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What You're Missing in our subscriber-only CounterPunch newsletter CHINA'S GREAT LEAP BACKWARDS Peter Kwong gives us the "New China" without illusions: from the "millionaires' fair" in Shanghai, with $60,000 diamond-studded dog leashes to one of the most savagely repressed working class and peasantry on the planet. How China's leaders swapped Marx and Mao for Milton Friedman. Alexander Cockburn on What's wrong with the U.S. left. They're sitting in darkened rooms weaving conspiracy fantasies about 9/11; they're blogging; they're confusing a medium with a movement; they're not doing enough to stop the war in Iraq. John Ross takes us along the stormy trail of the Mexican election. CounterPunch Online is read by millions of viewers each month! But remember, we are funded solely by the subscribers to the print edition of CounterPunch. Please support this website by buying a subscription to our newsletter, which contains fresh material you won't find anywhere else, or by making a donation for the online edition. Remember contributions are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now! Get CounterPunch By Email for Only $35 a Year

Today's Stories July 3, 2006 Alexander Cockburn Temple of Mammon, Planet of Doom July 1/2, 2006 Weekend Edition Paul Craig Roberts Bush's Assaults on Freedom: What's to Stop Him? Stephen T. Banko Echoes from the Past; Nightmares Daniel Cassidy How the Irish Invented Slang: the Bunkum of Bunkum (for Dizzy Gillespie) Fawzia Afzal-Khan The Class Behind the Muslim Jeff Taylor The Sandy Foundation of the White House: a Bible-Believing Christian's View of Bush John Ross Mexico: There's a Riot Going On Greg Moses Psycho-Management Hits Mexico's Maquiladoras Laura Carlsen Mexico's Elections: a Choice for Change Justin E.H. Smith Lethal Injection and Other Fashion Trends Brian Cloughley Different Worlds: When Liberation is Worse Than Oppression Anthony Papa Punishing Addiction: No Walk in the Park for Dwight Gooden Mike Ferner Getting Busted for Wearing a Peace T-Shirt Jerry Tucker Liberalism's Long Goodbye: McGovern Hoists the White Flag Jane Goodall / Rick Asselta Remembering the Marshall Islands Phyllis Pollack Roll Over Beethoven: Chuck Berry is Back in Town Poets' Basement Salasin, Swindell, Ferri-Smith and Engel   June 30, 2006 Marjorie Cohn Supreme Rebuke: Bush Loses Gitmo Case Heather Williams Will Mexicans Ignore What Bolivians Learned? Burbach / Cantor Yellowback Democrats: the Party of Cut-and-Run (from Principle) Nick Dearden Crime in the Valley: Life on the Other Side of Palestine Michael J. Smith Under the Broadcast Flag: Intellectual Property as Intellectual Theft Brian Concannon The Return to Haiti: a Homecoming for Aristide? Virginia Tilley Israel's Appalling Act: Starving in the Dark   June 29, 2006 Bill Quigley Gutting New Orleans Ron Jacobs Killing a Nation to Rescue a Soldier Paul Craig Roberts The High Price of American Gullibility June 28, 2006 Jorge Mariscal Mexican-American Soldiers, Iraq and the Politics of Immigrant Bashing Greg Moses Down in Pinal County: Where the Pun's on Us Mark Weisbrot Mexico: Their Brand is Crisis Ramzy Baroud Re-Interpreting Iraq: the Latest Propaganda Campaign Dave Lindorff Redacting the Constitution: Why Signing Statements Matter William S. Lind Neither Shall the Sword: War in a Fouth Generation World Mike Ferner 50 Years Down the Wrong Direction: Taken for a Ride on the Interstate Highway System Zoltan Grossman Military Resistance: a Brief History   June 27, 2006 Marjorie Cohn Playing Politics with Timetables Benjamin / Jarrar Leading Dems Froth Over Amnesty Plan William Hughes Roadmap to Starvation Doug Giebel Showdown in Montana: Burns vs. Testor Uri Avnery The World Cup and Middle East Peace Alexander Cockburn Hitchens Hails the "Glorious War"   June 26, 2006 Don Santina American Rituals: Massacres, Baseball and Apple Pies Ralph Nader Beyond Binary Politics Dave Lindorff CounterPunch v. CounterPunch: Taking Impeachment on the Road Rafael Rodriguez-Cruz An Interview with Mumia Abu-Jamal on Hispanics and Latin America Evelyn Pringle Big Pharma's Big Graveyard: Drug Profits, Fraud and Death Jonathan Cook Israeli "Retaliation" and Double Standards   June 23, 2006 Youmans / Erakat Divestment, Corporate Engagement and Israel Dave Lindorff Cut and Run: a Winning Strategy Ron Jacobs Dogs of War Barking at the Moon Col. Dan Smith Iraq: Fool Me Twice   June 22, 2006 Marjorie Cohn Friendly Fire Ambush Winslow T. Wheeler Lockheed, the Senator and the F-22 Tanya Reinhart A Week of Israeli Restraint Mike Marqusee The Forest Gate Raid William Blum Why Bush's Iraq is Worse Than Saddam's   June 21, 2006 Ramzy Baroud Zarqawi's Death: Myth vs. Reality Patrick Cockburn Embassy Work as Death Sentence Gary Leupp Making the Case for Impeachment Greg Moses Elite Logic at the Border   June 20, 2006 Fred Gardner The Long War on Aspirin Omar Waraich Ode to Joy: Watching Blair Sink Christopher Reed Japan Nixes Payments to Its Wartime Slaves CP Newswire Coca Cola Takes a Hit Jonathan Cook Israel Engineers Another Cover-Up   June 19, 2006 Bill Quigley HUD's Bulldozers and the Poor of New Orleans John Walsh Tears of a Clown: Al Franken's War Mike Whitney The Zoom Lens War: Bush's Baghdad Photo Op Alexander Cockburn The Left and the Blathersphere   June 16 / 18, 2006 Weekend Edition Kathy / Bill Christision The Power of the Israel Lobby Joseph Nevins On the Migrant Trail: No More Walls, No More Deaths Farrah Hassen An Interview with Syria's Ambassador to the US, Dr. Imad Moustapha Greg Moses The Real Mission of the Uniformed Ghost at the Border Nicole Colson "There's No Hope at Gitmo" John Scagliotti How MoveOn Wastes Its Donors' Money Mokhiber / Weissmann Corporate Democrats   June 15, 2006 Kathy Kelly Look Them in the Eye: Honest Abe and the Residents of Ramadi Norman Solomon Premature Triangulation: Hillary's Big Problem Ron Jacobs Publicity Stunts as Public Policy Sam Bahour Cover Up on Gaza Beach Ramzy Baroud Palestine on the Brink CounterPunch Wire Death Squads at Colombia's Universities Gabriel Kolko Why a Global Economic Deluge Looms Website of the Day Antje Duvekot: Music You've Been Waiting Years to Hear   June 14, 2006 Nicole Colson "They Want the Fear Level at a High Pitch": An Interview with Lawyer Lynne Stewart Jonathan Cook Israeli Law and Order Joseph Schechla Bulldozing Palestine: an Open Letter to Caterpillar, Inc. Michael Carmichael Bolton at Oxford: Jeered and Taunted Evelyn Pringle Karl and George, the Teflon Partnership Ward Churchill My Trial By Media: Turning Quibbles Over Footnotes into Felonies Rev. William E. Alberts Decoding the Coders of Christ: Jesus the Political Insurgent? Website of the Day Marines Iraq Snuff Film   June 13, 2006 Medea Benjamin Take Back America Suppresses Anti-War Dissenters at HRC Speech Anthony Alessandrini The Evil of Banality: the General, the New York Times and the Gitmo Suicides Paul D'Amato The Meaning of Haditha Dave Lindorff The Strange Death of Zarqawi: Was He Killed So He Wouldn't Talk? John Ross Elections and the World Cup: If Team Mexico Advances, Will Anyone Show Up to Vote for Lopez Obrador? Gabriel Garcia Venezuela and Drug Trafficking: Bush Bashes Chavez Despite Positive Results Hilton Obenzinger DIvestment is a Stand for Equality in Israel Yitzhak Laor The Secret of Authority Juan Antonio Ocasio Rivera Puerto Rico at the UN Jennifer Van Bergen The Story Behind Zarqawi's Death: What's the Legality of the Assassination? Website of the Day Paul Wright: a Real American Freedom Fighter   June 12, 2006 Paul Craig Roberts Bush's Armageddon Wish: a Final End to History? Patrick Cockburn The US Already Misses Zarqawi Mike Marqusee Rebranding a Team: English Nationalism and the World Cup Lee Sustar "I Never Had the American Dream:" Left with No Future by GM and Delphi Robert Fisk Has Racism Invaded Canada? Michael J. Smith Enter Sandman; Exit Kosland Felice Pace NPR's Warped Covereage of the MIddle East Jennifer Loewenstein Setting the Record Straight on Hamas Website of the Day Our Way Home   June 10 / 11, 2006 Weekend Edition Robert Fisk Zarqawi's End is not a Famous Victory Diane Christian Zarqawi's Face Joe Allen The American Way of Atrocities: Marine Corps' Killer Virtues Ralph Nader Let Us All Praise the Dixie Chicks Fred Gardner Tylenol Toxicity Terror Dave Lindorff Nothing New About Haditha Dave Zirin / John Cox Will Racism Spoil the World Cup? Dennis Perrin Death is Patriotic: Necro-Porn, Live on CNN Greg Moses Militarizing the Border: Why Operation Jump Start Worries Me John Chuckman Terror in Toronto or Tempest in a Teapot? Michael J. Smith Babes in Kosland: Dem Blogfest, Day Two Roger Burbach Bachelet in DC: Chilean President Refuses to Back Down to Bush Ira Moskowitz Israeli Court Finds Mad-Dog US Prof Libeled CounterPuncher Neve Gordon Sam Bahour The Gaza Air Strikes: Begging for a Response Seth Sandronsky Grocery Chains and Bush's Ownership Society: Profits Fall, Stores Close Michael Berg A Father's Day Message: Both Parties Have Betrayed America Kirsten Roberts Desmond Dekker and the Music of the Shantytowns Ron Jacobs Who's Fooling Who? Jeffrey St. Clair Playlist: What I'm Listening to This Week Poets' Basement Jones, Davies, Engel and Louise Website of the Weekend Miles and Trane, So What?   June 9, 2006 Alexander Cockburn Make-Up for a Corpse!: In a Month Zarqawi will be Forgotten and the War Will Rage On Paul Craig Roberts War Criminal Nation: You'd Better Shut Up! Gary Leupp The Iran Deal: Come Down or Set Up? Eric Ruder Police Torture in America: the Chicago Files Evelyn Pringle The Noe Drama: Was the Ohio Vote Rigged? Mickey Z. America: Land of Denial Michael J. Smith Our Man in Kos; They're Not in Kansas, Anymore Patrick Cockburn The Short, Strange Career of Abu Masab al-Zarqawi Website of the Day Georgia ... Bush   June 8, 2006 Chris Floyd Hubub in Hibhib: the Timely Death of al-Zarqawi Michael Dickinson Criminal Collage: the Bush Dog Case Ron Jacobs You Can't Call Me Zarqawi, Any More William S. Lind The Power of Weakness, Again: Haditha, 4GW and the Abu Ghraib Precedent Joshua Frank From Bush to Hillary: Holding the War Parties Accountable Missy Comley Beattie Ann Coulter and Rev. Fred Phelps: a Romance Lloyd Williams Ann Coulter's Blood Lust Bill Christison Proviing the Case: What Bush Wants is More War Website of the Day Bedtime for Bono?   June 7, 2006 Dave Lindorff The Iraq Money Trail: the Case of the Missing $21 Billion Sunsara Taylor CDC to Women: Prepare to Give Birth! John Walsh Flunking the Art of War: Master Sun-Tzu, President Hu and Bush David MacMichael No More Hadithas Mickey Z. Haditha and Rumsfeld's Ratio Evelyn Pringle Gagging Public Employees Myles Palmer Dark Star Chasm: a Sneak Peak at Roger Waters' Dark Side of the Moon Tour Laura Ribeiro The Israeli Boycott of Palestinian Education Website of the Day Thank You, Lt. Ehren Watada   June 6, 2006 Diane Christian Negatives: Torture, Massacres and Denial Paul Craig Roberts Outsourcing Smarts: the Death of US Engineering Ralph Nader The Battle for South Central Farm Norman Solomon The Urbanity of Evil: Tariq Aziz and Bush's Enablers Darmont / Genovali Wolf Sterilization Scheme Backfires Manuel Garcia, Jr. Blacks, Hispanics and Immigrant Bashing for Colonial Control Subcomandante Marcos The Other Campaign: a Plan for Action on June 11, 2006 Patrick Cockburn Bloodbath Beyond the Green Zone Website of the Day Greatest Music Video?   June 5, 2006 Bruce Jackson Why Haditha Happened Chris Floyd Return to Ishaqi: the Pentagon's Shaky Self-Exoneration Michael Neumann Jewish Opposition to Zionism Heather Gray War in the 20th Century: a Canadian Family's Experience William Hughes Bipartisan War Profiteers David Swanson Should We Stay or Should We Go Now? Alexander Cockburn Palestine: It's All Over Website of the Day Klamath Spring   June 3 / 4, 2006 Weekend Edition Robert Fisk Liberators as Murderers James Petras Is Latin America Really Turning Left? Rosemary Radford Ruether "We Have No One to Talk To:" Israel's Targeted Assassination Policy Harry Clark Truman and Israel: How It All Began Jeffrey St. Clair What a Miner's Life is Worth Ron Ridenour Return to Cuba Ron Jacobs Hand Wringing and Warfare: What Do Owe Iraq Fred Gardner Dr. Tashkin Makes the News Peter Montague The System in Crisis John Walsh MoveOn Rigs Its Own Vote; Betrays Its Membership Greg Moses Eyes of Texas: Neocon Border with Mexico Begins Next Week Sean Donahue Atlantica: Mainer's Won't Be Fooled Again Mike Whitney Swan Song for the Greenback? Dave Patten Final Examination Ali Khan Story of the Two Kings Robert Dotson, MD Couch Time for America Hammond Guthrie Revisiting Mondo Hollywood St. Clair / D'Antoni Playlists: What We're Listening to This Week Poets' Basement Bina, Engel, Ford and Landau Website of the Day Send Dr. Suzy Your Love   June 2, 2006 Kathy Kelly Right Livelihood Alan Maass "A Mercenary Army": an Interview with Jeremy Scahill on Blackwater in New Orleans Mickey Z. Haditha Massacre was Inevitable Dave Lindorff Don't Think Twice: Bush and Rumsfeld as Ethics Advisers Chris Kutalik Troqueros Flex Muscles at Long Beach Sunsara Taylor Countdown to a Betrayal: Making Change Without Democrats Sam Husseini Can Pacifica Live Up to Its Promise? Mike Ferner More, Lots More Website of the Day Free Daniel McGowan!   June 1, 2006 Brian Cloughley Haditha and the Farrago of Lies: War Crimes Start at the Top David Peterson Iran: a Manufactured Crisis Lee Ballinger Media Myths About the South: What Backlash Against the Dixie Chicks? Jonathan Cook Olmbert in DC: Bold Ideas and Ugly Intentions Mike Whitney Offers and Ultimatums: Endgaming Iran Paul Rockwell Smearing Ron Dellums Clifton Ross Millennium Blues Kevin Zeese Return of the Petri Dish Warriors: a New Biowar Arms Race Begins in Maryland Website of the Day The Monkees and Johnny Cash   May 31, 2006 Dave Lindorff DNC Death Wish 2006: the Do Nothing Party Joshua Frank Al Gore, Environmental Titan?: Some Inconvenient Truths About the Ozone Man Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz Stop Saying This is a Nation of Immigrants! P. Sainath Three Weddings and Funeral: Farmer Suicides in Vidharbha Ramzy Baroud On Palestinian Violence Seth Sandronsky The War on Nurses: a Joint Attack by US Senate and NLRB Mickey Z. Scapegoating Mexicans is an American Tradition Ralph Nader Breakaway Bases: Keeping LIttle Leaguers Safe Jeffrey St. Clair Dirk's Dirty Money: Gale Norton in Slacks Website of the Day Storm Cloud Over New Orleans   May 30, 2006 Lee Ballinger The Real Reason Rock the Vote is Falling Apart Jonathan Cook Shin Bet and the Israeli Academy: Partners in Human Rights Abuses? Gary Leupp Now Introducing, the Office of Iranian Affairs John Ross Disappearing the Disappeared Robert Jensen The Four Fundamentalisms Michael Dickinson Silencing the Peace Protester of Parliament Square Michael Carmichael Zionist Democrats: the DLC and Israel Tim Wise Of Immigrants and "Real Amurkans" Harry Browne Ken Loach's History Lesson Website of the Day Louisiana   May 27 / 29, 2006 Weekend Edition Paul Craig Roberts The Evil Within Kathleen Christison Surrender vs. the Right to Exist Kathy Kelly Fear of Flowers in Iraq: a Report from Sulaymaniyah Christopher Reed The Abominable Dr. Ishii: the Pentagon and the Japanese Mengele Lawrence R. Velvel The Moral Rot in Congress: a Constitutional Right to Graft? Tom Barry The Politics of Tom Tancredo Gary Leupp The Latest Neocon Lies About Iran Col. Dan Smith Freezing History: Iran and the Uses of "Preventive" War Ron Jacobs Blocking Military Ports: One, Two, Three Many Olympians Don Fitz EPA Goes Lead Wild: Acceptable Levels of Poisoning Fred Gardner What's the Matter with Oregon? Peter Montague Radioactive Troika: Bush, the Nuclear Power Industry and the New York Times Raymond Garcia Teens as Political Scapegoats John Farley Euston Manifesto: the Latest Gameplan from the Pro-Imperialist Left Seth Sandronsky Mexico After NAFTA: the Washington Post's Trouble with Numbers Tia Steele A Gold Star Mother's Memorial Day Plea Lenni Brenner "Howl", 50 Years Later: Allen Ginsberg's Silly Liberal Politics Dr. Susan Block God Has Sex, Makes Big Box Office Scott Michael Perey An Open Letter to Bono: Why are You Financing a Video Game Promoting the Invasion of Venezuela? Jeffrey St. Clair Playlist: Please Help Hilton Ruiz Poets' Basement Davies, Smith-Ferri, Mickey Z,, Buknatski, and Engel Recipe of the Weekend Impeach-Mint Punch Website of the Weekend Trojan Syndrome   May 26, 2006 Col. Douglas MacGregor Fire the Generals!: the Failure of Military Leadership in Iraq Brian J. Foley Who Will Stand Up to Bush's Drive to Attack Iran? Michael Dickinson Mining Glaciers: Water or Gold? Missy Comley Beattie Stuck in a Cake-Walk War Pierre Tristam The Few, the Proud, the Murderers Joe Allen Put a Disclaimer on the Bible, Not the Da Vinci Code Kona Lowell Thank You, Fox News Roger Burbach Bush Targets Chavez and Morales Website of the Day Women Resisting War from Within   May 25, 2006 Les AuCoin Faith-Based Missile Defense: the Folly of Star Wars Jeff Halper Countdown to Apartheid Dave Lindorff Bombing Without Regrets Ron Jacobs Voting Rights and Multilingual Ballots Bob Wing Finding Common Ground in New Orleans: an Interview with Malik Rahim Elise Gould College Grads Face Weak Labor Market Robert Bryce Iraq's Fuel Crisis Website of the Day Oh Lay!   May 24, 2006 Michael Donnelly Operation Backfire: Criminalizing Eco-Dissent Patrick Cockburn Why the US May Have to Quit Iraq Sooner Than It Planned Lucinda Marshall Involuntary Motherhood: the Cacophony Over RU 486 Dave Lindorff A Winning Impeachment Argument Shmuel Rosner Israeli Advice on Wall-Building: Be Ruthless Moshe Adler The Promised Land: Immigration, Israeli Style Heather Gray Land Reform and American Agriculture Pratyush Chandra Angels and Demons in Nepal Paul Craig Roberts In Memoriam: Lloyd Bentsen Floyd Rudmin Why Does the NSA Engage in Mass Surveillanc of Americans? Website of the Day Presentensing the Future   May 23, 2006 Paul Craig Roberts Paranoia as Policy: How Bush Brewed the Iran Crisis Sharon Smith Shooting to Kill on the Border Sunsara Taylor Meet the New Christian Conquistadors: Ron Luce's Holy Warriors Joel Whitney The Most Tenacious Man on Capitol Hill?: an Interview with John Conyers Alice Cherbonnier Total Information Awareness for Whom? FOIA, the Press and the Spooks Ron Jacobs Optimism of the Will Kristen Ess The Crisis for Palestinian Political Prisoners Patrick Cockburn Which is the Real Iraq? Website of the Day Pearl Jam: Life Wasted     Subscribe Online

July 3, 2006 Running on Top Soil The Biofuel Illusion By JULIA OLMSTEAD There's been a lot of talk lately about the promise of biofuels -- liquid fuels like ethanol and biodiesel made from plants -- to reduce our dependence on oil. Even President Bush beat the biofuel drum in his last State of the Union speech. Fuel from plants? Sounds pretty good. But before you rush out to buy an E-85 pickup, consider: -- The United States annually consumes more fossil and nuclear energy than all the energy produced in a year by the country's plant life, including forests and that used for food and fiber, according to figures from the U.S. Department of Energy and David Pimentel, a Cornell University researcher. -- To produce enough corn-based ethanol to meet current U.S. demand for automotive gasoline, we would need to nearly double the amount of land used for harvested crops, plant all of it in corn, year after year, and not eat any of it. Even a greener fuel source like the switchgrass President Bush mentioned, which requires fewer petroleum-based inputs than corn and reduces topsoil losses by growing back each year, could provide only a small fraction of the energy we demand. -- The corn and soybeans that make ethanol and biodiesel take huge quantities of fossil fuel for farm machinery, pesticides and fertilizer. Much of it comes from foreign sources, including some that may not be dependable, such as Russia and countries in the Middle East. -- Corn and soybean production as practiced in the Midwest is ecologically unsustainable. Its effects include massive topsoil erosion, pollution of surface and groundwater with pesticides, and fertilizer runoff that travels down the Mississippi River to deplete oxygen and life from a New Jersey-size portion of the Gulf of Mexico. -- Improving fuel efficiency in cars by just 1 mile per gallon -- a gain possible with proper tire inflation -- would cut fuel consumption equal to the total amount of ethanol federally mandated for production in 2012. Rather than chase phantom substitutes for fossil fuels, we should focus on what can immediately both slow our contribution to global climate change and reduce our dependence on oil and other fossil fuels: cutting energy use. Let's be bold. Let's raise the tax on gasoline to encourage consumers to buy fuel-efficient cars and trucks. We can use the proceeds to fund research and subsidies for truly sustainable energy. Let's raise energy efficiency standards for vehicles, appliances, industries and new buildings. Let's employ new land-use rules and tax incentives to discourage suburban sprawl and encourage dense, mixed-use development that puts workplaces, retail stores and homes within walking distance of each other. Let's better fund mass transit. Let's switch the billions we now spend on ethanol subsidies to development of truly sustainable energy technologies. And why not spend money to make on-the-shelf technology like hybrid cars more affordable? Fuel-efficient hybrids aren't the final solution, but they can be a bridge to more sustainable solutions. The focus on biofuels as a silver bullet to solve our energy and climate change crises is at best misguided. At worst, it is a scheme that could have potentially disastrous environmental consequences. It will have little effect on our fossil fuel dependence. We must reduce energy use now if we hope to kick our oil addiction and slow climate change. Pushing biofuels at the expense of energy conservation today will only make our problems more severe, and their solutions more painful, tomorrow. Julia Olmstead is a graduate student in plant breeding and sustainable agriculture at Iowa State University and a graduate fellow with the Land Institute, Salina, Kan. She wrote this for the institute's Prairie Writers Circle.

Now Available from CounterPunch Books! The Case Against Israel By Michael Neumann Click Here to Order Michael Neumann's Devastating Rebuttal of Alan Dershowitz WHAT'S INSIDE Grand Theft Pentagon: Tales of Greed and Profiteering in the War on Terror by Jeffrey St. Clair   CounterPunch Speakers Bureau Sick of sit-on-the-Fence speakers, tongue-tied and timid? CounterPunch Editors Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St Clair are available to speak forcefully on ALL the burning issues, as are other CounterPunchers seasoned in stump oratory. Call CounterPunch Speakers Bureau, 1-800-840-3683. Or email beckyg@counterpunch.org. The Book on 9/11 the White House Denounced as "ABSOLUTE GARBAGE"