Alternative Press Week in Review
www.altpr.org
A weekly roundup of news, essays and other items of interest.
February 24 - March 2, 2003
http://www.time.com/time/europe/gdml/peace2003.html
Poll: US Biggest Threat to Peace
TIME asks which country really poses the greatest danger to world peace in
2003. The results as of 3/1/03:
North Korea 5.6%
Iraq 6.7%
United States 87.7%
Total votes cast: 626,296
Shaking Hands with Saddam Hussein
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/
Radical Propaganda Archive
http://riseup.net/brady/propaganda/
Mark Fiore Animation
http://www.markfiore.com/animation.html
Website of the Week
http://www.iol.ie/~forsacosanta/world_needed_proof.htm
INCOMING! - A short list of some of the more interesting items received at
the Alternative Press Review office this week.
Book of the week
Power and Terror: Post 9-11 talks and interviews
By Noam Chomsky (Seven Stories Press)
http://www.sevenstories.com/Book/index.cfm?GCOI=58322100841460
In Power and Terror, his first new book following his runaway bestseller
9-11, Chomsky presents his latest thinking on terrorism, U.S. foreign
policy, and the meaning and true impact of militarism in the world today,
based on a series of talks and conversations in March and May of 2002 in
California, Cambridge, Mass., and New York.
Zine of the week
anchorage anarchy (issue #2, February 2003)
http://world.std.com/~bbrigade/
A 12-page anti-government anarchist publication from Bad Press (PO Box
230332, Anchorage, AK 99523-0332) and edited by Joe Peacott.
Magazine of the week
The Progressive (March 2003)
http://www.progressive.org
Howard Zinn on war, Nat Hentoff on Ashcroft, Barbara Ehrenreich on Porto
Allegre, Behrooz Arshadi's personal account of INS mistreatment, Mark Engler
and Saurav Sarkar on Ashcroft's roundup, Matthew Rothschild confronts the
apologists for empire, and an interview with cartoonist Tom Tomorrow.
CDs of the week
Ani DiFranco - Evolve (Righteous Babe Records)
http://www.righteousbabe.com
Five Days Over Seattle - an audio document of free radio station Y2WTKO
(Cascadia Media Collective)
http://www.tree-sit.com/~y2wtko/
Under incredibly rough conditions up high in a tree, Y2WTKO/Free Radio
Cascadia kept a signal of resistance up throughout the Battle of Seattle
'99. These tracks were recorded off the air or from the raw program material
itself. The broadcast is alternately hilarious and anguished; thoughtful and
frustrated; low-tech and high art.
Upcoming Events
http://www.codepink4peace.org/codepink.html
International Women's Day Week of Events
Come to Washington, DC
March 3 - 9, 2003
Join thousands of women and men from all walks of life for this amazing
women-led peace convergence.
Join with Alice Walker, Vandana Shiva, comedian Janeane Garofalo, Susan
Griffen, Dr. Helen Caldicott, Granny D, Barbara Ehrenreich, Rania Masri,
Michelle Shocked, feminist theologian Hyun Kyung, Nobel Peace Laureate Jody
Williams, Cheri Honkala, Maxine Hong Kingston, Inga Muscio, Terry Tempest
Williams, Medea Benjamin, Starhawk, and many others for the rally and march.
http://www.breakthechains.net/home.html
ON THE LEGITIMACY OF POLITICAL VIOLENCE
454 Willamette, Eugene, OR
March 9, 2003
A Presentation by Former Spokesperson for the Earth Liberation Front, and
longtime social justice activist, Craig Rosebraugh. Within Westernized
societies, particularly the United States, there has been a near universal
acceptance that non-violent action has been the foundation on which the
progress and/or success of political and social justice movements has been
built. Yet, contrary to popular beliefs held by many in the United States,
political violence has played a crucial role in advancing historical justice
struggles. This lecture examines the historical roles that both nonviolence
and political violence have played in social and political movements both in
the United States and internationally. Lessons obtained through historical
case studies will then be applied to current justice struggles in the United
States. For more info on this event, contact Break The Chains collective at
[log in to unmask]
http://www.southerngirlsconvention.org/2003/
Fifth Annual Southern Girls Convention
March 14 - 16, 2003
Warren Wilson College
Asheville, North Carolina
The Southern Girls Convention is an annual grassroots meeting of social
justice activists devoted to empowering women and girls in the South, and
discussing Southern culture, views and stereotypes of
the South, and the struggle for social justice. Each year's convention is
hosted by a different Southern community and facilitated by local
organizers. Past conventions have brought hundreds of participants to
Memphis, Tennessee; Lousville, Kentucky; Auburn, Alabama; and Athens,
Georgia.
Articles of the Week
http://www.altpr.org/web_feature_fink.html
An Alternative to War
Charles Fink, APR Web Feature
It should not surprise us, then, that George Washington-the wealthiest man
in revolutionary America-and Thomas Jefferson were slaveholders. Or that the
most powerful people in American history have been liars, thieves, ethnic
cleansers, racists, mass murders. In fact, it is entirely predicable.
http://www.altpr.org/webfeatures/willful022003.html
When Peace is War
Willful Disobedience Vol 3, #5
We are all aware that the United States is gearing up for an attack on Iraq.
The formalities are still being worked out, but at this point, US military
action seems almost certain. But this war will not be without resistance.
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/print/2003/627/focus.htm
Traces of Poison
Salman Abu-Sitta, Al-Ahram Weekly
Israel, not Iraq, holds that distinction of being the first country in the
region to use weapons of mass destruction with genocidal intent.
http://www.newcollegenews.net/partysover.html
The Party's Over
Richard Heinberg, New College News
"Industrial nations' fossil-fueled joyride is about to end . . . is anyone
prepared?" When Mike Bowlin, Chairman of ARCO, said in 1999 that "We've
embarked on the beginning of the last days of the age of oil," he was
voicing a truth that many others in the petroleum industry knew but dared
not utter. Over the past few years, evidence has mounted that global oil
production is nearing its historic peak. Oil has been the cheapest and most
convenient energy resource ever discovered by humans. During the past two
centuries, people in industrial nations accustomed themselves to a regime in
which more fossil-fuel energy was available each year, and the global
population grew quickly to take advantage of this energy windfall.
Industrial nations also came to rely on an economic system built on the
assumption that growth is normal and necessary, and that it can go on
forever. When oil production peaks, that assumption will come crashing down.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/SZA302A.html
War by Numbers
George Szamuely, Centre for Research on Globalisation
It's a ploy that was used again and again in the Balkans over the past
decade. Back then Serbia, not Iraq, was crying out to be punished by the
righteous nations led by the United States. Serbs were beyond the pale.
http://www.counterpunch.org/sullivan02252003.html
Programming the Work Force: The Failure of Mass Education
Charles Sullivan, CounterPunch
Our schools are really factories of mass production where the object isn't
to educate and inform, but to produce a homogenous culture of non-thinking
conformists and consumers.
http://argument.independent.co.uk/commentators/story.jsp?story=381438
How the news will be censored in this war
Robert Fisk, The Independent
A new CNN system of "script approval" - the iniquitous instruction to
reporters that they have to send all their copy to anonymous officials in
Atlanta to ensure it is suitably sanitised - suggests that the Pentagon and
the Department of State have nothing to worry about.
http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?itemid=14544&CFID=5394340&CFTOKE
N=83256874
Shock and Yawn
Geov Parrish, Working for Change
Are Americans -- politicians, media executives, and ordinary citizens -- so
numb, or oblivious, or callous to the horrors of war that we cannot raise
ourselves to be bothered by what would be, if it works as planned, one of
the greatest massacres, one of the greatest war crimes, in the history of
the world, committed in our name and with our money?
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Articles2/MickeyZ_AntiWarTalk.htm
The Anti-war Talk I Never Made
Mickey Z, Dissident Voice
"Two worlds are in conflict -- two philosophies of life -- one of these two
worlds must break asunder." These are not the words of our un-elected
president but rather Adolph Hitler, in the 1930s. I do not compare these two
time periods lightly.
http://www.americaspolicy.org/reports/2003/0302mexfarm_body.html
The Mexican Farmers' Movement: Exposing the Myths of Free Trade
Laura Carlsen, Americas Policy Report
Not since agrarian reform under President Lázaro Cárdenas in the late
thirties had so many campesinos marched in the nation's capital. And perhaps
not since the revolution had such a diverse crowd united behind such radical
demands.
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2003/022703a.html
Missing US-Iraq History
Robert Parry, Consortiumnews.com
Before George W. Bush gives the final order to invade Iraq -- a nation that
has not threatened the United States -- the American people might want a few
facts about the real history of U.S.-Iraq relations. Missing chapters from
1980 to the present would be crucial in judging Bush's case for war.
http://www.schnews.org.uk/archive/news394.htm
Afghani-Sham
Schnews
In the week that George W. presents his 'vision' for a post-war Iraq, a
vision that he has already refused to contribute to financially, SchNEWS
reckons it's appropriate to look at Afghanistan one year on. Just how has
bombing and killing civilians improved the situation for the Afghan people?
http://www.howardzinn.org/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=88
War
Howard Zinn, www.howardzinn.org
The anti-war movement will not likely surrender to the martial atmosphere.
The hundreds of thousands who marched in Washington and San Francisco and
New York and Boston - and in villages, towns, cities all over the country
from Georgia to Montana - will not meekly withdraw. Unlike the shallow
support for the war, the opposition to the war is deep, cannot be easily
dislodged or frightened into silence.
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=15&ItemID=3154
Blair Hypocrisy
John Pilger, ZNet
Having failed to fabricate a link between Iraq and al-Qaeda, and prove that
Iraq has a secret armoury of banned weapons, the warmongers have fallen back
on the "moral case" for an unprovoked attack on a stricken country. Farce
has arrived.
http://www.heatherwokusch.com
The Dangers of Dissent
Heather Wokusch, www.heatherwokusch.com
Dissent isn't easy these days. You're branded unpatriotic for questioning an
unelected president's rush to war, and dismissed as insignificant even when
you number in the millions.
http://www.lunch-break.co.uk/news/default.asp?filevar=76&Page=
Totalitarianism for Dummies
In a brave move by the literary publishers the book 1984 has been re-branded
and re-marketed as "totalitarianism for dummies." Now in a bright yellow
cover with a photograph of George Bush emblazoned across it with the slogan
"I did it and I can't even pass high school exams" the book explains in easy
terms and step by step guides how to control your population with a state of
"Permanent War", how to set up your own "Ministry of Truth" and how to
control the minds of your minions with Doublethink.
NewsWire
http://www.buzzflash.com/analysis/03/02/26_Ari.html
Ari Gets Laughed Out of the White House Briefing Room
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/02/25/1046064028608.html
Coalition of the Willing? Make that War Criminals
http://www.ips-dc.org/coalition.htm
Coalition of the Willing or Coalition of the Coerced?
http://news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=230772003
Allies Hushed Up Weapons' Destruction
http://www.stratiawire.com/article.asp?id=936
Gulf War Vet Group: US Troops Set Kuwaiti Oil Fires
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/wnt/World/newbomb030225.html
US to Unveil Massive New Bomb
http://www.aclu.org/SafeandFree/SafeandFree.cfm?ID=11835&c=206
Section by section analysis of the Patriot Act II
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2003_02_23_digbysblog_archive.html#89856112
Enemies of the State: Bill O'Reilly has issued a warning
http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/060/nation/Antiwar_activists_plan_nonviole
nt_blockades+.shtml
Antiwar activists plan nonviolent blockades
http://palestinechronicle.com/article.php?story=20030301205225467
Anti-war Protestors to Block Main US Army Base in Germany
http://www.observer.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12239,905936,00.html
Revealed: US dirty tricks to win vote on Iraq war
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=383006
US prepares to use toxic gases in Iraq
http://abcnews.go.com/wire/World/reuters20030226_204.html
Bove gets 10 months in jail for GM crop attack
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