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Today's Stories November 2, 2007 Dr. Mary Pipher Acting on Conscience: Psychologists and Abusive Interrogations   November 1, 2007 Paul Craig Roberts The Wages of Hegemony Patrick Cockburn The Most Dangerous Dam in the World Dave Lindorff The Air Force Report on the Minot-Barksdale Nuclear Missile Flight Jonathan Feldman The Strange Political Economy of Death in the South Mike Ferner They Met the Resistance in Iraq William S. Lind A Question for Would-Be Presidents Diana Johnstone "Fascislamism" Versus "Shoah Business" Jacob Hornberger The War on Telephone Privacy A..K. Gupta The Apocalypse will be Televised Lyuba Zarsky / Kevin Gallagher The Enclave Economy of Mexico's Silicon Valley Felice Pace Does the SPLC Equate Anti-Zionism with Anti-Semitism? Website of the Day This One's for You, Ed Abbey   October 31, 2007 Bill Quigley New Orleans' Broken Criminal Justice System Rev. William E. Alberts A Trail of American Blood: From the White House to CBS News Ray McGovern Attacking Iran for Israel Eric Walberg Poisonous Espionage: Litvinenko and the New Cold War V. G. Smith The Second Death of Guy Môquet Luis J. Rodriguez "Social Cleansing" from Guatemala to LA Sheldon Richman Bush has Time to Run the World Walter Brasch A Real Halloween Scare Website of the Day Boogie Rocks! October 30, 2007 David Price Pilfered Scholarship Devastates Gen. Petraeus's Counterinsurgency Manual M. Shahid Alam The Pakistan Question Andy Worthington The Epiphany of Matthew Waxman: a Government Insider Turns Against Gitmo Patrick Cockburn The Bicycle Bomber of Baquba Anthony Papa The Twisted Logic of Drug Laws Floyd Rudmin What "All Options are on the Table" Really Means Sherwood Ross Giuliani and Torture Website of the Day The Worst Lobby? You Decide   October 29, 2007 Lisa Hajjar Inside Israel's Military Courts Joe DeRaymond The Politics of Lethal Injections Patrick Cockburn The High Stakes in Iraqi Kurdistan Isabella Kenfield / Roger Burbach Corporate Murder in Brazil Fred Gardner The Frivolous Investigation of Dr. Sterner Farzana Versey Caricaturing Islam Stephen Fleischman The Greening of the Oligarchy Marcelle Cendrars The Congressional Rip Cord Eamonn McCann Dan Keating, the Last of the Republican Irreconcilables Martha Rosenberg For Halloween, Ann Coulter Dresses as .... Ann Coulter! Website of the Day Campaign 2008   October 27 / 28, 2007 Alexander Cockburn So Much for Islamo-Fascism Awareness Jeffrey St. Clair The Dam That Isn't There James Bovard Breaking Down an Innocent Man: The FBI's Right to Threaten Torture Ralph Nader Beyond the Rule of Law M. Reza Pirbhai The Wahhabis are Coming, the Wahhabis are Coming! Robert Sandels Pay the Invaders! Cuba, Claims and Confiscations Jacob G. Hornberger Ruling By Decree Missy Beattie The Arsonists in the West Wing John Ross U.S. Eyes on Oaxaca Robert Fantina Condi Rice, the Imperial Cheerleader Ron Jacobs Labor at the Crossroads Ali Moayedian In Search of Logic About Iran David Michael Green What If We Had a President Who Didn't Give a Damn About Terrorism? Poets Basement Block, Davies and Ford Website of the Day Bring 'Em Home: a Music Video   October 26, 2007 Brian Cloughley Revenging Bloodshed Saul Landau Portrait of Rudy Ahmad Al-Akras Getting Justice in the HLF Case Franklin Lamb Does "Loving" Lebanon Mean Never Having to Say You're Sorry? Mike Whitney Murdoch's Cuckoo's Nest Dave Lindorff Home of the Brave? Reducing US Casualties By Killing More Civilians Alan Farago A Castro Behind Every Bush Yifat Susskind Conscripting Feminism into the War on Terror Website of the Day Dead Life in a Political Prison October 25, 2007 Jeffrey St. Clair / Joshua Frank Iraq's Environmental Crisis Manuel Garcia, Jr. Homes of the Crash Test Dummies Paul Craig Roberts The Fraudulent War on Terror Col. Dan Smith The Politics of Paranoia: Jane Harman's War on the First Amendment Alan Farago The Way to Paradise? Chris Kutalik The Lesson of the Chrysler Rebels Brian McKinlay John Howard and the Curse of Bush Cindy Sheehan Pete, Nancy, George and WW III Website of the Day Support the America's Program!   October 24, 2007 Natalie Washington-Weik White Fantasies About Race-Based Intelligence Andy Worthington The Guantánamo Suicides Michael Birmingham What Happened in Nahr Al Bared? Corporate Crime Reporter The Nuclear Democrats Tariq Ali Bush's Cuba Detour Farzana Versey Imagining Serfdom in a Scarf Dave Zirin White Noise James Murren What "Support Our Troops" Means Todd Chretien Looking Reality in the Face Martha Rosenberg What Came First, the Chicken or the Cage? Website of the Day Hillary Clinton on Nuclear Power   October 23, 2007 Ralph Nader Bush's Catastrophic Rhetoric Lawrence R. Velvel Goldsmith Stands Convicted--By His Own Mouth: How a Harvard Law Professor Justified Rendition at the Bush Justice Dept. Vijay Prashad The Nuke Deal is Dead Bonnie Bricker / Adil E. Shamoo The True Cost of War for Oil Dave Lindorff Christopher Dodd's Make or Break Moment Mike Whitney The Big Squeeze Farzana Versey Race with the Devil Stanley Heller / Ben George Something New from the Antiwar Movement Marcelle Cendrars You Too Can Confront the Holy Executive Regan Boychuk Burma and Haiti: Comparing the Media Response Website of the Day King Corn   October 22, 2007 Ishmael Reed Should Blacks Go Green? Marjorie Cohn Mukasey and the Constitution: Another Loyal Bushie Rannie Amiri Is There a Method to Bush's Middle East Madness? Diane Farsetta Time to Pay for Payola: the FCC and Pundit-for-Hire Armstrong Williams Todd Alan Price Renewing No Child Left Behind: A Hurricane Katrina Aimed at Public Education Robert Jensen The Quagmire of Masculinity Stephen Lendman The UAW Leadership Sells Out Its Workers Jemima Khan The Kleptocrat in an Hermes Headscarf Sunsara Taylor David Horowitz Can't Handle the Truth Binoy Kampmark No Ideas, Please: the Australian Elections Website of the Day Support the Center for International Policy     October 20 / 21, 2007 Alexander Cockburn The Man Who Builds Hillaryworld Tariq Ali A Massacre Foretold Jeffrey St. Clair Greetings from Echo Park Andy Worthington The Shame of Diego Garcia Mike Whitney Housing Flameout Daniel Wolff Play It As It Lays David Rosen Deviants on Parade: Folsom St. Fair and America's 4th Sexual Revolution Saul Landau David and Goliath in Iraq Ron Jacobs COINTELPRO and the Panthers Robert Fantina The Strange Love of Mitt Romney and Bob Jones David Heleniak Erring on the Side of Hidden Harm Joe Allen Hoffa Brown-Nosing at UPS Prairie Miller Lions for Lambs Poets' Basement Gibbons, Holt and Buknatski Website of the Weekend Crash!   October 19, 2007 John Ross Che's Mexican Legacy Sheldon Rampton Shared Values Revisited: a Case Study in the Limits of Propaganda Rahul Mahajan A Tale of Two Atrocities: Blackwater and Haditha Devra Davis Deadly Secrets: Chemical Pollution and Cancer Christopher Brauchli Blasphemous Science Wadner Pierre Haiti After the Deluge Bill Quigley Jailed for Justice Website of the Day Textbook Sticker Shock   October 18, 2007 Saree Makdisi Academic Freedom is at Risk Meg Dwyer What I Learned from 9/11: Who Wouldn't Want Us Dead? Alevtina Rea Sketches of Russian Life Norman Solomon The United States of Violence Kristoffer Larsson Something is Rotten in Sweden Harvey Wasserman Nukes are Back and So are We Website of the Day Eve Ensler: "A Filibuster Would Stop This War"   October 17, 2007 Steve Niva Counter-Insurgency, American-Style Andy Worthington The Case of Mohamed Jawad Alan Farago The Credit Shock Russell Mokhiber The New Billionaire-Criminal Class Sharon Smith Democrats, AWOL When It Mattered Mike Whitney Time for the Banks to Face the Hangman Robert Fantina Iraq, Iran and the US: Business as Usual Chris Irwin Where Have All the Rednecks Gone? Website of the Day Sex Ed at Oral Roberts University October 16, 2007 Peter Linebaugh Doris Lessing and the Dynamite Prize Paul Findley Follow the Leader: The Open Secret About the Israel Lobby Robert Bryce Inconvenient Corrections: Al Gore's Wacky Facts Uri Avnery The Mother of All Pretexts Paul Craig Roberts The Iraqi Genocide Ray McGovern What Did Nancy Pelosi Know About NSA Spying and When Did She Know It? Norman Solomon The Pro-War Undertow of the Blackwater Scandal Martha Rosenberg The Curse of Cymbalta William S. Lind Out of the Frying Pan Joel S. Hirschborn Time to Boycott Voting Website of the Day Pipeline Through Paradise: Big Oil's Arctic Play         Subscribe Online

November 2, 2007 Stage Managing the California Fires A Tale of Two Stadiums By SHARON SMITH When wildfires raged through Southern California last week, George W. Bush flew into action. The unfolding disaster presented the perfect opportunity for the unpopular president to finally recover from the public relations disaster that exposed the Bush administration's indifference toward New Orleans' Hurricane Katrina survivors two years ago. This time, the White House carefully choreographed every detail of Bush's visit to Southern California. Fellow Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger joined him in a back slapping press conference, praising Bush for "quick action-quicker than I expected, I can tell you that." Bush, in turn, praised Schwarzenegger. "It makes a significant difference when you have someone in the statehouse who's willing to lead," Bush said, in an obvious jab at Louisiana's Democratic Governor Kathleen Blanco during Katrina, as if she obstructed federal evacuation efforts. The mainstream media has dutifully lapped up Bush's every orchestrated photo-op and sound-bite. There was Bush, abandoning the luxury of Air Force One that once whisked him over the wreckage of New Orleans, slumming in a helicopter as he viewed the charred California landscape. When the presidential motorcade arrived at San Diego's devastated community of Rancho Bernardo, Bush emerged with sleeves rolled up as if eager to help with recovery efforts. While cameras rolled, Bush embraced distraught resident Kendra Jeffcoat while telling reporters, "Those of us who are here in government, our hearts are right here with the Jeffcoats." Soon thereafter, Bush climbed back into Air Force One to return to Washington. Mission accomplished. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) officials, however, took their own stage-management of media coverage one step too far in a potentially embarrassing incident. On Tuesday, October 26, FEMA's deputy administrator Harvey E. Johnson called a news briefing-giving journalists just 15 minutes notice beforehand. Not surprisingly, no reporters were able to make their way to attend, but several television networks broadcast a live feed nonetheless. The "reporters" asking questions turned out to be hand picked FEMA administrators feeding Johnson's prepared repertoire. One "reporter" asked, for example, "Are you happy with FEMA's response so far?" to which Johnson responded, "I'm very happy with FEMA's response so far." Ultimately, a few diligent reporters exposed the phony press conference, but the scandal quickly disappeared from news headlines. * * * Indeed, most news outlets focused on the contrast between the squalor and neglect experienced by Katrina survivors at New Orleans' Superdome and the seemingly idyllic conditions at San Diego's Qualcomm Stadium, as if FEMA has learned its lesson. "There was a banh mi picnic in the parking lot, beef empanadas on the chow line, Caesar salads, cartons of fresh Starbucks House Blend, free magazines, toys for the kids, cots for grandma, pizza by the slice or, if you wished, the box. There was a man playing jazz guitar, a blues band, massages and acupuncture," gushed the Los Angeles Times on October 24th. The mainstream media conveniently overlooked the real story of the California wildfires. Just as in New Orleans, race and class loomed large-even inside Qualcomm Stadium. Suburban whites exited the stadium en masse in midweek, leaving poorer and nonwhite survivors behind. And the atmosphere inside the stadium changed decisively when Border Patrol officers arrived to harass and deport immigrants. As the San Diego Immigrant Rights Consortium described, "Yesterday [Wednesday, October 24th], the police initiated an immigration enforcement action that was contrary to their policy of not calling in Border Patrol / ICE unless and until they file a formal criminal charge against a person. Police detained approximately 12 evacuees (at least four were children) who they alleged were 'looting' donated blankets, food, and toys for the children." Six of them were deported within hours. Although both San Diego Police Department officials and Border Patrol agents initially claimed the detained immigrants had confessed to "looting" (reminiscent of accusations against New Orleans' desperate African-Americans in the aftermath of Katrina), the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) noted that none of those deported was actually charged with robbery by San Diego police. The San Diego Union-Tribune initially repeated the looting charge, while defending racial profiling: "[B]ecause some members of the group spoke Spanish, officers called Border Patrol agents who were at the stadium for relief efforts. They determined the people were in the country illegally and arrested them." Without retracting its initial claims, the Union-Tribune later admitted that none of the deportees had admitted to stealing anything-nor were charges filed. But the deportations, however unjust, offered the excuse for authorities to patrol the stadium demanding evacuees to show "proper identification." ACLU immigrants' rights attorney Andrea Guerrero estimated that up to a thousand people were forced out of the stadium because they lacked proper identification, according to immigrants' rights activist José I. Fusté in an October 27th post to the San Francisco Bay Area Independent Media Center. * * * But most migrant workers never made it to Qualcomm Stadium. Indeed, even as others evacuated dangerous areas, many farm workers continued to labor in fields as ash rained on them because their employers did not allow them to leave. The New York Times reported on October 27th, "'There were Mercedeses and Jaguars pulling out, people evacuating, and the migrants were still working,' said Enrique Morones, who takes food and blankets to the immigrants' camps. 'It's outrageous.'" Christian Ramirez from the American Friends Service Committee commented, "Some farmers are not following evacuation orders and have kept workers in the fields despite orders being given to evacuate." Many migrant workers without papers who turned to authorities for help found themselves deported on the spot. By Friday, October 27th, Border Patrol agents claimed they had arrested 100 immigrants since the fires started. Immigrants now returning to their evacuated homes face military style Border Patrol checkpoints when they try to return, aimed at "detaining and handing over people suspected of being undocumented to U.S. Border Patrol," according to the San Diego ACLU. As Fusté remarked, "People need to know that the same way that the government doesn't care about black people in New Orleans, it also doesn't care about immigrant families in California." Sharon Smith is the author of Women and Socialism and Subterranean Fire: a History of Working-Class Radicalism in the United States. She can be reached at: sharon@internationalsocialist.org   The New Print Edition of CounterPunch, Only for Our Newsletter Subscribers! Israel's Very Dangerous Gamble STEPHEN GREEN reports on the real motivations behind Israel's MISSILE STRIKE on SYRIA. PETER MONTAGUE on the NUCLEAR RENAISSANCE or How the Nuke Industry is using Gore's Prize and Global Warming to Plot Its Big Comeback. WILLIAM BLUM on the DEVALUING of "ANTI-SEMITE" or How to Make a Term Meaningless. Get your copy today by subscribing online or calling 1-800-840-3683 Remember contributions to CounterPunch are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now Order CounterPunch By Email for Only $35 a Year and Receive a Free Copy of "Imperial Crusades: a Diary of Three Wars" by Cockburn and St. Clair Your Ad Here

Now Available! How the Press Led the US into War Buy End Times Now! New From CounterPunch Books The Secret Language of the Crossroads: HOW THE IRISH INVENTED SLANG By Daniel Cassidy WINNER OF THE AMERICAN BOOK AWARD! Click Here to Buy! Cassidy on Tour Click Here for Dates & Venues "The Case Against Israel" Michael Neumann's Devastating Rebuttal of Alan Dershowitz Click Here to Buy! Saul Landau's Bush and Botox World with a Foreword by Gore Vidal Click Here to Order!   Grand Theft Pentagon How They Made a Killing on the War on Terrorism         The Occupation by Patrick Cockburn Humanitarian Imperialism By Jean Bricmont   CITY BEAUTIFUL By Tennessee Reed     Bruce Springsteen On Tour By Dave Marsh   The Book on 9/11 the White House Denounced as "ABSOLUTE GARBAGE"