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Misuse of words

Misuse of words can make them meaningless and they become another transparent propagnada tool.  Israeli attacks in two days around Christmas left 15 Palestinian civilians dead in the occupied areas but was not described as terrorism (even though considered war crimes by the 4th Geneva Convention).  This was followed by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine attacking Israeli soldiers at a bus stop. Parroting Israeli officials, this act (sanctioned by International law) was labeled a "terror" attack and other media outlets spke of breaking "relative calm".   During the "relative calm" over 117 Palestinians were killed*.  Another example of word butchery is attacking those who speak out against the atrocities committed by the Israeli occupation forces by labeling them as "anti-Semitic" ("self hating Jew" if Jewish).

Perhaps the lack of such possible twisting of words explains why you did not report on the Israeli occupation forces use of live ammunition on Friday to attack a peaceful demonstration against the apartheid wall that is now imprisoning Palestinians in Ghettos/bantustans.  But then

Factory Farming Cattle for Profit Speeds the Evolution of Disease

Recently, the U.S. government officially acknowledged the presence of a lame cow slaughtered in Washington State that had the degenerative disease, Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE). This disease is caused by the prion, a recently understood biological concept, and represents a new threat to public health. The beef industry is guilty of distributing and actually speeding the evolution of this disease due to their grossly inhumane feeding and slaughtering practices. The majority of people are complicit in this crime because they pay to run the factory farms, slaughterhouses and rendering plants that dominate cattle farming today regardless of their inhumane nature.

We Are Everywhere - Book Review

A Review of We are Everywhere: the irresistible rise of global anticapitalism, Edited by Notes from Nowhere collective; Verso Books, 2003

      (AGR)-- There is a rumbling beneath the global foundation of money and power. Sometimes you have to listen carefully, putting your hand to the floor to feel the vibration of thousands of people hacking away at their concrete cage as they organize their neighborhoods into self-governed communities, or when South African activists illegally hook up water to a family's house that could not afford to pay the water bill. Other times you can't help but notice as the foundation cracks in places like India as farmers burn a field of genetically modified cotton planted by Monsanto; or when thousands of activists lay siege to the IMF/World Bank meetings in Prague. For those who have not felt this rumbling of discontent, reading We are Everywhere: the irresistible rise of global anticapitalism may very well feel like an earthquake.

George Bush's energy policies

Dear editor,     

I have written President George W. Bush about America's energy future. I wrote that America should rely on renewable solar and wind power, and natural gas in the meantime while the former become cost-effective.

     We are all too-familiar with the GOP's view of energy, and the associated problems.  Burning coal releases methylmercury in the atmosphere, and also arsenic and lead.  Diesel engines cause respiratory problems.  We all know the GOP turns a deaf ear to our suggestions.

     I ask your readers write to the president asking him to change the administration's energy policies.  Please refer to my name and RNC membership number (517305426-N711).

Thank you,
Daniel Barker

How about a REAL Democracy University?

I just saw a 10,000 square foot modern brick school building on 1.3 acres of land listed for sale on Ebay (under real estate, land) in Paradise, Kansas (population 66), for $45,000. It is being sold by the Russell County Government, subject to their approval of proposed use. It looks to me like it would make a nice starting facility (central to the US) for a low-cost non-corporatized progressive university, which I believe the children of the progressive community are in sore need of. The motivation for this email is to bring together those that would like to be involved in such a project or similar ones of their own design (either new or ongoing), either as students, professors, planners/administrators, possible donors, or fundraisers, and let them work out the details (using instant runoff voting, hopefully, to select leadership and make decisions).

I'm hoping that there might be some current or former professors or administrators out there that might be able to bring some knowledge of the hurdles to be cleared in getting such a project off the ground. My hope is that we can

The unpardonable Lenny Bruce

No doubt Lenny Bruce would have laughed with at least a tinge of bitterness if -- like millions of Americans -- he picked up a newspaper the day before Christmas 2003 and read that he’d been “pardoned” by the governor of New York for an obscenity conviction.

In their own time, people who are stubbornly ahead of it usually get a lot more grief than accolades. And decades later -- in this case, 39 years after Bruce’s bust for a nightclub performance and 37 years after his death -- the belated praise from on high is predictably insufferable.

The New York Times lead sentence on Dec. 24 called Bruce “the potty-mouthed wit who turned stand-up comedy into social commentary.” Actually, far from being “potty-mouthed” in an emblematic way, Lenny Bruce was a Fool in the Shakespearean sense, jousting with a society dominated by various aspiring Lears -- and quite a few Elmer Gantrys.

Most people who can remember Lenny Bruce have their favorite moments. I think of when he took the opportunity, on a network TV show, to “play” a dollar bill as a percussion device, snapping it in front of

Lessons of September 11th

Economics lesson

Posers

As the spokesperson for a group that had organized several peace rallies on and after last February 15, I was a guest on a local talk radio show a couple of days after the Iraq war began. Before the show started the two hosts were extremely friendly, then, once on the air they went into attack mode. One of the first questions was roughly, "How can we not invade Iraq after they killed 3,000 people by blowing up the World Trade Center?"

   The very stupidity of that question and the abrupt change in tempo caught me off guard. During the first commercial break the hosts apologized to me. One of them said he even had an anti-war sticker on his bumper. They explained they were just expected to do right-wing talk radio shtick.

   Obviously, the ranting and raving style of Rush Limbaugh and his imitators has proven to be commercially successful and highly effective in forwarding the right-wing agenda. The fact that style of broadcasting has become acceptable to mainstream America - and to many broadcast personalities who see it as the proper way to perform their job, speaks volumes about how entertainment value has replaced

It's time to overrule the Supreme Court

I'm two states removed from California, and I don't know who I'd have supported in San Francisco's recent runoff election for mayor. But I know this: democracy lost.

Gavin Newsom won by a 53% to 47% margin, while his $3.8 million budget dwarfed that of  his opponent, Matt Gonzalez, by a 10 to 1 margin. Gonzalez won about nine times as many votes per dollar spent and even Newsom's supporters would be hard-pressed to deny that money made the difference.

Though the race officially was non-partisan, Newsom is a Democrat and Gonzalez is Green. Democratic celebrities Bill Clinton and Al Gore stumped for Newsom, and the party brought in resources that overwhelmed Gonzalez' volunteer-driven campaign. Ironically, Gonzalez won support from the majority of Democratic voters, while Newsom was the clear favorite of Republicans (and was endorsed by the Republican party previously).

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