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Today's Stories July 21, 2006 George Galloway John Cornford and the Fight for the Spanish Republic P. Sainath Indian Prime Minister Faces the Dead Farmer Problem Aseem Shrivastava The Iraq War is a Huge Success Alexander Cockburn Hezbollah, Hamas and Israel: Everything You Need to Know Website of the Day FromIsraeltoLebanon July 20, 2006 William S. Lind Why Hezbollah is Winning Robert Jensen Florida Puts History on Probation John Ross AMLO Presidente! Tom Hayden I Was Israel's Dupe Paul Craig Roberts The Unfolding Horror Show July 19, 2006 Patrick Cockburn Massacres Soar in Central Iraq: Maliki Government Discredited Trish Schuh Israel Targets, Flattens Beirut TV Station HQ Jonathan Cook Is Israel Using Arab Villages As Human Shields? Vicente Navarro The Spanish Civil War, 70 Years On: The Deafening Silence on Franco's Genocide July 17 / 18 2006 Mike Whitney Israel's Shameful Attack on Gaza Kathleen Christison Atrocities in the Promised Land July 14 / 15, 2006 Weekend Edition Alexander Cockburn How Venice is Dying Tanya Reinhart The IDF is Hungry for War Robert Fisk Beirut Waits: Is Damascus the Key? Daniel Cassidy How the Irish Invented Jazz Winslow Wheeler Pentagon Budget Gimmickry: When a Cut is Actually an Increase Hugh O'Shaughnessy In Amazonia: Slavery and Deforestation M. Shahid Alam Israel, the US and the New Orientalism William S. Lind Two Signposts in Iraq Ramzy Baroud Racism Plagues Media Coverage of Gaza Assault Gilad Atzmon Echoes of the Wehrmacht Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg Railroading Your Rights Samar Assad A History of Israeli-Palestinian Prisoner Exchanges Ron Jacobs Japan and Pre-Emptive Strikes: Why Would They Want to Go There? Lee Ballinger A New Kind of Jim Crow? Walter Brasch A World Without Fajitas?: the Rightwing's Language Police Dave Lindorff The Bush Swingers?: They Broke the Law and People Died Clifton Ross Up from Below in Oaxaca Tom Crumpacker Planning for the Re-Colonization of Cuba Ricardo Alarcon The Mad Annexationist William Hughes Rev. Billy Graham: A War-Monger in the Pulpit Susie Day Bugging Hillary Farrah Hassen The Road to Gitmo: Dramatizing the Banality of Evil Poets' Basement Smith-Ferri, Engel and Davies July 13, 2006 Saul Landau Lies as Patriotism? 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 July 12, 2006 John Ross Mexico Splits in Half: the Election Hits the Streets John Stauber The CIA Propagandist and Former Prankster Stewart Brand: John Rendon's Long, Strange Trip in the Terror Wars Robert Boston Top 10 Powerbrokers of the Religious Right Wayne S. Smith Bush's New Cuba Plan: Embargoes, Blacklists and Assassination Plots John Graham Secrecy and the Curtain of Oz Ed Kinane Arrested for Failing to Obey a Lawful Order to Cease Protesting an Unlawful War: My Statement to the US District Court Kevin Prosen Goodbye Mr. Zeidler, You Will Be Missed Jonathan Cook Israel's Latest Bueaucratic Obscenity Website of the Day Addicted to Oil: Starring GW Bush   July 11, 2006 Dave Lindorff Does a State of War Give Bush the Right to Commit War Crimes? Dave Zirin Why I Wear My Zidane Jersey Mokhiber / Weissman Boeing's Criminal Agreement: Odd and Unusual Amira Hass A War on Families Clare Hanrahan The Last Free Fourth of July? Brian Cloughey Stop Blaming Pakistan Felice Pace The US Media and the World Cup Raed Jarrar Iraq: Raped Website of the Day Bad Boy of Gitmo   July 10, 2006 Paul Craig Roberts Courting Doom with North Korea Uri Avnery A One-Sided War Roger Burbach Democracy Betrayed: Electoral Fraud and Rebellion in Mexico Ron Jacobs The New SDS: Toward a Radical Youth Movement Joshua Frank Sectarian Flames in Iraq Missy Comley Beattie Bush's Stunning Admission to Larry King Alexander Cockburn The War in Iraq: a Dreadful Mistake July 8 / 9, 2006 Weekend Edition Stephen Green When War Criminals Retire Paul Craig Roberts Republic or Empire?: Lessons from Stanford Greg Moses Boots Down on the Rio Grande Ralph Nader The Wail of the Oceans Laura Carlsen Mexico's Election Lacks Credibility Conn Hallinan Dumping Musharraf: Is Pakistan Expendable? John Chuckman Afghanistan is No One's War Fred Gardner Big Pharma's Strange Holy Grail: Cannabis Without Euphoria? Dr. Tod Mikuriya Cannabis as a Frontline Treatment for Childhood Mental Disorders Pierre Tristam Missile Envy: Is N. Korea Bush's Most Reliable Ally? Lucinda Marshall Deep Sexing the News: the Rape of Iraq David Swanson Command Rape: the Ordeal of Suzanne Swift Heather Gray The Spiral of Violence: What the Dead Might Tell Us Dave Zirin / John Cox French Soccer and the Future of Europe: Le Pen's Racists vs. Zindane and Henry Mark Engler Mexico's Fear of Democracy: Elites, Fraud and the Status Quo Michael Lettieri Mexico: Don't Discount a Recount Ron Jacobs 2008 Might Be Too Late: the Case for Impeachment Now Jamal Juma' Globalizing the Occupation Jeffrey St. Clair Playlist: What I'm Listening to This Week Poets' Basement Engel and Kirbach   July 7, 2006 John Ross Anatomy of a Fraud Foretold: Mexico's Surreal Elections July 6, 2006 Nick Dearden Profiting from the Occupation: the Corporate Interests Behind the War on Palestine John Stanton Nationalize the Defense Industry Ralph Nader The Politics of the Minimum Wage Laray Polk Cambodia Then; Gaza Now Saul Landau Who Mourned the Victims of the US Covert War on Chile? Joshua Frank Sweet Angst, Power Chords and Politics: Farewell Sleater-Kinney William S. Lind To Be or Not to Be a State? Hamas and 4th Generation War Adelman / Lindorff Impeachment Comes to Main Street, USA Jonathan Cook An Experiment in Human Despair Website of the Day Adulterers in Chief? July 5, 2006 Mike Whitney Is Cheney Betting on Economic Collapse?: the Veep's Curious Investment Portfolio Saul Landau False Axioms: Star Democrats and Iraq Massacres Ramzy Baroud And Israel Shall Be Safe Again Missy Comley Beattie An Axis of Nuts: Ready, Aim, Fear Arthur Neslen A Way Out of the Gaza Crisis? Vincent Maruffi Party Politics in Connecticut: Lieberman, Lamont and the Greens Paul Cantor Aberrations: Hell, High Water and the Moral High Ground Paul D. Johnson Mystery Meat: Let's Be Honest About Food's Origin David Price Shouting Down Nazis in Olympia July 4, 2006 Col. Dan Smith Iraq and Independence Day: Lessons from the War of 1812 Chris Floyd American Power in Mahmudiyah Marjorie Cohn Israel's Collective Punishment of Gaza James Brooks Israel 9,000 Palestine 1: Destroying the Gaza Strip Medea Benjamin "Dictatress of the World:" Has America Become JQ Adams' Worst Nightmare? Matt Reichel An Independence Day Lesson for the American Left from France Elisa Salasin Why I am Fasting Today Rick Wilhelm Will Lieberman Apologize to Ralph Nader? Paul Craig Roberts Rape, Lies and Murder Website of the Day A Mighty Handsome Family   July 3, 2006 Robert Bryce Gaza in the Dark: Poor, Frustrated and Powerless Dr. Bouthaina Shaban "I Hope You're Not Here to Talk About the Palestinians" Julia Olmstead The Biofuel Illusion: Running on Top Soil Dave Lindorff The Real Meaning of the Hamdan Ruling: Bush Adm. Has Committed War Crimes Andres Gomez A Mockery of Justice Alan Singer Another Encounter with Chuck Schumer: Just as Hawkish as Hillary, But Nastier 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 Vietnam; Nightmares in Iraq 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?

July 21, 2006 Politics of Packages & the Packaging of Politics Indian Prime Minister Faces the Dead Farmer Problem By P. SAINATH On May 9, 2006, Gosavi Pawar was  one of ten indebted  cotton farmers in the Vidharba region of the Indian state of Maharashtra who killed themselves on that one day. He was among the 520 who  had taken their lives since June last year in the region's ongoing agrarian crisis.  The searing  reports, many of them featured on our site, in The Hindu newspaper by the Indian journalist P. Sainath finally forced the Indian prime minister, Manmohan Singh, to pay a two day visit to Vidharbha earlier this month. The suicide stricken region had been uncontaminated by any previous visit by politicians.  Then came the long awaited aid package for the desperate farmers, whose lot has symbolized the whole disaster of neoliberalism and the “new” India. Here, Sainath dissects the Indian central government’s response to the appalling situation. AC / JSC. FARMERS ACROSS the land will doubtless be ecstatic on learning there is now one more committee — to look into debt relief. Gee, another committee. Just what we needed. Who knows, it might even do something, like form a sub-committee. But the joy might be hard to sustain. It's all part of a `package.' That too is not a new thing. Governments in this country have handled more packages than FedEx. My all-time favourite is the Kalahandi-Bolangir-Koraput or KBK package, which has outlasted four Prime Ministers and seen more variations than Rubik's Cube. Every imaginable programme for which funds already exist has been merged or purged from the KBK development package at some point. A Rs.4,750 crore package swelled to Rs.6,500 crore over a decade. Of which only Rs.360 crore actually showed up till 2004. Even from that paltry sum, money was diverted for the total literacy program. [A crore in Indian numbering is ten million; a lakh is 100,000. $1 equals about 44 rupees. Eds.] The ‘package’ declared at the end of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's trip to Vidharbha will have little or no impact on the crisis there. Neither in the short run nor in the long term. The visit's political fallout is another matter. No one can now deny a major agrarian crisis exists. Dr. Singh's journey thoroughly exposed the Maharashtra Government and the Union Agriculture Ministry. It also brought -- if for a week -- some media focus on the crisis. Well on the farm suicides, at least. Yet the suicides are the effect, not the cause, of a much wider agrarian distress. The death count is not the story but a window to it. There are millions of farm households across the country that have not seen suicides but whose conditions are similar to those that have. They too are in deep trouble. Yet the question will be asked -- will farmers' suicides in Vidharbha halt now that there's a financial `package' to bring it relief? The answer is no. The deaths do have seasonal highs and lows. But a relative decline now would have little to do with the measures announced at the end of the Prime Minister's visit. The number of suicides in the 10-day run-up to his trip: 34. The number in 10 days after he left: 34. It was no one's case that farm suicides would end with the visit. But people wanted steps that would slow the bleeding and restore hope. That did not happen. The first thing the Prime Minister could have done or made the State Government do, was to restore the `advance bonus' of Rs.500 a quintal for cotton. The State withdrew this in May 2005. Appeals by growers -- and even by the National Commission on Farmers (NCF) -- were ignored. We knew all hell would break loose. It did. If suicide numbers were high when the price of cotton was Rs.2,250, how could things get better when it fell to Rs.1,700 a quintal? That too due to state policy? (There is also no mention in the new deal of a `price stabilisation fund' called for by the NCF to protect farmers against the shock of plummeting prices.) The final ‘package’ ignored this vital demand. Nor did it announce a debt waiver though many in power know there is no escape from such a measure. Some government of India will have to do this at some point. Sure, it would draw flak and cries of ‘fiscal imprudence’ from the ideologically devout. (Though, when tens of thousands of crores are written off for a handful of industrialists, that is barely reported. Unlike that pampered lot, farmers have landed where they are due to policies hostile to agriculture for over a decade.) Had there been a waiver of debt of up to just Rs.25,000, more than 80 per cent of Vidharbha's farmers would no longer have owed the banks money. People thought that waiver would come. It didn't and the sense of being let down is great. This matters across the country, too. Indebtedness amongst farm households has almost doubled in the past decade. The good aspect of the `package' was, of course, the promise of crop loans to all farmers across the board. This could help many tide over the current season. But the interest waiver of Rs.712 crore mainly helps banks that have been hostile to farm lending. And some of the banks were anyway looted by the rich barons of the ruling elite, not by poor farmers. The move does not put a new rupee in the farmer's pocket. Since the principal amount has not been waived, the debt crisis will renew itself rapidly. Besides, there is no help with seed or other inputs. Not even a promise of it. The package gives Rs.2177 crore to 82 major and medium and 442 minor irrigation projects in the six districts it covers. Much of this simply revises book entries. That is, it draws money from existing programs. If all these schemes were completed tomorrow, they would not add three per cent of acreage to irrigated area. That, in a region where irrigated land adds up to just 11 per cent of the total. Sure, people want water. But all problems are not due to lack of irrigation. Distress suicides have occurred in irrigated parts of Punjab and Andhra Pradesh. There was and is total silence on the Maharashtra Water Resources Regulatory Authority Act, 2005. This regressive law puts irrigation beyond the reach of all except corporate farmers. It could raise irrigation costs by thousands of rupees per acre. It also allows an unelected authority to compel farmers to use drip or sprinkler irrigation. Those unable to pay the huge rate hikes in the offing could face fines of up to ten times the new charges. They could also face six months imprisonment. And yes, farmers with more than two children pay one and a half times those rates anyway. The new package is silent on this. It has nothing for the 85 per cent non-irrigated farmers now shut out from even the chance of having that facility. Its gift of Rs.225 crore for horticulture and Rs.87 crore for drip irrigation will touch only those who already have access to water. There is also not a whisper of incentives for food crops in the ‘package’. The rebirth of jowar [sorghum bicolor] would have helped farmer, soil, and food security. Suicides are far higher among cash crop farmers than among food crop growers here. It would also have seen the revival of livestock — jowar is where the fodder comes from. Instead, there is Rs.180 crore for "seed replacement." This sounds like gifting big bucks to people pushing Bt and other exotic seed that would further ruin farmers here. The same sum could have been used for an incentive of Rs.1000 per acre for growing jowar. Instead, we got notions like gifting a thousand high yielding cows to farmers in each of six districts here. For those with no access to fodder and struggling to feed their families, these cows will eat them out of hearth and home. Meanwhile, the Maharashtra Government has raised its own ‘relief package’ for Vidharbha farmers from Rs.1075 crore to over Rs.1300 crore. Since no one ever took this deal seriously, it matters little. The first commissioner in charge of this ‘package’ left after weeks, disbursing nothing. He was never given the money to do so. His replacement had barely unpacked his bags when he went off to do poll duty in Tamil Nadu. So months passed with nothing happening. Except, of course, the suicides. Those kept happening. Meanwhile, the Union Agriculture Ministry, feeling left out, kept threatening its own ‘package’ for some months. Then it said it had drawn up one that the Prime Minister would announce in Vidharbha. Like the Prime Minister was its postman or PRO. Still, it meant there was one more 'package' in the running. None of these has a word on the strengthening of cotton procurement by the state machinery. With big corporations now free to directly buy and sell in any quantities they wish, prices will be steadily pushed down by cartels. The media focus, of course, is on the initial 'higher price' they seem to offer. So it's barely noticed that the price takes a dive very soon after. Sadly, what might have been a useful short-term remedy was drowned in flawed national policy that remains anti-farmer. Dragged down by double standards on 'fiscal imprudence.' Never allowed to meet people's real needs. The ‘Vidharbha package’ also ran aground on the rocky shores of State politics. Who would get the 'credit' for bringing relief? Who would land the blame for years of neglect? Not a single top leader of Maharashtra had entered a grieving household prior to the Prime Minister's visit. So his doing so would be a real problem, disgracing them in the public eye. That saw a gang-up to undermine the tour and its agenda. Dr. Singh's visit to a village like Koljhari in Yavatmal was scuttled for reasons plainly false. Ultimately, though, you cannot have a ‘package’ going one way while policy moves in the reverse direction. Vidharbha's farmers sought urgent relief. They find themselves left only with packaging. P. Sainath is the rural affairs editor of The Hindu, where this piece originally ran.  He is the author of Everybody Loves a Good Drought. Last month Sainath was awarded the Judges' prize (newspaper category) in the 2005 Harry Chapin Media Awards. The prize was for his reports on India’s agrarian crisis. Sainath was the only international winner of the prize this year. The Chapin awards have regularly been harvested by the New York Times and Washington Post, newspapers whose editorials  and reporters down the years have urged and praised the neoliberal policies whose devastations have been best reported by Sainath. This year the Chapin prize-givers, among whom the interests of the New York Times, were robustly represented, could scarcely ignore Sainath’s claim on the prize. Notwithstanding, the pro-New York Times faction pressed for its candidate, a Times reporter, to get the prize. The Solomonic solution, duplicative instead of schismatic, was to award two prizes in this category, one to Sainath and one to the Times man, who also got the money. Out of respect for Sainath, one of the finest journalists alive, CounterPunch’s editors will not exercise their usual sanctions against the accepters of journalistic prizes. The great Hubert Beuve-Mery, editor of Le Monde many years ago, used to fire anyone on his staff accepting a prize.Sainath can be reached at: psainath@vsnl.com.

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