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Today's Stories June 9 / 10, 2007 Saul Landau An Interview with Ricardo Alaracon, Vice President of Cuba June 8, 2007 Serge Halimi What Sarkozy Learned About Politics from the US Patrick Cockburn The Turkish Incursion Jeffrey St. Clair Israel's Attack on the USS Liberty, Revisited Brian Cloughley Troop Support: Deceptions and Insipid Sentiments Paul Craig Roberts The Secret War William Blum What If NBC Cheered on a Military Coup Against Bush? Joshua Frank Swing-State Strategy: Looking for a Spoiler Lance Selfa How the Six Day War Changed the Middle East Dave Lindorff A "Criminal Conspiracy" in the White House Lawrence Ferlinghetti The Summer of Love: Flashbacks of a Human Be-In Website of the Day Robert Pollin: "Making the Federal Minimum Wage a Living Wage" June 7, 2007 Marjorie Cohn The Prison is the War Crime Soldz, Reisner and Olson: A Q & A on Psychologists and Torture Soldz, Reisner and Olson, et al: An Open Letter to Sharon Brehm, President of the American Psychological Association Paul Craig Roberts Losing Iraq, Nuking Iran Bill Quigley "How Long Must We Support a Mistake?" Silvia Cattori Sailing to Gaza Carl G. Estabrook What the June Bug Is: Politics in the Dismal Season Ellen Taylor Free the Tweakers!: The Good News About Meth Corporate Crime Reporter BAE Systems, Prince Bandar and the $2 Billion Account at the Riggs Bank Brenda Norrell Torture Training at Ft. Huachuca: Two Priests Face Prison for Exposing Torture in Arizona D. K. Wilson What Gary Sheffield Really Said Kevin Zeese Iraq Occupation Coming to a Head Over Oil Website of the Day How the Press Expired June 6, 2007 Alain Gresh Countdown to War on Iran Gary Leupp Poddy's Crazy Prayer: Bomb Iran, For Israel and America! Steven Sherman The Perils of Humanitarian Intervention Bruce Dixon Is Bill Gates Trying to Hijack Africa's Food Supply? Corporate Crime Reporter The Professor and the Nukes Brian M. Downing The Iraq War and Presidential Politics Ron Jacobs Luv n' Hate: a Different Take on the Summer of Love George Bisharat The Mirage of the Two State Solution Nicole Colson Over to You, Dante: Falwell's Ministry of Hate Bruce K. Gagnon From Italy to Guam: A Global Peace Movement is Taking Shape Website of the Day How the Democrats Should Treat Bush   June 5, 2007 Michael Neumann Canada in Afghanistan Jonathan Cook The Shin Bet and the Persecution of Azmi Bishara David Vest The Democrats' War Robert Fantina America's Cuba Policy Hoffman, Parsneau and Chowdhury CounterTerrorism as International Healthcare John V. Walsh Shaming the Official Antiwar Movement Richard Cretan Yellow Dog: The Strange Love of Martin Amis and Tony Blair Adam Engel Days of Dread: an American Tale William S. Lind The News from Anbar: Has Al Qaeda Over-Reached? Myles Hoenig Free the Oaks! Cut Down Those Yellow Ribbons! Jim Minick Lead-Foot Nation Website of the Day Punk Rock Soap Opera June 4, 2007 Nizar Latif An Interview with Moqtada al-Sadr Diana Johnstone Sarko and the Ghosts of May, 1968 Gregory Wilpert RCTV and Freedom of Speech in Venezuela Paul Watson The Anchorage Whale Killing Bureaucrats Summit Susan Rosenthal, MD How Cindy Sheehan Unmasked the Democrats Richard Ward The Right of Return to New Orleans Eva Liddell Don't Support the Troops Zahi Khouri Four Decades of Occupation Evelyn Pringle The FDA, GlaxoSmithKline and the Avandia Disaster China Hand About Those North Korean Benjamin Franklins ... Karyn Strickler George W. Bush: a "Ficeist" Leader Website of the Day The Guantanamo Files   June 2 / 3, 2007 Alexander Cockburn The Last of the Texas Outsiders Marc Levy Iraq Dead Ahead: a Brief Military History and Civilian Guide to Arlington National Cemetery Martin Smith Camilo Mejía's War: From Foot Soldier for Empire to Rebel for Peace Diana Johnstone Great Power Meddling in Kosovo John Ross The Oaxaca Volcano Stews Uri Avnery On Generals and Admirals Sunsara Taylor This is Not a Story About Cindy Sheehan Richard Neville Were the Hippies Right? P. Sainath The Farm Crisis and 100,000 Indian Widows Missy Comley Beattie Let's Roar Nisrine Abiad and Victor Kattan The Hariri Tribunal: a Fait Accompli? Rannie Amiri Lebanon, Bush and the Three Stooges Margot Pepper Deconstructing "Return to Sender" Eric Stewart Censorship and Cop Brutality in the New Bison Wars Ralph Nader The Halberstam Camp Dan Bacher A Victory for the Fish Shaun Harkin and Sandy Boyer Irish War Protesters on Trial Richard Rhames Selling Five Acres in Crawford Frederick Hudson The Rediscovery of Ella Fitzgerald Poets' Basement Lindorff, Landau and Buknatski Website of the Weekend Gimme Shelter June 1, 2007 Dave Marsh The FBI and the Godfather (of Soul): James Brown's FBI Files Saul Landau Return to Cuba: 47 Years Later in Havana David Phinney How the Baghdad Embassy Was Built: Forced Labor and Worker Abuse Robert Jensen The Bigot and the Boycott Stanley Heller Arrest Robert McNamara Yifat Susskind Indigenous Women Fight Back Robert Weissman Corporate Power Since 1980 Paul Buchheit Africa and Its Discontents William S. Lind The Folly of Maximalist Objectives Sherwood Ross 78,000 Iraqis Have Been Killed by Coalition Airstrikes Stephen Lendman Terrorism Defined Website of the Day Desert Autonomous Zone May 31, 2007 Robert Bryce The Language Barrier Patrick Cockburn Killing with Impunity: Iraq's Militias Under the Surge Gary Leupp Appropriate Disillusionment: the Despair of Cindy Sheehan and Andrew Bacevich Kathy Kelly Being Hope Marjorie Cohn The Unitary King George Chris Kutalik and Tiffany Ten Eyck Fallout from the Sale of Chrysler: Jobs, Health Care, Pensions, All in Jeopardy Corporate Crime Reporter Zheng Xiaoyu Meet Lester Crawford Dave Lindorff Our Monica: a Hero of the Constitution Website of the Day Know Your Rights!   May 30, 2007 James Ridgeway The Bi-Partisan Con on Synthetic Fuels Franklin Lamb Lebanon and the Planned US Airbase at Kaleiaat Terrence E. Paupp Withdrawal Symptoms Uri Avnery To the Shores of Tripoli Alan Maass and Jeffrey St. Clair The Green Masquerade: Corporate America's Latest Counter-Attack Rock and Rap Confidential Watching the Detectives: the Political Censorship of Hip Hop Ralph Nader Taming the Giant Corporation Nirmal Ghosh China, CITES and the Fate of the Tiger Jean Daniels Dealing Democrats: Folding to Mr. 28% Tom Barry Meet Robert Zoellick: Bush's Pick to Head World Bank Website of the Day Petuuche Gilbert on the Rights of Indigenous People May 29, 2007 Stephen Soldz Shrinks and the SERE Technique at Guantanamo Eliza Ernshire Refugees Forever: Inside Bedawi Camp Ron Jacobs The Exit of Cindy Sheehan Dave Lindorff Whatever Happened to Signing Statements? Evelyn Pringle What Qualifies Bush to Lead Iraq War Mike Whitney Bush's New Middle East David Swanson How We Got Here: The Democrats and the Antiwar Movement John Holt Gating Montana, Part Two: the Feedback Loop Cynthia McKinney Dreaming of a True Memorial Day Martha Rosenberg Mad Cows, Mad Pigs and the Horse Slaughter Lobby Website of the Day The Ruminant May 28, 2007 Bill Quigley Katrina Activists: "Less Meeting, More Fighting" Col. Dan Smith The Paranoid and the Dead Cindy Sheehan Why I Am Leaving the Democratic Party Dr. Susan Block Dr. Laura's Little Monster Jeeni Criscenzo What I Learned About Being a Dickhead Douglas Valentine Memorial Day: a Poem Website of the Day Peace TV     May 26 / 27, 2007 Alexander Cockburn The Greenhousers Strike Back and Out Michael Donnelly Green Sabotage as "Terrorism" Patrick Cockburn Sadr's Dramatic Reappearance Franklin Lamb Inside Nahr el-Bared: "Another Waco in the Making" Jean Bricmont The Moral Collapse of the Moral Left Gary Leupp Cheney, Israel and Iran James Petras Imperial Rot: The Beginning of the End of the American Empire? William Peace Ashley Unlawfully Sterilized Judith and John Sharpe The Saga of Our Son, Lt. Commander John Sharpe: Under Investigation for Antiwar Sentiments Saul Landau Four Dead in Ohio: From Kent State to Tiannamen Square Paul Craig Roberts Democracy in Iraq, Tyranny at Home? Jonathan M. Feldman Congress and the Iraq War Vote Dave Lindorff Democratic Blood Money Missy Beattie Congress Plays Dead Mike Whitney Swan Song of the Democrats Badruddin Khan AIPAC Intervenes on Iran and Congress Folds, Again Ron Jacobs The Crime of Silence Zoe Blunt The Antidote to Despair Arjun Chowdhury, Mark Hoffman and Kevin Parsneau The Can-Do Troops and the New Anti-Politics Heather Gray The 1969 Riots Against the Chinese in Malaysia: a New Explanation N. D. Jayaprakash Disarmament Negotiations: A History and Prospectus Joe Allen and Paul D'Amato Cartoons with Class Poets' Basement Gowani, Ford, Anderson and Simon Website of the Weekend Addicted to War May 25, 2007 Robert Jensen What the Finkelstein Tenure Fight Tells Us About the State of Academia David Vest So You Thought They'd End the War John Stauber Democratic Spin Won't End the War in Iraq Evelyn Pringle Congress Gives War Profiteers Another $100 Billion Corporate Crime Reporter Why Corporate Social Responsibility Programs are a Fraud Susan Rosenthal, MD What's Missing from the Health Care Debate Roberto Rodriguez Us vs. Them in the Immigration Debate Steve Fournier Goodie, Goodie Goodling Patrick McElwee Venezuela and RCTV: Is Free Speech Really at Stake? Robert Weissman Resisting the Commercialization of Public Schools Website of the Day New DNC Motto: "We Suck"     May 24, 2007 Franklin Lamb Who's Behind the Fighting in North Lebanon Corporate Crime Reporter House Democrats Buckle to Big Oil: Strip Down Price Gouging Bill Robert Fantina Giuliani: Righteous, Indignant and Wrong Norman Solomon Deadly Illusions, Rest in Peace Dave Lindorff Kerrycrats All!: Now It's a Democratic War Sen. Russell Feingold We are Moving Backwards on Iraq Fred Gardner Doctor of Last Resort Mike Whitney Paulson in China Kevin Parsneau, Arjun Chowdhury and Mark Hoffman Becoming Imperialist: a Warning to Iraq War Critics Caroline Paul My Brother the "Terrorist": Animal Liberation and Prosecutorial Overkill Eva Liddell In Defense of Lying on Job Applications Website of the Day Johnny's Jumped the Shark May 23, 2007 Patrick Cockburn Opium: Iraq's Newest Export Rev. William Alberts Faith-Based Imperialism Joe DeRaymond Colombia's Civil War and the US Sudhanva Deshpande and Vijay Prashad The Political Economy of a Crisis Paul Craig Roberts Republicans in Self-Destruct Mode Glen Ford A Less "White" USA Rannie Amiri The Great Bank Heist of Tripoli China Hand China's Great Wall of Cash? Zoe Blunt Tales from the Tree Tops: Veteran Tree Sitter Tells All Nivien Saleh Who's to Blame for Iraq? Website of the Day Debating the Israel Lobby May 22, 2007 Robert Fisk A Front Row Seat for the Bloodbath in Lebanon Joshua Frank Hillary Clinton's Achilles Heel? Harvey Wasserman Drop Dead, New Yorkers: Giuliani and the Toxic Fallout from 9/11 David Mos Masumoto An Orchard Without Workers Sonja Karkar Israeli Forest Named After Australian Prime Minister Conn Hallinan The Afghan Quagmire Dave Lindorff A Widening Chasm on Impeachment Jeffrey Kolakowski Meet Us in Detroit: an Open Letter to John Konyers Evelyn Pringle A Misleading Suicide Warning Jim Baumer Politics Gary, Indiana-Style Website of the Day Should the Democrats Fear Mike Gravel? May 21, 2007 Patrick Cockburn The Secret US Plot to Kill Sadr Nicole Colson Much Ado About the Fort Dix Pizza Plot John Ross Shooting for the Top: Mexico's Drug Gangs Take Aim at Calderon Stephen Fleischman Werewolf of Washington: Wolfowitz Comes Full Circle M. Shahid Alam Chosenness and Israeli Exceptionalism Ron Jacobs Green Mountain Days: Return to Vermont Peter Rost, MD Pfizer CFO Resigns Alan Farago Can the Everglades Save Florida? Paul Buchheit The Dark Side of Democracy Promotion Website of the Day Code Monkey: Live! May 19 / 20, 2007 Andrew Cockburn Why America Lost the War in Iraq Uri Avnery The Next War Peter Gelderloos My Arrest in Spain: The Easy Road from Tourism to Terrorism Saul Landau Bush's Accomplishments Robert Fantina Iraq's History: Lessons for the Present and the Future Fred Gardner Hemp vs. Pot, a False Dichotomy Ralph Nader Timid Democrats and the Antiwar Movement Jean Daniels Waiting for Obama Reza Fiyouzat Vietnam Syndrome: Dead or Alive? Missy Beattie Ron Paul, Rudy Giuliani and Osama's Fatwah Robert Alvarez Magical Thinking About Nuclear Waste Sonja Karkar The Palestinians of Iraq Dave Lindorff Mumia Case on Hold Jeff Sher Keep Workers Healthy and Reduce Health Care Cost: Eliminate Co-Pays Julian C. Holmes Torture, Maine Style Clancy Sigal Red Mutiny: 11 Fateful Days on the Battleship Potemkin Prairie Miller The Murder of Fred Hampton James Murren The Dog Ate Karl Rove's Homework: When Turd Blossom Met the Teachers of the Year Poets' Basement Davies, Valentine and Engel Website of the Weekend Yellowstone's Shame: Harassing Newborn Bison   May 18, 2007 Adam Jones When Does Genocide Purify? Ask the Pope Sharon Smith The Death of Triangulation Politics? Christopher Brauchli Cheney's Middle East Adventure Peter Rost, MD Bribes and Spies in the Drug Industry Denise Maloney Pictou The Murder of Our Mother, Anna Mae Pictou Aquash: After 31 Years, It is Time for Justice David Swanson Of Snoops and Dupes Ali Khan The Lawyers' Mutiny in Pakistan Susan Rosenthal, M.D. Cho Seung-Hui Delivers His Message Samer Assad Israel and the Refugees: Fifty-Nine Years of Dispossession CP News Service Bidding for Extinction: Ivory Trade on eBay Threatens Survival of Elephants Website of the Day Another War Criminal Goes to Harvard   May 17, 2007 Tariq Ali The General vs. the Judge Yifat Susskind Honor Killings in the New Iraq: The Murder of Du'a Aswad Dave Zirin Being Ali or Being Owned: an Open Letter to LeBron James Brian J. Foley Hell, No, Harry Won't Go! W. John Green The Godfather of Colombia: Uribe and the Para Scandal Eric Johnson-DeBaufre Challenges for the New Sanctuary Movement Badruddin Khan Rebirthing the Neocons: Bernard Lewis' Latest Call to Arms Martha Rosenberg From Cockfighting to Foie Gras: On the Menu and on the Docket China Hand Pope Rat in Brazil: "The Amazon Tribes Longed for Christianity!" Dan Vojir Falwell's Tinky Winky Legacy: Who Will Battle the Telebubby Threat Now? Website of the Day Welcome to the Terrordome May 16, 2007 Patrick Cockburn Chalabi Speaks Ashley Dawson Who's Afraid of Wolfowitz? Joshua Frank Obama's Cash Flow: Maverick or Kidder? Corporate Crime Reporter Corporate Drug Pushers Ray McGovern A Four-Letter Word for Tenet Glen Ford Black Labor and the Big Mission Joe Bageant The Ghosts of Timothy Leary and Hunter S. Thompson Sonja Karkar The 59-Year Catastrophe Mickey S. Huff Preaching Hate: Farewell, Falwell John Chuckman Falwell's Lone Act of Kindness Kaz Dziamka What Ever Happened to Rogerian Argument? Website of the Day We're All Going to Hell   May 15, 2007 Michael Neumann Two States, One State and Snake Oil Patrick Cockburn An American Nightmare Ashley Smith How the US Set Iraq on Fire Marc Gardner Parole and the Long-Distance Trucker Dave Lindorff and Linn Washington, Jr Mumia Case Reaches Its Climax Ben Terrall Benchmark as Theft: Iraq Oil Workers Strike to Stop Privatization Ron Jacobs Cheney Threatens More War Harvey Wasserman The Legacy of Seabrook Marcus Mabry Shopping During Katrina Dr. Susan Block Cheney and the DC Madam's Cookie Jar Website of the Day Save Jean Klock Park from the Mega-Developers!   May 14, 2007 Jennifer Roesch Giuliani Time: the Mussolini of Manhattan Jeffrey St. Clair Humans, CO2 and Climate Change George Bisharat For Palestinians, Memory Matters Diane Wachtell The Real Imus Lesson Ramzy Baroud From Palestine to Rotterdam Rosemary and Walter Brasch When the National Guard Goes Missing: An Ill Wind and American Policy Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed Blair's Exit Roberto Rodriguez The Elusive Bars of Justice Jonathan Culp Cutting Out Collage: Copyright and Art in Canada Website of the Day Uranium Rock May 12 / 13, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Who are the Merchants of Fear? Patrick Cockburn State of Surge Jeffrey St. Clair High Line Fever: a Trip Across the Dark Side of Montana Diane Farsetta Untold Stories from the Pat Tillman / Jessica Lynch Hearings Ralph Nader Strip Mining the Newsroom: Mr. Zell and the Tribune Company Jean Bricmont The Great Illusion: Sarkozy and the "Decline" of France Marcus Breen Cheering Sarkozy: the US Media and the Rightwing Takeover of France Joe Bageant Rising Above Politics Conn Hallinan European Missiles and the Camel's Nose Fred Gardner The Unreported I-880 Fire Juan Santos and Leslie Radford Public Terror: Escalating the War on Migrants Eve Bachrach Inside Colombia's Flower Industry Missy Comley Beattie Shame Ron Jacobs The Bitterness of Regis Debray Niranjan Ramakrishnan The Sepoy Mutiny After 150 Years Susie Day Jesus Christ Weds Pat Robertson Poets' Basement Newberry, Engel, Landau, Katz and Davies Website of the Weekend The Shipyard: Recycling as Art May 11, 2007 Patrick Cockburn Blair's Depature: the View from Baghdad Kathleen Christison Playing at Peace Mike Ferner Collateral Genocide John Holt Gating Montana: A Ghastly Disneyland with High Rise Outhouses Laurie Hasbrook This Minute and Then the Next: a Plea from an Antiwar Mother Christopher Brauchli The Children of Limbo: Will the Pope Finally Set Them Free? Margaret Kimberley GOP Openly Embraces Gipper Values: Racism, Violence and Control Dave Lindorff Use It or Lose It: The Democrats and the Impeachment Clause Nicole Colson Anger Erupts at Conditions in For-Profit Indiana Prison John V. Walsh Beware the Do-Gooders in Body Armor Website of the Day Take the Terrorist Quiz!   May 10, 2007 Tariq Ali Adieu, Blair, Adieu Patrick Cockburn Killing of Teachers Turns Iraqi Sunnis Against al--Qa'ida Neve Gordon and Yigal Bronner In Israel Not All Blood is the Same: The Death of Samir Dari Marjorie Cohn Fighting Terror Selectively: Washington and Posada Carriles David Rosen The New Disappeared: Sex Offenders, Civil Confinement and the Resurrection of "Evil" Alan Farago Why the Everglades Have Dried Up: Developers and the South Florida Drought John Hellman France: From Pétain to Sarkozy Kathy Rentenbach A 100 Days of Rafael Correa BANCO The Stage is Set for Sentencing Another Innocent Black Man Richard Rhames Is Paris Burning? Website of the Day Tame the Corporation May 9, 2007 Jeff Leys Iraq and Afghanistan Supplemental Spending, 2008 Patrick Cockburn An Interview with Iraq's Foreign Minister on Iran and Iraq Glen Ford No Black Plan for America's Cities Paula Rothenberg Feminism Then and Now Kathryn Weber A Conversation with Norman Finkelstein John Chuckman The Likely Historical Significance of the War in Iraq Jordan Flaherty Looking for Justice in Jena, Louisiana Dave Lindorff Pelosi's Toothless Threat to Sue Bush Stephen Lendman Criminalizing Speech: the War on Free Expression in a Post-9/11 World Website of the Day "Fifth and Market": a Short Film About the Iraq War     May 8, 2007 Dave Lindorff The Great Oil Robbery Patrick Cockburn The Horrific Stoning Death of a Yazidi Girl Sparks Waves of Revenge Killings Corporate Crime Reporter Snuff Politics: Democrats Escalate Attack on Single Payer Ralph Nader The People's Crusade of Mike Gravel Malini Johar Schueller Decoding Harlan Ullman: Shock and Awe as Sexual Fantasy Juan Santos The Hate Equation: Targeting Migrant Children in LA Dave Zirin Jason Whitlock, the Clarence Thomas of Sportswriters? Joshua Frank The Price of Fire in Latin America Evelyn Pringle Serotonin Syndrome Eamonn McCann Irish Peace Dividend for Discredited Premiers Website of the Day The Pagan Science Monitor     May 7, 2007 Patrick Cockburn The Great Wall of Baghdad Rises Monica Benderman Land of Opportunity Greg Moses Hutto Prison Rebuffs UN Rapporteur Rannie Amiri The Sham at Sheikh: Iraq Regional Conference a Flop Fitrakis / Wasserman Media Silence on Kent State Revelations Fred Wilhelms Another Royalty Forfeiture From SoundExchange: And This Time It's Secret! Ramzy Baroud The Hourglass of Blood: Darfur Revisited Bruce K. Gagnon The Democrats Don't Own the Antiwar Movement T. W. Croft Home Movies from a Weekend in Paris--And Related Dreamscapes Sonja Karkar Prizes for Supporting Israel? Website of the Day Posada Carriles: the Declassified Record May 5 / 6, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Trying to Catch Up with the Voters William Blum How America Has Changed Iraq Uri Avnery Exercise in Escapism Franklin Lamb Harvard's Twisted Report on Israel's Invasion of Lebanon Fred Gardner Elective Surgeries Kill Lawrence R. Velvel The American Moral Meltdown Accelerates Missy Beattie Lying and Dying: The Moral Sensibility of Military Recruiters Robert Fantina Bush's Veto: Hypocritical Words and Actions Carla Blank American Massacres and the Media Linn Washington, Jr. The Long Ordeal of Harold Wilson Stephen F. Jackson Taking It to Drummond: Paramilitaries and Mining Companies in Colombia P. Sainath The Jailing of Indian Farmers Anthony Papa Time to End New York's War on Itself James T. Phillips Blather Cancer John Ross Last Days of the Willie Loman of the EZLN Stephen Lendman Chavez's Oil Policy Sparks Panic at Wall Street Journal Ben Terrall Iggy Pop at 60 CounterPunch Newswire Advice from a Geezer Assassin Poets' Basement Valentine, Engel and Davies Website of the Weekend Mountain Justice Summer   May 4, 2007 Patrick Cockburn How the Surge is Failing Col. Dan Smith From Watergate to Gonzogate Norman Solomon FOX on Wall Street Azmi Bishara Why is Israel After Me? Ron Jacobs Sitting in on Senator Kohl and the War Dave Lindorff Clinton and Byrd are Calling for Revocation of the Wrong AUMF Kevin Zeese The Democrats Cave to Bush Bob Fitrakis Why Four Died in Ohio: Kent State, Gov. Rhodes and the FBI Janet Kauffman "Stop the Mudness!" Bare Earth is Scorched Earth Website of the Day Let Us Gather in Missouri!   May 3, 2007 Jeff Halper The Livni-Rice Plan for the Middle East: a Just Peace or Apartheid? Christopher Brauchli Bush's Best and Brightest: From Dr. Keroack to Bernard Kerik Dave Zirin Talking Sports from Death Row: an Interview with Kevin Cooper Corporate Crime Reporter Big Pharma Gets Its Hooks into Seton Hall Law School Robert Fisk Olmert Comes Undone Mike Ferner Bush Veto, Right for the Wrong Reasons? Mike Whitney A Stock Market Post-Mortem Pham Binh The Democrats and War Funding Dave Lindorff Kucinich's Impeachment Train: Look Who Just Stepped Aboard Michael A. Johnson Tenet on 60 Minutes Website of the Day Olivia Wilde: the Interview   May 2, 2007 Saul Landau Would Jesus Wear a Rolex on His TV Show? Dr. Susan Block Hookergate II: Madame Julia's Big Black Book of Cheesy Republican Sex Acts Carla Blank Historical Amnesia: Worst U.S. Massacre? Margaret Kimberly The Candor of Mike Gravel: "These People Frighten Me" Kevin Zeese Durbin Gives Edwards More to Apologize For Carlos Villareal How "Law and Order" Covers for Bigotry in the Immigration Debate Michael Dickinson Trouble in Turkey: Criminalizing Political Art Tim Shorrock A Raw Deal Between Washington and Seoul: Corporate Interventionism as Trade Policy Alevtina Rea The Myth-Makers of Estonia William S. Lind General Incompetence: Col. Yingling and the Military Brass Website of the Day Good News: Rost's "ZubeGate Exposé Prompts Congressional Inquiry May 1, 2007 Andrew Cockburn How Rumsfeld Micromanaged Torture Fred Gardner Affirmative Abstinence: Adios, Randall Tobias, the Man Who Turned His Wife's Suicide into a Sales Pitch for Prozac Chase Madar Are Working Class Jobs Bad for Your Health? Ralph Nader Cheney and the BYU 25: Faith, Accountability and Protest in Utah John V. Walsh Edgy Dems Snarl at Their Antiwar Base Joshua Frank Obama, Incorporated Leslie Radford The Migrant Trap and the Migrant's Way Out Shaun Harkin An Interview with Nativo López on Immigration Bills and Protests Dave Lindorff Murtha Talks Impeachment Peter Rost, MD Inspector General Requests Meeting with Pfizer Whistleblower Peter Linebaugh May Day and Magna Carta Website of the Day Impeachment? Why Bother?         Subscribe Online

Weekend Edition June 9 / 10, 2007 An Interview with George Wuerthner Dispelling the Cowboy Myth By TIM LENGERICH There is a tremendous irony in public lands ranching. On one hand, ranchers and cowboys are canonized in the Cowboy Myth as icons of stalwartness, hard work and an aw-shucks, salt of the earth mentality. In reality, ranchers are the most pervasively destructive force on our public land, with logging placed a distant second. Via outlandish subsidies, you, I and Uncle Sam support the cattle industry with drought and fire relief, fencing, water tanks, windmills and bargain basement grazing fees. Our government kills hundreds of thousands of wild creatures each year to protect ranchers' cows against predators such as wolves, mountain lions and coyotes. In return we get erosion, endangered species, habitat destruction, flash-flooding, exotic weeds, desertification and some of the most degraded landscape on Earth. Much of it will never recover. George Wuerthner of Eugene, Oregon, is one of the most outspoken leaders against public land's ranching. George dispels the Cowboy Myth and forecasts the demise of public lands ranching-one of the biggest farces in American history. Tim: When did you begin working to dispel the Cowboy Myth? George: I evolved gradually into a grazing activist. In high school, I worked in a hamburger fast food place. I thought the best part of the job was the free hamburgers. I even worked on a couple of ranches in college. I mended fences, rode through the sagebrush chasing steers and bucked bales of hay. I have some firsthand experience with ranching and its lifestyle. It has its attractions-especially if you ignore the environmental costs. I began to re-assess my views on ranching as a result of my college experiences. As an undergraduate, I studied wildlife biology and botany. Then I went to graduate school in range science hoping to get a job as a range conservationist with the government. In other words, I was not inherently hostile to livestock production or ranching. But as I looked more and more at the ultimate causes of many western environmental issues, I kept coming back to one industry-the livestock industry. I came to conclude that the cumulative environmental effects of this industry easily outstrip all others, hence my conversion to a grazing activist. Tim: George, what is the problem with public lands ranching? George: It affects more public land than any other activity. Some 90 percent of all Bureau of Land Management (BLM) lands, 70 percent of Forest Service lands, dozens of national parks, wildlife refuges, state lands and even county lands are affected by livestock production. Because of its huge geographical scope, even if it were a benign use of the landscape, it would be a concern. But it's anything but benign. It is the number one source for water pollution in the West. It's the number one source of soil erosion in the West. It's the number one cause of species endangerment in the West. It's the reason we don't have wolves throughout the West. It's one of the major reasons that more than four-fifths of all native fish west of the Continental Divide are endangered or threatened. We are facing a biodiversity crisis. While protection of private lands is desirable, it is questionable whether we will ever achieve more than spotty and unsatisfactory results. Our public lands are critical to any effort aimed at protection of biodiversity and as a place where landscape-scale ecological processes like wildfire and predation can operate. We can grow cows elsewhere if we insist on growing cows anywhere. And there are certainly far better places to do this than our western public lands. Tim: There is much discussion of the cows vs. condo myth. Some say cows beget condos. Just what does this mean and is it a legitimate concern? George: Cows vs. condos refers to a false dichotomy that believes if you eliminate livestock production, particularly on public lands, you will foster greater sprawl and development. Many environmentalists, as well as the livestock industry itself, suggest that the way to protect open space is to protect the livestock industry. There are several problems with this strategy. Most of us live in cities or towns that are growing. The West is one of the fastest-growing parts of the country due to net in-migration. It is only natural to assume that sprawl is necessarily worse than livestock production. It is something that we all experience everyday. Most of us don't directly experience the negative effects of livestock on a daily basis. So this colors our perception of the issue. On an acre-by-acre comparison, sprawl and urban development is highly destructive and probably far more damaging than having some cows munching on weeds-it's not a fair comparison. The amount of land directly affected by sprawl and development is actually quite small. But I don't want anyone to accuse me of saying that sprawl isn't a problem. Where it occurs it is a problem and it needs to be controlled, guided or even kept from occurring at all. Where I differ from others is that I believe we need to control, guide or eliminate livestock production as well as sprawl. Neither is good for ecosystems or native species. It's not a choice of one or the other. We should be fighting both. If you added in the effects of farming-and most of the agricultural land in the US is used to grow crops ultimately fed to livestock, not consumed directly by humans-livestock production is responsible for more endangered species than any other human activity, including urbanization. Livestock production affects nearly 70 to 75 percent of the entire US. That includes the public and private range land used for grazing, the lands used for crop production like hay or corn and the lands used as pasture. It's a huge amount of land. By comparison urbanization only affects three percent of the US land area. So if you are talking about total ecological impacts, the effects of livestock production are far greater than sprawl simply based on geographical scales. In California, only four percent of the landscape is developed according to analysis of aerial photos. I find the statistics compelling. I know that may be difficult to believe if you are living in Los Angeles or the San Francisco bay area, but think again. You have millions of acres in the desert, up in the Sierra Nevada and along the North Coast that is virtually uninhabited. Much of this is public land--half of California is public land--and will never be developed. Even most of the agricultural lands are used for livestock production--with hay and pasture accounting for more crop acreage than any other crops grown in the state. When you look at other western states it is even more skewed towards livestock--for instance 95 percent of Montana has less than four people per square mile. That's frontier by the 1890 US census definition. Yes, there are some crowded and growing areas of the state--but these make up a small amount of the total--some 0.17 percent of the state's total land area. Most of Montana's nonforested land is used for agricultural production, including livestock. So most of the West is dominated by open space, not urbanization or sprawl. Open space isn't necessarily good for wildlife or ecosystem protection. If that were the case, then Montana would not have any endangered species. There would be bison, wolves, grizzlies and sage grouse everywhere-but these species are on the verge of extinction. Why? Because of sprawl? Hardly. Because of agriculture-primarily livestock production. Even if you don't agree with me that livestock production is the greatest contributor to biological impoverishment, that doesn't mean that ranching can preserve open space. The only effective way to preserve open space is through zoning, purchase of development rights or outright purchase of land. The problem with the cows vs. condos myth is that it saps public support for alternatives. If people think we can have our cake and eat it too--i.e. having ranching and the Cowboy Myth preserved and not have to cough up money for land acquisition or debate about zoning issues, they are going to avoid biting thebullet and seriously discussing these proven alternatives. Those promoting ranching as a means of preserving open space are actually fiddling while Rome burns. Tim: Is public lands ranching dying a natural death? George: Yes it is dying--I would say the industry is already comatose and that is one reason why a strategy aimed at "preserving ranching" as a way to protect open space is both naive and ultimately doomed to failure. Rising land prices around the West have effectively killed the western livestock industry. You can't buy land at today's prices and pay it off running cattle. That means that no young people can enter the business-unless they have outside money. That has several effects. Old ranchers as they retire are not being replaced. Secondly, it also makes it more difficult to pass on a ranch to family members. Even small ranches are now worth millions of dollars. You are left without much choice but to sell it. In some places this means subdividing it. In other areas it means selling to some wealthy individual who runs the ranch as a "trophy" or "hobby." That is not all together a bad fate, since it keeps the land intact, but if you are rich you don't need to run cows. George Wuerthner is a writer, biologist and well-known opponent of livestock grazing on public lands. He is also a prolific photographer. His images can be viewed by clicking on Wuerthner Photography. This interview originally appeared on Lowbagger.org.

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