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Today's
Stories
October
28, 2003
Chris
White
9/11
in Context: a Marine Veteran's Perspective
October
27, 2003
William
A. Cook
Ministers
of War: Criminals of the Cloth
David
Lindorff
The
Times, Dupes and the Pulitzer
Elaine
Cassel
Antonin
Scalia's Contemptus Mundi
Robert
Fisk
Occupational Schizophrenia
John Chuckman
Banging Your Head into Walls
Seth Sandronsky
Snoops R Us
Bill Kauffman
George
Bush, the Anti-Family President
October
25 / 26, 2003
Robert
Pollin
The
US Economy: Another Path is Possible
Jeffrey St. Clair
Outsourcing US Guided Missile Technology to China
James
Bunn
Plotting
Pre-emptive Strikes
Saul Landau
Should Limbaugh Do Time?
Ted Honderich
Palestinian Terrorism, Morality & Germany
Thomas Nagy
Saving the Army of Peace
Christopher
Brauchli
Between Bush and a Lobotomy: Killing Endangered Species for Profit
Laura Carlsen
Latin America's Archives of Terror
Diane
Christian
Evil Acts & Evil Actors
Muqtedar Khan
Lessons from the Imperial Adventure in Iraq
John Feffer
The Tug of War on the Korea Peninsula
Brian Cloughley
Iraq War Memories are Made of Lies
Benjamin
Dangl
and Kathryn Ledebur
An Uneasy Peace in Bolivia
Karyn
Strickler
Down
with Big Brother's Spying Eyes
Noah Leavitt
Legal Globalization
John Stanton
Hitler's Ghost Haunts America
Mickey
Z.
War of the Words
Adam Engel
Tractatus Ridiculous
Poets'
Basement
Curtis, Subiet and Albert
Website of the Weekend
Project Last Stand
October
24, 2003
Kurt Nimmo
Ashcroft's
War on Greenpeace
Lenni Brenner
The Demographics of American Jews
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Rockets,
Napalm, Torpedoes and Lies: the Attack on the USS Liberty Revisited
Sarah Weir
Cover-up of the Israeli Attack on the US Liberty
David
Krieger
WMD Found in DC: Bush is the Button
Mohammed Hakki
It's Palestine, Stupid!: Americans and the Middle East
Harry
Browne
Northern
Ireland: the Agreement that Wasn't
October
23, 2003
Diane
Christian
Ruthlessness
Kurt Nimmo
Criticizing Zionism
David Lindorff
A General Theory of Theology
Alan Maass
The Future of the Anti-War Movement
William
Blum
Imperial
Indifference
Stew Albert
A Memo
October
22, 2003
Wayne
Madsen
Religious
Insanity Runs Rampant
Ray McGovern
Holding
Leaders Accountable for Lies
Christopher
Brauchli
There's
No Civilizing the Death Penalty
Elaine
Cassel
Legislators
and Women's Bodies
Bill Glahn
RIAA
Watch: the New Morality of Capitalism
Anthony Arnove
An Interview with Tariq Ali
October 21, 2003
Uri Avnery
The
Beilin Agreement
Robert Jensen
The Fundamentalist General
David
Lindorff
War Dispatch from the NYT: God is on Our Side!
William S. Lind
Bremer is Deaf to History
Bridget
Gibson
Fatal Vision
Alan Haber
A Human Chain for Peace in Ann Arbor
Peter
Linebaugh
On the Bicentennial of the Hanging of Thomas Russell
October
20, 2003
Standard
Schaefer
Chile's
Failed Economy: an Interview with Michael Hudson
Chris
Floyd
Circus Maximus: Arnie, Enron and Bush Maul California
Mark Hand
Democrats Seek to Disappear Chomsky
& Nader
John &
Elaine Mellencamp
Peaceful
World
Elaine
Cassel
God's
General Unmuzzled
October
18 / 19, 2003
Robert
Pollin
Clintonomics:
the Hollow Boom
Gary Leupp
Israel, Syria and Stage Four in the Terror War
Saul Landau
Day of the Gropenfuhrer
Bruce Anderson
The California Recall
John Gershman
Bush in Asia: What a Difference a Decade Makes
Nelson P. Valdes
Bush, Electoral Politics and Cuba's "Illicit Sex Trade"
Kurt Nimmo
Shock Therapy and the Israeli Scenario
Tom Gorman
Al Franken and Al-Shifa
Brian
Cloughley
Public Propaganda and the Iraq War
Joanne Mariner
A New Way to Kill Tigers
Denise
Low
The Cancer of Sprawl
Mickey Z.
The Reverend of Doom
John Chuckman
US Missiles for Israeli Nukes?
George Naggiar
A Veto of Public Diplomacy
Alison
Weir
Death Threats in Berkeley
Benjamin Dangl
Bolivian Govt. Falling Apart
Ron Jacobs
The Politics of Bob Dylan
Fidel Castro
A Review of Garcia Marquez's Memoir
Adam Engel
I Hope My Corpse Gives You the Plague
Poets' Basement
Jones, Albert, Guthrie and Greeder
October
17, 2003
Stan Goff
Piss
On My Leg: Perception Control and the Stage Management of War
Newton
Garver
Bolivia
in Turmoil
Standard
Schaefer
Grocery Unions Under Attack
Ben Terrall
The Ordeal of the Lockheed 52
Ron Jacobs
First Syria, Then Iran
David
Lindorff
Michael
Moore Proclaims Mumia Guilty
October
16, 2003
Marjorie
Cohn
Bush
Gunning for Regime Change in Cuba
Gary Leupp
"Getting Better" in Iraq
Norman
Solomon
The US Press and Israel: Brand Loyalty and the Absence of Remorse
Rush Limbaugh
The 10 Most Overrated Athletes of All Time
Lenni
Brenner
I
Didn't Meet Huey Newton. He Met Me
Website of the Day
Time Tested Books
October
15, 2003
Sunil
Sharma / Josh Frank
The
General and the Governor: Two Measures of American Desperation
Forrest
Hylton
Dispatch
from the Bolivian War: "Like Animals They Kill Us"
Brian
Cloughley
Those
Phony Letters: How Bush Uses GIs to Spread Propaganda About Iraq
Ahmad
Faruqui
Lessons
of the October War
Uri Avnery
Three
Days as a Living Shield
Website
of the Day
Rank and File: the New Unity Partnership Document
JoAnn
Wypijewski
The
New Unity Partnership:
A Manifest Destiny for Labor
October 14, 2003
Eric Ridenour
Qibya
& Sharon: Anniversary of a Massacre
Elaine
Cassel
The
Disgrace That is Guantanamo
Robert
Jensen
What the "Fighting Sioux" Tells Us About White People
David Lindorff
Talking Turkey About Iraq
Patrick
Cockburn
US Troops Bulldoze Crops
VIPS
One Person Can Make a Difference
Toni Solo
The CAFTA Thumbscrews
Peter
Linebaugh
"Remember
Orr!"
Website
of the Day
BRIDGES
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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October
28, 2003
The Politics of the
Inferno
Notes
on Hellfire
By RICH GIBSON
Everyone knew this fire was coming. TV reporters
commented on the possibility all over the state a week before
it happened. Yet preparations were minimal. For example, San
Diego has long had extensive planning for terrorist attacks and
has gone through city-wide drills against the possibility. But,
when the fires arrived and the evacuations began, no one knew
where to go. Finally, Qualcomm stadium with a huge parking lot
traditionally used for tailgate parties, was set up as an ad
hoc meeting place. People were urged to go there. But no one
thought of setting up a clinic, so there was no medical care,
no plan for food, nothing. Only the spontaneous work of a volunteer
Navy corpsman caused a clinic to be set up, staffed only by volunteer
docs and nurses, who brought their own supplies, while neighbors
were good enough to show up with food, blankets, cots and other
supplies.
The fire is in part the result of a 177
day drought, in part because of rapacious development, but the
response to the fire is a combination of politcs and nature.
The response, which in part demonstrated that people are hardly
selfish by nature, as neighbor risked house and health to help
neighbor, and people opened their homes to strangers, and donations
poured into a variety of spontaneously organized charities (Channel
10 TV took in about $1 million in a quick eight hour fund drive
in wealthy San Diego, which keeps its poor on the other side
of the militarized fence at Mexico); the response also demonstrated
that every natural disaster also has a political side.
The political: Governor Davis cut the
California Forestry Department budget by 55 million dollars early
this year. This meant equipment went idle, as did personnel.
Air tankers and helicopters were grounded.
San Diego firefighters were up north
in Riverside and San Bernadino when the fires began their sweep
early Sunday morning, driven by a moderate Santa Ana wind to
the west.
California's state firefighting bureaucracy
refused to release the San Diego firefighters to return to their
homes to fight their home fires, keeping them on the San Bernadino
fires. They were not released until the worst damage had been
done, coming back on Monday in most cases. Key to fighting fires
like this is a quick response, as a small brush fire can be quashed,
before it burns hundreds of thousands of acres, as these fires
did, and cost lives---12 confirmed dead so far.
The vaunted anti-terrorist forces of
the military simply retreated to their bases, never to come off,
despite repeated requests, even demands, from public officials
like Dianne Jacobs who pleaded with Governor Davis to take the
requisite action needed to call out the military, or at least
use their equipment. According to Jacobs, Davis naturally panicked,
failed to act, following his path during the energy crisis. However,
Davis did act out of habit. The man who helped lead the deregulation
of the state's energy industry, then appointed deregulation's
prime proponent to be the state budget director on the heels
of the disastrous energy crisis, continued to honor the gods
of privatization: sticking to the letter of a law designed to
protect private gain that requires every potential private contractor
who might have a tanker plane to be called, and by-passed, before
the military can be activated. No ever one saw the vaunted asses
and elbows of any group of the tens of thousands of marines and
sailors in the county working to defeat the fire.
While emergency shelters for people were
poorly organized by state and local officials, shelters for pets
did pretty well. San Diego, after all, has parks dedicated to
dogs, while the city cops torment homeless people wherever they
try to lie down. The new baseball park, built with public funds,
is now named PETCO Park, a name purchased with the millions from
a pet supply store. The Del Mar race track became the pet center,
and had to issue repeated announcements that they did not need
any more hay.
The main thing that stopped the fires
from doing greater damage to the urbanized areas nearer the coasts
was not firefighters, but the fact that the moderate Santa Ana
winds just did not have the power to blow any further against
the power of the weather patterns created by the sea. When the
winds ran into opposing weather, the fire slowed and died.
As one who lives near the Mission Trails
fire-path, I looked and looked for signs of firefighters all
day Sunday. The only indications I saw were red lights on the
trucks, late Sunday night. Having interviewed several reporters,
this was their experience as well. The firefighters weren't having
coffee. They were spread far to thin. This distinguishes them
from the police, who for the most part did nothing of much value
during the fire, other than to announce the need to evacuate,
which many people ignored, knowing that if they stayed to fight
small fires, they might save their homes. This, indeed proved
mostly true.
Now, on Monday evening, the air in the
city is vile, full of ash and industrial pollutants. The depth
of this air quality crisis is not being discussed, as it was
not following the attacks on the World Trade Center; New Yorkers
only later learning that their government risked their lives,
and lied to them, about the deadly nature of the air they breathed.
The fire itself knew no class lines,
though it may be those who directed the firefighters did. The
fire, at some points a 100 foot wall of flames racing across
the landscape, burned some of the richest new homes in the county,
exploding them as it passed by. But no casinos were burned, spawning
rumors about the location of those missing firefighters who may
well have been assigned to protect slot machines rather than
the hundreds of rural homes that are burning right now.
Presently, the fire is rushing east,
devouring the Cleveland National Forest, and the many homes in
the outback areas, as people still are forced to flee. At minimum,
700 home have been destroyed. San Diego has been closed by official
decree for Monday and Tuesday, while the bankrupt city coffers
have emptied into the mouth of this unnecessary fire.
Rich Gibson
is associate professor of Social Studies in the College of Education
at San Diego State University. He can be reached at: rgibson@pipeline.com
Weekend
Edition Features for Oct. 25 / 26, 2003
Robert
Pollin
The
US Economy: Another Path is Possible
Jeffrey St. Clair
Outsourcing US Guided Missile Technology to China
James
Bunn
Plotting
Pre-emptive Strikes
Saul Landau
Should Limbaugh Do Time?
Ted Honderich
Palestinian Terrorism, Morality & Germany
Thomas Nagy
Saving the Army of Peace
Christopher
Brauchli
Between Bush and a Lobotomy: Killing Endangered Species for Profit
Laura Carlsen
Latin America's Archives of Terror
Diane
Christian
Evil Acts & Evil Actors
Muqtedar Khan
Lessons from the Imperial Adventure in Iraq
John Feffer
The Tug of War on the Korea Peninsula
Brian Cloughley
Iraq War Memories are Made of Lies
Benjamin
Dangl
and Kathryn Ledebur
An Uneasy Peace in Bolivia
Karyn
Strickler
Down
with Big Brother's Spying Eyes
Noah Leavitt
Legal Globalization
John Stanton
Hitler's Ghost Haunts America
Mickey
Z.
War of the Words
Adam Engel
Tractatus Ridiculous
Poets'
Basement
Curtis, Subiet and Albert
Website of the Weekend
Project Last Stand
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