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The Hidden History of Animal Resistance
Don’t miss Jeffrey St Clair’s riveting account of how animals fight back against cruelty and exploitation. This is history written from the end of the bear’s chain, from inside the tiger’s cage, from the depths of the orca tank. Read too the forgotten sagas of medieval animal trials, where non-human species were given rights, their consciousness acknowledged. Also in this exciting new newsletter, Larry Portis on why Sarkozy is getting away with it. Subscribe now! If you find our site useful please: Click here to make a donation. CounterPunch books and t-shirts make great presents. Order CounterPunch By Email For Only $35 a Year!
Today's Stories December 24-26, 2010 Alexander Cockburn December 23, 2010 Bill Quigley / Peter Lee Gareth Porter Dean Baker Hayden Janssen Yves Engler Laura Flanders David Macaray Farzana Versey Website of the Day December 22, 2010 Joe Mangano Uri Avnery Jennifer Van Bergen Lawrence Wittner John V. Whitbeck Stewart J. Lawrence Linh Dinh Rebecca Solnit Franklin Lamb Sherwood Ross Website of the Day
December 21, 2010 Ralph Nader Larry Portis Sasan Fayazmanesh Sam Smith Sheldon Richman Alice Slater Julie Hilden Willie L. Pelote, Sr. Binoy Kampmark Laura Flanders Website of the Day
December 20, 2010 Pam Martens Patrick Cockburn Bill Quigley Bruce Jackson Max Blumenthal Mike Whitney Carl Finamore Greg Moses Fidel Castro Paul Craig Roberts John Severino Sama Adnan Website of the Day December 17 - 19, 2010 Alexander Cockburn Ismael Hossein-Zadeh Franklin Spinney Gareth Porter Clarence Lusane Eric Stoner John Carroll, MD Nick Dearden / Robert Alvarez Saul Landau Rannie Amiri Ramzy Baroud Chuck Collins Ron Jacobs Charlotte Dennett John Blair David Ker Thomson Sherry Wolf David Macaray Jennifer Van Bergen Martha Rosenberg Sam Smith Missy Beattie Harvey Wasserman Laura Flanders Randall Amster Ron Ridenour Dr. Suzy Block Charles R. Larson David Yearsley Poets' Basement Website of the Day December 16, 2010 Alan Farago Dean Baker Peter Lee Jospeh Nevins Norman Girvan Michael Winship Robert Jensen Binoy Kampmark Website of the Day December 15, 2010 Diana Johnstone James Bovard Conn Hallinan Vijay Prashad Robert Weissman Stephan Salisbury Fred Gardner Joshua Frank Anthony Papa Steven Higgs Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers / Afghans for Peace Website of the Day
December 14, 2010 Norm Kent Mike Whitney Maximilian Forte Franklin C. Spinney Ralph Nader David Macaray Ali Khan / Lawrence Davidson Stewart J. Lawrence Cecil Brown
December 13, 2010 Patrick Cockburn Tariq Ali Jonathan Cook Israel's War on Children Uri Avnery Russell Mokhiber Patrick Bond David Smith-Ferri The December Review: Rubbish on Afghanistan Bob Sirois Danny Muller Randall Amster Website of the Day
December 10 - 12, 2010 Alexander Cockburn Peter Linebaugh Mike Whitney Thomas Volscho Joe Bageant John Barth, Jr. Jeffrey Sommers Jonathan Cook Robert Alvarez Rannie Amiri Franklin Lamb Dean Baker Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers Aurel / Pierre Daum Ramzy Baroud Michael Winship David Ker Thomson Ron Jacobs Christopher Brauchli Missy Beattie Dennis Loo Harvey Wasserman Ingmar Lee Thomas H. Naylor Farzana Versey Ronnie Cummins Sherwood Ross Don Monkerud Stephen Martin Charles R. Larson David Yearsley CP Newswire Poets' Basement Randall and Hahn Website of the Weekend December 9, 2010 Pam Martens Wajahat Ali Sasha Kramer Fatima Bhutto Jimmy Johnson Laura Carlsen Binoy Kampmark Anthony Papa Website of the Day December 8, 2010 Michael Hudson Patrick Cockburn Eric Walberg Mike Roselle Greg Moses Diane Christian Fidel Castro Linn Washington James McEnteer Website of the Day December 7, 2010 Chris Floyd Gareth Porter / Dean Baker Gregory Elich Ralph Nader M. Shahid Alam Dave Lindorff Information Terrorists? David Macaray Linda Ueki Absher Manuel Garcia, Jr. Website of the Day December 6, 2010 Michael Hudson Paul Craig Roberts The US Government's Frontal Assault on Freedom Mike Whitney Sasan Fayazmanesh Steve Breyman Davey D Neve Gordon Greg Moses Mark Weisbrot Ben Terrall Website of the Day December 3 -5, 2010 Alexander Cockburn Darwin Bond-Graham Andy Kroll William Blum Rannie Amiri Ray McGovern Saul Landau / Ramzy Baroud P. Sainath John Carroll, M.D. David Rosen Steven Colatrella Thomas I. Palley Francis Shor Russell Mokhiber Bank Power Mark Weisbrot John V. Whitbeck Sherry Wolf Ronnie Cummins Michael Winship Ron Jacobs Nilofar Suhrawardy Missy Beattie Bill Manson Linh Dinh Bruce E. Levine John Grant David Macaray Yves Engler / Charles R. Larson Scott Borchert Harry Clark David Yearsley Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend December 2, 2010 Michael W. Hudson Paul Craig Roberts Franklin C. Spinney Benjamin Dangl Uri Avnery Mike Whitney Russell Mokhiber David Macaray Ed Moloney Brian McKenna Website of the Day
December 1, 2010 Gareth Porter Wikileaks Exposes Complicity of the Press Paul Craig Roberts Russ Wellen Nikolas Kozloff Conn Hallinan Sheldon Richman Rich Broderick David Solnit Farzana Versey Charles M. Young Charles R. Larson Website of the Day November 30, 2010 Ralph Nader Paul Craig Roberts Bill Quigley Jonathan Cook Dean Baker James McEnteer Tom Engelhardt Sherwood Ross Gina Ulysse Bill Manson Website of the Day
November 29, 2010 Paul Craig Roberts Israel Shamir Mike Whitney Lawrence Davidson Winslow Wheeler / John Carroll, MD P. Sainath Carl Finamore David Macaray Dave Lindorff Website of the Day
November 26 - 28, 2010 Alexander Cockburn Winslow T. Wheeler Ramzy Baroud Harry Browne Bill Quigley / Saul Landau Brian Cloughley Fidel Castro Francis Shor Steve Heilig Terrence Paupp Brenda Norrell Missy Beattie Linh Dinh Christopher Brauchli Eric Walberg Ellen Taylor Ron Jacobs Bill Manson Harvey Wasserman Walter Brasch Michael Dickinson Ingmar Lee Gwyneth Leech David Ker Thomson Charles R. Larson Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend November 25, 2010 Michael Hudson Mike Whitney Gareth Porter Sarah Anderson Karl Grossman David Ker Thomson Rajesh Makwana / Adam Parsons Charles R. Larson Website of the Day
November 24, 2010 Jeffrey St. Clair Paul Craig Roberts James Ridgeway Invasion of the Body Scanners: Is TSA Spreading Cancer? Michael Scott Nick Dearden Russell Mokhiber Daniel Moss Farzana Versey Yasin Gaber Dan Beaton Website of the Day November 23, 2010 Pam Martens Patrick Cockburn Ben Rosenfeld / Franklin C. Spinney Dean Baker Ralph Nader Ray McGovern George Wuerthner Don Monkerud Clare Bayard Website of the Day
November 22, 2010 Michael Hudson James Abourezk Paul Craig Roberts Sasan Fayazmanesh Richard Forno Gary Leupp Martha Rosenberg Lawrence Davidson Patrick Bond Michael Dickinson Website of the Day November 19 - 21, 2010 Alexander Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair Mike Whitney Joanne Mariner Gareth Porter Karen Greenberg Thomas Christie, Pierre Sprey, Franklin Spinney et al. Rannie Amiri Dr. Jim Morgan Haiti's New Normal: Dispatch from Cite Soleil Lawrence Swaim Ramzy Baroud Ron Jacobs Robert Alvarez Russell Mokhiber P. Sainath David Macaray Carl Finamore Brian Tierney Franklin Lamb Gerald E. Scorse Joshua Brollier Missy Beattie Stewart J. Lawrence Brenda Norrell Christopher Brauchli Carol Polsgrove David Ker Thomson Dave Lindorff Jeff Deasy Bill Manson Clifton Ross Charles R. Larson Twain: the Last Word, One Hundred Years Later Richard Estes David Yearsley Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend November 18, 2010 Diana Johnstone Mike Whitney Behzad Yaghmaian Kenneth E. Hartman Norman Solomon Michael Winship Patrick Bond Joel S. Hirschhorn Website of the Day November 17, 2010 Vicente Navarro James Bovard Jonathan Cook Dean Baker Ralph Nader Nick Turse Sherry Wolf Alienation 101: the Online Learning Rip Off Judith Scherr Peter Certo Website of the Day
November 16, 2010 Pam Martens Richard Forno Gareth Porter Harry Browne Peter Lee Alan Farago Franklin Lamb Frank Green Sheldon Richman Thomas H. Naylor Website of the Day November 15, 2010 Michael Hudson Steve Hendricks Paul Craig Roberts Harvey Wasserman Lawrence Davidson Clancy Sigal David Macaray Tom Engelhardt Steven Fake Website of the Day November 12 - 14, 2010 Alexander Cockburn Patrick Cockburn Mike Whitney Ismael Hossein-Zadeh Dean Baker Gareth Porter William E. Alberts Bill Hatch Jonathan Cook Patrick Madden Mystifying the Crisis: Deadlock at the G20 Ramzy Baroud Rannie Amiri James Zogby Ron Jacobs Mark Weisbrot Tanya Golash-Boza Paul Wright Steve Early Martha Rosenberg Celia McAteer Larry Portis Michael Winship Brian McKenna Gerald E. Scorse Christopher Brauchli Roberto Rodriguez Dr. Susan Block J. T. Cassidy Linh Dinh Farzana Versey David Ker Thomson Phil Rockstroh Charles R. Larson David Swanson Saul Landau Kim Nicolini David Yearsley Poets' Basement Website of the Day
November 11, 2010 Peter Linebaugh Paul Craig Roberts Licensed to Kill Bill Quigley David Macaray Dissing the Boss: the NLRB Files a Landmark Complaint on Free Expression in the Workplace Liaquat Ali Khan / Jasmine Abou-Kassem Dedrick Muhammad Robert Bryce Alan Farago Website of the Day November 10, 2010 Allan Nairn Dean Baker Nicola Nasser Missy Beattie Sergio Ferrari Patrick Cockburn Dave Lindorff Mumia: New Lawyer, New Round Sherwood Ross Joshua Frank Website of the Day November 9, 2010 Uri Avnery Mike Whitney Jordan Flaherty Afshin Rattansi Annie Gell Dean Baker Dave Lindorff Stewart J. Lawrence Walter Brasch Website of the Day November 8, 2010 Paul Craig Roberts Thomas Healy David Swanson David Smith-Ferri Ralph Nader Ray McGovern Torture Sans Regrets: Bush's Confessions John Feffer Christopher Ketcham Website of the Day November 5 - 7, 2010 Alexander Cockburn Vijay Prashad Patrick Cockburn Darwin Bond-Graham
Mike Whitney Linn Washington, Jr. Rannie Amiri Ramzy Baroud Larry Portis Gary Leupp William Loren Katz Brian Cloughley Mark Weisbrot Rubén M. Lo Vuolo, Daniel Raventós / Pablo Yanes Joseph Nevins Neve Gordon Alan Farago Stewart J. Lawrence James R. King Ron Jacobs Franklin Lamb James McEnteer Richard Phelps Saul Landau David Ker Thomson The Long Argument Evelyn Pringle Joseph G. Ramsey Until Pigs Fly: the Morning After With Michael Moore Stanley Heller Missy Beattie Harvey Wasserman Billy Wharton Shamus Cooke Linh Dinh Windy Cooler Charles R. Larson Phyllis Pollack David Yearsley Website of the Weekend November 4, 2010 Doug Peacock Andrew Cockburn Iain Boal Paul Craig Roberts Chase Madar Dave Lindorff Russell Mokhiber Laura Flanders Website of the Day November 3, 2010 Alexander Cockburn Franklin C. Spinney Chris Floyd Dissatisfied Mind: Flickers of Hope in a Deadly Political Cycle William Blum Sheldon Richman Stephen Soldz Mark Weisbrot Stewart J. Lawrence Manuel Garcia, Jr. Election Night in Oakland Norman Solomon Website of the Day November 2, 2010 Vincent Navarro Ishmael Reed Uri Avnery Mark Driscoll Mike Whitney Linh Dinh David Macaray Randall Amster Wikilessons: War is a Joke, But It Isn't Funny Betsy Ross Yves Engler Website of the Day
November 1, 2010 Ted Honderich Steven Higgs John Ross Dean Baker Ralph Nader Justin E. H. Smith Marjorie Cohn Scott Boehm Brian Tierney Trish Kahle Martha Rosenberg Bathrobe Erectus: Feting Hugh Hefner Website of the Day
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Christmas Weekend Edition Whatever Happened to the Little Guy?Who Really Rules California's Wine Country?By WILL PARRISH California’s North Coast wine industry is a sprawling, multi-billion dollar enterprise. It encompasses hundreds of thousands of acres of prime agricultural land in Sonoma, Napa, Mendocino, Marin, Lake, and Solano counties; commands millions of acre feet of the area's ever-more scarce water resources; and frequently operates on a scale so industrial that at least one Sonoma County vineyard developer has shared heavy machinery with trans-Alaska oil pipeline builders (all the better to scalp the trees and vegetation from small mountains). In addition to vineyards, the industry's main ingredients range from a barrage of tasting rooms -- those upscale-rustic environs omnipresent in downtown areas from Sonoma to Napa to Philo -- to manufacturing services such as crushing, processing, bottling, labeling, storage, and shipping. These activities are capital-intensive. For those with enough pre-existing wealth to shoulder the heavy up-front costs, the profits can be enormous. Thus, as as the Redwood Empire has turned to the Red Wine Empire, with wine grapes supplanting timber as the kingpin of area agribusiness, ownership of the industry has grown increasingly concentrated. Most vineyard acreage in the region is ruled by a small collection of massive multi-national corporate conglomerates, which typically boast annual revenues greater than a billion dollars. Yes, that's billion with a “B.” To hear the patriarchs of the wine industry tell it, by contrast, the typical area wine-making operation is a “bucolic,” family-owned business (“bucolic” being the most well-worn adjective in the NorCal wine industry lexicon). All these monocrop wine-grape plantations wrapping around mountains and running endlessly along ludicrously expensive tracts of land in the area's hyper-inflated real estate market, we are led to believe, are actually locally-owned mom-and-pop ops, guided by ancient oenoligical traditions and steeped in small-town neighborly values. The Mendocino County wine-growing enterprise, in particular, thrives on this fakery. The front-page of the Mendocino Wine-Grape and Wine Commission's web site touts the “multi-generational hands-on family farmers and winemakers” that ostensibly characterize the local industry. Heidi Dickerson, paid aide to Wine Country Congressman Mike Thompson, writes a weekly column for the Ukiah Daily Journal in which she studiously avoids mention of the monolithic corporate underpinnings of the companies she profiles. In reality, while there remain some area vineyards that possibly fit the Wine Commission web site characterization, a huge portion of Mendo's vineyard acreage is owned by corporate conglomerates that belong to the billion-dollar-a-year set. Most of the other wine-grape plantations are remotely controlled by decidedly non-local corporations with revenues of at least $50 million a year. Take one of the wine industry's biggest vertically integrated multi-national firms: Constellation Brands. With revenue of roughly $4.7 billion in 2009, the scope of Constellation's economic activity is greater than many of the member states of the United Nations. An integrated wine, beer, and spirits firm, it is both the largest wine company in the world in terms of sales by volume and the largest importer of beer to the United States. It owns several large vineyards in Mendocino county, along with an even larger number in Sonoma and Napa. Constellation Brands, in short, is about as opposite from a “multi-generational family farmer and winemaker” as Lockheed-Martin. Yet, the “History” section of the company's web site features the story of how its Clos du Bois vineyard division founder Frank Woods’ children selected the name of the vineyard. The web site of one of Constellation's many enormous subdivisions, Robert Mondavi Winery Corporation, leads off with the phrase “Robert Mondavi started in his family’s wine business…” before extolling at great length the philanthropic deeds of Mondavi and his wife on behalf of the small rural town where they used to live in Napa Valley. Nowhere is there any indication that Robert Mondavi Corporation or Constellation Brands is a multi-billion dollar multi-national. Over the years, wine industry robber-baron Jess Jackson has gone to perhaps the most absurd lengths of all to garb his company in a rustic wine-maker mystique. The company no longer refers to itself as Kendall-Jackson, but rather as Jackson Family Wines. In 1992, Jackson even elbowed his way into the position of inaugural president of the trade organization Family Winemakers of California (FWC). That's in spite of the fact that the organization was created the year before for the expressed purpose of promoting the “little guy’s point of view.” A representative of Kendall-Jackson remains on the FWC board of directors to this day. “Little Guy” Jackson landed in the upper half of Fortune magazine's 2003 ranking of the world's 500 richest people, with personal wealth of $1.8 billion. Needless to say, he owns a prominent wine-grape estate in Philo, Mendocino County. Unfortunately, with regard to the impact of these companies on the local economy and ecology, there is frequently little difference between mega-firms like Constellation Brands and smaller-scale outfits like, say, Beckstoffer Vineyards, a Napa County-based outfit that has been buying acreage all over southern Mendo in recent years, or Alder Springs Vineyards in Laytonville, which clear-cut 133 acres of oak forest to fill with new vines and trellises in 2002, causing a massive steelhead trout die-off in the Ten Mile Creek watershed due to erosion consequent on the clear-cut. In any case, relatively “local” vineyard operations such as these are usually only a degree removed from concentrations of vast corporate wealth. Beckstoffer, though his company is nominally “independent,” is one of the top 20 owners of vineyard acreage in California. Alder Springs owner Stuart Bewley raised the capital for his current vineyard by selling his previous one, California Cooler, Inc., to the $3 billion Brown-Forman Corporation for $72 million in 1984 dollars. More to the point, the profits generated by local vineyards accrue almost entirely to the wine industry big boys. Just seven global wine conglomerates purchase the vast majority of wine grapes grown in the United States. The majority of these are grown in California. These companies produce 82 percent of all wine sold throughout the country. The majority of these enormous companies are integrated with other units of Big Alcohol; namely, spirits and beer. The upshot? Regardless of who runs the actual grape production side, it's the large multi-nationals that ultimately reap the benefits of the local wine-growing economy – just as with virtually every other sector of America's agribusiness enterprise – at the expense of just about everyone and everything else. That is, especially if you count the future generations who will reap the greatest consequences of wildlife habitat destroyed, forests clear-cut, water stolen and diverted, pesticides laden, and alternative futures foreclosed. Mendocino County has a thriving economic localization and food sovereignty movement. Anderson Valley Advertiser publisher Bruce Anderson has aptly called it “the most interesting thing going” in this area. If this movement takes its own stated goals seriously, it will inevitably have to confront the concentrated power of the local wine business (not to mention, coming soon, the consolidated marijuana industry). Nearly 17,000 acres of Mendocino County's best agricultural land is currently committed to wine-grape production. Most of that is controlled by enormous financial interests that seemingly could care less about the well-being of Planet Earth, much less Mendocino County. As long as such a circumstance exists, the possibility that Mendo Island will ever truly be a localized economy will remain a distant dream. As Wendell Berry has written regarding the corporate agribusiness model in general, “To put the bounty and health of our land, our only commonwealth, into the hands of people who do not live on it and share its fate will always be an error. Whatever determines the fortune of the land determines also the fortune of the people. If history has taught us nothing else, it has taught us that.” In the coming weeks, CounterPunch will continue with this series of investigative pieces by Will Parrish on the North Coast wine industry. Will Parrish can be contacted at wparrish@]riseup.net
CounterPunch Print Edition Exclusive! The Hidden History of Animal Resistance Don’t miss Jeffrey St Clair’s riveting account of how animals fight back against cruelty and exploitation. This is history written from the end of the bear’s chain, from inside the tiger’s cage, from the depths of the orca tank. Read too the forgotten sagas of medieval animal trials, where non-human species were given rights, their consciousness acknowledged. Also in this exciting new newsletter, Larry Portis on why Sarkozy is getting away with it. Subscribe now! If you find our site useful please: Click here to make a donation. CounterPunch books and t-shirts make great presents. Order CounterPunch By Email For Only $35 a Year!
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