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What You're Missing in our subscriber-only CounterPunch newsletter MY LAI VET SAYS: HERE IT COMES AGAIN IN IRAQ Tony Swindell recalls "Butcher's Brigade" in '69; says "gooks" have now become "ragheads", every adult male is an "insurgent" ... atrocities against Iraqi civilians are soon going to explode in America's face; US Government's courtroom jihads against terror stumble. Alexander Cockburn on Lodi case where Feds paid $250,000 to man who "saw" world's three top terrorists at mosque. As neocons and Israel lobby howl for US to bomb Teheran, an Iranian outlines simple path to peace. 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! Get CounterPunch By Email for Only $35 a Year St. Clair in San Francisco

Today's Stories April 25, 2006 Sharon Smith Breathing New Life Into May Day April 24, 2006 Tim Wise What Kind of Card is Race? John Stanton Strike Iran, Watch Pakistan and Turkey Fall Dave Lindorff Dangerous Times Ahead Steve Shore Berlusconi Defeated: The Long Wait is Over ... Or Is It? Amadou Deme Hotel Rwanda: Setting the Record Straight Mickey Z. 15 Minutes of Radical Fame: America Meets Bill Blum and Ward Churchill Ralph Nader Lee Raymond's Unconscionable Platinum Parachute Alexander Cockburn Obama's Game Website of the Day Too Stupid to Be President?   April 22/23, 2006 Jeffrey St. Clair The General, GM and the Stryker Jeff Halper SUMUD vs. Apartheid: the Elections in Palestine and Israel Jeff Klein How to Manufacture a War Criminal: Saddam and Me, a True Story Thomas P. Healy Out Now: an Interview with Anthony Arnove David Underhill Stuck in Mobile with the Rev. Graham Blues Again Lee Sustar "We are Going to Keep Marching": an Interview with Immigrant Rights Organizer Martín Unzueta Deb Reich The Little Mermaid on Highway Six: Rooting for Ordinary Israelis to Wake Up John Chuckman America's Gulag: Purge at the CIA Fred Gardner More Suppression of Marijuana Research Julian Edney Can Our Economy Run Without Fear? Seth Sandronsky The GOP and California's Levees Brynne Keith-Jennings The Meddlesome Ambassador Trivelli: Undermining Democracy in Nicaragua Dave Lindorff Where are the Frogs? Catherine Ann Cullen and Harry Browne Springsteen Polishes His Roots: First Impressions of "We Shall Overcome" Bill Pahnelas Bush Passes the Buck on Soaring Gas Prices Jim French Time to Overhaul US Farm Policy Ron Jacobs "I Know I'm Not Dreaming, Because I Can't Sleep Any More" David Krieger The Courage of Sophie Scholl: Resisting Hitler Jeffrey St. Clair Playlist: What I'm Listening to This Week Poets' Basement Buknatski, Engel and Ford Website of the Weekend Eye of the Storm   April 21, 2006 Jonathan Cook The Sinister Meaning of Olmert's "Hitkansut": Deporting Hamas MPs Lawrence R. Velvel Physical Courage, Moral Courage and American Generals Evelyn Pringle How to Out a CIA Agent Christopher Brauchli The Rich are Different Pratyush Chandra Pure-and-Simple Revolutions in Nepal and Venezuela Michael George Smith This is What a Movement Looks Like Missy Comley Beattie Serving at the Decider's Pleasure Sarah Hines The Bracero Program: 1942-1964 Website of the Day Hunger Strike at U. of Miami   April 20, 2006 Chris Kutalik As Crisis Deepens, Is Labor Finally Showing Signs of a Comeback? Gary Leupp Cheney, the Neocons and China Joshua Frank Stop the War! Dump the Democrats! Diane Christian The Authority to Kill William S. Lind Sweeping Up: the Real Problem Wasn't the Execution of the War, But the Enterprise Itself Ramzy Baroud A Case for the Palestinan Government Justin E.H. Smith Doctors and Lethal Injection   April 19, 2006 P. Sainath More Kids? Pay More for Your Water Norman Solomon When Diplomacy Means War: Bait-and-Switch on Iran Anthony Papa When Justice Isn't Blind: Double Standards for the Rich and Poor in New York Mike Ferner Movement Blues Stanley Heller The Massacre at Qana, 10 Years Later: Still No Justice Rifundazione "We Defeated Berlusconi" Christopher Reed Secrets of the Garden of Bliss Alexander Cockburn The Pulitzer Farce Website of the Day Bunker Busters: the Movie April 18, 2006 Paul Craig Roberts How Safe is Your Job? Eric Wingerter Washington Post vs. Venezuela Juan Santos What Immigrants Need to Learn from the Black Civil Rights Movement Greg Weiher The Zarqawi Gambit Revisited Sam Bahour Is Hamas Being Forced to Collapse? Behzad Yaghmaian In the Gaze of New Orleans Website of the Day The FBI and the Jack Anderson Files   April 17, 2006 Kevin Zeese An Interview with the First Arab-American Senator: Jim Abourezk on Bush's Lies and the Dems' Complicity Uri Avnery Olmert the Fox Norman Solomon Why Won't Moveon.Org Oppose the Bombing of Iran? John Ross A Real Day Without Mexicans? Laila al-Haddad The Earth is Closing in on Us: Dispatch from Gaza Jeffrey Blankfort A Tale of Two Members of Congress and the Capitol Hill Police Website of the Day Dixie Chicks: Not Ready to Back Down   April 15 / 16, 2006 Jeffrey St. Clair How Star Wars Came to the Arctic Ralph Nader Remembering Rev. William Sloan Coffin Thaddeus Hoffmeister The Ghost of Shinseki: the General Who Was Sent Out to Pasture for Being Right Kevin Prosen / Dave Zirin Privilege Meets Protest at Duke Thomas P. Healy Taking Care of What We've Been Given: a Conversation with Wendell Berry Kristoffer Larsson Are 40 Percent of All Swedes Anti-Semitic?: Anatomy of a Statistical Flim-Flam Fred Gardner Continuing Medical (Marijuana) Education Edwin Krales New York's Katrina: the Hidden Toll of AIDS Among Blacks and the Poor Brian Cloughley Don't Blitz Iran: Risking the Ultimate Blowback John Holt Walking Off Vietnam with Edward Abbey's Surrogate Son Seth Sandronsky What Billionaires Mean By Education Reform: Oprah, Bill Gates and the Privatization of Public Schools Rafael Renteria Making It Plain About New Orleans Michael Ortiz Hill In the Ashes of Lament: an Easter Meditation William A. Cook An Israel Accountability Act Gideon Levy Shooting Nasarin: a Story About a Little Girl Andrew Wimmer Stopping the Bush Juggernaut: a New Citizens Campaign Madis Senner Talking Points for Easter Weekend: Jesus Didn't Lie, Mr. Bush Michael Kuehl The Sex Police State: Women as "Rapists" and "Pedophiles"? Mark Scaramella When Even God Can't Follow His Own Commandments: the Timeless Scarcasm of Mark Twain Nate Mezmer 187 Proof: Living and Dying Hip-Hop Jesse Walker Playlist Poets' Basement Engel, Laymon and Subiet Website of the Weekend Pink Serenades Bush   April 14, 2006 Col. Dan Smith Candor or Career?: Why Few Top Military Officials Resign on Principle Saul Landau Ho Chi Minh City Moves On Without Regrets Stan Cox The Real Death Tax Kevin Zeese Hersh vs. Bush on Iran: Who Would You Believe? Brian McKinlay Bad Times for Bush's Buddies Howard Meyers Dwarves, Knives and Freedom: Bush, Jr. is No LBJ Ishmael Reed The Colored Mind Doubles: How the Media Uses Blacks to Chastize Blacks Website of the Day Asshole: a Film Strip   April 13, 2006 CounterPunch News Service Powell's "Bitch"? Norman Solomon The Lobby and the Bulldozer Stanley Heller Time to Shake Up the Peace Movement Jeff Birkenstein Bush and Freedom of Speech Evelyn J. Pringle Not So Fast, Mr. Powell Michael Donnelly The Week the Bush Administration Fell Apart Kamran Matin Synergism of the Neo-Cons: What's Going On In Iran? Website of the Day "Don't Be Afraid of the Neo-Cons"   April 12, 2006 Vijay Prashad Resisting Fences Alan Maass The Suicide of Anthony Soltero Dave Lindorff Bush's Insane First Strike Policy: If You Don't Want to Get Whacked, You'd Better Get Your Nation a Nuke ... Fast Ron Jacobs Resistance: the Remedy for Fear Ramzy Baroud The Imminent Decline of the American Empire? Randall Dodd How a Wal-Mart Bank will Harm Consumers Missy Comley Beattie The Boy President Who Cried "Wolf!" P. Sainath The Corporate Hijack of India's Water Website of the Day "The System is Irretrievably Corrupt"   April 11, 2006 Al Krebs Corporate Agriculture's Dirty Little Secret: Immigration and a History of Greed Lawrence R. Velvel The Gang That Couldn't Leak Straight Sonia Nettinin Palestinian Health Care Conditions Under Israeli Occupation Willliam S. Lind The Fourth Plague Hits the Pentagon: Generals as Private Contractors Robert Ovetz Endangered Species in a Can: the Disappearance of Big Fish Pratyush Chandra Nepalis Say, "Ya Basta!" Grant F. Smith The Bush Administration's Final Surprise? Laray Polk Loud, Soft, Hard, Quiet: Marching Through Dallas for Immigrant Rights Francis Boyle O'Reilly and the Law of the Jungle: How to Beat a Bully on His Home Turf José Pertierra A Glimpse into the Mindset of Terrorists: Posada Carriles, Orlando Bosch and the Downing of Cubana Flight 455 Website of the Day The Dead Emcee Scrolls   April 10, 2006 Ralph Nader Tinhorn Caesar and the Spineless Democrats Heather Gray Atlanta and the Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. Uri Avnery The Big Wink Joshua Frank Big Greens and Beltway Politics: Betting on Losers Seth Sandronsky Immigration and Occupations Michael Leonardi The Italian Elections: "Reality is No Longer Important" Evelyn Pringle Did Bush Pull a Fast One on Fitzgerald? Tom Kerr FoxNews Does Ward Churchill Lucinda Marshall The Lynching of Cynthia McKinney Website of the Day Brown Berets April 7 -9, 2006 Alexander Cockburn If Only They'd Hissed Barack Obama Jeffrey St. Clair The Saga of Magnequench: Outsourcing US Missile Technology to China Patrick Cockburn The War Gets Grimmer Every Day David Vest The Rebuking and Scorning of Cynthia McKinney Dave Lindorff The Impeachment Clock Just Clicked Forward Gary Leupp "Ideologies of Hatred:" What Did Condi Mean? Elaine Cassel The Moussaoui Trial: What Kind of Justice is This? Saul Landau Vietnam Diary: Hue Without Rules James Ridgeway "This is Betty Ong Calling": a Short Film Ron Jacobs Why Iran was Right to Refuse US Money John Walsh Kerry Advocates Iraqization: Too Little, Too Late Ramzy Baroud The US Attitude Toward Hamas: Disturbing Parallels with Nicaragua Christopher Brauchli Bush Finds Democracy Has Its Limits Todd Chretien What the Pentagon Budget Could Buy for America Jonathan Scott Javelins at the Head of the Monolith John Bomar What They're Saying About Bush in Arkansas Michele Brand Iran, the US and the EU Ronan Sheehan Remember When the Irish First Met the Chinese? Mickey Z. Let Us Now Praise OIL Don Monkerud March of the Bunglers Michael Dickinson The Rich Young Man: a Miracle Play Website of the Weekend The Case Against Israel and Munich: Compare and Contrast     April 6, 2006 John Ross Mexico's Most Toxic Presidential Election Ever Dave Lindorff Time to Get on Message with the Sissy French Don Monkerud The Strange Case of the American Worker Robert McDonald The Texas Railroad to Death Row: How Prosecutors Fabricated a Case Against Rodney Reed Boris Kagarlitsky A Marriage of Convenience in Ukraine Remi Kanazi The Assault on Cynthia McKinney Niranjan Ramakrishnan Untangling the Issues in the Immigration Debates Robert Fisk A Lesson from the Holocaust for Us All   April 5, 2006 Dick J. Reavis Pancho Bin Laden and the Terrorists' Tombs Mark Brenner Workers in the Aftermath of Katrina: Survival of the Fittest Brian Cloughley Nailing the Lies: Come Clean, Mr. Bush Jozef Hand-Boniakowski Why Democrats Are At Least Half of the Problem Matt Vidal Republican Bliss: the Selfish Road to Happiness Juan Santos The Politics of Immigration: a Nation of Colonists and Race Laws Alan Maass Week of the Walkouts JoAnn Wypijewski Malevolent Power at Ft. Sill: the Army Slays Its Own Website of the Day My Life in the Bush of Ghosts   April 4, 2006 Jackson Thoreau How the Hammer Got Nailed: Taking Down Tom DeLay Gary Corseri Osama's Favorite Writer?: an Interview with William Blum Dave Lindorff Provocative Humanitarianism?: Bashing Hugo Chavez at the NYT Paul Craig Roberts Belligerent to the Bitter End Norman Solomon When War Crimes Are Unspeakable: Bush, Always the Accuser, Never the Accused Michael Carmichael The Christocrat: Condi Does Britain Winslow T. Wheeler Is the F-22 Worth the Price-Tag? Ingmar Lee Is Another World Possible?: Report from Karachi Michael Neumann The Israel Lobby and Beyond Website of the Day West Point Graduates Against the War   April 3, 2006 Saul Landau Vietnam Diary: "What Socialism?" Richard Thieme The CIA: Cowboys, Indians and Whistleblowers, an Interview with David MacMichael Timothy B. Tyson Race, Class and Rape at Duke Omar Barghouti The Israeli Elections: a Decisive Vote for Apartheid Iwasaki Atsuko "As Israelis, We Also Fight for Palestinians:" an Interview with Jeff Halper Julian Edney A Terrible Weapon in the Hands of the Rich Roger Morris Catfight Among the Conservatives   April 1 / 2, 2006 Alexander Cockburn Truth and Fiction in Elie Wiesel's "Night" Ralph Nader Exxon/Mobil: the Corporate Superpower of Superpowers Dave Zirin The Press Mob, Their Rope and Barry Bonds: Damn Right Race Matters David Underhill Walkin' to New Orleans Earl Ofari Hutchinson Do Immigrants Really Take Jobs from Urban Poor? Dave Lindorff Sen. Orrin Hatch: Defender of Presidential Lawlessness P. Sainath Where India's Brave New World is Headed Fred Gardner Debunking "Amotivational Syndrome" Clancy Chassay Hamas or Al Qaeda? The Gun or the Ballot Box? Heather Gray The Inspiring Face of Immigration: Australia and the American Rural Southeast Greg Moses Austin Students Walkout: "We're a Group This Country Needs" John Chuckman When the Violent Enforce the Peace: America's Brutal Tactics in Iraq Ron Jacobs Leaving Iraq Now is the Only Sensible Solution Jeffrey St. Clair Playlist: What I'm Listening to This Week Poets' Basement Holt, Engel, Subiet, Ford and Davies Website of the Weekend Pentagon Thievery     Subscribe Online

April 25, 2006 Stewards of the Garden? Lutherans Betray Michigan's Loon Lake Wetlands for Pieces of Silver By MICHAEL DONNELLY In the early 1980s, Michigan YMCA Camp Mahn-go-tah-see had run up against hard times. Though thousands of youth attended Summer Camp there since the 1930s, kid camps everywhere were getting harder and harder to maintain as camper numbers dropped off. Late 20th Century children had many more options than former campers; from electronic games, year round sports, family vacations, etc. And, many parents had become more aware of and more leery of abuse and sought to keep a tighter rein on where their children spent their time. Into the breach came the Lutheran Church. An insider deal was hatched and the church took over the camp with 248 acres, dozens of buildings and over a mile of pristine shoreline on Loon Lake --- all for agreeing to take over the camp's $220,000 debt. The church also had a hard time maintaining it as a kid camp. They kept the High School band camps that had been held there for decades. And, the annual Audubon bird count retreats continued. But, a regular Summer Camp program slowly died off. Soon, the Lutherans began a focus on adult and family retreats and changed the name to the Loon Lake Lutheran Retreat Center. This led to plans to remove the old camper buildings and replace them with modern condo-style accommodations. Consultants were hired and plans proffered. A garish symbolic lighthouse was planned for a knoll above the lake. Another plan was to outright sell the camp to developers and use the proceeds to fund Lutheran college chapels. Homer and Dorothy Roberts gave their lives to the camp. Homer, founder of Detroit Audubon and its president for 50 years and one of the founders of Outdoor School, served in many capacities at the camp; primarily as long-time Nature Director. Homer, along with ally Rachel Carson and others, is given much credit for the ban on DDT and the resultant rebounding of eagle populations in Michigan and elsewhere. In the 1940s, he was the first to draw attention to the plight of the endangered Kirtland's warbler and was instrumental in efforts to protect the songbird's nesting habitat, which is limited to a twenty mile radius area of the Huron National Forest that abuts the camp to the north. The indispensable Dot served as Crafts Director. In 1964, they bought the adjacent 8.5 acres just to the south of the camp and lived there until retiring at 90 and 86 and moving to Oregon to be near family. With Homer and Dot's persistence, in 1964, Camp Mahn-go-tah-see became the first official private Nature Preserve in the state. My own family has had a place on Loon Lake adjacent to the Roberts since 1955. In 2005, we bought the Roberts' Harvest Hill place with the intent (since carried out) of setting aside 7 acres as protected habitat, including the Harvest Hill part of the swamp and shoreline. This year, the Lutherans cut another sweetheart deal. They were able to get a land use change through the local Township Board of Supervisors (a very powerful part of the rural oligarchy in Michigan). This change has seen the Lutherans survey and carve out four luxury lots on 7.67 acres adjacent to Harvest Hill. The lots are now on the market, selling for between $139,000 and $279,000 --- a total of $844,000. All are marketed as waterfront lots. The sale proceeds presumably would go to the new condo plan. The lot development is also a test case for opening up parts of the rest of the camp's mile of lakeshore to more lots. However, there is a pristine wetlands/swamp between the highway and the lakeshore. And, the entire area is covered in large trees, some of them very rare Lower Peninsula old growth as they survived the logging era by being in and around the wetlands. As no logging has occurred since the late 1870s, the entire forest is mature by any standard. Plans call for access roads and house sites to be carved out of the forest. No mention is made of just how these new homeowners will deal with the swamp to actually reach the lakefront. The Township has allowed the dredging of two swamps on the lake already; leading to fetid backwaters with houses and septic tanks; and lined with metal piles driven into the water's edge. The Plainfield Township Supervisors who approved the zoning change have a decided conflict of interest. The Lutherans sweetened the deal by offering to deed 12.91 acres adjacent to the four lots to the Township; including a boat launch, lakeshore and access road. The township already has a 200-acre park at the other end of Loon Lake with 150 feet of waterfront and a boat launch at yet another spot on the lake. In addition, my deceased father, Dr. Charles Donnelly, Homer Roberts and Roberts' son Bob spent countless hours negotiating with the Lutherans on the very issue of preservation of the wetlands/swamp. We offered to donate our acreage and so did the Roberts to the Michigan Nature Association if the Lutherans would donate theirs for a new Preserve. We offered to buy the area from the camp and donate it. Despite all this effort, no one ever contacted us about this development. And, as the sole adjacent landowner, we were given no notice of any proposed Land Use designation change from the Township. (They certainly know how to contact us with property tax bills.) We, as adjacent landowners, stand to gain financially should we be willing to subdivide and sell our own land at such inflated prices. We and all the other long-time Loon Lake cottage owners also stand to lose; as revaluation of the area at these prices would drive up property tax bills substantially. This land at risk is a heron rookery. It is habitat for bitterns, bald eagles, turtles, amphibiansit is a nursery for small fish. And, it serves as a major filtration system for 440-acre Loon Lake; which due to the undeveloped mile of camp shoreline and the fact that many homeowners have not cut the hillsides between their cottages and the lakeshore is one of the most intact inland lakes in Michigan's Lower Peninsula; maybe the most. I owe my own environmental awareness to Homer Roberts. I was once his counselor assistant at the camp as a teen in the 1960s. As an adult, I have been involved in major efforts to protect wild lands in the Pacific Northwest and am a founder of the Ancient Forest protection movement; also the founder of two private preserves in Oregon and Washington. My dedication to Nature traces back to days spent in and around the Loon Lake swamp with Homer Roberts. This proposal breaks my, my siblings', cousins' and childhood friends' hearts. It cannot go forward. Please join our effort to roll back this luxury development and secure permanent protection for this priceless remnant ecosystem. Contact: Loon Lake Lutheran Retreat Center at: Toll Free: 877-264-1004, Fax: 989-728-5161 E-mail: LLLRC@centurytel.net Box 126, Hale, MI 48739 MICHAEL DONNELLY can be contacted at pahtoo@aol.com or (503) 581-2616

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