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13 Apr 2003 @ 21:48
Rebuilding Iraq? It's privatization in disguise by Naomi Klein; April 13, 2003
On April 6, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz spelled it out: There will be no role for the United Nations in setting up an interim government in Iraq. The US-run regime will last at least six months, "probably...longer than that."
And by the time the Iraqi people have a say in choosing a government, the key economic decisions about their country's future will have been made by their occupiers. "There has got to be an effective administration from day one," Wolfowitz said. "People need water and food and medicine, and the sewers have to work, the electricity has to work. And that's a coalition responsibility."
The process of getting all this infrastructure to work is usually called "reconstruction." But American plans for Iraq's future economy go well beyond that. Rather, the country is being treated as a blank slate on which the most ideological Washington neoliberals can design their dream economy: fully privatized, foreign-owned and open for business. More >
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10 Apr 2003 @ 19:35
April 7, 2003 Dear friends,
It appears that the Bush administration will have succeeded in colonizing Iraq sometime in the next few days. This is a blunder of such magnitude -- and we will pay for it for years to come. It was not worth the life of one single American kid in uniform, let alone the thousands of Iraqis who have died, and my condolences and prayers go out to all of them.
So, where are all those weapons of mass destruction that were the pretense for this war? Ha! There is so much to say about all this, but I will save it for later.
What I am most concerned about right now is that all of you -- the majority of Americans who did not support this war in the first place -- not go silent or be intimidated by what will be touted as some great military victory. Now, more than ever, the voices of peace and truth must be heard. I have received a lot of mail from people who are feeling a profound sense of despair and believe that their voices have been drowned out by the drums and bombs of false patriotism. Some are afraid of retaliation at work or at school or in their neighborhoods because they have been vocal proponents of peace. They have been told over and over that it is not "appropriate" to protest once the country is at war, and that your only duty now is to "support the troops." More >
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9 Apr 2003 @ 22:50
by Noam Chomsky and VK Ramachandran Frontline India April 02, 2003
Noam Chomsky , University Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, founder of the modern science of linguistics and political activist, is a powerhouse of anti-imperialist activism in the United States today. On March 21, a crowded and typical - and uniquely Chomskyan - day of political protest and scientific academic research, he spoke from his office for half an hour to V. K. Ramachandran on the current attack on Iraq.
V. K. Ramachandran :Does the present aggression on Iraq represent a continuation of United States' international policy in recent years or a qualitatively new stage in that policy?
Noam Chomsky : It represents a significantly new phase. It is not without precedent, but significantly new nevertheless.
This should be seen as a trial run. Iraq is seen as an extremely easy and totally defenceless target. It is assumed, probably correctly, that the society will collapse, that the soldiers will go in and that the U.S. will be in control, and will establish the regime of its choice and military bases. They will then go on to the harder cases that will follow. The next case could be the Andean region, it could be Iran, it could be others.
The trial run is to try and establish what the U.S. calls a "new norm" in international relations. The new norm is "preventive war" (notice that new norms are established only by the United States). So, for example, when India invaded East Pakistan to terminate horrendous massacres, it did not establish a new norm of humanitarian intervention, because India is the wrong country, and besides, the U.S. was strenuously opposed to that action. More >
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24 Sep 2002 @ 18:10
Other NCNers may wonder why I'm seemingly single focused on the more overtly political. Well, several reasons, with the so-called "War on Terrorism" most peoples focus is on secruity not enviornmental/social or spiritual issues. Unless Bush and his croonies are stopped, there is slim hope for a meaningful survival of humanity and ecosystems. Bush's adminstration is the most blantantly anti-environment, anti-democratic and anti-alternative energy regime the mordern world has seen. Here at NCN I'm probably preaching to the converted mostly, but I think that lots of news is just not reported, and the below article comes from a NZ publication, namely "The Listener". It simply and logically states the blatant disregard for peace the US administration has. Perhaps some here will pass it on.
Tony Blair today officially released the "evidence" that Iraq has biological weapons on mass destruction and the delievery systems needed. If this really is the case, then when would they be most likely to use them. When they are under attack and have nothing to lose seems logical.
A factor that is completly ignored in this whole issue is that Iraq has four, yes FOUR times the oil reserves of the USA.
It took me two hours to copy this.
DEATH AND DISHOHOUR by Gordon Campbell
Ten Reasons Not To Support A War On Iraq.
As the war drums on Iraq beat louder, it's worth recalling why this war is so foolhardy and immoral. It will kill many innocent people, and make the world a far more dangerous place. More >
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23 Sep 2002 @ 19:23
The new ugly Americans by George Ochenski ; 9/19/2002
It'll only get harder to quell our rising discontent
Secretary of State Colin Powell was jeered, booed, and heckled when, as America’s top official at the United Nations World Summit on Sustainable Development, he attempted to defend the unconscionable Bush energy development and consumption agenda and explain away the environmental consequences. Hate to say it, but he got what he deserved. Global protests are increasing over the perceived use of America’s superpower military to bully other nations on trade, politics, and the environment. Both at home and abroad, a tide of resentment against the new “ugly Americans” is rising — and this tide shows no signs of ebbing any time soon.
Deafened by war drums and isolated by handlers, President Bush seems unaware of the broad opposition to his current policies. More >
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15 Sep 2002 @ 18:29
ZNet Commentary Afghanistan Is On The Brink Of Another Disaster September 12, 2002 By Robert Fisk
The garden was overgrown, the roses scrawny after a day of Kandahar heat, the dust in our eyes, noses, mouth, fingernails. But the message was straightforward. "This is a secret war," the Special Forces man told me. "And this is a dirty war. You don't know what is happening." And of course, we are not supposed to know. In a "war against terror", journalists are supposed to keep silent and rely on the good guys to sort out the bad guys without worrying too much about human rights.
How many human rights did the mass killers of 11 September allow their victims? You are either with us or against us. Whose side are you on? But the man in the garden was worried. He was not an American. He was one of the "coalition allies", as the Americans like to call the patsies who have trotted after them into the Afghan midden. "The Americans don't know what to do here now," he went on. "Their morale in Afghanistan is going downhill -- though there's no problem with the generals running things in Tampa. They're still gung-ho. But here the soldiers know things haven't gone right, that things aren't working. Even their interrogations went wrong". Brutally so, it seems. More >
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7 Sep 2002 @ 21:21
Against War September 08, 2002 By Neve Gordon
I am against the war, the (perpetual) war on terrorism as well as the war against Iraq. I am against empire, the control of nearly 40 percent of the world's resources secured by the deployment of air, naval, and ground forces in over 800 bases across the globe. And I am against deception; the claim that United States foreign policy is aimed at ensuring freedom, justice and democracy around the world, when in fact its overseas agenda is driven by corporate greed, power and domination. More >
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29 Apr 2002 @ 01:48
Edwardo Galeano Rebelion.org April 27, 2002
Sigmund Freud had learned it from Jean-Martin Charcot: ideas can be implanted by hypnosis in the human mind.
More than a century has gone by since then, and the technology of manipulation has made great strides. This is a colossal machine, the size of the planet, that orders us to repeat the messages it puts inside our heads. It’s a word-abusing machine.
The President of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, had been elected, and reelected, by an overwhelming majority, in a much more transparent election than the one that put George W. Bush in power in the United States More >
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22 Apr 2002 @ 16:57
A Different Kind Of Devastating: From Anti-Corporate Populism To Anti-Capitalist Alternatives
by Gerard Greenfield
The recent attempt to ban ski masks and scarves in Quebec City during the Summit of the Americas provides a useful insight into the way anti-globalization movements are perceived by the powers-that-be. Much has already been said about excessive police powers and the violation of civil liberties. This is clearly an important issue. But there’s a deeper, more powerful symbolism involved.
By trying to make it illegal to “wear or have in your possession a mask, hood or ski mask, or any other object of the same to cover one’s face”, the rich and powerful have sent us a message: they’re afraid. They’re afraid of the recent successes of the anti-globalization protests and, in an attempt to limit the damage, they want to identify the trouble-makers. Unmasked, these opponents of globalization will somehow be disarmed. What this comic-book logic suggests is that they just don’t understand what’s going on. What they see as anti-globalization protests are in fact expressions of diverse, organized and often deeply-rooted popular movements. In addition to diverse politics and fashions (lacking a ski mask or hood I’d only qualify for “any other object”), the fact is these movements aren’t about a handful of trouble-makers in masks. It’s about ordinary people struggling against injustice, oppression and exploitation, and making trouble in different ways. They’re all trouble-makers - with or without a mask. More >
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1 Feb 2002 @ 18:56
Transcript: VisionTV On The Great 911 Deception
Tuesday, 29 January 2002, 11:34 am
Article: The Scoop Editor
EDITOR’S NOTE: The following is a transcript of a Canadian news
and current affairs programme devoted to “unanswered
questions” around the events of 911. The programme is thought
to be the first network television broadcast on the North
American continent raising serious questions about CIA
involvement in and failures in relation to the September 11th
attacks of the World Trade Center.
The following are three viewer comments on the programme..
“The most courageous and important media commentary since
Oliver Stone’s JFK.”
“The only thing about ‘The Great Deception’ that surprised me
was that a nation-wide TV channel would broadcast it.”
“VisionTV is to be applauded for venturing into this terrain.”
Note on the Programme's Makers: VisionTV Insight Mediafile
takes an up-close look at how the media deal with current issues
and events from an ethical, moral, spiritual and humanitarian
perspective. The half-hour program features VisionTV Insight
media critic Barrie Zwicker, along with the show’s regular media
panel, which includes Toronto Sun editor Lorrie Goldstein,
freelance writer and columnist Marianne Meed Ward, and One:
the Body, Mind & Spirit channel's Executive Producer, Irshad
Manji.
More >
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31 Jan 2002 @ 17:28
Bush's Colder War And The New 'Red Scare'
By John Pilger The Mirror - London www.johnpilger.com 1-30-2
Last week, the US government announced that it was building the biggest-ever war machine. Military spending will rise to $379billion, of which $50billion will pay for its "war on terrorism". There will be special funding for new, refined weapons of mass slaughter and for "military operations" - invasions of other countries. More >
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28 Jan 2002 @ 15:19
NEW REPORT CHALLENGES FUNDAMENTALS OF GENETIC ENGINEERING January 15, 2002 >From a press release
NEW YORK -- A study released today reveals a critical, long-overlooked flaw in the science behind the multi-billion dollar genetic engineering industry, raising serious questions about the safety of genetically engineered foods. In a new review of scientific literature reported in the February issue of Harper`s Magazine, Dr. Barry Commoner, a prominent biologist demonstrates that the bioengineering industry, which now accounts for 25-50 percent of the U.S. corn and soybean crop, relies on a 40-year-old theory that DNA genes are in total control of inheritance in all forms of life. According to this theory -- the ``central dogma`` -- the outcome of transferring a gene from one organism to another is always ``specific, precise and predictable,`` and therefore safe. More >
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