Today's Stories

May 5, 2009

William Blum
Torture and Mr. Obama

May 4, 2009

James G. Abourezk
The AIPAC Spy Case

Jeff Leys
Obama's War Budget

Patrick Cockburn
Afghan Ayatollahs Press Marital Rape Law

Andy Worthington
A Start on Guantánamo, But Not Enough

Jaime Avilés
Mexico's Plague-Bringers

David Swanson
An Even Worse Bybee Memo

Paul Craig Roberts
Working with Jack Kemp

P. Sainath
Celeb Crusades and the Death of Politics

Eugenia Tsao
Canada's Obama and the Cult of the Prof

Benjamin Dangl
Protest and Rubber Bullets in Paraquay

Sami Al-Arian
Mourning William Moffitt

Website of the Day
"Soldiers Are Cutting Us Down": Kent State, May 4, 1970

May 1 - 3, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
Game-Changers: Specter Jumps, Souter Quits

Gary Leupp
Dropping the AIPAC Spying Case

Peter Linebaugh
The Key to the Bastille

Jeffrey St. Clair /
Joshua Frank:
Half Life of a Toxic War: Iraq's Wrecked Environment

C. G. Estabrook
Minion of the Long War

Patrick Cockburn
Kabul's New Elite

Mike Whitney
Economy on the Ropes

Pierre Sprey /
Winslow Wheeler
What "Sweeping Overhaul" of the Pentagon?

Andy Worthington
Al-Marri's Plea Deal: Dictatorial Powers Unchallenged

Mairead Maguire
Stand Up to Israeli Apartheid: a Letter to Obama From a Nobel Peace Prize Laureate

Nadia Hijab
The Israel Boycott is Biting

Diane Farsetta
Life, Death and Water Policy

Michael Calderón-Zaks
The Déjà Vu Flu: Why Much of the Discussion About Swine Flu is Racist

Richard Rhames
When Piggies Come Home to Roost: Swine Flu and the Industrial Meat Gulags

Russell Mokhiber
Inside the Beltway Baucus

Ramzy Baroud
Clinton's Unpromising Start

Rannie Amiri
Understanding Lebanon's June Elections

Deb Reich
No Talking, Dammit!

Steven Higgs
Indiana Criminalizes Dissent: Roadblocks on the NAFTA Highway

Brian Cloughley
Malice in Blunderland

David Michael Green
The Party's Over

Farzana Versey
Sex, Swat and Susan Boyle

Jim Goodman
Think Before You Eat: Agriculture and the Environment

Carl Finamore
New Prescription for a Healthy Union Movement

Christopher Brauchli
The Sounds of Silence: the Texas Option

Susie Day
The Real Cause of Unemployment: Employees!

David Yearsley
Nuts Over Beethoven

Lorenzo Wolff
Three Minutes of Perfection

Peter Stone Brown
Dancing with Dylan

Poets' Basement Dominguez, Orloski and Springate

Website of the Weekend
May Day Europe

April 30, 2009

Ellen Cantarow
Obama and "Two States": Seamless Continuity From Bush Time

Dana L. Cloud
The McCarthyism That Horowitz Built

Paul W. Lovinger /
Jeannette Hassberg
A Nation of Laws

Binoy Kampmark
Swine at the Trough: the Business of Pandemics

Brian Downing
The Perils of Modernization in Afghanistan

Frank Snepp
Tortured by the Past

David Swanson
The Wrong Torture Question

Conn Hallinan
The Coming Asian Storm

Ron Jacobs
Not Dead Yet: an Interview with Jerry Gordon on the State of the Antiwar Movement

John Goekler
The Only Path to a Middle East Picnic?

Jasmine L. Tyler /
Anthony Papa
An End to Crack/Powder Cocaine Sentencing Disparity?

Website of the Day
Emergency Petition: Stop Coal Industry Intimidation of Activists

April 29, 2009

Joann Wypijewski
Death at Work in America

Patrick Cockburn
The Taliban's Roads to Kabul

Andy Worthington
Cheney's Twisted World

Chris Floyd
The Specter Diversion

Dave Lindorff
No More Excuses: a Specter is Haunting the Democrats

Jeremy Scahill
The Nuremberg Truth and Reconciliation Commission?

Doug Henwood
Zionist Lobby Targets Another Tenured Professor: an Interview with William Robinson

Michael Hudson
Will Iceland be Handed Over to a New Gang of Kleptocrats?

Russell Mokhiber
My Ron Pollack Problem--And Yours

Eric Toussaint
Ecuador at the Crossroads

Website of the Day
An Interview with Leslie and Andrew Cockburn on "American Casino"

April 28, 2009

Uri Avnery
A Little Red Light: On Israeli Fascism

Jeremy Scahill
Obama's Iraq: the Picture of Dorian Gray

Dean Baker
The Perfect Gift for Wall Street: a Financial Transactions Tax

Michael D. Yates
At the Factory Gate

Conn Hallinan
Georgian Plots? Saakavili's "Order No. 2"

John Stauber
Beyond MoveOn

Tom Barry
The Failed Border Security Initiative

Harvey Wasserman
Who Pays for America's Chernobyl Roulette?

Jeff Nygaard
Pirates, Profits and Propaganda

Frederico Fuentes
Why the U.S. Still Hates Cuba

Website of the Day
The Man Behind the Hood

April 27, 2009

Pam Martens
The Far Right's Plot to Capture New Hampshire

Patrick Cockburn
Torture? It Probably Killed More Americans Than 9/11

Andrew J. Bacevich Guardian of the Status Quo: Obama's Sins of Omission

Mitu Sengupta
The Bloodbath in Sri Lanka

Franklin Lamb
Hillary Does Beirut: The 165-Minute Swoop-In

Firmin DeBrabander
Crimes of Economic Madness

Dave Lindorff
Wide Open to Pandemic?

Russell Mokhiber
How Corrupt is That?

Mike Whitney
Pinter's Message to Obama

Mark Weisbrot
Overhauling the IMF

Rev. José M. Tirado
Iceland's New Dawn: How the Right Got Trounced

Website of the Day
American Casino

April 24-26, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
Putting the Bush Years on Trial

Marjorie Cohn
Torture Used to Try to Link Saddam with 9/11

Andy Worthington
Who Ordered the Torture of Abu Zubaydah?

Jeremy Scahill
Are Leading Democrats Afraid of a Special Prosecutor to Investigate Torture?

Chris Floyd
Top of the Heap: the Democrats' Teachable Moment on Torture

Mike Whitney
A Housing Crash Update

Anthony DiMaggio
Obama and the Housing Crisis

Chris Kromm
Democratic Lobbyists Key to Fight Against Employee Free Choice Act

Saul Landau
Seventeen Months in "the Hole:" an Interview with the Leader of the Cuban Five

Dave Lindorff
Free John Walker Lindh

Greg Moses
The Debt Looters

Joshua Frank
Calling for a Coal Moratorium: an Interview with Ted Nace

Fred Gardner
Collective Farming and the Lynch Case

Manuel Garcia, Jr.
Homework, Testing and Stealth Apartheid in Education

David Michael Green
Of Tea Parties and Teleprompters

Ramzy Baroud
Middle East Spies: a New Front in Gaza's Conflict

Rannie Amiri
Mubarak's Expanding Enemies List

Laura Carlsen
Mr. President, Calderon is Not Mexico

Richard Morse
The Haitian People Need a Lobbyist

Nikolas Kozloff
Protecting the Bald Eagle: a Task Now Falling to ... Hugo Chavez?

Kent Peterson
The Fight to Save Mexico's Mangroves

Robert Bryce
The Ethanol Scammers Rent a General

Niranjan Ramakrishnan The Financial Experts

Ron Jacobs
Torture is More Than Just "Harsh Tactics"

Richard Rhames
Roman Legends, Book Burning and History's Hunt

Stephen Martin
Wherefore Art Thou American Dream?

David Yearsley
Rodgers, Hammerstein, Michener and Nostalgia's Clammy Embrace

Poets' Basement
Khalil and Mankh

Website of the Weekend
Doug and Andrea Peacock on Grizzlies and Edward Abbey

April 23, 2009

Eamonn Fingleton
How the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times Buried the Madoff Scandal for at Least Four Years

Ray McGovern
Obama Plays Hamlet on Torture

Michael Ratner
The Torture Commission Trap

Alan Farago
The Quicksand Economy

Rob Larson
Business Gets Carded

Nadia Hijab
The Real Heroes of Durban

Fawzia Afzal-Khan
Deconstructing the Taliban

Dave Lindorff
Are Members of Congress Being Blackmailed?

Helen Redmond
Selling Out Single-Payer: the "Public Option" Con

Adam Federman
The Battle Over New York's Marcellus Shale

Website of the Day
An Interactive Map of Vanishing Employment Across the Country

April 22, 2009

Chris Floyd
The Fatal Thread: Torture, War and the Imperial Project

Joanne Mariner
Torture Evidence and Terror Blacklists

Vijay Prashad
Obama's Afghan Plan: Fracturing the Antiwar Movement

Gareth Porter
U.S. Lacks Capacity to Win Over Afghans

Dean Baker
The Tyranny of Bad Economics

Peter Morici
Housing Sales and Fixing the Economy

Winslow T. Wheeler
Eliminating Bad Pentagon Habits

Barucha Calamity Peller
The Battle to Take Back the New School

Harvey Wasserman
Chernobyl Could Happen Here

Aisha Brown /
Dedrick Muhammad
White Privilege in the Americas

Teo Ballvé
Obama's Feel Good Meeting with Colombia's Uribe

Website of the Day
Ahmedinejad's Durban Speech: What He Actually Said

April 21, 2009

Randy Rowland
Lindy Blake's Great Escape

Dave Lindorff
Jay Bybee's Conspiracy to Torture

Fidel Castro
The Secret Summit

George McGovern
Pull Out of Iraq This Year

Greg Moses
The Unemployment Channel

Benjamin Dangl
Argentina Remembers

Sonia Nettnin
Saving Lives in Gaza

Frank Barat
The Death of Bassem: a Shooting at the Wall in Bil'n

Binoy Kampmark
Legal Purgatory and John Demjanjuk

John V. Walsh
Code Red for Single Payer

David Macaray
SAG Should be Praised, Not Assailed

Website of the Day
Bonus Man: For Executive Assholes Everywhere

April 20, 2009

Mike Whitney
Housing Bust Comes Roaring Back, Worse Than Ever

Andrea Peacock
Histrionics and Legalisms in Missoula

Henry A. Giroux
Ten Years After Columbine: the Tragedy of Youth Deepens

Liaquat Ali Khan
Drone Attacks on Pakistan's Indigenous Tribes

Fred Gardner
Obama's DoJ Backs Prosecution of Medical Marijuana Providers

Stephen Soldz
Obama, Blair, Panetta and the Torture Memos: Praising Moral Cowards, Ignoring Real Heroes

Nadia Hijab
Obama's Multi-Polar Middle East

Dave Lindorff
The Meeting in Trinidad

P. Sainath
India's Press Nixes "R" Word

Nelson P Valdés
A Modest (Transition) Proposal to Obama

Mark Engler
American Empire Foreclosed?

Belén Fernández
The FARC Can't Dance

Website of the Day
Dear Mr. Buffett...

April 17-19, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
Thin Ice From Here to the Horizon

Saul Landau
Infiltrating Alpha 66: a Conversation with Gerardo Hernandez, Leader of the Cuba Five

Franklin Lamb
Persia Rising

Ralph Nader
The Greedsters Are Back!

Fred Gardner
Obama's Chimerical Marijuana Policy: a Guide for the Perplexed

Dean Baker
A Win-Win Solution: Tax the Rich!

Rannie Amiri
The Curious Case of Benjamin Netanyahu

George Wuerthner
The War on Predators

Dave Lindorff
No Amnesty for Torturers

David Swanson
Personal Torture Laws

Jim Goodman
The Control of Food

Kathy Sanborn
Economic Fallout Hits Families Hard

Don Monkerud
Economic Recovery for Whom?

Manuel Garcia, Jr.
The People's Money

David Michael Green
Home of the Barricaded, Land of the 'Fraid

Nelson P Valdés
The OAS Charter, Cuba and the United States

Manuel Gomez
From the Bay of Pigs to Trinadad and Tobago

Dr. Susan Block
On Sex Addiction: the Deadliest Sin?

Ramzy Baroud
Non-Violence in Palestine?

Christopher Brauchli
Banning Barbie

Stephen Martin
Statelessness: the Final Frontier

Ron Jacobs
Tearing the Whole Building Down: the Dead in Greensboro

David Yearsley
Monkey Music

Lorenzo Wolff
A Song for the End of the World

Poets' Basement
Moser, McTeer and Buknatski

Website of the Weekend
New England Journal of Medicine Report on Civilian Deaths in Iraq

April 16, 2009

Mike Whitney
A Bulletin From the Captain of the Titantic

Russell Mokhiber
The Top 10 Enemies of Single-Payer

Ronald Teska
From Iraq to Appalachia

Gareth Porter
Predator Blowback

Paul Fitzgerald /
Elizabeth Gould
Thinking Like an Afghan

Benjamin Dangl
Latin America Changes

Kevin Pina
Haiti: Obama's First Foreign Policy Disaster?

Robert Bryce
Another Ethanol Producer Goes Bust

George Wuerthner
See the Forest: the Value of Dead Trees

Paul Garon, David Roediger and Kate Khatib The Surreal Life of Franklin Rosemont

Website of the Day
Socialism and the Facebook Generation

April 15, 2009

Kathleen and Bill Christison
Solving Palestine While Israel Destroys It

Ray McGovern
W, the Torture Decider

Robert Sandels
Is There a Latin American Policy?

Heather Williams /
Paul Baker
Carbon Cap and Trade: How Wall Street will Game the Regs and Trash the Planet

Jack Willoughby
The Lessons of the S & L Crisis

David Swanson
Habeas at Bagram?

Paul Craig Roberts
94 Years of Serfdom

Sara Mann
Norman Rockwell and the Perils of Nostalgia

Kenneth Couesbouc
John Maynard's Martingale: How Keynes Got Rich

Binoy Kampmark
Tax Haven Hypocrisies

Kekuni Blaisdell, Lynette Hi'llani Cruz, George Kahumoku Flores, et al.: An Urgent Letter to Obama on the Rights of Native Hawaiians

Website of the Day
Taxa: the Paintings of Isabella Kirkland

April 14, 2009

Conn Hallinan
The Afghan Rubik's Cube

Mike Whitney
Why is Goldman Sachs So Scared of Mike Morgan?

Peter Morici
Taxing Grandma to Subsidize Goldman Sachs

Greg Moses
Economic Curveballs: the Laffer Posse

Fidel Castro
Obama's Cuba Policy: Not a Word About the Blockade

Robert Weissman
No Blank Check for the IMF

Rebecca Macaux /
Philip Primeau
Somali Piracy and American Foreign Policy

Carmelo Ruiz-Marrero
The Dubious Revoution: Biofuels, the Next Generation

Dave Lindorff
Snatch-and-Jail Justice: the Ugly War on Immigrants

Walter Brasch
The Resurrection of Intolerance

Benjamin Day
Why Has the Press Failed Us in Reporting on Health Care Reform?

Website of the Day
The Appraisal Bubble

April 13, 2009

Patrick Cockburn
Iraqi Militia Fear Reprisals After US Exit

Uri Avnery
Our Dissonance

Jeremy Scahill
A Test Case for Habeas Corpus: Will Obama Prosecute the Somali Pirate in a US Court?

Martha Rosenberg
Suicide Syndrome: Are VA Protocols Behind Iraq Vet Suicides?

Karl Grossman
A Radioactive Extension for Aging Nuclear Plants

Nadia Hijab
Still Waiting: Obama and American Muslims

Sam Smith
America's Cultural Bear Market

James McEnteer
Peru's Shining Example

Sean McMahon
Globalizing Politicide: Israel's Strikes on Sudan

Namihei Odaira
Makota's "Campaign Against Poverty"

John V. Walsh
Bossnapping

Website of the Day
Declining IRS Audits for Big Financial Houses

April 10 / 12, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
Resurrection and Revenge

Chris Floyd
Hope Abandoned: Obama Protects CIA Torture Memos

Mike Whitney
"Liquidate the Banks; Fire the Executives!" Warren's Devastating Report to Congress

Saul Landau
How the Media Bought the Surge

M. Reza Pirbhai
Obama's Afghanistan Plan and India-Pakistan Relations

Franklin Spinney
The Art of the Scam: Wall Street and the Pentagon

Rannie Amiri
Iran's Elections: Why Arab Leaders Want Ahmadinejad to Win

William Blum
The Ideology of Barack Obama

Matt Vidal
Why Card Check Would Help the Economy

Jeff Howison
Death of the Square Deal

Jeff Leys
Resisting the Af-Pak War: the Creech Air Base Arrests

Dave Lindorff
America's Imperial Wars: Why We Need to See the Horrors

Ramzy Baroud
Israel Investigated: But Will It Repent?

Missy Beattie
The Grateful Dead, Wounded and Displaced

Fred Gardner
Fakes Left, Goes Right: Obama's Crossover Dribble on Marijuana Policy

Harvey Wasserman Another $50 Billion for Rust Bucket Nukes?

Suzan Mazur
A Revolution in Biology: an Interview with Nobel Laureate Paul Nurse

Bernard Umbrecht
German Capitalists Take Fire

David Macaray
A Word Clooney, Hanks and Baldwin Should Learn: Solidarity

Janet Kauffman
How to Starve (or Feed) a River

Ron Jacobs
Daring to Struggle, Failing to Win

Norman Solomon
Getting a Death Grip on Memory

Michael Winship
Let the Railsplitter Awake!

Richard Rhames
Empire, Ennui and Extra Cheese

Wanda Fucha
Brother, Can You Spare a Million Bucks?

David Yearsley
My Journey to the Heart of Rahman

Lorenzo Wolff
Getting Beyond the Black-and-White: Jason Isbell's Challenging New Album

Ben Sonnenberg
Rossellini's Louis XIV: "Neither the Sun Nor Death Can be Gazed Upon Fixedly"

Jeffrey St. Clair
Savage Incongruities: the Photographic Life of Lee Miller

Poets' Basement
Corseri and Corzett

Website of the Weekend
The Palestine Chronicle Needs Your Help!

April 9, 2009

Mike Whitney
The Decade of Darkness

Patrick Cockburn
What It Would Take to Mend Fences with Islam

Stephen Soldz
Caught on Tape: Diagnostic Abuse of Veterans

P. Sainath
The Rise of the Shoe-cide Bomber

Ellen Cantarow
Israel's Master Plan for Transfer

Gareth Porter /
Jim Lobe
Obama and Israel's Threat to Strike Iran

Jeremy Scahill
How Many Democrats Will Stand Up Against Obama's Bloated Military Budget?

Jerry Kroth
Saving GM From Bankruptcy--With the Stroke of a Pen

Binoy Kampmark
Fujimori Convicted: A Measure of Justice in Latin America

Fidel Castro
My Meeting with the Black Caucus

Website of the Day
Bird Song Radio

April 8, 2009

John Prados
The Af-Pak Paradox

Bill Moyers /
Michael Winship
Changing the Rules of the Blame Game

Winslow T. Wheeler
The Tooth Fairy and the Defense Budget

Russell Mokhiber
PBS Lashes Back

Kathy Sanborn
Depression Fury

Rev. William E. Alberts
If the Shoe Fits: Bush and Al-Zaidi

James McEnteer Rashomon and the Binghamton Shooter: the Rush to Interpret Jiverly Wong's "Statement"

Nadia Hijab
Olmert's Nightmare

Adam Turl
Card Check on the Ropes

Kevin Zeese
Escaping the Drug War Quagmire

Website of the Day
Walk Score Your Neighborhood

April 7, 2009

David Price
Counterinsurgency's Free Ride

Uri Avnery
Who's the Boss?

Chris Floyd
Talking Peace in Prague, Dropping Bombs in Pakistan

Winslow T. Wheeler Defense Cuts: Gates and the System

Marjorie Cohn
Prosecuting the Bush Torture Team: Spain Leads the Way

Dean Baker
Hands Off Social Security

Diana Johnstone
NATO, Strasbourg and the Black Block

Dave Lindorff
Politicizing Accounting

Martha Rosenberg
Life on HBO's Factory Hog Farm

Evelyn Pringle
Motherhood and the Psycho-Pharmaceutical Complex

Website of the Day
Gaza: Closed Zone

April 6, 2009

Michael Hudson
The IMF Rules the World

Andy Worthington Bagram: Guantánamo's Dark Mirror

Ray McGovern
Profiles in Cowardice: Eric Holder and Colin Powell

Deepak Tripathi
The Pakistan Enigma

Mike Whitney
Bernanke's Financial Rescue Plan: a Glide-Path to Destitution

Norman Solomon
Meet the New Escalators: the Democrats and the Afghan War

Jonathan Cook
Israel Railways Accused of Racism in Firing of Arab Workers

Judith Bello
Justice for the Developmentally Disabled

Deena Metzger Blackwater in Liberia

Dr. M. Kamiar
"There's No 'Eye' in Iran:" Obama's Pronunciation Problem

Website of the Day
Prison Talk

April 3-5, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
From Twin Towers to Twin Camelots

Kathy Kelly /
Brian Terrall
Getting a Closer Look at the Killer Drones

Sue Sturgis
Fooling with Disaster? Startling Revelations About Three Mile Island Raise New Doubts Over Nuclear Plant Safety

Peter Morici
Girding for a Depression

Kathy Sanborn
Homeless in Tent City, USA

Andy Worthington
Britain's Guantánamo: Fact or Fiction?

Rob Larson
Subprime Supreme Court: The Roberts Court Has Become a Powerful New Tool for Business

Saul Landau
Biden and Nixon: a Tale of Two Latin American Experiences

Steve Early
An Evening with Andy Stern

John Goekler
Was Gaza Israel's Waterloo?

Rannie Amiri
Arab League Reconciliation Summit a Bust

Dave Lindorff
Hooray for Juries! A Courtroom Victory for Ward Churchill and Academic Free Speech

Lee Ballinger
Sound Garden: Tom Morello at the Grammy Museum

Ron Jacobs
Artifacts for Survival

David Macaray
AIG Plays the Sympathy Card

John Wight
G20: Capital's New World Symphony

Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor
Race in the Obama Era

Mychal Bell
Surviving Jena Six

Missy Beattie
Hoop Hopes, War and Peace

Reza Fiyouzat
The Iran/US Rapproachment Dance

Michael Boldin
The War on Drugs is a War on You

Christopher Brauchli
The Pope's Batting 50-50

Charles R. Larson
Too Much Stuff

Susie Day
Bernie Breakout Shocker!!

Stephen Martin
Gordon Brown's Chicken Run at the G20

Kim Nicolini
"Last House on the Left:" Vigilantes of the Bourgeoisie

David Yearsley
Homage to Moog and Mallards

Phyllis Pollack
An Interview with Legendary Rock Producer Chris Kimsey on Working with the Stones, Ronnie Wood, Jimmy Cliff, Peter Tosh and Saint Jude

Poets' Basement
Foley, Valentine and Kozak

Website of the Day
The Corner Store

April 2, 2009

Robert Weissman
What If Obama Had Treated Detroit Like Wall Street?

Eric Toussaint /
Damien Millet
A G20 Meeting for Naught

George Bisharat
Israel's Impunity Must End

Russell Mokhiber
Something is Rotten at PBS

Franklin Lamb
Has Washington Lost Lebanon?

Gareth Porter
Settling Scores in Iraq: Maliki Draws US Troops into Crackdown on Sunni Rivals

David Macaray
Obama and the Ruling Class: "Only the Little People Pay Taxes"

Chris Genovali
B.C.'s Bloody Grizzly Hunt

Sam Smith
The Politics of Adulation

Suzan Mazur
Is Neo-Darwinism Dead?

Website of the Day
Fighting for Change in St. Louis

April 1, 2009

Chris Floyd
Surging Further Into the Afghan Abyss

Stanley Heller
Israeli War Crimes: Thank God, It Was Only Rumors

Mark Brenner, Mischa Gaus and Jane Slaughter Obama's Perilous Plan for Detroit: Restructure the Big 3, But Not With Bankruptcy

Jonathan Cook
The Slow Demise of Ehud Olmert

Eric Walberg
EU in Tatters: Only the Protesters Have Any Vision

Richard Morse
Why Haiti Can't Forget Its Past

Don Fitz
Guess Who Came to Dinner with a Match? Green Mayoral Candidate's Van Firebombed in St. Louis

Laray Polk
Texas and Evolution

Belén Fernández
12 Años de Soledad?

Harvey Wasserman
Cracking the Media Silence on Three Mile Island

Website of the Day
Pentagon Fraud Investigations Fell, While Contracts Soared

March 31, 2009

Uri Avnery
The Deception Tango

Peter Lee
Ghosts in the Machine: the World's Hottest Cyberwar Battlefield

Nicholas Dearden
A New Global Debt Crisis

Dave Lindorff
The Obama Betrayal

Joanne Mariner
"We'll Make You See Death"

Ron Jacobs
Obama's Pakistan Gambit

Wiliam S. Lind
Another Lost War

David Michael Green
Who Says the GOP Doesn't Have a Plan?

Benjamin Dangl
Beyond Elections in the Americas

Johnny Barber
Meditation in Orange

Dedrick Muhammad
Economic Inequality: the Foundation of the Racial Divide

Website of the Day
How the Obama Dems Took Over the Peace Movement

March 30, 2009

Michael Hudson
Financing the Empire: Do US Face G20 Mutiny?

Patrick Cockburn
What Next in Afghanistan?

Henry A. Giroux
Hard Lessons

Mike Whitney
Where's Eliot Spitzer Now That We Need Him?

Ralph Nader
Where's All the Money Coming From?

Paul Craig Roberts
Obama's War on the (Upper) Middle Class

Jeremy Scahill
The Logistical Nightmare in Iraq

Robert Bryce
The Cellulosic Ethanol Delusion

Jonathan Cook
Remembering Land Day in Palestine

Ray McGovern
Obama Bombs

Website of the Day
Hersh: Syria Calling

May 5, 2009

Protecting the Big Wild From the Bottom Up

A New Chance to Save the Northern Rockies

By CAROLE KING KLEIN

Testimony before the Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests, and Public Lands H.R. 980   Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act  (NREPA), May 5, 2009.

Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Hastings, and honorable members of the subcommittee:

I am submitting testimony as a 32 year Idaho resident on behalf of myself and  other residents of the bioregion as well as citizens across America who’ve been waiting 18 years for this legislation to become the law of the land.  Among other things, I hope to dispel some of the myths that opponents keep repeating, for example, the “top-down” myth. 

NREPA is a bottom-up, grass roots effort conceived by local residents who understood the ecological and economic benefits of protecting an ecosystem owned by all Americans. 

Nearly 20 years ago biologists, economists, business owners, and individuals who lived and earned their living in the Northern Rockies bioregion drafted the Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act (NREPA) [pronounced Ner-EE-pa.] Those eminent scientists and other citizens understood the benefits of NREPA then, and those who are still alive understand that the benefits are even more urgently needed today.

Today’s bill is essentially the same, minus the million acres we’ve lost by not passing NREPA.  Numerous businesses and grass roots organizations from all five of the affected states support H.R.980.  NREPA is also supported by national organizations such as the Sierra Club, Natural Resources Defense Council, and Humane Society.

NREPA designates as Wilderness inventoried roadless areas in the Northern Rockies ecosystem and connects the five smaller ecosystems within the greater Northern Rockies ecosystem with biological corridors that allow wildlife to move more freely. The corridors ensure species’ survival and also mitigate the effect of global warming by allowing species to migrate to cooler elevations. 

A majority of Americans across party lines favor designating more Wilderness.  Out of the more than four million [a large number!] of public comments on the Roadless Area Conservation Rule, 95% have been favorable. 

One early NREPA supporter was former President Jimmy Carter, who in 1993 wrote the following:  (President Carter’s letter appears on pages 6-7 of the printed record of a hearing on H.R. 2638 (NREPA) on May 4, 1994 before a joint session of the Agriculture and Merchant Marine and Fisheries Subcommittees.)

"NREPA heralds a new era in public lands management, based upon securing the integrity of the ecosystem in a biologically and economically sustainable way. NREPA is also cost-effective legislation. It will eliminate the practice of below-cost timber sales that have burdened taxpayers to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars.
“NREPA has the strong support of the American People, who own these public lands. At a time when only 5% of America's original pristine forests still remain, it is our duty and obligation to protect and restore these national treasures as we have enjoyed them and been sustained by them physically, mentally, and spiritually."

In the 16 years since the former president wrote those words the number of America's remaining original pristine forests has decreased from 5% to 3%. 

NREPA does not affect private land.  Section 204 specifically states:  “Private lands are not affected by this Title.” and “No private landowner … shall be compelled, under any circumstances, to comply with this title.”  Let me repeat that.  NO private land is affected by NREPA.

NREPA does not affect grazing, does not affect existing mining claims, and does not eliminate logging.  95% of the suitable timber base will be open to logging and multiple use under NREPA.  In fact, Section 203 specifically recognizes The Multiple Use Sustained Yield Act. 

In 2000 the Forest Service valued the water protected by NREPA at a billion dollars.  The value is higher now, and it will only get higher.  The headwaters on both sides of the Continental Divide provide water to over 60 million Americans. That water belongs to all Americans.   Absent NREPA, those headwaters are vulnerable to degradation that will send the water down in spring when farmers and ranchers don’t need it.  NREPA’s protection holds the water in higher elevations until summer when it’s most needed.
 
NREPA slows climate change by protecting a large intact carbon sink.  I refer you to Dr. William Newmark’s 2007 and 2009 testimony before this Subcommittee and to a Duke University study showing that forests retain the most carbon when they aren't logged.   Reducing global warming is increasingly recognized as a positive economic and ecological contribution by forests.   NREPA’s protection will add value in both regards. 

From the Duke University study published in Forest Ecology and Management 255 (2008) 1122–1134 entitled Public Land, Timber Harvests, And Climate Mitigation: Quantifying Carbon Sequestration Potential On U.S. Public Timberlands: 

“Expanding the area of land in forest cover, avoiding deforestation, and managing existing forests to store carbon in ecosystem stocks for longer periods by increasing the length of time between harvests can increase the net size of the carbon sink or, in some cases, turn a source into a sink.”

“… public timberlands constitute a sizable share of the U.S. forest resource in terms of both land area and timber volume and thereby provide a potentially important resource to manage for climate change mitigation.”

Last year the United States Department of Agriculture established an Office of Ecosystem Services and Markets to “place a currency on the valuable services our environment provides, such as water filtration and air purification, carbon sequestration, pollination and recreation.”  

The USDA is showing tremendous leadership in educating the American people about how protected forests potentially have more economic value than unprotected forests. Protection of land, water, and wildlife is an economic model for the West.  If there is any doubt, we must err on the side of protection.   

NREPA will create 2300 high paying jobs restoring damaged areas called Wildland Recovery Areas that local biologists have deemed essential for the survival of species in the ecosystem.  Where will the money come from?  From the money we’ll save by passing NREPA—and there’ll still be some savings left over.

Every year without NREPA, taxpayers are paying 37.5 million dollars annually to build roads to subsidize timber sales that cover only 10% of the cost of the road.   For years taxpayers from Arizona, New York, Tennessee, Texas, and every other state have been spending the other 90% to destroy land, water, and wildlife that belong to all Americans.   375 million dollars over the next ten years isn’t a lot of money compared to, say, the financial cost of the war in Iraq, but even factoring in the cost of the jobs, NREPA will save taxpayers 245 million dollars over the next decade. 

NREPA will put people to work restoring our National Forests by removing old unused logging roads and repairing a million acres of clearcuts and the streams that cross them.  NREPA will indirectly create thousands more jobs by preserving a pristine environment that is the economic base of the Northern Rockies states.

Another myth accuses NREPA of “locking up” land.  We hear this rhetoric from opponents every time there’s a Wilderness bill; yet after such bills pass, these same people fight fiercely for their local wilderness.  In an article titled “It’s The Wilderness, Stupid.” Montana journalist Bill Schneider illustrates how local politicians can sometimes be slower than their constituents to recognize wilderness as a long-term, sustainable economic engine.

“In the late 1970s, when an energy company proposed “Bombing the Bob,” [Bob Marshall Wilderness] setting off a string of seismic charges to search for fossil fuel, surprise, politicians and chamber presidents who worship anything-jobs were in an uproar… When the push comes, all-business people understand how their bread gets buttered.”

If anything, the absence of NREPA is locking up land.  Currently “Road Closed” signs greet drivers all over the national forests of the Northern Rockies because the Forest Service has such a huge backlog of roads that they can’t maintain.  By protecting permanently as Wilderness lands that are de facto wilderness, NREPA ensures that there will be fewer roads to maintain.  That means the Forest Service will be able to open some of the closed roads—which is the opposite of locking up land.

Recapping:  NREPA protects, saves, and creates.  So why did we need representatives from outside the region to introduce this bill?  Why would local elected officials oppose a bill that protects land, water and wildlife, saves money, and creates jobs?   Sometimes it’s hard for western politicians to hear the hum of a grass-roots movement over the roar of sagebrush rebellion rhetoric fanned by large corporations who don’t want to lose their taxpayer-funded subsidies; foreign off-road vehicle manufacturers; and developers who decimate and depart.

Sublette County, Wyoming, appears to be putting all its eggs into the oil-soaked baskets of drilling and motorized recreation.  But if Sublette County doesn’t protect its other basket of abundant natural beauty and the wildlife a healthy ecosystem supports, its residents may wake up one day, as some communities have, to find the providers of short-term abundance gone and their sustainable abundance lost.

Problems associated with Sublette County’s rapid growth are documented in a paper entitled Social & Economic Impacts to Sublette County, WY from Natural Gas Development prepared by citizens of Wyoming.

The supply of oil and gas is finite.  The timber industry’s problems are not going to be solved by failing to pass NREPA.  Mining jobs are seasonal and not necessarily reliable.  And farmers and ranchers understand the importance of protecting their headwaters.   Tourism is a proven, sustainable economic engine.  The Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife, and Parks says that hunting, fishing, and wildlife-watching bring more money into the state than logging, mining or agriculture.   Every year during steelhead season anglers spend literally millions of dollars in my county.  They’re not coming to stand in off-road vehicle ruts filled with mud. 
           
Some of my fellow Idahoans publicly express antipathy to wilderness in a social climate that encourages that view, yet a 2005 poll showed a majority of Idahoans in favor of designating more Wilderness.   In hard times my neighbors depend on elk and deer for their winter supply of meat.  Elk and deer need protected habitat. 

In times of war, our men and women in uniform fight to protect the American homeland.   I’m asking Congress to protect the natural American homeland to which we all pray they will return safely.

Montana photographer George Wuerthner’s photos of the Bitterroot and other wild places illustrate why we need to protect the Northern Rockies. George’s photos will make you want to visit the bioregion—which is of course the point.  If you like George’s photos, imagine experiencing these views in 3MD [three majestic dimensions]. 

It’s time to pour water on the fire myth.  Opponents say, mistakenly, “We can’t get into Wilderness to fight wildfires.”  As a practical matter—and I know this because in 2005 a wildfire threatened my home in Idaho—where there are homes, there are roads.  Where there are roads, vehicles can be brought in to fight fires.  Where there are no roads, smokejumpers (speaking of heroes!) can and do go in on foot.  The 1964 Wilderness Act recognizes that insects and fire are part of how nature manages forests, but it does allow some agency discretion in controlling insects, disease and fire.

The Forest Service's own wildfire experts advise that biomass projects should focus on Home Ignition Zones, that is, 100 feet from a home.  The word “biomass” gives me pause because it can and likely will be used by the timber industry as an excuse to invade wild forests.   A research scientist for the Forest Service who specializes in fire science, Jack Cohen, writes: "By definition, wildland-urban interface fire disasters depend on homes igniting during wildfires. If homes do not ignite and burn during wildfires, then the WUI fire problem largely does not exist.”

Mr. Cohen’s paper, The Wildland-Urban Interface Fire Problem: A Consequence of the Fire Exclusion Paradigm, was published in the Fall 2008 issue of Forest History Today.  Mr. Cohen examines the Forest Service's organizational mindset that persistently frames the Wildland-Urban Interface fire problem in terms of fire suppression and control to the exclusion of potentially more effective alternatives.

While NREPA allows biomass removal to prevent fires in areas close to homes or roads, biomass removal is unnecessary and destructive in the middle of roadless areas where dead trees and living trees function as fish and wildlife habitat and help keep our water clean by rebuilding soils and filtering water.  Two-thirds of the wildlife species in the Northern Rockies depend on whole dead trees lying on the ground for their survival, as opposed to the stumps that provide much less opportunity for forest regeneration and soil stability.  When you lose topsoil, you lose everything.

We have forests because, over aeons of non-human intervention, nature didn't screw up.   I applaud the foresight of conservationists such as Teddy Roosevelt, Gifford Pinchot, and Stephen Mather—all Eastern Republicans—who saw the need to protect a lot of land at a time when the supply seemed infinite.  This year, you were thoughtful enough to pass the Omnibus Public Land Management Act.   I applaud you for your leadership in knowing that the supply of wild land is diminishing, that some humans do screw things up, and that some places need to be saved. 

Anticipating the question from opponents, “Was the Omnibus bill not enough?”  

Not if it didn’t protect the Northern Rockies ecosystem. 

The “County Commissioners” myth:  After the last NACo meeting a few County Commissioners went to Congress to say that they hadn’t been consulted about X or Y legislation.  But we who support NREPA do work with our County Commissioners.  We join them in supporting full PILT funding. [Payments In Lieu Of Taxes to counties with a preponderance of federal land]   I’ve offered to work with my Commissioners and other elected officials to create an off-road vehicle park in an area not eligible for Wilderness designation.  I’ve brought materials to meetings showing how other communities adjacent to protected Wilderness were able to turn their economy around.  Some County Commissioners may not agree with their conservationist constituents, but mine have definitely been consulted and I’m told that others have as well.  

I commend NREPA’s lead sponsors, past and present—chief among them the Honorable Carolyn Maloney of New York, the Honorable Chairmen Nick Rahall of West Virginia and Raul Grijalva of Arizona, as well as the Honorable Christopher Shays of Connecticut and the Honorable Peter Kostmayer of Pennsylvania—for not only recognizing that NREPA saves tax dollars while protecting the Wild Northern Rockies that some call America’s Serengeti, but also for having the wisdom to know that communities adjacent to NREPA’s wilderness will be able to “eat the scenery” for generations to come.

Opponents speaking today are not expressing the views of many of us who live in the ecosystem, and they are definitely not speaking for the wildlife.  NREPA is a necessary and immediately doable solution to today’s problems.  NREPA saves money, creates jobs, and protects wild places that will be there for our children and grandchildren—vast, awe-inspiring places as close to the way God created them as you’ll find anywhere in the world in 2009.  NREPA benefits local citizens, American taxpayers, and the world.  The benefits will begin the day NREPA becomes law and will sustain all of us over the long run, including those currently opposing it. 

I’d like to close with the words of two of my neighbors in the ecosystem.

Helena journalist George Ochenski (Missoula Independent 4/30/09):

“If we’ve learned one thing in the last year, it’s that times are changing faster than anyone thought possible. Many of the arguments used against NREPA in the past are no longer applicable in today’s world. The benefits of protecting forests, fisheries, watersheds and wildlife, however, are only becoming more important every day.”

And this letter from a resident of a rural Montana community:

Dear Carole:

My name is Marc Cooke and I live in a little town called Stevensville located in the Bitterroot Valley in Montana.

I understand that you do not want motorized vehicles of any type in this proposed wilderness area. I also understand that you do not want a land swap deal to take place.

I live an hour, more or less from the Bob Marshall Wilderness. I sometimes work for a friend who operates an Outfitting business in the “Bob” as we call it.

I cannot imagine coming down a trail with pack animals and guests and hearing a motor or worse yet coming face to face with a Motorcycle or ATV. Not only would it be very dangerous for the guest and me but also for the startled animals.

The last thing I want to hear in the Bob is an engine of any type. It would for me loose [sic] its Soul. In return I (We, future generations) would lose the place to recharge our souls.

I want to thank you for trying to do the correct thing and keep engines out of these areas. I am only one person kinda far from your area but would like to help if I can. Please let me know who to write or what have you.  Best wishes and warmest regards, Marc Cooke

From their keyboards to your YES vote.

For more information on NREPA contact the Alliance for the Wild Rockies.

Carole King Klein is a musician living in Idaho.   

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