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Today's
Stories
March 2, 2005
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Uncle
Bucky Makes a Killing
March 1, 2005
Scott Richard
Lyons
Million
Dollar Bigotry
David Lindorff
Stealing Workers' Pensions
Patrick Cockburn
/ David Enders
Bloodbath in Iraq
Ron Jacobs
The Last Poets Recalled
Tanya Garcia
USA Next: the Industry Front Group to Privatize Social Security
Joseph Pietri
The Drug Trail Ends in Kathmandu: Golden Tar Heroin and the Black
Prince
Kona Lowell
Woody: Broken in Vietnam
Paul Craig
Roberts
The
Coming End of the American Superpower
Website of
the Day
Petition: No US Intervention in Iran
Wars
of the Laptop Bombers
February 28,
2005
Gary Leupp
Year
4 in the Five Year Plan: a June Attack on Iran?
Bill Quigley
Haitian Police Open Fire on Nonviolent Marchers
Mickey Z.
The
Million Dollar Interview: Mary Johnson on Clinton Eastwood, Hunter
Thompson and the "Right to Die"
Paul de Rooij
Why
Ted Honderich is Wrong on All Counts About Israel
David Swanson
Basic Income Guarantee Versus the Corp Media
Mario Lamo
Jimenez
Maria
Full of Cultural Contradictions at the Oscars
Emma Perez
The Attacks on Ward Churchill: a Test Case in the Neocons Purge
of Academia
Diana Johnstone
Censorship
and the Empire
Website of the Day
Stop the War Campaign!
February 26
/ 27, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
An
American Jew Laments Decline in Jewish Influence
Noam Chomsky
Nuclear
Terror at Home
Rev. William E. Alberts
Rhetoric in the Air; Reality on the Ground
Fred Gardner
AARP Gets Pot-Baited
Gary Leupp
Bush and Camus on Freedom
Saul Landau
An Interview with Cuban VP Ricardo Alarcon (Part 3): the Miami
Mafia
Robin Philpot
Second Thoughts on the Hotel Rwanda
Yitkhak Laor
In Praise of the Facts
Ben Tripp
Out of Sight; Out of Mind
Justin Taylor
Zizek Seen Over the Handlebars
Jack Random
The Wounds from Wounded Knee
Rafael Renteria
Ward Churchill and White America
Jim B.
Reflections on the Eve of Fatherhood
Seth DeLong
Land Reform in Venezuela: More Like Lincoln Than Lenin
John Chuckman
A Season of Depressing Political Reruns
Alison Weir
Relativity, LA Times Style
Richard Oxman
Political Solitude: From Garcia Marquez to Maria Full of Grace
Dr. Susan Block
It Always Rains in California: All About Female Ejaculation
Poets' Basement
Landau, Lowell, Louise, Davies, Soderstrom, Norris & Albert
February 25,
2005
Roger Burbach
Murder
in the Amazon
Behzad Yaghmaian
Iranian Distrust of America: 50 Years in the Making
Kurt Nimmo
Conclave of the Brats
Joshua Frank
Diagnosing the Green Party
John Farley
How to Stop the War in Iraq: Punish Pro-War Politicians
Lawrence Reichard
The D'Aubuisson Memorial: Flowers of Evil
Pratyush Chandra
The Royal Coup in Nepal and Global Imperialist Designs
David Smith-Ferri
When
the Battlefield has No Borders
Website of
the Day
The 2005 Election in 3-D
February 24,
2005
Omar Waraich
The
Galloway Saga: Smearing an Anti-War Politician
Brian Cloughley
Bribing and Twisting Amerian Journalists: Valerie Plame &
30 Pieces of Silver
Tom Wright
Torture Nation: Abu Ghraib, a Year Later
Sharon Smith
The Anti-War Movement After Kerry: Learning All the Wrong Lessons
Dave Lindorff
Do These Roosting Chickens Have Flu?
Fred Feldman
Lynching Ward Churchill
James Reiss
On Hearing About a Plot to Assassinate President Bush
Diane Christian
Bad
Blood: Ritual & Sexual Torture in Iraq
Website of
the Day
The Gray Line
February 23,
2005
Werther
The
Poisoned Well: What the CIA's Nazi Files Can Tell Us About Iraq
W. John Green
A Salvador Option for Iraq? How Negroponte Changes the Ground
Rules
James Petras
A New Face to Bush Foreign Policy?
Conn Hallinan
Cornering the Dragon: the Return of the China Lobby
Joe Pietri
Cannabis: the Goose that Lays Golden Eggs (For Consumers and
Cops)
Louis Proyect
Hunter Thompson and the "New" Journalism
Alexander Cockburn
Hunter
S. Thompson and Gonzo
Website of
the Day
Did You Make the Blacklist? Why Not?
February 22,
2005
Naseer Aruri
The
Politics of the Hariri Assassination: Remapping the Middle East
Richard Manning
The
Economy of Hunger: Starvation is Part of the Economic Plan
William A.
Cook
Righteous
Racism Running Rampant
Paul Craig Roberts
The Agents of Instability
Ken Krayeske
Dr. Thompson is Out
Dave Zirin
How the Owners Destroyed the NHL
Kirkpatrick
Sale
Imperial
Entropy: the Collapse of the American Empire
February 21,
2005
Hunter S. Thompson
"He
Was A Crook"
John Ross
Mexico:
the Pentagon's Proxy Army in Iraq
Ward Churchill
What Did I Really Say? Why Did
I Say It?
Dr. Teresa
Whitehurst
Military Recruiting on Channel One: Geometry 101, Brought to
You by the US Navy
David Swanson
Fighting for a Living Wage, State by State
Dave Lindorff
All the News That's Fit to Fake
Stew Albert
Fear and Loathing: HST
Michael Neumann
Strategies
in Palestine: a Shrinking Pie in the Sky
February 19
/ 20, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
Back
to Salem: Paul Shanley and the Return of "Recovered Memory"
Kathleen Christison
Struggling
for Justice in Palestine
Ted Honderich
On Being Persona Non Grata
Gary Leupp
Self-Hating Gays: Welcome to the White House & Welcome to
Commit Suicide
Don Santina
Reparations for the Blues
Jennifer Roesch
John Negroponte: Dirty Warrior
Scott Richard
Lyons
Ward
Churchill and the Identity Police
Chris Clarke
Ward Churchill and Liberal Outrage
George Beres
Censorship in the Land of Wayne Morse: Gagging W. Churchill in
Oregon
Harry Browne
The Belfast Heist: the Plot Unravels
Manuel García,
Jr.
Who Killed Rafik Hariri?
Mark Scaramella
Lessons from the Hidden Afghan War
Michael Donnelly
Whatever Happened to John Edwards?
John Pilger
First, They Attack the Past
Norman Madarasz
Death Wish for Reform in Brazil?
Surendra Devkota
The Monarchy in Nepal
Deborah Rich
How Anti-GMO Ballot Measures May Miss the Mark
Fred Gardner
When Dr. Tod Met Merle Haggard
CounterPunch
News Service
About King Mswati: Political Developments in Swaziland
Richard Oxman
CounterPunching Arthur Miller
Poets' Basement
Albert, Giebel, Tripp, Engel and Orkin
February 18,
2005
Ben Moxham
In
East Timor, the Nightmare Continues
Dave Lindorff
The
Scum Also Rises: the Bloody Career of John Negroponte
Larry Birns
Negroponte: a Resume of Death Squads, Deceptions and Bribery
Gregory Elich
N, Korea's Phantom Nukes and the US's Subversion of Diplomacy
Samuel Logan / John Meyers
The Future of Colombia's Paramilitary Death Squads
Nicole Colson
Shock and Awe on Civil Liberties: From Lynne Stewart to Ward
Churchill
Suzan Mazur
Whose National Security Are We Talking About?
Mickey Z.
"One
Man Has Stopped Killing"
February 17,
2005
Joshua Frank
Hogtying
of the Deaniacs
Paul Craig
Roberts
Bush's
Willing Sychophants: the Conservative Media
Robert Fisk
Under
the Shadow of Death in Lebanon
Christopher
Brauchli
Where
Time Stands Still: Kinsey and Darwin in Cobb County, GA
Dr. Teresa
Whitehurst
Military
Recruitment TV: Why Send Them to College, When Your Kid Can be
Cannon Fodder?
Alison Weir
Russia, Israel and Media Omissions
Ahrar Ahmad
A Review of Shahid Alam's "Is There an Islamic Problem?"
Saul Landau
An
Interview with Cuban VP Ricardo Alarcon: "The US Tramples
the Laws It Wrote"
Website of the Day
Petition to Support Ward Churchill
February 16,
2005
Robert Fisk
Lebanon:
a Battlefield for the Wars of Others
Kevin Zeese
Creating a Real Ownership Society: Share the Wealth; Protect
Retirement
Gary Leupp
Meanwhile, in Nepal...
Ron Jacobs
Why the Iranian Opposition Should Not Trust the Bush Administration
Jessica Leight
Oil-Flush Chavez Begins to Strut His Stuff
Greg Moses
Houston, You've Got a Problem: Documenting Voting Irregularities
in Texas
Mark Engler
The Last Porto Alegre
Jack McCarthy
Where's the Outrage About Pat? Buchanan Does a Churchill
Bill Christison
US
Foreign Policy Dangerously Slanted Toward Israel
Website of the Day
The
World is Melting: a Photo Survey by Gary Braasch
February 15,
2005
CounterPunch
News Service
Dean
a "Safe" Moderate, Says NYT Citing CounterPunch
Robert Fisk
The
Killing of Mr. Lebanon
Uri Avnery
"Sharm-al-Sheikh,
We Have Come Back Again"
Stan Cox
Fighting Big Pharma in Little Digwal
Mickey Z.
Radio
Active North of the Border: an Interview with Chris Cook
Dave Zirin
Bashing Bush: Jose Canseco Comes Clean
Nadia Martinez
Ending
World Poverty? Opening at the World Bank, Apply Now
Lila Rajiva
"Little Eichmanns" and the 'Harijan': the Danger of
Magical Thinking in Politics
Paul Craig
Roberts
The
American Job Sell Out
February 14,
2005
Robert Jensen
Ward
Churchill: Right to Speak Out; Right About 9/11
Brian Cloughley
Kuwait's Freedom, Bush-style
Patrick Cockburn
Outcome
of the Iraqi Elections: Shortages, Corruption, Guerrilla War
Gary Leupp
Post-election Iraq: What Next?
Michael Donnelly
Sacred Nature: Just Another Commodity?
Dave Lindorff
When Bush Came to My Neighborhood
Elaine Cassel
The
Lynne Stewart Verdict
February 12
/ 13, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
Ward
Churchill's Genes
Saul Landau
Alarcon
Speaks: an Interview with the Vice President of Cuba
Paul Craig
Roberts
Nothing
to Fear But Bush Himself
Patrick Cockburn
Two Years After the Fall of Saddam, the Resistance Controls All
Major Roads into Baghdad
John Feffer
Bush
v. N. Korea: Round Two
Mickey Z.
Right to Remain Silent; Duty to Speak
Kurt Nimmo
Viva la Cucaracha!
Fred Gardner
Waiting for Raich
Dave Zirin
Fighting the New Republic(ans)
John Chuckman
Hiroshima, Mon Amour
Ben Tripp
A Leftist on the Bush Payroll
Carol Norris
"Buddy, Can You Spare a Dwarf?"
Robert Fisk
No Middle East Peace Without Justice
Frank / Chowkwanyun
Muzzled Activist in an Age of Terror: the Case of Sherman Austin
Mike Whitney
Condi's Euro Tour
Deborah Frisch
A Psychologist's Defense of Ward Churchill
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Reading Khomeini in Colorado
Christine TenBarge
What's So Special About Ward?
Ron Jacobs
Curtis Mayfield's Train to Jordan
Dr. Susan Block
Chemistry of Love: a Valentine's Greeting
Poets' Basement
Louise, Smith-Ferri, Ford and Albert
Website of the Weekend
Free Sherman
February 11,
20055
Manuel Garcia,
Jr
The
Eight Percent War
Kurt Nimmo
Ann
Coulter's Racism: Where's Geronimo When You Really Need
Him?
Dave Lindorff
Guckert
or Gannon? The Perfect Plant; He Fit Right In
Larry Birns
War is Peace; Slavery is Freedom: Democracy According to Elliott
Abrams
Bill Quigley
Twenty Questions: a Social Justice Quiz
Tom Barry
Bush's State of Delusion
Jennifer Van
Bergen
Lynne
Stewart's Conviction Hurts Us All
February 10,
2005
Dave Lindorff
What
Academic Freedom?
Christopher Brauchli
The Love of Slaughter: From Rwanda to Iraq
Patrick Cockburn
In Baghdad, It's Easy to Get Killed
Nicole Colson
Have the Democrats Surrendered on Abortion Rights?
Suzan Mazur
More
on the Assassination of Lumumba from Mr. Garsin of Kinshasha
Michael Donnelly
Salvaging an Opposition
Mike Stark
Driving Ossie Davis: "Give Them a Little Truth, a Little
Hope"
Greg Moses
Taking
Jesus Back from the Hijackers
Website of
the Day
The Missionary Positions
February 9,
2005
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Duck
and Cover Redux: Bunker Busters and City Levellers
Mickey Z.
What Ward Churchill Didn't Say
John Ross
Hecho
en Mexico: the Iraqi Election
Tom Barry
Ambassador of Lies: Elliott Abrams, the Neocon's Neocon
Conn Hallinan
The
Coup in Nepal: Nursing the Pinion
Patrick Cockburn
Sistani's Vision for Iraq: Cricket is Fine, But Chess is "Absolutely
Forbidden"
Steen Sohn
Danish PM Says It's OK for Israel to Violate UN Resolutions
Tim Wise
Reflections on Empire and Uppity Indians
Website of
the Day
Support Antiwar.com
February 8,
2005
Patrick Cockburn
Shia/Kurd
Coalition to Dominate New Iraqi Govt.: "It's an Electoral
Pact, Not a Party"
Brian Cloughley
Out
of the Mouths of Generals: "It's Fun to Shoot Some People"
Steve Breyman
Against the Selfishness of the "Ownership Society"
Harry Browne
"Don't
Get on that Plane!": Soldiers Seek Asylum in Ireland
Doug Giebel
"We Love Free Speech in America": the People, the President
and Ward Churchill
Nate Collins
The Censorship of Ward Churchill and Dancehall Reggae: It's the
Same Beast
Dave Lindorff
It's Time for a Labor-Oriented Newspaper
David Smith-Ferri
Sanctions and the Health Crisis in Iraq
February 7,
2005
Paul Craig
Roberts
Bush's
War on Jobs
Carolyn Baker
The New McCarthyism on Campus: Churchill and the Attack on Higher
Ed
Joshua Frank
Marc Cooper's Hit List: First Mumia; Now Ward Churchill
Mickey Z.
Warning: More Hate Speech from W. Churchill
Patrick Cockburn
The
Kidnapping Gangs of Iraq
Mike Whitney
Tom Friedman: Scribe for New Age Imperialism
Stacie Jonas
Pinochet: Fit to be Tried
Dave Zirin
A Miserable Super Sunday: Clinton, Bush and the FBI
Tariq Ali
Imperial
Delusions
February 5
/ 6, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
Ward
Churchill and the Mad Dogs
Kurt Nimmo
A Ward Churchill Kind of Day
Joshua Frank
Liberals Trash Ward Churchill
P. Sainath
Mumbai's Man-Made Tsunami
Patrick Cockburn
Sistani's Triumph; Allawi's Bust
Laura Carlsen
Bush, Rice and Latin America
Dave Lindorff
How the NYT Killed the Bush Bulge Story
Pamela Olson
West Bank Story
Behzad Yaghmaian
The Future of Sudanese Refugees in the West
Saul Landau / Farrah Hassen
A Threatened UN in King George's Court
Roger Burbach
World Social Forum: a Tale of Two Presidents
Robert Fisk
History by Laptop
David Swanson
James Forman and the Liberal-Labor Syndrome
Justin E.H. Smith
Gay Marriage: a Report from Canada
Cacie Hart
The "State" of the Union: More War and a Ban on Love
Ron Jacobs
Chairman Bob Avakian: a Revolutionary Life
Mickey Z.
Viewing America from the Outside
Ben Tripp
Republican Heroes: a New Breed of Good Guy
Ben Sonnenberg
France at the End of the Devil's Decade: Renoir's Rules of the
Game
Poets' Basement
Smith-Ferri, Davies, Collins, & Albert
Website of
the Weekend
John Trudell: How to Earn a 17,000 Page FBI File
February 4,
2005
Brian Cloughley
The
Army Symphonist: "Sometimes the Only Way to Change the Behavior
of Someone Like That is to Kill Them"
Bill Christison
Election
Parallels: Vietnam, 1967; Iraq, 2005
Elaine Cassel
Did Zoloft Make Him Do It?
Jacob Levich
Chomsky and the Draft
Kanak Mani Dixit
Return of the Royalists in Nepal
Ron Jacobs
The
Downward Spiral in Iraq
February 3,
2005
Ward Churchill
On
the Injustice of Getting Smeared: a Campaign of Fabrications
and Gross Distortions
Sharon Smith
Resisting
Soldiers Need Our Support
Mickey Z.
Leslie
Gelb Asks Iraq: Who's Your Daddy?
Mike Whitney
President of Alienation: a Desperate State of the Union
Jenna Orkin
9/11 the Sequel: the Toxic State of Lower Manhattan
Saul Landau
Elections Won't Prevent Civil War in Iraq
Yitzhak Laor
Strange is the Silence
Dave Lindorff
The
Assault on Social Security: a New Campaign of Lies
February 2,
2005
David Domke
/ Kevin Coe
Bush's
Brand of Christianity
Noam Chomsky
Iraq
After the Elections
M. Shahid Alam
O'Reilly's
Fatwah on "Un-American" Professors: FoxNews Puts Me
in Its Crosshairs
Richard Oxman
Ringing in 1984 with Ward Churchill and Derrick Jensen
Joshua Frank
The Suckering of Howard Dean
Dave Lindorff
A History Lesson from the NYT
Nina Hartley
Feminists for Porn
Website of the Day
War is a Racket
February 1,
2005
Joshua L. Dratel
The
Torture Memos
Patrick Cockburn
New Doubts About Allawi
Robert Fisk
"The Only Decent Food We Get is at Funerals"
Uri Avnery
The Stalemate
Col. Dan Smith
"W" Stands for Withdrawal
Alison Weir
Making America as "Secure" as Israel
Alan Farago
Heaven and Hell in the Everglades
Ray Hanania
Low Voter Turnout of Iraqi Expatriates: Less Than 10% of Qualified
Voters
Paul Craig
Roberts
American
Police State
Website of the Day
Statisticians Refute Official Rationale for Exit Poll Errors
December 22,
2004
James Petras
An
Open Letter to Saramago: Nobel Laureate Suffers from a Bizarre
Historical Amnesia
Omar Barghouti
The Case for Boycotting Israel
Patrick Cockburn / Jeremy Redmond
They Were Waiting on Chicken Tenders When the Rounds Hit
Harry Browne
Northern Ireland: No Postcards from the Edge
Richard Oxman
On the Seventh Column
Kathleen Christison
Imagining
Palestine
Website of the Day
FBI Torture Memos
December 21,
2004
Greg Moses
The
New Zeus on the Block: Unplugging Al-Manar TV
Dave Lindorff
Losing
It in America: Bunker of the Skittish
Chad Nagle
The View from Donetsk
Dragon Pierces
Truth*
Concrete
Colossus vs. the River Dragon: Dislocation and Three Gorges Dam
Patrick Cockburn
"Things Always Get Worse"
Seth DeLong
Aiding Oppression in Haiti
Ahmad Faruqui
Pakistan and the 9/11 Commission's Report
Paul Craig
Roberts
America
Locked Up: a System of Injustice
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
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WMD: Who Said What When
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Corrie
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I Can't Hear From
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The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click
Here for More Stories.
|
March 2, 2005
The Polygamy Cults of Southern Utah
Time
to Rescind Utah's Statehood?
By
SUZAN MAZUR
Polygamy is illegal in Utah
and forbidden by the Arizona constitution. However, law enforcement
agencies in both states have decided to focus on crimes within
polygamous communities that involve child abuse, domestic violence
and fraud [emphasis added]. The Utah Attorney General's Office
and the Arizona Attorney General's Office also worked together
[with polygamy advocates] to produce "The Primer -- Helping
Victims of Domestic Violence and Child Abuse in Polygamous Communities."
This manual provides basic information about various communities
that will assist human services professionals, law enforcement
officers and others in helping victims from these communities.
The Primer will be updated regularly to reflect modifications
in the law and changes in each organization's beliefs and practices.
. . .
Office of Mark Shurtleff, Attorney General,
State of Utah
No General Shurtleff, polygamy cults
are not okay. As Utah's Attorney General and a boy scout leader
for over 20 years, you should know better than to post a statement
like this, whose language serves to institutionalize crimes against
humanity. These cults should not be given another day of sunlight
to breathe.
Beyond the Wasaatch mountains
lies the real world where almost 200 countries have declared
polygamy a human rights violation, including the United States,
which is morally bound to the UN Convention on the Elimination
of Discrimination Against Women, since the US has signed (though
not yet ratified) the convention.
Wellesley political science
professor Katharine H.S. Moon has told me she sees CEDAW as a
historic penetration of the walls of national sovereignty, making
it possible for women for the first time to "bypass their
governments and complain directly to the UN" about discrimination,
sexual exploitation and other violations. Moreover, she says
that "nationalism, national security and economic competition
are not faith acts ordained by God".
Utah was given an ultimatum in 1890 to abandon polygamy or lose
US statehood. Utah has not held up its end of the bargain. Neither
has Arizona, Montana (where the fine for polygamy is $600) and
Idaho. And so it is time to seriously consider the case for rescinding
statehood for perpetuating the cockroach-like infestation of
such cults, which devastate lives from cradle to grave and siphon
the country's treasury to do it.
Most unsettling is the revelation
of countless numbers of unmarked baby graves in the canyonlands
attached to the FLDS polygamy cult headquartered on the Utah-Arizona
border. Local residents call it "Babyland" and law
enforcement's response to human rights activists questioning
the graves has been that unmarked graves are not illegal.
On Thursday, March 3, Utah
and Arizona AGs are hosting a two-hour polygamy summit in southern
Utah ("Dixie") to discuss the "unique issues"
surrounding polygamy. The town meeting will be moderated by Cliff
Donovan News Talk 890 KDXU (435-627-9582). And cult leaders
from far and wide will attend with their wives and extended families
to argue their case. The result of the last such town meeting
was a grant of $700,000 for more law enforcement and social services
personnel to work with the polygamists.
The US outlawed multiple wives in the late 1800s with the passage
of the Morrill and Edmunds-Tucker acts and the Supreme Court
ruled in 1879, in George Reynolds v. the United States, that
religious beliefs -- but not religious conduct -- are protected
by the First Amendment. But Utah-Arizona's deep Mormon polygamist
roots have led to a situation where even state officials have
in effect become accomplices to the practice of merchandising
women and children in the polygamy cults dug in there. Cult
members number in the tens of thousands.
State officials have been aided and abetted by local law enforcement
-- some of whom are said to be polygamists themselves -- who
refuse to take the issue seriously because of loyalty to the
Mormon Church, which still includes polygamy in its scripture.
The FBI's reluctance to move in (J. Edgar Hoover created the
bureau with Mormon agents who he felt could keep a secret) has
led to further obstruction of justice, which then should become
a matter for the Senate Judiciary Committee that oversees Justice
and the FBI. But the Senate Judiciary Committe's chairman in
recent years was Senator Orrin G. Hatch (RUtah) whose ancestors
were prominent Mormon polygamist pioneers.
In April of last year, I phoned and emailed Senator Hatch for
comment via his Communications Director, Adam Elggren, after
viewing photographs of Babyland and in response to phone-recorded
interviews I conducted with activists about the graves adjacent
to the polygamy enclave on the Utah/Arizona border. Elggren sent
the following email to me about a week later, on April 27, 2004:
"I was told you called
again looking for comment. I regret to say that I still have
not been able to contact anyone in the Utah AG's office who can
speak to this, and so Sen. Hatch will not be able to comment.
Sorry for your trouble-"
I immediately emailed Elggren
with the cell phone number for Ron Barton, Utah's "investigator
for closed societies" in the Attorney General's office,
and received this email from Elggren two days later:
"It appears there is an
ongoing investigation into this matter. Our office policy is
not to comment on ongoing investigations. Thanks-"
This is exactly what Barton
told me a few days earlier after a bit of a laugh: "I
cannot comment on an ongoing investigation".
I asked Barton whether the investigation was a priority (the
polygamists first colonized the Utah-Arizona border in 1911 after
members were excommunicated from the Mormon Church when the church
said it had renounced polygamy).
Barton replied: "I can't comment on whether it's a priority
either. Good luck."
Barton has since resigned. And activists who contacted the FBI
with evidence of Babyland were given the runaround and then withdrew
their research from a story we'd been working on. They have now
chosen to keep silent about the problem for reasons that are
unclear.
Endless questions remain as to who these children are buried
with the tumbleweed. Why and when they died. And if any child
is safe.
Utah's Senator Hatch in choosing to publicly ignore Babyland
and the malignancy of polygamy cults in his state has blood on
his hands. His cavalier treatment of the crisis is best represented
by his statement during a visit to southern Utah in 2003:
"I'm not here to justify
polygamy. All I can says is, I know people in Hildale who are
polygamists who are very fine people. You come and show me evidence
of children being abused there and I'll get involved. Bring me
the evidence." [He said further,] "I personally don't
believe in polygamy. But I'm not going to judge others who feel
differently."
Hatch's lawyer has said the
Utah AG's office is dealing with the situation.
But the situation gets even more convoluted because Rodney R.
Parker -- who continues to represent members of the FLDS legally
-- is with the law firm of Snow, Christensen and Martineau, which
also represents "the State of Utah, its officers, agencies
and employees". Parker previously served (1988-89) as Associate
Deputy Attorney General "on the immediate staff" of
the Deputy Attorney General of the United States in Washington
D.C.
Harold G. Christensen, Of Counsel, at Snow Christensen &
Martineau, served as Deputy Attorney General of the US in both
Ronald Reagan and Bush I's administrations, as well as head of
Litigation of the Utah Attorney General's Office. And Reed L.
Martineau of Snow Christensen & Martineau, was President
of the Utah Bar Association from 1987-88.
In a letter to Utah AG Mark Shurtleff, Rodney Parker said he'd
been working for the FLDS for 12 years. And he cited the last
polygamy summit Shurtleff was about to hold, telling him he should
include the polygamists, because without them it "reinforces
the mistrust and fear that has been the hallmark of the state's
relationship with the polygamists for the past 100 years".
Parker goes on to say, "For example, at least in the organized
plural culture of the FLDS church, young women are not "forced"
into marriage. They enter those relationships voluntarily with
the consent of their parents and the support of extended family."
Maybe like pharaonic circumcision -- where a woman is taken to
the stream by the family and tied down while her clitoris and
labia are sliced away.
Beswick believes the reason so little has changed in Utah and
in the "Arizona strip" is the relationship Parker alludes
to in his letter to Shurtleff --
"a network of attorneys
who are mostly mainstream LDS have defended the rights of polygamists,
while the LDS church publicly has denounced the practice."
"Such cases are a cash
cow for these LDS attorneys (from a polygamist background themselves)",
Beswick says, and that "their 10% tithes continue to benefit
the mainstream Mormon church". Beswick sees Rodney Parker
as representing this conflict of interest in a nutshell, and
says his promotion of religious and political tolerance of the
state and mainstream Mormon church regarding polygamy should
stand as evidence of the unofficial/official church line.
Beswick has been one of the most aggressive voices in opposing
child brides in polygamy. He says he is fed up with the corruption
of the legal system and posturing of the LDS church on the issue
and that he'd "like to hear just once that the mainstream
Mormon Church rejected these attorney tithes as blood money because
they perpetuate a pedophile colony and that the attorneys be
excommunicated."
Arizona is even less responsive on the Babyland issue. Senator
John McCain (R--AZ), who is incensed about Iraqi POW humiliation,
takes campaign contributions in part from Mohave County where
the FLDS is headquartered on the Arizona side of the border.
McCain failed to comment for my Financial Times October
2000 cover story on polygamy. And his assistant press secretary,
Crystal Benton, told me last year regarding the Babyland matter
that his schedule was "too hectic" for him to make
a statement although she wouldn't want it to be reported
that the senator had "no comment".
Funny, the night before Benton told me McCain's schedule was
too hectic, he appeared on MSNBC's Hardball promoting his new
book (he's a frequent guest). He's also found time to host Saturday
Night Live.
So if the states and the states' representatives will do nothing
to put an end to the polygamy cults, it is indeed time to question
whether those states belong in the United States of America.
The other question is how many more lives will be buried anonymously
in these cults before authorities are put under enough public
pressure to move in?
Suzan Mazur has traveled through the western states
covering polygamy for the Financial Times, Newsday
and Maclean's and was a guest on Fox television, including
O'Reilly, discussing the polygamy issue (O'Reilly pulled the
segment). She chaired the first major benefit for battered women
in Manhattan in 1985, which brought together fifteen victim services
agencies, and was co-sponsored by the National and New York State
Coalitions Against Domestic Violence. Email: sznmzr@aol.com
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