Issue 55 Table of Contents

Issue 55
Table of Contents

	Growing Call For Ethics Investigation Of Henry Hyde	by Jeff Elliott Hyde -- chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and the congressman who demanded from President Clinton "complete and specific" answers to 81 questions concerning the Lewinsky affair -- has given conflicting and incomplete explanations about his 1995 employment of Chicago private eye Ernie Rizzo
	New Details of Henry Hyde Role in Failed S&L	by Dennis Bernstein Hyde, who argues "no man is above the law" in President Clinton's impeachment inquiry, escaped legal responsibility as a former director of the failed Clyde Federal Savings and Loan because of his political clout, according to investigators and others in the S&L case
	No Charges in Forest Activist Logging Death, DA Says	by Nicholas Wilson Humboldt County D.A. Terry Farmer told reporters that a three-month investigation led him to conclude that Pacific Lumber logger did not know activists were still present when he dropped the large redwood that struck and killed Chain
	Enviros Call Mobil-Exxon Merger Dangerous	by Danielle Knight Exxon and Mobil are two of the major players behind the 'Global Climate Coalition,' an industry group that is trying to thwart the Protocol, drawn up in Japan last year. "I don't know if (liberal economist) Adam Smith said anything about businesses conspiring to do environmental damage," says John Passacantando, executive director of Ozone Action, "But putting Exxon and Mobil together creates the Death Star of global warming"
	Pacific Lumber Moves on Protesters At David Chain Death Site	by Nicholas Wilson By coincidence or design, the attempt to evict tree-sitters at the site where David Chain was crushed to death by a felled redwood in September came the day before the one-year anniversary of Julia Butterfly Hill's record breaking and world-renowned tree-sit
	This Reckless Hour	by Alexander Cockburn The Republicans can scarcely believe their luck in having thus far got away with this ridiculous transmutation. They hope somehow that the American people won't sit up and take notice, won't bear any grudges next Election Day. Former Republican Sen. Alan Simpson says contemptuously that the voters care only about Christmas movies and the stock market and will never remember
	Notes From the Impeachment Battlefront	by Jack Breibart Among all the charges and countercharges made Friday at the House impeachment debate, the award for the most down-and-dirty goes to Florida Democrat Carrie Meek, who charged that the impeachment process was "gonad driven"
	Congress Vs. The American People	by Steve Chapman A more likely reaction to impeachment is not retribution but alienation. More people will simply abandon the hope that Congress will serve their needs or that their votes can make any difference in what goes on in Washington. They will decide that elections mean nothing more than the ability to choose the person who will ignore them
	Clinton Blessed By The Incompetence Of His Enemies	by David Corn The politics of impeachment have been settled. The only outstanding question is how the Republicans close this affair. Can they do so without bloody internal warfare? Impeachment is a spent force, so spent that the White House does not even have to mount a competent challenge
	Henry Hyde's Runaway Train	by David Corn At the 11th-and-a-half hour, Hyde is steering his committee into morasses that would require months of probing to determine whether Clinton had committed any actions that warranted impeachment. Yet the committee's schedule is rush-rush
	Nationwide Demonstrations For Jamal	by Lois Pearlman With Mumia Abu-Jamal's legal avenues all but exhausted, his supporters are taking his case to the public. On December 12, organizers around the U.S. held rallies, marches, and informational events aimed at creating local groups poised to take action if Pennsylvania Governor Thomas Ridge issues a new warrant for Jamal's execution
	How Mumia Gets Declared "Guilty" in the Media	by Mark Taylor Not only are Mumia's attorney and committed activists denied full voice, but the voices of a host of intelligent minds and lives are not even presented. Not a word is included in the segment from Pierre Sane of Amnesty International. Nothing from Alice Walker or E.L. Doctorow. No point of view shared by the nation's law professors who speak out for Mumia. There is no voice allowed from a Cornel West of Harvard, or from Nobel Laureates, Desmond Tutu of South Africa, Toni Morrison of the U.S.A. or Wole Soyinka of Nigeria. How about the 500 professors from around the United States who have called for a new trial for Mumia? They, too, are never mentioned
	Mumia Abu-Jamal 101	by Lucy Komisar Mumia Abu-Jamal is in prison in Pennsylvania, sentenced to death for murder in the first degree. His defenders say his guilt was never established properly. Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and PEN are among groups calling for a retrial of his case
	Pepper Spray on Demonstrators OK'd by Judge, New Police Guidelines	by Nicholas Wilson Judge calls pepper spray "negligible risk" and cancels retrial of police who swabbed burning fluid into eyes of Headwaters Forest protesters, commission on police conduct sanctions it for use in peaceful civil disobedience, citing judge's decision
	Indonesia Opens Probe of Suharto, Questions Ex-Dictator	by Andreas Harsono Indonesian former president Suharto faced four hours of stiff questioning at the Jakarta city attorney's office last week as widespread protests continue
	The Inquisitor Returns	by Christine Schoefer Expert on the American presidency, UC Berkeley professor of American politics Michael Rogin compares the McCarthy era with our own. "The media has been unbelievable," says Rogin. "They can't let it go. The same thing happened in the McCarthy period. A symbiosis develops between a maniacal, obsessed persecutor and the press. The press got so caught up in McCarthyism because it was the kind of scandal they live on, so they became, if you'll pardon the expression, codependents with McCarthy on the exposure of nonexistent Communists. Now with the end of the Cold War, the same thing happens on the sexual front"
	Asian Economic Woes Harm Decades Of Women's Progress	by Boonthan Sakanond As the Asian recession rolls on, women are being forced to make the maximum sacrifices whether in the family, the workplace or in school, new studies say. Experts warn that without appropriate policies in place, decades of work done to improve the status of Asian women could be rolled back in the space of a few years
	Scientists Pressured To Approve Cattle Hormone, Canadian Whistleblowers Say	By Mark Bourrie Six scientists came forward after a series of drugs and growth hormones were approved despite warnings from government scientists. One was the growth hormone "Revelor H," which is intended to improve beef production, was "approved over the objections of three Health Canada scientists who believed there was not yet adequate evidence that this growth hormone was safe to be in our food supply" said director of the Sierra Club of Canada
	Bombardment of Iraq the Act of an Imperial President	by Franz Schurmann Clinton knows well that his popularity pivots on the fact that just about every wage and salary earner in America directly or indirectly depends on windfalls from the market. He bet heavily that the markets will respond positively to his onslaught on Baghdad
	New Congress More Conservative, In Debt To Christian Right	by Doug Ireland Louisiana's Bob Livingston, the speaker-to-be, is arrogant and authoritarian, with a hair-trigger temper, as well as a devout Catholic who regularly consults the reactionary bishop of New Orleans on political matters. His election as Speaker will mark the successful completion of last year's failed coup against Newt, which was motored by the social conservatives of the Christian right
		Coming plagues from antibiotic-resistant bacteria; media criticism of Santa Rosa Press Democrat on Pacific Lumber story; NY Times censorship on letters page; latest on CIA, Vatican, Mafia scandal
	Corporate Giants Pledge To Abandon Old-Growth Wood	by Danielle Knight More than 20 major U.S. companies have announced they will no longer use or sell wood and paper products made from "old growth" forests. Home Depot Inc., one of the country's largest retailers of hardwood products, did not join the other companies despite a nationwide environmental campaign to pressure the store to stop dealing in lumber from the Amazon and Southeast Asia
	Shrimp, Salmon Farms More Harmful To Nature Than Believed	by Danielle Knight Fish farming, once heralded as an ecologically-sound alternative to ocean fishing, actually increases pressure on wild fisheries, pollutes ecosystems and may reduce the world's overall supply of fish
	Nuxalk Reborn	by Korey Capozza In an area of Canada where unregulated clear-cut logging has transformed Indian ancestral territories and their way of life, an awakening is underway. The Nuxalk, native inhabitants of British Columbia's central coast, are challenging the longtime presence of multi-national logging interests in their territories and demanding a stake in their own future
	Mendocino D.A. And Vroman Throw Charges	by Nicholas Wilson Outgoing Mendocino D.A. Susan Massini accused her successor Norman Vroman of abuse of discretion by making a campaign promise not to retry Bear Lincoln. Vroman in turn says Massini is "an expert on abuse of discretion" and accuses her of lying about his position on the Lincoln case. He also believes she decided to retry Lincoln in order to avoid answering hard questions from voters about her botched prosecution
	Pinochet Attempting to Portray Himself as Martyr	by Gustavo Gonzalez Retired General Augusto Pinochet was attempted to shake off the stigma of his image as a former dictator by cultivating the image of a statesman when he was arrested in London. Now he takes on a new endeavour: to become the martyr of a world crusade against Marxist socialism
	Teaching Sharks To Link People With Food Is Recipe For Disaster	by Andy York The antics of unscrupulous operators of shark-diving tours could end in tragedy, say conservationists, worried by practices which may lead great white sharks to associate food with items such as surfboards or children's toys. Any resulting attacks could undermine years of effort to save these endangered marine predators
	Ocean Trawling Worse than Forest Clearcutting	by Danielle Knight Comparing the fishing techniques to forest clearcutting, a series of articles warn that the living structures of seabeds are being destroyed at a rate much greater the current rate of destruction of the earth's forests. "Our most startling finding is that the area of seabed trawled each year is nearly 150 times the area of forest that is clearcut," says Elliot Norse, president of the Marine Conservation Biology Institute based in Washington state. "Each year, trawlers drag an area of seabed twice the size of the continental United States "
	Labor, Human Rights Groups Divided On Sweatshop Accord	By Jim Lobe Labor unions and activists say that the White House accord between U.S. apparel and footwear companies and human-rights groups to monitor working conditions in foreign plants will not eliminate sweatshops, and two unions have refused to endorse the Nov. 3 agreement
	Asian Air Pollution Recorded In U.S.	Atmospheric pollution from Asia is beginning to have measurable effects on air quality in western North America, with pollutants including industrial compounds linked to global warming
	Chinese Black Market in Ozone-Killers Thrives	by Dipankar De Sarkar A global black market in Chinese-made ozone-depleting chemicals feeding Western heavy industry and defense establishments undermines worldwide efforts to protect the ozone layer
	Enviros Want World Bank To Admit Pollution Projects	by Abid Aslam Environmentalists want a clear accounting of the World Bank's role in financing projects resulting in emissions of harmful "greenhouse gasses." According to the Institute for Policy Studies, since 1992 the global lender has ploughed 25 times as much money into projects exploiting fossil fuels as it has committed -- directly or with the multi-donor Global Environment Facility -- to wind, solar, and other "renewable" power projects
	Japan Taking Aggressive Lead In "Emissions Trading"	by Suvendrini Kakuchi Japan is gearing up to enter the lucrative business of trading in greenhouse gas emissions, prompting experts to predict that the world's second richest country will soon become a leading player in this trade. Yuri Onodera of Friends of the Earth Japan says pressure from powerful electric and oil corporations -- to preserve their commercial interests -- are pushing Tokyo to support emissions trading as the best way to meet the country's reduction targets. "It's business as usual even when it comes to global warming"
	Fewer Songbirds Linked to Forest Fragmentation	by Phil Williams Researchers in the American South have discovered that cutting forests can allow large predators like raccoons and opossums access to ground-nesting songbirds. The loss of eggs and nesting areas appear to result in a decline in some species
	Australia Knew, Kept Quiet On 1991 East Timor Atrocities	by Sonny Inbaraj The Dili massacre, which transformed East Timor from a non-issue to a major international news item, is making headlines again in Australia seven years after it occurred. There is new, reliable evidence that the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade knew of a second round of killings by Indonesian soldiers and intelligence agents
	Navajo Community Split On Uranium Mine	by Danielle Knight Issue has divided families in the small town of Crownpoint, just outside the Navajo Nation Indian reservation. Reputed to have the purest water in the state, people are afraid to openly oppose the mine. A motion before the local tribal government to oppose the mine sparked such controversy that the issue was never publicly brought up for debate again
	Central America Environment In Rapid Decline, Joint Report Says	by Danielle Knight One of globe's most biologically diverse areas is disappearing because existing international laws, or regulations in Central American nations, were not enforced or were ineffective
	Why Ford, GM Deals With Hitler Still Matter	by Ted Rall Many companies that fattened their profit-loss statements with slave labor from concentration and death camps are household names today: BMW, Daimler-Benz (now Daimler-Chrysler), Ford Motor Co., General Motors Corp. and Volkswagen are all tainted with the blood of slave laborers murdered during World War II
	Thai Citizen's Execution Date Became World Issue	by Michael Kroll In the past five years, eight foreign nationals from six different countries have been executed in the United States. Most, including Thai citizen Jaturun Siripongs, were denied the right to consult with their national consulates. This right is provided by the Vienna Convention, which ensures the same privilege for Americans living and traveling abroad
	The CIA Becomes Mideast Cop	by Eric Margolis Giving CIA an open role in the 'war against terrorism' means its agents cease being unbiased information providers and become foot soldiers in the Mideast's back-alley battles. Worse, by clearly aligning CIA with one side, Clinton will drag the U.S. ever deeper into the Mideast's multi-layered conflicts and make America a bigger target than ever
	Logging PR Chops Up Dr. Seuss' Lorax	by Donella Meadows Book funded by the Hardwood Forest Foundation and the National Oak Flooring Manufacturers Association
	Offenses Worthy Of Impeachment	by Norman Solomon When major news outlets and political leaders in Washington keep telling us that the same question deserves our full attention, you can bet that something is seriously amiss
	Pinochet Case Makes U.S. Media Squirm	by Norman Solomon The political repression overseen by Gen. Pinochet -- including widespread torture and the murders of more than 3,000 Chilean people -- did not only result from the policies of the junta in Santiago. Top officials in Washington were also directly responsible. A Boston-based law professor worried aloud: "What's to prevent Spain from extraditing Henry Kissinger, who was involved in the coup?"
	Millennium Politics	by Alexander Cockburn Lacking the menace of imminent invasion or the scourge of famine, Americans always have a particularly vivid apprehension of Big Trouble on the way, and the Y2K alarms are yet another receptacle for such fears, mixed in with pre-millennial promises to get underway in conditions, not of nerve-jangling anarchy and chaos, but amid a presidential campaign of unendurable tedium. If early portents hold true, by June of 2000, the American people will be on their knees, begging for a Y2K meltdown, as necessary relief
	The Return of "Big Oil"	by Alexander Cockburn It's being called a merger, though "buyout" seems to be a simpler way of describing the engorgement of Mobil by the far larger Exxon. Why this reunification of what were, back in the 19th century, Standard Oil of New Jersey (Exxon) and Standard Oil of New York (Mobil)? It was Adam Smith who once remarked that when you see a bunch of businessmen gathered together, chances are, they are conspiring to fix prices
	An "Irresponsible" Press Is Best	by Alexander Cockburn The main problem with the press is that it's too stuck up and too inflated with ethical self-importance
	Letters	More on the fight for Headwaters Forest and the death of David "Gypsy" Chain, the meaning of Sonny Bono's death, media coverage of Mumia Abu-Jamal
	Interview With a Pie Thrower	by Sandy Close And Alex Doubinin A year ago, Al Decker was sitting in an office in Humboldt County, ground zero for the save-the-Headwaters Forest movement, when he learned that Charles Hurwitz, head of Maxxam Corp, which owns the forest, was in the area for a top level meeting on how to deal with the resistance campaign. "I suddenly thought," Decker recalls, "Mr. Hurwitz needed to eat some humbolt pie"
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