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Today's
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February 12, 2004
Saul Landau
Elegy to the Salton Sea
February
11, 2004
Cockburn
/ St. Clair
Hail, Kerry: Senator Facing-Both-Ways
Steve Perry
Bush
v. Bush?
February
10, 2004
Kurt
Nimmo
Inquisition in Iowa
Ron Jacobs
Politics and the Beatles: Don't
You Know You Can Count Me Out (In)
Elizabeth
Schulte
The Many Faces of John Kerry
Mickey
Z
Meet the Oxmans: "The Rich
Shouldn't Sleep at Night Either"
February
9, 2004
Michael
Donnelly
Will Skull and Bones Really Change
CEOs? Inside John Kerry's Closet
Chris Floyd
Smells Like Team Spirit: the Bush
B-Boys Replay Their Greatest Hits
Bill
Christison
What's Wrong with the CIA?
Dr. Susan
Block
Janet Jackson's Mammary Moment:
Boob Tube Super Bowl
February
7/8, 2004
Kathleen
Christison
Offending Valerie: Dealing with
Jewish Self-Absorption
Jeff Ballinger
No Sweat Shopping
Dave
Lindorff
Spray and Pray in Iraq: a Marine
in Transit
Alexander
Cockburn
McNamara: the Sequel
February
6, 2004
Ron
Jacobs
Are the Kurds in the Way?
Joanne
Mariner
Anita Bryant's Legacy
Saul
Landau
Happiness and Botox
Kurt Nimmo
Horror Non-fiction: A How-To Guide
from Perle and Frum
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
The Real Intelligence Failure:
Our Own
February
5, 2004
Benjamin
Shepard
Turning NYC into a Patriot Act Free
Zone
Khury
Petersen-Smith
A Report from Occupied Iraq: "We Don't Want Army USA"
Mokhiber
/ Weissman
The 10 Worst Corporations of 2003
Teresa
Josette
The Exeuctioner's Pslam? Christian Nation? Yeah, Right
David Krieger
Why Dr. King's Message on Vietnam is Relevant to Iraq
Christopher
Brauchli
Monkey Business: Of Recess and Evolution in Georgia Schools
Norman
Solomon
The Deadly Lies of Reliable Sources
Cockburn
/ St. Clair
Presenting President Edwards!
February
4, 2004
Brian
McKinlay
Bush's Australian Deputy: Howard's
Last Round Up?
Mark
Gaffney
Ariel Sharon's Favorite Senator: Ron Wyden and Israel
Judith
Brown
Palestine and the Media
Frederick
B. Hudson
Moseley-Braun and the Butcher: Campaign for Justice or Big Oil's
Junta?
Kurt Nimmo
Bush's Independent Commission: Exonerating
the Spooks
M.
Junaid Alam
Philly School Workers Fight for Fair Contract
Fran Shor
Whose Boob Tube?
Kevin
Cooper
This is Not My Execution and I Will Not Claim It
February
3, 2004
Alan
Maass
The
Dems' New Mantra: What They Really Mean by "Electability"
Nick
Halfinger
How the Other Half Lives: Embedded
in Iraq
Rahul
Mahajan
Our True Intelligence Failure
Neve Gordon
The Only Democracy in the Middle East?
Laura
Carlsen
Mexico: Two Anniversaries; Two Futures
Jordan
Green
Democratic Patronage in Northern New
Mexico
Terry
Lodge
An Open Letter to Michael Powell from the Boobs & Body Parts
Fairness Campaign
Hammond
Guthrie
Investigating the Meaningless
Website
of the Day
Waging Peace
February
2, 2004
Gary
Leupp
The Buddhist Nun in Tom Ridge's Jail
Justin
E.H. Smith
The Manners of Their Deaths: Capital Punishment in a Smoke-Free
Environment
Tom
Wright
The Prosecution of Captain Yee
Winslow
Wheeler
Inside the Bush Defense Budget
Lee Ballinger
Janet Jackson's Naked Truth
Leonard
Pitts, Jr
For Blacks, the Game of Justice is
Rigged
Jeffrey
St. Clair
The Hollow Candidate:
The Trouble with Howard Dean
Website
of the Day
Resistance:
In the Eye of the American Hegemon
Jan. 31 / Feb 1, 2004
Paul
de Rooij
For Whom the Death Tolls: Deliberate
Undercounting of Coalition Fatalities
Bernard
Chazelle
Bush's Desolate Imperium
Jack
Heyman
Bushfires on the Docks
Christopher
Reed
Broken Ballots
Michael
Donnelly
An Urgent Plea to Progressives: Don't Give in to Fear
Rob Eshelman
The Subtle War
Lee
Sustar
Palestine and the Anti-War Movement
George
Bisharat
Right of Return
Ray
McGovern
Nothing to Preempt
Brian Cloughley
Enron's Beady-Eyed Sharks
Conn
Hallinan
Nepal, Bush & Real WMDs
Kurt Nimmo
The Murderous Lies of the Neo-Cons
Phillip
Cryan
Media at the Monterrey Summit
Christopher
Brauchli
A Speech for Those Who Don't Read
John
Holt
War in the Great White North
Mickey
Z.
Clueless in America: When Mikey Met Wesley
Mark
Scaramella
The High Cost of Throwing Away the Key
Tariq Ali
Farewell, Munif
Ben
Tripp
Waiter! The Reality Check, Please
Poets'
Basement
LaMorticella, Guthrie, Thomas and Albert
January 30, 2004
Saul
Landau
Cuba High on Neo-Con Hit List
Michael
Donnelly
Bush's Second Front: The War in
the Woods
Elaine
Cassel
Worse Than Jacko: Child Abuse at Gitmo
David Vest
More Halliburton News, Brought to You by Halliburton
Mike
Whitney
The Kay Report: Still Defending Aggression
David
Miller
The Hutton Whitewash
Sam
Husseini
How Many People Must Die Because of This "Mistake",
Senator Kerry?
January 29, 2004
Patricia
Nelson Limerick
John Ehrlichman, Environmentalist
Ron
Jacobs
Homeland Security and "Legalized"
Immigration
Rahul Mahajan
New Hampshire v. Iraq
Greg
Weiher
Bush Calls for Preemptive Strike on
Moon and Mars
Norman
Solomon
The State of the Media Union
Cockburn
/ St. Clair
Does NH Mean Anything?
January
28, 2004
Kathy
Kelly
Bearing Witness Against Teachers of
Torture and Assassination
Hot Stories
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click Here
for More Stories.
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February
13, 2004
Old Guard, Old Smears
McCarthyism
in the Sierra Club
By KARYN STRICKLER
"Those who cannot remember the past
are condemned to repeat it."
-- Philosopher George Santayana.
In the "Father Knows Best" decade of
the 1950's, the voice of U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy echoed
through the Republican Women's Club in Wheeling, West Virginia,
"I have in my hand a list of 205 cases of individuals who
appear to be either card-carrying members or certainly loyal
to the Communist Party."
The visual from the black and white television
era fades, but echoes of that dark moment in American history
remain etched in citizens' memories forever. Most Americans remember
the McCarthy era as a lesson - not to be repeated. Apparently
the moral from those bleak days was lost on thirteen former presidents
of the national Sierra Club, who are interfering with this year's
election for the Board of Directors.
There are two types of candidates in
Sierra Club elections: internally-selected candidates called,
"nominating committee candidates" and candidates who
get members' signatures on a petition, abiding by all the rules
in a grassroots, democratic process called, "petition candidates."
The thirteen former presidents, who are
part of the old guard within the Club, put the bureaucratic,
self-perpetuation of the Club above environmental protection.
Their work appears on a website called Groundswell Sierra, giving
new life to the dictionary definition of "McCarthyism."
They are indeed employing "the political
practice of publicizing accusations of disloyalty or subversion
with insufficient regard to evidence," and using "methods
of investigation and accusation regarded as unfair, in order
to suppress opposition," within the Club.
The main target of these McCarthyite
tactics is a faction of Sierra Club members called SUSPS (formerly
known as Sierrans for U.S. Population Stabilization), whose followers
believe that limiting US immigration will stabilize population
levels, thereby protecting the environment.
There are indirect links between SUSPS
and some rather unsavory, right-wing groups also advocating immigration
restrictions, along with white supremacy and racial
purity. The key words here are "indirect
links," because at least some individual SUSPS advocates
seem concerned with human rights protections for immigrants.
They support quota reductions from a deeply-held, environmental
ethic, not from a right-wing political orientation, as has been
charged.
The larger problem, which could have
long-term, negative implications for democracy within the Sierra
Club, is that any threat that may be represented by SUSPS-backed
candidates has been imaginatively and indiscriminately expanded
to include all petition candidates. The letter from the thirteen
former presidents posted on Groundswell Sierra is a prime example
and questions the credibility of all petition candidates with
a broad brush of vague damnation.
The presidents' letter says that there
is an organized effort to elect "outsiders" who want
to capture the majority of Board seats in order to "move
their personal agendas" - making McCarthy style leaps of
guilt by association and assumptions based on vague links instead
of solid evidence. A San Francisco Chronicle article said, "The
bedrock issue...isn't immigration, but whether the club should
be controlled by insiders or outsiders."
Chuck McGrady and Robbie Cox represent
the old guard viewpoint. McGrady, the Sierra Club's vice president,
a former president and a Board member, said he is middle-of-the-road
on immigration, and has no problem with the debate. "But
I'm very concerned about all these outside groups, from all across
the political spectrum, getting involved.''
Former Sierra Club president and Board
member Robbie Cox told the press that the organization "will
be destroyed if 'outside forces' succeed in gaining control of
the board of directors in April's elections."
Such attacks on petition candidates looks
less like a defense against imminent peril and more like manipulation
and election rigging aimed at candidates not hand-selected by
the Club's nominating committee. This damages the Club's democratic
and grassroots process - now and in the future.
Nothing in the Groundswell Sierra's effort
has enraged the Club's rank and file activists like the presidents'
letter's ultimate demand, directed to incumbent Club
president Larry Fahn. In stentorian prose
soaring over the signatures of the thirteen past presidents,
the letter asserts that the Sierra Club must intervene in the
electoral process and smite down the unacceptable candidates
who got onto the ballot by petition.
Beyond casting a vote, Sierra Club staff
has always been strictly forbidden from any participation in
Club elections, including the commitment of funds or other resources
for or against any candidate. Nevertheless, the letter urged
the Board to set aside the organization's by-laws and to advise
members of the dangers of this attempted take over by "outsiders"
and use "Club staff, mailing lists, publications and all
other means available," to stop them.
Rodger Clarke, a member of the Club's
Northeast Ohio Group, agrees that "SUSPS' anti-immigration
agenda and candidates must be stopped and defeated," but
"I am just as committed to seeing that it's done fairly
and squarely. Otherwise, we risk doing very serious damage to
the democratic nature of the Sierra Club that in turn could harm
our credibility, and thus our work."
The letter drew an even sharper response
from Don Young, former chair of the Club's Atlantic chapter in
New York: "The people whom we have rightly perceived as
top-down, staff-driven, control freaks are now prepared to take
the ultimate step to control the Club, nakedly using our own
dues money and the power of the staff to crush dissent."
Tim Hermach, president of the Native
Forest Council since 1988 says, "The old guard are using
their usual tactics of interference and obstruction of grassroots
activists in this election."
Beyond these detrimental effects within
the Sierra Club, the Groundswell tactics take the focus off of
direct assaults on the environment posed by the Bush administration.
Squelching all petition candidates' chances won't stop industry
from taking the tops off of our mountains and dumping them into
our streams or making our air and water human health hazards.
The orangutan will still face extinction along with countless
other endangered species and their unique habitat. Extractive
industry will continue to destroy our public lands, profiting
a few at the expense of many.
The old guard's tactics damage qualified
candidates who are not long-time members and smear candidates
only tenuously linked to SUSPS. Roy van de Hoek awoke one morning
to find he had been transformed into a right-wing, anti-immigration
zealot bent on taking over the Sierra Club. It said so on the
Groundswell site.
Van de Hoek, a petition candidate and
an immigrant who prizes his green card, was apparently the last
to get this startling news. As a biologist and park supervisor,
he advocates for urban parks and the steadily shrinking lot of
California's natural flora and fauna. More recent political attacks
called him a left-wing menace to the rights of property owners
when he ran for the Malibu City Council.
"I've never taken a position on
the immigration issue," he says. "I guess I'm on the
hit list because people who belong to a Sierra Club group that
works on population and immigration (SUSPS) and who also share
my concern for wildlife asked if they could help collect petition
signatures - they told me they didn't care about my position
on immigration."
Fingering individuals like van de Hoek
and other petition candidates is a bad strategy, because the
mud-slinging, old guard do get some things right: Reducing the
ranks of the rabble is - as claimed by the old guard - dear to
the heart of reactionary demon-king Richard Mellon Scaife, -
who has indeed donated generously to the population-immigration
control groups on whose Boards several of the SUSPS candidates
sit.
The "restrict immigration"
folks are indeed eager to press their case in the Sierra Club.
Thus, there really is a move afoot to put some SUSPS candidates
who may have connections to individuals and groups that advocate
a public policy idea that is philosophically muddled, politically
obtuse and morally deficient into positions of power in the Sierra
Club. If this move is successful, it may have negative consequences
for the organization.
Instead of taking on this issue at a
policy level, the old guard's response has been a clumsy, smear
campaign, insulting the intelligence of the general membership,
damning all petition candidates and attempting to pound the square
pegs of left/right political ideology into the round holes of
environmentalism.
The siren song of "immigration controls,"
has proudly liberal, deep-ecological adherents. Immigration control
advocates currently on the Board are some of the people most
consistently voting for strong, environmental protection. Attempting
to tag the debate as a right-wing conspiracy is to lose the argument
before they have begun.
In an unprecedented and outrageous move,
the old guard on the current Board of Directors led by Chuck
McGrady, caught on to the reality that the square pegs were not
fitting into the round holes and entered the fray, passing resolutions
that stopped short of authorizing the promotion of any particular
candidates, and instead mandated that an insert accompany the
candidates' ballot statements mailed to members that says:
"Outside, non-environmental organizations
have endorsed candidates in the Club's Board elections and...
are urging their supporters to join the Club as a means to influence
club policy in line with their non-environmental agendas."
A lengthy list of organizations followed, including <HempflagUSA.org>.
This caught my eye. As a Sierra Club
petition candidate, I have 18 years of progressive statewide
and national, grassroots advocacy experience on environmental
and women's issues; executive-level skills in all aspects of
nonprofit management; and international speaking and training
experience.
When I sent out a notice about my candidacy,
the webmaster of HempflagUSA, a casual friend, wrote to me and
asked how he could help. I asked that he simply post my candidate
e-mail on his various websites. And I put a link to the Sierra
Club website telling people how they could become a member of
the Club.
The old guard had already painted me
as an outsider, but they were struggling to find a way to diminish
my progressive leadership record. They sought a link between
me and an outside group supposedly trying to take over the Sierra
Club - they discovered HempflagUSA.
Voila! An outside group that advocates
the legalization of marijuana was recruiting members to join
the Sierra Club to support my candidacy. If the Communist Party
happened to post my article, they would be listed as one of the
invading groups as well - and so goes McCarthyism. Like victims
of the blacklists, the Hempflag webmaster was shocked to discover
that he's part of a plot - unbeknownst to him - to take over
the Sierra Club.
For the record, legalizing marijuana
will not be one of my platform issues at the Sierra Club. I will
lead the way toward stronger enforcement of the Endangered Species,
Clean Air and Clean Water Acts. I'll work to end logging, mining,
grazing and drilling on public lands; replace fossil fuels with
renewable energy; and assure universal access to abortion, family
planning and education. I'll advocate for slow growth and toxic
waste site clean-up. I'll encourage increased funding and support
to Club Chapters and Groups. While open, democratic debate remains
crucial, I support continued Sierra Club neutrality on the issue
of immigration.
The former presidents' letter was mysteriously
leaked to the press. With articles espousing their viewpoint
appearing in papers from coast to coast and around the world,
their challenge has become international news, adding the publicity
necessary to strictly conform to the dictionary's definition
of McCarthyism.
Have you no decency, sirs? At long last,
have you left no sense of decency?
Karyn Strickler
is the former Director of the National Endangered Species Coalition
and is a petition candidate for the Sierra Club Board of Directors.
Learn more at: http://members.cruzio.com/
. Strickler can be reached at: fiftyplusone@earthlink.net
Copyright 2004, Karyn Strickler.
Weekend
Edition Features for February 1, 2004
Paul
de Rooij
For Whom the Death Tolls: Deliberate
Undercounting of Coalition Fatalities
Bernard
Chazelle
Bush's Desolate Imperium
Jack
Heyman
Bushfires on the Docks
Christopher
Reed
Broken Ballots
Michael
Donnelly
An Urgent Plea to Progressives: Don't Give in to Fear
Rob Eshelman
The Subtle War
Lee
Sustar
Palestine and the Anti-War Movement
George
Bisharat
Right of Return
Ray
McGovern
Nothing to Preempt
Brian Cloughley
Enron's Beady-Eyed Sharks
Conn
Hallinan
Nepal, Bush & Real WMDs
Kurt Nimmo
The Murderous Lies of the Neo-Cons
Phillip
Cryan
Media at the Monterrey Summit
Christopher
Brauchli
A Speech for Those Who Don't Read
John
Holt
War in the Great White North
Mickey
Z.
Clueless in America: When Mikey Met Wesley
Mark
Scaramella
The High Cost of Throwing Away the Key
Tariq Ali
Farewell, Munif
Ben
Tripp
Waiter! The Reality Check, Please
Poets'
Basement
LaMorticella, Guthrie, Thomas and Albert
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