Today's Stories

July 19 / 20, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
It's a Dull Race

Dave Lindorff
I Was a Victim of the TSA

Saul Landau
Obits for Opposites: Carlin and Helms

Ron Jacobs
Why Afghanistan is Not the Good War

Uri Avnery
Different Planet:the Israel / Hezbollah Prisoner Swap

Neve Gordon
The Untold Story of Ni'lin

Roane Carey
Dr. Benny and Mr. Morris

Robert Fantina
Ashcroft, Torture and the U.S.

Christopher Brauchli
The General Lied

David Macaray
Labor Unions and the Courts

Richard L. Hutto
The Ecology of Severely Burned Forests

Bill Moyers /
Michael Winship
Mother's Milk of Politics Turns Sour

David Yearsley
Opera and Globalization

Alison McKenna
A Close Call for Medicare

Wajahat Ali
The Dark Knight Ascends

Poets' Basement
Ko Un

July 18, 2008

Corey D. B. Walker
A Kinder, Gentler Imperialism?

Mike Whitney
Swan Song for Fanny Mae

Robert Bryce
Iran Rising

Mike Roselle
Ed's Chicken: Fighting King Coal in Appalachia

Bouthaina Shaaban
U. S. to Mandela: Happy 90th and You're No Longer a Terrorist

Eve Spangler
The Deaths of Children

Website of the Day
Lowbagger Needs Your Help

July 17, 2008

Paul Craig Roberts
Airport Gestapo

James G. Abourezk
Big Oil's Raid on the Great Plains

Ralph Nader
D.C. Socialists Save Crashing Capitalists

Allan J. Lichtman
Conservative Denial

Andy Worthington "Screwed Up" and "Abused": Omar Khadr's Interrogations at Gitmo

Ronnie Cummins
Move Over MoveOn

July 16, 2008

Jeffrey St. Clair
Star Whores: How John McCain Doomed Mt. Graham

Paul Craig Roberts
War Crimes Paradox

Conn Hallinan
To the Edge in the Middle East

Dave Lindorff
Torture for Torturers?

William S. Lind
Running the Narrows in Iraq

Christopher Brauchli
Sweepstakes Politics

Website of the Day
History of Iraqi Art

July 15, 2008

Michael Hudson
Why the Bail Out of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae is Bad Economic Policy

Brian Cloughley
Iran's Missile Tests

Patrick Cockburn
Sadr's Militia May Live to Fight Another Day

John Ross
Crunchtime for Mexico's Oil

Howard Lisnoff
When Torture Was Practiced on U.S. Soil

Website of the Day
Rachel Corrie Soccer Tournament

July 14, 2008

Uri Avnery
Will Israel and / or the US Attack Iran?

Paul Craig Roberts
Enabling Tyranny

Trish Schuh
Talking to Iran's Only Jewish Member of Parliament: an Interview with Morris Motamed

Patrick Cockburn
Immunity in Iraq

Mike Whitney
Betancourt Unbound

Alan Farago
Will Miami's Cubans Vote Blue?

Seth Sandronsky
Taxing U.S. Stocks and Bonds

Phyllis Pollack
Stones Paint It Black

Website of the Day
Our Pal in Butte, Jackie Corr, RIP

July 12 / 13, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Lock and Load--It's the Law!

Jeffrey St. Clair
The Origins of the Western Greens

James Abourezk
Talking World War III Blues: From Dylan to Iran

Nicole Colson
The Ethanol Scam

Stan Cox
Fixing a Broken Agriculture

Ismael Hossein-Zadeh
Is There an Oil Shortage?

Wajahat Ali /
Omid Safi
The Future of Iran: an Interview with Iranian Nobel Laureate Shirin Ebadi

John Stauber
There May be a Left, But is it Moving? An Interview with David Sirota

Alan Farago
The Crash of the King of Liquidity

Missy Beattie
Dark Neighborhoods

Robert Fantina
Bush's Last Yes Man: Canada, Guantanamo and Yankee Poodles

Rannie Amiri
Mubarak Hires the Mosque

Gregory Kafoury
After the Obama Betrayal

Fran Shor
The Audacity of Hype

Martha Rosenberg
Why Heifer International is Rolling in Dung

David Macaray
Will There be an Actors Strike?

Andrew Wimmer
No Lies! No War!

Ron Jacobs
They Call Me the Seeker

Farzana Versey
The Kashmir Chiaroscuro

Kim Nicolini
Angelina Jolie's Wanted: Taking the M-Fers Down with Guns and Exploding Rats

Poets' Basement
Wright, Fleming, Solomon and Birnbaum

Website of the Weekend
Parsing Jesse Ventura

July 11, 2008

Kevin Alexander Gray
Why Does Barack Obama Hate My Family?

Sasan Fayazmanesh
Historical Amnesia and the Shoot Down of Iran Air Flight 655

Peter Morici
Breaking Down the Trade Deficit

Mike Whitney
Worse Than McCain?

Manuel Garcia, Jr.
Oiling the War Machine

Robert Weissman
Crime, Punishment and ExxonMobil

Ramzy Baroud
The Not-So-Historic Barak-Talabani Handshake

Kelly Overton
If There is a Chimp Heaven

Adrian Burgos
In Praise of Jules Tygiel

Website of the Day
Wendell Berry on Mountaintop Removal

July 10, 2008

Brian McKenna
McCain's Melanoma Cover-Up

Paul Craig Roberts
Watching Greed Murder the Economy

Saul Landau
Mississippi River Blues

Ron Jacobs
Who Will Leave Iraq First?

Joshua Frank
Cutting Deals with Big Timber's Darth Vader

Peter Morici
What's Driving the Wall Street Rout

Alan Maass
Jesse Helms Finally Does the Right Thing

Robert Weissman
Humanitarian Failure at the G8

William Blum
Dr. Strangelove

Alan Farago
Coral Reef Meltdown

Website of the Day
Lieberman Must Go!

July 9, 2008

Ismael Hossein-Zadeh
Are They Really Oil Wars?

Luis Rodriguez
The Deadly Fallout from Gang Injunctions

Sheldon Richman
What's Wrong with Selling Your Vote?

Fatemeh Keshavarz
Lessons from Sa'di of Shiraz on "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques"

Chad Hanson
Blowing Smoke: Logging Industry Lies on Forest Fires and Climate Change

Sen. Russ Feingold
The Problems with the FISA Bill

Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Defining Deviancy Down with FISA

Dave Lindorff
Paul Krugman's Blind Spot

Stanley Heller
A Damned Good Assembly

Philip Rizk
Sick at the Gaza Crossing

Website of the Day
Mumia on Nader

July 8, 2008

Nikolas Kozloff
Riding the Colombia Gravy Train

Laura Carlsen
North America Doesn't Exist: the New Geography of Trade

Mike Whitney
Bush's Rampage in Somalia

Andy Worthington
Scandal at Diego Garcia

Patrick Irelan
The Empire Goes to the Movies

Chellis Glendinning
The Un-tied States of America

David Macaray
A Union Story

Dave Lindorff
Mumia's Long-Shot Appeal

John Chuckman
The Myths of Independence Day

Phillip Doe
FISA and the Decline of America

Website of the Day
Daniel Ellsberg on Warrantless Wiretap Bill

July 7, 2008

Patrick Bond
Can Reparations for Apartheid Profits be Won in US Courts?

Kathy Kelly
Cold Shoulders

Andy Worthington
Repatriation as Russian Roulette

Clifton Ross
A Rescue Staged for the Screen

Elizabeth Schulte
Obama's War Room

Ralph Nader
The Patriotism of Deeds

Dave Lindorff
Keeping Count

Binoy Kampmark
The World According to Jesse Helms

Stephen Fleischman
Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Change

Website of the Day
Time for a Change

July 5 / 6, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Could Anyone be "Worse" Than Bush?

Jeffrey St. Clair /
Joshua Frank
Preliminary Notes from No Man's Land

Patrick Cockburn
Blowback from a Strike on Iran

Mike Whitney
Hunkering Down in Afghanistan with Field Marshall Obama

Robert Fantina
Obama, Iraq and Change

Binoy Kampmark
The Anwar Case: Snitching and Sodomizing

Rannie Amiri
Can Nasrallah Unite Lebanon?

Eric Ruder
Hidden Casualties

Brian Cloughley
Israel Flexes Its Muscles

William Blum
Some Thoughts on Patriotism

Frank Barat
The One-Word Solution

Christopher Brauchli
Bush's Phony Pollution Accounting

David Yearsley
Rubbert Shines, as US Envoy Puts Foot in His Mouth

Ron Jacobs
U.S. Blues

Karim Makdisi
On Soccer and Politics in Lebanon

Wendy Thompson /
Chris Kutalik
What Can We Learn from the American Axle Strike?

N.D. Jayaprakash
The NPT as a Roadblock to Disarmament

Ramzy Baroud
Journalistic Imperatives

Kelly Overton
Animal Rights and Obama

Richard Neville
Bitch Fights and Tomorrow's Top Model

Poets' Basement
Anderson, Gibbons, Matson and Buknatski

Website of the Weekend
Ginsberg and Cassady on "Extremists"

July 4, 2008

Kathy Kelly
Istiklal

Dave Lindorff
My War Story

Paul Krassner
Confessions of a Barista

Jackie Corr
In the Footsteps of Evel Knievel: Obama Heads Back to Butte

Laray Polk
Military-Industrial Convergence

Dan Bacher
Dead Runs: Salmon Fishing Banned in Central Valley Rivers

Walter Brasch
The Rocket's Red Glare--May be Chinese

Charles Modiano
Hall of Fame Hypocrisy

Website of the Day
Springsteen: Independence Day

July 3, 2008

Sharon Smith
Exxon's Legal Guardians

Andy Worthington
Another Torture Victim Gets Charged

Laura Carlsen
NAFTA and the Elephant in the Room

Peter Morici
Crisis Grips the Jobs Market

Ramzi Kysia
Breaking Into a Prison

Martha Rosenberg
Mandatory School Milk and the Early Death of Football Players

Anne Landman
Who Really Benefits From Voluntary Codes of Corporate Conduct?

Dave Zirin
Grand Theft Hoops

Kristin Bricker
US Contractor Leads Torture Training in Mexico

Website of the Day
Bush Tours America to Survey Damage from His Presidency

July 2, 2008

Patrick Irelan
Holy Obama

Vijay Prashad
Lunch with Karzai

Brian Cloughley
Sense of Honor, French and US Style

Ralph Nader
Economic Domino Theory

Robert Fantina
General Stupidity: McCain, Obama and Clark

Dave Lindorff
What's So Special About Veterans?

Parvez Ahmed
Obama and Those Pesky Muslim Rumors

Robert Bryce
The Democrats and Off-Shore Drilling

Website of the Day
King Corn: Q&A

July 1, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Two Months Later, Seymour Hersh Strains to Catch Up With CounterPunch

Mike Whitney
Getting to the Heart of America's Economic Crisis: an Interview with Michael Hudson

Douglas Macgregor
Obama's General?

Steven Higgs
Fighting the NAFTA Super-Highway

Andy Worthington
Guantánamo as Alice in Wonderland

Binoy Kampmark
The Global Seed Police

Dave Lindorff
Blood Money Democrats

Roger Burbach
Fighting Food Fascism

Richard W. Behan
The Story Behind George Bush's Lies

Gary Leupp
The McCain Edge Among Voters on Iraq

Website of the Day
Mountaintop Removal and the Fight for Coalfield Justice

Weekend Edition
July 19 / 20, 2008

Why a Gold Goliath Threw in the Towel

How to Beat a Mining Company

By JEFFREY ST. CLAIR

This essay is excerpted from Red State Rebels: Tales of Grassroots Resistance in the Heartland, edited by Joshua Frank and Jeffrey St. Clair. (AK Press, 2008)

Of all the states across the West, Oregon—particularly its eastern half—has been the only one to escape the ravages of the big mining companies. It lacked the opulent gold desposits that prompted torments of the land from the California Sierras to Montana’s Northern Rockies.

The high deserts of eastern Oregon are among the most remote, thinly populated and driest in the West. In 1987, two hikers, Gary and Carolyn Brown, were backpacking west of the Owyhee River canyon near the border between Oregon and Idaho when they came across hundreds of survey stakes. To the mining industry’s considerable misfortune, the Brown’s took an immediate interest in the purpose of these stakes. Carolyn was a botanists and both were active in the environmental movement.

The Browns began a probe. They soon discovered through the Bureau of Land Management that the surveyors had been working on behalf of international mining companies laying claim to hundreds of thousands of wilderness acres. By the end of 1988, no less than 21,000 separate mining claims had been filed around the geological formation known as the Snake River Graben. (A graben is a mineral-laden depression between two faults in the crust of the earth.)

Of these thousands of claims the richest prospects were held by the Atlas Corporation—an international mining giant—on public lands overseen by the BLM in an area called Grassy Mountain. On the basis of their exploratory drillings, geologists for Atlas forecast that the deposits held as much as a million ounces of gold, valued at nearly a billion dollars.

Under the giveaway provisions of the 1872 Mining Law, Atlas could patent these claims for a mere five dollars per acre, pay no royalties on the value of the gold removed and have no obligations to clean up their mess.

The exact nature of the impending mess became of central importance.  One of the reasons eastern Oregon had escaped the trauma of mining was that the gold deposits were so splintered in the rock that their extraction was uneconomical with the technologies then available. These were not veins of gold at Grassy Mountain so much as capillaries, yielding only .023 ounces of gold per ton of rock—about a teaspoon of gold for every dumptruck load of rubble.

It was only with the advent of open pit cyanide heap leach mining in the late 1970s and early 1980s that extracting gold in these tiny amounts became a practical proposition for the big companies. The economic math comes out at about $150 in labor and machinery costs for every ounce of gold removed. Gold is now selling for about $400 an ounce.

In 1992, Atlas sold its Grassy Mountain claims to the Denver-based Newmont Mining Company, the largest gold mining enterprise in North America. Atlas made a quick $30 million and a sense of relief that it wouldn’t have to undertake the sort of expensive fight against environmentalists that Newmont had the treasury and political clout to wage.

Newmont enjoys $2 billion in assets and was backed by money from Jacob Rothschild (in the English branch of the banking dynasty), Wall Street investor George Soros and Sir James Goldsmith, an Anglo-French tycoon noted for his extreme rightwing views, his brace of mistresses, his food empire Cavenham, his palace on the west coast of Mexico and former ownership of the Crown-Zellerbach timber empire, which he later renamed Cavenham Forest Industries. James’s brother Teddy is the publisher of The Ecologist, which survives in part due to subventions from his nature-raping brother who now sits in the European parliament and who backed a fascist presidential candidate in a recent French election. Goldsmith acquired his interest in Newmont by trading his 99  percent ownership of Cavenham Forest Industries for Hanson PLC’s 49  percent stake in Newmont.

While these shifts in mining ownership were taking place, Carolyn and Gary Brown were building up grassroots opposition from their home in Ontario, a small town on the Oregon-Idaho boarder, where Gary managed a local outlet of a Boise-based tire company. The Browns were eager to politicize the mining issue and take it directly to the people. In this strategy they found common cause with Larry Tuttle. Tuttle is an interesting man who has led a switchback career from banker to congressional candidate to Wilderness Society executive to director of the Oregon Natural Resources Council to founder of his own political green group, Citizens for Environmental Equity. In 1996, Tuttle completed an 1,872 mile walk across the West to call attention to the evil consequences of the 1872 Mining Law.

By the mid-1990s, the battle of Grassy Mountain was truly joined. Newmont had unveild its intention to dig an 800-foot deep pit a half-mile wide into the heart of Grassy Mountain. The Browns and Tuttle struck back with a state-wide initiative on the Oregon ballot to impose stringent environmental safeguards on chemical gold mining in the state, including rigid reclamation stipulations forcing mining companies to spend millions cleaning up their cyanide mess and refilling their vast pits in the earth.  The earliest voter polls showed the initiative being favored by as much as 67  percent of the Oregon voters.

Then Newmont struck back. The company saturated the airwaves of the state with $5 million public relations campaign designed to portray the Browns and Tuttle as green extremists intent on snatching money away from the dinner tables and infant platters of rural Oregon families. The pro-mine faction went after the Browns, isolated in the Oregon outback, in a number of nasty ways. They received numerous threats against their lives, their home and their jobs. Eventually, Gary arrived at work one day to find that his employers had reassigned him to an outlet in Boise, landing him with a 120-mile daily commute.

Newmont won that battle, but they soon lost the war. After a blitzkrieg of deceitful television ads, the mining initiative went down by a narrow margin. The company spent $5 million for their victory, the enviros spent less than $100,000. But amid the rubble of defeat, Tuttle and the Browns announced that they were refilling the initiative with even stronger provisions for the next election.

Faced with the prospect of another prolonged campaign, Newmont instead decided to throw in the towel.  In its corporate filings, Newmont announced that it was taking a $35 million tax write off ($30 million for the purchase price and $5 million for the ballot fight) and was putting their Grassy Mountain claims up for sale. Tuttle pressed forward the mining initiative for good measure.

For the time being, eastern Oregon remains free of gaping pits, cyanide ponds and 600-foot tall mounds of crushed rock. The Browns and Tuttle showed that determined opposition and a belief in attacking corporations head on can win the day, as they banished North America’s largest gold mining company from the state of Oregon.

At the height of their struggle, the Mineral Policy Center—the national, Washington-based group timidly seeking to reform the archaic mining law—bizarrely sang the praises of Newmont, calling their plans for Grassy Mountain the kind of eco-friendly mining they would “like to see more of in the future.” No national environmental organization raised a finger to help Tuttle and the Browns, which is probably why they won.

Jeffrey St. Clair is the author of Been Brown So Long It Looked Like Green to Me: the Politics of Nature and Grand Theft Pentagon. His newest book, Born Under a Bad Sky, is just out from AK Press / CounterPunch books. He can be reached at: sitka@comcast.net. 

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Humanitarian Imperialism
By Jean Bricmont