to conclude
there's a safe dose?" I think medical education on the hazard
of radiation is atrocious. What have they taught you in radiology?
Basically, whenever it's not necessary, don't do a radiological
procedure. But they have qualified that with the implication
that most radiological procedures really aren't that dangerous
--a tenth of a rad here really isn't too bad. It's better to
get the information from a procedure than not.
Part of that is okay. If you ask me, "Do you stand against
medical x-rays?" the answer is no. And I've written a book
with Egan O'Connor on the health effects of common exams. We
take the position: if there's a diagnostic gain for you --something
that can really make a difference in your health and your life--
then don't forego the x-ray. But there's another part of the
picture. Up till recently --it may be a little better now than
it was-- government studies show that most hospitals and most
offices of radiologists didn't have the foggiest notion of what
dose they were giving you for a procedure. Nor did they know
that the procedure could be accomplished with a third or a tenth
of the dose. Joel Gray, a health physicist at the Mayo Clinic,
said there are places giving you 20 times the dose needed for
a given picture. And, he said, "If you ask those people
and they can't answer, you can be fairly confident that they're
giving you a bigger dose than necessary." So Egan and I,
inThe Health Effects of Common Exams, took the data on what
the average doses were in the United States, versus what has
been accomplished by some elegant work in Toronto to reduce the
dose to one-third of what was the average practice in 1984, and
found that about 50,000 fatal cancers per year could be prevented.
That's a million and a half in a generation! So what is this
stuff about "Most procedures don't hurt you, they're small?"
Let me say one more thing about the medical profession. It's
my view that we have a really crazy situation with respect to
x-rays. You go to a physician-- your internist, or a GP, or an
obstetric gynecologist, or an orthopedic surgeon-- these are
the people who send you out for an x-ray. They represent, or
should, your ombudsperson. And they, not you, should have to
find out whether the facility they're sending you to sends 5
times the dose needed, or a decent dose of radiation. But if
you ask that so-called ombudsperson, "Where you're sending
me, do they know how to keep the dose down? What dose will I
get?" He'll mumble, "Don't worry about it, no problem."
That's the fault of medical education in our universities. If
we turn out physicians who don't have the attitude that they're
the ombudsman for things like that, I think they're not doing
the job.
Q: A friend who had a melanoma was told there had been a 20-fold
increase in the past 50 years, but "We don't really know
what's causing it." It's as if many in the medical profession
don't want to make the obvious connection between radiation,
pollution, pesticides and the cancer rates.
Gofman: The medical profession is implicated directly. I've spoken
to Dr. Andre Bruwer, who practices in Tucson. He's a first-class
radiologist who does nothing but mammography. And he said, "John,
I shudder to think of what we were doing 20 years ago."
We were touting mammography when the dose was four to five rads,
and in some cases 10 rads. Now if you give enough women four
to five rads, at something of the order of a 2 percent increase
in breast-cancer rate per rad --that's what my analyses show,
and I've analyzed the world data on x-rays very carefully with
respect to breast cancer in particular-- it has to be that women
irradiated 15, 20 years ago got horrendous doses from mammography
compared to now. And therefore, some of the present increase
in breast cancer has to be from the radiation they got; but they
don't like to talk about it.
There was a time, 20-30 years ago, when there were mobile x-ray
units that gave x-rays of the chest. They didn't give the 20
millirads [a 50th of a rad] that is possible today. They gave
about 5 rads. Children went through those things by the thousands.
And we just say "We don't know why this cancer epidemic
is taking place now." Nobody's taken account of it. It's
hard to know how many children got it and who they were and follow
them up. But you know that a certain number of people are having
cancers now as a result of what was done 15, 20 years ago.
Back in the '50s one woman brought a child in in the middle of
the night having real difficulty breathing, and a resident said,
"Maybe the thymus gland is enlarged and pressing on the
trachea. Let's give this child a 100 or 150 rads of radiation
in the neck." And as with many disorders, the child got
better by morning. And so this resident put two and two together
and said, "I gave the radiation, the child got better, therefore
I cured him." And so this became the rage and all kinds
of hospitals were using radiation to treat an enlarged thymus.
Q: What's the danger from an enlarged thymus?
Gofman: There have been careful studies now of these kids that
had the irradiation for enlarged thymuses --which, by the way,
is no longer believed to have been a disease that existed in
the first place-- and they're having an excess of thyroid cancers,
an excess of salivary gland cancers. One hospital in Pittsburgh
said "Why should we wait till these children come into the
emergency room at night with croup?" And they, for a period
of over a year, gave x-rays to every child leaving the nursery...
There is this wall that prevents us from relating past experience
to the occurence of cancer. The full effects are not known. It's
not just what the average dose was back then, some places were
giving horrendous doses. Sometimes they'd get a picture that
was too faint. So they'd take another one, with a longer exposure
--when the problem was that their developing solution was getting
spent. And all they had to do was change the developer. But instead
of that they gave the person an extra x-ray with a bigger dose.
Q: What general principles should a patient bear in mind when
considering a procedure?
Gofman: If I were a member of the public, knowing what I know:
if the establishment told me that something had a certain risk,
I'd assume that the true risk was at least 10 times worse. Part
of the problem comes from the patient. If a patient goes to
a doctor --especially if he's covered by a health plan-- and
the doctor doesn't give him any procedures, they feel cheated.
"You didn't even take an x-ray!" But the medical profession
has to be regarded as culpable, along with the DOE. They both
have the same conflict of interest: their work exposes people
to radiation. For the DOE there have been all kinds of people
of shady character in all kinds of government posts. But damnit,
the medical profession shouldn't be shady and corrupt. I'd like
to see them really apply the Hippocratic oath to this field.
Q: Could you describe your work regarding the retroactive
tampering with databases?
Gofman: For years I've tried to believe that what was going on
in Hiroshima-Nagasaki in what was called the Atomic Bomb Casualty
Commission --subsequently renamed the Radiation Effects Research
Foundation-- was the only place where we had a huge body of data
that addressed the question of what happens to people who have
been exposed to varying doses. If there is an event like Chernobyl,
or Hiroshima, we have to insist on the sacred meaning of collecting
an honest database concerning what happens to people -- A. doing
the very best job of determining what dose they got, and B.
doing a follow-up study that is beyond reproach. That is an obligation
to humanity that is virtually sacred. If you do anything less
than the best in that kind of endeavor, you're a scoundrel. So
all this time I wanted to believe in the work that was being
done in the Hiroshima Nagasaki stuidies. In 1986, because of
some questions about what the neutron dose was relative to the
other forms of radiation --gamma rays, primarily-- they did a
revision of the doses. Now I don't have any objection to the
revision of doses, provided that you obey the cardinal rules
of medical research. The first cardinal rule of medical research
is: never, but never change the input data once you know what
the follow-up shows. So because they had this idea of changing
the doses, they didn't just change the doses, they shuffled all
the people from one dose category to another, with a new dose.
So there was no continuity with everything that had been done
up to 1986.
Q: Who's 'they?'
Gofman: The Radiation Effects Research Foundation in Japan. The
director is Itsuzo Shigematsu. The associate director is a guy
by the name of Jupe Thiessen who's from the DOE. It's a DOE-sponsored
endeavor --DOE and the Japanese Ministry of Health. There couldn't
be a worse set of sponsors.
Q: The Japanese have the same kind of commitment to nuclear
energy?
Gofman: Absolutely. So I said, "You can't do this. You want
a new dosage, keep the new groupings and just assign the new
dose and study [the results]." I call that "constant
cohort, dual dosimetry." So I wrote a letter to Shigematsu
and said "This is a violation of the cardinal rules of research.
There is a way to do this correctly, and you can keep changing
doses all your life, provided you just stick them alongside what
you've done originally." Shigematsu's reply is on my book.
[Radiation-Induced Cancer from Low-Dose Exposure, 1990] It's
simple. He said, "Trust us." Well, the reason for
the cardinal rule of research is, nobody ever has to say "Trust
me." Because you set things up with blinding, with appropriate
procedures, so that your data base is immaculate. You don't go
changing things and say, "Well we did it objectively."
I said, "Report in the old way --the old dosage-- and the
new way." They said, "We won't do that. But we'll consider
it. And we will give you the data in the old way for three more
years." What's the shape of the cancer curve with the latest
data from Hiroshima-Nagasaki? If I use the old data, it's like
this (diagonal line). What's the shape of the curve with their
new dosimetry? It's like this (slowly rising line that then goes
up abruptly).
Q: Making it look as if the low-level of radiation is acceptable?
Gofman: Exactly. Their ultimate goal is fulfilled.
Q: How did they determine who received what dosage at the
time of the explosion? Was it based on how far away they were
from ground zero?
Gofman: Distance was the biggest factor, but also whether you
were outdoors or indoors, whether you were in a concrete or wooden
structure. They tried to do a lot of that. And they shouldn't
keep changing the placement of people! You take people with cancer
and say, "Well, I guess the dose they originally got must
have been a lot higher. We'll put that person here [in this dose
category] and this one there." And with that sort of approach,
you can make truth whatever you want it to be. And there's a
very important additional lesson. Humanity needs to insist on
the emaculate construction of databases concerning any accident
or major event. If a crook makes the database, Einstein will
get the wrong answer out of it. And then what happens? The Einsteins,
with the best credentials, using this lousy, fabricated, false
database, put their findings in the medical journals. And then
they get into the textbooks. And then it's taught to medical
students for the next 100 years. And what happens? Hundreds of
millions of people will suffer from cancer and genetic diseases
because the answer will be wrong. The key thing is getting an
honest database.
PS 1/31/07 Bill Clinton in due course ditched O'Leary, who had
resisted power-industry pressure to privatize government labs
and production facilities. By an amazing coincidence she was
shown the same door as Lanny Guinier and Jocelyn Elders.
Fred Gardner edits O'Shaughnessy's, the journal
of cannabis in clinical practice. He can be reached at fred@plebesite.com
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