[ 2005 November - Februrary | 2005 July - October | 2005 March - June | 2004 November - February | 2004 July - October | 2004 March - June | 2003 November - February | 2003 July - October | 2003 March - June | 2002 | 2001 | 2000 ]
UK police seized an Indymedia server because of a message anonymously posted on it.
The first US town to move because of global warming.
It's hitting Alaska first, because the warming is greatest in the Arctic and Antarctic. But it will get to the othyer coastal states by and by, if we don't reduce our generation of greenhouse gases.
In 2002, Bush ignored a North Korean diplomatic initiative about nuclear weapons talks.
He was too busy lying about Iraq's nonexistent nuclear weapons program to bother trying to convince North Korea to end a real nuclear weapons program.
Iranians voted for the hard-liner who doesn't want friendship with Bush.
Democracy in this election was only partial, since the mullahs vetoed reformist candidates. However, there was some democracy; the candidates disagreed on many issues, including how to treat the US. This election shows that Iranians won't welcome invading Bush forces with cheers.
Farmers from Colombia are suing BP for using paramilitaries to force them off their land and into destitution. Those who didn't go were killed.
Multinational corporations working with paramilitaries to murder and bully people seems to be a pattern for Colombia.
The Wall Street Journal systematically distorts the evidence about global warming.
In this it works hand in glove with Bush, whose efforts to disguise the problem have been mentioned here before.
A former Bush regime official joins those who believe the WTC towers were destroyed by explosives placed within the buildings.
The only way to sort out facts from suspicions, and draw a conclusion we can rely on, is with a real investigation. But as long as the Bush regime won't allow a real investigation, we are justified in tentatively following the suspicions which lead to the government.
The World Tribunal on Iraq is presenting the evidence against the Bush regime for its war of conquest.
An anonymous survey of librarians finds that government agents often gather information about who reads what-- contradicting official denials.
The US government is trying to take advantage of a presumption that it is on our side, to get away with attacking our freedom and lying about it. That presumption is what we must discard.
The UK imprisons thousands of refugees who came seeking asylum, without justification and in violation of its stated policies.
Scott Ritter: The US Invasion of Iran Has Begun!
Many Iranians want democracy in an independent Iran, and they might accept foreign help in achieving this--if they could trust it and did not see it as an intrusion. They surely won't accept the kind of "help" Bush wants to give them.
Uri Avnery: the fanatical settlers are on a track to a violent confrontation with the democratic elements of Israel.
Even Democrats in Congress are starting to say that Bush is losing the war. But some of them still insist that the goal is to win it. Will they ever learn?
Chinese peasants increasingly defy the local government authorities who are working hand in hand with businesses.
At the same time, China is more popular than the US among people in the UK.
I think they have good reason to hold those views. The government of China is undemocratic, oppresses the poor, and doesn't respect human rights--Bush is heading in that direction, but has not gone so far. However, while China has threatened to launch a war of conquest (against Taiwan), it has never actually started one. And it doesn't attack human rights in other countries as the US does. Bliar, the great enemy of human rights in the UK, gets his support from the US, not from China.
Dalits in India are not allowed even to walk through an upper-caste neighborhood. If they do, they may be attacked, even killed.
Fox News won in court against the journalists who sued after they were fired for trying to publish a story about the use and dangers of bovine growth hormone.
Monsanto, which has a history of attacking scientists who publish results that criticize Monsanto, is also involved here.
ACLU: Science under Siege (by the Bush regime).
The genocide of the minorities of Burma.
Iranian women protested the unfair election despite police threats.
Wanted for kidnaping: 13 US government agents who seized a refugee in Italy and sent him to Egypt to be tortured.
In Germany, a major politician dares to denounce the relentlessly cruel pseudo-logic of neoliberalism.
Meanwhile, the Bliar regime is pressuring Europe to abandon its social policies, with the argument that businesses prefers to locate in the UK.
The rest of Europe should turn this argument around. Of course business prefers countries that give business more consideration (and ordinary people less), but some country's success in drawing business away from other countries by undercutting social policies is something to be punished and stopped, not imitated.
He also criticizes farm subsidies, which are a more complex issue. The only valid reason for them is so that rural people are not forced to move to the city and give up farming. Farm subsidies going to anything but a family farm definitely should be eliminated. Subsidies to family farms have to be reconsidered, because they do social and environmental harm as well as good.
These two issues should never be combined--they are structurally different. Farm subsidies can be a form of catering to a minority, albeit a large one. The welfare state and labor regulations help the majority, all except the wealthy.
An Italian ISP collaborated with police to spy on a political organization whose site they hosted, while lying to the organization about the reason for the site's outage.
The record companies (i.e., music factories) are terrorizing parents in the UK with demands for money they don't have.
While Bliar talks about protecting the environment, behind the scenes he is trying to downgrade its priority in the EU.
Bliar is once again attacking the right to trial by jury, continuing his persistent attack on the rights of the accused.
In Lebanon, a series of anti-Syrian politican figures have been murdered.
Iran responded to a presidential candidate's complaint of ballot-stufing by (1) an irrelevant recount and (2) banning the newspapers that printed the complain.
Contrast this with Bush, who arranged for recounts to be done in a useless fashion, and didn't have to ban any newspapers because major US newspapers are sufficiently controled that they never tried to publish this.
In the UK, lots of children are being given ASBOs. One child was told he'll be imprisoned if he uses dirty words. Since he has Tourette's Syndrome, he literally cannot stop himself.
This example shows how outrageous and stupid the system has become, but it's unjust even when it is not so outrageous. If a child with no mental illness, or an adult, had been threatened with imprisonment for saying dirty words, it would be equally unjust. No one should be imprisoned for saying "fuck" or "shit", nor even for saying them ten times a day.
The ASBO is a scheme for imprisoning people for acts that are not crimes, and denying them even the meager protections remaining in UK criminal law. Furthermore, it operates under a deceptive pretense not to be doing those things. In effect, every official that defends of ASBOs is a liar.
Various US allies are attacking or resisting the US practice of kidnaping people to be tortured.
The EU, which has mostly done a good job of balancing capitalism and the welfare state, is now under pressure from conservatives who want to destroy the welfare state.
In the 90s, the EU was made a lot more powerful than it was before; however, its lawmaking is not democratic, and the result is that it often acts as a means for business interests to impose their will on all of Europe.
Removing Bolton from the State Department enabled some useful international cooperation to proceed.
If Bolton is approved as US ambassador to the UN, he will surely block agreement on many things. However, if he plays obstructionist in the UN on high-profile actions, his obstructionism could backfire. Other countries could isolate the Bush regime and make agreements without US participation, which could end the ability of the US to impede necessary world activities.
How far Bush has gone to sabotage action on global warming.
It's a mistake to try to "bring Bush on board" by making the agreement empty. On this issue, as so many others, Bush is the enemy, and he should be treated as one. One does not give an enemy veto power over one's actions. Better to denounce him, and use him to rally public opinion.
Opposition to ID cards grows in the UK, when people learn what they will cost.
But we have to go further--and we need to teach people to see the deeper danger. Please tell other people about the issue.
Global warming threatens devastating droughts in Africa.
The EU Commissioner for Human Rights condemned the Blair regime for several kinds of violations, including denial of rights without trial, ASBOs, and use of evidence obtained through torture.
When the Center for Disease Control discovered conclusive evidence that mercury-based preservatives in baby vaccines were causing autism, it covered up the evidence to protect the vaccine companies.
Senate majority leader Frist is directly participating in the cover-up, having been bought with campaign contributions. Meanwhile, these mercury-based vaccines continue to be shipped to other countries.
Bliar's principle of never opposing Bush is about to collide with his proclaimed goal of reducing global warming.
Bliar keeps on pretending that through his "special relationship" he can persuade Bush to change. He gets only the tiniest results, but he keeps saying there will be more, if we just wait and see.
Mukhtar Mai, who fought back in the courts of Pakistan after the dominant caste in her village gang-raped her to punish her family, looked like she was winning. Then she was imprisoned by the government of Pakistan and blocked from travelling--or testifying--while the previously-convicted rapists have been freed. Afterward she withdrew her plan to tour the US to talk about the issue.
I think the government of Pakistan must have threatened her family, or something like that. President Musharraf's response to this issue resembles that of his friend Bush when US atrocities are exposed: "Just hush it up".
In China, developers send thugs to attack poor people who won't sell their homes.
This reminds me of what I've read in books such as Red Azalea, about the bullying by gangs that took place during the Cultural Revolution--except that now the individual acts of bullying are on a larger scale.
Sharon wants to use HAMAS participation in Palestinian elections as an excuse to end dealings with the Palestinian Authority or abolish democracy in Palestine. But the intelligent thing to do is to negotiate with HAMAS.
There is some evidence that Kofi Annan knew about his son's corrupt dealings with Iraq.
If Kofi Annan has lied about this, he should lose his post (at least). But what's even more significant is the way even worse lies by US Republicans are ignored--and often cannot even be investigated, because they block investigations.
The Bush forces lied to the UK about using napalm-like bombs.
Mugabe is forcing multitudes of poor people out of the cities by destroying their food and shelter. Strikers have been threatened with arrest.
The super-rich in the US are gaining so much that they are leaving the ordinary rich behind.
Last month, the police who shot Harry Stanley had their conviction overturned. Now they face trial for murder, after it was proved that they lied about the events.
Political-level officials in the Department of "Justice" ordered the lawyers handling the case against the tobacco companies to reduce the demanded penality from 130 billion to 10 billion. In effect, to let them off the hook.
This probably relates to campaign contributions from tobacco companies to some Republican politician.
The oppression of copyright law is seeping into more areas of life. Photo printing stores are refusing to print photos because they look "professional".
I guess you should take it as a complement if they refuse to print your photo. The first time.
Companies that make birthday cakes are now scared to let customers draw on them.
There are two paths for society to choose from: oppressively enforce this unjust law, or get rid of it.
The Holy Libel, after Republicans rewrite it.
Both levels of Diebold optical-scan vote-counting machines seem to be easy to fiddle--and it looks like they were designed for that.
Now another big accounting corporation has gone bad, and the US government doesn't dare prosecute it because it is so big.
Saddam Hussein had a chance to speak at his trial, but the Bush forces blanked out what he said. Perhaps they were afraid he would tell the truth.
20% of all bird species are threatened with extinction.
Lecturer Jorge Cortell was forced to resign from the Universidad Politecnica in Valencia, Spain, for giving a talk on the legal use of peer-to-peer networks.
After the publicity resulting from these events, Cortell was offered a radio show--but subsequently the offer was withdrawn after company headquarters put pressure on the manager who had offered it to him. More censorship.
Congressman Sessions introduced a bill to prohibit cities from setting up wireless networks for their citizens.
Congressman Sessions owns half a million dollars of stock in a company that doesn't want cities to do that.
This site shows what the war in Iraq has cost US taxpayers, and what else could have been done with that much money.
But don't let this distract you from the principle reason not to start such a war: it's wrong. It would have been just as wrong even if it had not cost a dime.
The Filippine president was recorded apparently fixing the election.
The first prosecution under Denmark's "anti-terrorism" law is Greenpeace. Its members hung a banner, and that is treated as "terrorism"!
People have been saying all along that these laws were directed at suppressing dissidents and not really at terrorists.
Ethopia's government shot and arrested protestors, and closed radio stations. In response, taxi drivers and others are on strike.
Some Democrats want to close the Guantanamo prison camp and move the prisoners "elsewhere"--where, presumably, abuses such as imprisonment without trial and torture could be more effectively covered up.
How Bush forces recruiters prey on the weakness of high-schoolers. If the caller ID says "USMC", don't answer the phone!
Does anyone make a phone that does caller ID and can be set to hang up automatically when it doesn't like the name that's calling?
Even tame US reporters can see that the Bush forces' Iraqi Army won't be "ready" any time soon to take over the occupation of their own country on behalf of Bush.
The Bush forces have resorted to body counts as a way of proving their winning. Of course, the "enemy corpses" can include lots of civilians.
The statement that the use of body counts is not responsible for atrocities may be correct--because the atrocities were happening already.
Sri Lankans are protesting because their government is using the tsunami as the excuse to take land away from local people and give it to hotels.
Tsunamis are not common in the Indian Ocean, and with a warning system in place, there is no reason not to let people live on the coast.Tsunamis are not common in the Indian Ocean, and with a warning system in place, there is no reason not to let people live on the coast.
Human Rights Watch reports that the Uzbek regime did massacre civilians, then lied about it.
It's interesting to contrast the Bush regime's posture regarding freedom and democracy in Uzbekistan with its stated posture regarding freedom and democracy in Iraq.
In 2001, an American was more likely to die from nutritional deficiency than from terrorism.
So why is there a "War on Terrorism" instead of a "War on Hunger"?
What's the Bush regime's real motive for doing what it is doing?
Bush regime plans involve fighting a "universal adversary", which lumps together unions and civil rights groups with religious fanatics.
Polls show Americans are turning against Bush, and seeing through his lies. However, they are not enthusiastic about the Democratic Party--nor should they be, since it is almost as bad and supports most of the same lies.
Far from Over: Bolivia on the Brink of Civil War-or Revolution.
Bolivia's president has resigned, and the head of the senate (who previously criticized the president for not repressing the protestors) was persuaded to let the succession pass him by.
So far, things are moving on a good path, but the battle isn't over.
Four students protesting Coca Cola company in Colombia were kidnaped by thugs and threatened.
These are the same sort of thugs that killed the union organizers, which was the reason for the protests. Perhaps the same thugs.
The International Criminal Court will investigate and try the individuals who organized the massacres of Darfur, probably including officials of the Sudanese government.
They should investigate Bush next.
The MIT Industrial Liaison program sent me a report which proudly announced:
DuPont becomes the leading R&D investor in MIT with a $25-million renewal that calls for expansion into nanotechnology, alternative energy, and more.
If MIT considers itself a business with investors, its tax exemption should be taken away.
Many workers are now being required to wear computers that control and monitor all their activities, turning them into puppets.
This practice should be illegal.
German scientists were paid by tobacco companies to minimize the danger of smoking and oppose laws to limit smoking. See also similar behavior by Monsanto.
An award-winning Indian film-maker, on tour in the US, was harrassed by New York City police, purely because he was taking pictures on the street. (Which is not even illegal.)
The world's leading scientific academies have formally told Bush: act now to reduce greenhouse gases, before it is too late.
China is taking action now.
I think Bush will persist in what he is doing. Cheney surely knows that global warming is real, so he he must have decided not to care about the harm it will cause. Perhaps he thinks his family will buy its way out of the problem.
Republicans in Congress are actively pushing lobbyists to get more involved in the Republican party--thus making the sale of laws more systematic, even as they assure they will get the bulk of the money.
The Taliban continue fighting in some areas of Afghanistan.
An interview with Joseph Campbell, from 1985, is particularly interesting as a background to the activities of theocratic Christians today.
The Deputy President of South Africa has been caught taking bribes, but so far he has not been prosecuted.
A gold company is blocking debt relief for poor countries.
The political problems of Africa are complex, and just abolishing debts doesn't assure the people will benefit.
However, not abolishing debts assures they will suffer.
What's so Revolutionary about Venezuelan Coal?
The Governor of Massachusetts has been lying about his position on abortion rights, according to one of his aides.
The Democrats lost women's votes because they moved to the right on issues women care about. But they have not learned their lesson.
Japan is making tremendous investments to cut energy use.
The Brazilian government has arrested 86 businessmen and government officials for illegally cutting down the rain forest.
Indigenous Uprising: The Rebellion Grows in Bolivia
National ID cards could make identity theft easier (as well as giving the government unacceptable power to control citizens).
Israeli soldiers confessed participating in a reprisal murder operation against innocent Palestinians. They say they were specifically ordered to kill innocent people.
Depleted uranium: a returned veteran's story.
Doug Rokke, who was in charge of DU for the US Army, talks about how dangerous he found it to be.
Pesticides damage the sperm count of rats in a way that is new to science. It lasts for several generations. They may be responsible for a similar effect in humans.
One side effect of this damage could be reduced human population growth. But this is not the way I would prefer to achieve that goal.
Oil magnate Khodorovsky was sentenced to 9 years in prison--for tax evasion, but he was prosecuted because he opposed President Putin.
What a laugh to see Bush say, "Over here you're innocent until proven guilty". Over here, you're labeled an "enemy combatant" and you don't get a trial at all.
The New York Times defends globalization with superficial, thoughtless arguments. It should outsource its editorials to Kerala--then they would make more sense.
The Supreme Court gave approval to Athur Andersen's destruction of Enron's documents. Accountants can now participate in covering up corporate fraud with no fear of retribution.
New reports of torture in Guantanamo show it didn't start there, that it went as far as causing permanent physical injury, and that it yielded false confessions.
Mugabe is razing the cities of Zimbabwe, where people oppose him. Over a million people are now homeless.
Growing problem for military recruiters: parents.
Note how the recruiters threaten to bring back the draft if people won't fight Bush's wars voluntarily. Bush has no intention of letting Americans decide to live in peace.
Arizona has adopted a voting requirement whose mere expense will discourage poor people from voting.
Israeli protestors had to evade arbitrary military blockaders to reach a joint protest march with Palestinians.
This Republican bill would require Americans to report their relatives (and friends) to the police, or face imprisonment themselves.
How's that for family values?
Bush launched the war against Iraq in 2002 while he was still pretending to be considering it as a possibility.
The Bush forces continue to stir up hatred among Iraqis. For instance, as fighting continues in Falluja, they have provided no help in rebuilding, and most of the inhabitants still alive are living in tents in the rubble. They continue blocking medical supplies and the activities of the doctors. And all independent journalists are excluded.
Greg Palast explains why there is no serious investigative journalism in mainstream US media. The standard practice is to kill any investigation based on evidence from a confidential source if a government representative privately denies the claim.
Economic Alternatives to Neoliberalism
My favorite part: "Violence is thus not merely a manifestation of the rule of undemocratic leadership in counties such as Zimbabwe and Swaziland. It is, rather, an essential feature of neoliberalism."
People have proved it is easy to rig an election on Diebold vote counting machines--by cracking the system.
Thousands of Iraqi civilians get imprisoned for no reason by the Bush forces.
Bush moves to make the Securities and Exchange Commission useless, just as he has destroyed many other regulatory agencies.
Israel plans to demolish 88 Palestinian homes in Jerusalem.
Correction: This note orginally said 1000 homes were to be demolished. The correct number is 88 homes, with 1000 people left homeless.
Bush is spending billions on space-based weapons, and on missile-defense schemes that probably don't work.
Bush regime officials are attacking Amnesty International, as they attack everyone who criticizes the regime in any way. We should interpret this as an indication that Amnesty's report stung Bush, and do more of the same.
The list of views for which the Bushmen criticize Amnesty could serve as an introduction to understanding the modern political situation. For instance, states like the Bush regime are far more dangerous to humans and to human civilization than any underground terrorist groups.
The US media's response to the Amnesty International report measures just how effectively controlled the media are. The Washington Post's comment is particularly interesting: calling Amnesty's criticism of Bush regime atrocities "counterproductive". In effect, this says the criticism was valid, but that it is more "productive" to accept the regime's lies.
Bush is losing some of the control over the government he set up in Iraq. They may not finish writing a constitution on Bush's timetable.
WTO negotiations are headed in a direction to drive millions of subsistance farmers into destitution.
The poor farmers, rather than kill themselves as thousands are already doing in India, ought to start revolutionary movements aimed at taking their countries out of the WTO.
When two US citizens were arrested and tortured in Pakistan, FBI agents participated in the interrogation, while the US embassy refused to help them.
This illustrates the Bush regime's general policy of opposition to human rights and its disrespect for the truth.
Bush and the IMF have a plan to make sure that poor countries will remain under its control even if they don't owe money to the IMF.
An analysis of why Bush is losing the war in Iraq.
The writer's conclusion is that the Bush forces must remain in Iraq for many years until they crush the country, but that is not the only option. They could end the oppression and cut the losses (both American and Iraqi losses).
The Iraqi resistance has not been stopped by Palestine-style occupation measures in Baghdad.
Cruel as the Taliban were to women, at least they put an end to rape. The warlords that now control Afghanistan are the same ones that allowed their troops to rape as standard practice.
Global warming has led to large forest fires in Siberia. Loggers, taking advantage of a government policy that allows logging where there has been a fire, are contributing too.
The Bush regime has a similar policy.
Here's an explanation.
A participant in an Israeli solidarity protest for Palestinians reports on the police countermeasures.
The proposed EU constitution was rejected by France, which means it is "dead"--for the moment.
I urged voters to vote against the proposed constitution because it is undemocratic and privileges business over humans rights, citizens' interests, and public services. All the pro-business "free trade" treaties were included directly as parts of the constitution--which was set up to be nearly impossible to amend.
Europeans should not accept a constitution for a united Europe that fails to establish true democracy.
Tuna are being overfished in the Mediterranean, driven by the demand for sushi. So the tuna are being driven towards extinction.
Rand's eutopian vision of a Palestine at peace with Israel seems to be offering hope. All it would take is peace--and money that the US has available.
Indigenous Leaders Say World Bank Should Take Its Own Advice
Ideological True Believers at the World Bank--and the results of their work.
The Ethiopian government seems to be suppressing the real result of the hotly contested election there.
Bolivia is moving towards increased taxes on oil and natural gas exports, but much of the people are demanding nationalization.
My friends in Bolivia told me that the "popular" pressure in Santa Cruz for "autonomy" comes from the wealthy--they hire people to lead protests, then force their employees to participate on threat of being fired. However, there is also a vagueness about what "autonomy" means. To some, it means having an elected governor for the province; but the goal that lurks behind is to stop the central government from imposing taxes on businesses in that state--for instance, taxes on extraction of oil and natural gas.
Colombia plans to spray broad-spectrum herbicide in nature reserves. The stated purpose is to kill coca and marijuana plants, but it can easily harm other plants, or animals.
This campaign won't have much effect on drug plant production, but it could cause the extinction of other species.
A purely theoretical move towards democracy by Egypt's President Mubarak highlights how tyrannical his regime really is.
A US army general was demoted and discharged, apparently because he disagreed with officials' policies--but they won't admit it.
This is part of the Bush regime's War on Integrity. Whoever serves Bush must be prepared to do whatever Bush wants, while pretending not to do it.
Uri Avnery:
make a monkey out of
most Israelis?
Bush provides funds to the Palestinian Authority and
says Israel must stop expanding settlements.
This is a refreshing surprise. I hope he means it.
The remaining political prisoners in Chile are on hunger strike,
demanding abolition of the "anti-terrorist"
law that permits imprisonment
on political grounds.
This law was the result of the September 11 attacks, which killed
President Allende and installed a military dictatorship. This
was instigated by the US government.
Bush regime spending on "clean energy" is
a waste or a fraud,
mostly going towards new forms of coal-exhaust scrubbing technology
that don't work as well as the existing ones.
In Latin America, economic growth usually does no good for the poor.
Only special government attention enables the poor to gain any of the
economy's growth.
Logic shows that this article is mistaken when it says that further
economic growth is important for the poor. Effective government
programs to help the poor will work even if the total size of the
economy remains the same. Furthermore, in countries such as Bolivia
and Ecuador, which have oil or natural gas to sell, simply raising the
taxes on these exports will bring in the money to fund these programs.
"The only good Iraqi is a dead Iraqi." (How the neocons use hatred to
manipulate people into war, so they can run off with the money.)
Gush Shalom ad: Fiasco of resettlement of Gaza settlers - a planned failure.
The Republicans are
destroying the separation of powers in the US government in their drive
for total power.
There is a
growing campaign to impeach Bush.
E. J. Dionne
condemns Bush's assault on media independence.
A previous note has a link to Greg Palast's article about Newsweek's
cave-in.
Amnesty International calls for foreign governments to
investigate and prosecute high US officials -- including Bush -- that have
supported torture.
Israeli troops
arrested Israelis who were peacefully joining Palestinians
under persistent attack by settlers.
The soldiers first threw stones at the protestors before arresting
them. When Palestinian youths throw stones at soldiers, the soldiers
often shoot and kill them, claiming their lives were endangered by the
stones. Did the soldiers endanger the lives of these protestors? If
so, they should be tried for attempted murder.
The Australian government
released a child prisoner who has spent her whole three years of life in
prison. And her mother.
However, this is not progress, since another child was born in prison the previous day.
Australia's High Court says that asylum-seekers can be kept in prison
for ever, as long as the purpose is not punitive. In other words, the
Australian government can keep you in prison for life, as long as it
says you have not done anything to deserve it.
If Karzai is serious about his demands to limit US military abuses in
Afghanistan,
he will have to push harder.
Amnesty International:
Guantanamo is the gulag of our time, and the prisoners of the US have been,
in effect, disappeared.
Here's the full
report on the Americas.
The proposal to ban photos in the New York City subways has been dropped.
This is one small victory for human rights over the phony War on Terror.
A compromise that avoided the showdown on Frist's "nuclear option"
involved
allowing three of Dubya's extremist judges onto appeals
courts. Meanwhile, the issue will arise again when Bush makes a
Supreme Court nomination. In other words, the danger has only
been postponed--and the postponement came at a cost.
The "Sustainable Forestry Initiative": a lumber industry "greenwash"
campaign to disguise bad practices as good.
The UN representative in Afghanistan supports Karzai's demand for an
independent investigation of torture by the US forces in Afghanistan.
The Iraqi resistance killed a government security chief, and other
collaborators; but other bombs seem to be aimed at Shi'ite civilians.
Aside from disapproving morally of such atrocities, I also wonder what
the motivation for them is. Are there Iraqi Sunnis who want to fight
Iraqi Shi'ites as well as Bush? Isn't the latter a big enough enemy?
Amnesty International reports that human rights and rule of law are
threatened all across the world, and the US government is primarily
responsible.
Americans like to say that the USA is number one.
Nowadays that means public enemy number one.
Only half of the antiquities stolen from the National Museum of Iraq
have been found.
Bush's war of lies has destroyed a large part of the history of the
beginning of civilization. Perhaps that was intentional. Some of
these artifacts date back to before 4004 BC. Perhaps Dubya's fanatical
supporters wish to destroy the history of the true origin of civilization.
An EU study concludes that "free trade" is leading to greater
environmental damage--primarily in poor countries.
Free trade treaties transfer power from governments (which can be
democratic) to business (which never tries to be democratic), and
business typically uses this power to bully governments that dream of
protecting the environment. (Or public health. Or education. Or the
general standard of living. Or anything that benefits the public in
general.) The only real solution is to roll back the free trade
treaties. To judge the globalization of business power in narrow
terms of the efficiency of production is a fundamental mistake.
The new film "The Power of Nightmares" exposes how the Bush and Blair
regimes
exaggerate the danger of terrorism as a form of political manipulation.
Canada blocked Africa's top anti-bio-patents scholar--the
representative of the Ethiopean government--from attending a UN
conference which had invited him.
In response to worldwide protests, Canada ultimately gave him a visa,
so late that he can only make it to the last day of the conference.
Canada blocked other activists from attending the conference too.
The Canadian government is acting like the puppet of the biotech companies.
Christian fanatics who don't recognize evolution are making a big push
for US schools to teach divine creation (or variants dressed up in
scientific guise) as an "alternative theory".
Thousands of Indian farmers are committing suicide because of debts
they can't pay.
Similar policies in the US led to the farm foreclosures of the 80s.
They were led into these debts by programs sponsored by their own
government and foreign institutions, programs inspired by neoliberal
ideology and encouraged by international organizations. In my view,
that means they are not responsible for the debts--the institutions
that encouraged them are responsible.
US Faces Questions over 'Kidnappings' in Europe.
Bush will never cooperate with holding anyone responsible for his
regime's abuses; European states should protect their citizens and
residents by punishing the US government directly, and by keeping
its agents out.
A UK judge overturned a verdict of unlawful killing by the police.
When they make a mistake and kill someone,
they have near total impunity.
Compare this with the attitude taken towards political opposition
(see another recent note) to see the double standard.
Over a million people have left the Chinese Communist Party recently,
and said so. After this became known, the Chinese government has
started persecuting some of them.
Delightful quotations from Richard Dawkins about evolution and atheism.
Australia has been aping the US, sending troops and police into
various other countries while taking over parts of their governments
and giving the Australian agents immunity from prosecution for
whatever they might do.
However, this has hit a snag in Papua New
Guinea's supreme court.
This "cooperation program" has been criticized as serving Australia
more than Papua New Guinea.
New research shows stem cells can be made for anyone, using donated
eggs. Most likely we will soon be able to cure various diseases with
the help of these methods--
if religious fanatics don't stop us.
These religious fanatics say they value "human life", but they only
care about you before you're born. After that, they don't care if you
die.
Many Israelis were arrested when they peacefully protested
the Hebron settlers who have built themselves a road across
Palestinians' lands.
An MPP victory -- marijuana will remain legal in Alaska
Upwards of 500 protestors were shot and killed in Uzbekistan,
but the government refuses to admit it.
The German government deported a known Falun-gong practitioner to
China,
where he was imprisoned without trial. The court refused to
pay attention to the predictable danger he faced if sent back.
Governments under pressure to reduce immigration often deport
refugees who face persecution. They disregard the truth
in order to be tough.
Man-made damage to biodiversity
threatens to keep humans in poverty too.
A principal factor in this harm is human overpopulation.
Another major factor is the domination of the US by business
interests that are too short-sighted to practice conservation.
Monsanto did a study that found a particularly genetically-modified
corn variety
causes developmental abnormalities in rats.
What did Monsanto do with this information? They kept it secret
so they could sell the seeds anyway.
The FBI says "eco-militants" who don't even try to kill anyone are the
"main terrorist threat". In effect, they have admitted that they have
been exaggerating the danger from Al Qa'ida all along.
It is an exaggeration and an injustice to apply the term "terrorist"
for people who damage property but always try, as a matter of
principle, to avoid causing injuries to persons. Yes, it is possible
that some day they might slip up and injure some innocent person. In
this, they resemble the police, who frequently injure and even kill
innocent persons. When that happens, they just say "oops, mistakes
happen"--if they do even that much. I see a double standard here.
Jared Diamond speaks on why societies collapse,
and what it means for ours.
Policeman frames someone from a minority group--that's not news.
Second policeman lies to support the first--that's not news.
Policeman caught on tape doing it, and discredited--that's news.
It is heartening to see a judge recognize and condemn police abuse,
for once. But most of the time there is no such a video (the cops
don't leave this to chance--they often arrest people who are making
videos, or drive them away.) How do we solve the problem when there
is no recording?
Bush reluctantly arrested an anti-Castro terrorist
who worked for the
CIA and is accused of putting a bomb on an air liner.
A Swedish report says that it was the Swedish government that decided
to deport two Egyptians to Egypt. The CIA just helped out by
transporting them. But it seems to me that
something is wrong in deporting someone before he can file an appeal--and
in deporting someone to a country where he will be tortured.
Shouldn't it be just as much a crime for police to let others abuse
prisoners in custody as it is for the police to do so themselves?
Japan's resurgent militarism is visible in the adoption of a
national holiday named after Emperor Hirohito.
Cutting down the Amazon rainforest at 10000 sq miles a year, just to
grow soybeans to feed cattle.
Sibel Edmonds, the FBI translator who tried to reveal gross
deriliction in regard to the threat of terrorist attacks, saw her
appeal rejected without any stated reason, based on
arguments kept secret from her lawyers.
The most patriotic thing that Sibel Edmonds could do now
is to flee to another country, where she will be free to
tell Americans what she knows.
Police violently attacked a protest march of 15,000 Brazilians
complaining about
Lula's failure to help the poor.
The latest Star Wars movie turned out, by coincidence, to be
a parable about Bush.
A hearing for the Critical Art Ensemble defendants
shows just
how far the Bush regime is willing to twist the law
when it wants to attack someone.
Bush took advantage of the "Koran dunking" report to establish
a double standard for major US media: stories that criticize
Bush need more careful support than stories that support Bush.
The reporter has been blamed for not dotting all his i's,
while Bush conceals the evidence that would conclusively show
the truth (or, just possibly, the error) of the story.
Hirsi Ali, who
campaigns against Islamic oppression of women,
now faces death threats from religious fanatics. But she
doesn't let this silence her.
Cuban Terrorist
Tests Bush Administration's Convictions.
The New Zealand government has authorized internet
filtering software for schools which is controled by religious extremists
in the US.
In Uzbekistan,
troops shot wounded protestors to finish them off.
It wasn't long ago that Bliar fired the UK ambassador to Uzbekistan
for criticizing tyrannical practices such as torture. Bliar did not
want his ally to be criticized. Now that the citizens are rising up
against their tyrannical government, Bliar finds it convenient
to change his tune.
I wonder if this criticism will go beyond words.
It is interesting to compare Bliar's treatment of Uzbekistan
with his treatment of Iraq.
Conclusive proof that Bush decided to attack Iraq months
before, that he never intended to let UN weapons inspectors
do their job, and that he was
lying all the way through.
You'd expect US journalists to jump for this scandal,
but they ignore it.
"Conspiracy theory" on 9/11 is
now present in a major newspaper--in
the UK.
Afghan President Karzai, reflecting popular feeling, demanded a veto
over US military operations, and the return of Afghan prisoners from
Guantanamo.
UK MP Galloway, who was kicked out of Bliar's Labour party and won
election from his own new party,
has come out fighting against Bush
regime accusations that he was bribed by Saddam Hussein. He says
the charges are based on forgery.
Bill Moyers on US media (including public TV): "instead of reporting
the truth behind the news,
they merely give each side an opportunity
to spin the news."
I used to support public radio regularly, until I noticed they had
started broadcasting commercials. (They don't admit that these are
commercials; they have made up an excuse to call them something else.)
The presence of these commercials indicates the power that businesses
have over what is broadcast, and the refusal to admit what they are
testifies to a dishonest world view.
It was around the same time that I noticed that there were generally
more critical of Democrats than Republicans.
The Bush regime is attacking the new president of Ecuador for merely
suggesting that maybe Ecuadorians should get some of the money from
the high oil prices. Bush wants this windfall to go to his buddies,
the oil companies.
I think this president is too timid. He should do what Chavez did,
what Bolivia seems to be doing: unilaterally increase the share that
the oil companies have to pay to the government. That is what
Ecuadorians want.
Maybe these countries could sign a mutual assistance treaty that
obliges all of them to tax all oil and natural gas at 50%.
Iraqi religious extremists are killing barbers.
Before the war, I said I would support an invasion to liberate Iraq
from Saddam Hussain's dictatorship, provided (1) the Iraqi people
wanted this kind of liberation and (2) we could trust the invading
forces to establish freedom and democracy. But I didn't think either
of these conditions was true. Events have confirmed they were not.
The Iraqi resistance doesn't believe in freedom or democracy any more
than Bush does, and uses tactics as brutal in their own way as the
Bush forces' tactics. But I still hope they win, because they are
better than a foreign occupying army whose real purpose is to help
foreign corporations steal the country's wealth. The end result will
probably be another dictatorship, but it will probably kill fewer
Iraqis than the Bush dictatorship. (Its veneer of democracy should
not fool anyone.)
A dictator is never legitimate, so I will once again be ready support
an invasion to liberate Iraq from the new dictatorship, provided (1)
the Iraqi people want this kind of liberation and (2) we can trust the
invading forces to establish freedom and democracy. But the first
condition surely won't be true, and I'd be skeptical about the second
if someone like Bush is in charge.
Desertion in the US military is
increasing.
Global warming will cause
big increases in the water
in some rivers, and big decreases in others.
Mayors of 130 US cities are together deciding to comply with the Kyoto
treaty to reduce global warming.
US companies that make food that's bad for people's health
regularly donate to the organizations that claim to work for
public health, corrupting them.
Palestinian violence has gone way down--there were
zero "terror alerts"
in Israel in a recent week--but Israeli violence against Palestinians
continues to rise.
A woman visiting Dubai was
threatened with years in prison because she
had taken painkillers before her trip. Don't go to Dubai!
Blair had a family of Mongolian refuguees, loved by their British
community, deported in a hurry, too fast for anyone to notice. The
father faces danger of persecution in Mongolia for his previous
political activity there.
LA police shut down a large art show which featured
parodical use of corporate logos.
An interview with the gallery owner.
The government of Florida wants to
cut off health care for a crippled
young girl who will be helpless without it.
Why the difference from Terry Schiavo? Perhaps because this girl is
conscious--or perhaps because here the state is paying the bill.
A refugee from Kashmir in Australia faces a life of imprisonment for
no crime,
caught between two hostile governments.
The anti-empire TV network that was being discussed in Venezuela in
Venezuela in December is
now starting.
This article highlights the response of Chavez opponents, and shows
how they strain to put him in a bad light. If they can't accuse him
of doing anything bad, they talk about what they imagine he "might"
do. (That is something he cannot possibly disprove.) But the worst
of their speculations is nothing compared to what the Chavez
opponents, who control all the private TV channels in Venezuela, have
already done.
I'm pleased to see the comparison with Al Jazeera, since that's the
model I argued for in the meeting in December. Others wanted to
follow a more explicitly ideological vision, which I think would not
have much influence. If my words had anything to do with this, I will
feel really proud.
Gas Issue Ignites Bolivia Once Again.
The gas underground in Bolivia will only get more valuable as time
goes by. Someone will be willing to pay to extract it, even with 50%
tax. If these oil companies won't, China will. Bolivia should tell
these companies that they are welcome to buzz off.
Christian extremists have been
imposing their power in the Air Force
Academy since the 70s, at least.
The US-supported
dictatorship in Uzbekistan is facing an uprising,
after troops shot wildly at protestors.
Horror of USA's Depleted Uranium in Iraq Threatens World
Israeli settler terrorism against Palestinians
keeps increasing.
Bush has recruited insiders and
representatives of large monopolistic
corporations to draw up ideas for changes in anti-trust law.
Coming from a regime that lets the polluters decide clean air
criteria, this is no surprise.
Uri Avnery: Death of a Myth--"the beautiful Eretz Israel".
Australia's general cruelty towards people seeking asylum there
periodically results cases of extreme cruelty, such as the 3-year-old
girl who was born in prison and has no prospect of getting out.
"Mandatory detention" is an interesting euphemism for "prison". The
Australian government surely has some pedantic excuse to pretend that
the place she is kept is not a prison. But I'm sure it looks, feels,
smells and tastes like a prison.
The employees at a Wall-Mart in Quebec unionized.
Wall-Mart closed the store.
Very sad news:
the US is moving close to imposing machine-readable
national ID cards (for all practical purposes).
The Bluefin tuna population in the western Atlantic has gone
down 80%
since the 1970s, due to overfishing.
When bankers were offered an "acceptable risk calculator", an industry
standard to determine for
how many deaths are acceptable for a large
profit, they jumped for the idea.
They had been tricked by those great hoaxers, the Yes Men.
The Yes Men also announced, on behalf of Dow, that Dow
would pay to clean up the poison in Bhopal that continues
to kill the people there.
Religious fanatics in Kansas are making another attempt
to
sabotage teaching of evolution there.
Evolution is what makes biology make sense. To understand aspects of
biology without recognizing the role of evolution in producing them is
as hopeless as trying to understand aspects of comparative religion
without recognizing the role played by the concept of a deity in
producing them.
Highlighting the injustice of ASBOs in the UK, police have applied
this
all-purpose bullying policy to a quadraplegic teenage boy.
I'm sure the police are embarrassed for having been caught threatening
a cripple in this way. They will surely say, "It was a mistake to
apply this policy to him. Everyone makes mistakes." However, this
instance is just the tip of an iceberg of injustice. What about the
other boys who were caught "chatting" near some stores--should that be
treated as a crime? Is it right for anyone, even someone with healthy
arms and legs, to be threatened with imprisonment if he holds another
conversation there?
After Philippine-born Australian citizen Vivian Solon was attacked and
wounded, she was in a confused state. The Australian government
deported her in a hurry. Her family had no idea what had happened to
her, and she was reported missing. In 2003, an Australian government
agency
realized the mistake, and did nothing.
She was just recently located in the Philippines.
Although mistakes and confusion played a role in these specific
events, they are also the result of the general Australian government
policy of being cruel and callous to refugees. The ruling party gets
votes by demonizing them and showing how nasty it can be. For
instance, it intercepts ships full of refugees and does not let them
land.
In an election campaign a few years ago, it published photos of
refugees throwing their children off a ship, into the ocean, saying
"They were ready to kill their own children to get to Australia--what
nasty people!" Only after the election did the Australian naval
officers on the surrounding Australian ships get a chance inform the
public that the refugees' ship was already sinking.
Thousands of students protested against the US in Afghanistan, and one
of the protests turned violent (apparently due to extremists).
Troops shot at the protestors.
If you shoot people's children, it tends to make them hate you. So I
think that the Afghan government emplaced by the US will find itself
facing increasing opposition. Could this have been avoided if Bush
had spent more money on rebuilding Afghanistan, instead of invading a
source of oil? We cannot be sure, but it would have been wise to try.
These protests were sparked by reports that guards in Guantanamo put
copies of the Koran in a toilet. Apparently they are religious nuts, more concerned about the Koran than about torturing mere people.
If the guards really did this, it is one of the few things they have
done which I would not myself criticize. The Koran is just a book.
If police can get useful information from someone by putting a book in
a toilet, I have no objections. I don't care if it's the Koran, the
Bible, the Mahabharata, or even the GNU Emacs Manual. It's just a
book, and people can print more copies.
But that should not distract us from the real issues of Guantanamo
rights. Even if these protestors have seized on a foolish reason to
condemn the treatement of prisoners there, that doesn't excuse the
real wrongs. Those prisoners are facing life in prison without trial,
and some may face execution after a sham trial. And they have been
tortured. The US government cannot defend its actions by pointing to
the foolishness of the present complaint.
Real wages in the US are
falling at the fastest rate in 14 years.
Planned mergers of giant telecommunications companies
would nearly wipe out competition in the US.
Experts: Iraq Verges on Civil War.
And:
even the Bush's Iraqi police blame the Bush forces
for the violence in Iraq.
Theocratic Republican leaders, including senators and congressmen,
are threatening violence against judges.
US troops and civilian personnel in Colombia sell arms to murderers,
traffic drugs, and occasionally kill, all with impunity.
The mayor of Spokane, who has fought long and hard against gay rights,
has been outed as secretly gay.
He was attacking other gays as a callous, cynical act to further his
own career. Such a man would have a great future in US politics
if it were not known that he is gay.
Human Rights Watch says, to send a prisoner to Egypt is tantamount
to having him tortured. Over 60 prisoners are known to have been
sent there, but probably there have been many more.
These Islamists are religious fanatics, but that's no excuse
for the religious fanatics in the White House to have them tortured.
Former ministers are fleeing Iraq--perhaps because they are
afraid of being accused of corruption (which they are probably guilty of),
perhaps because they're afraid of the resistance.
Freedom of the press is endangered in Colombia by
widespread
attacks on journalists who report news that irritates
the paramilitaries.
In Nepal, some political leaders have been released from prison,
and phones have been turned back on,
but basic freedoms are still denied.
The Iraqi resistance has stepped up attacks, often targeting Iraqis
that fight on Bush's side. However, the hostilities between the
groups are taking Iraq further towards civil war.
Anger at Bliar wasn't enough to make Labour lose the election, but
with its decreased majority it will have trouble driving through his
nastiest policies. Bliar himself may also have to go.
Government agents in Burundi have been
convicted of murdering
an investigator sent by WHO to track diverted funds.
As massacres continue in Darfur,
under the support of the government
of Sudan, the response is inadequate.
A suggestion for Iraq: Operation Golden Shower.
A friend commented thus: What White House or Congress would ever
approve a plan to short stop the money in Iraq before it, er, trickles
down to the Carlyle Group?
Germany is turning to human-powered pedicabs to reduce urban
pollution.
Expect to see more of this as gasoline gets more expensive, which it
will probably do from now on (except for a possible temporary
reduction between now and 2010).
Global warming is already
interfering with the circulation of water in
the Atlantic--the Gulf Stream that takes warm water from South America
to Europe, and the deep water "conveyor" that takes cold water back
south.
Meanwhile, the CO2 that doesn't go into the atmosphere and cause
warming instead
goes into the ocean and makes it more acidic. This
endangers many ocean species.
No one knows how close we are to a climate disaster, but we keep
finding that we've crossed major milestones on the way there.
Gaza settlers will be offered new towns in Israel to
convince them to leave peacefully.
This proposal has been controversial because Nitzanim is a protected
natural area. It would be better to find another place. But if this
plan enables the withdrawal to occur, I think it is good overall.
Police in Bogota, Colombia, attacked a young protestor for no
particular reason, and beat him so badly that he died from his
injuries.
Now they are lying about it (just like police).
Toxic chemicals are causing an explosion of cancer.
A leaked UK memo, written 8 months before the invasion, proves that
Bush and Bliar had
already decided to start a war, and that "the
intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy" of invading
Iraq.
For another article, plus a copy of the memo, see
here.
Israeli police disguised as Palestinians infiltrated a nonviolent
protest and
tried to make it turn violent. They started throwing
stones, which provided the excuse for other police to arrest the real
protestors. This was all caught on video, providing conclusive proof
of what happened.
The Palestinians arrested--for asking the provocateurs not to
throw stones--are still in custody.
Israelis protested in Tel Aviv after their soldiers shot two
Palestinian children.
Republicans want to impose monitoring and controls on
university courses.
US auto companies are getting punished for their years of selling
overlarge oil-wasting vehicles. They have actively opposed all plans
to increase fuel efficiency--and Bush has supported them all the way.
8% of Americans have auto-immune diseases, and man-made toxins
in the environment are a large part of the cause.
Since mercury is one of the causes it is relevant to mention
that Bush has done his best to prevent the EPA from reducing
mercury pollution.
Police harassed a woman at an Earth Day rally in Modesto, California,
claiming it was illegal for her to hand out flyers in the park
where the rally was occuring.
Police regularly use their arbitrary power to stop people from lawful
participation in democracy. They don't care that it is lawful, they
stop it anyway. By the time people go to court about it, it is too
late to make a difference: the police already achieved their goal.
For police to interfere with lawful political activity should be a
crime carrying a month of mandatory jail time. Police might rein in
their lawlessness when they start seeing jail from the other side.
A secret Bush forces report shows the Iraqi resistance is not
weakening, belying what Bush tells the public. However, many of the
victims of the attacks are Iraqi civilians.
Germany is pressuring the US to
remove its nuclear missiles
which remain in Germany since the Cold War.
By funding medical research directly,
instead of paying drug companies
the monopoly prices caused by drug patents, the US government could
save $110 billion annually on Medicare alone. (The US public would
save even more, and so would the rest of the world.)
A TV station in Afghanistan is spreading Western mores.
Bliar hid the doubts about legality of attacking Iraq even from his
own cabinet, thus
manipulating them into a decision that he had chosen
in advance.
(This isn't the best article to explain what happened,
but it's the one I have a URL for.)
The Bush forces are trying to blame a few soldiers, plus the prison
commander, for the torture at Abu Ghraib.
But torture has been
widespread in the Bush forces, so it can't be the fault only of people
stationed at Abu Ghraib. And it cannot be unrelated the support for
torture that comes directy from Bush.
A large area of Ecuador was been
