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WHO RULES: THE ISRAEL LOBBY OR UNCLE SAM? The answer at last! Uri Avnery, former Knesset member, assesses the Lobby's power. "If the Israeli government wanted a law tomorrow annulling the 10 Commandments, 95 U.S. Senators (at least) would sign the bill forthwith." But, yes, in the end the dog wags the tail. Fifty years ago Allen Ginsberg's "Howl" blew the cobwebs out of millions of young minds and drove a stake through the heart of Eisenhower's America. Lenni Brenner remembers Ginsberg in the East Village. Dr Mengele died in exile, in disguise. Dr Ishii died rich and recognized, in his own Tokyo home. Christopher Reed on Japanese WW2 medical tortures and how the U.S. covered them up. 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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Today's Stories May 13 / 14, 2006 Kathy Kelly May 12, 2006 Michael Snedeker Dave Lindorff Leah Fishbein
/ RJ Schinner Brian Kwoba Chris Kromm Kai Diekmann David Swanson Virginia Tilley Website of the
Day
May 11, 2006 Sunsara Taylor Jonathan Cook Tariq Ali Wayne S. Smith Mike Whitney Pratyush Chandra Joshua Frank Mickey Z. Francis Boyle Edward S. Herman
/ David Peterson Website of the
Day
May 10, 2006 Werther Larry Birns / Michael Lettieri Ramzy Baroud Kevin Zeese Evelyn Pringle Amira Hass Michael Donnelly Ron Jacobs Sharon Smith Website of the Day
May 9, 2006 Ray McGovern M. Shahid Alam Moshe Adler Walter MIgnolo Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor William S. Lind Todd Chretien Dave Lindorff Ishmael Reed Website of the
Day
May 8, 2006 Kate McCabe Paul Craig Roberts Col. Dan Smith Norman Solomon Ingmar Lee Robert Jensen Ricardo Alarcon Will Youmans / M. Kay Siblani Alexander Cockburn Website of the
Day
May 6 / 7, 2006 Jeffrey St. Clair Ariel Dorfman Joe Allen Fred Gardner Jeff Taylor Saul Landau Stephen Philion Trish Schuh Ralph Nader Robert Fisk Paul Cantor John Holt James Ryan Lawrence R. Velvel Greg Moses Laray Polk Ron Jacobs Ben Tripp Mickey Z. Jeffrey St. Clair Poets' Basement Website of the Week
May 5, 2006 Vijay Prashad Robert Fisk David Swanson Mearsheimer / Walt Dave Lindorff Sarah Ferguson CounterPunch
News Service Corporate Crime Reporter Website of the
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May 4, 2006 John F. Sugg Jonathan Cook Roger Burbach Chris Dols Christopher Brauchli Tony Swindell Website of the Day
May 3, 2006 Robert Bryce Paul Craig Roberts James Petras Lee Sustar David Bolton Joshua Frank Jeffery R. Webber Website of the
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May 2, 2006 Evelyn Pringle Tariq Ali Saul Landau Paul Craig Roberts Gary Leupp Ron Jacobs Sen. Russell
Feingold Anthony Papa Website of the
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May Day, 2006 Norman Finkelstein Christopher Reed Michael Donnelly Dave Zirin Mike Whitney Gilad Atzmon Missy Comley Beattie Alexander Cockburn Website of the
Day
April 29 / 30, 2006 Peter Linebaugh Ralph Nader Robert Bryce Rev. William
Alberts Lee Sustar John Chuckman Eric Ruder Seth Sandronsky Ron Jacobs Ben Tripp Fred Gardner Don Monkerud Tommy Stevenson Lettrist International Contratiempo St. Clair, Vest
and D'Antoni Poets' Basement Website of the
Weekend
April 28, 2006 James Ridgeway Ramzy Baroud Sarah Knopp William S. Lind Werther April 27, 2006 Winslow T. Wheeler Robert Fisk Juan Santos Robert Jensen Dave Lindorff Jose Pertierra
April 26,2006 Robin Philpot Sherry Wolf Pratyush Chandra Joshua Frank Gary
Leupp Bill
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April 25, 2006 Gary
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Craig Roberts Linda
S. Heard Ralph
Nader Mike
Whitney Michael
Donnelly Sharon
Smith Website
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Weekend
Edition The Fallacies of GreenpeaceWind Growers and the Rainbow Warriors By MIKE ROSELLE Last month the Cape Wind project on Nantucket Sound was dealt a major setback when congress gave vocal opponent and Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney the authority to kill the controversial project. The proposed power plant is an expansive industrial complex of 130-massive turbines and a ten-story substation that would spread across 24-square miles of the Sound. Greenpeace, as we have reported here, is spending big money promoting this project, and attacking anyone who is against it. On August 17, several courageous Greenpeace activists challenged the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound in the cold, choppy, shark-infested waters off of Martha's Vineyard. The Alliance was sponsoring a Save the Sound event with Bobby Kennedy of the Natural Resource Defense Council. Kennedy was on his yacht when two Greenpeace boats pulled alongside with a banner reading "Bobby, You Are on the Wrong Boat." Bobby was in a sailboat. The Greenpeacers were in high-speed motorboats. I am not making this up. No doubt the protestors endured a serious pummeling under a heavy barrage of tasty hors d'oeuvres launched from the deck of the larger vessel. And true to their non-violent tradition, Greenpeace refrained from responding in kind, even though they were well supplied with granola bars. Susan Nickerson, Executive Director of the Alliance suggested that Greenpeace is being hypocritical in supporting this project. "Greenpeace has opposed an offshore wind plant in Scotland over concerns that endangered birds could be slaughtered by the blades on these turbines," said Nickerson. "We have a similar concern here over roseate terns and other endangered species, but apparently that is of little concern to Greenpeace." According to a press release from the Alliance, Greenpeace has opposed the Lewis Wind Farm in Scotland over concerns for endangered bird populations and because not enough is known about the project's potential avian impact. Again, according to the Alliance, "Greenpeace has stated that the Lewis project was being led by money rather than the needs of the environment." There was no mention of Greenpeace's position on the Lewis Wind Farm in the Wind power section of the Greenpeace USA website. But a web search did reveal many stories about Greenpeace's opposition to the Lewis Wind Farm. A quote in The Scotsman by Greenpeace UK puts it bluntly, "Although it is a staunch advocate of renewable forms of power generation, including wind, the environmental organization believes that the proposal to build the world's biggest wind farm on the island, producing 700 megawatts of electricity, will have a negative impact on populations of rare and protected birds, including golden eagles." Greenpeace says the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound is a front group for a bunch of wealthy landowners who don't want to have to look at windmills from their multi-million dollar houses on Martha's Vineyard. I have looked at both of their websites. Greenpeace dismisses the Alliance as an evil incarnate and spends hundreds of words describing how they used doctored photos and maps, as well as unproven claims to alarm the citizens about the environmental impacts of this massive project. They claim the Alliance is nothing but a well-funded, pro-industry public relations machine masquerading as an environmental group. The Alliance counters by saying they are just local people trying to protect wildlife, recreation and the local lifestyle. I am not trying to get laughs here, but this whole picture is so ridiculous that I am getting more and more pissed off about it by the nanosecond. First, Greenpeace used to be a scrappy environmental group that took on the worst of the earth destroyers. Now they are trying to force an alternative technology on a town that doesn't seem to want it. Are there no better sites on which to put 300 windmills without getting in a public pissing match with RFK Jr.? I have received many responses to my recent comments against the Cape Wind project and not one person has said they support it. But what makes me really angry is that this is what Greenpeace considers an effective Global Warming campaign. Send us your money and we will put on our survival suits, get in our rubber boats and go risk our lives confronting the mighty earth destroyer Bobby Kennedy. Meanwhile, cloistered in their Chinatown offices in the Nation's capitol, they are doing nothing to stop strip mining and Mountaintop Removal in the Southern Appalachians, or against any of the hundreds of really bad energy projects that will cancel out any good their wind farm would accomplish even if they do succeed in getting it built. While it is important to slow global warming, it is misleading to say that these kinds of projects will significantly reduce carbon emissions. Among the more practical and less costly ways to achieve CO2 reductions without sacrificing wildlife habitat and open spaces are energy efficiency and conservation. A strictly enforced fifty-five mile-an-hour speed limit would save more energy than a hundred new wind farms. And while we need new sources of cleaner energy, no new system that seeks to replace fossil fuels can meet this growing energy demand. We would have to cover the Earth with windmills. We need to address growth, not only population growth, but also the growth in demand for all natural resources. Surely the fact that we have saturated our atmosphere with our toxic gaseous wastes means that we have exceeded our limits. In his excellent history, Greenpeace, An Insiders Account, Rex Weyler captured the passion and courage of what has been one of the most important environmental organizations since the founding of the Sierra Club by John Muir. For me, the hardest part of reading Weyler's book was to see the stark contrast in how the organization used to respond to global environmental threats like nuclear weapons, ocean dumping, Arctic and Amazon development, and whaling -- and how they respond now. How can you compare harassing Bobby on his sailboat with hiking or sailing into a nuclear bomb test, or getting between a whale and a whalers harpoon, or to fighting illegal logging in the Amazon? Maybe I'm getting cantankerous in my old age. It does no good for one environmentalist to go after another in public. But whether you like him or not, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is an environmentalist and Greenpeace and the Breakthrough Institute are going after him. The Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound may be a front group for a bunch of rich bastards, but they are an environmental group nonetheless, just as much as the Pew Foundation or Ted Turner, the Beastie Boys or any other group of wealthy donors. Nowhere in the Alliance web page is there a link to the sites of the nuclear or coal industries. Or to any other suspect websites. In spite of what must have been an exhaustive investigation into the financial backers of the Alliance, all Greenpeace has uncovered to date is that they do indeed seem to be a bunch of rich bastards trying to protect their million-dollar views. And yes, they have Photoshop and are not afraid to use it. If we apply Greenpeace logic to every environmental organization in the USA, then rich bastards fund us all. All of us want to protect our wildlife habitat, our view sheds, our recreation opportunities, and our local culture. Not all of us want a big wind farm in our neighborhood. We have plenty of good sites for wind farms here in Montana and they are building new ones every day. We also have lots of rich people and more are coming every day. So, Martha's Vineyard, Greenpeace and Kennedy, we will make you a deal, we will take your windmills if you will take our rich people. Mike Roselle continues to point out the fallacies
of Greenpeace at Lowbagger.org.
E-mail him at roselle@lowbagger.org.
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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. |