END THE U.S. OCCUPATION OF IRAQ! BRING ALL THE TROOPS HOME NOW!
NOV. 3RD-5PM-POWELL AND MARKET-MARCH TO 24TH & MISSION ST., S.F.
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
VOTE YES ON N! MEETING THURS. OCT. 22 & OCT. 28, 7PM,
GLOBAL EXCHANGE, 2017 MISSION STREET, SUITE 303
(NEAR 16TH & MISSION STREETS)
MEET AT BOCANA AND CORTLAND STS.-SUNDAY, OCT. 17TH, 11AM
Help give out Prop. N and Nov. 3 flyers and posters!
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
1) * PLEASE DISTRIBUTE WIDELY * APOLOGIES FOR DUPLICATE POSTINGS*
You are invited to the East Bay premier of an important new film:
"EVERY MOTHER'S SON"
Followed by a panel discussion on police violence
to benefit the No on Measure Y Campaign
Friday, October 22, 8 – 10 pm
at the Fellowship of Humanity
390 – 27th Street/411 – 28th Street,
Downtown Oakland, between Telegraph & Broadway
Suggested donation: $5 - $10; no one turned away for lack of funds
2) WEEKEND OF ACTION
FOR IMMIGRANT & LABOR RIGHTS
Saturday, October 16, Los Angeles
& Sunday, October 17, Washington D.C.
3) Hello Everyone,
Please forward and spread the word!!!!!!!!!!!!
Hope to see you at the movie!
Please tell your friends.
With Creator's Blessings,
Jaynie
Native American Two-Spirit Film Night
Thursday, October 21, 7p.m.
New College of California, Theatre Room
777 Valencia Street @19th Street, San Francisco
Public Parking: 21st at Valencia
4) Israeli Army Denies Jewish and Left Activists Entry
to help WB Farmers in Olive Harvest
George Rishmawi-IMEMC & Agencies, October 16, 2004
5) Truth Stranger Than 'Strangelove'
By FRED KAPLAN
October 10, 2004
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/10/movies/10kapl.html?oref=login
6) Shooting From the Hip: Kerry Out-Guns Bush
By Joshua Frank
www.dissidentvoice.org
October 15, 2004
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Oct04/Frank1015.htm
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
1) * PLEASE DISTRIBUTE WIDELY * APOLOGIES FOR DUPLICATE POSTINGS*
You are invited to the East Bay premier of an important new film:
"EVERY MOTHER'S SON"
Followed by a panel discussion on police violence
to benefit the No on Measure Y Campaign
Friday, October 22, 8 – 10 pm
at the Fellowship of Humanity
390 – 27th Street/411 – 28th Street,
Downtown Oakland, between Telegraph & Broadway
Suggested donation: $5 - $10; no one turned away for lack of funds
"Every Mother's Son" recounts three cases of unjustified or questionable
police killings in New York - and tells of the victimsÂ’ three mothers who
came together to demand justice and accountability. Are such killings
acceptable or necessary trade-offs for public safety? In reply, the mothers
have their own question: What if it were your child?
A panel presentation following the film will feature Mesha Monge-Irizarry
and Sandra-Juanita Cooper, who founded the Idress Stelly Foundation
after Mesha's only child, Idriss Stelly, was killed by San Francisco Police
on June 14, 2001, Marylon Boyd, the mother of Cammerin Boyd, a victim
of police violence in both Oakland and San Francisco, and Malaika Parker
of Bay Area PoliceWatch.
Wilson Riles will make a brief presentation on behalf of the
No on Measure Y campaign.
Measure Y, the misleadingly-named "Violence Prevention and Public
Safety Act of 2004,"puts funding police ahead of funding social
programs. Measure Y will spend a majority of funds raised through
a regressive new parcel tax and increased parking fees to hire 63 new
police officers and increase the fire department budget, while to a much
lesser extent funding true violence prevention programs.
No on Measure Y, 3746 39th Avenue, Oakland, CA 94619
http://noonmeasurey.org
510-530-2448; wriles@pacbell.net
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
2) WEEKEND OF ACTION
FOR IMMIGRANT & LABOR RIGHTS
Saturday, October 16, Los Angeles
& Sunday, October 17, Washington D.C.
As working people plan to take to the streets this weekend at the
Million Worker March in Washington DC on Sunday October 17, and
at the Immigrant Rights March in Los Angeles on Saturday, October 16,
it is worthwhile to consider two breaking news stories that indicate vividly
the organic connection between domestic and foreign policy.
1) A U.S. federal judge just ordered that U.S. Airways can cut the pay and
pension benefits of its union workers by 21%. This in fact is a lawless act
violating a union contract on behalf of corporate bosses. As the cold comes
and fuel costs are through the roof, U.S. Airways workers will see their
incomes drop drastically while they must perform the same labor for the
same hours, as will retirees on pension.
2) A platoon of U.S. soldiers serving in Iraq, functioning as workers in
uniform and transporting fuel in resupply lines, have refused to carry out
the orders of their officers and have been placed under arrest. A report in
the Clarion-Ledger of Jackson, MS, states, "A 17-member Army Reserve
platoon with troops from Jackson, Miss., and around the Southeast
deployed to Iraq is under arrest for refusing a 'suicide mission' to deliver
fuel, the troops' relatives said Thursday." The soldiers were ordered to
transport fuel in unprotected vehicles through an area of Iraq north of
Baghdad where they knew they would be subject to the Iraqi resistance's
attacks. One of the soldiers had e-mailed his mother earlier in the week
asking what the penalty would be for physically assaulting his commander.
Working people in the United States are recognizing that the Bush
administration has launched a war in Iraq solely to satisfy the needs of
their corporate and banking backers to dominate and exploit the land,
labor and resources of the people of the Middle East. It is not possible
that the government which attacks workers rights at home can fight for
the "liberation" of working people abroad. This is a profit first, people
last
government and it pursues the same policy all over the globe starting
right here at home. The same government is willing to allow the super
exploitation of undocumented workers one day, and the next day have
them rounded up in INS/ICE sweeps if they dare to organize themselves
into a union. The same government that takes billions from working
people to spend on war and occupation tells those working people in
that there is no money for human needs at home.
The A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition urges everyone who can to unite and join
the mass protests on October 16th and October 17th. Please see below
for details.
It is due to the generosity of supporters that A.N.S.W.E.R. has been able
to have such a powerful voice at this critical moment in history. Your
support is urgently needed. You can make a donation online through a
secure server by clicking here. Credit card donations made online are
not tax deductible. To make a tax deductible credit card donation,
call 202-544-3389. You can also make a tax deductible donation
by writing a check to A.N.S.W.E.R./AGJ and sending it to
A.N.S.W.E.R., 1247 E St. SE, Washington DC 20003.
* * * * *
October 17, 2004
Million Worker March
in Washington DC
Gather at 11 am
Lincoln Memorial
According to the Million Worker March Committee, "This mobilization
is being proposed in response to the attacks upon working families
in America and the millions of jobs lost during the Bush administration
and with the complicity of Congress." The march is also calling to
Bring the Troops Home Now.
Initiated by The International Longshore and Warehouse Union,
Local 10 and endorsed by many labor, community and activist
organizations.
Click here to get information on the LOGISTICS FOR
OCT. 17 IN DC - including directions, bus drop off /
parking / pick up, car and van parking maps, housing, etc.).
Demands of the Million Worker March:
- Universal single-care health care from cradle to grave that ends
the stranglehold of greedy insurance companies and secures health
care as a right of all people in America.
- A national living wage that lifts people permanently out of poverty.
- Protection and enhancement of Social Security immune to privatization.
- Guaranteed pensions that sustain a decent life for all working people.
- The cancellation of all corporate "free" trade agreements, including
NAFTA, MAI and FTAA.
- An end to privatization, contracting out, deregulation and the pitting
of workers against each other across national boundaries in a mad
race to the bottom.
- For workers' right to organize and for a repeal of Taft Hartley and all
anti-labor legislation.
- Funding public education in a crash program to restore our decaying
and abandoned schools with state of the art school facilities in every
community.
- Funding a vast army of teachers to end functional illiteracy in America
and unleash the talent and potential of our abandoned children and adults.
- Launching a national training program in skills and capacities that will
enlist our people in rebuilding our country and putting an end to both the
criminalization of poverty and the prison-industrial complex.
- Rebuilding our decaying inner cities with clean, modern and affordable
housing and eliminating homelessness in America with guaranteed housing
and jobs for all.
- Progressive taxation that increases taxation on corporations and the
rich while providing relief for the working class and poor.
- An end to the poisoning of the atmosphere, soil, water and food supply
with a national emergency program to restore the environment, end global
warming and preserve our endangered eco-system.
- Creating efficient, modern and free mass transit in every city and town.
- Repeal of the Patriot Act, Anti-Terrorism Act and all such repressive
legislation.
- Slash the military budget and recover the trillions of dollars stolen from
our labor to enrich the corporations that profit from war.
- Open the books on the secret budgets of the Pentagon and the
intelligence agencies in the service of corporations and banks and the
pursuit of imperial war on the poor everywhere.
- Extend democracy to our economic structure so that all decisions
affecting the lives of our citizens are made by working people who
produce all value through their labor.
- An aggressive enforcement of all civil rights and a national education
campaign and mobilization against all racist and discriminatory acts
in the work place and in our communities.
- Amnesty for all undocumented workers
- Increase in federal funding for the Arts in public schools
- For a democratic media that allow labor and all voices to be heard
and oppose monopolization and union busting of media workers.
A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition
Act Now to Stop War & End Racism
http://www.ANSWERcoalition.org
info@internationalanswer.org
National Office in Washington DC: 202-544-3389
New York City: 212-533-0417
Los Angeles: 323-464-1636
San Francisco: 415-821-6545
For media inquiries, call 202-544-3389.
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
3) Hello Everyone,
Please forward and spread the word!!!!!!!!!!!!
Hope to see you at the movie!
Please tell your friends.
With Creator's Blessings,
Jaynie
Native American Two-Spirit Film Night
Thursday, October 21, 7p.m.
New College of California, Theatre Room
777 Valencia Street @19th Street, San Francisco
Public Parking: 21st at Valencia
A fundraiser for BAAITS
B A A I T S
Bay Area American Indian Two-Spirits
BAAITS is a community based volunteer organization
creating forums for spiritual, cultural, and
artistic expression of Two-Spirit people, a term
for LGBT American Indians.
Native American Two-Spirit Film Night
WHEN: Thursday, October 21, 7p.m.
WHERE: New College of California, Theatre Room
777 Valencia Street @19th Street, San Francisco
Public Parking: 21st at Valencia
A fundraiser for BAAITS
Co-sponsored by The Center for Education and
Social Action at
New College of California
RAFFLE!!!! FOOD!!! plus SOFT DRINKS!!!!
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
4) Israeli Army Denies Jewish and Left Activists Entry
to help WB Farmers in Olive Harvest
George Rishmawi-IMEMC & Agencies, October 16, 2004
The Israeli army denied entry to over 100 Israeli left activists to the
village of Azawiyah near Salfit who came to assist Palestinian olive growers
in olive harvest on Saturday morning.
The army claimed the West Bank village a closed military zone and will not
allow the activists to enter it, Israeli news paper Haaretz said.
Three left activists have been arrested so far.
"The army said it feared a violent confrontation would ensue between the
pro-Palestinian groups and settlers living in the nearby settlement of Eli,"
Haaretz said.
However, eyewitness reports in earlier attempts for activists to assist
Palestinians in olive harvest said, settlers initiated violence and
assaulted Palestinians and international peace activists as well.
Military sources say they have suggested that the activists help picking
olives in areas where there is no threat of clashes with settlers but the
activists refused.
Left activists explain that they are invited by the Palestinians to help
them pick olive especially in areas adjacent to settlements to avoid any
friction with the settlers.
The International Solidarity Movement (ISM) has launched a campaign in which
it invited international peace activists from different parts of the world
to assist Palestinian farmers in olive harvest, a campaign
the movement organizes since 2002.
Hundreds of activists arrived into the country in the past three years for
the Olive Harvest campaign organized by the ISM. Several internationals have
been assaulted by settlers who attacked the Olive growers.
The settlers stepped up their attacks against international peace activists
in the past few weeks.
While Israeli police declared that attacks against peace activists and
innocent Palestinian civilians, especially school children, in the Hebron
area was the work of a well organized settlers' gang, army says
"As soon as the peace activists are gone, things will calm down".
Five international peace activists were attacked last Saturday when
escorting Palestinian children to school in the southern Hebron hills,
An Italian peace volunteer and an Amnesty International member required
medical treatment after being badly beaten with clubs.
This is the third attack against peace activists in Hebron area in the past
month.
According to police reports, the attacks were not spontaneous outbreaks of
violence, but rather the work of a well-organized group,
whose members wear black, don ski masks and arm themselves with wooden
clubs, chains and rocks.
Jewish settlers in the area have long been harassing Palestinian residents.
Palestinian children are afraid to go to school and many have dropped out.
"We were escorting five children to school, when five masked figures
dressed in black jumped out at us. The children began to run. I was knocked
down and beat with a chain. I lay immobile so they would think
I was dead" said Kim Lamberty, an American volunteer with Christian
Peacemaker Teams (CPT), describing the first attack against members of her
organization on September 29.
Lamberty's arm and leg were broken. Her colleague Chris Brown was also
hospitalized with a punctured lung. Also last week, rocks were thrown by a
similar group at a single volunteer, who managed to escape unharmed
"Until recently we were subjected to stone-throwing and spontaneous
actions, but not a planned ambush," says Rabbi Arik Ascherman of Rabbis for
Human Rights, an Israeli peace organization active in the area.
Left activists also complain about police and army indifference to the
attacks.
"We lay waiting there for half an hour before the police came. We could
have easily been killed," says Lamberty.
"No suspects have been detained yet. if the assailants were Arabs they would
have arrested the whole village and found the guilty parties" said Ezra
Nawi, an activist with the Israeli peace group Ta'ayush.
The army commander in Hebron area demanded that the internationa volunteers
leave, promising that soldiers would take over the job of escorting the
children safely to school. But Palestinian children are afraid of the
soldiers. "We don't trust the army to keep up the routine either," Nawi
said.
Police spokesman Sagi Shlomi claimed that the police was taking the attacks
very seriously, describing the attackers as "a subversive group that has
carried out aggravated assault offenses and robbery."
Army spokesperson confirmed that peace activists who accompany children to
schools will not be allowed to pass, saying "As soon as the peace activists
are gone, things will calm down,"
"Punishing the victim is becoming the normal policy through which army and
police handle settlers' violence and criminal acts" aan actyivist said.
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://asia.groups.yahoo.com/group/Marxists/
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
Marxists-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://asia.docs.yahoo.com/info/terms
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
5) Truth Stranger Than 'Strangelove'
By FRED KAPLAN
October 10, 2004
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/10/movies/10kapl.html?oref=login
Dr. Strangelove," Stanley Kubrick's 1964 film about nuclear-war plans
run amok, is widely heralded as one of the greatest satires in American
political or movie history. For its 40th anniversary, Film Forum is
screening a new 35 millimeter print for one week, starting on Friday,
and Columbia TriStar is releasing a two-disc special-edition DVD next
month. One essential point should emerge from all the hoopla:
"Strangelove" is far more than a satire. In its own loopy way, the
movie is a remarkably fact-based and specific guide to some of the
oddest, most secretive chapters of the Cold War.
As countless histories relate, Mr. Kubrick set out to make a serious film
based on a grim novel, "Red Alert," by Peter George, a Royal Air Force
officer. But the more research he did (reading more than 50 books,
talking with a dozen experts), the more lunatic he found the whole
subject, so he made a dark comedy instead. The result was wildly
iconoclastic: released at the height of the cold war, not long after the
Cuban missile crisis, before the escalation in Vietnam, "Dr. Strangelove"
dared to suggest - with yucks! - that our top generals might be bonkers
and that our well-designed system for preserving the peace was in fact
a doomsday machine.
What few people knew, at the time and since, was just how accurate
this film was. Its premise, plotline, some of the dialogue, even its
wildest characters eerily resembled the policies, debates and military
leaders of the day. The audience had almost no way of detecting these
similiarities:Nearly everything about the bomb was shrouded in
secrecy back then. There was no Freedom of Information Act and
little investigative reporting on the subject. It was easy to laugh off
"Dr. Strangelove" as a comic book.
But film's weird accuracy is evident in its very first scene, in which
a deranged base commander, preposterously named Gen. Jack D. Ripper
(played by Sterling Hayden), orders his wing of B-52 bombers - which
are on routine airborne alert, circling a "fail-safe point" just outside the
Soviet border - to attack their targets inside the U.S.S.R. with
multimegaton
bombs. Once the pilots receive the order, they can't be diverted unless
they receive a coded recall message. And 0nly General Ripper has the code.
The remarkable thing is, the fail-safe system that General Ripper
exploits was the real, top-secret fail-safe system at the time. According to
declassified Strategic Air Command histories, 12 B-52's - fully loaded
with nuclear bombs - were kept on constant airborne alert. If they
received a Go code, they went to war. This alert system, known as
Chrome Dome, began in 1961. It ended in 1968, after a B-52 crashed
in Greenland, spreading small amounts of radioactive fallout.
But until then, could some loony general have sent bombers to attack
Russia without a presidential order? Yes.
In a scene in the "war room" (a room that didn't really exist, by the way),
Air Force Gen. Buck Turgidson (played by George C. Scott) explains to an
incredulous President Merkin Muffley (one of three roles played by Peter
Sellers) that policies - approved by the president - allowed war powers to
be
transferred, in case the president was killed in a surprise nuclear attack
on
Washington.
Historical documents indicate that such procedures did exist, and that,
though tightened later, they were startlingly loose at the time.
But were there generals who might really have taken such power in their
own hands? It was no secret - it would have been obvious to many
viewers in 1964 - that General Ripper looked a lot like Curtis LeMay,
the cigar-chomping, gruff-talking general who headed the Strategic
Air Command through the 1950's and who served as the Pentagon's
Air Force Chief of Staff in the early 60's.
In 1957 Robert Sprague, the director of a top-secret panel, warned
General LeMay that the entire fleet of B-52 bombers was vulnerable
to attack. General LeMay was unfazed. "If I see that the Russians are
amassing their planes for an attack,'' he said, "I'm going to knock the
[expletive] out of them before they take off the ground."
"But General LeMay," Mr. Sprague replied, "that's not national policy."
"I don't care," General LeMay said. "It's my policy. That's what I'm
going to do."
Mr. Kubrick probably was unaware of this exchange. (Mr. Sprague told
me about it in 1981, when I interviewed him for a book on nuclear
history.) But General LeMay's distrust of civilian authorities, including
presidents, was well known among insiders, several of whom Mr. Kubrick
interviewed.
The most popular guessing game about the movie is whether there
a real-life counterpart to the character of Dr. Strangelove (another
Sellers part), the wheelchaired ex-Nazi who directs the Pentagon's
weapons research and proposes sheltering political leaders in
mineshafts, where they can survive the coming nuclear war and
breed with beautiful women. Over the years, some have speculated
that Strangelove was inspired by Edward Teller, Henry Kissinger or
Werner Von Braun.
But the real model was almost certainly Herman Kahn, an eccentric,
voluble nuclear strategist at the RAND Corporation, a prominent
Air Force think tank. In 1960, Mr. Kahn published a 652-page tome
called "On Thermonuclear War," which sold 30,000 copies in hardcover.
According to a special-feature documentary on the new DVD, Mr.
Kubrick read "On Thermonuclear War" several times. But what the
documentary doesn't note is that the final scenes of "Dr. Strangelove"
come straight out of its pages.
Toward the end of the film, officials uncover General Ripper's code
and call back the B-52's, but they notice that one bomber keeps
flying toward its target. A B-52 is about to attack the Russians with
a few H-bombs; General Turgidson recommends that we should
"catch 'em with their pants down,'' and launch an all-out, disarming
first-strike.
Such a strike would destroy 90 percent of the U.S.S.R.'s nuclear
arsenal. "Mr. President," he exclaims, "I'm not saying we wouldn't
get our hair mussed, but I do say no more than 10-20 million killed,
tops!" If we don't go all-out, the general warns, the Soviets will fire
back with all their nuclear weapons. The choice, he screams, is
"between two admittedly regrettable but nevertheless distinguishable
postwar environments - one where you get 20 million people killed
and the other where you get 150 million people killed!" Mr. Kahn
made precisely this point in his book, even producing a chart labeled,
"Tragic but Distinguishable Postwar States."
When Dr. Strangelove talks of sheltering people in mineshafts,
President Muffley asks him, "Wouldn't this nucleus of survivors be
so grief-stricken and anguished that they'd, well, envy the dead?"
Strangelove exclaims that, to the contrary, many would feel "a spirit
of bold curiosity for the adventure ahead."
Mr. Kahn's book contains a long chapter on mineshafts. Its title: "Will
the Survivors Envy the Dead?" One sentence reads: "We can imagine a
renewed vigor among the population with a zealous, almost religious
dedication to reconstruction."
In 1981, two years before he died, I asked Mr. Kahn what he thought
of "Dr. Strangelove." Thinking I meant the character, he replied, with
a straight face, "Strangelove wouldn't have lasted three weeks in the
Pentagon. He was too creative."
Those in the know watched "Dr. Strangelove" amused, like everyone
else, but also stunned. Daniel Ellsberg, who later leaked the Pentagon
Papers, was a RAND analyst and a consultant at the Defense Department
when he and a mid-level official took off work one afternoon in 1964
to see the film. Mr. Ellsberg recently recalled that as they left the
theater,
he turned to his colleague and said, "That was a documentary!"
Fred Kaplan is a columnist for Slate and the author of "The Wizards of
Armageddon," a history of the nuclear strategists.
Copyright 2004 The New York Times
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
6) Shooting From the Hip: Kerry Out-Guns Bush
By Joshua Frank
www.dissidentvoice.org
October 15, 2004
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Oct04/Frank1015.htm
{From: "Barbara Deutsch"
Subject: how do we defend ourselves from this?
At 4:10 AM -0700 10/15/04, Sunil/Dissident Voice wrote:
The greater the mental charlatan, the more definite his insistence on
the wickedness and weakness of human nature...Emma Goldman}
It may seem inconceivable to some, but John Kerry is indeed out-
hawking George W. Bush this election season. No doubt we should
have seen it coming as the Democratic National Convention was
nothing more than a glorified war parade, where Kerry floated on
by and reprehensibly announced that he was "reporting for duty."
Since this obscure proclamation in Boston last summer, Kerry has
been trouncing around the country defending his call for the
continued U.S. occupation of Iraq. In the first presidential debate held
in Florida two weeks ago, Kerry boasted of his numerous military
backers, "I am proud that important military figures are supporting
me in this race: former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff John
Shalikashvili; just yesterday, General Eisenhower's son, General
John Eisenhower, endorsed me; General Admiral William Crowe;
General Tony McBeak, who ran the Air Force war so effectively for
his father -- all believe I would make a stronger commander in chief."
William Safire, the conservative columnist for the New York Times
on October 4 opined that Kerry is the "newest neo-conservative" and
went as far as to say that Kerry is even "more hawkish than
President Bush."
Kerry wants to show voters that he will be tough on terror,
I assume, and he is doing so by defending Bush's pre-emptive
doctrine. "The president always has the right, and always has
had the right, for preemptive strike. That was a great doctrine
throughout the Cold War. And it was always one of the things we
argued about with respect to arms control."
So much for differentiating himself from the Bush agenda. If anything,
Kerry is simply saying he could run this whole "war on terror" thing
better, and in fact has said as much. "[I] will hunt and kill the terrorists
wherever they are ... I can do better." Kerry also says he will accomplish
his goal by not backing off "of Fallujah and other places," which he
says sends "the wrong message to terrorists."
So much for options. Now lefty voters are being told by the Nobody
but Kerry crowd that we have to vote for their pro-war candidate.
There is no other choice. Period. That makes me wonder: What ever
happened to the anti-war movement anyway? You'd think they would
be out raising some hell over Kerry's hawkish pose on Iraq. Maybe
these seasoned activists took a much needed vacation after the
Republican National Convention (why weren't they in Boston railing
the Democrats again?). Or, more likely they are skipping door to
door trumping the John-John ticket. Talk about hypocrisy.
Meanwhile, as the masses across the U.S. are obsessing over the
upcoming elections, violence is escalating in Iraq. "The situation on
the ground in Iraq is far worse than what is portrayed by the media,"
journalist Patrick Cockburn wrote on October 6 in CounterPunch.
"I have spent most of the past year-and-a-half traveling in Iraq, and
I have never known it so bad. The roads all around Baghdad are cut
by insurgents. At Mahmoudiyah, just south of the capital, rebels in
black masks felt confident enough last week to establish a checkpoint
on the main road to Najaf. In Baghdad, U.S. planes regularly bomb
Sadr City, home to 2 million out of the capital's 5 million people.
Haifa Street, a resistance bastion 400 yards from the Green Zone
where American generals give relentlessly upbeat briefings, can
only be entered by U.S. heavy armour supported by helicopters."
Nevertheless, here we have John Kerry "reporting for duty." You
shouldn't be surprised, though. He said the same thing decades ago
when he volunteered to go fight in that other awful war over in Vietnam.
Save his short burst of anti-war heroism upon his return -- the guy
has always been a hawk.
Joshua Frank is a contributor to CounterPunch's new election book,
A Dime's Worth of Difference: Beyond the Lesser of Two Evils , and is
author of the forthcoming book, Left Out! How Liberals Did Bush's
Work for Him , to be published by Common Courage Press.
He welcomes comments at frank_joshua@hotmail.com .
No comments:
Post a Comment