Today's Stories

July 22, 2009

Bernard Chazelle
How to Argue Against Torture

July 21, 2009

Sasan Fayazmanesh
The Iranian Election and Its Aftermath

Uri Avnery
Breaking the Silence on Israeli War Crimes

Dean Baker
Séance on Wall Street

Jonathan Cook
Team Twitter: Israel's Internet War

Dave Lindorff
Saving Private Bergdahl

Andy Worthington
Interrogating the Uighurs

David Macaray
Heat, Dust and OSHA

Carl Finamore
The Deferential Party

Harvey Wasserman
Cronkite and Three Mile Island

Walter Brasch
The Marie Antoinettes of Health Care

Website of the Day
Linebaugh: Magna Carta and the Commons

July 20, 2009

Pam Martens
Judicial Apartheid

Nikolas Kozloff
Honduras and the Big Stick: Obama's Bullish Behavoir in Latin America

Paul Craig Roberts
Threatening Iran

Deepak Tripathi
Obama's Policy on China and Iran

Ira Glunts
Netanyahu's Time Bomb: Building in the Vineyard of the Mufti

P. Sainath
Put Your Money Down, Boys

Binoy Kampmark
The Moon Landing and the Cold War

Stephen Fleischman
The First Anchorman

Norman Solomon
Cronkite and Vietnam: Beyond the Hype

Andy Worthington
Predictable Chaos as Gitmo Trials Resume

Ron Jacobs
Out of the Haze, Into the Darkness: Recalling 1979

Website of the Day
Why Publishing Can't be Saved (as it is)

July 17-19, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
"Watch What We Do, Not What We Say"

Nikolas Kozloff
Chiquita in Latin America: From Arbenz to Zelaya

Joanne Mariner
CIA Apples: Bad at the Top of the Tree

Joe Bageant
America's White Underclass

Jonathan Cook
Israeli Road Signs: Wiping Arabic Names Off the Map

Saul Landau
Why So Much Sympathy for Madoff's Dupes and So Little for the Poor?

John Ross
Jurassic Fallout in Mexico

Sue Sturgis
Senator Sessions, Race and Impartiality

Anita Sinha /
Daniel Farbman
The Ricci Case and the Myth of Special Treatment

Peter Morici
Obama's Donut Economics

Pervez Hoodbhoy
Whither Pakistan? A Five-Year Forecast

Ramzy Baroud
Gaza and the Language of Power

Greg Moses
The Real Demand Crisis

Kia Mistilis
The Niger Delta Crisis

Missy Beattie
The Placebo President

David Ker Thomson
How Not to See: Things to Tell Your Eyeballs

James G. Abourezk
Evil Spirits: the Booze Strip in Indian Country

Paul Richards
Why Does Jon Tester Want to Log Wild Montana?

Dave Lindorff
Dark Days for Working People (With Three Small Rays of Light)

Marc Levy
Just Like Hanoi Jane

Matt Siegfried
The Good War Goes Hot

Stephen Martin
Panopticon Blues

Ben Sonnenberg
Sembène's Faat Kiné

David Macaray
Casablanca: When Melodrama Trumped History

Charles R. Larson
A Pakistani, Victorian Novel Celebrating Women

David Yearsley
That's Women for You: Abbas Kiarostami's Così

Lorenzo Wolff
Death Rattle and Roll: the Sound From England's Gutters

Poets' Basement
Payne, Anderson and Williams

Website of the Weekend
Hitler Learns of Sarah Palin's Resignation

July 16, 2009

Paul Craig Roberts
What Economy?

Afshin Rattansi Iranian Planes and the Hidden Toll of Economic Sanctions

Gregory V. Button
The Search for Environmental Justice in Perry County, Alabama

Evan Knappenberger
Profile of a Deserter

Michelle Bollinger
Why is Leonard Peltier Still in Prison?

Russell Mokhiber
White House to ABC News: No Obama Single-Payer Doc

Belén Fernández
Iranian Penetration, Oh My!

Alice Walker
What is Torture Like? A Letter to Obama

Nicholas Dearden
Paying the Climate Debt: the G-8's Troubling Model

Albert Osueke
Sotomayor and the Identity Mountain

Website of the Day
Sotomayor for the Prosecution

July 15, 2009

Manuel Garcia, Jr.
The Assassination Bureau

Vijay Prashad
A Political Recession

Dean Baker
Stimulus Arithmetic

Ray McGovern
Cheney Sweating Bullets

Jonathan Cook
Jenin's Model of "Economic Peace"

David Rosen
Shouts From the Gallery: the Sotomayor Hearings and the Culture Wars

Eric Walberg
Uighurs vs. Afghans: a Study in Contrast

Greg Moses
Three Dimensions of a Complete Stimulus Plan

Sousan Hammad
Decolonizing Israel

Binoy Kampmark
The Trial of Charles Taylor

Tracy McLellan
The Story of My Arrest

Website of the Day
11 Days in Saudi Gitmo

July 14, 2009

Eamonn McCann
The Emperors of Bombast: Bono, U2 and the Crisis of World Capitalism

Joanne Mariner
Obama's New Euphemism

Franklin Spinney
The Taliban Rope-a-Dope

Steve Heilig
Walking Mount Tam: an Interview with Gary Snyder

Ali Abunimah
Hamas' Choice

Dave Lindorff
The End of "Nice" Health Care Reform

Nikolas Kozloff
The Politics of Destabilization: McCain and Honduras

Ellen Brown
From Golden State to Subprime State

Alice Slater
How US Missile Defense Plans Sabotaged Nuclear Disarmament Talks With Russia

Ron Jacobs
Protest U.S. Aggression

Joe Allen
The Fight to Save James Hickman in Jim Crow-Style Chicago

Website of the Day
Mel Brooks Does the French Revolution

July 13, 2009

Uri Avnery
The Essence of the Regime

Mike Whitney
The Deflating Economy

P. Sainath
How the World Depression Hits Orissa

Gareth Porter
A US / Iraq Conflict on Iran

Paul Moore
Rap in the Streets, Rap in the Suites

Tim Wise
Off the Deep End: Private Clubs, Public Prejudice

Andy Worthington Former Insider Shatters Credibility of Military Commissions

David Macaray
Cartoon Voices: Serf's Up in Hollywood

Cal Winslow
The Healthcare Worker War

Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Spring in the Time of Obama

Website of the Day
Washington's Deep Game with China

July 10-12, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
Obama's Biden Problem

José Pertierra
The Cuban Five: a Cold War Case in a Post-Cold War World

John Ross
After the Honduran Coup

Conn Hallinan
The Settlements and the Quartet

Nikolas Kozloff
C Street Band: Sex Scandals, Moral Hypocrisy and the Far Right Agenda in Latin America

Clifton Ross /
Marcy Rein
U.S. and Honduras: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Good Neighbor

Carl Ginsburg
Summers' Clouded Crystal Ball

Michael Neumann
Say It Loud, Say It Proud: There is No God!

Gilad Atzmon
The Left and Islam: Thinking Outside of the Secular Box

Jeffrey St. Clair
The Parable of the Golden Parachute

Ellen Hodgson Brown
California Dreamin': How the State Can Beat Its Budget Woes

Jim Goodman
Rural America Needs More Than Listening Sessions

Christopher Bickerton
Europe's New Politics of Hard Times

Wendell Potter
Health Care Industry Adopts Tobacco Lobby's Tactics

Dave Lindorff
CIA Lies: Why Isn't Congress in Open Revolt?

David Ker Thomson
Switchbacking Toward Bastille Day

Anthony DiMaggio
The Michael Jackson Feeding Frenzy

Raymond Lawrence
Michael Jackson as Sexual Pervert: the Calumnies of Peter King

Walid El Houri
Neda and Marwa: a Tale of Two Murdered Women

Stephanie Westbrook
Yes, We Camp

Roger Gaess
The Shades of Highgate Cemetery

David Yearsley
Tara, America's Dream House

Kim Nicolini
Caution: Men at Work, Robbing Banks

Poets' Basement
Five Poems From the Japanese

Website of the Weekend
Free Tiga and Hugh!

July 9, 2009

Ronnie Cummings
How Industry Giants are Undermining the Organic Foods Movement

Jonathan Cook
Two-State Solution, Israeli-Style

Nikolas Kozloff
Honduran Destablization, Inc.: Otto Reich and the International Republican Institute

James Bovard
McNamara's Other Body Count

Norman Solomon Afghanistan: the Escalation Scam

Allan Nairn
Indonesia Gets to Pick Its Killer

Andy Worthington
Revamping the Military Commissions

Tomas Borge
The Sadsack Soldiers of Honduras

Nadia Hijab
Palestinian Titanic

Paul Krassner
How Jeff Goldblum Didn't Die

Website of the Day
Dave Lindorff Wants Your Money--Will Give Good Reports

July 8, 2009

Saul Landau
In Amazonia

Dean Baker
The Green Shoots are Dead: Why the Economy Needs a Third Stimulus

Winslow T. Wheeler
Gates, Congress and the F-22

Eric Walberg
Obama in Russia

Ray McGovern
Is Texas Harboring a Torture Decider?

David Rosen
When Sadism Goes Systematic: Prison Rape as Policy

Dr. Mona El Farra
Gaza From a Distance

Ron Jacobs
McNamara and the Post: When Idiocy and Hubris Merge

Benjamin Dangl
High Stakes in Honduras

Alan Farago
How I Almost Pitched McNamara Into the Sea

Website of the Day
Ayatollah So

July 7, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
McNamara: From the Tokyo Firestorm to the World Bank

Uri Avnery
Israeli Court Rebukes Military

Brian M. Downing
Crossing the Helmand

Gary Leupp
Biden, Israel and Iran

Gregory A. Burris
My Brush With Homeland Security

David Macaray
When in Doubt, Blame a Labor Union

Laura Flanders
Obama Hushes Health Care Advocates

Alan Farago
Princple Over Principal

Greg Moses
Texas Patels Take Over Dallas Bank

Dan Bacher
Three Big Lies About the Peripheral Canal

Website of the Day
Tragedy at Toncontin

July 6, 2009

Patrick Cockburn
Saddam Hussein's FBI Interviews

Diana Johnstone
Zionist Fanatics Practice Serial Vandalism in Paris

Nikolas Kozloff
Honduran Coup to Venezuelan Coup: Same Old Globalizers and Torture School Grads

Gary Leupp
Operation Khanjar Begins

Jonathan Cook
Israel Calls on Ultra-Orthodox Jews to Stop "Arab Takeover"

Tim Wise
Of Fireworks and False Memories

Franklin Lamb
Cynthia McKinney and the Kidnapping of the Spirit of Humanity

Charles R. Larson
Sarah Palin, Plain and Tall

Carlos Benemann
California's Bingo Bondage: Getting Paid in IOUs

Shepherd Bliss
The Soulless Machine: Caught in the Cellphone Snare

Jerry Kroth
Stuart Levey and World War III

Karyn Strickler
A Fell-Swoop Moment Missed

Website of the Day
The Rise in Military-Backed Public Schools

July 3-5, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
Gob Smacked

Eamonn Fingleton
Detroit's Collapse: the Untold Story

Jeffrey St. Clair
Is the Bald Eagle Really Back?

Mike Whitney
Running on Empty

Pam Martens
The Parable of Michael Jackson's Debts

George Ciccariello-Maher
The Counter-Revolution Will Not be Tweeted

Paul Craig Roberts
The Big Whorehouse on the Potomac

Patrick Cockburn
The Haggling Over Iraqi Oil

Anthony DiMaggio
A Perilous Path: Iraq and the Language of De-Escalation

Roger Burbach
Honduran Coup: Target Left?

John Ross
Left's Grip on Mexico City Slips

Nikolas Kozloff
Meet Jim Demint: Coup Apologist

Gareth Porter
The Iran Canard

Andy Worthington
Finally, a Trial Date in the African Embassy Bombings Case

Saul Landau
Bad Times, Worse Habits

David Macaray
How We Spend Our Money

Adam Federman
The Recovery That Wasn't

Jane Slaughter Labor's Vague Rally for Health Care

Russell Mokhiber Black Caucus Muzzled on Israeli Kidnapping of McKinney

Robert Jensen
Beyond Independence

Robert Bryce
Hey, Paul Krugman, Here are 2.4 Billion More Climate Traitors

Belén Fernandez
The Situation in Honduras

Missy Comley Beattie
Would Jesus Pack Heat?

C. G. Estabrook
La Cina e Vicina

Stephen Martin
The Fog of Economic War

Charles R. Larson
Adichie on Her Own

Lorenzo Wolff
A Voice Like a Newsreel: the Soul of James Carr and the Civil Rights Movement

Kim Nicolini
The System That Hijacked New York

Poets' Basement
Farrelly, Kazak and Stadler

Website of the Weekend
Paul Krassner v. Larry King

July 2, 2009

Andrew Cockburn
The Wall Street White House

Nikolas Kozloff
Spinning the Honduran Coup

Wendell Potter
Obama's False Friends of Health Care Reform

Ellen Hodgson Brown
California's Empty Wallet

Christian Christensen Iran: Networked Dissent?

Patrick Irelan
Lost in Patagonia

Binoy Kampmark Returning Iraq

Nicola Nasser
Ethnic Cleansing as State Policy

Brian Tokar
Climate Bill: Cap(italize) and Trade(Off)

Dan Bacher
Panama Canal North?

Website of the Day
Scheuer on Immigration: "The only chance we have as a country right now is for Osama bin Laden to deploy and detonate a major weapon in the United States."

July 1, 2009

Vijay Prashad
Iran and Us

Alberto Vallente Thorensen
Why Zelaya's Actions Were Legal

Paul Craig Roberts
Pirates of the Mediterranean

Robert Weissman
150 Years

Manuel García, Jr.
The New Crisis in Aviation

Victor Figueroa-Clark / Pablo Navarrete
Honduras, a Coup With No Future

Norman Solomon
The NYT and Troop Deaths: Abstract Quality Journalism

Franklin Lamb
Remembering Amnon Kapeliouk

Martha Rosenberg
When Doctors Boo

Diane Rejman
Mothers and Military Lies

Website of the Day
The Color of the Race Problem is White

June 30, 2009

Michael Hudson
Debt Deflation Arrives

Esam Al-Amin
Iran and Washington's Hidden Hand

Benjamin Dangl
Showdown in Honduras

Jonathan Cook
Israeli Doctors Collude in Torture

Franklin Lamb
Hezbollah After the Elections

George Wuerthner
Beetle Hysteria ... Again: the Truth About Bugs, Fires and Ecosystems

Todd Gordon
Acceptable Versus Unacceptable Repression

Ron Jacobs
Mark Sanford, Sexual Liberation and LGBT Equality

Kenneth Libby
Conditions for Citizenship

Julian Vigo
Feeling Michael Jackson

Website of the Day
Inside the Mega-Churches

June 29, 2009

Ishmael Reed
The Persecution of Michael Jackson

Nikolas Kozloff
The Coup in Honduras: Obama's Real Message to Latin America?

Clifton Ross
Coups and Constitutions: From Bolivia to Honduras

Patrick Cockburn
Why Iraq is Now the Most Corrupt Country on the Planet

Uri Avnery
Between Tel Aviv and Tehran

Conn Hallinan
Dealing With North Korea: Why Threats and Sanctions Will Backfire

James G. Abourezk
Where the Money Isn't Going

Ralph Nader
The Holes in Obama's Financial Regulation Plan

Carol Miller
Why Fiscal Conservatives Should Love Medicare-for-All

Greg Moses
Jobs First

Website of the Day
Key Leaders of Honduran Coup Trained in the US

June 26-28, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
The Hate Crimes Bill: How Not to Remember Matthew Shepard

Jeffrey St. Clair
Meet the Retreads: Obama's Used Green Team

Doug Peacock
Elk River: History and the Yellowstone

Daniel Wolff
The Night Before: a Glimpse of the Lenape

Mike Whitney
What the Big Banks Have Won

John Ross
The New York Times and Stolen Elections

David Rosen
Cry, Hypocrite, Cry: the Tradition of Sex Scandals and American Politicians

Emily Ratner
Thoughts on Manhood From the Rafah Tunnel

Gareth Porter
Airstrike Report Belies "Blame Taliban" Line

Farid Marjai
Green, But Not Velvet

Nadia Hijab
The Rift in Iran: Memo to the "Do Something" Brigade

Paul Craig Roberts
Gun Control: What's the Agenda?

Fred Gardner
FDR's Real Defining Moment: Ending Prohibition

Carl Ginsburg
Obama's Father's Day

Paul Watson
Fear and Loathing in Madeira

David Ker Thomson
Nothing

Farzana Versey
The Man in the Mirror: Michael Jackson as Tramp

Geoff Berne
Obama and Charter Schools: The Showdown at Schottenstein

Todd Alan Price
Ohio: Birthplace of Charter Education ... and Opposition to It

Ramzy Baroud
People for Sale in a Hungry World

Jeff Sher
Health Care Showdown

Dr. Carol Paris Despite My Arrest by Max Baucus, I Will Continue to Advocate for Quality Health Care for All

Walter Brasch Adultery as Family Value?

Glen Johnson
The Village and the Wall

Charlotte Laws
Hold the MSG!

Charles R. Larson
Dickens in Morocco, Sort Of

Kim Nicolini
The Erasure of Art

David Yearsley
Yankee Prof Takes on Dallas

Lorenzo Wolff
When the Songs Remain the Same

Poets' Basement
Larson, Davies, McLellan and Gardner

Website of the Weekend
Kayakers vs. Shell Oil

June 25, 2009

Kathy Kelly
Now We See You, Now We Don't

Jack Bratich
You Provide the Tweets, We'll Provide the Info War: the Media and the Iranian Protests

Wendell Potter
The Health Insurance Industry v. Health Care Reform: a Former Insurance Industry Insider Tells All

Charles R. Larson
Don't Cry for Him, Argentina! GOP Sex Scandal of the Week

Alan Farago
The Tears of Mark Sanford

Jonathan Cook
Israeli Firms Accused of Profiting Off Holocaust

Gareth Porter
Khobar Bombings: Telltale Signs of Saudi Fraud

Bitta Mostofi /
Bill Quigley
"You Will Not Get Past Us"

David Macaray
Six Ways to Reinvigorate Labor

Mark Schuller
Haiti's Elections: "Beat the Dog Too Hard"

Website of the Day
Worst Slide Story

June 24, 2009

Andrew Cockburn
How the U.S. Has Secretly Backed Pakistan's Nuclear Program From Day One

Dean Baker
Making Financial Regulation Work

Andy Worthington
The Story of Abdul Rahim al-Ginco

James Bovard
Obama and the Torturers

Diana Gibson /
Ray McGovern
Torture Eats the Soul

P. Sainath
The Age of the Everyday Billionaire

Gareth Porter
Investigating the Khobar Tower Bombing: Why Was Al Qaeda Excluded From the Suspects List?

Robert Alvarez
The Department of Energy's Nuclear Albatross

Dave Lindorff
Medicare for All

Steven Colatrella Remembering Giovanni Arrighi

Website of the Day
Protest as Terrorism

June 23, 2009

David Price
Obama's Classroom Spies

Patrick Cockburn
Iraq Reels Toward a New Era

James Ridgeway /
Jean Casella
Bi-Partisan Bull on Health Care: Three Ex-Senators Get It Up for the Health Care Industry

Dave Lindorff
Using the Economic Crisis to Attack Workers

Carmelo Ruiz-Marrero
Puerto Rico: Biotech Island

Gary Leupp
Dennis Ross Moves to the White House

Brian M. Downing
The Erosion of the Mullahs' Monolith

Robert Bryce
Are Theocracies Doomed?

Nicholas Dearden
The G8 is Dead

Yousef Munayyer
Seeing Through Israeli Delay Tactics

Website of the Day
The Great White Father of America

June 22, 2009

Michael Hudson
Obama's (Latest) Surrender to Wall Street

Esam Al-Amin
What Actually Happened in the Iranian Presidential Election? A Hard Look at the Numbers

Chris Floyd
Dexter's Legions in Afghanistan

Jack Z. Bratich
The Fog Machine: Iran, Social Networks and Genetically Modified Grassroots Organizations

Atash Yaghmaian
We Children of the Revolution

Laura Carlsen
Victory in the Amazon

Paul Craig Roberts
The U.S. Regime-Change Recipe for Iran

Vijay Prashad
Gun v. Butter: Now You are Only Poor

Fred Gardner
Charles Lynch Gets a Year and a Day (No Thanks to Eric Holder)

Andy Thayer
The Blank Check: How We Got the Obama-DOMA Debacle

David Macaray
Unions and the Newspaper Crisis

Website of the Day
The Most Spied Upon Town in America?

June 19 - 21, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
I Become an American

Jeffrey St. Clair
Firebrand: Rod Coronado's Flame War

Patrick Cockburn
Who Will Control Iraq's Oil?

Al Giordano
What the Left Should be Learning From Iran

Henry A. Giroux
The Iranian Uprisings and the Challenge of the New Media

Anthony DiMaggio
The Electoral Façade

Paul Craig Roberts
Are the Iranian Protests Another US Orchestrated "Color Revolution?"

John Ross
46 Dead Mexican Toddlers: Sacrificed on the Altar of Neoliberalism

Gareth Porter
Spinning Civilian Deaths in Afghanistan

Carl Ginsburg
Obama's Bix Fix: Placating the Bankers, Again

Tommi Avicolli Mecca
40 Years After Stonewall: From Smash the Church to Going to the Chapel

Joe Bageant
Workers' Rights: No Balls, No Gains

Serge Halimi
Protectionism: We've Been Here Before

P. Sainath
Price of Rice, Price of Power in India

Jim Goodman
The Claim Deniers: Why the Health Insurance Industry Doesn't Deserve Our Trust

Dave Lindorff
Obama's Health Care Waterloo

Rannie Amiri
Bush Jumps Over Maine, Carter Lands in Gaza

Robert Fantina
Iran, Obama and McCain

Harvey Wasserman
Big Nuke's Radioactive Hoax in Impoverished Ohio

Walter Brasch
They Got Away With Murder: 12 Angry White People

David Ker Thomson
This Moment's Bill of Rights

Charles R. Larson
No Voice: Telling Her Mother's Story

David Yearsley
Escape From the Torture Chamber

Kim Nicolini
When the Closet is the Culprit

Ben Sonnenberg
Rossellini and the Art of Ambiguity

Poets' Basement
Beatty and Kowitt

Website of the Weekend
Grown in Yellowstone, Slaughtered in Montana

July 22, 2009

Forest Health Thinning, Biomass and the 58.5 Million Acre Fib

The Whoppers Behind WOPR

By MICHAEL DONNELLY

The foundation-dependent professional enviro eco-blogs are humming with praise for the Obama Administration’s recent desertion of the Bush Western Oregon Plan Revision (WOPR). Said whopper was an attempt by Big Timber lobbyists/lawyers and captive politicians of both parties to overturn some of the few actual protective provisions of the Clinton Northwest Forest Plan.
The area involved is isolated islands of the paltry remains of the once-vast old growth forests of the coastal mountains of Western Oregon (hence, the name). These lands are mostly in the notorious railroad “checkerboard” where advancing rail lines were granted every other section (square mile tracts) within twenty miles of the rails. They were reclaimed by the public in the early 20th Century during the brief spasm of reform at the end of the Robber Baron era.

The lands in question are isolated islands because the other, privately-held squares of the checkerboard were long ago leveled. With the “edge-effect” from those cut-over sections drying them out and allowing tree-killing insect/fungi pathways and with miles of logging roads crossing thru them, the tattered Public-owned squares rarely hold a full 640 acres of Ancient Forest. Though the five-years-in-the-making plan promised to cover "millions of acres," it really is about clearcutting these remnants which number in the 100s of thousands of acres max.

The lands are managed by the more industry/extraction-friendly Bureau of Land Management (BLM), not the Forest Service (USFS) which has a more Multiple Use mandate - which renders the USFS slightly less rapacious. Among the myriad public lands' management agencies, the BLM (“Bovines, Logging and Mining”) has always been the government’s primary handmaiden of extractive industries.

The BLM and Big Timber bristled at any restriction on strip-mining the remnant forests from the start. So, the Bush gang decided to run away from a welcome industry lawsuit and just rewrite the Clinton plan allowing for even greater extraction of the ancient trees than was allowed. Yep, they weren’t even off-limits in the first place under Clinton’s plan that reinstated old growth logging, which had been stopped during Bush the Elder. The extent of the Clinton Plan’s protective measures merely required more species and (most-importantly) watershed studies before allowing further logging.

The Green Establishment, which had no problem calling Clinton’s resumption of such logging “our greatest victory,” jumped at the chance to cry foul and raise funds on the WOPR. Every group even marginally connected to the coastal forests jumped in and the foundation grants flowed.

The WOPR which didn’t have a prayer of ever being implemented became the Lower 48 version of the Tongass National Forest and Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) two-step; where every year industry pushes for more logging and road-building on the magnificent roadless forests of the Tongass (more on that below) and for oil drilling in ANWR. The Greens quickly join Industry with competing end-of-civilization-as-we-know-it clarion calls and endless fund-raising letters/e-mails. Next year? Same thing. An endless fountain of dollars and influence and easy votes for captive politicians on either side. Yet, nothing ever actually changes.

So, here we had WOPR with Industry up in arms rallying their troops against the “job-killing preservationists” – while continuing to export raw logs, wood chips and pulp from their own forested lands. We had the greens rallying their troops over a potential, never implemented, wishful thinking Industry wet dream. As usual, while many greens were occupied cashing the grants of their foundation masters, distracting their memebrhips and preparing the hollow self-congratulations, the real story lay elsewhere.

Chainsaw Surgery

While the WOPR charade was front and center, behind the scenes a very destructive, even potentially deadly to much of life on Earth, effort was underway which has tripled logging on public lands with the full blessing of the Democrat-captive greens.

A few years ago, bio-this and bio-that became all the rage. We were going to grow our way out of dependence on fossil fuels, etc. Hopefully, we’ve already seen the folly of burning food in our SUVs. But a deafening silence has met the plans to thin out our forests for “Forest Health” and come up with ways to use the “product.”

The culprit here is supposedly the dead and dying trees (a quite natural occurrence in any healthy forest that's been known by researchers for decades – as a forest in equilibrium will have a third of its trees either dead and dying - see The Redesigned Forest by Chris Maser ). The other culprit is the “overstocked” plantations that replaced the native forests that were cut down. For many decades, industry called the cutting of these forests “replacing the decadent, biological deserts of old growth with thrifty, young plantations…”

Now, the thick mono-culture plantations are seen as a threat that must be addressed. Of course, the main bogeyman here is wildfire, not the inherent loss of biodiversity these plantations represent. Wildfire is used to scare people into supporting wide-scale tree and brush removal. Yet scientific studies have completely refuted the argument that logging is needed to reduce wildfire. In fact, it’s been proven decidedly counterproductive.

Despite the evidence, we now have an army of young folks employed by the relevant agencies out in the woods cutting trees – dead and dying; but also thinning young stands and cutting 150-year-old large trees wherever they can – as in the current 95% “thin” of 150-year-old natural stands in Oregon’s McKenzie River watershed.

Forests-to-Electricity

A few years ago, Bush Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne held a series of Town Hall-type meetings across the West. He rabidly pushed “Forest Health” thinning. The Big Greens jumped on board, as the idiocy of “Forest Health” logging came out of the enviro side of the equation in the first place. Any eco-group that backed this chainsaw surgery saw their grant portfolios swell.

But, even Kempthorne acknowledged that such an effort would create “tons of product” at a time when there was little demand. So, plans to utilize the forests for Biomass were rapidly unshelved.

The main use would be in steam-to-electricity plants fired by “wood waste biomass.” The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), the sham non-profit that religiously blesses wild forest logging as “sustainable,” quickly jumped up and, along with other “eco-watchdogs,” declared this removal of massive amounts of biomass to be, you guessed it, “sustainable.” The fairy godmother of the Green Establishment, the Pew Charitable Trusts, rushes to claim any form of energy to be “renewable” while never once promoting true conservation efforts. (Just wait until this new, insane, one-step-away from Soylent Green form gets it’s "sustainable certification.")

Utilities leapt in and added forests-to-electricity to their list of “renewable sources of energy.” The list already includes such questionably renewable sources as hydro-electricity, centralized wind and solar - even natural gas-fired plants! Many utilities offer the option of purchasing one’s energy for a premium from these “renewable” sources, regardless of the fact that all sources are pooled and one has no idea where their electrons actually originate. (Your electric dream car is generally a coal-fired car.)

Now, with consumers able to assuage their consciences with purchase of such “renewables,” all the pieces were in place: lessen the risk of wildfire (western forest are particularly dependent on periodic fires); create jobs (industry Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) touts the 56,000 jobs that the biomass removal will create); and, to quote the once proud protection organization Wild Oregon, “keep the timber industry around for when we really need them to clean up the plantations.”

We have over 100 (10 in Michigan alone) wood-to-electricity plants approved, operating and/or under construction. Another 200 are in the approval process. Already such wood burners like the first one along the Columbia River in Eastern Washington burn many tons of “hog fuel” per hour, releasing many pounds of particulates. Some estimates note that wood burning particulates ("carbon soot") account for 17% of Climate Change.

Living forests can absorb 30% of all the carbon released from burning fossil fuels. Another study shows that one must remove 10 units of plant carbon from the forests to eliminate the single unit of carbon that would enter the atmosphere should it be left in place and possibly be released by wildfire; refuting yet another rationale for the logging.

(Here’s a video of how biomass-to-electricity works produced by the 25-year-old Kettle Falls Generating Plant itself.)

Already, “hog fuel” and home heating with wood has proven so “sustainable” that the price of sawdust has peaked (from $20 a ton to over $120 a ton), forcing farmers who once used sawdust for animal bedding, mulch and other uses to find alternatives. Even the price of cars is affected, as sawdust is used in the manufacture of many car interior items, notably steering wheels. Once all the proposed wood burners are on line, there will be little “wood waste” available as even the smallest twigs are removed from the forest floor – robbing future forests of sustenance.

The Dems Triple the Cut

While the self-aggrandizing greens were in full praise mode, the Bush/Obama Administrations upped the timber cutting line item in the USFS budget from $400 million to $1.5 billion with the addition of Stimulus bucks. Logging for “Forest Health” was institutionalized with the "Healthy Forests Restoration Act of 2003.” But it really got going last year. The first major influx of funds and stumps was included in the Bush $700 billion bailout – written in by Wyden, Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR) and other industry representatives. Both Wyden and DeFazio bragged to the press at the time that the "cut will double, maybe even triple."

More tax money for logging has been issued under Obama. The USFS stump-creation budget has sky-rocketed with nothing but applause from the Green Establishment. The same folks have pushed rather than opposed the biomass plants across the board.

This upping of the cut – with more to come - puts the current administration on track to rival that of the last Democrat in the White House. You’ll never find the Big Greens noting it; but Bush, during his entire eight years succeeded in cutting in total the same amount as Clinton averaged per year! Not that it was for lack of trying. Mostly it was the economy that slowed the ecocide engine during Bushtime; though true, grassroots organizations defending their favorite places have played a major role - like the heroic Montana grassroots activists who have been excoriated by the Big Greens for their so far successful and continuing principled stands against the "collaborative" logging schemes of the foundations, Democrats and Big Timber.

The 58.5 Million Acre Fraud

Back in 2000, certain Democratic Party special interests were desperately trying to greenwash the Clinton/Gore Administration’s deplorable eco-degradation record to benefit Al Gore’s presidential run. After unveiling it to much fanfare during the election campaign, Clinton finally pushed through an administrative rule – on January 5, 2001 - mere days before he left office - that the Big Greens praised as “a great victory”; boldly lying (a lie that continues to this day) that it “protects 58.5 million acres of roadless lands.”

The Big Greens and Democrats, as always, are long on self-congratulations and short on actual accomplishments. Not a single acre was afforded actual inviolate protection, despite the throaty 58.5 million declarations. The so-called Roadless Rule quickly joined the Tongass and ANWR as a fund-raising bonanza – within days, the “victory” was "under assault" and more funds were needed to “defend” it.

The USFS quickly shifted the reason for logging to “protecting homes from wildfire,” the overwhelming majority of these homes were far from any to-be-logged roadless area in the first place. Business as usual continued: taxpayer-subsidized logging plans went through and fund-raisers went out. Nothing has changed to date: industry gets the logs, the taxpayers get the bill and the greens/Democrats get to “save” the same 58.5 million acres for the fourth time.

"North to the Future," indeed

In May, Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack said he would personally review all timber sales in roadless areas of national forests in the next year. It was part of Obama’s pledge for a “time-out’ on roadless timber sales and road building.

Well, the timeout was of the NBA’s 20-second variety. Mere days after Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar’s WOPR announcement, the result of Vilsack’s first review was not the moratorium on roadless logging which Obama supported during his campaign, but the awarding of the roadless Orion North old growth timber sale on Alaska’s Revillagigedo Island, part of the Tongass National Forest adjacent to the Misty Fiords National Monument.

Vilsack's "personal review, then approve" betrayal echoes that of Clinton Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt who vowed to "personally inspect every drill site" as the Clinton/Gore Administration surrendered the Alaska National Petroleum Reserve - Alaska (adjacent to ANWR and equally ecologically stunning and sensitive) to Big Oil - sans any resistance from the Big Greens.

Within hours, the foundation's eco-law firm Earthjustice - the Hamilton Burgers of the environment - who annually vow to “keep roadless lands roadless” sent out the fundraising letters.

MICHAEL DONNELLY lives in Oregon. He was a plaintiff in the first successful Old Growth lawsuit which led to the flawed Clinton Northwest Forest Plan. He can be reached at pahtoo@aol.com

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