Issue 52 Table of Contents

Issue 52
Table of Contents

	Pepper Spray By The Cupful	On the second day of the police assult on the Earth First! barricade, 13 members of the public were arrested, three of them civil rights workers charged with "failing to disperse." Pepper spray was again used, this time three applications on one woman within 30 minutes; despite the pain that left her screaming, she refused to comply with police orders and release herself from the "lockdown" device
	Police Charge Blockade, Arrest "Trespassers"	by Nicholas Wilson Ending the blockade that kept loggers from the remote site where David "Gypsy" Chain was killed in mid-September, Humboldt County and state authorities raided the site early Wednesday morning, arresting at least two protesters and reportedly using pepper spray on others
	Tape Raises Questions About Investigation	Audio tape allegedly shows logger who felled tree killing activist was in high-strung emotional state
	Death Site Shows Escape Was Almost Impossible	by Nicholas Wilson At the scene it became apparent that the tangle of downed logs, broken branches and foliage completely covering the extremely steep hillside made it impossible to run -- or even to walk -- to get away from a falling tree on short notice
	Blockade Stops Loggers, Growing Demand For Independent Investigation	by Nicholas Wilson Demanding an independent investigation, activists have maintained a week-long blockade of roads leading to the logging site where a felled tree killed David "Gypsy" Chain. Intent on preventing Pacific Lumber Company employees from disturbing evidence that might lead to criminal charges, Earth First! activists said they arrived at 6AM the morning after Chain's September 17 death, and loggers appeared just five minutes later. The blockade next to state Highway 36 has continued around the clock since that time, with blockaders occasionally harassed by drivers throwing objects as well as insults
	Earth First! Blockades Site of Activist's Death, Releases Tapes	by Nicholas Wilson Forest activists vowed to continue blockading the logging road leading to the place where David "Gypsy" Chain was killed by a felled tree, saying they were protecting the evidence at a crime scene, and called for a police investigation consistent with manslaughter caused by gross negligence of a Pacific Lumber logger
	Error 404: Information Missing From Your Daily News	Headwaters hearings; call to protest House oversight of its own misconduct; the real House scandals; conspiracy theorist loses; Australian election satire
	Financial Warfare: How The Biggest Banks Created A Global Crisis	by Michel Chussodovsky The existence of a "global financial crisis" is casually denied by the Western media, and its social impacts are downplayed or distorted; international institutions including the United Nations deny the mounting tide of world poverty. But it has far-reaching implications; economic dislocation has also been accompanied by the outbreak of regional conflicts -- and in some cases the destruction of entire countries. This is by far the most serious economic crisis in modern history
	MAI: Corporations As World Power	by Mark K. Anderson Called "NAFTA on steroids" by Ralph Nader, the proposed MAI treaty would shield corporations from all "strife" as well as "revolution, states of emergency or any other similar events." So protests, boycotts and strikes -- no matter how justified -- would be sufficient grounds for a corporation to demand remuneration from the country where such "strife" occurred. "A corporation such as Nike will be able to sue a Vietnamese city to overturn an ordinance that requires it to buy part of its supplies locally, but Nike's workers will be unable to sue the company if it overworks or underpays them"
	Listening To The Wrong Economic Pundits	by David Morris This fall, the Administration, with Republican support, will request tens of billions of dollars more for the IMF. The White House and the Republicans will try to smooth the way for passage of an international treaty that would give capital rights under international law that even governments lack. They will try to enact legislation that makes aid to Africa contingent on its adopting IMF-like policies. For some economists, this is madness
	Only New Agency Can Stop Global Economic Crisis, UN Group Says	by Thalif Deen UN Secretary- General Kofi Annan warns of global chaos: "Economic despair will be followed by political turmoil and many of the advances for freedom of the last half-century could be lost... decades of hard-won progress in the fight against poverty are imperiled"
	Corporations Derail "Environmental Justice" Programs	by Danielle Knight Some of the world's largest corporations are trying to derail U.S. "environmental justice" policies that would save minority and poor communities from being sites for polluting industrial plants, say environmentalists
	Corporations Secretly Using NAFTA to Sue Canada, Mexico	by Abid Aslam When Canada moved to protect its citizens' health from a potentially harmful fuel additive, the chemical's U.S. manufacturer sued on the grounds that this would obstruct free trade -- and in July succeeded in overturning Canadian law
	Clinton's Pundit Moralists	by Don Hazen It may be maturity, or the capacity to forgive, but the public recognizse that President Clinton didn't jeopardize national secrets or compromise important policies in Zippergate. He simply lied about a clumsy, sophomoric affair
	Indonesia's Army Fails to Stop Riots	by Andreas Harsono Demoralized soldiers, led by commanders that may face investigations for human rights crimes in the past, can't stop or control ethnic riots and looting
	In Harm's Way	by Monte Paulsen On May 20, 1997, Esequiel Hernandez Jr. became the first civilian killed by U.S. troops since the student massacre at Kent State University in 1970. He died trying to protect his goats. He was killed by a 22-year-old Marine trying to protect America's youth from drugs
	GOP Counting on Big Christian Right Voter Turnout	by Jim Lobe For Republicans, the beauty of the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal is the outrage it has evoked in their most organized and most motivated partisans -- the Christian Right. "It's going to demoralize Democrats and (it) will get our base to turn out," said Gary Bauer, a Christian Right chief, at a meeting of the Christian Coalition
	Gingrich's Sour Grapes	by Joe Shea In the end, Gingrich will just make it worse for the Republicans; when they lose the House in November, he'll only have his own sour grapes approach to government to blame
	Congress Throwing $2.3 Billion More at Drug War	by Jim Lobe Clinton administration funding for anti-drug efforts in Latin America has risen sharply since 1995, although a recent study by Congress' own investigative arm, the GAO, concluded that "the amount of cocaine and heroin seized between 1990 and 1995 made little impact on the availability of illegal drugs in the United States and on the amount needed to satisfy the estimated U.S. demand." The political nature of the issue highlighted the rare intervention in the debate today by House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who strongly supported the bill, and by the fact that no committee hearings were held about the bill before the vote
	US Not Cleaning Up Ex-Military Base Pollution	by Danielle Knight Enviro groups argue that Washington rewards countries that develop aggressive regulatory programs and punishes those without sufficient resources or technical capacities. "Global peers, such as Japan and Germany, are able to force the United States to clean up its toxic messes, whereas little or no clean-up occurs in less developed countries
	New Study Backs Up Biotech Fears	by Danielle Knight Normally this plant, a weed known scientifically as Arabidopsis thaliana, would self-fertilize and cross-pollinate. But after its genes were modified, it was 20 times more likely to pollinate with other thaliana plants that were wild
	Perfume Makers Accused of Raiding Amazon Resources	by Mario Osava For more than a century, French perfume makers have depended on the Amazon for ingredients for many of their products, but their "biopiracy" is less known than the products of their labs, says a Brazilian researcher
	Mining Corporations Funding Bolivian Paramilitary, Says Report	According to a report released in April by the U.S. Committee for Refugees, all of the displaced, mostly women and children, are victims of one or more of the three major armed groups in Colombia -- the military, paramilitary forces which have been linked to the army and the land-owning elite, and the three guerrilla groups
	Guyana Blocks Access to Starr Report	by Bert Wilkinson Guyana's late President Cheddi Jagan was among the most adamant for censorship, arguing that no sensible government would allow its population to access pages giving detailed instructions on how to construct bombs, use firearms, cultivate marijuana or to engage in non- productive endeavors
	Clinton's Real Character Issues	by Randolph T. Holhut Clinton's record is barely distinguishable from that of George Bush. The lesser of two evils is still evil, and Clinton has given us a slightly moderated version of the Republican agenda. All this happened while liberals stuck loyally by him, reflexively uttering the usual defense for Democrats who stray -- "if we criticize him, it only helps the Republicans." The liberals were seduced by the possibility of access, while failing to see how the President was selling them out at every turn
	The Big News Ignored	by Norman Solomon Two days after many TV networks aired every moment of Bill Clinton's grand-jury testimony, several members of Congress teamed up with researchers and activists for a dramatic forum about "economic human rights." The independent hearing focused on matters of profound importance -- and the big news media ignored it
	Wading Through Flood of Media Cliches	by Norman Solomon Ever since the Starr report became an instant classic of political pornography, news watchers have been wading through an endless flood of dubious truisms and easy platitudes
	World News as Seen by Washington Press Corps	by Ted Rall Ethnic tensions long suppressed by Enver Hoxha, the irrepressible homosexual Albanian leader inspired by group-sex aficionado Josef Stalin, and Josip Broz Tito, a bisexual who enjoyed intimate encounters with women old enough to be his grandmother, are now exploding throughout the volatile region
	Letters	The death of David "Gypsy" Chain, ethics of Henry Hyde, hate mail about pepper spray protesters and Judi Bari, the U.S. war on terrorism, right-wing disinformation about gay Nazis
	Few Escape Washington Hypocricy	by Alexander Cockburn It's glorious to see Republicans like Rep. Henry Hyde, who have spent their lives invoking the feelings of the "heartland," of "Joe Six-pack," now proclaiming virtuously that they give not a fig for polls and follow only the dictates of their own conscience
	Revolt Against The Prosecutors	by Alexander Cockburn Clinton's and Lewinsky's testimony entirely ratifies such attacks on grand juries as presently used by prosecutors. Lewinsky, for example, emerged from Kenneth Starr's report to Congress as scheming and manipulative. On Starr's account, one could almost build a case against her as a shakedown artist
	Our Own Spanish Inquisition	by Alexander Cockburn The demented nature of the Starr report has as eerie a feel to it as a proceeding from the Spanish Inquisition or one of those court sessions from the Middle Ages when animals were placed on trial for heresy Now, it's a done deal
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