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Today's Stories December 22 / 23, 2007 Ralph Nader Politics and Profits: How the Oil Cartel Gets Its Way 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               Subscribe Online

Weekend Edition December 22 / 23, 2007 The Battle of Lake Okeechobee Christmas Eve Freedom Fighters By WILLIAM LOREN KATZ This Christmas Eve, the freedom-loving Bush administration has a chance to mark the anniversary of a great victory for formerly oppressed people on U.S. soil. The President is unlikely, however, to notice or heed the meaning of this particular milestone, whose cast of characters and historical lessons he would undoubtedly regard as all wrong. December 24th, 1837 marks the 170th anniversary of the U.S. government's first significant military defeat in its first foreign incursion. The place was Florida, then a Spanish colony. The foe was a united force of Africans, on the run from the south's slave plantations, and Seminoles, whose self-determination was endangered. The runaway Africans had been establishing prosperous, self-governing communities in the peninsula since 1738. During the American Revolution they merged with Seminole Indians into a multicultural nation that cultivated crops according to techniques learned in Senegambia and Sierra Leone. Out of this came an alliance that shaped effective diplomatic and military responses to invaders and slavecatchers. By the early 19th century, U.S. slaveholding classes saw these groups as a clear and present threat to their system of wealth production through chattel slavery. Hoping to plug the leak, they began invading Florida during the administration of President James Madison, father of the U.S. Constitution and Virginia slaveholder. Then in 1811, Madison authorized covert U.S. military operations to assist the posses, and in 1816 General Andrew Jackson invaded, seeking annexation. A leader in that invasion, Army Lt. Colonel Duncan Clinch, reported: "The American negroes had principally settled along the Appalachicola river and a number of them had left their fields and gone over to the Seminoles on hearing of our approach. Their corn fields extended nearly fifty miles up the river and their numbers were daily increasing." Spain, whose claim to Florida rested on a visit by Ponce De Leon and imperial hubris, gave in to U.S. persuasion and agreed to sell the colony. But this led to a protracted U.S. occupation known as the "Three Seminoles Wars." In 1837, the well-informed Major General Sidney Thomas Jesup found that Africans had become resistance leaders. He stated: "Throughout my operations I have found the negroes the most active and determined warriors; and during conferences with the Indian chiefs I ascertained they exercised an almost controlling influence over them." Citing the dangers presented by the two peoples from different continents having forged a single nation, he said, "The two races, the negro and the Indian, are rapidly approximating; they are identical in interests and feelings . . . . Should the Indians remain in this territory the negroes among them will form a rallying point for runaway negroes from the adjacent states; and if they remove, the fastness of the country will be immediately occupied by negroes." Although U.S. forces destroyed crops, cattle and horses, violated agreements, and seized women and children as hostages, the multicultural Seminoles, as they protected their families and homes, ran circles around the technologically and numerically superior invaders. U.S. tactics aimed at racially dividing the Africans and Seminoles also failed. "The negroes rule the Indians," Jesup observed, and to seek peace, "it is important that they should feel themselves secure." But peace lay two decades in the future. The day before Christmas in 1837, U.S. Colonel Zachary marched 1,000 troops in pursuit of about 400 Seminoles. Commander Wild Cat and his sub-chief, the African Seminole known as John Horse, positioned their black and red marksmen in trees and tall grass in the northeast corner of Florida's Lake Okeechobee. As Taylor's 180 Missouri riflemen, 800 soldiers from the U.S. Sixth, Fourth, and First Infantry Regiments and 70 Delaware scouts approached, the wary Delawares hesitated, then fled. Next, the Missourians broke and ran. Taylor then ordered his regular Army forward, reporting later that pinpoint Seminole rifle fire had brought down "every officer, with one exception, as well as most of the non-commissioned officers" and left "but four . . . untouched." On Christmas morning Taylor found the Seminoles had fled in canoes. He counted 26 U.S. dead and 112 wounded, found less than half a dozen slain Seminoles and took no prisoners. This Second Seminole War alone (1835-1842) would involve U.S. Naval and Marine units, at times half of the Army, cost 1500 military deaths and taxpayers $30,000,000. Once his decimated army limped back to Fort Gardner, Zachary Taylor won promotion by claiming, "the Indians were driven in every direction." Later, his self-promotion as an "Indian fighter," won Taylor election as the 12th President of the United States. Lake Okeechobee was the Army's worst defeat in Florida. But the truth of that battle and the war remain buried or distorted. For example, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. in The Almanac of American History, wrote: "Fighting in the Second Seminole War, General Zachary Taylor defeats a group of Seminoles at Okeechobee Swamp, Florida." Well, not exactly. The Seminoles' sustained and heroic resistance to the new American Republic's first foreign invasion created one of liberty's proudest moments. Those who cherish freedom-fighters should know their story. And how about those in power who have a penchant for waging "preemptive" wars? William Loren Katz is the author of Black Indians: A Hidden Heritage. His new, revised edition of The Black West [Harlem Moon/Random House, 2005] also includes information on the Philippine occupation, and can now be found in bookstores. He can be reached through his website: www.williamlkatz.com   Your Ad Here

Now Available! How the Press Led the US into War Buy End Times Now! New From CounterPunch Books The Secret Language of the Crossroads: HOW THE IRISH INVENTED SLANG By Daniel Cassidy WINNER OF THE AMERICAN BOOK AWARD! Click Here to Buy! Cassidy on Tour Click Here for Dates & Venues "The Case Against Israel" Michael Neumann's Devastating Rebuttal of Alan Dershowitz Click Here to Buy! Saul Landau's Bush and Botox World with a Foreword by Gore Vidal Click Here to Order!   Grand Theft Pentagon How They Made a Killing on the War on Terrorism         The Occupation by Patrick Cockburn Humanitarian Imperialism By Jean Bricmont   CITY BEAUTIFUL By Tennessee Reed     Bruce Springsteen On Tour By Dave Marsh   The Book on 9/11 the White House Denounced as "ABSOLUTE GARBAGE"