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Today's
Stories
November
1 / 2, 2003
Saul Landau
Cui
Bono? The Cuba Embargo as Rip Off
October 31, 2003
Lee Ballinger
Making
a Dollar Out of 15 Cents: The Sweatshops of Sean "P. Diddy"
Combs
Wayne
Madsen
The
GOP's Racist Trifecta
Michael Donnelly
Settling for Peanuts: Democrats Trick the Greens, Treat Big Timber
Patrick
Cockburn
Baghdad
Diary: Iraqis are Naming Their New Babies "Saddam"
Elaine
Cassel
Coming
to a State Near You: The Matrix (Interstate Snoops, Not the Movie)
October 30, 2003
Forrest
Hylton
Popular
Insurrection and National Revolution in Bolivia
Eric Ruder
"We Have to Speak Out!": Marching with the Military
Families
Dave Lindorff
Big
Lies and Little Lies: The Meaning of "Mission Accomplished"
Philip
Adams
"Everyone is Running Scared": Denigrating Critics of
Israel
Sean Donahue
Howard Dean: a Hawk in a Dove's Cloak
Robert
Jensen
Big Houses & Global Justice: A Moral Level of Consumption?
Alexander
Cockburn
Paul
Krugman: Part of the Problem
October
29, 2003
Chris
Floyd
Thieves
Like Us: Cheney's Backdoor to Halliburton
Robert Fisk
Iraq Guerrillas Adopt a New Strategy: Copy the Americans
Rick Giombetti
Let
Them Eat Prozac: an Interview with David Healy
The Intelligence
Squad
Dark
Forces? The Military Steps Up Recruiting of Blacks
Elaine
Cassel
Prosecutors
as Therapists, Phantoms as Terrorists
Marie Trigona
Argentina's War on the Unemployed Workers Movement
Gary Leupp
Every
Day, One KIA: On the Iraq War Casualty Figures
October
28, 2003
Rich Gibson
The
Politics of an Inferno: Notes on Hellfire 2003
Uri Avnery
Incident
in Gaza
Diane
Christian
Wishing
Death
Robert
Fisk
Eyewitness
in Iraq: "They're Getting Better"
Toni Solo
Authentic Americans and John Negroponte
Jason
Leopold
Halliburton in Iran
Shrireen Parsons
When T-shirts are Verboten
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
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Weekend
Edition
November 1 / 2, 2003
Standing Up to El
Diablo
The 1981 Blockade of the
Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant
By RON JACOBS
It was September 14, 1981. I had just been released
from the Berkeley jail after being arrested in front of a Grateful
Dead concert the day before. Returning to the place I shared
with a group of friends, I got ready to head off to San Luis
Obispo where an attempted occupation and blockade of the Diablo
nuclear power plant was underway.
This protest was organized by the Abalone
Alliance-a coalition of hardcore pacifists, left Democrats and
non-affiliated left liberals who seemed to believe that if they
flew the US flag and convinced enough people to ask politely
without yelling at the cops or the officials of the utility company,
the plant would never go online. Their ploy did not work. Nonetheless,
I wanted to take part in their attempt. After meeting up with
my friend Joe at the Earth People's Park house in West Berkeley,
he and I headed out to the foot of University Avenue to hitch
down Route 101 to the protest. Eight hours later we were in
a camp set up on a few acres of land that a sympathetic farmer
had provided. Our friends and fellow affinity group members-Southwester
and Ross-were already there.
The camp itself was a model of alternative
forms of energy. The showers were constructed from sanitized
fifty gallon drums painted a flat back to absorb and store heat,
which in turn heated the water. These drums were set on wooden
racks about nine feet high. Pieces of recycled hose were attached
with spigots which, when opened, allowed the water to flow.
Several ovens powered by wooden and solar heat had been built
from rocks and recycled aluminum and semi-private outhouses were
also provided. At the end of each day, there would be a meeting
of spokespeople from each of the affinity groups in the camp.
Most of these meetings had to do with logistics and strategy
around the blockade. However, one evening it seemed like all
we talked about was the US flag that flew in the center of the
camp. Some of the more radical campers had tried to remove it
earlier and were met with considerable resistance by the flag's
supporters. As it turned out, most of those who had attempted
to pull down the flag were members of the Revolutionary Communist
Youth Brigade (RCYB)-the RCP's youth wing. The next thing I
knew, the argument was no longer about the flag but about whether
or not communists should be allowed to participate in the plant
blockade. This is when Southwester and I jumped into the argument.
We weren't RCP members, but we weren't Democrats or pacifists,
either. Plus, we didn't care much for flags, black, red or red,
white and blue. It looked like the flag argument was going to
split the camp in two when someone proposed a compromise: fly
the flag but fly it upside down. This compromise worked and
the camp held together.
To me the most telling part of the whole
Diablo Canyon action occurred on the morning our network of affinity
groups was set to block the plant and prevent workers and police
from gaining entrance. Although I had qualms about intervening
in the construction workers' livelihood, those concerns were
dropped when one of their union representatives told us that
the construction workers were paid whether they made it into
the plant site or not. That concern resolved, our group of six,
which included three of my buddies from the streets of Berkeley--Joe,
Southwester, and Ross-- decided that we should block the road
a mile or so away from the plant, since this was not an area
where demonstrators were officially allowed according to an agreement
reached between the protest organizers and the police. Since
it wasn't an approved protest area, we figured our actions might
actually prevent people from entering the plant since the police
would be stationed elsewhere. So, about 5:00 in the morning
we headed out, ready to lay nails, tacks and whatever other sharp
objects across the road we could find. As we were placing two
by fours spiked with large nails on the road, an Abalone organizer
came over and started yelling at us for doing so. We were violating
the agreement, she said. We told her we didn't give a fuck about
the agreement but truly wanted to slow down the process in the
hope that the reactor would not go online. As our argument attracted
more attention, we decided to drop it since we weren't sure who
was listening-police or protesters. The organizer removed our
nail-laden boards from the road and gave them to one of the cops.
Later in the morning, as we stood with our arms linked blocking
the road and attempting to prevent buses and trucks carrying
workers and materials for the plant from getting in, we were
told not to fight back when the police attacked us. Southwester
and I did anyhow and were scolded by other protesters for hurting
our "brothers"-the police. Weird. The whole lot of
us ended up in a makeshift jail for a few days while the demonstration
continued at the plant.
The men's jail was really an unused military
training camp that the state had cleaned up for the protest.
We slept on mattresses on the floor and were guarded by National
Guard reservists who had been called up for the duration of the
action. I was allowed one shower during the four days I was
there. The food consisted of sandwiches, raw vegetables, and
some kind of powdered drink. Many of the detainees had never
been in any kind of confinement before and did a hell of a lot
of complaining about their rights. While I agreed with their
arguments, I knew that the cops didn't really give a shit, so
I thought it was wiser just to keep my mouth shut. It was better
than a regular jailhouse, but it was still jail. While there,
Wavy Gravy and the singer Jackson Browne gave an impromptu concert
and talent show after one of the National Guard members called
in to act as a jailer smuggled in his guitar from home. (The
National Guard was mobilized for this action despite the promise
made by then-Governor Jerry Brown at a rally the year before
that he would only call out the Guard to keep the plant closed
and never use them to lock up protestors).
Whenever a busload of protesters was
brought in, we would greet them with a song or two-usually John
Lennon's "Power to the People" or the Beatles' "Yellow
Submarine." Cecil Williams, who was the pastor of Glide
Memorial Church in San Francisco and had a history of social
protest and service, ran an ongoing seminar on social justice,
nonviolent protest, violence and revolution. Nights were restless
and, by the fourth day, quite rank smelling, thanks to the lack
of showers, close quarters and daytime heat. When we finally
went to court, everyone in our affinity group copped a plea just
to get out of the detention center and back to Berkeley. The
plant failed to go online on schedule. The delay was indirectly
related to the protests and blockades: a group of scientists
from a nearby university had discovered that the builders had
read the blueprints incorrectly and had laid out parts of the
plant the opposite of how it should have been. So the courts
issued a delay while the plant was rebuilt.
Ron Jacobs
is author of The
Way the Wind Blew: a history of the Weather Underground.
He can be reached at: rjacobs@zoo.uvm.edu
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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