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in October
From AK Press
Today's
Stories
September 16, 2003
Patrick Cockburn
The
Iraq Wreck
September 15, 2003
Stan Goff
It Was
the Oil; It Is Like Vietnam
Robert Fisk
A Hail of Bullets, a Trail of Dead
Writers Bloc
We
Are Winning: a Report from Cancun
James T. Phillips
Does George Bush Cry?
Elaine Cassel
The Troublesome Bill of Rights
Cynthia McKinney
A Message to the People of New York City
Matthew Behrens
Sunday Morning Coming Down: Reflections on Johnny Cash
Uri Avnery
Assassinating
Arafat
Hammond Guthrie
Celling Out the Alarm
Website of the Day
Arnold and the Egg
Recent
Stories
September 13 / 14, 2003
Michael Neumann
Anti-Americanism:
Too Much of a Good Thing?
Jeffrey St. Clair
Anatomy of a Swindle
Gary Leupp
The Matrix of Ignorance
Ron Jacobs
Reagan's America
Brian Cloughley
Up to a Point, Lord Rumsfeld
William S. Lind
Making Mesopotamia a Terrorist Magnet
Werther
A Modest Proposal for the Pentagon
Dave Lindorff
Friendly Fire Will Doom the Occupation
Toni Solo
Fiction and Reality in Colombia: The Trial of the Bogota Three
Elaine Cassel
Juries and the Death Penalty
Mickey Z.
A Parable for Cancun
Jeffrey Sommers
Issam Nashashibi: a Life Dedicated to the Palestinian Cause
David Vest
Driving in No Direction (with a Glimpse of Johnny Cash)
Michael Yates
The Minstrel Show
Jesse Walker
Adios, Johnny Cash
Adam Engel
Something Killer
Poets' Basement
Cash, Albert, Curtis, Linhart
Website of the Weekend
Local Harvest
September 12, 2003
Writers Block
Todos
Somos Lee: Protest and Death in Cancun
Laura Carlsen
A Knife to the Heart: WTO Kills Farmers
Dave Lindorff
The Meaning of Sept. 11
Elaine Cassel
Bush at Quantico
Linda S. Heard
British
Entrance Exams
John Chuckman
The First Two Years of Insanity
Doug Giebel
Ending America as We Know It
Mokhiber / Weissman
The Blank Check Military
Subcomandante Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Website of the Day
A Woman in Baghdad
September 11, 2003
Robert Fisk
A Grandiose
Folly
Roger Burbach
State Terrorism and 9/11: 1973 and 2001
Jonathan Franklin
The Pinochet Files
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Postcards to the President
Norman Solomon
The Political Capital of 9/11
Saul Landau
The Chilean Coup: the Other, Almost Forgotten 9/11
Stew Albert
What Goes Around
Website of the Day
The Sights and Sounds of a Coup
The Great Alejandro Escavedo Needs Your Help!
September 10, 2003
John Ross
Cancun
Reality Show: Will It Turn Into a Tropical Seattle?
Zoltan Grossman
The General Who Would be President: Was Wesley Clark Also Unprepared
for the Postwar Bloodbath?
Tim Llewellyn
At the Gates of Hell
Christopher Brauchli
Turn the Paige: the Bush Education Deception
Lee Sustar
Bring the Troops Home, Now!
Elaine Cassel
McCain-Feingold in Trouble: Scalia Hogs the Debate
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Hammond Guthrie
When All Was Said and Done
Website of the Day
Fact Checking Colin Powell
September 9, 2003
William A. Cook
Eating
Humble Pie
Robert Jensen / Rahul
Mahajan
Bush
Speech: a Shell Game on the American Electorate
Bill Glahn
A Kinder, Gentler RIAA?
Janet Kauffman
A Dirty River Runs Beneath It
Chris Floyd
Strange Attractors: White House Bawds Breed New Terror
Bridget Gibson
A Helping of Crow with Those Fries?
Robert Fisk
Thugs
in Business Suit: Meet the New Iraqi Strongman
Website of the Day
Pot TV International
September 8, 2003
David Lindorff
The
Bush Speech: Spinning a Fiasco
Robert Jensen
Through the Eyes of Foreigners: the US Political Crisis
Gila Svirsky
Of
Dialogue and Assassination: Off Their Heads
Bob Fitrakis
Demonstration Democracy
Kurt Nimmo
Bush and the Echo Chamber: Globalizing the Whirlwind
Sean Carter
Thou Shalt Not Campaign from the Bench
Uri Avnery
Betrayal
at Camp David
Website of the Day
Rabbis v. the Patriot Act
September 6 / 7, 2003
Neve Gordon
Strategic
Abuse: Outsourcing Human Rights Violations
Gary Leupp
Shiites
Humiliate Bush
Saul Landau
Fidel
and The Prince
Denis Halliday
Of Sanctions and Bombings: the UN Failed the People of Iraq
John Feffer
Hexangonal Headache: N. Korea Talks Were a Disaster
Ron Jacobs
The Stage of History
M. Shahid Alam
Pakistan "Recognizes" Israel
Laura Carlson
The Militarization of the Americas
Elaine Cassel
The Forgotten Prisoners of Guantanamo
James T. Phillips
The Mumbo-Jumbo War
Bill Glahn
RIAA Watch: Slumlords of the Internet
Walter A. Davis
Living in Death's Dream Kingdom
Adam Engel
Midnight's Inner Children
Poets' Basement
Stein, Guthrie and Albert
Book of the Weekend
It Became Necessary to Destroy the Planet in Order to Save It
by Khalil Bendib
September 5, 2003
Brian Cloughley
Bush's
Stacked Deck: Why Doesn't the Commander-in-Chief Visit the Wounded?
Col. Dan Smith
Iraq
as Black Hole
Phyllis Bennis
A Return
to the UN?
Dr. Susan Block
Exxxtreme Ashcroft
Dave Lindorff
Courage and the Democrats
Abe Bonowitz
Reflections on the "Matyrdom" of Paul Hill
Robert Fisk
We Were
Warned About This Chaos
Website of the Day
New York Comic Book Museum
September 4, 2003
Stan Goff
The Bush
Folly: Between Iraq and a Hard Place
John Ross
Mexico's
Hopes for Democracy Hit Dead-End
Harvey Wasserman
Bush to New Yorkers: Drop Dead
Adam Federman
McCain's
Grim Vision: Waging a War That's Already Been Lost
Aluf Benn
Sharon Saved from Threat of Peace
W. John Green
Colombia's Dirty War
Joanne Mariner
Truth,
Justice and Reconciliation in Latin America
Website of the Day
Califoracle
September 3, 2003
Virginia Tilley
Hyperpower
in a Sinkhole
Davey D
A Hip
Hop Perspective on the Cali Recall
Emrah Göker
Conscripting Turkey: Imperial Mercenaries Wanted
John Stanton
The US is a Power, But Not Super
Brian Cloughley
The
Pentagon's Bungled PsyOps Plan
Dan Bacher
Another Big Salmon Kill
Elaine Cassel
Prosecutors Weep' Ninth Circuit Overturns 127 Death Sentences
Uri Avnery
First
of All This Wall Must Fall
Website of the Day
Art Attack!
September 2, 2003
Robert Fisk
Bush's
Occupational Fantasies Lead Iraq Toward Civil War
Kurt Nimmo
Rouind Up the Usual Suspects: the Iman Ali Mosque Bombing
Robert Jensen / Rahul Mahajan
Iraqi Liberation, Bush Style
Elaine Cassel
Innocent But Guilty: When Prosecutors are Dead Wrong
Jason Leopold
Ghosts
in the Machines: the Business of Counting Votes
Dave Lindorff
Dems in 2004: Perfect Storm or Same Old Doldrums?
Paul de Rooij
Predictable
Propaganda: Four Monts of US Occupation
Website of the Day
Laughing Squid
August 30 / Sept. 1,
2003
Alexander Cockburn
Handmaiden
in Babylon: Annan, Vieiera de Mello and the Decline and Fall
of the UN
Saul Landau
Schwarzenegger
and Cuban Migration
Standard Schaefer
Who
Benefited from the Tech Bubble: an Interview with Michael Hudson
Gary Leupp
Mel Gibson's Christ on Trial
William S. Lind
Send the Neocons to Baghdad
Augustin Velloso
Aznar: Spain's Super Lackey
Jorge Mariscal
The Smearing of Cruz Bustamante
John Ross
A NAFTA for Energy? The US Looks to Suck Up Mexico's Power
Mickey Z.
War is a Racket: The Wisdom of Gen. Smedley Butler
Elaine Cassel
Ashcroft's Traveling Patriot Show Isn't Winning Many Converts
Stan Cox
Pirates of the Caribbean: the WTO Comes to Cancun
Tom and Judy Turnipseed
Take Back Your Time Day
Adam Engel
The Red Badge of Knowledge: a Review of TDY
Adam Engel
An Eye on Intelligence: an Interview with Douglas Valentine
Susan Davis
Northfork,
an Accidental Review
Nicholas Rowe
Dance
and the Occupation
Mark Zepezauer
Operation
Candor
Poets' Basement
Albert, Guthrie and Hamod
Website of the Weekend
Downhill
Battle
Congratulations
to CounterPuncher Gilad Atzmon! BBC Names EXILE Top Jazz CD
August 29, 2003
Lenni Brenner
God
and the Democratic Wing of the Democratic Party
Brian Cloughley
When in Doubt, Lie Your Head Off
Alice Slater
Bush Nuclear Policy is a Recipe for National Insecurity
David Krieger
What Victory?
Marjorie Cohn
The Thin Blue Line: How the US Occupation of Iraq Imperils International
Law
Richard Glen Boire
Saying Yes to Drugs!
Bister, Estrin and Jacobs
Howard Dean, the Progressive Anti-War Candidate? Some Vermonters
Give Their Views
Website of the Day
DirtyBush
Hot Stories
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
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
William Blum
Myth
and Denial in the War on Terrorism
Standard Schaefer
Experimental Casinos: DARPA and the War Economy
Uzma
Aslam Khan
The Unbearably Grim Aftermath of War:
What America Says Does Not Go
Paul de Rooij
Arrogant
Propaganda
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click Here
for More Stories.
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September
16, 2003
Honest Talk About
Farm Policy
Stop
Calling Them "Farm Subsidies"; It's Corporate Welfare!
By AL KREBS
Amidst the continuing controversy over the question
of agricultural subsidies there remains one simple fact understandably
ignored by the media, repeatedly tolerated by farmers and obviously
misapprehended by its neoliberal critics.
Grain farmers don't trade grain, grain
traders trade grain !!!
So when it comes to the subsidy question
lets stop this silly rhetoric about "farm" subsidies
and call them by their true name: corporate welfare.
As the often quoted Monroe City, Missouri
farmer Keith Mudd has so succinctly pointed out in relation to
organizations like the Environmental Working Group, who would
throw out the baby with the bathwater when it comes to such subsidies,"the
truth is that all farmers, regardless of size, must use the subsidy
just to raise the value received for their commodity above the
cost of production. In most instances, the cost of production
is covered and something is left over for living expenses. In
practically no instance is anything left over that would be considered
a return on investment (land and equity).
"Most problems on the farms of rural
American," Mudd has stressed, "can be traced to one
fundamental cause. The underlying problem with farm income is
concentration. As our input suppliers and the purchasers of our
products consolidate, they acquire market power. This market
power is leveraged against the farmer when he sells his crop.
. . . Look somewhere else for a scapegoat; it is not the American
farmer draining the United States Treasury. The real transfer
of wealth is accumulating in Cargill and ADM's bank accounts."
Elizabeth Becker, reporting in the September
9 New York Times ("Western Farmers Fear Third-World Challenge
to Subsidies"), underscores Mudd's analysis noting, "In
the past decade, industrial-scale farmers have tipped their allegiance
decisively toward the Republican Party, which supports the current
system. Political contributions from agribusiness jumped from
$37 million in 1992 to $53 million in 2002, with the Republicans'
share rising from 56% to 72%, according to figures compiled by
the Center for Responsive Politics.
"Those commercial companies were
not disappointed when President Bush signed into law last year
a new farm policy that increases permanent subsidies by $40 billion
a year, even though Mr. [Robert] Zoellick [U.S. Trade Representative]
had promised the developing world that subsidies would be cut
in this new round of trade talks."
The end result of such economic inefficiency
can be mirrored in the plight of Jerman Amente, a Nazareth, Ethiopian
farmer. As the Wall Street Journal's Roger Thurow recently reported
Amente has a regular view of a jarring sight in his country as
truck after truck passes by his farm carrying bags of grain from
the port of Djibouti, marked in red, white and blue, which contain
food aid from the U.S . Such shipments have indeed saved countless
lives among the more than 12 million people made destitute by
the failure of their fields and pastures.
"We really appreciate it,"
the 35-year-old Amente told Thurow. "Yet he says farmers
are `sad and discouraged' that the U.S. government buys surplus
grain from American farmers and sends it halfway around the world
--- one million metric tons already to Ethiopia --- instead of
first buying what Ethiopians produce. He estimated that at least
100,000 metric tons of corn, wheat, sorghum and beans, still
available after local consumers have been supplied, are languishing
around the country in warehouses like his, where some of his
own grain has sat for eight months.
"But," as the Journal article
notes, "the U.S., the most generous donor, is bound by legislation
to send its own homegrown food for aid, rather than spend cash
on foreign produce, in all but the most exceptional cases. It
is a mandate that supports American farmers, processors and shippers,
as well as the world's hungry. And this system, begun with humanitarian
impulses in the era of Herbert Hoover, now is shaped as much
by business and political imperatives tied to hunger abroad."
The media would have us believe that
the majority of farmers in the U.S. enthusiastically support
such economic madness. In a recent International Trade Daily
it was reported that "U.S. farm organizations on September
11 rejected demands being made by developing countries at a World
Trade Organization [Cancun] meeting for industrialized countries
to substantially reduce domestic support for agriculture without
offering any concessions of their own.
"Bob Stallman, president of the
American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF), said that the proposal
being circulated by the so-called G-21 group of developing countries,
which includes agriculture powerhouses such as Argentina, China,
and Brazil, is "not balanced. They want us to give, without
giving anything in return," Stallman said at a news conference.
Yet as one reads on through the 35-paragraph
story the AFBF is the only so-called "U.S. farm organization"
mentioned in the story. Aside from the fact Stallman's stand
reflects the AFBF's usual jingoistic policy that is in part earning
the U.S. the reputation of being the world's economic and military
bully, his remarks reflects still another betrayal by the AFBF
leadership of the best interests of the American farmer.
Until the day comes, however, when its
grass roots farm membership along with thousands of other family
farmers make it clear to the public, the media and our elected
representatives that in most cases the AFBF with its over five
million members (there being only some 1.9 million farmers left
in this country), is NOT the "voice of American agriculture"
the perception of the American farmer, living off the taxpayer
dole, will in large part be a negative one.
A far more enlightened and informed farm
organization approach to the subsidy question was recently outlined
by John Dittrich, Senior Policy Analyst of the American Corn
Growers Association (ACGA) and a farmer from Tilden, Nebraska
at the WTO ministerial meeting in Cancun.
"We urge all those interested in
global food production, global family agriculture, and developing
countries to read the groundbreaking research report we have
brought to Cancun," said Dittrich. He pointed to the newly
released study, "Rethinking U.S. Agriculture Policy: Changing
Course to Secure Farmer Livelihoods Worldwide," by the Agriculture
Policy Analysis Center (APAC), part of the University of Tennessee,
a land-grant university.
"This report goes comprehensively
to the heart of the ever more contentious trade issues of farm
subsidies in developed countries, low world commodity prices,
and global poverty.
"We ask the world community to thoughtfully
review this research. It concludes that even if the difficult
task of negotiating the elimination of global farm subsidies
is completed, family-based agriculture will continue to spiral
downward as a result of continued low commodity prices,"
added Dittrich. "Farmer-oriented policies and international
cooperation are the real solutions."
Professor Daniel G. De La Torre Ugarte,
Associate Director of APAC, was also in attendance to provide
a detailed presentation of the study. "U.S. policies heavily
influence the fate of farmers well beyond our borders. Therefore,
policy addressing the needs of U.S. farmers also should recognize
our larger global influence," said De La Torre Ugarte.
"We have found conclusive evidence
through our analysis that international trade policies have indeed
led the way for the global downward spiral of farm prices and
farm income. However, we can also predict with a significant
degree of accuracy that the elimination of U.S. farm subsidies
without real price-enhancing reform of U.S. policy will destroy
our farm and rural economy, and --- surprisingly --- would perpetuate
the problems facing farmers in developing counties rather than
alleviate them.
"We offer a blueprint of one example
of how U.S. farm policy could be reformed. This is not a farm
bill proposal, but an analysis and discussion of one possible
solution the serious problems facing farm families and their
communities worldwide." [See Issue #284 "Trade Negotiators
Making Changes In Subsidy Levels in Developed Countries While
Expecting Strong Benefits For Developing Countries May Be Disappointed
With Results"]
APAC's analysis and blueprint for discussion
includes acreage diversion through short-term conservation uses
and longer-term acreage reserves, a farmer-owned food security
reserve, and price supports as a replacement for the current
and expensive policy of direct government subsidies. It also
explores the use of non-tradable energy crops as a viable alternative
to short and long-term acreage diversion options. Such reform
could also save billions of dollars that could be redirected
toward expanded conservation and rural development programs so
essential to rural America.
Likewise, a delegation from the National
Farmers Union (NFU) which also has supported the work of APAC,
attended the Cancun meeting. NFU argued that the push to lower
commodity prices for the sake of competitiveness doesn't work.
"Food is different," said, Robert Carlson, head of
the organization's legislative and trade committee. "Supply
does not respond enough to low prices and neither does demand.
Therefore, all we're doing by lowering prices is lowering our
farm income."
National Family Farm Coalition's president
George Naylor in joining with farmers and peasants around the
world in welcoming the collapse of the WTO talks stresses that
while the U.S. government was misrepresenting the interests of
family farmers, rural communities, and consumers in their negotiating
position at Cancun, enough governments, mostly from poorer countries,
stood up for their citizens in rejecting the WTO agreement.
"The collapse of these talks,"
the Iowa and soybean farmer emphasized, "is a resounding
rejection of the failed cheap commodity policy of the United
States and European Union. Cancun will be remembered as the place
where those of us who have been getting the shaft from so-called
'free trade' policies --- protesters in the streets and government
negotiators in the convention hall alike --- drew the line and
said 'no more!'"
Clearly, until there is a general recognition
and awareness by all famers both in the U.S. and throughout the
world, that when it comes to the so-called "subsidy"
issue in agriculture, they will continue to reap few if any real
benefits from a program of the grain trade, by the grain trade
and for the grain trade.
Al Krebs
is the editor of the Agribusines
Examiner, one of our favorite newsletters, where this commentary
originally appeared. We encourage all of you to subscribe. He
can be reached at: avkrebs@earthlink.net
Weekend
Edition Features for Sept. 13 / 14, 2003
Michael Neumann
Anti-Americanism:
Too Much of a Good Thing?
Jeffrey St. Clair
Anatomy of a Swindle
Gary Leupp
The Matrix of Ignorance
Ron Jacobs
Reagan's America
Brian Cloughley
Up to a Point, Lord Rumsfeld
William S. Lind
Making Mesopotamia a Terrorist Magnet
Werther
A Modest Proposal for the Pentagon
Dave Lindorff
Friendly Fire Will Doom the Occupation
Toni Solo
Fiction and Reality in Colombia: The Trial of the Bogota Three
Elaine Cassel
Juries and the Death Penalty
Mickey Z.
A Parable for Cancun
Jeffrey Sommers
Issam Nashashibi: a Life Dedicated to the Palestinian Cause
David Vest
Driving in No Direction (with a Glimpse of Johnny Cash)
Michael Yates
The Minstrel Show
Jesse Walker
Adios, Johnny Cash
Adam Engel
Something Killer
Poets' Basement
Cash, Albert, Curtis, Linhart
Website of the Weekend
Local Harvest
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