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"THE USE OF CHEMICAL WARFARE IS AUTHORIZED" America's secret war plans: "The military purpose is to overthrow the present existing Federal Government of Mexico." Floyd Rudmin uncovers the sick dreams of America's generals. Alito says, Constitution okays Bush to set up prison camps here and torture US citizens. Dems praise his "even demeanor" and shirk the filibuster. Cockburn and St Clair on the Alito hearings and the Democrats' collapse. ... CounterPunch Online is read by millions of viewers each month! But remember, we are funded solely by the subscribers to the print edition of CounterPunch. Please support this website by buying a subscription to our newsletter, which contains fresh material you won't find anywhere else, or by making a donation for the online edition. Remember contributions are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now! |
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February 7, 2006 Jeffrey St.
Clair February 6, 2006 Christopher
Brauchli Robert Fisk John Chuckman Jenna Orkin Paul Craig
Roberts
February 4 / 5, 2006 Alexander Cockburn Mike Ferner James Petras Alan Maass Fred Gardner Ralph Nader Bill Glahn Saul Landau Laura Carlsen James Brooks Mike Roselle John Holt Sarah Ferguson William S.
Lind Niranjan Ramakrishnan Seth Sandronsky Derrick O'Keefe Michael Donnelly Ron Jacobs Elisa Salasin St. Clair / Vest Stew Albert Poets' Basement Website of
the Weekend
February 3, 2006 Toufic Haddad Heather Gray Tim Wise Conn Hallinan Eva Golinger Daniel Ellsberg Dave Zirin Robert Bryce Website of
the Day
February 2, 2006 Winslow T.
Wheeler Stan Cox Rachard Itani Mike Whitney Amira Hass Norman Solomon Michael Simmons Christopher
Reed Website of the Day
February 1, 2006 Sharon Smith Jason Leopold Cindy Sheehan Joseph Grosso Earl Ofari Hutchinson Steven Higgs Robert Robideau R. Siddharth Jim Retherford Rep. Cynthia
McKinney Paul Craig
Roberts Website of
the Day
January 31, 2006 Jeffrey St.
Clair Clancy Chassay Dave Lindorff Niranjan Ramakrishnan Oren Ben-Dor Winslow Wheeler John Ryan Mike Marqusee Ron Jacobs Andrew Cockburn Website of
the Day
January 30, 2006 Paul Craig
Roberts Winslow Wheeler Niranjan Ramakrishnan Marcus Dam John Bomar Ben Beachy Gideon Levy Michael Carmichael Missy Comley
Beattie Norman Solomon Brian Concannon,
Jr. Michael Ratner Website of
the Day
January 28 / 29, 2006 Alexander Cockburn
Ralph Nader Col. Dan Smith Paul Craig Roberts Tammara Rosenleaf Ron Jacobs Harry Browne Fred Gardner Christopher
Reed Bernard Chazelle Daniel Wolff Tom Kerr Asad Abu Khalil Chris Murphy Dr. Susan Block Kathy Deacon St. Clair /
Walker / Palmer / Shields Poets' Basement Website of
the Weekend
Suren Pillay Lawrence R.
Velvel J.L. Chestnut,
Jr Uri Avnery Gary Leupp Samar Assad Jeffrey St.
Clair Website of the Day
January 26, 2006 Robert Robideau Paul Craig
Roberts Gilad Atzmon Jason Leopold Joshua Frank Dave Lindorff Susan Lee Missy Comley Beattie Michael Carmichael Michael Neumann Website of
the Day
January 25, 2006 Saul Landau James Petras Lawrence R.
Velvel Vijay Prashad Kevin Zeese Alison Weir Bruce K. Gagnon Joan Roelofs Website of
the Day
January 24, 2006 Paul Craig
Roberts Kathy Kelly Jorge Mariscal Winslow T.
Wheeler John Walsh Youmans / Muaddi Roger Burbach Fr. Gerard
Jean-Juste Noam Chomsky Website of
the Day
Uri Avnery Susan Pynchon William Loren
Katz Christopher Brauchli Chris Floyd Joshua Frank Norman Solomon Jackie Corr Paul Craig
Roberts Website of the Day
January 21/22, 2006 Tim Shorrock Ralph Nader Peter Feng Brian Cloughley Michael Donnelly Tom Kerr Dave Lindorff Daniel Wolff Fred Gardner Jason Leopold Matthew Koehler John Bomar Ron Jacobs Becky Akers Joanne Mariner St. Clair / Walker / Pollack Poets' Basement Website of the Day
Brian J. Foley Richard Gott Joshua Frank Pierre Tristam Bernstein /
Allegretto Elizabeth Schulte Website of
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January 19, 2006 Paul Craig
Roberts Bill Simpich Kevin Alexander
Gray Sam Husseini Sam Smith Monica Benderman Winslow T.
Wheeler Website of the Day
January 18, 2006 Paul Craig
Roberts Norman Solomon Jonathan M.
Feldman Michael Carmichael Paul D'Amato Cynthia McKinney Norman Finkelstein Website of the Day
January 17, 2006 M. Shahid Alam John Ross Tariq Ali Michael Donnelly Amira Hass Doug Giebel Bill Quigley Ron Jacobs Mike Stark Werther
John Walsh Earl Ofari
Hutchinson Roger Burbach Norman Solomon Robert Jensen Sam Husseini Paul Craig
Roberts Website of the Day
January 14 / 15, 2006 Alexander Cockburn JoAnn Wypijewski James Petras Ron Jacobs Brian Cloughley Marianne McDonald Bruce Tyler Wick Fred Gardner Flavia Alaya Gary Leupp Dr. Susan Block Nicole Colson Jeffrey Kolakowski Missy Comley
Beattie Charles Thomson St. Clair /
Walker / Vest Poets' Basement Website of
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January 13, 2006 Ralph Nader Leonard Weinglass Amira Hass Chris Kutalik
/ Jennifer Biddle Lawrence R. Velvel Dave Lindorff Mike Whitney David Price
January 12, 2006 Jennifer Van
Bergen Jeremy Brecher / Brendan Smith Lawrence R.
Velvel Ralph Nader / Robert Weissman Jackie Corr Jared Bernstein Russell D.
Hoffman Aubrey Streit Clancy Sigal Website of the Day
January 11, 2006 Kevin Zeese Ray McGovern Allan Maass
/ Joe Allen Earl Ofari
Hutchinson Annie Murphy Allan Lichtman Ramzy Baroud Joshua Frank Kathleen and
Bill Christison Website of
the Day
January 10, 2006 Uri Avnery Saul Landau Noam Chomsky Brian J. Foley Lenni Brenner Ronan Sheehan Paul Craig
Roberts
January 9, 2006 Behzad Yaghmaian George Bisharat Dave Lindorff Norman Solomon Christopher Brauchli Aharon Shabtai Andrew Cockburn
January 7 / 8, 2006 Lawrence Velvel James Petras J.L. Chestnut Mike Ely Andrew Wilson Lila Rajiva William Cook Ramor Ryan Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff Peter Montague Ron Jacobs Neve Gordon Fred Gardner Josh Mahon Dr. Susan Block Jeffrey St. Clair Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend
January 6, 2006 José
Pertierra Joe Allen Winslow T. Wheeler John Bomar Jason Leopold Norman Solomon Robert Pollin
January 5, 2006 Scott Boehm Zoltan Grossman Heather Gray Haninah Levine Pierre Tristam Remi Kanazi Gilad Atzmon Kathleen and
Bill Christison
January 4, 2006 Ron Jacobs Lila Rajiva Huibin Amee
Chew Pat Williams Linda Milazzo Nick Dearden James Petras Website of
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January 3, 2006 James Ridgeway Laith al-Saud Dick J. Reavis Joshua Frank Rochelle Gause Missy Comley
Beattie Paul de Rooij
January 2, 2006 Paul Craig
Roberts Clancy Sigal Cindy Sheehan Alexander Cockburn
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February 7, 2006 The Last Best ChoiceMontana's Public Power MovementBy JACKIE CORR BUTTE, MONTANA Now I am sure somewhere in America there is a decent corporation .Yet the chances of running across people in Montana.who believe such a thing are slim to none. Some among us even point to the possibility of a long-ago curse on this land, leaving a wicked spirit or spirits to attract the most larcenous, dishonest, unscrupulous, ruthless, and predatory of American corporations and their representatives. As you must surely know, one or the other will end up in the Big Sky. And you can take it for granted that there mission will be doing their best to make things out here worse then they already are. An example of that occurred last November when the Republican congress told us it was time for real reform of the 1872 mining law and they knew how to do it.Trust us they said. So, in the middle of the night, certainly one good reason not to trust them, Richard Pombo, a California congressman snuck into a budget appropriations bill a public lands attachment that would have allowed mining companies, or just about anyone or anybody that called themselves a mining company, to grab almost any parcel of public land remaining in the West. If made law, America's privatization racketeers could acquire public land for around $1,000 per acre, fence it off or put it up for sale for whatever they could get. When the intent of the legislating leaked to the public, a nationwide uproar followed. And in Montana we found congressman and real estate developer Denny Rehberg standing with Pombo. Not only that, within hours, Republican Rehberg, who enjoys a 100 percent Christian Coalition approval rating year after year, was running around waving a letter from Pombo swearing the midnight hour legislation would not deny access to Montana's public waters and lands. But nobody believed the congressman and his sorry little stunt didn't go over too well in the Big Sky. Another uproar followed and even our finger in the wind, fence sitting Senator, Max Baucus, started talking about a Rehberg backed assault on public lands in Montana. Rehberg counterattacked, describing the opposition as hysterical. That said, he then asked a very bizarre question. "Are you really going to fish in the Berkeley Pit, that's what we're talking about?" As you can see, somehow Denny had gotten confused, mistaking Butte's privately owned gaping hole for a public land. Finally Montana governor Brian Schweitzer jumped in for the kill, likening the revised Rehberg-Pombo plan to a skunk. Said Schweitzer:"If a skunk comes into your house, you can throw it into the shower, and he's still going to smell like skunk. You're not going to get out the smell of this one with just a shower and a little soap." For now the Rehberg-Pombo
"skunk scheme" has been shelved. But you can bet the
pair are waiting for another dark night. A more immediate and deeper problem for Montana is another type of public land grab, one rooted in a radical growth in the disparity of American income. This imbalance has produced what it often referred to as a "ceo culture." And this lifestyle, of both its practitioners and their families, has made Montana a major destination for their frivolous pursuits. The new land barons, consumed by the drive for private and solitary pleasures that are so often the companion of excessive wealth, have brought to Montana a determination to do only what they want. It is a gimme gimme attitude to land ownership and has led to the erosion of public life and citizenship in the state. This grabbing what were once our traditional public lands and streams is aimed squarely at the common and decent people of Montana, The trophy ranching, with its locked gates, "Gulag" and electric fencing combined with the illegal seizure of our public waters. fish and wildlife, has made some famous names elsewhere infamous in Montana. Some of the more deserving of well earned notoriety in the Big Sky are the Ruby River's James Cox Kennedy ( the Atlanta Journal Constitution, Cox Communications, Cox Enterprises Inc.,Cox Radio, James M. Cox, Jr. Foundation), the Flying D's Ted Turner ( Turner Enterprises, Ted's Montana Grill, Bo Turner, Turner Outfitters) and Hamilton's Charles Schwab ( Charles Schwab Corporation, U.S. Trust Corporation, CyberTrader). And we may have a new contender for Montana notoriety. A square mile of fence has just been erected west of Anaconda. This new fence reaches a height of 66 inches and is fortified by 48 inches of heavy duty sheep mesh at the bottom. Which makes this a "killer fence" anywhere in the world. Aside from a rhinoceros, hippopotamus or elephant, this fence is an escape proof enclosure for wildlife. Not even his Atlanta brethren, Turner and Kennedy. can match that so the new guy is one up there. And the guy responsible, Kent Britain, is the chairman at Connecticut's United Technologies, a filthy rich corporation if there was ever one. Britain is in charge of international operations and outsourcing at UT. And he is very good at it if you are not an American worker. United Technologies has built large software development centers in Pune and Bangalore, India. With Mr. Britain leading the way, the company is in the process of shipping 80 percent of its software application development and support (American jobs) to these India locations. Since 1996 this corporation has closed 52 US plants and eliminated 46,000 American jobs, At the same time, UT executives have reaped a great harvest from the Bush tax cuts. No surprise considering United
Technologies (much larger then Haliburton) is at the heart of
the American war machine. You see UT is the world leader in helicopter design, manufacturing and service which is the corporation's real money maker. Here we will find the very profitable, expensive and quite deadly Comanche and Black Hawk helicopters which has already made this corporation one of the Iraq War's big winners. As for Montana, it seems like
we are the big losers with the addition of Kent Britain to our
population. I will quote from the January 20 edition of the
Montana Standard. I will also add that I have personally
seen this fence. But there was one reason to be optimistic. Left behind from the mining days were staggering environmental problems and massive job losses statewide, but also a corporation known as the Montana Power Company. Now the old copper barons, in their self-interest, electrified much of Montana early in the century and in retrospect we can see they did a pretty good job. In fact, we might as well face it - this long ago ruling class did a magnificent job if we compare them with the "marketplace knows everything" bungling Republicans who took over the state in the 1990's . Of course, those old tyrants had a lot of copper. And electrification, especially hydro power meant great savings in energy as well as as sure fire way of advertising their product. Besides the deep mines in Butte, there were the gigantic smelters in Great Falls and Anaconda, lumber mills in places like St. Regis, Hamilton, Missoula -Bonner and later aluminum plants in Columbia Falls and Great Falls. In John Gunther's Inside USA (1947), he noted the Anaconda Copper's Montana operations used more power in 1940 than the already booming and World War II oriented U.S. airplane manufacturing industry. Although nobody around here is boasting of our recent accomplishments, one must say it does take a certain kind of grandiose incompetence to go from a situation like Gunther described to today's Montana where we have been reduced to a penniless importer of high priced electricity. The copper company also applied advanced electrical principles to the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul railroad running through the state as well as a heavy industrial line that connected Butte and Anaconda, the Butte, Anaconda and Pacific (BA&P).The little known BA&P, begun in 1892, was completely electrified by 1912 and the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul followed in the electrification as it crossed Montana to the Pacific coast. Today we have the worst railroad service and the highest freight rates in the United States. So long ago, the Montana Power Company, in order to keep up with the growing demands of the state's copper industry, built up its generation assets, including coal and natural gas fields, leaving the mining company as well as the state independent, if not indifferent, to the nationwide energy marketplace In addition, a deal was struck in the depression 1930's where an elected state comission (1935) would regulate or at least keep an eye on the energy prices charged by Montana Power in exchange for monopoly power. All in all this worked well enough until the 1990's. Up to then, Montana consumer rates for electricity and natural gas, year after year, were quite moderate, service was reliable, and many residents were investors in its stock as it was considered safe, a "you can count on it" return on a non speculative investment. But then came the 1990's and a new governor Marc Racicot and a new Montana Power CEO Robert Gannon, And stuck in the hapless governor's brain, like flies on flypaper, was a swarm of New Deal hating ideas. One was regulated utility prices were actually socialistic "price controls," a humbug that Mr. Racicot is still using to defend Montana deregulation. Egged on by Wall Street bankers and the hollow ideas of Alan Greenspan, this celebrated pair then hatched a lunatic free market deregulation scheme through the state legislature that set off a chain of events that erased the power company from the map, wiped out the shareholders, and for a pittance sold off the copper baron's former energy assets which are presently in the possession of foreign owners. Yet, as fantastic as it may seem today, at the time the 1997 deregulation legislation was viewed as the greatest Republican legislative victory in Montana history. And like all the other half-baked free market schemes of the 1990's, the common people of Montana soon found out that the promises of a deregulation utopia may just as well came from a carnival sideshow barker.. Now, with what was once Montana electricity and natural gas gone, the former 310,000 Montana Power residential customers suddenly find themselves paying the energy prices demanded by the so-called free market which have turned out to be the highest electricity and natural gas rates in the entire Pacific Northwest. In addition, no in-state regulatory power or legislature can save us from this cruel fate. And adding to the misery is this happened in spite of the fact that at present, the state produces twice as much electricity and three times the natural gas annually then it would need to supply everybody within our borders including all users: commercial, institutional, industrial and residential. And, it is in that fact, that we find the real evil of Montana deregulation. In other words the energy situation in Montana is so goddamn bad that the corporate director of our new energy company was recently quoted in the Montana papers as saying rates are rising because the new company does not own power plants and buys practically all its electricity on the open market. Like it's our fault? "If our resources hadn't been sold off by Montana Power Co., we would still be one of the lowest-cost utilities," says the corporate guy. And when one corporation starts accusing another corporation, even if defunct, you know its bad. And having mentioned the new corporation, I must now confess there is even more to this fiasco. You see the money from the sale of the valuable energy assets was plowed into a "stand alone telecommunications company" which quickly went bankrupt and no longer exists. To add to this sad tale, the Montana Power fire sale was run by the Goldman-Sachs New York investment bankers for a hefty cut. One of these sales involved the transmission and natural gas lines serving Montana Power customers. Now remember, I am not making up what follows. So next we end up with a Sioux Falls, South Dakota holding company named Northwestern Energy to provide our needs. But in this business the South Dakota lads, the ones chosen by the Wall Street bankers, were all hat and no cattle as they owned no generation or power assets. Like Montana Power in its dying days, the new company was also run by sticky fingered management who, just like the gang at Montana Power again, branched out into other non-utility schemes which failed spectacularly. To make things even worse, shortly after arriving in Montana, our new power company went bankrupt and the original shareholders of what was a seventy year old South Dakota company were also wiped out. But none of this stopped our new utility from asking the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware to approve nearly $17 million in payments and stock options for executives and top managers. Of course, the corporate friendly Delaware court promptly approved the request. So then we get a NorthWestern
Energy Number #2 which somehow emerged from the dark chambers
of another Delaware bankruptcy court to serve Montana. As of
today the investors are mainly Wall Street bottom feeders and
the management is as untrustworthy as the previous one was. At present, polls show widespread support for some kind of public power system in Montana. Sixty-two percent in the state favor a Montana cities plan to buy out NorthWestern Energy #2. Only seventeen percent opposed the buy-out, and 21 percent were undecided. NorthWestern's board of directors has twice rejected the cities' offer, saying it's not a good deal for shareholders or the future of the utility. But the public power group is now trying to persuade shareholders to push for a $2.1 billion buy-out. Another argument, and a big one, for the public power movement is former governor Marc Racicot opposes the idea. Aside from what's best for Marc, he has never been right about anything as far as I know. I can't say what former Montana Power CEO Robert Gannon thinks because he has not been seen in Montana for quite a while. In fact, Gannon sightings are now considered nothing more then odd curiosities, to be considered as seriously as those now and then reports of Elvis being spotted somewhere in the Big Sky. And a further commentary on what Marc Racicot did for the Republican Party in Montana comes from the same Montana poll which says 55 percent of Republicans now favor the public power idea with twenty one percent opposed and 24 percent undecided. And I can guarantee you this - as each month's utility bills arrive - you can expect the poll numbers in favor of the public buyout rising. For just the other day, our present energy company made a little confession. What they admitted is that in the two "key" electricity contracts with outside providers will expire on July 1, 2007. At present these two contracts account for 55 percent of the state's electricity needs. Whether these contracts are renewed or newer ones found they will be at a much higher price. How much higher? Well NorthWestern tells us that "it's difficult to say how much." In other words our new energy company #2 doesn't have a clue. And why is that you might ask? In a statement released a few days ago Montana was told:
And that is the deregulation message in Montana, an incredible comment in a state that is awash in energy, possessing far more electricity and natural gas that it could ever use. As public power goes, we have no choice but to go with it. To allow this tradition of corporate incompetence and greed to continue is akin to eternally rolling down a hill in a barrel of live snakes and dead fish. We simply have to make some changes. Time is running out. Jackie Corr lives in Butte, Montana jcorr@bigskyhsd.com |
from CounterPunch Books! The Case Against Israel By Michael Neumann  Grand Theft Pentagon: Tales of Greed and Profiteering in the War on Terror by Jeffrey St. Clair          Sick of sit-on-the-Fence speakers, tongue-tied and timid? CounterPunch Editors Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St Clair are available to speak forcefully on ALL the burning issues, as are other CounterPunchers seasoned in stump oratory. Call CounterPunch Speakers Bureau, 1-800-840-3683. Or email beckyg@counterpunch.org.                  |
