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This is the weblog of
Raymond Powers.
Here I will be sharing what I find of import, humor, concern, inspiration and on the transformational edge
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A Quote:
Do not follow where the path leads. Rather go where there is no path and leave a trail.
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Raymond lives in Ojai, where the time now is:
09:46AM
Unique Readers:
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domain. The quotes from other people's writings, and the pictures
used might or might not be copyrighted, but are considered fair
use. Thus the license here would best be described as:
Primarily Public
Domain.
Please ask permission if there is any question in
regards to public domain usage.
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| Saturday, July 12, 2003 |  |
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 12 Jul 2003 @ 13:40
The "Big Bang" Is Just Religion Disguised As Science
Once upon a time, a long time ago, there was this guy named Aristotle. Pretty sharp fella; he thought up a lot of good things. But, occasionally he made a mistake.
One mistake he made was to toss an orange up in the air and watch it come straight back down to his hand. Aristotle reasoned that if he was moving, the orange would have flown off to one side as soon as it left his hand. Because the orange did not do so, Aristotle concluded he was not moving. On the basis of this one observed fact, and the assumption that there was no other explanation for what he observed, Aristotle concluded that the Earth does not move and that therefore the rest of the universe had to move around it.
Aristotle was a very sharp guy, but the fact is that there was another explanation for why the orange fell back into his hand, and it would wait about another 2000 years before another smart man, Sir Isaac Newton, explained just what it was Aristotle had overlooked, set forth in Newton's laws of motion.
But for the early church, Aristotle's conclusions fit in rather well with their theology, which had the Earth created as the center of the universe, unmoving, with the rest of the cosmos spinning about it.
Of course, there was empirical evidence available to all that cast doubt on the church-approved version of the Cosmos. One could see during eclipses that the Earth was not flat. The curved shape of the Earth's shadow as it crossed the moon was the same no matter place in the sky the eclipse took place. A spherical Earth was the only shape that could produce such a result. Ships sailing over the horizon clearly vanished over a subtle curve ( an observation which eventually inspired Columbus' voyages). Nobody could explain the behavior of a Foucault's Pendulum other than by the Earth spinning beneath it.
But by far the most troubling problem for the geocentric (earth centered) universe was the strange behavior of the planets. In an age before TV, or even books, the night sky was something every person was quite familiar with, even those who were not sailors or fortune tellers. Watching the night sky over time, the paths of the planets were easily seen to occasionally pause, move in reverse for a time, then proceed foreword. This behavior was called retrograde motion. Ah, but this was a problem. The church did not have an explanation for this behavior. Indeed in the King James Version of the Bible, the word "planet" appears only once, and the only as an object to be sacrificed to.
There is a very simple explanation for retrograde motion. As the Earth, moving in its inner orbit, overtake an outer planet, it will appear to hesitate, reverse its path across the sky, then resume its normal path. But the idea that the Earth moved was contrary to Church Dogma and to Aristotle. What education was tolerated by the church was "encouraged" to find some way to explain retrograde motion in a way that did not conflict with the religious needs for a universe centered on an unmoving Earth. Rather than re-examine Aristotle's basic claim, the learned men of the day grabbed onto a suggestion made by Claudius Ptolemy called "epicycles". This theory explained retrograde motion around a motionless Earth by suggesting that the planets moved in large orbits called deferents, upon which were superimposed smaller orbits called epicycles which produced a "wobble" as seen from Earth.
Epicycles was extremely popular with the church, and scholars at universities with religious affiliations were "encouraged" to refine this theory. And it needed refinement, badly, because the epicycle theory did not accurately predict what was being seen in the sky. Generations of effort was expended trying to figure out why the models did not predict the actual motions of the planets. At one point, it was even suggested that the epicycles had epicycles. No matter how many times the observed results did not match the predictions, the approved course of action was to refine the theory, but never to question the basic assumption. Those who dared point to the evidence suggesting that Aristotle (and by extension the church) were in error in postulating a geocentric universe were "discouraged". Galileo was tortured into recanting his conclusions that the Earth moved. Giordano Bruno was burned alive at the stake for suggesting that the sun was really just another star, only close up, and that the other stars had their own planets.
In recent times, our expanding technology has confirmed that Galileo and Bruno were right, and Aristotle and the church were flat out wrong. The Earth does move. There are no deferents or epicycles, or even epicycles on the epicycles. he models of the universe which are based on a moving Earth are quite accurate and able to predict the behaviors of the planets as evidence by the fact that we send spacecraft to those planets on a regular basis.
The theory of a geocentric universe and the theory of epicycles was not science. It was religious doctrine masked as science.
Read On...
More >
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| Friday, July 11, 2003 | |
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 11 Jul 2003 @ 09:11
Fox News Fauxs Up
BY LEE NICHOLS
July 11, 2003:
Common sense would have said to ignore it, and it would die a quiet death. But common sense, lawyers, and Fox News obviously don't mix.
At several anti-war protests this year, much ire was vented toward Fox News (aka the media wing of the Republican Party), spawning the "Faux News" T-shirts (see photo) that popped up, first here in Austin and then around the nation. The T-shirts parody both Fox News' logo and its laughable "We Report, You Decide" motto as "We Distort, You Comply." A companion T-shirt featured an Aryan boy wearing a Nazi Brown Shirt uniform with the motto "O'Reilly Youth," referring to Fox commentator Bill O'Reilly.
Fox found this none too funny, and last month sent a cease-and-desist order to the T-shirt's Austin creators, Richard Luckett, Brad First, and Rick Elms (doing business as Agitproperties). Fox's cease-and-desist letter not only accuses Agitproperties of copyright infringement, but also declares that the O'Reilly youth T "shows incredibly poor taste on your part, [and] is highly offensive."
"Fuck these guys -- I'm offensive?" said Luckett, a former merchandising manager for South by Southwest, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Duran Duran, and others. "This is the network responsible for reality shows like Temptation Island and Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire."
Predictably, sales have boomed. "Sales had been depressed lately, and then Fox sent the cease-and-desist letter." That led to press coverage, first by the British Register newspaper. "We went from 300 hits a day on our Web site [www.agitproperties.com] to 41,000 a day," Luckett says. "My Internet service provider shut me down [for using too much bandwidth], but we got our own server."
That was followed by more media coverage from Salon.com, Fox competitor MSNBC, and numerous other sources. "We're getting support from all over the world," says Luckett. "And orders ... I can't tell you how many we've sold, but it's been phenomenal. I go to the post office twice a day with huge shipments. The post office hates me."
But the American Civil Liberties Union doesn't -- the New York chapter of the ACLU is taking Agitproperties' case, no doubt armed with the extensive case law that protects parody. "We're going all the fucking way with this," Luckett says.
More >
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 11 Jul 2003 @ 08:52
Indian Country Unites In Opposition To Trust Measure
Photo: Elouise Cobell, center, has uncovered government mismanagement of Indian funds. She testified in Congress with Tex Hall, left, president of the National Congress of Indians, and Jimmy Goddard, a Blackfeet.
WASHINGTON, July 10 -- Indian Country has delivered a united message to Congress: don't attempt to legislate an end to a lawsuit that soon could give Indians a full accounting of their trust accounts.
That was the message a wide array of Indian leaders gave members of the House Resources Committee Wednesday.
Committee Chairman Richard Pombo, R-Calif., responded with a promise that his committee will challenge an effort by members of the House Appropriations Committee to legislate an end to the lawsuit brought seven years ago by Elouise Cobell of Montana and four other Indians.
"If there is a legislative resolution of this problem, then it will be done in this committee and not in the appropriations committee," he promised the Indian leaders.
"I'm sorry that in the past Congress has not stepped up to the plate," he said, adding: "We're entering a different era."
Pombo's comments came as his committee delved into whether the litigation can be settled out of court. Cobell, a member of the Blackfeet Nation and the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit, expressed a willingness to reopen talks with government lawyers.
A just-concluded 44-day trial of how to reform the long-troubled trust will give a better foundation for new talks, she told the committee.
Tex G. Hall, president of the National Congress of American Indians, joined Cobell and others in denouncing the appropriations committee's measure. "It was a bad idea a year ago [when the House rejected a similar measure] and it's a bad idea today," said Hall.
David Lester, executive director of the Denver-based Council of Energy Resource Tribes, reminded the committee that Indians had no choice when the trust was created by Congress in 1887. "The Cobell litigation is not the problem," he said. "Cobell is symptomatic of the problem."
The bigger problem, Pombo and the Indian leaders seemed to agree, is that Congress has failed to resolve the many, long-standing problems with the trust including the government's inability to give trust beneficiaries the full accounting of their funds that every trust in the country is required to provide as a matter of law.
The tribal leaders and Pombo also agreed that any resolution of the Cobell litigation must be developed in concert with trust beneficiaries, tribal leaders and government officials.
James Cason, deputy associate Interior secretary, also agreed that his department cannot resolve the trust problems on its own. But he also said that the parties appear far apart on what constitutes a full and fair accounting and hinted that one solution might be to force trust beneficiaries to pay the cost of the accounting.
Rep. Nick Rahall, D-W.Va., the ranking Democrat on the committee, said he would once again battle to remove the appropriations committee restrictions from the Interior Appropriations bill when it come to the floor later this month. Rahall express reservations about one provision that would allow the secretary of Interior to dictate the terms of any settlement.
"The alleged solution which would have the wolf guarding the hen house is not the answer," Rahall said
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| Tuesday, July 8, 2003 | |
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 8 Jul 2003 @ 17:40
TO HECK WITH LIBERIA!
Howard Dean falls into the liberal 'humanitarian' trap
Justoin Raimondo
July 7, 2003
Of all places for the U.S. to intervene militarily, why oh why does it have to be Liberia?
I'll tell you why: political correctness. Liberia, you see, gives us a chance to "liberate" a country populated by blacks, and, furthermore, one that was supposedly founded by "freed slaves." So, you see, America is the "mother country," in this case, and we have an obligation to bail out the Liberians, who are really, in a sense, long-lost Americans.
Except that none of these assertions are true.
Liberia was founded, not by freed slaves, but by the American Colonization Society (ACS), an uneasy coalition of slave-holding Southerners and moderate abolitionists who believed that blacks roaming free in the U.S. could only mean trouble. So they determined that the best course would be to ship them back to Africa: exactly the position taken today by white supremacists.
The ACS, sponsored by several state governments, sent boat-loads of freed slaves to Liberia from Maryland, Virginia, New York, and elsewhere, in the early 1800s, and then decided that independence would be the best course, as the colony was taxing the financial resources of the ACS – and rebellion against the Society's authority was endemic. A Declaration of Independence and a Constitution were drawn up, supposedly based on the American model, and the familiar triad of legislative, executive and judicial branches were set up by the "Americo-Liberians," as they called themselves.
But there was one big difference with the original U.S. model as it evolved: in the Liberian version, the "Americo-Liberians" were legally privileged over and above the native inhabitants, and they lorded it over the natives just as the white Southern aristocracy had once lorded over them. Only "Americo-Liberians" could own property, vote, and run for office: These legal inequalities were written into the Liberian Constitution, as well as the Declaration of Independence. The Liberian state was an instrument in the hands of the Americo-Liberians for keeping the natives – officially deemed "aborigines" – down on the farm, literally.
The political culture of the colonists took a decidedly bizarre turn, so that Liberian history resembled Gone With the Wind – if Scarlett O'Hara, Rhett Butler, and all the white characters, not just the slaves, had been played by black actors. Agriculture was looked down on as beneath the dignity of the Americo-Liberian elite. Status was achieved by entry into law or government service, and the "free" government of the "liberated" slaves was a source of economic as well as political oppression. As Major J. E. Herring puts it in "Liberia, America's Stepchild":
"The business of the Americo-Liberians was, after all, the business of goverrnment. As long as the government was funded, be it through loans, manipulation of the tariffs, the granting of foreign franchises, the letting of contracts, or foreign corporation kickbacks, the Americo-Liberians were likewise funded. Meanwhile, the indigenous peasants endured poverty and neglect, surving through subsistence farming or as laborers and maids of the Americo-Liberian elite."
Liberia saw rise of the New Class more than a hundred years before Milovan Djilas coined the term and neoconservatives adapted the concept to their critique of the modern welfare state. This make-believe nation, carved out of Africa by racists and their "liberal" collaborators, was propped up not only economically but also militarily by the U.S. The U.S. Navy several times came to the aid of the beleaguered Americo-Liberians, who made up only 5 percent of the population, when it looked like they might be overwhelmed by "aboriginal" resistance.
In 1885, with the colonists in a state of perpetual war with the tribes of the interior, the Liberian government requested U.S. military intervention, and a ship was sent to quell the fighting. (However, a British incursion in 1888, and a French attack in 1892, failed to provoke a similarly stern response.) In 1912, President William Howard Taft sent three African-American army officers to train the Liberian army.
In 1929, the League of Nations set up a commission to investigate charges that much of the Liberian economy was based on forced labor. Liberian government workers, i.e. the descendants of the original colonists, were allowed to impress their subjects as porters, and force them to work on government projects, such as roads: the Americo-Liberian overseers were carried along on hammocks by their downtrodden charges. When the Liberian government contracted with Spain to provide transient workers, whole tribes were kidnapped and sent abroad, while the government was paid by the head.
The election of William V. S. Tubman as President, in 1944, saw the extension of voting rights to indigenous peoples: Tubman was the first President to make a serious effort to reach out to – and control – the interior. Until his death in office, in 1971, Tubman balanced the interests of the Americo-Liberian elite with the brooding yet unawakened power of the majority, with surprising success. His "Open Door" policy brought in substantial foreign investment, and allowed the previously hollow Liberian economy to diversify to some limited extent. Tubman, affectionately known as "Uncle Shad," made frequent trips to the interior, embraced tribal culture, and often appeared in traditional native dress. His charisma and sense of showmanship, along with some grasp of basic economic realities, held the make-believe nation of "Liberia" together – and it fell apart rapidly after his death.
The army, commanded by officers of native descent, had been a constant source of potential trouble during the Tubman years: in 1963, 1966, 1969, and 1970 respectively, incipient coups had been aborted. But with Tubman gone, the indigenous genie was let out of the bottle. Government corruption reached new levels of larceny under Tubman's successor, William R. Tolbert, Jr., and falling commodity prices underscored the economic reality that Liberia as a separate state was simply not viable. Tens of thousands of unemployed flooded Monrovia, the capital – named after U. S. President James Monroe – and rising opposition to Tolbert provoked a government crackdown: several opposition leaders were arrested.
In an effort to get all these poor, uneducated country folk out of their city, and entice them back to the interior, the Liberian government decided to increase the rice subsidy by 20 percent. The price of this important staple soon rose, and the knowledge that Tolbert and his cronies were heavily invested in rice production added to the resentment: in 1979, what started out as a peaceful protest against rising prices turned into a riot as the few thousand middle class marchers were joined by 10,000 "back street boys" from the growing urban underclass, who went on a rampage, smashing everything in sight. Tolbert's response was to order his troops to fire on the unarmed demonstrators.
Liberia's descent into chaos had begun. As of today, there is no end in sight.
Read On..... More >
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 8 Jul 2003 @ 16:59
Online video stream documents the subversion of America's democracy
The introduction at Information Clearing House states...
I defy you to watch this 48 minute documentary and not be outraged about the depth of corruption and deceit within the highest ranks of our government and the first family.
Note: The first one minute forty seven seconds of this program is in broadcast in Dutch, The remainder is in English.
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Other print stories from this site include:
White House Admits Iraq Uranium Claim Forged: President Bush's claim in his State of the Union address in January that Iraq tried to buy uranium from the African nation of Niger was based on forged information, the White House National Security Council said on Tuesday. More on this topic
Is Niger the smoking gun? Blair under fire as White House rejects British intelligence claiming Iraq tried to buy uranium.
Why Blair can't issue the Mother of All Apologies: From the moment that Mr and Mrs Blair dined with Bill and Hillary Clinton at the Pont de la Tour restaurant in 1997 and fell in love with the American presidency, the path to British compliance in the conquest of Iraq was inevitable. Britain under Mr Blair would follow Washington wherever its interventionist zeal might take it. A Must Read
Bush in the bush: Will he tell his Senegalese hosts that many of the descendants of those millions of slaves who started out in chains four hundred years ago, ended up in chains in 21st century America? A Must Read
The Other War: Over the past century, the American government has evolved into a marriage of global companies, the American political class, and the Pentagon, with corporations increasingly the dominant partner. The corporate state they are working to create is formally based on democratic rhetoric, constitutionalism, and free elections, but it is profoundly anti-democratic in practice. A Must Read
Court Rejects Bid to Stop Cheney Lawsuit : A federal appeals court today rejected Vice President Dick Cheney's bid to keep secret the workings of his energy task force.
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| Monday, July 7, 2003 | |
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7 Jul 2003 @ 15:04
Website Turns Tables on Government Officials
By Hiawatha Bray
Boston Globe
July 4, 2003
Annoyed by the prospect of a massive new federal surveillance system, two researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are celebrating the Fourth of July with a new Internet service that will let citizens create dossiers on government officials.
The system will start by offering standard background information on politicians, but then go one bold step further, by asking Internet users to submit their own intelligence reports on government officials -- reports that will be published with no effort to verify their accuracy.
"It's sort of a citizen's intelligence agency," said Chris Csikszentmihalyi, assistant professor at the MIT Media Lab.
He and graduate student Ryan McKinley created the Government Information Awareness (GIA) project as a response to the US government's Total Information Awareness program (TIA).
Revealed last year, TIA seeks to track possible terrorist activity by analyzing vast amounts of information stored in government and private databases, such as credit card data. The system would use this information to analyze the actions of millions of people, in an effort to spot patterns that could indicate a terrorist threat.
News of the plan outraged civil libertarians and prompted Congress to set limits on the scope of such activity. The Defense Department then renamed the program Terrorist Information Awareness, to ease public concern.
But the controversy gave McKinley the idea for the GIA project. "If total information exists," he said, "really the same effort should be spent to make the same information at the leadership level at least as transparent -- in my opinion, more transparent."
McKinley worked with Csikszentmihalyi to design the GIA system. It's partly based on technology used to create Internet indexes such as Google. Software crawls around Internet sites that store large amounts of information about politicians. These include independent political sites like opensecrets.org, as well as sites run by government agencies. McKinley created software that ferrets out the useful data from these sites, and loads it into the GIA database. The result is a one-stop research site for basic information on key officials.
The site also takes advantage of round-the-clock political coverage provided by cable TV's C-Span networks. McKinley and Csikszentmihalyi use video cameras to capture images of people appearing on C-Span, which generally includes the names of people shown on screen. A computer program "reads" each name, and links it to any information about that person stored in the database. By clicking on the picture, a GIA user instantly gets a complete rundown on all available data about that person.
The GIA site constantly displays snapshots of the people appearing on C-Span at that moment. If there's a dossier on a particular person, clicking on the picture brings it up. A C-Span viewer watching a live government hearing could learn which companies have contributed to a member of Congress's reelection campaign, before the politician had even finished speaking.
All of the information currently on the site is available from public sources. But GIA will go one step further. Starting today, the site will allow the public to submit information about government officials, and this information will be made available to anyone visiting the site. No effort will be made to verify the accuracy of the data.
This approach to Internet publishing isn't new. It resembles a method known as Wiki, in which a website is constantly amended by visitors who contribute new information. The best known Wiki site, www.wikipedia.org, is an online encyclopedia created entirely by visitors who have voluntarily written nearly 140,000 articles, on subjects ranging from astronomy to Roman mythology. Any Wikipedia user who thinks he has spotted an error or wants to add information can modify the article. Unlike at a standard encyclopedia operation, there is no central authority to edit or reject articles.
The GIA approach, though, raises the possibility that people could post libelous information, or data that unreasonably compromises a person's privacy.
That troubles Barry Steinhardt, director of the Technology & Liberty Program of the American Civil Liberties Union. "We think that there should be some restrictions on the publishing of personally identifiable information, whether it involves government officials or not," he said.
But he noted that the public has a right to know some things about a politician that would be properly kept private about an ordinary citizen. For instance, voters have a right to know where a politician sends his children to school, if that politician has taken a strong stand on school vouchers.
"Do they have the right to publish every piece of data they're going to publish?" Steinhardt asked. "It's going to depend on what they publish."
In any case, Steinhardt said, McKinley and Csikszentmihalyi have a First Amendment right to set up the GIA project. And he said that it's a valuable response to the government's TIA surveillance. "I assume the point of this is, turnabout is fair play."
On a page of the GIA website, at opengov.media.mit.edu, McKinley and Csikszentmihalyi give their answer to questions about the legitimacy of their actions.
"Is it legal?" the site reads. "It should be." More >
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 7 Jul 2003 @ 11:48
Remembering Our Forefathers
The Men Who Signed The Declaration Of Independence
The Signers of the Declaration of Independence
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Have you ever wondered what happened to the 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence? Five signers were captured by the British as traitors, and tortured before they died. Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned. Two lost their sons serving in the Revolutionary Army; another had two sons captured. Nine of the 56 fought and died from wounds or
hardships of the Revolutionary War. They signed and they pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor.
What kind of men were they? Twenty-four were lawyers and jurists. Eleven were merchants, nine were farmers and large plantation owners; men of means, well educated, but they signed the Declaration of Independence knowing full well that the penalty would be death if they were captured.
Carter Braxton of Virginia, a wealthy planter and trader, saw his ships swept from the seas by the British Navy. He sold his home and properties to pay his debts, and died in rags.
Thomas McKeam was so hounded by the British that he was forced to move his family almost constantly. He served in the Congress without pay, and his family was kept in hiding. His possessions were taken from him, and poverty was his reward.
Vandals or soldiers looted the properties of Dillery, Hall, Clymer, Walton, Gwinnett, Heyward, Ruttledge, and Middleton. At the battle of Yorktown, Thomas Nelson, Jr., noted that the British General, Cornwallis, had taken over the Nelson home for his headquarters. He quietly urged General George Washington to open fire. The home was destroyed, and Nelson died bankrupt.
Francis Lewis had his home and properties destroyed. The enemy jailed his wife, and she died within a few months.
John Hart was driven from his wife's bedside as she was dying. Their 13 children fled for their lives. His fields and his gristmill were laid to waste. For more than a year he lived in forests and caves, returning home to find his wife dead and his children vanished. More >
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 7 Jul 2003 @ 11:35
Greenpeace accuses US of breaching Geneva Conventions in Iraq
Agence France-Presse
Baghdad, July 4
Environmental group Greenpeace accused US-led authorities in Iraq on Friday of breaching international law and refusing to allow United Nations experts to assess contamination at a nuclear plant near Baghdad.
The head of the group's Iraq investigation team, Mike Townsley, said that the US-led occupation authority was breaching the Geneva Conventions "by failing in its responsibility to ensure the health of Iraqi people".
The group says that it has detected worrying levels of radioactivity in schools and homes around the Tuwaitha nuclear plant, around 20 kilometres east of the capital, but that the coalition refuses to recognise the problem.
The conventions lay out the legal obligations of an occupying power, as well as the rules of war and treatment of prisoners.
Townsley said that coalition authorities were ignoring an urgent environmental health crisis caused by a "frightening array of radioactive material".
The group brought a barrel containing a radioactive sample of yellow cake -- one of the main ingredients used for making nuclear fuel -- to coalition headquarters in Baghdad to press its case.
Radioactive material was looted from the plant in the chaos that followed the collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime on April 9.
Greenpeace says that it has noticed an increase in reports of illnesses with symptoms consistent with radiation poisoning, adding that local doctors are ill-equipped to deal with the situation.
The group brought the barrel together with a letter addressed to the top US civil administrator, Paul Bremer, to his offices in a former palace in central Baghdad, but was refused entry, Townsley said.
In the letter, which was accepted by a coalition official, the group urged Bremer to protect the health of those who live around Iraq's nuclear sites.
"We urge you to immediately meet your obligation to protect public health by calling on the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to mount an urgent investigation into radioactive contamination around Al-Tuwaitha."
The group said it believed there was sufficient evidence for Bremer to reassess his view that there was no health risk posed by the plant.
The group says Bremer's administration has repeatedly denied that the Tuwaitha plant represents a threat to public health and says it has blocked efforts to allow the IAEA to access the plant.
The Iraqi atomic energy commission, along with the IAEA and the US army's own radiation protection unit's chief, Colonel Mark Melanson, has recommended that a UN team be allowed to assess the situation at the plant, Townsley said.
Greenpeace said last week that it had uncovered radioactivity in a number of buildings, including one source measuring 10,000 times above normal and another, outside a primary school, measuring 3,000 times above normal.
Locals were still storing radioactive barrels and lids in their houses and several objects carrying radioactive symbols lay discarded in the community.
But an IAEA team last month found most of the uranium feared stolen from Tuwaitha, Science magazine reported on June 20.
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 7 Jul 2003 @ 11:24
This is a viwpoint article from the Memphis Flyer online magazine.
Mad As Hell
Cheri Delbrocco
WMDs LOCATED!
am happy to announce the WMD’s have been located. For months, we have been told WMD’s are out there. Because of WMD’s, our troops are still suffering casualties daily in Iraq. According to George Bush, Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld, Colin Powell, and Condeleeza Rice, WMD’s pose a great threat to the world. Imagine how surprising it is to learn the WMD’s have been prolifterating right here in the good old U.S. of A.
Such weapons include psychological, political, and propagandizing devices. Those who launch the attacks know thousands could become more hopeless and apathetic, but their fundamental motive is to strike constant and continued fear and panic in millions of Americans. In an effort to better inform readers on the threat to America, this Weapons of Mass Deception Guideline is being offered.
“Perpetual War Makes Us Safer”
Mindcontrol
History: Since September 11, 2001, we have been told by George W. Bush that we are at war, and that being at war will bring freedom and peace to the world.
Weapons: Exploitation of 9/11, the American flag, fundamentalist Christianity, the Republican Party
Delivery System: Media outlets- especially television news ; AM talk radio- especially Rush Limbaugh; most members of Congress; the White House
Symptoms: Certitude, intolerance, banal speeches, right wing punditry passed as objective journalism, failure of public to express dissent due to fear of being called unAmerican.
Treatment: Perpetual War mindcontrol often takes months or years to take its toll. Voters often cannot pinpoint it right away, because many elected officials publicly claim to oppose it, but eventually captitulate to the will and wishes of George W. Bush by refusing to stand up to his wrongheaded ideas of pre-emptive and ceaseless military invasion.
During the Presidential debates of 2000, George W. Bush said, “ I would be very careful about using our troops as nation builders. I believe the role of the military is to fight and win war and therefore, prevent war from happening in the first place.” Shock and awe.
“It’s Not the Economy, It’s the War, Stupid”
Germfare
History: For three years, we been told by Bush, the economy is getting better and will rebound soon. We have been told the largest tax cut in the history of our nation will benefit working middle-class Americans and that another interest rate cut will stimulate the economy.
We have been told the record number of personal bankruptcies do not matter and that the corporate criminals who blew our pension plans will be be punished. We have been told the growing unemployment rate is only a temporary problem. Blah blah blah blah blah.
Weapons: Distortion of Facts about who is benefitting from tax cuts, attempts to privatize retirement accounts, social security, and the healthcare system.
Delivery System: Alan Greenspan; The Wall Street Journal; MSNBC; Financial Talking Heads on television networks; the Republican Party; George W. Bush
Symptoms: Unemployment rates at a 9 year high, government surpluses lost to skyrocketing debt, elimination of taxes on corporations and wealthiest Americans, scamming of retirement funds, corporate criminal corruption with no penalties, millions with no healthcare or access to prescription drugs.
Treatment: Making the next generation as poor as church mice will not be an easy problem to solve. Driving this country further into debt by financing war without end, and tax cuts for only the wealthiest, is hard to treat, as long as Republicans are in power. The best treatment will be to elect leaders who want peace and prosperity for all Americans.
“United We Stand”
Propaganda Warfare
History: The first use of propaganda warfare took place in 2000 after George W. Bush was selected by the Supreme Court justices who had been appointed by his father. The American public was told he was elected by voters, although all the votes were never counted.
Weapons: Complicity by media to allow fabrications, exagerrations, and cover ups of facts regarding corruption and deception by this government.
Delivery System: Most media outlets; the Republican Party; Ari Fleischer; the entire Bush cabinet, George W. Bush.
Symptoms: Confusion, Distrust, Apathy, Hopelessness
Treatment: Turn off and tune out. Question the Bush administration and start asking why the right wingers who voted for him say dissenters are un-American, un-patriotic, or un-Christian.
Register to vote and get facts on all candidates running for the Presidency.
By using Weapons of Mass Deception, the Bush administration has managed to tank the economy, put government into debt for generations, run roughshod over two centuries of civil liberities, and launch unending global war. This has happened in less than 30 months.
The American public should enact an Emergency Alert System that will be activated by all voters at the direction of the White House and Congress. It should be sent out to a national network of grassroots efforts coast to coast. Action should be taken immediately so that the Weapons of Mass Deception are detonated immediately. More >
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| Monday, June 23, 2003 | |
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 23 Jun 2003 @ 03:14
Free Drugs Or Free Speech?
By David Crisp
The Billings Outpost
June 12, 2003
A canceled Billings rock concert could provoke an early challenge to new national anti-drug legislation.
A May 30 fund-raising concert for the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws was canceled as bands were setting up for the show. The cancellation followed a warning from a federal drug agent that the Eagles Lodge could be fined up to $250,000 if illegal drugs were used at the event.
The day before, the concert promoter was jailed for a probation violation. The organizer, Adam Jones, said afterward that he would drop his activities in the NORML chapter at Montana State University-Billings and in Students for Sensible Drug Policy as a result of the incident.
The $250,000 penalty was included in the Illicit Drug Anti-Proliferation Act of 2003, which President Bush signed into law on April 30. The legislation was attached to the popular Child Abduction Prevention Act, better known as the Amber Alert bill.
The bill's sponsor was Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., who has said that it was aimed at those who knowingly profit from illegal drug use at events they sponsor, especially at raves, where participants often consume the drug Ecstasy. But critics say that the bill is so vaguely worded that it could force innocent bar owners and event sponsors out of business.
Some critics also have worried that the law could be used to squelch political activity. Gay rights groups, for example, frequently use concerts and raves as fund-raising events. The NORML benefit here was intended to raise money to place a medical marijuana initiative on the ballot in 2004.
The Eagles Lodge manager, who asked to be identified only as Kelly, said that the Billings agent who approached her the day of the concert didn't make threats but did warn of possible consequences.
"He was polite and was just explaining things," she said. She said she referred the matter to lodge trustees, who consulted an attorney before deciding to cancel the concert. Phone calls to Trustee Roger Diehl were not returned Friday or over the weekend.
News of the Billings concert cancellation spread rapidly on the Internet last week and even rated a link on Glenn Reynold's popular InstaPundit web log site. Mr. Reynolds, a University of Tennessee law professor with libertarian leanings, has argued that Biden's bill, once known as the RAVE Act, was defective legislation.
"I blame Joe Biden - for sneaking through this abomination - and [Attorney General John] Ashcroft's Justice Department, for applying it this way," Mr. Reynolds wrote about the Billings case. "This legislation has always been part of a culture war, not an anti-drug effort, and this application just makes that crystal clear for anyone who hadn't noticed."
Complete Article Here with reader responses. More >
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| Sunday, June 22, 2003 | |
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 22 Jun 2003 @ 00:52
Web Sites and Pages Dedicated To PEACE:
MoveOn
Waging Peace
True Majority
Organic 4 Life More >
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 22 Jun 2003 @ 00:52
Aaron Plunkett from Ojai Valley whale Society sent me this.
There is an immediate call to action needed. Please look at this site for an explanation of the complete disrespect and descimation of our fellow mammals. Words cannot express what your going to see!!!
Orca Network
Though the site gives the contact for the ships commander, Evon Carter at the bottom of the article, I was able to get a direct line to the Commanders Quarter Deck on the ship where all commands are carried out. Who knows how I was able to get this....I must sound official. Ha, ha, ha.
The posted tele no. is 425-304-5042 and the private line is 425-304-5030.
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May 12, 2003
CENTER FOR WHALE RESEARCH
On 5 May 2003, the US Navy Guided Missile Destroyer "Shoup" DDG 86 conducted sonar operations for five hours in the Strait of Juan de Fuca and in Haro Strait between Vancouver Island, creating one of the most obvious displays of marine mammal harassment that experienced observers have ever seen, anywhere. The terrorized whales and porpoises in the region could not escape the intense mid-frequency (3 kHz) long duration "pings" from the ship's SQS 53C sonar; and, several porpoises are reported to have "coincidentally" stranded and died following the sonar event. The carcasses of these mammals have been collected for forensic examination for acoustic pressure trauma (bleeding in ears and brain).
By chance, J pod of 22 killer whales was in Haro Strait at the time of the sonar operations. Observers noted that they abruptly stopped their feeding and gathered in a tight group to swim close to shore at the surface for the duration of the sonar exercise. The sonar "pings" were so powerful (>200 dB re 1 uPa) that they could be heard in air by visitors along the shoreline of San Juan Island.
The US Navy is seeking exemption from the Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act in Congress this week, in part because they know they are the most egregious of marine mammal harassers and killers worldwide. Since March 2000, when they chased 17 whales ashore in the Bahamas, the Navy has known that their sonar kills and injures whales at distances well beyond the visual horizon, yet they continue to "exercise" in inappropriate and confined waters killing these innocent animals.
In just this one day that we recently videotaped, the Navy's lethal sonar adversely impacted every marine mammal within twenty miles of the ship. No wonder marine mammals are stranding and their populations are declining. This is a literal "no-brainer" for the Navy and the whales.
Ken Balcomb
Center for Whale Research More >
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| Sunday, June 15, 2003 | |
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 15 Jun 2003 @ 12:08
Monsanto vs Schmeiser
I cannot believe this nonsense has gotten this far! Here's the story for newcomers. Percy Schmeiser is a farmer. His farm is near a field where Monsanto's patented genetically modified canola was growing. By way of wind, bees, and nature in general, and totally unbeknownst to Schmeiser, pollen from the Monsanto canola traveled to Schmeiser's field and contaminated his canola crop. Monsanto, instead of apologizing for the contamination, has sued Schmeiser for patent infringement! This is like my painting your house without your permission and going to court to force you to pay for it.
Percy Schmeiser More >
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 15 Jun 2003 @ 12:08
Bush Signs To Build Alaska Anti-Missile Shield
Wahington Times
President Bush signed a secret document called National Security Policy Directive 23. The public version of this secret document outlines a world-wide missile defense system, starting with the first installation to be in Alaska about 30 miles from the existing HAARP site. The purported aim of this missile system is to protect against missiles coming from North Korea and other rising rogue nation/states.
A look at the orbital paths of all missiles coming to the United States over Alaska show that they can only come from North Korea or China. And not from Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan or any other "Axis of Evil" middle eastern rogue states who might be building missiles.
The Secret Directive can only approve the currently funded construction for a small missile defense system at Fort Greeley just up the road from HAARP. The advanced billion dollar world-wide system has not yet even been turned into a bill to present to Congress. But if that bill does pass Congress, then the Bush campaign coffers would be filled to the brim by defense contractors all wanting to build missiles.
If it is exposed that HAARP already is a complete operating anti-missile system which covers all of the Pacific Ocean and most of eastern Asia, including China and Korea, then the need to build the big missile system and the campaign contributions to Bush all suddenly dry up.
And thus the reason for completely covering up the truth about HAARP. The public is only supposed to know HAARP to be some quirky mind or weather control experiment only believed in by conspiracy theorists. The use by the Navy and Air Force, who jointly operate HAARP, to bring down a threatening North Korean missile over Alaska last February 1, at the same time Shuttle Columbia was landing is about to expose HAARP for the advanced defense/weapon system it is.
If the truth about HAARP is exposed it will probably mark the swift end of the Bush administration. Now you can understand the inane and almost desperate need for the Columbia Accident Investigation Board to prove that the Shuttle was brought down by a dry piece of foam about the size of a breadbox.
Marshall Smith Editor,
Brother Jonathan Gazette More >
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| Wednesday, June 11, 2003 | |
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 11 Jun 2003 @ 18:14
Bill Moyers' Presidential Address
06/09/2003 @ 10:27am
Democratic presidential candidates were handed a dream audience of 1,000 "ready-for-action" labor, civil rights, peace and economic justice campaigners at the Take Back America conference organized in Washington last week by the Campaign for America's Future. And the 2004 contenders grabbed for it, delivering some of the better speeches of a campaign that remains rhetorically -- and directionally -- challenged. But it was a non-candidate who won the hearts and minds of the crowd with a "Cross of Gold" speech for the 21st century.
Recalling the populism and old-school progressivism of the era in which William Jennings Bryan stirred the Democratic National Convention of 1896 to enter into the great struggle between privilege and democracy -- and to spontaneously nominate the young Nebraskan for president -- journalist and former presidential aide Bill Moyers delivered a call to arms against "government of, by and for the ruling corporate class."
Condemning "the unholy alliance between government and wealth" and the compassionate conservative spin that tries to make "the rape of America sound like a consensual date," Moyers charged that "rightwing wrecking crews" assembled by the Bush Administration and its Congressional allies were out to bankrupt government. Then, he said, they would privatize public services in order to enrich the corporate interests that fund campaigns and provide golden parachutes to pliable politicians. If unchecked, Moyers warned, the result of these machinations will be the dismantling of "every last brick of the social contract."
"I think this is a deliberate, intentional destruction of the United States of America," said Moyers, as he called for the progressives gathered in Washington -- and for their allies across the United States -- to organize not merely in defense of social and economic justice but in order to preserve democracy itself. Paraphrasing the words of Abraham Lincoln as the 16th president rallied the nation to battle against slavery, Moyers declared, "Our nation can no more survive as half democracy and half oligarchy than it could survive half slave and half free."
There was little doubt that the crowd of activists from across the country would have nominated Moyers by acclamation when he finished a remarkable address in which he challenged not just the policies of the Bush Administration but the failures of Democratic leaders in Congress to effectively challenge the president and his minions. In the face of what he described as "a radical assault" on American values by those who seek to redistribute wealth upward from the many to a wealthy few, Moyers said he could not understand "why the Democrats are afraid to be labeled class warriors in a war the other side started and is winning."
Several of the Democratic presidential contenders who addressed the crowd after Moyers picked up pieces of his argument. Former US Senator Carol Moseley Braun actually quoted William Jennings Bryan, while North Carolina Senator John Edwards and Massachusetts Senator John Kerry tried -- with about as much success as Al Gore in 2000 -- to sound populist. Former House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt promised not to be "Bush-lite," and former Vermont Governor Howard Dean drew warm applause when he said the way for Democrats to get elected "is not to be like Republicans, but to stand up against them and fight." Ultimately, however, only the Rev. Al Sharpton and Congressional Progressive Caucus co-chair Dennis Kucinich came close to matching the fury and the passion of the crowd.
Kucinich, who earned nine standing ovations for his antiwar and anti-corporate free trade rhetoric, probably did more to advance his candidacy than any of the other contenders. But he never got to the place Moyers reached with a speech that legal scholar Jamie Raskin described as one of the most "amazing and spellbinding" addresses he had ever heard. Author and activist Frances Moore Lappe said she was close to tears as she thanked Moyers for providing precisely the mixture of perspective and hope that progressives need as they prepare to challenge the right in 2004.
That, Moyers explained, was the point of his address, which reflected on White House political czar Karl Rove's oft-stated admiration for Mark Hanna, the Ohio political boss who managed the campaigns and the presidency of conservative Republican William McKinley. It was McKinley who beat Bryan in 1896 and -- with Hanna's help -- fashioned a White House that served the interests of the corporate trusts.
Comparing the excesses of Hanna and Rove, and McKinley and Bush, Moyers said "the social dislocations and the meanness of the 19th century " were being renewed by a new generation of politicians who, like their predecessors, seek to strangle the spirit of the American revolution "in the hard grip of the ruling class."
To break that grip, Moyers said, progressives of today must learn from the revolutionaries and reformers of old. Recalling the progressive movement that rose up in the first years of the 20th century to "restore the balance between wealth and commonwealth," and the successes of the New Dealers who turned progressive ideals into national policy, Moyers told the crowd to "get back in the fight." "Hear me!" he cried. "Allow yourself the conceit to believe that the flame of democracy will never go out as long as there is one candle in your hand."
While others were campaigning last week, Moyers was tending the flame of democracy. In doing so, he unwittingly made himself the candle holder-in-chief for those who seek to spark a new progressive era.
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| Monday, June 9, 2003 | |
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 9 Jun 2003 @ 09:01
First we fight over oil, now water. How many wars will we fight, and for how long, under the guise of control of natural resource?
From Corporate Watch
Vivendi’s Empire-building
Not to be out-done by the oft-repeated fashion-house phrase ‘blah, blah is the new black’, big business has turned neophiliac too. ‘Water is the new oil’ they say. And they are right. According to the World Bank, the water markets of the world are worth up to $800 billion, which makes them comparable in scale to the fossil fuel markets. And what better way to gain access to these markets than through the world’s increasingly GATS (General Agreement on Trade in Services)-friendly governments. This is despite the 2003 World Water Forum’s conclusion that privatisation models haven’t proved their worth and that the debate over them 'has not been resolved'…1 The Forum brought together hundreds of groups concerned about the use of the world’s water reserves – from those who want to conserve them (Bangladesh Unnayan Parishad) to those who want to sell them (World Bank).
February 2003 saw the announcement that French company Vivendi (one of the big three water conglomerates – the other two being Suez and RWE AG) did what Monsieur Tony Blair just last year refused it; namely, increasing its foothold in the UK water industry. Together with the Royal Bank of Scotland, Vivendi has been allowed to acquire a 19.9% stake in Southern Water with the option to increase it to 25%.2 This is in addition to its existing ownership of the Three Valleys, Folkestone and Dover and Tendring Hundred water companies, and gives Vivendi a 10% share of the UK’s £6bn water market. Vivendi’s patchy history makes this an especially worrying development.
Vivendi has been bribing its home country’s government for concessions since the 1980s.3 It now controls 50% of the 80% privatised French water market. In 1985, France’s federal comptroller found that the Paris Mayor’s office had signed a contract with Compagnie Generale des Eaux (Vivendi) that allowed it to indulge in fraudulent accounting to hide enormous profits. Separate judicial enquiries have also alleged that in a 'pact of corruption', Vivendi financed Jacques Chirac’s party through illegal commissions in exchange for public contracts ranging from elevator maintenance to water concessions. One of these inquiries, which opened in June 1997 and is still ongoing, found that the companies colluded with civil servants by paying illegal commissions - primarily to Chirac’s party (the RPR). Between 1989 and 1995, the pact was involved with public contracts worth $3.3 billion with up to $86 million being funnelled to the RPR. Both company officials and party executives have admitted the companies agreed to pay 2% to 3% of the cost of each contract to political parties. Several party executives are awaiting sentancing with Vivendi refusing to comment as the cases are still before the courts.
In 1991, Andre Fougerousse, the mayor of Ostwald, on the outskirts of Strasbourg, and municipal councillor of Strasbourg, resigned from his post after being accused of receiving illegal payments from Vivendi, Suez and Saur. Fougerousse did not deny the allegations but claimed they were normal, arguing that other elected city officials enjoyed similar favours. He wasn’t lying.
In 1996, Vivendi’s deputy director general, Jean-Dominique Deschamps, was sentenced to 18 months in prison and fined $27, 000 after being found guilty of paying illegal commissions to political parties in exchange for obtaining water contracts in approximately 70 French cities. A year later the former mayor of Angouleme, Jean-Michel Boucheron, was sentenced to two years in prison and fined $172, 000 for taking a $55, 000 bribe from Vivendi. In return for Boucheron’s approval of a water distribution contract, Vivendi put him on its payroll for a job that did not exist.
Apparently not satisfied with its influence over one ‘democratic’ government, the Vivendi octopus attached a sucker to Italy. In 2001, Italian judges sentenced former Milan city council president, Massimo De Carolis, to nearly three years in jail for taking bribes from a Vivendi subsidiary during 1998 bidding on a $100 million contract. Alain Maetz, the manager who paid the $2 million bribe, got a year and 10 months.
That Vivendi has no qualms about seeking to control governments is not really surprising given that it employs more people than some governments – 295, 000 world-wide. The Vivendi Universal empire is composed of two major divisions, Vivendi Environment and Vivendi Communications. Vivendi Universal created Vivendi Environment in 2000 to consolidate its water, waste (Onyx), energy (Dalkia) and transportation (Connex) units under a single - and presumably large - banner (subsidiaries range from processing Novartis’ waste to ferrying Renault employees to work).
In 2002, the conglomerate barely staved off bankruptcy as it struggled to cope with billions of debt, a collapsing share price, boardroom infighting and no clear strategy. Earnings were hit by hefty depreciation in the value of Vivendi''s assets and led to the sacking of chairman Jean-Marie Messier last July.
Another sacked employee, Anne Brassens, who worked at Vivendi’s finance office during the same period, explained the problem in an April 2003 interview.4 She said that Vivendi had lacked enough cash at the holding company level to fund an acquisition spree by ex-chief executive Jean-Marie Messier. Brassens said Messier had been driven by a ‘logic of Napoleonic expansion’ and accused the former banker of having no idea about the value of assets he was buying as he turned the water company into a media colossus, owning Universal Studios and Universal Music Group. ‘So we found ourselves with 20bn euros of debts and not a single penny in cashflow,’ said Brassens. Asked why in that case Vivendi had continued to pay out dividends, she was reported as saying: ‘To give the market the illusion of good health.’ Vivendi's balance sheet was a ‘facade bearing no relation to reality,’ she said.
Since the introduction of new chief executive, Jean-Rene Fourtou, Vivendi Universal hasn’t done much better. In fact, March 2003 revealed a loss of 23.3 billion euros ($25.6 billion) in 2002, the largest in French corporate history.5 It now looks like Vivendi Communications (which includes the world’s biggest music company, Universal Music Group, as well as Universal film studios, and various Internet and cable networks) will be sold off.
This by no means entails the end of Vivendi Environment. Quite the contrary. Vivendi Environment’s water-related revenue increased from $5 billion in 1990 to $12 billion in 2002, and in January 2000, Vivendi unloaded its entire debt onto its environment division and its lucrative water companies, so that its communications division could go debt free.6 In other words, Vivendi Water holds the key to the empire’s future.
Continue... More >
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 9 Jun 2003 @ 08:38
This comes from The Burma Mission organization.
Dear Burma-ban campaigners,
As many of you may know, Burma's regime has violently cracked down on the democracy movement over the past week and a half, killing as many as one hundred or more people and imprisoning many more - including democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and her "lieutenant" National League for Democracy Vice-Chair U Tin Oo. Both Daw Suu and U Tin Oo are also injured.
Things are moving very rapidly. The Free Burma movement is rapidly pushing for as much international pressure on Burma's regime as possible. In the U.S., this is largely taking the form of legislation that will ban all imports from Burma, as well as ensure that the regime can receive no IMF or World Bank loans and freeze their overseas assets. While this legislation has been in the works for a while, it was only just introduced on Wednesday and is moving *very* quickly because of the ongoing political crisis.
Please post this alert to your lists TODAY, and please act immediately - first by calling your Senators, then by calling your Representatives. The Senate vote will probably occur first, and very soon.
This legislation, if passed as it is, will effectively put an end to our campaigns against "Made in Burma" goods and allow us to turn to other ways of pressuring Burma's regime.
Thanks for your continued support and action,
*******************************
Dan Beeton Free Burma Coalition
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URGENT ACTION ALERT: CALL YOUR MEMBERS OF CONGRESS AND SENATORS TODAY
1) Description of Action
2) Talking Points
3) Text of Legislation
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1) On Wednesday, June 4, both the Senate and House of Representatives introduced legislation to significantly increase pressure against Burma's brutal military regime. It comes just days after a nationwide military crackdown in Burma, during which scores of people were killed and 1991 Nobel Peace Prize recipient Aung San Suu Kyi was seriously injured and rearrested. While this latest atrocity adds urgency the situation, the legislation is NOT being introduced in reaction to it. It is being introduced because the military regime refuses to participate in UN-sponsored talks with Suu Kyi and her party, the National League for Democracy. This is an important distinction--because then in order to escape the legislation the regime would simply have to release Suu Kyi, and we would be back at square one.
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2) Call your Congressional and Senate offices and ask to speak with the staff member who handles foreign affairs. If you get their voicemail, leave a message explaining that it is very urgent and they need to call you back as soon as possible.
-If you do have a chance to talk to them, let them know what has happened in Burma, including to Aung San Suu Kyi. (You can request recent news from national papers and/or papers in your area from us).
-Ask for them to co-sponsor the Burma Freedom Act, (if they are a Senator, they will co-sponsor the Senate version BILL S1182, if they are a House member, support the House version, HR2330).
-Offer to email them a copy of the legislation. They cannot give you an immediate answer, since they need to ask the Senator/Congressperson. But do ask them when they will be able to tell you what action the Senator or Congressperson is taking. Let them know that the people of your State greatly care about this and that the ongoing crackdown on democracy in Burma makes the situation very urgent.
-Write down exactly what happened with each call you make--send us an email and let us know where things stand. Try to be as detailed as possible about your conversations. That will help us answer any concerns they have.
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"We believe in people power. Without your participation, we can achieve nothing."
- Min Ko Naing, Burmese student leader imprisoned in Burma since 1989
PLEASE CONTINUE READING More >
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| Friday, June 6, 2003 | |
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 6 Jun 2003 @ 10:39
PETITION: STOP THE FLORIDA-TION OF THE 2004 ELECTION
Wednesday May 28, 2003
Today, there is a new and real threat to voters, this time coming from touchscreen voting machines with no paper trails and the computerized purges of voter rolls.
Join SCLC President Martin Luther King III and investigative reporter Greg Palast in a nationwide petition drive through Working Assets, to oppose the "Florida-tion" of the 2004 Presidential election. Sign this petition!
Pass it on!
A complete copy of the petition will be delivered by Working Assets to Attorney General John Ashcroft.
Read the full petition and more information on past and potential threats to American democracy
Sign the petition More >
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 6 Jun 2003 @ 10:39
"World's Other Superpower" Plots Its Next Move
- Jakarta Peace Consensus forged - Five delegates arrested by Indonesian police
PDF report HERE
JAKARTA, INDONESIA -- Over a hundred representatives of what the New York Times calls the "world's other superpower" gathered here in Jakarta from May 18-21 to plot the next moves of the global anti-war movement after the United States' invasion of Iraq.
Delegates coming from 24 countries and representing some of the biggest anti-war coalitions and groupings all over the world emerged from intense debates and discussions with a statement of unity and a specific plan of action embodied in a document called the "Jakarta Peace Consensus."
The consensus calls for, among other things, an immediate end to the illegal occupation of Iraq and the withholding of recognition to any regime that will be installed by the US and the United Kingdom. The consensus then sets out a list of demands regarding such issues as the use and control of Iraq's resources, debt cancellation, the United Nations' role and other questions surrounding post-war reconstruction and administration.
On the plight of Iraq, the "Jakarta Peace Consensus" articulates a commitment to hold an international war crimes tribunal for prosecuting the US and its allies, the sending of a series of peace missions and mass delegations to Iraq as well as the establishment of Occupation Watch Centers to monitor the US military and corporations in Iraq.
Noting the strong links between globalization to militarism, the consensus endorses the call for a week of action against the World Trade Organization (WTO) during its coming ministerial in Cancun, Mexico this September. The Consensus also plans to launch a "World Says No to Bush" campaign that will culminate during the Republican Party's national convention in September next year. In addition, the participants have committed to revitalize the worldwide campaign for disarmament as well as to launch a global campaign against the proliferation of US bases around the world.
As to the world's other wars, the consensus lists and supports a number of proposals for responding to the conflicts currently raging in Palestine, Aceh, Mindanao, Chechnya, Congo, and Kashmir among others.
A TRULY GLOBAL MOVEMENT
For all the death and destruction it has caused, the United States' invasion of Iraq has given birth to a truly amazing and historic global anti-war movement. The undeniable significance of this movement was at no point more forcefully demonstrated than with the massive internationally coordinated marches that swept the globe last February 14 to 16.
The hurriedly organized conference in Jakarta was open to all and everyone who was interested was encouraged to attend. Those who attended come from some of the biggest national and regional anti-war coalitions and groupings all over the world.
This includes representatives from the Asian Peace Alliance, a broad network of anti-war organizations from all over Asia; the UK Stop the War Coalition which organized the historic demonstrations in London; United for Peace and Justice, the biggest anti-war coalition in the United States; the Italian Social Forum, key organizers of last year's million strong anti-war march during the European Social Forum; the Istanbul No to War Coordination, which was responsible for the massive actions in Turkey; and Books not Bombs, an Australian high school student movement as well as a host of other national anti-war coalitions.
Also represented were Iraqi democracy activists, some organizers of the coming World Social Forum in India, delegates from the World March of Women, Indonesian trade unions, the South Africa Anti-Privatization Forum, Greenpeace, Focus on the Global South, and Jubilee South. Also slated to attend, but not granted Indonesian visas, were delegates from Pakistan, Palestine, and an Iraqi exile from Japan.
The participants came from the following countries: Afghanistan, Australia, Austria, Brazil, Canada, East Timor, France, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea, Lebanon, Malaysia, Netherlands, Nicaragua, the Philippines, South Africa, Tunisia, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
After three days of intense debates and discussions, the participants hammered together the "Jakarta Peace Consensus," a declaration of unity and a specific plan of action which they have agreed to propose to the global peace and justice movements. The Consensus will be translated to Arabic, French, Spanish, Bahasa Indonesian, Italian, etc. and will be presented to the next international anti-war meeting in Evian this May 31.
A MEETING FOR PEACE AGAINST A BACKDROP OF WAR
The conference was held in Indonesia and in a region that was incidentally increasingly becoming engulfed in war.
The conference proceedings were regularly interrupted with updates about the intensifying conflicts in Aceh and Mindanao, where both the Indonesian and Philippine governments have recently broken peace talks with secessionist movements and have just launched fresh military offensives against them.
On the first day of the conference, martial law was imposed in Aceh. In Mindanao, the government has threatened to categorize the Moro Islamic Liberation Front as a "terrorist" organization and, hence, a legitimate target of US military intervention. US Special Forces are scheduled to be deployed there in the coming weeks. More than 300,000 civilians have been rendered refugees because of a renewed wave of military assaults and bombings.
The conference was held in conjunction with other meetings that have been held by the representatives of the global peace movement after the war. Last May 9, there was a Hemispheric Conference against Militarization held in Chiapas, Mexico that was attended mostly by peace activists from Latin America. Last April 25, mostly European activists gathered in Berlin, Germany.
The next big meeting of the global peace movement is scheduled on May 31, during the G-8 summit to be held in France.
Complete Declaration Here
Read on...... More >
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| Wednesday, June 4, 2003 | |
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 4 Jun 2003 @ 09:39
Anti-Zionist Orthodox Jews Demonstrate at so-called Israel Day Parade
June 1, 2003
On Sunday, June 1, 2003 beginning at 11:15 am at 5th Ave. and 59th St. in Manhattan there will be a group of anti-Zionist Jews demonstrating against Zionism and the Zionist State that will be celebrated by marchers in their so-called Israel Day Parade.
The Anti-Zionist Orthodox Jews will proclaim their loyalty to pure Judaism and their opposition to Zionist heresy, which violates every principle of the Jewish religion. These people shall proclaim that the idolatrous Zionist ideology has no role in the life of an Orthodox Jew, and that Jews are obligated by Judaism to live in peace and harmony with every other people throughout the world, including of course, the native Palestinian People.
Pure Judaism proclaims that we are to accept the decree of Exile of G-d and live among the nations in every corner of the Earth, and are not to establish a State and attempt to end the divinely ordained Exile.
Pure Judaism forbids the uprooting of the indigenous people of the Holy Land, it proclaims its principles of humanity and justice that demands the total restoration of all human, civil, economic and political rights of the Palestinians, including the right of return of all Palestinians to their homes in historic Palestine, thereby enabling Palestine to be governed by its original native inhabitants.
These principles are essential ingredients of Judaism, and no amount of Zionism brainwashing of many Jews throughout the world and Zionist media propaganda can ever do away with these eternal principles. We declare to all non-Jews who believe that support for Zionist idolatry and ethnic cleansing demonstrates sympathy for the Jewish People that this is a grave error!!
We beseech all well-meaning non-Jews to understand the truth of what Judaism teaches, and we encourage our fellow Jews to resist the incessant hysterical and paranoia-filled propaganda of the Zionists, their heresy and their xenophobia, and learn the truth of what Judaism is and what Zionism is.
Those of us who oppose Zionism express true compassion for the Jewish People because we address the ROOT CAUSE of the suffering in the Holy Land inasmuch as Zionism is the cause of bloodshed in the Middle East and hatred of Jews throughout the world. More >
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Sounding Circle - Category: Activism
