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January 5, 2004
Gary Leupp
North
Korea for Dummies
January 3 / 4, 2004
Brian Cloughley
Never
Mind the WMDs, Just Look at History
Vice Admiral Jack Shanahan
The Wrong War at the Wrong Time
William Cook
Failing to Respond to 9/11
Glen Martin
Jesus
vs. the Beast of the Apocalypse
Robert Fisk
Iraqi Humor Amid the Carnage
Ilan Pappe
The Geneva Bubble
Walter Davis
Robert Jay Lifton, or Nostalgia
Kurt Nimmo
Ashcroft vs. the Left
Mike Whitney
The Padilla Case
Steven Sherman
On Wallerstein's The Decline of American Power
Dave Lindorff
Bush's Taiwan Hypocrisy
William Blum
Codework Orange!
Mitchel Cohen
Learning from Che Guevara
Seth Sandronsky
Mad Cow and Main Street USA
Bruce Jackson
Conversations with Leslie Fiedler
Standard Schaefer
Poet Carl Rakosi Turns 100
Ron Jacobs
Sir Mick
Adam Engel
Hall of Hoaxes
Poets' Basement
Jones, Albert & Curtis
January 2, 2004
Stan Cox
Red Alert
2016
Dave Lindorff
Beef, the Meat of Republicans
Jackie Corr
Rule and Ruin: Wall Street and Montana
Norman Solomon
George Will's Ethics: None of Our Business?
David Vest
As the Top Wobbleth
January 1, 2004
Randall Robinson
Honor
Haiti, Honor Ourselves
David Krieger
Looking
Back on 2003
Robert Fisk
War Takes an Inhuman Twist: Roadkill Bombs
Stan Goff
War,
Race and Elections
Hammond Guthrie
2003 Almaniac
Website of the Day
Embody Bags
December 31, 2003
Ray McGovern
Don't
Be Fooled Again: This Isn't an Independent Investigation
Kurt Nimmo
Manufacturing Hysteria
Robert Fisk
The Occupation is Damned
Mike Whitney
Mad Cows and Downer George
Alexander Cockburn
A Great Year Ebbed, Another Ahead
December 30, 2003
Michael Neumann
Criticism
of Israel is Not Anti-Semitism
Annie Higgins
When
They Bombed the Hometown of the Virgin Mary
Alan Farago
Bush Bros. Wrecking Co.: Time Runs Out for the Everglades
Dan Bacher
Creatures from the Blacklight Lagoon: From Glofish to Frankenfish
Jeffrey St. Clair
Hard
Time on the Killing Floor: Inside Big Meat
Willie Nelson
Whatever Happened to Peace on Earth?
December 29, 2003
Mark Hand
The Washington
Post in the Dock?
David Lindorff
The
Bush Election Strategy
Phillip Cryan
Interested Blindness: Media Omissions in Colombia's War
Richard Trainor
Catellus Development: the Next Octopus?
Uri Avnery
Israel's
Conscientious Objectors
December 27 / 28, 2003
Alexander Cockburn
A
Journey Into Rupert Murdoch's Soul
Kathy Kelly
Christmas Day in Baghdad: A Better World
Saul Landau
Iraq
at the End of the Year
Dave Zirin
A Linebacker for Peace & Justice: an Interview with David
Meggysey
Robert Fisk
Iraq
Through the American Looking Glass
Scott Burchill
The Bad Guys We Once Thought Good: Where Are They Now?
Chris Floyd
Bush's Iraq Plan is Right on Course: Saddam 2.0
Brian J. Foley
Don't Tread on Me: Act Now to Save the Constitution
Seth Sandronsky
Feedlot Sweatshops: Mad Cows and the Market
Susan Davis
Lord
of the (Cash Register) Rings
Ron Jacobs
Cratched Does California
Adam Engel
Crumblecake and Fish
Norman Solomon
The Unpardonable Lenny Bruce
Poets' Basement
Cullen and Albert
Website of the Weekend
Activism Through Music
December 26, 2003
Gary Leupp
Bush
Doings: Doing the Language
December 25, 2003
Diane Christian
The
Christmas Story
Elaine Cassel
This
Christmas, the World is Too Much With Us
Susan Davis
Jinglebells, Hold the Schlock
Kristen Ess
Bethlehem Celebrates Christmas, While Rafah Counts the Dead
Francis Boyle
Oh Little Town of Bethlehem
Alexander Cockburn
The
Magnificient 9
Guthrie / Albert
Another Colorful Season
December 24, 2003
M. Shahid Alam
The Semantics
of Empire
William S. Lind
Marley's
List for Santa in Wartime
Josh Frank
Iraqi
Oil: First Come, First Serve
Cpt. Paul Watson
The
Mad Cowboy Was Right
Robert Lopez
Nuance
and Innuendo in the War on Iraq
December 23, 2003
Brian J. Foley
Duck
and Cover-up
Will Youmans
Sharon's
Ultimatum
Michael Donnelly
Here
They Come Again: Another Big Green Fiasco
Uri Avnery
Sharon's
Speech: the Decoded Version
December 22, 2003
Jeffrey St. Clair
Pray
to Play: Bush's Faith-Based National Parks
Patrick Gavin
What Would Lincoln Do?
Marjorie Cohn
How to
Try Saddam: Searching for a Just Venue
Kathy Kelly
The
Two Troublemakers: "Guilty of Being Palestinians in Iraq"
December 20 / 21, 2003
Alexander Cockburn
How
to Kill Saddam
Saul Landau
Bush Tries Farce as Cuba Policy
Rafael Hernandez
Empire and Resistance: an Interview with Tariq Ali
David Vest
Our Ass and Saddam's Hole
Kurt Nimmo
Bush
Gets Serious About Killing Iraqis
Greg Weiher
Lessons from the Israeli School on How to Win Friends in the
Islamic World
Christopher Brauchli
Arrest, Smear, Slink Away: Dr. Lee and Cpt. Yee
Carol Norris
Cheers of a Clown: Saddam and the Gloating Bush
Bruce Jackson
The Nameless and the Detained: Bush's Disappeared
Juliana Fredman
A Sealed Laboratory of Repression
Mickey Z.
Holiday Spirit at the UN
Ron Jacobs
In the Wake of Rebellion: The Prisoner's Rights Movement and
Latino Prisoners
Josh Frank
Sen. Max Baucus: the Slick Swindler
John L. Hess
Slow Train to the Plane
Adam Engel
Black is Indeed Beautiful
Ben Tripp
The Relevance of Art in Times of Crisis
Michael Neumann
Rhythm and Race
Poets' Basement
Cullen, Engel, Albert & Guthrie
Hot Stories
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
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January
5, 2004
"The Cow That Stole Christmas"
How Now Mad Cow!
By AL KREBS
The Agribusiness Examiner
Legend has it that on October 8, 1871 Catherine
O'Leary's cow kicked over a kerosene lantern and what followed
was the Great Chicago Fire of that year. Likewise, another firestorm
involving a cow was recently unleashed immediately prior to the
recent Christmas holiday when a Holstein belonging to veterinarian
Bill Wavrin's Sunny Dene Ranch's 4000-head herd in Mabton, Washington
was found to have been suffering from bovine spongiform encephalopathy
(BSE) or mad cow disease.
Fueled by a suddenly aroused media immediate
speculation became centered around whether the nation's meat
supply had been compromised, from where the cow had originated
--- soon to be discovered that it had been shipped in from Alberta,
Canada --- and what feed it had been fed in its lifetime.
An excellent compendium of the news relative
to what South Dakota state veterinarian Sam Holland recently
referred to at the ninth annual Midwest Farm Policy Forum as
"the cow that stole Christmas," can be found in the
Tri City Herald.
Nearly lost, however, in the media aftermath
of this latest mad cow conflagration were three important points.
First, it was quite a damning indictment
of globalization. You have one cow on one farm tucked away on
a farm in Washington State that is discovered to have BSE and
suddenly your have complete chaos in the world's highly concentrated
beef industry.
Second, if dairy farmers were getting
a fair price for what they produce they probably wouldn't feel
it necessary to squeeze every last penny out of their herd, such
as sending "downers" off to the marketplace. But when
they have so much invested in one cow and are not getting what
they deserve in terms of price for what they produce from that
cow they have little choice.
Dairy farmers in Washington State received
about $1 to $1.10 per gallon (near, if not, the lowest in the
nation)., while it is estimated that it costs about $1.40 to
produce a gallon of milk, despite only getting paid roughly the
one dollar government-mandated minimum price for that gallon.
It is also estimated that dairy farmers in the state continue
to carry about $1,500 to $2,000 of debt per cow.
Yet in a recent study by Washington PIRG
it was shown that consumers in the Seattle-Tacoma metropolitan
area paid an average price of $3.52 per gallon for whole milk
in July, 2003 compared to $2.78 nationally, which is the highest
in the nation.
In the meantime, during the past 20 years
the state has seen its number of dairy farms decrease from 1600
to 600. The August, 2003 Washington PIRG report shows that between
January, 2002 and April, 2003 alone the number fell from 628
to 603.
Contributing to this squeeze play is
the murky role that the milk processors play in establishing
milk prices. As Deborah Robinson, who researched and wrote the
WashPIRG report, noted that while the farm price set by the government
is public information and retail prices can be observed by any
shopper, the prices that processors charge to stores need not
be publicly revealed.
We also see in Washington State some
grocery chains, notably Safeway, have their own milk-processing
plants, presumably giving them greater control over costs and
retail prices. But as the leading chains in the food retailing
business grow ever larger the struggling dairy farmers are being
left to sell to an ever diminishing market.
So the question for dairy producers as
with most family farm operations really comes down (once again!!!)
to a fair price for what they produce. After chairing a series
of eight nationwide farm policy forums on agriculture in 1984
former Texas Agricultural Commissioner and chairman of the Democratic
National Committee's Agricultural Council Jim Hightower concluded
in his final report:
"When all was said and done, it
came down to one word: Price. Other important issues were discussed
at the forums sponsored by the DNCAC during the past six months,
but the overwhelming consensus among participating farmers was
that the other concerns --- overproduction, soil and water conservation,
high interest rates, lack of credit, entry by young farmers,
the depressed farm service industry, and the farm program's high
cost, to name a few --- could and would be solved when farmers
received a fair price for their products."
Third, the USDA and the Food and Drug
Administration (FDA) in conjunction with the National Cattleman's
Beef Association (NCBA) have been careless, if not negligent,
in both ignoring the threat of BSE and in establishing a process
whereby it can be readily detected before it moves into the food
supply.
For example, it was in January, 2002
that the General Accounting Office --- Congress' investigative
arm --- slammed the FDA for failing to adequately enforce feed
ban regulations, a key piece of the nation's protection against
the disease.
On the day after the Washington mad cow
news became public , the FDA tried to reassure the public by
saying it has "vigorously enforced" a 1997 law that
bans the use of meat and bone meal from dead ruminants (cows,
sheep and goats) in feed for live ruminants. The agency said
more than 99% of feed operators are now complying with the law.
The GAO, however, said the agency had
failed to issue warning letters to violators and inspection records
were incomplete, inconsistent, inaccurate and untimely. The FDA's
records, investigators said, were "so severely flawed"
that they shouldn't be used to assess compliance. "FDA has
not placed a priority on oversight of the feed ban," the
report concluded.
Likewise, Amy Merrick reported in the
Wall Street Journal that when the first news of the Sunny Dene
cow was heard by the National Cattlemen's Beef Association it
set in motion "the most rehearsed plan in the history"
of the NCBA.
Merrick quotes Steven Grover, the National
Restaurant Association vice president of health and safety regulatory
affairs, as pointing out "the discovery of the Washington
state cow also triggered long-rehearsed plans at other organizations
like the U.S. Department of Agriculture and McDonald's Corp.
and the Association which has been working since 1990 to prepare
for this day."
Speaking to 144 reporters and other participants
following the USDA's initial briefing , Terry Stokes, the NCBA's
chief executive, and his colleagues "delivered messages
they had written long ago: The U.S. beef supply is the safest
in the world. Consumers shouldn't be afraid to eat meat because
the infected material from the cow wouldn't enter the food supply.
The discovery of this case actually shows that the government
surveillance system works."
Yet, at the same time the San Francisco
Chronicle's Sabin Russell and Nanette Asimov were reporting that
"meat from a Washington state slaughterhouse that contained
cuts from a lone cow that tested positive for mad cow disease
was sold in as many as nine California counties, but current
rules forbid the state or counties from telling consumers exactly
where recalled meat was sold." All this was taking place
while the USDA was insisting that the recall was precautionary
and that the meat posed no health risk.
According to USDA spokesman Matthew Baun,
it's up to consumers to check with their grocers, butchers or
restaurants to find out if any of the recalled meat may have
landed on their tables. "We are prohibited from releasing
information that companies would consider proprietary,'' he explained.
"If you are concerned whether you may have purchased the
product, you can call your retail store. They would know . .
. The only way to know for sure is to contact stores."
Meanwhile, it is ironic that this whole
incident is currently taking place against the backdrop of the
USDA and the meat industry's concerted effort to eliminate funding
designed to implement the provisions of the Country of Origin
Labeling (COOL) legislation which was passed by the Congress
--- legislation specially designed to bring a higher level of
safety to the increasing amount of meat that is being imported
into the U.S.
As St. Francis, Kansas cattleman Mike
Callicrate told the Village Voice's James Ridgeway, "Adequate
inspection on the border has been lacking for years especially
on the topic of the USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service."
In that regard the story of USDA's Bill
Lehman remains instructive.
Lehman, was a retired USDA meat inspector
and from 1987 to 1996 he worked as a border meat inspector in
the Sweetgrass, Montana station, the busiest port of entry for
beef from Canada. Tireless in his efforts for more strict meat
inspection regulation Lehman, who believed it was his duty to
do whatever he could to ensure the safety of food being imported
for American consumers, was outspoken in criticizing this country's
inspection standards.
Branded as a troublemaker, a loose cannon
and a protectionist by many of his own USDA colleagues, others
saw him as a hero, patriot and whistle blower; he much preferred
to be thought of as a "concerned citizen."
By his own estimate he had himself rejected
"up to 2.3 million pounds of contaminated or mislabeled
imports annually. The reasons for rejection included pus-filled
abscesses, sticky layers of bacteria leaving a stench, obvious
fecal contamination, stains, metal shavings, blood, bruises,
hair, hide, chemical residues, salmonella, added substances and
advance disease symptoms."
Lehman was particularly highly critical
of inspection procedures resulting from the U.S.-Canada Free
Trade Agreement which was approved in 1989. "Suddenly, Canadian
meat imports became almost exempt from inspections," he
recalled.
Shortly after the children's deaths and
sickness from e-coli tainted hamburger in the Pacific Northwest
Lehman testified before a Congressional Committee and detailed
a typical inspection under the infamous "rear-door rule."
"I merely walk to the back of the
truck. That's all I'm allowed to do. Whether there's boxed meat
or carcasses in the truck, I can't touch the boxes. I can't open
the boxes. I can't use a flashlight. I can't walk into the truck.
I can only look at what is visible in the back of the trailer."
He also recounted during an interview
while he as on the job that two trucks had just passed through
the Sweetgrass facility and that he had inspected them both within
45 seconds.
"I've just inspected over 80,000
pounds of meat (boxed beef rounds and boxed boneless beef briskets)
on two trucks. I wasn't running or hurrying either. One was bound
for Sante Fe Springs, California, the other for San Jose, California.
I just stamped on their paperwork `USDA Inspected and Passed'
in 45 seconds."
Because of his outspokenness Lehman was
ordered to transfer to another location, retire or be terminated
from his job as a meat inspector. He subsequently retired after
30 years of service in the USDA, in early 1997, stating he was
"just tired of the whole thing." Bill Lehman, 60, died
of a severe heart condition March 2, 1998 at a Shelby, Montana
care center.
Al Krebs
is the editor of the indispensable Agribusiness
Examiner. He can be reached at: avkrebs@earthlink.net
Weekend
Edition Features for January 3 / 4, 2004
Brian Cloughley
Never
Mind the WMDs, Just Look at History
Vice Admiral Jack Shanahan
The Wrong War at the Wrong Time
William Cook
Failing to Respond to 9/11
Glen Martin
Jesus
vs. the Beast of the Apocalypse
Robert Fisk
Iraqi Humor Amid the Carnage
Ilan Pappe
The Geneva Bubble
Walter Davis
Robert Jay Lifton, or Nostalgia
Kurt Nimmo
Ashcroft vs. the Left
Mike Whitney
The Padilla Case
Steven Sherman
On Wallerstein's The Decline of American Power
Dave Lindorff
Bush's Taiwan Hypocrisy
William Blum
Codework Orange!
Mitchel Cohen
Learning from Che Guevara
Seth Sandronsky
Mad Cow and Main Street USA
Bruce Jackson
Conversations with Leslie Fiedler
Standard Schaefer
Poet Carl Rakosi Turns 100
Ron Jacobs
Sir Mick
Adam Engel
Hall of Hoaxes
Poets' Basement
Jones, Albert & Curtis
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