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Today's
Stories
October
11 / 13, 2003
Alexander
Cockburn
Kay's
Misleading Report; CIA/MI-6 Syrian Plot; Dershowitz Flaps Broken
Wings
October 10, 2003
John Chuckman
Schwarzenegger
and the Lottery Society
Toni Solo
Trashing
Free Software
Chris
Floyd
Body
Blow: Bush Joins the Worldwide War on Women
October
9, 2003
Jennifer
Loewenstein
Bombing
Syria
Ramzi
Kysia
Seeing
the Iraqi People
Fran Shor
Groping the Body Politic
Mark Hand
President Schwarzenegger?
Alexander
Cockburn
Welcome
to Arnold, King for a Day
Website of the Day
The Awful Truth about Wesley Clark
October
8, 2003
David
Lindorff
Schwarzenegger
and the Failure of the Centrist Dems
Ramzy
Baroud
Israel's
WMDs and the West's Double Standard
John Ross
Mexico
Tilts South
Mokhiber
/ Weissman
Repub Guru Compares Taxes to the Holocaust
James
Bovard
The
Reagan Roadmap for Antiterrorism Disaster
Michael
Neumann
One
State or Two?
A False Dilemma
October
7, 2003
Uri Avnery
Slow-Motion
Ethnic Cleansing
Stan Goff
Lost in the Translation at Camp Delta
Ron Jacobs
Yom Kippurs, Past and Present
David
Lindorff
Coronado in Iraq
Rep. John Conyers, Jr.
Outing a CIA Operative? Why A Special Prosecutor is Required
Cynthia
McKinney
Who Are "We"?
Elaine Cassel
Shock and Awe in the Moussaoui Case
Walter
Lippman
Thoughts on the Cali Recall
Gary Leupp
Israel's
Attack on Syria: Who's on the Wrong Side of History, Now?
Website
of the Day
Cable News Gets in Touch With It's Inner Bigot
October
6, 2003
Robert
Fisk
US
Gave Israel Green Light for Raid on Syria
Forrest
Hylton
Upheaval
in Bolivia: Crisis and Opportunity
Benjamin Dangl
Divisions Deepen in Third Week of Bolivia's Gas War
Bridget
Gibson
Oh, Pioneers!: Bush's New Deal
Bob Fitrakis and Harvey
Wasserman
The Bush-Rove-Schwarzenegger Nazi Nexus
Nicole
Gamble
Rios Montt's Campaign Threatens Genocide Trials
JoAnn
Wypijewski
The
New Unity Partnership:
A Manifest Destiny for Labor
Website
of the Day
Guerrilla Funk
October
3 / 5, 2003
Tim Wise
The
Other Race Card: Rush and the Politics of White Resentment
Peter
Linebaugh
Rhymsters
and Revolutionaries: Joe Hill and the IWW
Gary Leupp
Occupation
as Rape-Marriage
Bruce
Jackson
Addio
Alle Armi
David Krieger
A Nuclear 9/11?
Ray McGovern
L'Affaire Wilsons: Wives are Now "Fair Game" in Bush's
War on Whistleblowers
Col. Dan Smith
Why Saddam Didn't Come Clean
Mickey
Z.
In Our Own Image: Teaching Iraq How to Deal with Protest
Roger Burbach
Bush Ideologues v. Big Oil in Iraq
John Chuckman
Wesley Clark is Not Cincinnatus
William S. Lind
Versailles on the Potomac
Glen T.
Martin
The Corruptions of Patriotism
Anat Yisraeli
Bereavement as Israeli Ethos
Wayne
Madsen
Can the Republicans Get Much Worse? Sure, They Can
M. Junaid Alam
The Racism Barrier
William
Benzon
Scorsese's Blues
Adam Engel
The Great American Writing Contest
Poets'
Basement
McNeill, Albert, Guthrie
October
2, 2003
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
What's
So Great About Gandhi, Anyway?
Amy Goodman
/ Jeremy Scahill
The
Ashcroft-Rove Connection
Doug Giebel
Kiss and Smear: Novak and the Valerie Plame Affair
Hamid
Dabashi
The Moment of Myth: Edward Said (1935-2003)
Elaine Cassel
Chicago Condemns Patriot Act
Saul Landau
Who
Got Us Into This Mess?
Website of the Day
Last Day to Save Beit Arabiya!
October 1, 2003
Joanne
Mariner
Married
with Children: the Supremes and Gay Families
Robert
Fisk
Oil,
War and Panic
Ron Jacobs
Xenophobia
as State Policy
Elaine
Cassel
The
Lamo Case: Secret Subpoenas and the Patriot Act
Shyam
Oberoi
Shooting
a Tiger
Toni Solo
Plan Condor, the Sequel?
Sean Donahue
Wesley
Clark and the "No Fly" List
Website of the Day
Downloader Legal Defense Fund
September
30, 2003
After
Dark
Arnold's
1977 Photo Shoot
Dave Lindorff
The
Poll of the Shirt: Bush Isn't Wearing Well
Tom Crumpacker
The
Cuba Fixation: Shaking Down American Travelers
Robert
Fisk
A
Lesson in Obfuscation
Charles
Sullivan
A
Message to Conservatives
Suren Pillay
Edward Said: a South African Perspective
Naeem
Mohaiemen
Said at Oberlin: Hysteria in the Face of Truth
Amy Goodman
/ Jeremy Scahill
Does
a Felon Rove the White House?
Website
of the Day
The Edward Said Page
September 29, 2003
Robert
Fisk
The
Myths of Western Intelligence Agencies
Iain A. Boal
Turn It Up: Pardon Mzwakhe Mbuli!
Lee Sustar
Paul
Krugman: the Last Liberal?
Wayne Madsen
General Envy? Think Shinseki, Not Clark
Benjamin
Dangl
Bolivia's Gas War
Uri Avnery
The
Magnificent 27
Pledge
Drive of the Day
Antiwar.com
September
26 / 28, 2003
Alexander
Cockburn
Alan
Dershowitz, Plagiarist
David Price
Teaching Suspicions
Saul Landau
Before the Era of Insecurity
Ron Jacobs
The Chicago Conspiracy Trial and
the Patriot Act
Brian
Cloughley
The Strangeloves Win Again
Norman Solomon
Wesley and Me: a Real-Life Docudrama
Robert
Fisk
Bomb Shatters Media Illusions
M. Shahid Alam
A Muslim Sage Visits the USA
John Chuckman
American Psycho: Bush at the UN
Mark Schneider
International Direct Action
The Spanish Revolution to the Palestiniana Intifada
William
S. Lind
How $87 Billion Could Buy Some Real Security
Douglas Valentine
Gold Warriors: the Plundering of Asia
Chris
Floyd
Vanishing Act
Elaine Cassel
Play Cat and Moussaoui
Richard
Manning
A Conservatism that Once Conserved
George Naggiar
The Beautiful Mind of Edward Said
Omar Barghouti
Edward Said: a Corporeal Dream Not Yet Realized
Lenni Brenner
Palestine's Loss is America's Loss
Mickey
Z.
Edward Said: a Well-Reasoned Voice
Tanweer Akram
The Legacy of Edward Said
Adam Engel
War in the Smoking Room
Poets' Basement
Katz, Ford, Albert & Guthrie
Website
of the Weekend
Who the Hell is Stew Albert?
September
25, 2003
Edward
Said
Dignity,
Solidarity and the Penal Colony
Robert
Fisk
Fanning
the Flames of Hatred
Sarah
Ferguson
Wolfowitz at the New School
David
Krieger
The
Second Nuclear Age
Bill Glahn
RIAA Doublespeak
Al Krebs
ADM and the New York Times: Covering Up Corporate Crime
Michael
S. Ladah
The Obvious Solution: Give Iraq Back to the Arabs
Fran Shor
Arnold and Wesley
Mustafa
Barghouthi
Edward Said: a Monument to Justice and Human Rights
Alexander Cockburn
Edward Said: a Mighty and Passionate
Heart
Website
of the Day
Edward Said: a Lecture on the Tragedy of Palestine
The Great Alejandro Escavedo Needs Your Help!
September 24, 2003
Stan Goff
Generational
Casualties: the Toxic Legacy of the Iraq War
William
Blum
Grand Illusions About Wesley Clark
David
Vest
Politics
for Bookies
Jon Brown
Stealing Home: The Real Looting is About to Begin
Robert Fisk
Occupation and Censorship
Latino
Military Families
Bring Our Children Home Now!
Neve Gordon
Sharon's
Preemptive Zeal
Website
of the Day
Bands Against Bush
September
23, 2003
Bernardo
Issel
Dancing
with the Diva: Arianna and Streisand
Gary Leupp
To
Kill a Cat: the Unfortunate Incident at the Baghdad Zoo
Gregory
Wilpert
An
Interview with Hugo Chavez on the CIA in Venezuela
Steven
Higgs
Going to Jail for the Cause--Part 2: Charity Ryerson, Young and
Radical
Stan Cox
The Cheney Tapes: Can You Handle the Truth?
Robert
Fisk
Another Bloody Day in the Death of Iraq
William S. Lind
Learning from Uncle Abe: Sacking the Incompetent
Elaine
Cassel
First They Come for the Lawyers, Then the Ministers
Yigal
Bronner
The
Truth About the Wall
Website
of the Day
The
Baghdad Death Count
September
20 / 22, 2003
Uri Avnery
The
Silliest Show in Town
Alexander
Cockburn
Lighten
Up, America!
Peter Linebaugh
On the Bicentennial of the Execution of Robert Emmet
Anne Brodsky
Return
to Afghanistan
Saul Landau
Guillermo and Me
Phan Nguyen
Mother Jones Smears Rachel Corrie
Gila Svirsky
Sharon, With Eyes Wide Open
Gary Leupp
On Apache Terrorism
Kurt Nimmo
Colin
Powell: Exploiting the Dead of Halabja
Brian
Cloughley
Colin Powell's Shame
Carol Norris
The Moral Development of George W. Bush
Bill Glahn
The Real Story Behind RIAA Propaganda
Adam Engel
An Interview with Danny Scechter, the News Dissector
Dave Lindorff
Good Morning, Vietnam!
Mark Scaramella
Contracts and Politics in Iraq
John Ross
WTO
Collapses in Cancun: Autopsy of a Fiasco Foretold
Justin Podur
Uribe's Desperate Squeals
Toni Solo
The Colombia Three: an Interview with Caitriona Ruane
Steven Sherman
Workers and Globalization
David
Vest
Masked and Anonymous: Dylan's Elegy for a Lost America
Ron Jacobs
Politics of the Hip-Hop Pimps
Poets
Basement
Krieger, Guthrie and Albert
Website of the Weekend
Ted Honderich:
Terrorism for Humanity?
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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Weekend
Edition
October 11 / 13, 2003
The
Toxic Revolving Door
States of Corruption
By LARRY TUTTLE
In August, two EPA bureaucrats finalized air quality
roll backs for power plants, promptly abandoned their government
jobs, and immediately found lucrative positions in the power-generating
industry. Down the street, Secretary of Interior Gale Norton's
top lieutenant, Steven Griles, was dutifully short-circuiting
environmental regulations for oil, gas, and mineral mining enterprises,
the same industries his Washington, DC lobby shop represented
until 2001.
EPA employees who double-deal away public
health no longer raise my ire. Neither am I outraged about Steven
Griles' sleaziness. I already know that Washington, DC is irreversibly
corrupt. But mostly I'm not irate or outraged because DC corruption
is trivial when compared to the malignancy administered by state
environmental agencies. DC corruption might increase the parts-per-million
of arsenic in your water glass. But if you lived in tiny Riddle,
Oregon, during the last 10 years, the Oregon state government
permitted millions of gallons of heavy metals to enter your municipal
watershed every month.
The Bush Administration attracts plenty
of attention for environmental rollbacks affecting Oregon forests
and water quality. But for more than a decade, environmental
degradation has metastasized at an alarming rate here in Oregon
where Democrats have occupied the governor's chair for the last
17 years. The change is best illustrated by John Kitzhaber who
ended eight years in office in 2002. During his tenure, Kitzhaber
found his environmental soul mate -- Bush's nominee for EPA administrator,
Governor Mike Leavitt of Utah. Like Leavitt, Kitzhaber preached
environmental redemption at the alter-of-the-middle-ground. In
the Kitzhaber/Leavitt world, there are no bad polluters, just
misunderstood or under-appreciated businesses.
Oregon's environmental bureaucracies
enthusiastically agree. They understand that the Legislature
rewards agency budgets for hand wringing, not for enforcing laws.
This may help explain why no agency personnel were at the Formosa
Silver Butte Mine in October 1993. In fact, no Oregon personnel
had visited Formosa since permits to mine lead and zinc and a
little copper had been issued more than 1,000 days before. If
was left to a solitary deer hunter to discover and report what
the State of Oregon did not know and what the Formosa's owners
and operators had not disclosed: millions of tons of illegally
stored mine waste had been discharged into Formosa's watershed.
Seventeen miles of the upper reaches of the City of Riddle's
water supply were poisoned; all aquatic life in the salmon rearing
stream were dead. Middle Creek was now electric blue; the water
exhaled sulfide odors.
Identifying the suspects wasn't difficult;
rounding them up was more problematic. The Formosa Silver Butte
Mine -- in bureaucratic terms the potentially responsible party
-- was incorporated in British Columbia. As the name suggests,
the principals were citizens of Taiwan. Oregon Departments of
Environmental Quality (DEQ) and Geology soon generated a flurry
of indignant letters to Formosa's owners. BLM reacted as if the
mine were actually located on the island of Formosa.
Formosa's owners came forward with a
seemingly magnanimous offer in 1994. Formosa would take full
responsibility and would add $500,000 to the existing $500,000
bond held by the State of Oregon. Anxious to deflect attention
from their Formosa fiasco, the State of Oregon jumped at the
offer and quickly contracted for removing mining buildings, filling
tailings lakes, and plugging mine tunnels. By early 1995, the
repairs were complete; by late fall 1995, the repairs had failed.
Formosa quickly filed for bankruptcy.
For three more years, pH3 acid waters
laden with heavy metal poured into the watershed. Artesian-like
acid drainage spouted from mine tunnels plugged in 1996. But
by late fall 2000, Formosa was again bustling with engineers
and contractors fueled with $500,000 in engineering and construction
contracts. Pipelines, limestone channels, and settling vaults
were under construction. Acid mine drainage and heavy-metal discharges
would be collected and piped to a series of settling ponds at
the edge of the creek; acid-neutral and mostly heavy-metal free
water would be returned to the creek.
Unbelievably, the Oregon DEQ had neglected
to secure an easement to construct the anaerobic treatment ponds.
Having spent more than three years and $500,000, DEQ was unable
to complete the most essential part of its treatment plan. In
the end, acid mine drainage was simply diverted to the nearby
scree slope with the hope that something good might happen to
heavy metals before reentering into an already poisoned stream.
As predicted, contamination in the watershed failed to improve.
In early 2001, I discovered that DEQ
was discharging mine wastes to the rock slope without a permit
or a permit exemption. When challenged, DEQ managers stonewalled.
Exasperated I located the public records hidden by DEQ managers
to camouflage their omission. Still, DEQ refused to comply with
their own permit requirements. Not until I notified DEQ of my
intention to file for writ of mandamus with the Oregon Supreme
Court did DEQ move to rectify the violation.
Earlier this year, DEQ authorized another
$500,000 for its the engineering firm, Hart Crowser. Shortly
beforehand, DEQ's most recent Formosa project manager quit and
immediately became Hart Crowser's Formosa project manager. DEQ
quickly issued additional contract increases to Hart Crowser,
including payments to buy records from a former Formosa mine
manager working for an environmental firm expected to bid for
cleaning up Formosa. Concerned about these conflicts of interest,
I made an unannounced site visit to the mine on September 26,
2003. Just as ten years before, I found the collection system
plugged; unmitigated acid mine drainage and heavy metals again
flowed directly into the watershed. DEQ inspectors had been absent
for 100 days.
So why should I worry about DC corruption?
Just one block from my office, DEQ, the agency charged with protecting
my water, air, and soils, is actively engaged in regulatory malfeasance,
obfuscation, and conflicts of interest.
Larry Tuttle
is executive director of the Center
for Environmental Equity in Portland, Oregon. He can
be reached at nevermined@earthlink.net
Weekend
Edition Features for Sept. 26 / 28, 2003
Tim Wise
The
Other Race Card: Rush and the Politics of White Resentment
Peter
Linebaugh
Rhymsters
and Revolutionaries: Joe Hill and the IWW
Gary Leupp
Occupation
as Rape-Marriage
Bruce
Jackson
Addio
Alle Armi
David Krieger
A Nuclear 9/11?
Ray McGovern
L'Affaire Wilsons: Wives are Now "Fair Game" in Bush's
War on Whistleblowers
Col. Dan Smith
Why Saddam Didn't Come Clean
Mickey
Z.
In Our Own Image: Teaching Iraq How to Deal with Protest
Roger Burbach
Bush Ideologues v. Big Oil in Iraq
John Chuckman
Wesley Clark is Not Cincinnatus
William S. Lind
Versailles on the Potomac
Glen T.
Martin
The Corruptions of Patriotism
Anat Yisraeli
Bereavement as Israeli Ethos
Wayne
Madsen
Can the Republicans Get Much Worse? Sure, They Can
M. Junaid Alam
The Racism Barrier
William
Benzon
Scorsese's Blues
Adam Engel
The Great American Writing Contest
Poets'
Basement
McNeill, Albert, Guthrie
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