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Recent Stories

July 12 / 13, 2003

Arthur Mitzman
The Double Wall Before the Future

Standard Schaefer
The Coming Financial Reality: an Interview with Michael Hudson

John Feffer
A Fearful Symmetery: Washington and Pyongyang

Ron Jacobs
Shades of Gray in Iran

Elaine Cassel
Judicial Terrorism Against the Bill of Rights

Tom Stephens
Civil Liberties After 9/11

David Lindorff
New White House Slogan: "Case Closed. Just Move On"

Jason Leopold
The Mini-War Against Iraq Prior to 9/11

Lee Sustar
What's Behind the Crisis in Liberia?

Mickey Z.
AIDS Dissent and Africa

Sam Hamod
Semitic is a Language Group, Not a Race or Ethnic Group

Ramzy Baroud
Awaiting Justice on an Old Blanket

Jeffrey St. Clair
Savage Incongruities: the Photographic Life of Lee Miller

Adam Engel
Parable of the Lobbyist

Robert Sanders
A Review of Ralph Lopez's American Dream

Poets' Basement
Albert, Witherup, Guthrie

 

July 11, 2003

Conn Hallinan
The Coin of Empire

Tim Wise
God Responds to Bush

Mokhiber / Weissman
The Two Faces of Bush in Africa

Edward S. Herman
Whitewashing Sandra Day O'Connor

David Orr
Coffeen-gate: What's Going on at the Sierra Club Foundation?

David Lindorff
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Website of the Day
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July 10, 2003

Ron Jacobs
Dealing with the Devil: the Bloody Profits of General Dynamics

Sean Donahue
Bush and the Paramillitaries: Coddling Terrorists in Colombia

Yemi Toure
Who Outted Bush in Afrika?

Robert Jensen
Politics and Sustainability: an Interview with Wes Jackson

Ali Abunimah
US Leaves Injured Iraqis Untreated

Joanne Mariner
Federal Courts, Not Military Commissions

Website of the Day
Electronic Iraq

 

July 9, 2003

David Lindorff
Is the Media Finally Turning on Bush?

David Krieger and Angela McCracken
10 Myths About Nuclear Weapons

Mickey Z.
Why Speak Out?

Lee Sustar
The Great Medicare Fraud

John Chuckman
The Worst Kind of Lie

Gary Leupp
"Pacifist" Japan and the Occupation of Iraq

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Hail to the Thief:
Songs for the Bush Years

 

July 8, 2003

Elaine Cassel
Bully on the Bench: the Pathological Dissents of Scalia

Alan Maass
Nights of Fire and Rage in Benton Harbor

Chris Floyd
Troubled Sleep: Getting Used to the American Gulag

Linda S. Heard
America's Kangaroo Justice

Brian Cloughley
They Tell Lies to Nodders

Charles Sullivan
Bush the Christian?

Saul Landau
The Intelligence Culture in the National Security Age

Website of the Day
Occupation Watch

 

July 7, 2003

William Blum
The Anti-Empire Report

Harvey Wasserman
The Nuke with a Hole in Its Head

Ramzy Baroud
Peace for All the Wrong Reasons

Simon Jones
What Progressives Should Think About Iran

Lesley McCulloch
Fear, Pain and Shame in Aceh

Uri Avnery
The Draw

Steve Perry
Bush's Wars Web Log 7/3

 

July 4 / 6, 2003

Patrick Cockburn
Dead on the Fourth of July

Frederick Douglass
What is Freedom to a Slave?

Martha Honey
Bush and Africa: Racism, Exploitation and Neglect

Jeffrey St. Clair
The Rat in the Grain: Amstutz and the Looting of Iraqi Agriculture

Standard Schaefer
Rule by Fed: Anyone But Greenspan in 2004

Lenni Brenner
Jefferson is for Today

Elaine Cassel
Fucking Furious on the Fourth

Ben Tripp
How Free Are We?

Wayne Madsen
A Sad Independence Day

John Stanton
Happy Birthday, America! 227 Years of War

Jim Lobe
Bush's Surreal AIDS Appointment

John Blair
Return to Marble Hill: Indiana's Rusting Nuke

Lisa Walsh Thomas
Heavy Reckoning at Qaim

David Vest
Wake Up and Smell the Dynamite

Adam Engel
Queer as Grass

Poets' Basement
Christian, Witherup, Albert & St. Clair

Website of the Weekend
The Lipstick Librarian

 

July 3, 2003

Patrick W. Gavin
The Meaning of Gettysburg

Thomas W. Croft
There Was a Reason They Called It the Casino Economy

David Lindorff
Outlawing Subversives: Hong Kong and the US

John Chuckman
Lessons from the American Revolution

Jackson Thoreau
New Far-Right Scheme: Impeach Supreme Court Justices

Stan Goff
"Bring 'Em On?": a Former Special Forces Soldier Responds to Bush's Invitation for Iraqis to Attack US Troops

Steve Perry
Bush's Wars Web Log 7/3


July 2, 2003

Diane Christian
Good Killing and Bad Killing

Richard Falk
After Iraq, Does UN War Prevention Have a Future?

Mokhiber / Weissman
Bush Administration: Causing Repetitive Stress

Justin Podur
Uribe's Onslaught Across Colombia

Reuven Kaviner
Prosecuting Ben-Artzi, the Refusenik

Steve Perry
Bush's Wars Web Log 7/2

July 1, 2003

Sasan Fayamanesh
Weapon of Choice: Nukes, Israel and Iran

Elaine Cassel
Sex and the Supreme Moralizer: Scalia and the Sodomy Cops

Susan Block
A Love Supreme: Our Assholes Belong to Ourselves

Bill Glahn
RIAA Watch: No, No Bono

David Lindorff
Weapons in Search of a Name

Gary Leupp
Occupation, Resistance and the Plight of the GIs

Steve Perry
Bush's Wars Web Log 7/1

 

June 30, 2003

Karyn Strickler
The Do-Nothings: an Exposé of Progressive Politics in America

Col. Dan Smith
The Occupation of Iraq: Descending into the Quagmire

Tim Wise
Race and Destruction in Black and White

Neve Gordon
The Roadmap and the Wall

Chris Floyd
The Revelation of St. George: "God Told Me to Strike Saddam"

Elaine Cassel
Kentucky Woman

Uri Avnery
Hope in Dark Times

Steve Perry
Bush's Wars Web Log 6/30

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Bush El Hombre

 

June 28 / 29, 2003

M. Shahid Alam
Bernard Lewis: Scholarship or Sophistry?

Jeffrey St. Clair
Meet Steven Griles: Big Oil's Inside Man

Laura Carlsen
Democracy's Future: From the Polls or the Populace?

Alan Maass
You Call These Democrats an Alternative?

C.Y. Gopinath
Bush and Kindergarten

Noah Leavitt
Bush, the Death Penalty and International Law

Joanne Mariner
Rehnquist Family Values

Ignacio Chapela
Tenure, Censorship and Biotech at Berkeley

Bob Scowcroft
Bush's Squeeze on Organic Farmers

Jon Brown
Tom Delay: "I am the Government"

Kam Zarrabi
Keep Your Hands Off Iran, Please!

Ron Jacobs
Big Bill Broonzy's Conversation with the Blues

Julie Hilden
Fear Factor: Art, Terror and the First Amendment

Adrien Rain Burke
The Anarchists' Wedding Guide

Adam Engel
US Troops Outta Times Square

Poets' Basement
Witherup, Guthrie, Albert, Hamod

 

June 27, 2003

Jason Leopold
CIA: Seven Months Prior to 9/11 Iraq Posed No Threat to US

David Vest
Supreme Silence: Bush's Bunker-Hunker

David Lindorff
The Catch and Release of "Comical Ali"

Ray McGovern
Cheney, Forgery and the CIA

Steve Perry
Bush's Wars Web Log 6/26

Website of the Day
John Kerry, Teresa Heinz & Ken Lay: The Politics of Hypocrisy

June 26, 2003

Sen. Robert Byrd
The Road of Cover-Up is a Road to Ruin

Jason Leopold
Wolfowitz Instructed the CIA to Investigate Hans Blix

Paul de Rooij
Ambient Death in Palestine

Chris Floyd
Mass Graves and Burned Meat in Bush's New Iraq

Elaine Cassel
Wolfowitz as Lord High Executioner

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Musicians Unite Against Sweatshops

Sheldon Hull
Squatting in Mansions

Ben Tripp
A Guide to Hating Almost Anyone

Uri Avnery
The Best Show in Town

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Bush's Wars Web Log 6/25

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June 25, 2003

Bruce Jackson
Buffalo Cops Wage War on Pedal Pushers

Mickey Z.
The New Dark Ages

David Lindorff
Indonesia's War on Journalists

Dan Bacher
Butterflies and Farmworkers Confront USDA and Riot Cops

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My America vs. the Empire

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Bush's Wars Web Log 6/25

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June 24, 2003

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Supreme Indemnity
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A Message from Tehran: Is It Worth It to Risk One's Life?

John Chuckman
The Real Clash of Civilizations

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WMD Damage Control at the Times

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Bush's Wars Web Log 6/24

 

June 23, 2003

Marc Pritzke
Washington Lied: an Interview with Ray McGovern

Conn Hallinan
The Consistency of Sharon

Wayne Madsen
Commercials, Disney & Amistad

Edward Said
The Meaning of Rachel Corrie

Steve Perry
Bush's Wars Web Log 6/23

June 21 / 22, 2003

Alexander Cockburn
My Life as a Rabbi

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The Scourge of Hopelessness

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The Wages of Terror: an Interview with R.T. Naylor

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US Prisons as Strategic Hamlets

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June 20, 2003

Walter Brasch
Down on Our Knees

Robert Meeropol
The Son of the Rosenbergs on His Parents Death and Bush's America

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Grannies and Baby Bells

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Bush's Lies Marathon: the Finale

 

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Bastille Day
July 14, 2003

Water 2025 Confab is a Sham

Yurok Tribe Denounces Interior Department's Klamath River Salmon Killers

By DAN BACHER

Over 200 members of the Yurok Tribe and their supporters came to the Hilton Hotel in Sacramento on July 10 to protest U.S. Department of Interior policies that resulted in last September's Klamath River fish kill.

As Bennett Raley, the Assistant Secretary for Water and Science, and Bureau of Reclamation officials conducted their Sacramento Regional Conference, "Water 2025," the tribe denounced federal officials for not inviting them to participate in a panel about the future of the Klamath and other Western watersheds. The tribe and supporters said that the current desperate water situation in the Klamath Basin cannot wait 20 years for a solution.

"I'm frustrated and mad about how the Department of Interior acknowledges the tribe's senior water rights, but didn't even invite the tribe to participate in the conference panel," said Susan Masten, Chair of the Yurok Tribe. "We're tired of the rhetoric--the government has a legal obligation to the Yurok people. The Klamath is considered by the American Rivers organization to be the nation's second most threatened river, but we're not even invited to be part of the solutions."

The five member panel featured four irrigation district leaders but only one environmental representative and no tribal representatives. The panelists included Dan Keppen, Executive Director of the Klamath Water Users Association; Van Tenney, General Manager of the Glenn-Colusa Irrigation District; Steve Hall, Executive Director of California Water Agencies; and Ane Deister, General Manager of the El Dorado Irrigation District.

Jeff McCracken, spokesman for the Bureau of Reclamation, dismissed the tribe's accusations, saying, "we welcome the tribe to protest. In the conference, we are hopeful that we will come up with new, creative ideas in the West looking to avoid what happened on the Klamath. We identified potential problem areas and tools by which we can hopefully resolve these problems."

However, the Yurok tribe considered the conference to be a sham and blasted "the government's "environmentally racist, divisive and ill planned mismanagement of Klamath River water."

"This is not a fish versus potatoes issue," Masten said. "This is an issue for families up and down the river and the coast. People depend on the Klamath salmon for their survival in a community where there is no electricity or phones and 90 percent of the population lives below the poverty level."

"I don't ever want to witness a fish kill like last year's, when over 34,000 salmon died. We can't wait until 2025--we have to find real solutions to the Klamath crisis today," she added.

Representatives of the Hoopa Valley Tribe, Sierra Club, Friends of the River and United Anglers of California joined the Yuroks in their protest and press conference. The Yuroks held up a variety of colorful signs, including a big photo of the fish kill last year with the message, "BOR Kills Fish, 2002," above it.

Eric Wesselmen of the Sierra Club said the conference was "all window dressing," with no substance or depth. "Unless the Bureau deals with the root causes of fishery declines, 'Water 2025' completely misses the point," he said.

Craig Tucker, outreach director of Friends of the River, said the Klamath River historically had the third largest chinook (king) salmon run in the continental United States, with salmon runs ranging from 600,000 to 1,100,000 fish. Now an average of 120,000 fish return to spawn.

Their condemnation of Klamath River management is backed up by the scientific community and the state Resources Secretary. The consensus of the scientific community is that the fish kill of 2002 was the direct result of poor management of Klamath water by the federal government that diverted water to Klamath Basin farmers in 2002. In an open letter to the Secretaries of Commerce and Interior, the Western Division of the American Fisheries Society (WDAFS), representing over 3,700 fisheries scientists and biologists, criticized Klamath Basin management.

"The WDAFS believes that the recent fish kill, where over 34,000 fish died, including over 32,500 chinook salmon, should be taken as a clear warning signal that current management strategies are inadequate to protect the fisheries of the Klamath River," they said.

In a letter to Secretary of Interior Gale Norton, Mary Nichols of the California Resources Agency also charged that the 2003 Klamath Project Operations Plan did not reflect any change in the 10 year plan and flow schedule put in place last year. The Resources Secretary asked Norton to craft a new plan focusing on the recovery and sustainability of the entire Klamath Basin, not just one species.

A draft US Geological Survey report estimates that restoring historic water flows in the Klamath River would generate an economic benefit 30 times greater than providing the water to irrigators. The report estimated the cost of restoring the basin at $5 billion, but said that recreation and fishing activities could create about $36 billion in economic activity.

It's clear that we need balanced solutions to the problems of the Klamath Basin. Unfortunately, this year's Klamath Basin Operations Plan provides no sense of balance and provides the same flow regime that resulted in the fish kill of September 2002.

Among the solutions to the crisis suggested by the tribes and supporters include: o better predictive capabilities for the Bureau of Reclamation. o reform of the Klamath Basin Operations Plan. o continued work with irrigators to conserve water. o Bureau of Reclamation support of voluntary buy-outs from willing irrigators and voluntary efforts to restore the Klamath Basin currently taking place in the FERC relicensing process.

If similar weather conditions occur this fall when fall run chinook and coho salmon return to spawn, we could see a repeat of the fisheries disaster that took place on the lower Klamath last year. The Department of Interior must listen to the tribes, anglers and environmental groups and take action now.

"I hope the recent demonstration brings attention to the needs of fish and the tribe," said Melissa Star-Myers, a tribal forestry worker and fisher who held a sign saying, "What About Tribal Families," at the protest. "We had just finished our Jump Dance last September when all of these dead fish began showing up in front of my house on the river. All of my dogs died from eating the dead, diseased fish. It was sickening--we had to bury all of the fish in big holes--a shame when you consider the hungry people all over America and the world."

Dan Bacher can be reached at: danielbacher@hotmail.com



Weekend Edition Features for July 12/13, 2003

Arthur Mitzman
The Double Wall Before the Future

Standard Schaefer
The Coming Financial Reality: an Interview with Michael Hudson

John Feffer
A Fearful Symmetery: Washington and Pyongyang

Ron Jacobs
Shades of Gray in Iran

Elaine Cassel
Judicial Terrorism Against the Bill of Rights

Tom Stephens
Civil Liberties After 9/11

David Lindorff
New White House Slogan: "Case Closed. Just Move On"

Jason Leopold
The Mini-War Against Iraq Prior to 9/11

Lee Sustar
What's Behind the Crisis in Liberia?

Mickey Z.
AIDS Dissent and Africa

Sam Hamod
Semitic is a Language Group, Not a Race or Ethnic Group

Ramzy Baroud
Awaiting Justice on an Old Blanket

Jeffrey St. Clair
Savage Incongruities: the Photographic Life of Lee Miller

Adam Engel
Parable of the Lobbyist

Robert Sanders
A Review of Ralph Lopez's American Dream

Poets' Basement
Albert, Witherup, Guthrie

 

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