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EXCLUSIVE! HOW THE FBI SPIED ON EDWARD SAID First look at secret files: How G-Men kept Said under surveillance from 1971. David Price traces years of snooping on US's best known Palestinian Bush says 30,000 dead in Iraq but real number caused by 2003 US attack is AT LEAST 180,000, maybe twice that as Andrew Cockburn digs out the real numbers Is the US Constitution worth saving? Hmmm, maybe ... New York Times takes a year to make up its mind. Cockburn and St Clair on NYT and NSA ... CounterPunch Online is read by millions of viewers each month! But remember, we are funded solely by the subscribers to the print edition of CounterPunch. Please support this website by buying a subscription to our newsletter, which contains fresh material you won't find anywhere else, or by making a donation for the online edition. Remember contributions are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now! or write CounterPunch, PO BOX 228, Petrolia, CA 95558 |
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December 30,2005 T.W. Croft Website of
the Day December 29, 2005 Norman Solomon Missy Comley
Beattie Dave Zirin Kevin Zeese Derrick O'Keefe Sam Bahour Macdonald Stainsby Bill &
Kathleen Christison Website of the Day December 28, 2005 Jeffrey St.
Clair Lila Rajiva Amira Hass Joshua Frank David Swanson Richard Thieme Paul Craig
Roberts Website of the Day
December 27, 2005 Evan Jones Uri Avnery Mike Whitney Gideon Levy David Swanson Norman Solomon
December 26, 2005 Lawrence R.
Velvel Lance Olsen Ben Terrall Scott Boehm Charlie Ehlen Tom Kerr
December 24/25, 2005 Aleander Cockburn James Petras Ralph Nader Lila Rajiva Fred Gardner Ron Jacobs Dave Lindorff Gary Leupp Saul Landau John Chuckman Dr. Susan Block St. Clair / Vest / Pollack
/ Donnelly Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend
December 23, 2005 John Ross Chris Floyd Lawrence Mishel
/ Ross Eisenbrey Joanne Mariner Eric Johnson-Debaufre Ray McGovern J. L. Chestnut,
Jr. Website of
the Day
December 22, 2005 Ingmar Lee Elisa Salasin Christopher
Brauchli Robin Blackburn Evelyn Pringle Amira Hass Francis A.
Boyle Stew Albert Website of
the Day
December 21, 2005 Paul Craig
Roberts Lila Rajiva Joshua Frank Dave Zirin Ramzy Baroud Sonia Nettnin Ben Saul Jonathan Cronin Patrick Cockburn Website of
the Day
December 20, 2005 Jackie Corr Earl Ofari
Hutchinson Michael Donnelly Gian Paulo
Accardo Pierre Tristam Norman Solomon Sen. Robert Byrd Dave Lindorff Website of the Day
December 19, 2005 Mike Marqusee Gary Leupp Ron Jacobs John Blair Gideon Levy Kevin Zeese Missy Comley Beattie Don Santina Website of the Day
December 17 / 18, 2005 Cockburn /
St. Clair Gabriel Kolko Susan Alcorn Werther Ralph Nader Patrick Cockburn Fred Gardner Dave Lindorff Ned Sublette Lee Sustar Jason Leopold Laura Carlsen Jeff White Ray McGovern Chris Floyd William Loren Katz Rose Miriam
Elizalde Greg Moses Heather Gray Alison Weir St Clair /
Walker / Pollack Poets' Basement Website of
the Day
December 16, 2005 Tom Kerr Mark Engler John Bomar Patrick Cockburn Pierre Tristam William S. Lind Cyril Neville Robert Jensen Saul Landau Website
December 15, 2005 Oren Ben-Dor Stan Cox Joshua Frank Ben Terrall Patrick Cockburn Monica Benderman Walter A. Davis Vijay Prashad Website of
the Day
Patrick Cockburn Paul Craig
Roberts Lawrence R. Velvel Wayne Garcia John Sugg Gary Leupp Ray McGovern Alan Maass April Hurley, MD Kevin Alexander
Gray
December 13, 2005 Stephen T.
Banko, III Patrick Cockburn Laura Carlsen Karl Grossman Niranjan Ramakrishnan Kevin Zeese Norman Solomon Michael G.
Smith Stew Albert Bob Dylan Phil Gasper Website of
the Day
December 12, 2005 Paul Craig
Roberts Lawrence R.
Velvel Jessica Stewart George Bisharat Nate Mezmer Earl Ofari
Hutchinson Alison Weir Seth Sandronsky Patrick Cockburn Website of
the Day
Alexander Cockburn Landau / Hassen Ralph Nader Linn Washington, Jr Bill Christison Mike Ferner Elizabeth Schulte Neve Gordon / Yigal Bronner Linda S. Heard Ingmar Lee Ray McGovern John Chuckman John Ryan Dick J. Reavis Christopher
Brauchli Behzad Yaghmaian Aseem Shrivastava John Ross Ben Tripp St. Clair / Pollack / Vest
/ Despair Poets' Basement Website of the Week
December 9, 2005 Linn Washington,
Jr. Dave Zirin
/ Mike Stark Patrick Cockburn Alexander Cockburn Lila Rajiva Gary Leupp Jason Leopold Bruce K. Gagnon Andrew Cockburn Website of the Day
December 8, 2005 Kathy Kelly James Petras William S.
Lind Laura Carlsen Justin Akers Thomas Graham, Jr Norman Solomon Tariq Ali /
Robin Blackburn Website of
the Day
December 7, 2005 John Ryan Gary Leupp Fran Quigley Jeremy Brecher
/ Brendan Smith Joshua Frank William W.
Morgan Dave Lindorff Patrick Cockburn Harold Pinter Website of
the Day
December 6, 2005 Ron Jacobs Patrick Cockburn Yifat Susskind Mike Whitney Pat Williams Paul Craig
Roberts Website of
the Day
December 5, 2005 John Walsh Brian Cloughley Mokhiber /
Weissman Robert Jensen Norman Solomon Peter Rost, MD Lila Rajiva Website of the Day
Alexander Cockburn Lawrence R.
Velvel Rev. William Alberts Saul Landau Ralph Nader Paul Craig
Roberts Mike Whitney Allan Lichtman Dave Lindorff Brian Concannon,
Jr. Fred Gardner Manuel Garcia,
Jr. Carol Wolman St. Clair /
Vest / Walker / Pollack Poets' Basement Website of
the Weekend
December 2, 2005 Stan Goff Mike Ferner Christopher Brauchli Niranjan Ramakrishnan Manuel Talens Peter Phillips J.L. Chestnut,
Jr. Website of
the Day
December 1, 2005 John Walsh,
MD Ron Jacobs Jenna Orkin Joshua Frank Tiffany Ten
Eyck Missy Comley Beattie Eli Stephens Elaine Cassel Website of
the Day
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December 30, 2005 Environmental RacismThe Toxic Air in Black AmericaBy EARL OFARI HUTCHINSON Environmentalists hit the roof in 2002 when President Bush announced his Clean Sky Initiative. The initiative would not clean the skies but dirty them further. It would allow corporations to dump tons more toxic pollutants in the air, delay or exempt enforcement of smog and soot pollution standards, and gut EPA pollution enforcement powers. Though the initiative is stalled in Congress, Bush did an end around and used an administrative order to weaken enforcement. That virtually assures that blacks, especially poor blacks, will breather dirtier air. This has had dire health consequences. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has repeatedly warned that blacks are more likely to live in neighborhoods with higher air pollution levels and suffer higher rates of respiratory and blood ailments than whites, and suffer more deaths. The Bush administration defends its contempt for the lungs of the poor by saying that race should not be as issue in the battle against toxic pollution, and that it will protect all groups against environmental damage. The Bush record shows that it has done just the opposite. A recent Associated Press survey of government data found that in 19 states blacks were more than twice as likely as whites to live in neighborhoods where pollution posed a severe health hazard. Despite the severe health risks that toxic damage poses in these neighborhoods, the residents have gotten very little attention or support from environmental groups. But the fight against environmental racism is a civil rights battle, and a fight to save black lives. That battle should fully engage civil rights and environmental groups. Black residents in some cities have screamed just as loudly as white, middle class homeowners and urban conservationists about hacked up parkland, toxic dump sites, waste incinerators, garbage dumps, recycling centers, contaminated sewage sites, and power plants in their backyard. They label this racially-warped policy, "PIBBY" or, put it in blacks backyard. In 1979, Houston city officials tried to dump yet another toxic waste site in a black neighborhood. This time the homeowners and residents fought back. They filed and won the first major lawsuit against the dumping of a waste facility in an urban neighborhood. Their action transformed the fight for environmental justice into a health and a civil rights issue. Since then blacks have marched, demonstrated, filed lawsuits, been jailed, and held local and national conferences, to denounce environmental degradation of their neighborhoods. In a milestone report on race and toxic wastes in 1987, the Commission for Racial Justice, a church-based civil rights advocacy group, revealed that blacks are far more likely than whites to live near abandoned toxic waste sites, waste landfills, and sewer treatment plants. They prodded former President Clinton in 1994 to issue an executive order directing federal agencies to intensify efforts to determine the harm toxic waste plants and sites wreak on urban communities. A decade later, the Government Accounting Office found that all of the offsite hazardous waste landfills in nine Southern states were situated in or in close proximity to black neighborhoods. This environmental racism outraged black environmental activists. Meanwhile, Bush has done everything he could to scrap the Clinton rules, and corporations and public officials have dutifully taken their cue and tossed more pollutants into the air and water. The courts haven't helped. Residents in poor, highly toxic neighborhoods can sue polluters under the 1964 Civil Rights Act, but they must prove intentional discrimination. This is virtually impossible to prove. The Supreme Court has ruled that private citizens can't sue to enforce federal environmental regulations that ban discrimination. The EPA has moved with glacial speed to investigate complaints of environmental pollution, and has been even more reluctant to take strong action against polluters. In one two-year stretch from 2001 to 2003, the EPA settled only two cases against corporate polluters. There's little evidence that the agency's settlement scorecard has gotten much better since then. The damage from official neglect of the problem has been profound. Toxic eyesores disfigure black neighborhoods, degrade property values, and discourage public and private investment in those neighborhoods, and that in addition to the grave health risks that toxic pollution poses to the residents. Corporate and industrial polluters get away with their toxic assault on low-income, black neighborhoods by skillfully twisting the jobs versus environment issue. They claim that the choice is between creating more jobs and business growth and economic stagnation. Their economic black mail works since few politicians will risk being tagged as anti-business. They gamble that poor, blacks and Latinos, many of whom do not own their homes, and vote in far smaller numbers, are less likely than politically connected white, middle-class homeowners to squawk at putting a hazardous plant or toxic waste site in their neighborhood. Many officials will eagerly waive requirements for environmental reports, provide special tax breaks, and even alter zoning and land use requirements to allow them to set up shop in these underserved neighborhoods. They'll get it with the full blessing of the Bush administration, but let's hope not with Congress. Earl Ofari Hutchinson is a columnist for BlackNews.com,
an author and political analyst.
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from CounterPunch Books! The Case Against Israel By Michael Neumann ![]() Grand Theft Pentagon: Tales of Greed and Profiteering in the War on Terror by Jeffrey St. Clair ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Sick of sit-on-the-Fence speakers, tongue-tied and timid? CounterPunch Editors Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St Clair are available to speak forcefully on ALL the burning issues, as are other CounterPunchers seasoned in stump oratory. Call CounterPunch Speakers Bureau, 1-800-840-3683. Or email beckyg@counterpunch.org. |