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January
10, 2002
Marina Mayakova
Russia's
Top Military Astrologer Predicts More Attacks from OBL
January
9, 2002
David
Vest
The
Super-Burqa
and the Big Tent
ND Jayaprakash
Winnable
Nuclear War?
Rafiq
Kathwari
Kashmir
Will Make Ground Zero Look Like a Bonfire
January
8, 2002
Prudence
Crowther
Sting
Like a B-52
Nelson
Valdés
Al-Qaeda
at Guantanamo Bay
John Chuckman
Dark
Tales from the
Ministry of Truth
Richard
Corn-Revere
Do
We Fear Freedom?
Joan Hoff
The
Nixon You Haven't Heard
January
7, 2002
Lawrence
McGuire
Confusing
Economic Tales About Argentina
Wael Masri
They
Are Taking
Our Rights Away
Philip
Farruggio
Better
Medicine
January
6, 2002
Ralph
Nader
Students
Put the Heat on Foreign Sweatshops
Tariq
Ali
Battleground
Kashmir
January
5, 2002
Mark Schneider
Kifah:
The Movie Star
Israel Killed
Edward
Said
Is
Israel More Secure Now?
January
4, 2002
CG Estabrook
Anti-War
= Anti-Globalization
Jordan
Green
What's
Changed in New York
January
3, 2002
Walt Brasch
Exit
Cheney, Enter Ridge
Mokhiber
and Weissman
The
10 Worst Corporations
of 2001
Robert
Hunter Wade
America's
Empire Rules an Unbalanced World
Shahid
Alam
Is
There an Islamic Problem?
January
2, 2002
Ross Regnart
Patriot
Act Redefines the Mob as "Terrorist Associates"
John Chuckman
The
Republicans' Secret Plan X
David
Vest
Turn,
Turn, Turn
January
1, 2002
Kathy
Kelly
Iraq's
New Year
December
31, 2001
John Absood
An
Alternative to War in Iraq
Ramzi
Kysia
Iraq
Goes Radioactive
December
28, 2001
John Chuckman
Observing
George Bush
Suren
Pillay
Civilian
Bodies
Aaron
Lehmer
Inviting
Future Terrorism
December
27, 2001
Patrick
McNamara
Palestinian
Children Bear Brunt of Mideast Violence
Nelson
Valdés
A
Possible Scenario on the Location of bin Laden
Jensen
and Mahajan
Remember
the Afghan Dead
Philip
Farruggio
A
New Year's Resolution
Ramzi
Kysia
The
People of the Valley
December 26, 2001
John Chuckman
In
Praise of the Unspeakable
Sam Bahour
2002:
Year of the Twos
December 25, 2001
Jennifer Loewenstein
Israel's
Human Rights Record
December 24, 2001
Sam Bahour
It
Happened One Morning
Yair Khilou
Why I Resisted
Being Drafted into the Israeli Army
Michael
Chisari
War
as Diversionary Tactic
Cockburn/St. Clair
Enron
and the Green Seal
A Photographic Journal of Life
in an Afghan Refugee Camp
By Judith Mann
Resources:
100s of Links
About 9/11
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Coverage of 9/11 and Its Aftermath
Five
Days That
Shook The World:
Seattle and Beyond
By Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
Photos by Allan Sekula
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Published Oct. 15, 2001
8-Page Special Issue
War Diary
CIA's Assassination Plan a History of
Torture in US Prisons
bin Laden and Bush
Business Connections
Aisha Ikramuddin on the Hidden Hype
of US Food Bombs
Peter Linebaugh on
Pakistan
Christopher Hitchens' Love for Mrs. Thatcher
Jiang Zemin Tells Bush:
Nuke 'Em
Search
CounterPunch
Read Whiteout and Find Out
How the CIA's Backing of the Mujahideen Created the World's Most
Robust Heroin Market and Helped to Finance the Rise of the Taliban
and Osama bin Laden
Whiteout:
CIA, Drugs & the
Press
by Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The Memphis Blues Again:
Six Decades of Memphis Music Photographs
Photos by Ernest Withers
Text by Daniel Wolff
The New Intifada:
Resisting Israel's Apartheid
Edited by Roane Carey
A Pocket Guide to
Environmental Bad Guys
by James Ridgeway
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The
Phoenix Program
by Douglas Valentine
Al Gore:
A User's Manual
by Cockburn
and St. Clair
Buy
This Explosive
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Amazing Discount!
Reviews of Gore:
a User's Manual
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January
10, 2002
Nature
and Politics
From Greenpeace to Greenwash
By Jeffrey St. Clair and
Alexander Cockburn
Over the past quarter-century, Greenpeace has
gone from one of the more radical environmental groups around
to a gateway into the corporate world. More and more a stint
at Greenpeace seems to be prerequisite on the resumé of
top-flight public relations honchos. Greenpeace has already seen
former executive Patrick Moore defect to the timber industry
in Canada and Paul Gilding (former CEO of Greenpeace International)
set up a consulting firm for such corporate villains as DuPont,
Monsanto and Placer Dome Mining.
The latest to cash in is Lord Peter Melchett,
former head of Greenpeace UK, who has taken a position with Burson-Marsteller,
the notorious US pr firm. While at Greenpeace, Lord Melchett
led the group's high-profile campaign against genetically-engineered
foods, targeting, in particular, the products of Monsanto, a
Burson-Marsteller client.
According to a company press release,
Lord Melchett will head a committee advising companies on how
to deal with thorny issues such as GM food, toxic waste, oil
drilling, nuclear power, child labor and sweatshops in the developing
world. Burson-Marsteller executives told the Guardian newspaper
of London that he may also dispense advice on how to B-M clients
can counter environmental protests.
Lord Melchett knows the protest scene
from the inside. He's been called the José Bove of Britain,
after he was arrested last year for destroying a plot of genetically-engineered
sugar beets in Norfolk. But the Eton-educacted Lord Melchett's
knows the corporate world even better. Melchett is a member of
the House of Lords, his father headed British Steel and his great-grandfather
founded the ICI chemical empire.
Greenpeace executives in Britain said
they saw no conflict of interest in Lord Melchett's defection
to the dark side. "Anyone who knows him will know that he
hasn't changed his agenda at all," said Stephen Tisdale,
the director of Greenpeace UK. "He sees Burson-Marsteller
as a conduit to some very influential companies who would not
normally talk to environmentalists. In some ways, Greenpeace
held him back, and he has become more radical after leaving last
year."
That last bit is a stark admission of
how thoroughly impotent Greenpeace has become. For those who
have forgotten, Burson-Marsteller is the pr firm of last resort.
They rushed to defend Union Carbide after the company killed
2,000 people and injured thousands more in Bhopal, India. It
also ran cover for Babcock and Wilcox after the company's nuclear
reactor suffered a near meltdown at Three Mile Island in 1979.
They've represented Exxon and Monsanto, big tobacco, the Argentine
junta, Indonesia's Suharto, the Saudi royal family, and Nicolae
Ceausescu, the late Romanian dictator.
Lord Melchett will join some old friends
at Burson-Marsteller. Richard Aylard, the former head of Soil
Association (which represents organic farmers) and Gavin Grant,
a former environmental adviser to the Body Shop, both now work
full-time the pr giant. While the others have severed their ties
with environmental group, Lord Melchett remains on the board
of Greenpeace International.
In an email to John Stauber, director
of PR Watch, a former Greenpeace
executive lamented that Lord Melchett's defection was a sign
of the moribund condition of the big time environmental movement.
"The Lord Melchetts of the activist (and now corporate)
world are only one symptom of a broader contagion. Is there even
a real environmental movement anymore? How accountable are NGOs
to their own base? ... Look how little is being accomplished
in addressing Global Warming in the U.S. at a time when it's
obviously a national security issue and a global security issue.
I think this is in part because the environmental groups don't
believe in mass movement building like they used to. Most of
us are treated like consumer and spectator activists -- expected
to pay our membership dues and trust that full-time salaried
activists will solve the issue -- without expecting to get involved
ourselves. How easy it is to confuse salaried NGO actors with
real movement leaders. And when they leave to work for corporations,
if they haven't built a base that can carry on the radical push
for change, how weak the organizations become that they leave
behind. But alas, Lord Melchett hasn't even fully left Greenpeace:
Should Greenpeace International allow an employee of Burson-Marsteller
on their board?"
The question might well be reversed.
Given Greenpeace's utter corrosion does it really serve the interests
of the corporate spin doctors to recruit from their ranks anymore?
These days picking up a Greenpeace staffer is little different
than hiring away a pr flack from any other corporation.
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