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Today's Stories Weekend Edition Now Available from December 19 - 21, 2008 CounterPunch Books! December 19 - 21, 2008 How to Make Look Like Ed Abbey Waiting for Lightning Jeffrey St. Clair to Strike: Salazar and the Salazar and the Tragedy of the Common The Fundamentals Tragedy of the Common Ground Ground of Black Politics Kevin Alexander Gray December 18, 2008 By JEFFREY ST. CLAIR Phillip Doe The Man in the Hat: Salazar and the Status Although America’s greatest Interior Secretary, Harold Ickes, Quo who had the post for nearly a decade under FDR, was from , the playbook for presidential transitions calls for picking a Ronnie Cummins Westerner for Interior, as long as the nominee isn’t a Californian. Vilsack: Another Shill Pick someone from Arizona or New or . Of course, for Monsanto Colorado has produced two of the worst recent Interior Secretaries: James Watt and . Ken Salazar may make Jesse Sharkey it three. No School Left Unsold: 's And why not? After all, Salazar was one of the first to endorse Privatization Agenda Gale Norton’s nomination as Bush’s Interior Secretary.

Saul Landau By almost any standard, it’s hard to imagine a more uninspired or Postcard from uninspiring choice for the job than professional

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Venezuela middle-of-the-roader Ken Salazar, the conservative Democrat from Colorado. This pal of Alberto Gonzalez is a meek politician, Peter Morici who has never demonstrated the stomach for confronting the What's Next for the corporate bullies of the west: the mining, timber and oil Fed? companies who have been feasting on Interior Department handouts for the past eight years. Even as attorney general of Dave Lindorff Colorado, Salazar built a record of timidity when it came to going Prosecuting Bush and after renegade mining companies. Cheney for Torture The editorial pages of western papers have largely hailed Salazar’s Panos Petrou nomination. The common theme seems to be that Salazar will be Days of Rage in Greece “an honest broker.” But broker of what? Mining claims and oil leases, most likely. Jeff Cohen / Norman Solomon Less defensible are the dial-o-matic press releases faxed out by The 2008 P.U.-litzer the mainstream groups, greenwashing Salazar’s dismal record. Prizes: the Stinkiest Here’s Carl Pope, CEO of the Sierra Club, who fine-tuned this kind Media Performances of of rhetorical airbrushing during the many traumas of the Clinton the Year years:

Worthy Group of the Day “The Sierra Club is very pleased with the nomination of Click Here to Buy! Organic Consumer Ken Salazar to head the Interior Department. As a Alliance Westerner and a rancher, he understands the value of The Inside Story of the our public lands, parks, and wildlife and has been a Shannon Five's Smashing December 17, 2008 vocal critic of the Bush Administration’s reckless efforts Victory Over the to sell-off our public lands to Big Oil and other special Bush War Machine Peter Lee interests. Senator Salazar has been a leader in By Harry Browne Pushing Pakistan Over protecting places like the and he has the Edge stood up against the Bush’s administration’s dangerous rush to develop in Colorado and across the Conn Hallinan West. Angels and Demons in Mumbai “Senator Salazar has also been a leading voice in calling for the development of the West’s vast solar, Mike Whitney wind, and geothermal resources. He will make sure that Bernanke's Fatal Flaw we create the good-paying green jobs that will fuel our economic recovery without harming the public lands he Jeff Halper will be charged with protecting.” Obama and the Israel-Palestine Conflict Who knew that strip-mining for coal, an industry Salazar resolutely promotes, was a green job? Hold on tight, here we go once more Alan Farago down the rabbit hole. The Audacity of Parkland The Sierra Club had thrown its organizational heft behind Mike Thompson, the hook-and-rifle Democratic congressman from Peter Morici northern . Obama stiffed them and got away with it The Big Hole without enduring even a whimper of disappointment. Norm Kent In the exhaust-stream, not far beyond Pope, came an organization Obama Lights Up (you can’t call them a group, since they don’t really have any members) called the Campaign for American Wilderness, lavishly Col. Douglas MacGregor endowed by the centrist Pew Charitable Trusts, to fete Salazar. The Price of Expediency According to Mike Matz, the Campaign’s executive director, Salazar “has been a strong proponent of protecting federal lands Margaret Kimberley as wilderness…As a farmer, a rancher, and a conservationist, Sen. Blacks and Gay Rights Salazar understands the importance of balancing traditional uses Ron Jacobs of our public lands with the need to protect them. His knowledge The Myth of the Good of land management issues in the West, coupled with his ability to Guy: Waiting on a work with diverse groups and coalitions to find common ground, President to Do the will serve him well at the Department of the Interior.” Right Thing Whenever seasoned greens see the word “common ground” Worthy Group of the invoked as a solution for thorny land use issues in the Interior Day West it sets off an early warning alarm. “Common ground” is Born Under a Bad Sky: Campaign to End the another flex-phrase like, “win-win” solution that indicates greens Notes from the Dark Side Death Penalty will be handed a few low-calorie crumbs while business will of the Earth proceed to gorge as usual. By Jeffrey St. Clair December 16, 2008 In Salazar’s case, these morsels have been a few measly

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wilderness areas inside non-contentious areas, such as Rocky Vicente Navarro Mountain National Park. Designating a wilderness inside a national RED STATE REBELS: A Forgotten Genocide: park is about as risky as placing the off-limits to oil Tales of Grassroots Resistance the Case of Spain drilling. from the Heartland

Patrick Cockburn But Salazar’s green gifts haven’t come without a cost. In the Each Shoe was Worth a calculus of common ground politics, trade-offs come with the Thousand Words territory. For example, Salazar, under intense pressure from Coloradoans, issued a tepid remonstrance against the Bush Thomas Michael Power administration’s maniacal plan to open up the Roan Plateau in Back to the Pump: an western Colorado to oil drilling. But he voted to authorize oil Economic and drilling off the coast of , voted against increased Environmental Dead fuel-efficiency standards for cars and trucks and voted against the End repeal of tax breaks for Exxon-Mobil when the company was shattering records for quarterly profits. Jason Hribal Orangutans, Resistance On the very day that Salazar’s nomination was leaked to the and the Zoo: the Story press, the Inspector General for the Interior Department released of Ken Allen and a devastating report on the demolition of the Endangered Species Kumang Act under the Bush administration, largely at the hands of the disgraced Julie MacDonald, former Deputy Secretary of Interior for Farzana Versey Edited by Fish and Wildlife. The IG report, written by Earl Devaney, detailed Jeffrey St. Clair Straw Warriors and the how MacDonald personally interfered with 13 different endangered and Joshua Frank Pantomime of species rulings, bullying agency scientists and rewriting biological Patriotism opinions. "MacDonald injected herself personally and profoundly in a number of ESA decisions,” Devaney wrote in a letter to Oregon How the Press Led Wajahat Ali / Senator Ron Wyden. “We determined that MacDonald's the US into War Ahmed Rashid management style was abrupt and abrasive, if not abusive, and Indian Muslims: that her conduct demoralized and frustrated her staff as well as Defining Their Loyalty her subordinate managers."

Mats Svensson What McDonald did covertly, Salazar might attempt openly in the The Order to Destroy name of, yes, common ground. Take the case of the white-tailed has been Given prairie dog, one of the declining species that MacDonald went to nefarious lengths to keep from enjoying the protections of the Paul Fitzgerald / Endangered Species Act. Prairie dogs are viewed as pests by Elizabeth Gould ranchers and their populations have been remorselessly targeted Mumbai Terror's Afghan for elimination on rangelands across the Interior West. Roots Ken Salazar, former rancher, once threatened to sue the Fish and David Macaray Wildlife Service to keep the similarly imperiled black-tailed prairie Workplace Violence and dog off the endangered species list. The senator also fiercely Termination Etiquette opposed efforts to inscribe stronger protections for endangered species in the 2008 Farm Bill. Howard Lisnoff Left Control of "The Department of the Interior desperately needs a strong, Academia? The Case of forward looking, reform-minded Secretary," says Kieran Suckling, William Felkner executive director of the Tucson-based Center for Biological Buy End Times Now! Diversity. "Unfortunately, Ken Salazar is not that man. Worthy Group of the He endorsed George Bush's selection of Gale Norton as Secretary Day New From of Interior, the very woman who initiated and encouraged the AWR: the Last, Best CounterPunch Books scandals that have rocked the Department of the Interior. Virtually Hope for Saving the Big all of the misdeeds described in the Inspector General’s expose Wild The Secret Language occurred during the tenure of the person Ken Salazar advocated for the position he is now seeking." of the Crossroads: December 15, 2008 HOW THE IRISH As a leading indicator of just how bad Salazar may turn out to be, Andy Worthington INVENTED SLANG an environmentalist need only bushwhack through the few Hit Me Baby One More By Daniel Cassidy Time: a History of Music remaining daily papers to the stock market pages, where energy speculators, cheered at the Salazar pick, drove up the share price Torture in War on WINNER OF THE of coal companies, such as Peabody, Massey Energy and Arch Terror AMERICAN BOOK AWARD! Coal. The battered S&P Coal index rose by three per cent on the Franklin Lamb day Obama introduced the coal-friendly Salazar as his nominee. Why Hezbollah Stiffed Carter Say this much for Salazar: he’s not a Clinton retread. In fact, he makes Clinton Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt look like Ed Abbey. Karl Grossman The only way to redeem Clinton's sorry record on the environment Dr. Chu's Nuclear is for Obama to be worse. Prescription

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Brian Cloughley As Hot Rod Blajogevich demonstrated in his earthy vernacular, Land of the Free (To politics is a pay-to-play sport. Like Ken Salazar, ’s Torture and Imprison political underwriters included oil-and-gas companies, utilities, Without Trial) financial houses, agribusiness giants, such as Archer Daniels Midlands, and coal companies. These bundled campaign Mary Lynn Cramer contributions dwarfed the money given to Obama by Stiglitz's Foolishly environmentalists, many of whom backed Hillary in the Democratic Flawed Morality Party primaries.

Steve Early Environmentalists made no demands of Obama during the election From Nicky Pockets to and sat silently as he backed off-shore oil drilling, pledged to build Blago: Why Pay-to-Play new nuclear plants and sang the virtues of the oxymoron known is Bad for Labor as clean-coal technology. At this point, the president-elect Click Here to Buy! probably feels he owes them no favors. And he gave them none. Thomas Christie The environmental establishment cheered. "The Case Against Pentagon Train Wreck Israel" Awaits Obama So the environmental movement has once again been left out in Michael Neumann's the cold, begging Rahm Emmanuel for a few sub-cabinet Devastating Rebuttal of Ken Paff appointments. They may get one or two positions out of a couple Alan Dershowitz Remembering Ron hundred slots. But Big Green’s docile genuflections to Salazar Carey: a Great Labor won’t make those table-scraps go down any smoother. Leader Jeffrey St. Clair is the author of Been Brown So Long It Looked Niranjan Ramakrishnan Like Green to Me: the Politics of Nature and Grand Theft Pentagon. What is India to Do? His newest book, Born Under a Bad Sky, is just out from AK Press / CounterPunch books. He can be reached at: [email protected]. Dave Lindorff A Hero of Our Time: Muntadar al-Zaidi

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