NP? genocide; Big Bro'; war profits; War rap; mb; L.E.C.; V. down under

Tue Nov 6 11:23:35 CST 2001

" [...]Experienced, respected food aid organizations warn that even before
the bombing of Afghanistan began on October 7, some 7,500,000 Afghans were
[...] at risk of starving to death this winter. When the bombing began,
almost all delivery of food from the outside world stopped. Now, roads and
bridges are destroyed, millions more people are dislocated, and the snow is
steadily approaching from higher elevations and from the north. [...] aid
organizations, along with voices from throughout the region, have been
begging the United States to call off its bombing campaign, at least for
long enough so that aid agencies can conduct the massive transfer of food
into and throughout Afghanistan that is necessary to prevent death on a
scale the world has not seen in a long, long time.  [...]  three times the
number of people Pol Pot took years to kill. Thirty-five times the number
that died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, combined. [...]  Slow, painful deaths.
Entirely avoidable deaths. Deaths whose sole cause is not the United
States, but most of which can still be prevented -- except that the United
States is refusing to allow them to be prevented. [...]"
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=11855

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" [...] The new law, known as the USA Patriot Act, reaches into every space
that Americans once imagined was private. [...] police can now obtain court
orders to conduct so called "sneak and peak" searches of homes and offices.
This allows them to break in, examine and remove or alter items without
immediately, if ever, presenting owners with a warrant detailing what they
were entitled to do and where. This seismic shift in the government's power
of search and seizure also extends to the examination of records.
Authorities can browse medical, financial, educational or even library
records without showing evidence of a crime. The law overrides existing
state and federal privacy laws if the FBI claims that the information is
connected to an intelligence investigation. In addition, credit reporting
firms like Equifax must disclose to the FBI any information that agents
request in connection with a terrorist investigation, without the need for
a court order. In the past, this was only permitted in espionage cases.
Biometric technology, such as fingerprint readers or iris scanners, will
become part of an "integrated entry and exit data system" to identify visa
holders entering the United States. Face recognition technology is now
being installed in several U.S. airports. [...]"
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=11854

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Which America Will We Be Now?
by Bill Moyers
[...] Contrary to right-wing denigration of government, however, today's
heroes are public servants. [...] For once, our TV screens have been filled
with the modest declarations of average Americans coming to each other's
aid. I find this good and thrilling and sobering. It could offer a new
beginning, a renewal of civic values that could leave our society stronger
and more together than ever, working on common goals for the public good.
[...] There are, alas, less heartening signs to report. It didn't take long
for the wartime opportunists--the mercenaries of Washington, the lobbyists,
lawyers and political fundraisers--to crawl out of their offices on K
Street determined to grab what they can for their clients. While in New
York we are still attending memorial services for firemen and police [...]
they are cashing in. [...] the memorial they would offer the thousands of
people who died in the attacks? [...]  restore the three-martini
lunch--that will surely strike fear in the heart of Osama bin Laden. You
think I'm kidding, but bringing back the deductible lunch is one of the
proposals on the table in Washington right now. And cut capital gains for
the wealthy, naturally--that's America's patriotic duty, too. And while
we're at it, don't forget to eliminate the corporate alternative minimum
tax, enacted fifteen years ago to prevent corporations from taking so many
credits and deductions that they owed little if any taxes. But don't just
repeal their minimum tax; refund to those corporations all the minimum tax
they have ever been assessed.  [...] If ever they were going to put
patriotism over profits, if ever they were going to practice the
magnanimity of winners, this was the moment. To hide now behind the flag
while ripping off a country in crisis fatally separates them from the
common course of American life.
[...]  If the mercenaries and the politicians-for-rent in Washington try to
exploit the emergency and America's good faith to grab what they wouldn't
get through open debate in peacetime, the disloyalty will not be in our
dissent but in our subservience. The greatest sedition would be our
silence. Yes, there's a fight going on--against terrorists around the
globe, but just as certainly there's a fight going on here at home, to
decide the kind of country this will be during and after the war on
terrorism. [...] "
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20011119&s=moyers

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"The violent imagery and ethos of revenge in today's gangster rap music is
readying a younger generation for war, writes PNS contributor Kevin Weston.
But not everyone is hearing the message. Weston (kweston at pacificnews.org)
is editor of Youth Outlook (YO!), a magazine by and about Bay Area youth
published by Pacific News Service. [...] Clear Channel, the hip-hop music
industry and its related ventures are helping deliver to President Bush a
generation of young people of color ready to go to war. Their culture,
hip-hop -- largely controlled by big money -- has made war cool. The
decidedly black liberation, peacenik-slanted soundtrack to the '60s --
featuring James "I'm Black and I'm Proud" Brown, The Beatles' "Revolution
#9," and Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On?" -- is nowhere to be found.
Instead, this war features the voices of gangsta rap speaking for all of
America's youth (many of whom refer to themselves as niggas no matter what
their race) as they "ride" on Afghanistan. To "ride" on and "rival" in
ghetto-speak literally means to go to war. To "ride" on the other "side"
evokes the image of a masked shooter leaning outside the window of an SUV
and spraying up a block with an AK-47 -- the drive-by. [...]
http://www.pacificnews.org/content/pns/2001/nov/1105osamamama.html

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GINA COPLON-NEWFIELD, ginac-n at phrusa.org, www.banminesusa.org
Coordinator of the U.S. Campaign to Ban Landmines, Coplon-Newfield said
today: "Cluster bombs, which the Pentagon has confirmed it is using in
Afghanistan, like antipersonnel landmines are extremely dangerous to
civilians because of their high dud rate. Kosovar men, women, and children
are still dying upon contact with cluster bombs dropped by NATO a few years
ago. We expect the same to occur in Afghanistan where some of the people
are so desperate that, often with fatal consequences, they are attempting
to dismantle landmines and cluster bombs for the scrap metal. While
landmines generally explode vertically and tend to maim, cluster bombs
generally explode in all directions and tend to kill."
http://www.accuracy.org/press_releases/PR110501.htm

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L.E.C.

"The CIA tried to discover Russia's Cold War secrets by installing
bugging devices in a cat and using its tail as an antenna. Recently
declassified documents show agents inserted the transmitters into the cat
they called Acoustic Kitty. A former officer says the experiment - carried
out in the 1966 - ended when the cat was run over."
http://www.ananova.com/yournews/story/sm_440998.html

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V. down under

"Visitors to an Australian exhibition have stolen a head and a penis
from two of the statues. The vandals beheaded the sculpture of Greek
goddess Artemis and stole a
penis from a tribute to Plato. Artist Vince Vozzo is appealing for the body
parts to be returned, no
questions asked."
http://www.ananova.com/yournews/story/sm_440274.html

"An Australian has been jailed for hacking into council computers and
getting them to pump raw sewage into public waterways. Vitek Boden, of
Brisbane, was sentenced to two years after being found guilty of 30 charges
involving computer hacking, theft and
environmental vandalism.In one incident he used a radio transmitter to
alter sewage pumping
station controls causing thousands of litres to overflow.:
http://www.ananova.com/yournews/story/sm_438245.html