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Today's
Stories
January
23, 2004
William
A. Cook
Rule by the Corrupt and the Capricious
January
22, 2004
Sam
Smith
Howards End?
Patricia
Koyce Wanniski
Lost in Space
Alexander
Lukin
Putin and the Clans
Katherine
van Wormer
Dry Drunk Confirmed: O'Neill's Revelations
and Bush's Mind
Forrest
Hylton
The Prisoner, the President and the Mafia
January
21, 2004
Mazin
Qumsiyeh
Spring in Palestine
Ron
Jacobs
Drive, He Said
Dave Lindorff
Iraq Election Blowback
January 20, 2004
Stan
Goff
State of the Union, MLK and 30 mm DU: Another
Embittered Rant by a Former Soldier
Dave Louthan
Inside the Mad Cow Plant: a Worker Speaks
Out
Cockburn
/ St. Clair
Havoc in the Cornfields
January 19, 2004
Justin E. H. Smith
Inside
America's Prisons: From Corrections to Retribution
Richard W. Behan
The GOP, Inc.
Ray McGovern
Bush's
State of the Union: Humility or More Hyperbole?
Werther
SOTUS:
the Stalin Moment of America's Nomenklatura
Phillip Cryan
Media Collusion in Colombia's War
Lee Sustar
A New Strategy to Reverse Labor's Decline?
Arthur Versluis
Great Lakes as Commodity: Privatizing Water
Uri Avnery
Anti--Semitism:
a Practical Manual
Steve Perry
Fresh Crack from Hawkeye State
January 17 / 18, 2004
Fadi Kiblawi and Will
Youmans
The
Use and Abuse of MLK Jr by Israel's Apologists
Joshua Muldavin
and Joseph Nevins
Blaming the Symptoms
Jeffrey St. Clair
Bad Days at Indian Point: Inside America's Most Dangerous Nuclear Plant
Brian Cloughley
Iron Hammers in Iraq
Saul Landau
Fog of War: Vietnam and Iraq
M. Shahid Alam
Lerner, Said and the Palestinians
Richard Manning
Food Poisoning as Background Noise
Marjorie Cohn
The Guantanamo Concentration Camp
Mike Whitney
Scalia and Opus Dei: Radicals on the Court
Sadik Kassim
Meet Our New Saddam: Islam Karimov
Carol Norris
Arnold
and Bush's Numbers Don't Add Up
Joe Quandt
Suicide
Bombers: The Clash of Absurdities
David Krieger
Imagining MLK Jr at 75
Bruce Jackson
Making War, Making Movies
Ron Jacobs
Revolution in the Air: a review
Richard Edmondson
Rupert Murdoch and My Sister
Richard Forno
Apologizing for Preemption: Evil, Perle and Frum
Poets' Basement
Holt, Mickey Z, Albert & Guthrie
January 16, 2004
Kathy Kelly
A
Visit to Umm Qasr Prison
William S. Lind
More
Thoughts on 4th Generation Warfare
Gillian Russom
So.
Cal Grocery Strikers Speak Out: "We Need Action!"
Ari Shavit
Survival
of the Fittest? An Interview with Benny Morris
Adi Ophir
Genocide Hides Behind Expulsion: a Response to Benny Morris
Dave Lindorff
The General's Henchman: Michael Moore Smears Kucinich
Steve Perry
Iowa Death Trip 2
January 15, 2004
Veteran Intelligence
Professionals for Sanity
Memo
to the President: Your State of the Union Address
John Chuckman
Dry
Hole in the Oval Office: President from Podunk Drilling, Inc
Chris Floyd
Mind Over Matter
Gil--Scott Heron
Whitey on the Moon
Gary Leupp
The
Silk Road: Random Thoughts on the Bam Earthquake and Satan
January 14, 2004
Greg Moses
Happy
Birthday, Dr. King: To Write Off the South is to Surrender to Bigots
Kurt Nimmo
Bush and the Supremes: Amputating the Bill of Rights
Dave Lindorff
Preview of Iowa? Pennsylvania Straw Poll Spells Trouble for Traditional
Dems (and Dean)
Jason Leopold
O'Neill Claims Backed by Rumsfeld / Wolfowitz War Letters to Clinton
Alexander Cockburn
Bush,
Oil and Iraq: Some Truth at Last
January 13, 2004
William S. Lind
How
2004 Looks from Potsdam
M. Junaid Alam
Do Iraqis Have a Right to Resist?
Mickey Z
Snipers:
No Nuts in Iraq
Adolfo Gilly
Chonchocoro:
The Prisoner and the Presidents
Steve Perry
You Love God, Right?
January 12, 2004
Ben Tripp
No
Stan for the Kurds
Norman Solomon
The
Dixie Trap: Democrats and the South
Mike Whitney
O'Neill's Revenge
Jason Leopold
From the Very First Instant It Was About Iraq
Uri Avnery
Syria's
Peace Proposal
January 10 / 11, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Bush
as Hitler? Let's Be Fair
Susan Davis
Dangerous Books
Diane Christian
On Lying and Colin Powell
Lisa Viscidi
Exhumations: Unearthing Guatemala's Macabre Past
Daniel Estulin
Destroying History in Iraq
Saul Landau
Homeland Anxiety
Elaine Cassel
Who's Winning the War on Civil Liberties?
Bruce Jackson
Making the Shit List
Christopher Brauchli
Baptizing Hitler's Ghost
Francis A. Boyle
The Deep Scars of War
Lee Ballinger
Cold Sweat: Sweatshops and the Music Industry
Patrick W. Gavin
Hillary's Slur: Mrs. Lott?
Ramzy Baroud
What Invaders Have in Common
Michael Schwartz
Inside the California Grocery Strike
Gary Johnson
An Interview with Former Heavyweight Champ Greg Page
Dave Zirin
An Interview with Marvin Miller on Unions and Baseball
Mark Hand
A Review of Resistance: My Life for Lebanon
Poets' Basement
Thomas, Daley, Curtis, Guthrie and Albert
January 9, 2004
David Lindorff
The
Misers of War: Troop Strength and Chintzy Bonuses
Kurt Nimmo
Saddam's Defense: Summon Bush Sr. to the Stand
Mike Whitney
Orange Jumpsuits for the Bush Clan?: The Carnegie Report on Iraq's Non--existent
WMDs
Deb Reich
Palestinians and Israelis: This War is Unwinnable
David Vest
Disabled
Vets Fire Back at Rumsfeld
January 8, 2004
Neve Gordon
Israeli
Refuseniks Sentenced to Jail
Lenni Brenner
Dr.
Dean and the Godhead
Ray McGovern
Bush: Driving Without Breaks
Mark Scaramella
Inside
the DA's Office: Lies, Errors and Tedium
Yves Engler
Bush's Mexican Gambit
James Hollander
Journalists
Under Fire: the Death of José Couso in Baghdad
January 7, 2004
Democracy Now!
Uncharitable
Care: How Hospitals are Gouging and Even Arresting the Uninsured
Greg Weiher
The
Bush Administration's Ongoing Intelligence Problem
Ben Tripp
The Word of the Year, 2003
Dave Lindorff
Dean and His Democratic Detractors
Michael Leon
The NYT Does Chomsky
Bob Boldt
God Talk
Ramon Ryan
Small
Victories and Long Struggles: the 10th Anniversary of the Zapatista
Uprising
January 6, 2004
Dave Lindorff
RNC
Plays the Hitler Card: MoveOn Shouldn't Apologize for Those Ads
Ron Jacobs
Drugs
in Uniform: Hashish and the War on Terrorism
Josh Frank
Coffee and State Authority in Colombia
Doug Giebel
Permanent Bases: Leave Iraq? Hell No, We Won't Go
John Chuckman
Sick Puppies: David Frum's New Neo--Con Manifesto
Rannie Amiri
The Politics of the Iranian Earthquake
John L. Hess
A
Record to Dissent From
Thacher Schmid
A Cheesehead's Musings on the Sunday NYT
David Price
"Like
Slaves": Anthropological Thoughts on Occupation
January 5, 2004
Al Krebs
How
Now Mad Cow!
Kathy Kelly
Squatting
in Baghdad's Bomb Craters
Jordy Cummings
The Dialectic of the Kristol Family: Putting the Neo in the Cons
Fran Shor
Mad Human Disease: Chewing the Fat Down on the Farm
Fidel Castro
"We Shall Overcome": On the 45th Anniversary of the Cuban
Revolution
Gary Leupp
North
Korea for Dummies
January 3 / 4, 2004
Brian Cloughley
Never
Mind the WMDs, Just Look at History
Vice Admiral Jack Shanahan
The Wrong War at the Wrong Time
William Cook
Failing to Respond to 9/11
Glen Martin
Jesus
vs. the Beast of the Apocalypse
Robert Fisk
Iraqi Humor Amid the Carnage
Ilan Pappe
The Geneva Bubble
Walter Davis
Robert Jay Lifton, or Nostalgia
Kurt Nimmo
Ashcroft vs. the Left
Mike Whitney
The Padilla Case
Steven Sherman
On Wallerstein's The Decline of American Power
Dave Lindorff
Bush's Taiwan Hypocrisy
William Blum
Codework Orange!
Mitchel Cohen
Learning from Che Guevara
Seth Sandronsky
Mad Cow and Main Street USA
Bruce Jackson
Conversations with Leslie Fiedler
Standard Schaefer
Poet Carl Rakosi Turns 100
Ron Jacobs
Sir Mick
Adam Engel
Hall of Hoaxes
Poets' Basement
Jones, Albert & Curtis
January 2, 2004
Stan Cox
Red
Alert 2016
Dave Lindorff
Beef, the Meat of Republicans
Jackie Corr
Rule and Ruin: Wall Street and Montana
Norman Solomon
George Will's Ethics: None of Our Business?
David Vest
As the Top Wobbleth
January 1, 2004
Randall Robinson
Honor
Haiti, Honor Ourselves
David Krieger
Looking
Back on 2003
Robert Fisk
War Takes an Inhuman Twist: Roadkill Bombs
Stan Goff
War,
Race and Elections
Hammond Guthrie
2003 Almaniac
Website of the Day
Embody Bags
December 31, 2003
Ray McGovern
Don't
Be Fooled Again: This Isn't an Independent Investigation
Kurt Nimmo
Manufacturing Hysteria
Robert Fisk
The Occupation is Damned
Mike Whitney
Mad Cows and Downer George
Alexander Cockburn
A Great Year Ebbed, Another Ahead
December 30, 2003
Michael Neumann
Criticism
of Israel is Not Anti--Semitism
Annie Higgins
When
They Bombed the Hometown of the Virgin Mary
Alan Farago
Bush Bros. Wrecking Co.: Time Runs Out for the Everglades
Dan Bacher
Creatures from the Blacklight Lagoon: From Glofish to Frankenfish
Jeffrey St. Clair
Hard
Time on the Killing Floor: Inside Big Meat
Willie Nelson
Whatever Happened to Peace on Earth?
December 29, 2003
Mark Hand
The
Washington Post in the Dock?
David Lindorff
The
Bush Election Strategy
Phillip Cryan
Interested Blindness: Media Omissions in Colombia's War
Richard Trainor
Catellus Development: the Next Octopus?
Uri Avnery
Israel's
Conscientious Objectors
December 27 / 28, 2003
Alexander Cockburn
A
Journey Into Rupert Murdoch's Soul
Kathy Kelly
Christmas Day in Baghdad: A Better World
Saul Landau
Iraq
at the End of the Year
Dave Zirin
A Linebacker for Peace & Justice: an Interview with David Meggysey
Robert Fisk
Iraq
Through the American Looking Glass
Scott Burchill
The Bad Guys We Once Thought Good: Where Are They Now?
Chris Floyd
Bush's Iraq Plan is Right on Course: Saddam 2.0
Brian J. Foley
Don't Tread on Me: Act Now to Save the Constitution
Seth Sandronsky
Feedlot Sweatshops: Mad Cows and the Market
Susan Davis
Lord
of the (Cash Register) Rings
Ron Jacobs
Cratched Does California
Adam Engel
Crumblecake and Fish
Norman Solomon
The Unpardonable Lenny Bruce
Poets' Basement
Cullen and Albert
Website of the Weekend
Activism Through Music
December 26, 2003
Gary Leupp
Bush
Doings: Doing the Language
December 25, 2003
Diane Christian
The
Christmas Story
Elaine Cassel
This
Christmas, the World is Too Much With Us
Susan Davis
Jinglebells, Hold the Schlock
Kristen Ess
Bethlehem Celebrates Christmas, While Rafah Counts the Dead
Francis Boyle
Oh Little Town of Bethlehem
Alexander Cockburn
The
Magnificient 9
|
January
23, 2003
In Defense of Polluters
Howard
Dean's Vermont
By JOSH FRANK
Governor
Howard Dean repeatedly defended dangerous levels of pesticide use on
Vermont farms. Vermonters for a Clean Environment has been reporting
as much ever since it issued a report almostt a year ago, in March of
2002.
In
1999 Vermont resident Judy Ferraro wrote the governor’s office
complaining about pesticide poisoning from her neighboring orchard farm.
Ferraro wrote in her letter, “Our gravest concern is that we are
being exposed to these toxic chemicals in the air we breath; inhalation
of pesticides is the most dangerous kind of exposure, and it is the
most difficult to monitor. Many days I have called to my children to
come indoors and shut the windows to protect ourselves. We have experienced
burning eyes and lips when standing by our front door. Our property
is surrounded on three sides by orchards
Last year, after many phone calls and pleas for assistance, the head
of the Agriculture Dept. came to our place to check things out first
hand. He was clearly disturbed by what he saw.”
As
the report by Vermonter’s for a Clean Environment notes, many
other organized citizens wrote Dean in hopes of persuading him to intervene
in the use of harmful chemicals on Vermont farms. Ashley Green was one
of the first Vermonters to speak out about the problem -- she has been
writing and complaining about her neighbor’s pesticide use since
1992.
In
a letter dated January 2001, Green wrote governor Dean saying of her
neighbor, “The grower in this case is using some chemicals that
are recognized carcinogens. Increasingly, research is showing links
between chemical exposure and disease, and children are most vulnerable
to the effects of chemicals. I am very concerned with the chemical exposure
my two children are getting. Recently I learned of a study in the Netherlands
that has documented mild cognitive dysfunction in people exposed to
pesticides, including problems with numbers, letters, and speech. Both
my children are now receiving special aid at school for speech difficulties.
Is there a correlation? I don’t know. But it seems that our current
agricultural standards and Department of Agriculture permit land use
practices that are potentially hazardous.”
These
letters are most likely protected and locked away along with Dean’s
other generational records in Vermont.
Howard
Dean all but ignored these written complaints, and instead sided with
the large polluters. In an Amicus brief filed by the state in October
of 2001 the government stated that the farm does not have “a substantial
adverse effect on the public health and safety.” And that the
farm is “in compliance with Vermont’s water quality standards.”
This
defense came after Addison County Superior Court Judge found that the
orchard was a “nuisance.” The report adds that Vermont’s
Department of Agriculture, Food and Markets (DAFM), “repeated
the history of the department’s advice to move the pesticide mixing
area in 1995 and again in 1996, noting that at the time of the violation
in June 2001 ‘the mixing and loading area remained unchanged from
the previous investigations.’ The violation charged: ‘The
orchard worker mixed pesticides that resulted in either the pesticide
product, dilution or rinsate entering an unnamed stream, thus violating
6 VSA Section 1111(a)(6).”
The
Vermont Supreme Court has yet to decide on the matter. “Pre-existence”
of the polluting farms the lower courts said, was reason enough for
allowing the corporate farms to continue conducting their practices
as they always have -- even though the courts acknowledged the negative
effects on small egg and dairy farmers.
Native
Vermont farmer John Tremblay was forced to move his egg factory to New
Hampshire because of Dean’s lackluster farm policies.
Tremblay
contends that Dean “is a business man with big money. He is not
a farmer. He doesn’t care about the people or the environment.
He doesn’t care that the air stinks or that there are flies everywhere.
He doesn’t care that his trucks ruin the roads and make it unsafe
for your children to ride their bikes. He doesn’t care that he
destroys your way of life, and unfortunately the state of Vermont doesn’t
care either.”
Fran
Bressette, a small dairy farmer in Vermont, is also irate over governor
Dean’s polluter friendly politics. She notes that the DAFM allowed
Canadian hog-growing multi-millionaire Lucien Breton, to open up a huge
polluting egg factory in Highgate Vermont. Bressette claims small Vermont
farmers have been victims of Dean’s outrageous leniency toward
environmental protections in the state.
Bressette
and her neighbors have been victims of a number of problems including,
“flies, noise, odors, traffic, air quality, threats from disease,
chemical exposure, loss of property values, increased stress and significant
impacts on water.” Dean ignored their concerns, and was often
“vicious” in his replies, according to Bressette.
In
a letter to Bressette governor Dean wrote, “As you know, Leon
Graves, Commissioner of Agriculture, has said he will deny Vermont Egg
Farm a permit to expand until the fly problem has been taken care of.”
Not once in the letter did Dean say he was going to address the Bressette’s
grievance, nor did he say he supported Vermont farmers in their plight
against a Canadian hog-baron.
During
the testimony of Sherry Kawecki at the reconfirmations hearings of Vermont’s
Agriculture Commissioner, Leon Graves, Kawecki stated; "Commissioner
of Agriculture Leon Graves has lost the respect of both farmers and
the consumers of this state. By his actions, he has shown disdain for
small farmers, thumbed his nose at laws set by the legislature and sold
out to corporate special interests."
Even
though Dean in a CNN interview on August 12th 2003, said "The destruction
of the middle class and the widening gap between the rich and poor is
being played out right before our eyes with the concentration of the
agriculture industry."
Many
small farmers in Vermont wish Howard Dean had done something about the
problem in their state while he had the chance. Many have picked up
and moved out, and others have stayed and suffered as flies have ruined
crops, and pesticides have poisoned vital water supplies.
We
are “victims in this nightmare” Bressette concluded, “Dean
washed his hands [of] the whole ordeal. We suffered major impacts from
all this. If [people] want the truth on how Dean handled this, tell
them to ask the victims. Us.”
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