How BP and the Obama Adminis- Tration Have Been Joined at The

Tells the Facts and Names the Names

july 1-31, 2010 Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair vol. 17, no. 13 Three Tributes to The Gulf Catastrophe, continued Ben Sonnenberg How BP and the Obama Adminis- Farewell to a Friend tration have been Joined at the Hip By Alexander Cockburn en Sonnenberg died on June 26, at By Jeffrey St. Clair the age of 73, and with his passing CounterPunch has lost its long- y the morning of May 24, the public voices speaking for the adminis- timeB counselor. The world has lost a true tide had turned against President tration. No one seemed to be in control. humanist, in the Renaissance heft of that Barack Obama in the Gulf crisis. There were discordant accounts of the word, one in whom refinement of taste, WeeksB of indecision at the White House severity of the spill between the EPA and wideness of culture mingled with politi- and the Interior Department had shifted the Interior Department. Agencies were cal passion. I mourn a very close friend. the balance of blame. BP was no longer intruding on each other’s terrain. His greatest literary achievement was seen as the lone culprit. Now, the Obama So, it was decided that the adminis- Grand Street, the quarterly he founded administration was viewed by many – tration would speak with one voice, and in 1981 and edited till 1990, when mul- including some senior members of their that voice would be Thad Allen’s, the tiple sclerosis was far advanced and his own party – as being fully culpable for portly Coast Guard commandant who fortune somewhat depleted. His friend the ongoing disaster off the coast of had been lauded in the press as a heroic Jean Stein took the magazine over and it Louisiana. The political situation was so figure in the aftermath of Katrina. It was ran till 2004. As he put it laconically, “I dire that Rahm Emanuel called an emer- the wrong lesson to draw after a month printed only what I liked; never once did gency meeting in the Oval Office to re- of false moves. The problem wasn’t mes- I publish an editorial statement; I offered group. Huddling with Obama and Rahm sage control, but a profound bureaucratic no writers’ guidelines; and I stopped that bleak morning were Homeland lethargy that ceded almost absolute con- when I couldn’t turn the pages anymore.” Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, trol over the response to the spill to BP. As another great editor Bruce Anderson, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, Coast This fatal misstep came courtesy of yet of the Anderson Valley Advertiser, wrote Guard Commandant Thad Allen, cli- more bad advice from Ken Salazar, who after Ben’s death, “Grand Street under mate czar Carol Browner and, most cyni- told Obama that under the terms of the Sonnenberg was the best literary maga- cal of all, economic advisor Lawrence Oil Pollution Act of 1990, passed in the zine ever produced in this doomed coun- Summers, author of an infamous 1991 wake of the wreck of the Exxon Valdez, try. His Grand Street was readable front- memo at World Bank calling “the eco- BP was legally responsible for the clean- to-back. If you’ve never seen a Grand nomic logic behind dumping a load of up of the Gulf. Street, the last literary quarterly we’re toxic waste in the lowest wage country Salazar’s logic was perverse. He rea- going to have, hustle out to the last book […] impeccable and we should face up to soned that, by giving free rein to BP store and get yourself one and lament that.” under the cover of the Oil Pollution what is gone.” The president was pissed. In a rare Control Act, the administration could When I first came to New York in 1973, display of emotion, Obama ranted for keep its hands clean and blame any fail- I went to a couple of parties thrown by 20 straight minutes. The target of his ures in the Gulf on the oil company. This Ben’s father, Ben Sr., one of the trailblaz- anger wasn’t BP but the press. He fumed strategy blew up in the face of the ad- ers in public relations who gave elabo- that he was being unfairly portrayed ministration. It was all over once Rep. rately staged parties to advance the inter- as being remote and indifferent to the Ed Markey pressured BP into releasing ests of his various clients, at 19 Gramercy mounting crisis in the Gulf. “Hell, this the live video feeds from the remote- Park. He looked a bit like a comfort- isn’t our mess,” Obama railed. The presi- controlled submersibles, showing the ably retired Edwardian bookie in 1890s dent expressed particular contempt for brown geyser of crude erupting from the London, with enough knowingness in his Louisianan James Carville, whose nightly remains of the failed blowout preventer. glance to deliver “fair warning” to the un- barbs on CNN seemed to have found But now the administration was boxed wary. Though he publicly prided himself their mark. After two hours of debate, in to an untenable position. Instead of on never have taken a dime from either Obama’s Gulf crisis team arrived at the distancing itself from BP, the Obama Howard Hughes or the Kennedys, Ben Sr. dubious conclusion that the main prob- team, thanks to Salazar, found itself certainly milked big clients like General lem was that there were simply too many shackled to the company. Two weeks cockburn cont. on page 4 col. 2 st. clair continued on page 2 july 1-31, 2010 st clair continued From page 1 near Seven Stones reef, struck Pollard’s troversial use of the toxic dispersant after the blowout, a top Coast Guard of- Rock off the coast of Cornwall, goug- Corexit. Also noticeably absent from the ficial went so far as to praise “BP’s profes- ing a deep hole into the holds of the Obama brain trust were two other offi- sionalism” during a nationally televised ship. Over the course of the next few cials who might have contributed a more press briefing. days, oil drained into the Atlantic. Then, realistic appraisal of the deteriorating It should have been different. Within on Easter the ship itself broke in two, re- situation in the Gulf: Jane Lubchenko, hours of the explosion, the federal gov- leasing all 35 million gallons of crude oil, director of the National Oceanic and ernment should have seized control of owned by, yes, British Petroleum into Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), both the well and the cleanup operations. sea. The wreck plunged the government and Energy Secretary Stephen Chu, win- The only responsibility that should have of Harold Wilson into crisis mode. The ner of the Nobel Prize, so often invoked been left to BP was to sign checks for bil- government allowed BP to pour mil- by White House press secretary Robert lions of dollars. The authority for such a lions of gallons of an unproven and toxic Gibbs as a public assurance that the ad- takeover derives from an administrative dispersant on dark-stained waters – the ministration was on top of the situation. rule called the National Contingency chemical had been manufactured by a Each had been inexplicably exiled from Plan, which calls for the federal govern- subsidiary of the oil company. When that Obama’s inner circle. ment to take authority over hazardous proved to have little effect, the Wilson It didn’t help, of course, that in the waste releases and oil spills that pose “a early days of the disaster Obama’s of- substantial threat to the public health When Rahm Emanuel ficials opted to downplay the sever- or welfare of the United States based on ity of the oil gusher erupting out of the several factors, including the size and summoned the admin- crumpled riser pipe 5,000 feet below the character of the discharge and its prox- istration’s oil response surface of the Gulf. In the first official re- imity to human populations and sensitive marks from the administration after the environments. In such cases, the On- team to the strategy ses- explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig, Scene Coordinator is authorized to direct sion in the Oval Office, Coast Guard commandant Thad Allen, all federal, state, or private response and told the press that the spill was expected recovery actions. The OSC may enlist the he didn’t send an invi- to be very minor, amounting to only the support of other federal agencies or spe- tation to Lisa Jackson, few thousands gallons of crude present cial teams.” in the mile-long pipe at the time of the The National Contingency Plan, writ- the spunky head of accident. This false information flowed ten in 1968, came in response to one the Environmental directly from BP. A few days later, after of the world’s first major oil spills and the incinerated rig had toppled and sank cleanup debacles. On March 18, 1967, Protection Agency. Why to the bottom of the Gulf, this specious the Liberian-flagged supertanker Torrey was Jackson missing? number was revised upward to a total of Canyon, taking a dangerous shortcut no more than 1,000 gallons a day. So said government called upon the Royal Air Allen, incident commander for the Gulf. Force to conduct a bombing raid on the Again, Allen had made this optimistic Torrey Canyon. The planes dropped 42 assessment based solely on information EDITORS bombs in effort to sink the ship and burn coming from BP. Two weeks later, the Alexander Cockburn off the oil slick. The sea burned for two upper limit for the leak was raised to Jeffrey St. Clair weeks, but the incendiary raids did little 5,000 barrels a day. ASSISTANT EDITOR to stanch the oily tides. In the end, more But NOAA knew better. In fact, in the Alevtina Rea than 120 miles of the Cornish Coast were hours after the spill, top NOAA officials coated in oil and the spill took a heavy gathered in Seattle for an emergency ses- BUSINESS toll on fish, birds and sea mammals. The sion that was streamed live on the agen- Becky Grant crude spoiled beaches from Guernsey to cy’s website. The video feed, which was Deva Wheeler Brittany. later removed from the website, captured

DESIGN In order to avoid a similar cleanup folly the agency’s top scientists at work. Their Tiffany Wardle in the U.S.A., the National Contingency initial survey of the scope of the spill Plan called for a single agency to take proved prescient. One scientist warned COUNSELOR swift control over big oil spills. That that the agency needed “to be prepared Ben Sonnenberg agency was the newly created EPA. But for the spill of the decade.” Another 1937-2010 when Rahm Emanuel summoned the NOAA scientist charted out the worst- administration’s oil response team to the case scenario on a whiteboard: “Est. 64k- CounterPunch strategy session in the Oval Office, he 100k barrels a day.” Right on the money, P.O. Box 228 didn’t send an invitation to Lisa Jackson, even though it took the Obama adminis- Petrolia, CA 95558 the spunky head of the Environmental tration more than 50 days to admit that 1-800-840-3683 Protection Agency. Why was Jackson the oil was flowing at a rate of more than [email protected] missing? Because she had reportedly in- 14,000 barrels a day. www.counterpunch.org curred the wrath of BP executives for Of course, the administration could All rights reserved. pressing the company to curtail its con- have simply subpoenaed BP’s own re-

2 july 1-31, 2010 cords, as Congressman Ed Markey even- trillion cubic feet of recoverable gas re- istration, BP recruited one of the Interior tually did. On June 20, Markey released sources lie in the northeast section of the Department’s top guns to join its team. an internal memo from BP that estimated reserve.” As the chief of staff for the MMS in the that as much as 100,000 barrels a day The memo goes on to highlight the Gulf Region, James Grant had worked to might be surging out of the broken well- feats in the Gulf of Mexico, which saw make sure that deepwater leases moved head. Far from fact-checking BP’s infor- a tenfold increase in oil leasing during forward with, as he put it in one memo, mation, some members of the Obama the Clinton years. “From 1993 to 1999, “few or no regulations or standards.” administration were acting as conduits 6,538 new leases were issued covering ap- Having succeeded in this endeavor, for the company’s lowballing. None proximately 35 million acres of the Outer BP enticed Grant to join their team as played a more important role than Sylvia Continental Shelf… Lease Sale 175 in the their “regulatory and environmental Baca, whose facility with moving seam- Central Gulf of Mexico, held on March compliance manager” for the Gulf of lessly between the government and the 15, 2000, offered 4,203 blocks (22.29 Mexico, an assignment that included corporations she was meant to regulate million acres) for lease. The Interior shepherding the Deepwater Horizon should had won her frequent flyer points Department received 469 bids on 344 through the regulatory maze at MMS. for trips through the revolving door. Last Another NOAA scien- Grant began lobbying his former col- summer, Ken Salazar appointed Baca to leagues in the Interior Department to serve as assistant administrator for lands tist charted out the open currently protected areas to oil and minerals of the scandal-rife Minerals worst-case scenar- leasing, particularly in the eastern Gulf of Management Service (MMS). This pow- Mexico near the coast of Florida. Grant erful but shadowy post did not require io on a whiteboard: also warned the Obama administration, Senate confirmation. Thus, Baca’s previ- “Est. 64k-100k barrels including his former corporate colleague ous career did not become the subject of Sylvia Baca, not to cave in to demands public inquiry. a day.” Right on the by environmentalists for “policies that Salazar had plucked Baca right from money, even though may establish exclusionary zones, disrupt the ranks of BP’s executive suites, where, MMS leasing or affect opportunities for according to her CV, she served “as it took the Obama ad- economic growth.” He needn’t have wor- general manager for Social Investment ministration more than ried. Programs and Strategic Partnerships at It’s clear that Sylvia Baca should never BP America Inc. in Houston, and had 50 days to admit that have been eligible to resume her job at held several senior management posi- the oil was flowing at the Interior Department. Obama had tions with the company since 2001, fo- piously pledged to close the revolving cusing on environmental initiatives, a rate of more than door and bar corporate lobbyists from overseeing cooperative projects with 14,000 barrels a day. taking posts in agencies that regulated private and public organizations, devel- the activities of their former employ- oping health, safety, and emergency re- blocks. There were 334 leases awarded… ers. Several environmental lobbyists sponse programs and working on climate More than 40 million acres of federal were denied positions in the Interior change, biodiversity and sustainabil- OCS blocks are currently under lease. Department and EPA under these sup- ity objectives.” Prior to joining BP, Baca Approximately 94 per cent of the exist- posedly ironclad ethics rules. However, spent six years at the right hand of Bruce ing OCS leases (7,900) are in the Gulf, Baca slipped through at the behest of Babbitt, serving as assistant secretary and about 1,500 of these leases are pro- Salazar who made a special appeal to of the Interior for Lands and Minerals ducing… Issued over 28,000 leases and Attorney General Eric Holder. Salazar Management. approved over 15,000 permits to drill… told Holder that Baca was an “indispens- Baca’s years in the Clinton administra- Implemented legislation changing the able” member of his team, emphasizing tion proved very productive for the oil competitive lease term from five years to her “detailed knowledge of Interior’s land industry as a whole and her future em- ten years, allowing lessees greater flexi- and energy responsibilities.” ployer in particular, a period when oil bility in exploration without endangering According to Deputy Interior production on federal lands soared far the lease.” Thus had the table been set for Secretary David Hayes, Baca recused above the levels of the first Bush adminis- the depredations of the George W. Bush herself from all leasing decisions re- tration. An internal Interior Department administration. garding BP. However, sources inside the memo from April 2000 spelled out the Mission accomplished, Baca settled Interior Department tell me that Baca achievement for Big Oil: “We have sup- into her high-paying gig as a BP execu- played a key role in a procedural deci- ported efforts to increase oil and gas re- tive. One of Baca’s roles was to recruit sion in the early days of the Obama ad- covery in the deep waters of the Gulf of Hollywood celebrities to help greenwash ministration that allowed the Deepwater Mexico; we have conducted a number the oil giant as an environmentally en- Horizon project and Big Oil opera- of extremely successful, environmentally lightened corporation, which was en- tions on federal lands to move forward sound offshore oil and gas lease sales; gaged in a mighty war against the evil with scant environmental review. The and we have opened a portion of the forces of climate change. When Baca National Environmental Policy Act National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska left BP to join the Obama administra- (NEPA) is a federal law passed during the to environmentally responsible oil and tion, they weren’t left in the lurch. As glory days of environmental legislation, gas development, where an estimated 10 the curtains closed on the Bush admin- otherwise known as the Nixon adminis-

3 july 1-31, 2010 cockburn continued from page 1 tration. It requires a full-scale environ- Motors of plenty of moolah, a satisfac- afflicted with asthma, in the “Epistle to mental impact statement (EIS) for any tory chunk of which he left to Ben. Dr. Arbuthnot,” ruefully called “this long federal project that might pose a “signifi- Ben Jr. detailed his somewhat raff- Disease, my life.” Great though the edi- cant impact on the quality of the human ish and caddish youth in his 1991 mem- torial achievement of Grand Street was, environment.” oir, Lost Property, but I had already the resilience that carried him onward These EISs often run to more than a known for almost a decade the tastes through the two decades that followed 1,000 pages in length and evaluate the that he listed on the first page and that his Grand Street was what seized me. possible ecological, social and economic endeared me to him: “My favorite auto- Ben’s late style was a marvelously warm consequences of the proposal, includ- biographers in this century are Vladimir and inspiring achievement. ing worst-case scenarios. These docu- Nabokov, Theodor Adorno and Walter I first met him in 1982, when I con- ments are prepared by the permitting Benjamin.” A paragraph later he cited ducted negotiations on behalf of my fa- agency with consultation from the Fish “my friend Edward Said,” whose savage ther Claud, whom Ben wanted to write and Wildlife Service and the EPA. But essay “Michael Walzer’s ‘Exodus and a memoir about spies and the Spanish an administrative order during the sec- Revolution’ – a Canaanite Reading” Ben Civil War. I reported to my father the ond Bush administration ordered the had published in Grand Street in 1986. large sum Ben had agreed without much Minerals Management Service to issue There was no other cultural periodical demur to pony up, and Claud duly turned “categorical exclusions” from NEPA com- at that time that would have given the in a very funny essay, full of astute ob- pliance to Big Oil projects in the Gulf finger so vigorously to polite New York servations about Guy Burgess and spy and Alaska. In addition, the Bush ad- intellectual opinion. The finger could be mania, but also with a wonderfully tragi- ministration allowed the oil companies puckish. In January of 1989 he sent me comic memoir about the strange death of to prepare their own safety and environ- a copy of his offer – which I published Basil Murray and his ape in Valencia. (It mental plans, which would then be rub- in The Nation – on behalf of himself, can be found on our CounterPunch site, ber-stamped by officials at MMS. From me and others, to Marty Peretz: “Dear in my piece on the centennial – April 12, 2001 through 2008, more than 2,400 oil Mr Peretz: Do you wish to sell the New 2004 – of Claud’s birth.) leases had been allowed to go forward Republic? May I know your terms? I am Soon I was writing for Ben myself, and in the Gulf without any serious environ- one of a small group whose members it was always agreeable. He was good at mental review. are eager to buy the New Republic and soft-edged editorial blackmail, designed When the Obama administration came restore its credit as a liberal journal. We to propel one past the finishing post. The into power, this policy was under furious suspect you may be ready to sell from substantial checks spurred creativity, too, legal and political assault by environmen- the vacancy and desperation of recent and, by 1985, I managed a very long mem- tal groups. But Salazar was zealous that articles, which I at least associate with oir about my childhood, “Heatherdown,” there would be no interruption in the the moral and material bankruptcy of the which was well received. I never would pace of oil leasing in the Gulf. In fact, he state of Israel. I am the editor of Grand have written it, if it hadn’t been for Ben. wanted it speeded up. Restoring NEPA Street, but none of my associates is in the When, to his irritation, I quit New compliance to the oil industry, Salazar’s magazine publishing business.” York for Key West in the early 1980s enforcer, Baca warned, would slow down Ben’s decent obit in the New York and ultimately settled here, in northern the approval process for leases by a year Times by William Grimes mentioned California, he would refer to my location or more and, even worse, make the proj- many of the writers he published: Ted as though it was in Kamchatka, filled ects vulnerable to protracted litigation Hughes, Alice Munro, James Salter, Susan with metropolitan wonderment that we by environmentalists. She counseled that Minot, John Hollander, Northrop Frye, could even communicate past the bar- it would be better to stick with the Bush W. S. Merwin, Christopher Hitchens, rier of the Rocky Mountains, the wastes era rules. Salazar agreed. So, it came to Amy Wilentz, and the present writer. But of the Great Basin, the Sierra, even unto pass that on April 6, 2009, the Interior not Edward Said. Their relationship was a northern Pacific shore on which he Department granted BP a categorical very close and among my warmest mem- had never, would never, set eyes. But exemption for Lease 206, the Deepwater ories are dinners with Ben and his wife, we spoke on the phone constantly, and Horizon well. The BP exploration plan Dorothy Gallagher, in their apartment I like to think these hundreds of parleys included a skimpy 13-page environmen- at 50 Riverside Drive, listening Edward’s – interspersed with occasional visits – tal review, which called the prospect thunders to the company about some brought us far closer than if I had been of a major spill “unlikely.” The company fresh outrage of his enemies, some new trudging down the West Side from my told the Interior Department that in the libel lavished upon him, the Canaanite – old roost on Central Park West and 94th event of a spill “no mitigation measures “a mere black man” – and hearing Ben’s street. other than those required by regulation delighted laugh, raspy and soon spent Ben always made me think of Proust: and BP policy will be employed to avoid, because there was not much puff power because of his cultivation, because Proust diminish or eliminate potential impacts in his body, imprisoned in the wheelchair had spent so much time in bed (a sur- on environmental resources.” The request or propped up in bed. Ben was just such prisingly small one, now ensconced in was approved in a one-page letter that a physical captive for over a quarter of a the Carnavalet museum in Paris, not imposed no special restrictions on the oil century, but I never saw him dull of eye much wider than Ben’s), because so many company, warning only that BP “exercise or wit, amid what a similarly spry and chats sent us off down the boulevards of caution while drilling due to indications creatively indomitable Alexander Pope, common memory. He had been a young of shallow gas.” Famous last words. CP crippled from the age of 12, half blind and flâneur in London in the 1960s and, no cockburn cont. on page 6 Col. 3 4 july 1-31, 2010

The Political Economy of Migrant Labor happened after the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act, where legaliza- Why the Border tion prompted increased migration. The guest worker program – a bad idea Can Never Be “Secured” all the way around – also would increase the number of undocumented people in By Frank Bardacke the U.S. Again, there is a historical prec- edent. During the Bracero Program, the all it the Political Stupidity Index crossing a big, corporate business. last major use of guest workers, thou- (PSI). It is the difference between The forms of payment vary. Usually sands of braceros ran away from their the words the politicians say and the money is due when people arrive camps and escaped into the general Cthe way we actually live. It recently hit in Watsonville. Sometimes part of the population. Called “skips” by the Border near record highs, causing a general to money is paid in advance, the rest due Patrol, by the early 1960s they constitut- faint as he gave sworn testimony about on completion of the journey. A lucky ed a significant problem, and, along with the prospects of the current imperial few get to pay by the month after they get the introduction of the cotton-picking war, and prompting a national shudder here, although interest rates are some- machine in Texas, the increasing number as pictures of doomed gulls soaked in oil times high. On at least one Watsonville of bracero strikes in California, and liber- sat alongside articles in which the presi- strawberry farm, people can work off al pressure on Congress, the “skips” were dent assured us that some day soon the their debt with payments taken out of responsible for the Bracero Program’s de- Gulf Coast would be better than ever. But their checks, along with social security mise. the PSI topped out this summer in what and other deductions. With the Mexican population of the passes for public debate on immigration It is all regular, ordinary, and well U.S. much larger and more widespread reform, where the words at the top have now than it was in the early 1960s, skip- nothing to do with life at the bottom. In Watsonville, the price ping out of a new guest worker program The June spat between Arizona of coming to the U.S.A. would become a popular enterprise. Senator Jon Kyl and President Obama The only plan being offered to prevent centered on the question of whether our is common knowledge: it is complete computerization of the border with Mexico should be secured $3,000 to be driven past legal status of all workers, plus sanc- before something called “comprehen- tions against employers who hire the un- sive immigration reform” takes place or a corrupt border patrol documented. But that technological pipe border security and reform have to be agent at an official port dream is already going up in smoke here, achieved simultaneously. None of the in Watsonville, where U.S. Immigration words mean much. The border cannot of entry, or $1,500 to and Customs Enforcement pressure on be secured. Obama’s steep increase in the be guided on a three- employers has resulted in more com- number of federal agents who patrol the panies, some of them quite substantial, southwest corner of the country has only day walk through hiring workers off the books and paying served to drive up the price of coming the Arizona desert. them cash money. across, both the money people pay and This is not to say that all is fine in the dangers they encounter. known, and that’s what drives up the Watsonville, or that Obama’s 25,000 fed- Here in Watsonville, California, a pre- Stupidity Index. Despite what may be eral agents and National Guard troops on dominantly Mexican farm town nearly said in the public debate, people know the border, coupled with the drug car- 500 miles from the border, the price of that there is no way to stop Mexicans tel attack on independent coyotes, don’t coming to the U.S.A. is common knowl- coming to the U.S.A., as long as Mexico cause undocumented locals some real edge: $3,000 to be driven past a corrupt remains poor and the U.S.A. relatively hardships. Folks suffer on the new long border patrol agent at an official port of rich. treks through the desert, although I have entry, or $1,500 to be guided on a three- Comprehensive Immigration Reform not yet heard about anyone destined for day walk through the Arizona desert. is another fraud, especially when it is of- Watsonville who died en route. Many Special deals are also bandied about. fered by liberals as a way of limiting ille- other people are trapped here, like an ex- You can get a ride from a small town in gal immigration. Consider the two main student of mine who was unable to visit Michoacán to Watsonville, eating well proposals: “a path to legalization” and “a his dying father in Michoacán because and staying in safe houses along the way, guest worker program.” Providing un- he couldn’t afford the exploding re-entry for $7,000; for a bargain price of a thou- documented workers with a procedure price. Not being able to get back to his sand bucks, you can take a dangerous through which they can fix their pa- job would have meant that he could no eight-day walk farther east of the regular pers would make life easier for millions longer send money home, money that desert routes. That detour is required by of people, but it would also put more would be the main support of his soon- the presence of drug cartels that seem pressure on the unsecurable border, as to-be-widowed mother. determined, people in Watsonville com- poor people in Mexico would figure All of this, however, has less to do with plain, to drive out the independent coy- that if they could only get here, eventu- the words politicians speak, the walls otes, both the honest guides and the ally they would be legalized. This is not a they build, or the troops they dispatch to cheap chiselers, and to make border theoretical supposition. It is exactly what the border than with state of the Mexican

5 july 1-31, 2010 cockburn continued from page 4 and U.S. economies. The end of the hous- is to work for La Familia, taking drugs doubt, we passed each other unwittingly ing boom in Watsonville, for example, across the newly acquired desert routes. from time to time in the Kings Road: I has thrown a different kind of light on In the park across the alley behind my in the long, dark navy velour overcoat, border problems. During the boom, a few house, a group of young men play pick- velvet trousers, borsalino hat, chiffon hundred Mexican workers built a couple up basketball three or four days a week. scarf I affected at that time, Ben in the of thousand new homes and multiunit Most of them attend some classes at the tweed suits made for him on Savile Row condos on the outer edges of our town local community college; two of them at- and shoes handstitched in St. James. of no more than 50,000 people. Most tend the local State University, one hop- Somewhere around the birth of this cen- of those workers were undocumented, ing to make the basketball team. The tury, Ben gave them all to me, and, since recent immigrants from the traditional best player is Jario Cervantes, who has a we are the same build, I wear the her- sending communities of Michoacán and classic long, lean basketball body, a quick ring-bone Scotch tweeds and the brown Jalisco. For a few years, they made pretty first step, and a consistent fall-away jump brogues often amid the winter chills of good money – up to 1,200 dollars a week shot. Petrolia, sometimes wondering that if I for several months of the year. Several months ago, Jario took his fa- keel over in the road and some stranger But bust followed boom, and cur- ther’s pickup truck, drove 20 miles and finds me and looks at the label on the in- rently one out of every 11 houses in million light years away to the upscale side pocket, he’ll see “Huntsman & Sons Watsonville is in some stage of foreclo- tourist playpen Carmel By the Sea, and Ltd. B. Sonnenberg 5.6.69” and launch off sure. Consequently, new construction walked into the local branch of the Bank into some surreal farce of confused iden- has come to a halt, and most of the im- of America. He waited in line to see a tity of the sort Ben loved. migrant construction workers are out of teller, and, when his turn came, he pre- The alumnus of Savile Row and work and unable to get unemployment tended to have a gun under his shirt and Wilton’s, of the Boulevard Haussmann, of benefits. In a similar situation at the start quietly demanded that the teller give Malaga back in the day, was no whimsi- of the Great Depression, under pressure him her cash. As she was passing out the cal dabbler. He was that best mix – seri- from the immigration police and blamed money, he apologized for frightening her; ous and radical about politics and art in for the bad economy, many unemployed meanwhile, she was hiding a GPS device a fashion that never forfeited lightness laborers went back to Mexico, returning among the bills. of touch (though, to my chagrin, he had to the U.S.A. after Roosevelt’s victory. He left the bank, his crime appar- no feeling for Wodehouse). He was in That, however, is not much of an option ently unnoticed, and returned to the at the ground floor with CounterPunch, now, for the same reason that my ex-stu- truck for the drive home. On the way, giving money to former co-editor Ken dent couldn’t go see his father one more he got confused and took a wrong turn Silverstein to help get the newsletter time. Moving back and forth across the through Monterey before he got back on going and then agreeing to become our border according to fluctuations in the the right road home. Twenty police cars counselor, listed as such on the mast- job market is prevented by the high cost from four different police jurisdictions head on page 2. It meant a lot to us to of crossing. So, “securing the border” has followed the GPS signal and stopped him have him displayed there. To him also, I meant more undocumented people stay- 45 minutes after he left the bank. He im- hope. Jeffrey St. Clair had the pleasure of ing in the U.S. when otherwise the cur- mediately confessed, explaining that he watching in Ben’s sitting room the spec- rent Great Recession might have prompt- needed the money to help his dad pay the tacle of Al Gore stalking George Bush ed them to return home, at least for an family mortgage. When his case came in that fatal debate, and had an enjoy- extended visit. to trial, the DA pressed for two years in able long-term phone connection to What do people do instead? They are State Prison. The judge decided that six Ben. Later, for our website, he began to on the road in the U.S.A., following the months in the county jail and five years write his brilliant little reviews of movies informal grapevine about where they probation would be enough. newly released on DVDs – often of the can find work. Or they go to work locally Jario’s story does not register in any great directors of his youth, Antonioni, in the strawberries, but, as they are un- public debate. His circumstances have Rosellini, Bresson. skilled at farm work, they earn less than no impact on public policy. But a politi- This spring I felt I hadn’t seen him for half of what they made building houses. cal structure cannot long survive when too long. We seemed to be talking less. They double up and triple up in homes, the official political language has no way I feared for his health and jumped on a apartments, and garages, perpetrators to describe life as it is really lived. The plane and spent a long weekend in New or victims of various schemes to get by. way I see it, only two questions remain. York. I entered that bedroom in which They hold on and hope for better times. How long is long? And how many lives I had spent so many delightful hours, A few have returned to Mexico, where are going to be ruined before the edifice its paintings and prints in their familiar they are just as unemployed as they were falls? spots, and here was Ben, not sinking at here. I know of one construction worker, CP all but in good voice, his eyes agleam. A another ex-student of mine, who after dinner with him and Dorothy, Mariam going home returned to the U.S. working Frank Bardacke taught at Watsonville Said and JoAnn Wypijewski was a tu- as a coyote. (I hope a decent one.) I am Adult School for 25 years. His history of mult of laughter and political sallies. And told that the most obvious job opportu- the United Farm Workers, Trampled in then, three months later, he was gone – nity for a young man in Michoacán who the Vintage, is forthcoming from Verso. taken off by an infection he was too weak has lived and worked in the U.S. and, He can be reached at bardacke@sbcglob- to battle. His hundreds of friends were therefore, knows his way around a bit al.net unprepared when he slipped away, sur-

6 july 1-31, 2010 rounded by Dorothy and his daughters. were jokes and kindness among the ing. He didn’t pretend to be blind to the Of course, I comfort myself with the company. Almost as much as the dog he way class works because it had worked thought of that last trip. I look fondly and loved the goat – featured as the colo- for him. It had given him the freedom to sadly at his suits, the books he gave me phon for Grand Street. His truest expres- be curious even about an otherwise invis- along the autograph letter from Zola on sion, it seemed to me, was beatific with ible girl like me, who was desperate not my wall. Privileged is the person who has a strong wicked streak. He radiated, to be invisible and who got the work only had such a friend. CP without apparent effort, an extraordi- because she knew a girl who knew a girl nary fineness of feeling. Maybe that was who knew Ben. A few years passed be- just the phenomenon of referred acuity, fore I actually met him, but it was Grand Ben’s Class the heightening of some senses in the ab- Street that upended my foolish certainty sence of so many others. Maybe it was a about the man I had mistaken for his By JoAnn Wypijewski performance; there was always a measure character of himself, and Grand Street of that. that made me curious. first laid eyes on Ben in 1980, from Delight was a sensation that Ben culti- The last time I saw Ben was in May. a distance. He was well dressed and vated, which is why his magazine, Grand His great friend Michael Train told me using crutches, the kind with the Street, was so wonderful. He started it to how doctors had said that Ben could metalI arm bands, which for some rea- delight himself and to put money in the live many more years just as he was. It son had always scared me. As a child, I pockets of writers he loved, and from had been more than two decades since had imagined the person using them there it produced concentric circles of he couldn’t turn pages, or turn at all. not as weak or lame but as unusually pleasure. Every issue was beautiful to Michael said that Ben took the news powerful – the crutch translating as a look at: the paper, the type; beautiful to of promised longevity wearily. It made necessary restraint, like a muzzle on a hold, the weight and size of it; appealing sense, but Ben strove not to project bad dog. Ben loved dogs, especially bad to a classical sensibility, high minded but weariness. Some combination of natu- ones, but I didn’t know that then. I didn’t with quirky treasures and a radical bent. ral dazzle, pure will, ritalin, art, work, know much of anything about Ben as he Grand Street had the added attribute friendship and the tender-flinty love of walked into The Nation offices that day of putting money in the pockets of lit- Dorothy Gallagher kept him up. He, him except that he was someone I didn’t care erate but poor young women. Almost and Dorothy, made the hard thing look for at all. It was his own fault. He had everyone who worked for Ben was a easy. Now that he’s dead, there’s not a lot published two essays in the magazine woman; for a while, beginning in 1981, of comfort in thoughts of liberation. Ben presenting himself as a selfish, moneyed I was one of them. I proofread galleys cad, cavorting in Europe in the 1950s and of the magazine. My first conversation ’60s. These were titled “Lost Property,” with Ben was over commas and semico- Subscription Information and I didn’t puzzle much over the “lost” lons. I had written him a rather precise Subscription information can be found part. I was very young and very certain. note about the shocking lack of distinc- at www.counterpunch.org or call I had a bit of a class chip. I had never tion between the two in a piece by Ted toll-free inside the U.S. exchanged a word with Ben, but I knew Hughes, and he had phoned to tell me 1-800-840-3683 this: I wouldn’t like him. that, upon reviewing the argument, More than a decade later, when Lost Hughes had declared that, indeed, I had Published twice monthly Property was published as a memoir and a most exquisite sense of punctuation. except July and August, the careless fellow who occupies most of It was like some absurdist sketch – the 22 issues a year. the book had become my beloved friend, timbre of Ben’s voice swinging between a 1 - year hardcopy edition $45 his re-creation of so much of his own question and a song, the subject serious 2 - year hardcopy edition $80 past in the least appealing light struck me on the matter of rhythm and syntactical 1 - year email edition $35 as a riddle. For Ben there was no riddle. relations but comic in its arcana, comic 2 - year email edition $65 “I wasn’t very nice,” he said. But Ben was in my desire to be taken seriously and 1 - year email & hardcopy edition $50 mischievous even about himself. Keen in Ben’s mix of gentle fun and apprecia- 1 - year institutions/supporters $100 for gossip and the kernel of truth it con- tion. This, after all, was a man who regu- 1 - year student/low income $35 tained (and the merest kernel might be larly corrected other people’s grammar all that remained of any other whispered and recently mourned that the English- Renew by telephone, mail or on our story once it passed through Ben’s imagi- speaking world seems to have thrown the website. For mailed orders please native circuitry and puckish retelling), he rulebook out the window in its ninnyish include name, address and email took the gossip of his life – the clothes use of “can’t help but.” address with payment, or call 1-800- and acquaintances and sex, the money Embedded in that first conversa- 840-3683 or 1-707-629 3683. Add and entitled insouciance – and used it tion was also a little drama about class. $17.50 per year for subscriptions mailed in a kind of lighthearted argument with Copy editors are on the bottom rungs of outside the U.S.A. himself. any editorial operation. A Nation editor Make checks or money orders payable to: Ben loved women. He loved their once dismissed us as having “the mind CounterPunch styles and their stories and their legs in of a stamp collector.” Ben wouldn’t rank Business Office high heels. He loved language and pork people in automatic hierarchies, and any- PO Box 228, Petrolia, CA 95558 and political sparring, so long as there way a stamp collector might be interest-

7 PO Box 228 1stPresort Class Petrolia, CA 95558 U.S. Postage PAID Phone 1-800-840-3683 Permit No. 269 or visit our website to find Skokie, IL out about CounterPunch’s latest books! First Class return service requested

has sailed away, and everyone who loved light up for the story, which he hopes is a movement is the inability to go birding. him is unspeakably sad. CP long one (if it stays interesting). They go past too quickly. Much is judged – there’s an aston- In good weather, there’s the treat of JoAnn Wypijewski is filing reports to ishing number of books that have been a slow walk in the park along the river. CounterPunch in a trip across the United read, movies seen, music heard, theater Tuomas, his assistant, is there to help States. Email [email protected] attended – and opinions must be given. get the chair up the sharper inclines, But if they are negative, it’s a brief look but the rest of it Ben steers himself, oc- of disappointment and dismissal. Then casionally glaring at the other guy trying Visiting Ben it’s time to move on to luxurious praise: to use the handicapped ramp – he’ll just By Daniel Wolff somebody’s beauty, wit, and humor have have to wait. Ah, the great and never her- once again verified an abiding faith in the alded enough taste of a hotdog bought he glint in Ben’s eye is wicked. species’ ability to delight. off a vendor and eaten outside! And the Not that he’s going to do anything Now the fierce glint comes when Ben’s friends met near the rose garden. And wicked right now – he’s sitting in defending a friend. Of which there are the different tugs and boats in the river: This New York City apartment surround- legion. And if they occasionally make their names? Isn’t it astonishing all the ed by books and prints – but he’s eager mistakes or disappoint, that is nothing things we still don’t know? to relate a little wickedness. It’s a story compared to their accomplishments and There is the quiet glint of pride that about a sports car and a beautiful woman acts of generosity and general brilliance. comes with mention of Dorothy, the chil- and a stop somewhere out in the English There is a pantheon of friends, and they dren, the grandchildren. Nothing matters countryside. There are no details; that are lined up in some Olympus, from more. And when he gets tired – when it’s would be indiscreet. The glint in the eye which they manage to do good works and time to rest – Ben would have you know tells all. persevere in a way that makes Ben grin. that this is his failure. He wishes he could Sometimes it’s a look of eagerness, of He speaks in a modulated, salty have you stay longer, that he had the en- anticipation, almost of hunger. The con- voice, pausing to collect his breath and ergy to share more. Next time. Soon. CP versation, this look assures you, is about thoughts. A little dog is barking its way to turn very smart or funny. That is, you around the apartment. Out the window, Daniel Wolff sent his poems over are about to turn smart or funny because the West Side and the Hudson River are the transom to Grand Street, and Ben Ben will now elicit it, “Tell me about X.” keeping busy. One of the disappoint- Sonnenberg published them. He can be Or, “How do you know Y?” And the eyes ments of the wheelchair and the lack of reached at [email protected]