4/14/02
7:53:21 PM
ENVIROVIDEO TV PROGRAMS WITH HARVEY WASSERMAN ON NUCLEAR POWER AVAILABLE FOR MEDIA ACTIVISTS AND GROUP SCREENINGS
EnviroVideo, the New York-based TV production company, is making two just-completed TV programs featuring long-time opponent of atomic power, Harvey Wasserman, available for free to media activists to bring to their cable TV station to be aired on their public access channel and to associations for group showings.
In "Harvey Wasserman: Challenging Nuclear Power," Wasserman is interviewed by Karl Grossman, an investigative reporter who himself has long chronicled the dangers of atomic power, on the plan by the Bush Cheney administration to "revive" nuclear power. Wasserman is a senior advisor to both Greenpeace USA and the Nuclear Information and Resource Service. He is the author of such books as "Killing Our Own: The Disaster of America's Experience With Atomic Radiation" and " The Last Energy War: The Battle Over Utility Deregulation
Grossman is the author of books including "Power Crazy" and "Cover Up: What You ARE NOT Supposed to Know About Nuclear Power" and the host, writer and narrator of numerous EnviroVideo programs on atomic energy.
In "Harvey Wasserman: Challenging Nuclear Power," Wasserman declares that "the idea of reviving nuclear power as put forward by George Bush and Dick Cheney could only be termed patently insane." Wasserman declares: "We have had a half century of experience with atomic energy. It is a blatant failure. It is actually the most expensive failure in technological history." And Wasserman, in the 29-minute interview program, stresses not only the dangers of nuclear power but details the availability of safe, clean, renewable energy technologies wind, solar, hydrogen, geothermal among many others here today which, with energy efficiency, could provide for energy needs without the awesome threat of atomic energy.
The second new EnviroVideo program also available for free is "300,000 Reasons to Close Indian Point," a one-hour presentation by Wasserman made in Garrison, New York, near the Indian Point reactors. In the presentation, Wasserman emphasizes that one of the jets that crashed into the World Trade Center on September 11 passed just moments before over the Indian Point nuclear plant complex and if that plane had crashed into Indian Point, a nuclear catastrophe would have resulted. Some 300,000 people, at least, would have died right away and millions would have lost their lives from the spread of radioactive poisons in the most populated area of the United States.
The continuing threat of terrorist attack is one of the main reasons, declares Wasserman, that atomic power plants must be shut down and safe energy technologies now "on the shelf" and widely available be must be implemented.
"Harvey Wasserman: Challenging Nuclear Power" is among 150 episodes of Enviro Close-Up hosted by Grossman who is also a full professor of journalism at the State University of New York. Through informative discussion Enviro Close-Up explores issues such as global warming; safe, clean, renewable energy; nuclear weapons proliferation; environmental and social justice; environmental pollution and its effect on human health; and biodiversity.
Enviro Close-Up programs include in-depth interviews with leading authors, activists, experts and scientists such as Ross Gelbspan, author of "The Heat is On," Dr. Helen Caldicott, founder of Physicians for Social Responsibility; Nobel Laureate Dr. George Wald; Nobel Laureate Dr. Henry Kendall, former Chairman of the Union of Concerned Scientists; Dr. Victor Sidel, founder of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War; Peggy Shepard, director of West Harlem Environmental Action, and physicists and authors Michio Kaku, Fritjof Capra, and Vandana Shiva.
EnviroVideo programs are produced by Joan Flynn and directed by Emmy Award-winner Steve Jambeck. Enviro Close-Up is designed to empower people and motivate them to action by providing crucial information that is not found anywhere else on television.
To get a free copy of "Harvey Wasserman: Challenging Nuclear Power" and/or "300,000 Reasons to Close Indian Point" for your association for a group showing, email envirovideo@earthlink.net or call Joan Flynn at 1-800-ECO-TV46. Review copies for press representatives are also available.
To order EnviroVideo programs, visit http://www.envirovideo.com or call 1-800-ECO-TV46.
4/14/02
7:49:50 PM
Follow-up Update on Lieutenant Michael Vreeland
Editors's Note:
The following information came from Chuck, a subscriber. He did some special follow-up work on the April 5th Flyby News issue "Proof of 9/11 Foreknowledge - by Michael C. Ruppert." It is our hope that more of us will continue to follow Vreeland's case. He asked Lt. Vreeland to post the Court information, so any doubters could verify that his case is actual and ongoing. This is the information he provided:
The Superior Court of Justice 361 University Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Chuck mentioned that the Lieutenant has a message forum being run at his website. He is on the message board daily. Anyone can participate by accessing the Website, then click on "FORUM." Then click on one of the message strings. At the left side of any posted message you can click on "Reply". When you do so, a username and password are called for. Simply enter the Username "mike25gta" and the password "greens", then place your message in the text block and click on the "Add" button. [My computer couldn't access the FORUM page, but I did get this following message on the focus and purpose of Lt. Vreeland's webpage:
USA Spy Forsaken by US Government
Lt Delmart Vreeland has been imprisoned for 16 months in Ontario, Canada. He allegedly is a US spy forsaken by his own government. He wrote a letter to warn of impending terrorist attacks of September 11th, in August of 2001. The letter he wrote has been entered into court documents. He is fighting extradition to the US for fear of assassination. He has sold everything he owns for his defense. This website is dedicated to raising money for Lt Vreeland's Defense Fund.
4/14/02
7:47:56 PM
Related Links:
Democrat Implies Sept. 11 Administration Plot Washington Post {4-12-02}
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A34565-2002Apr11.html
9-11 Overview by Vision TV, Bush / CIA Complicity in 9-11, Real Player Video Stream at http://clients.loudeye.com/imc/mayday/mediafile.ram
BBC TELEVISION INDICTS BUSH / CIA IN 9-11 TERROR COMPLICITY
http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/cta/progs/newsnight/attack22.ram
Reasonable Doubts About September 11th, 53 minute Real Player Video stream at
http://www.indybay.org/news/2002/03/118760.php
AUSTRALIAN MAINSTREAM PRESS BREAKS 9-11 FRAUD STORY
http://smh.com.au/articles/2002/04/08/1017206313833.html
FULL STORY AT INDYMEDIA -- 9.11 - What did the U.S. know, and when did it know it?
http://portland.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=8824&group=webcast
Flyby News: The Bush Conspiracy & 9/11 Investigative Updated Reports
http://www.flybynews.com/cgi-local/newspro/viewnews.cgi?newsid1014738186,11057,
4/14/02
7:44:17 PM
Chavez And Venezuela Still Free
By the will of the people Venezuela president back in power
April 14, 2002 Posted: 2:21 PM EDT (1821 GMT)
CARACAS, Venezuela (CNN) - President Hugo Chavez has reclaimed power in Venezuela, just two days after being forced from office.
In a televised address he promised to unite the country and denied an announcement made by the military on Friday that he had resigned.
Chavez was forced from office after he ordered the army to quell anti-government protests and 12 demonstrators were killed.
Initially Chavez was replaced by Pedro Carmona, a businessman and economist, only for him to be replaced by Chavez's vice president Diosdado Cabello, when he tried to dissolve the National Assembly.
Cabello was sworn in as the head of government but he now appears to have stepped aside for Chavez's return.
Cabello has told national radio he would remain as president until Chavez can be reinstated.
Three-thousand members of the National Honor Guard -- which protects the presidential palace and has remained loyal to Chavez -- regained control of the presidential residence hours before Carmona's resignation became official.
Chavez returned to the palace on Sunday on helicopter and was seen surrounded by bodyguards.
Jubilant pro-Chavez supporters gathered outside the palace, Miraflores, ahead of his return waving flags and singing the national anthem.
In a televised address he said: "There are a lot of urgent things to take care of now. We must fix that light that has been broken. I call for peace. I call for strength within all Venezuelans."
And despite its role in his temporary removal from office Chavez praised the military saying: "Our military forces ... have a heart. I was never mistreated.
"I have learned a lot from our military forces. By listening to them I felt like a soldier once again."
The Bush administration said it hopes Chavez listened to his countrymen.
In an interview Sunday with "Meet the Press," National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said, "I hope that Hugo Chavez takes the message that his people sent him: that his own policies are not working for the Venezuelan people, that he's dealt with them in a high-handed fashion.
"And I hope that ... he understands this is the time for him to reflect on how Venezuela got to where it is," she said. "He needs to respect constitutional processes. This is no time for a witch hunt. This is time for national reconciliation in Venezuela."
Chavez, who led a bloody 1992 failed coup attempt, now enjoys wide support from Venezuela's poor, many of whom believe he has addressed issues facing them.
He took office in 1999 after a sweeping to election victory in December 1998 promising constitutional reform, an end to corruption and the redistribution of oil wealth.
Venezuela is the world's No. 4 oil exporter and the second biggest source of oil to the United States.
Washington blamed Chavez for provoking the crisis, while several Latin American leaders, including the heads of Peru and Mexico, said during the crisis they would not recognize the new government until elections were held.
The leaders of Argentina, Mexico and Paraguay -- meeting in San Jose, Costa Rica -- said Saturday they would not recognize any new leaders in Venezuela until elections are held there.
"There are a lot of urgent things to take care of now," Chavez said. "We must fix that light that has been broken. I call for peace. I call for strength within all Venezuelans."
http://www.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/americas/04/14/venezuela/index.html
4/14/02
7:39:51 PM
Alternative Medicine Is Finding Its Niche In Nation's Hospitals
by Reed Abelson with Patricia Leigh Brown, NY Times, April 13, 2002
SAVANNAH, Ga. -- Memorial Health University Medical Center has ambitious goals for itself, and executives here hope Deepak Chopra can help achieve them. In a bid to become a regional leader in health care by combining traditional and alternative medicine, the hospital has joined with Dr. Chopra, the best-selling author and holistic health guru, to create a center where patients and Savannah residents can come for yoga, meditation or a treatment called Shirodhara in which warm herbalized sesame oil is dripped languorously onto their foreheads.
The embrace of mantras and massage is not limited to Memorial. In March of last year, St. Joseph's/Candler, Memorial's only rival in Savannah, opened a Center for Wellbeing, where people can take yoga classes and learn about aromatherapy. And in May, St. Joseph's will introduce a program affiliated with the Mind/Body Medical Institute, founded by Herbert Benson, the Harvard physician who has been at the forefront of advocating the health benefits of reducing stress.
Hospitals in search of paying patients and a competitive edge are increasingly offering their patients some form of alternative medicine. The number of hospitals offering alternative therapies nearly doubled from 1998 to 2000, according to a survey by the American Hospital Association, to 15.5 percent of all hospitals, and the association says hospitals of all sizes are continuing to open alternative or complementary medicine centers where patients or local residents can drop in for a few hours for treatments.
With a market that has been estimated at around $27 billion and affluent customers who generally pay full price for these services up front, hospitals are eager to try alternative medicine. Many see their forays as an extension of their mission, but "it is the money that has drawn the interest," said John Weeks, who helped start a foundation to foster integration between conventional and complementary medicine.
The programs are offered by community hospitals as well as academic medical centers like Beth Israel Medical Center and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, Duke and Stanford, and they range from relaxation therapies and acupuncture, often given to patients with serious illness, to treatments more commonly found in spas.
At First Health Moore Regional Hospital in Pinehurst, N.C., patients can take advantage of polarity therapy, an hourlong session of hands being placed on the body to unblock energy. In Grand Rapids, Mich., St. Mary's Mercy Medical Center offers everything from biofeedback to Chinese face-lifting, a technique that uses acupressure to help get rid of wrinkles and ease headaches.
Many hospitals, however, resist describing what they do as alternative. "The Mind/Body Medical Institute offers a very strong mainstream program," said Steven Klein, chief operating officer of Boca Raton Community Hospital in Florida, one of nine that have affiliated themselves with Dr. Benson's program. The hospital is participating in a Medicare research program to evaluate its lifestyle-modification therapy in helping treat cardiovascular disease.
Still, some experts question whether hospitals should be in such a rush to embrace yoga and massage therapies. Dr. Joseph J. Fins, a medical ethicist at the New York Weill Cornell Center of New York-Presbyterian Hospital, argues that while hospitals should have more of a healing persona, they need to avoid lending an imprimatur of clinical effectiveness to practices that are more in the spiritual realm.
"Every effort should be made to make the hospital more hospitable," he said. "But this kind of marketing raises questions. It's what Enron Field did to the Astrodome."
So far, contrary to expectations, many hospitals have discovered that breaking even, let alone profiting, from alternative treatment centers can be difficult. "The assumption of lots of the hospitals getting into this that there would be easy money has proved false," said Mr. Weeks, who surveyed 27 centers last year and found many struggling. Some, like a Phoenix center created by Catholic Healthcare West, have closed.
Still, Memorial has high hopes for its center. Like Savannah itself, Memorial aims to be a destination on the Eastern Seaboard, drawing tourists and affluent retirees from the region.
Much of what Dr. Chopra, an endocrinologist by training and a former chief of staff at Boston Regional Medical Center, advocates, including meditation and stress reduction, massage, exercise and a healthy diet, has become relatively mainstream. And he boasts followers from the late George Harrison to Demi Moore and Mikhail S. Gorbachev. But some practices he has explored, including one he calls remote healing, the sending of therapeutic prayers to someone far away, are considered "far out" even by Dr. Chopra's own admission.
"It's a leap of faith," said Robert Colvin, Memorial's chief executive. "Yes, the Chopra name is a little sensational. But I think health care needs improvement in terms of the way we treat people."
By affiliating with Dr. Chopra, the center is also capitalizing on perhaps the best-known name in alternative medicine. "What Dr. Chopra gives us is immediate brand," said Scott Regan, senior vice president for marketing and strategic planning. But, he said, "the Chopra name brings instant credibility or lack thereof, depending on which side you're on."
Memorial expects to invest about $250,000 in the center for the first three years, including licensing Dr. Chopra's name and training about a dozen staff members in his methods. "We're not anticipating it being a large revenue source," Mr. Colvin said.
The new center, a suite of rooms furnished with dark draperies, greenery and scented candles in the hospital's new rehabilitation institute, is modeled on the Chopra Center for Well-Being in La Jolla, Calif. Most of the clients there are middle-aged women seeking what the center's literature calls "healing and transformation."
Mr. Colvin is unapologetic about the fact that at least some of Memorial's patients will not be able to afford the services, since most treatments will not be covered by insurance. "Can we give everything to everyone?" he asked, pointing out that Memorial provides $20 million to $30 million annually in charity care.
Mr. Colvin said the hospital would not embrace all of Dr. Chopra's teachings. "We're trying to temper it a bit," he said. "We would not make claims to hospital patients that massage releases toxins. What it is is something that makes people feel better. We don't make claims we have trouble scientifically validating."
But the hospital's own marketing materials suggest otherwise. In a handout for prospective clients, one massage is described as something that loosens and mobilizes toxins and enhances immunity. When asked about the discrepancy, Mr. Colvin said massage therapy "is a gray area."
For their part, officials at the Chopra Center in La Jolla view the decision to be a partner with Memorial as a natural extension of their work. "Hospitals want more well-being and spas want to deal with health enhancement," said Dr. David Simon, the center's medical director. "We're very well-positioned to cover the whole spectrum."
In fact, Dr. Chopra's empire is expanding in other directions at the same time. He is completing the terms of a deal to move the center he founded in 1996 to La Costa Resort and Spa, the storied watering hole of Gerald R. Ford and Richard M. Nixon and a home of world championship golf. The offerings at La Costa will include Golf for Enlightenment -- a course in which breathing techniques, yoga and golf-specific meditation are used to help unblock participants' inner Tiger.
Dr. Chopra may even alight in Manhattan: the Chopra Center recently signed a partnership agreement with Hampshire Hotels and Resorts to bring a Chopra Center to the Lamb's Club, a $35 million hotel being developed on West 44th Street. A Chopra center at Bush Hall, Beatrix Potter's former summer residence in Hertfordshire, England, is also under consideration, potentially giving guests the opportunity to meditate before running off to shoot partridge and pheasant.
"For 10 years, people have been saying that I must exploit the Chopra brand, that I'm a brand," Dr. Chopra said. "I don't like that, so I've resisted it. But the fact is, yes, I'm a brand."
Whatever the medical merits of hospitals' alternative treatment centers, hospital executives believe that they meet a real need -- at least for something that makes patients feel better. According to J. P. Saleeby, a holistic physician who practices here, "Whether this type of medicine will be accepted in this town on such a large scale remains to be seen, but it boils down to competition and marketing strategies."
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/13/business/13HOSP.html?todaysheadlines
4/14/02
7:31:28 PM
Gore Vidal's War On War
by Franklin Harris
We are, as George the Younger tells us, "at war," and having unpopular opinions during times of war is likely to get one shouted down, or worse.
Fortunately, the War on Terror isn't a real war; it is a "new kind of war," otherwise its critics might find themselves in jail, as did critics of Lincoln's and Wilson's wars, never mind that pesky First Amendment.
Yet the chilling effect is real, so real that when Gore Vidal, America's greatest living man of letters, weighed in on the War on Terror, not even his friends at The Nation would publish him.
Vidal holds a view that is beyond the pale, or so the Conventional Wisdom would have us believe. He believes that the United States may actually have done something to provoke the hatred of the Islamic world.
He explores that possibility in fine detail in his new book, "Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace: How We Got to Be So Hated," a slim but substantial collection of essays, including the one that The Nation wouldn't touch.
His central (and reasonable) thesis is that, contrary to what President Bush told a joint session of Congress, the Islamic world doesn't hate us because of our freedoms. Rather, it hates us for exactly the reasons Osama bin Laden himself claimed: our military presence in Saudi Arabia, our continuing war of sanctions against Iraq and our "unconditional" support of Israel.
Vidal writes, "Since V-J Day 1945..., we have been engaged in what historian Charles A. Beard called 'perpetual war for perpetual peace.' I have occasionally referred to our 'enemy of the month club': each month we are confronted with a new horrendous enemy at whom we must strike before he destroys us."
Saddam Hussein's longevity has made him the "enemy of the month" for a decade, replaced only temporarily by the Serbs.
Ironically, we bombed the Serbs into submission, in part, for their war against the very same Islamic terrorists we now face.
Our friend today is our enemy tomorrow and vice versa, and both are our enemies the day after that. Saddam was our ally against Iran. Then, briefly, Iran was our ally against Saddam. Now, both are two-thirds of the Axis of Evil, and the North Koreans are as perplexed as anyone.
Vidal also provides a "scoreboard" of American military adventures, many of which are ongoing "even though many of us have forgotten about them."
Of course, our leaders tell us that these military engagements are all justified. However, those bearing the brunt of our bombs don't necessarily see it that way. Nor should the American taxpayer, who is paying to a vast arsenal and getting even less security in exchange.
Ultimately, it is hard to imagine that Islamic terrorists spend much time worrying about the freedom Americans enjoy to eat at McDonald's or watch MTV. As it is, Americans are losing their freedoms, Vidal writes.
Following 9-11, Congress passed and the president signed so-called anti-terrorist legislation that gives the federal government sweeping new police powers.
The perception that the United States is becoming a police state breeds hatred on the home front, too. So, Vidal moves on to the case of our indigenous terrorist, Timothy McVeigh, who was forged in the fires of the Gulf War, where so many of our recent troubles began.
McVeigh, a decorated veteran, became a mass murderer in order to retaliate against what he saw as the federal government's own acts of murder, directed at the Branch Davidians and others.
Vidal maintains that McVeigh's concerns were justified, although his actions were not.
But those who approve of America's current foreign and domestic policies like to wave bin Laden and McVeigh like bloody shirts, implying, and sometimes saying flat out, that to criticize American policies is to take the side of the terrorists. This guilt by association is meant to keep critics silent.
But just because bin Laden is evil doesn't mean that the United States' policies toward the Arab world are justified, nor does McVeigh's evil mean that America should become the police state he feared.
Hopefully, Vidal's little book will prompt more of us to reflect upon our country's role in the world.
It was, after all, no less than George Washington who warned us of the dangers of overseas entanglements.
Source: http://www.lewrockwell.com/harris/harris9.html
4/14/02
7:28:57 PM
t r u t h o u t | 04.14
BREAKING NEWS SPECIAL | Israel and Palestine in Mortal Conflict Arafat Condemns Terror Attacks; Powell Meeting Is On
http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/03.31.BK.IDFvArafat.htm
Gore Denounces Administration | Full Text
http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/04.14A.Al.Gore.htm
Text of Arafat's Statement on Terrorism
http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/04.14B.Arafat.Text.htm
Congresswoman; 9-11 Probe Must Extend to White House
http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/04.13A.Extend.Probe.htm
Hugo Chavez: a Firebrand President
http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/04.14C.Hugo.Chavez.htm
Frank Rich | The Bush Doctrine, R.I.P.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/04.14E.FR.R.I.P.htm
t r u t h o u t, is a non-profit independent news source.
4/14/02
7:26:54 PM
An Open Letter To General Ariel Sharon 'You Won't Break Them'
by Breyten Breytenbach, April 13, 2002 in the Guardian of London
Sir,
You don't know me. There's no reason why you should and little cause for you to listen to what somebody like myself may have to say. Should it interest you, I'm a writer born in South Africa, now living and working abroad. As a writer, I'm deeply apprised of the need to keep words uncluttered of any urge to rouse easy emotions. This is what facile comparisons do - they nullify the understanding of complexity by a rush of outrage, heating the throat and staining the adversary with vicarious condemnation. Apartheid was not nazism, though to say so was a striking slogan. And the policies now perpetrated by Israeli forces on the Palestinian people should not be equated with apartheid. Each one of these processes and systems is evil enough to merit a thorough description of its own historical singularity.
And yet, it is all only too familiar. The underlying assumptions informing your actions are racist. As was the case with the South African regime, the methods by which you hope to subjugate the enemy consist of force and bloodshed and humiliation. Cynically you think you can get away with this as long as you play up to the supposed vital interests of the United States. I don't think you really care a fig for America's interests. Your doppelgänger, Netanyahu, employs this crude propaganda more openly. But you too, by echoing the American president, who describes every "other" as a terrorist, have shown that you take the rest of the world for fools. Surely, not all of us agree that the highest good in the world is America's greed for cheap oil, and that we are hence expected to adhere to the inviolability of corrupt regimes in the region.
It is blatantly averred, again and again, that any criticism of Israel's policies is an expression of anti-semitism. With that assertion the argument is supposed to be closed. Of course, I reject this attempt at censorship by thus disqualifying the grounds for debate. No amount of suffering - be it of the Tutsis, Kurds, Armenians, Vietnamese, Bosnians or Palestinians - can confer immunity from criticism. No reference to some ostensibly sacrosanct Greater Israel can camouflage the fact that your settlements are armed colonies built on land shamelessly stolen from the Palestinians, festering there as shards in their flesh, or snipers' nests, intended to thwart and annul any possibility of Palestinian statehood. There can be no way to peace through the annihilation of the other, just as there is no paradise for the "martyr".
Why should we look the other way when it is Israel committing crimes? A viable state cannot be built on the expulsion of another people who have as much claim to that territory as you have. In the long run, your immoral and short-sighted policies will furthermore weaken Israel's legitimacy as a state. As provocateur, cold-blooded and cruel, you stand out among your peers. In your dogged attempts to subvert previous agreements and scupper the possibility of peace - except for the peace of the graveyard and of exile, premised on the "total transfer" or disappearance of the Palestinian entity - you are bringing turmoil to the region. It remains to be seen whether the growling of your principals in Washington will inflect your campaign of calculated terror and wanton destruction - or whether it is but a smokescreen behind which to better align the "free world's" war on "terrorism" - and for the domination of resources and a global control of markets, cheap oil and "democracy".
I recently visited the occupied territories for the first time. And yes, I'm afraid they can reasonably be described as resembling Bantustans - reminiscent of the ghettoes and controlled camps of misery one knew in South Africa. The few days I spent there left me with strong but conflicting impressions. How inextricably linked your peoples are. The stones everywhere. The topography of names familiar from the Bible. The beautiful light. The attempts to make the place look like Switzerland by planting out-of-place conifers. The inhospitality of the land, except for lush coastal plains. How abysmally sad the villages are. The green lights in the mosques and all the unfinished habitations. The ugliness of the architecture. The inanity of your occupation - all those lit-up detour roads built for the exclusive use of settlers and Israeli citizens. The surly pettiness of your controls at checkpoints, having little to do with security and everything with the primitive urge to humiliate, harass and drive to insane rage an occupied population.
The extreme youth of your soldiers. The ruthlessness with which you destroy the Palestinian economy. The ancient revenge: bulldozing houses, destroying olive groves. The Berlin walls around your settlements in Gaza (and behind them university extensions, research institutes, American-linked hotels, golf courses), and then the rubble of destroyed Palestinian quarters looking now like Ground Zero.
The ebullience of the intellectuals and artists under siege in Ramallah - arguing, laughing at their own plight. How they all say : "We don't want to be heroes, we don't want to be victims, we just want to lead normal lives". Their wry despair. The visit to Yasser Arafat, a holed fox, his waxed yellow hands clinging to the empty clichés of "a peace of the brave" and "the conscience of the international community". And a human rights lawyer claiming : "We are grateful to Sharon for two things: he united all the Palestinian factions and he took away every option except to resist". Later on, the same haunted man, chain-smoking and with the sweat of death already on him, remarked bitterly that repression has penetrated the skin of the people, and that now they have nothing else to defend themselves with except their skins. Hence the human bombs.
You have not broken the spirit of the Palestinian people. They are now more resolute than ever to build a state. They saw the renewed onslaught coming, they knew you were but playing footsie with General Zinni. They also know that, since you have now made them stronger, you must strike harder and deeper, because you are caught in a conundrum of your own making. Like Bush in his crusade against the infidel and the disobedient, you have to accelerate your distension of international public ethics. They know that nothing they can do will appease you, short of turning turtle. They fear you will have to compound this crime against humanity which you are committing at present, that you may indeed break their hopes for a secular, modern and democratic state responsible to its population, and bring forth the devil among them. They also know that this will profoundly divide and weaken Israel.
But you don't care, do you?
This is the pity and the horror.
Breyten Breytenbach was recently part of an International Parliament of Writers' delegation to the occupied Palestinian territories . Breyten Breytenbach was born in 1939 in Bonnievale in the Le Cap province of South Africa. He is a painter, and writes poetry and novels in Afrikaans. He was an indignant opponent of the racial policy of his country and totally rejected the concept of apartheid, as seen in Gangrene, written in 1969. He was imprisoned between 1975 and 1982, and related his experience in poems (A Season in Paradise, written in jail from 1977-1980), in short-stories and in novels (Mouroir: Mirror Notes of a Novel, 1983; End Papers, 1985; Memory of Snow and of Dust, 1987). After living in exile in France for a period he returned to South Africa and published Return to Paradise: An African journal in 1992.
Source: http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0413-08.htm
4/14/02
7:22:45 PM
Blocking Humanitarian Aid
A week of protests and attempts to bring humanitarian aid to besieged cities in the West Bank led to violent Arab-Israeli clashes. Jonathan Cook reports from Jerusalem
Israel's Palestinian citizens, enraged by the military assault on their ethnic kin in the occupied territories, risked the first mass confrontations last week with Israeli security forces since the police killed 13 of them at the start of the Intifada, in October 2000.
The clashes occurred at several locations as the Arab minority tried to bring food and medical aid to the "closed military zones" declared around besieged West Bank cities by the Israeli army.
Arab towns and villages in Israel have amassed huge stockpiles of supplies over the last few weeks but have struggled to secure permission to get the aid through.
During protests in support of a convoy of trucks hoping to reach Jenin on Tuesday, two Arabs were wounded when a soldier passing in a civilian car fired live bullets at a small group of demonstrators.
Some 30 Jews from the nearby Magen Sha'ul settlement had set up an informal roadblock several kilometres before the Jalame checkpoint, the entrance to the army's military zone. Watched by Israeli police, the settlers waved Israeli flags and burned tyres and, when the demonstrators tried to pass them, threw stones.
According to eyewitnesses, as the protesters threw stones back, a passing soldier drove over to the settlers and then fired at the crowd. A young woman, Valentina Abu Oksa, and an unidentified young man were injured.
A police spokesman said the soldier had been arrested.
Another group of Jews from the same settlement advanced on the larger group of demonstrators being held with the aid trucks at a police roadblock close to Jalame.
When the settlers grabbed an Arab youth and started to beat him, armed border police on horseback drove the settlers back. They then confronted the demonstrators, who eventually agreed to leave after the army agreed to allow the supplies through.
However, yesterday it was unclear how close the supplies were to Jenin.
A similar confrontation at the normally quiet A-Ram checkpoint, north of Jerusalem, turned ugly when peace activists demanded that an aid convoy be allowed to reach Ramallah. They were met by a wall of heavily armed soldiers supported by armoured vehicles.
As the demonstrators, drawn from the Palestinian minority and radical leftwing Jewish groups, massed at the barriers, organisers tried to negotiate with the army over allowing four supply trucks through to Qalandiya, the checkpoint marking the entrance to the temporary Palestinian capital.
After a standoff lasting two hours, army commanders agreed to let one truck approach. But as the vehicle remained stuck at the barriers, and other demonstrators formed a human chain to pass bags of rice from another truck towards the checkpoint, troops fired a volley of tear gas canisters and stun grenades.
As clouds of gas exploded from all directions, sending the crowd scattering in confusion, soldiers ran at the demonstrators, hitting the nearest with batons.
The injured included women who had been at the front of the demonstration to highlight its peaceful nature. Iris Bar, from Haifa, was one of those who had a cut to the head from the falling canisters. "There were tear gas canisters raining down on us," she said.
A photograph published in the Israeli press confirmed her story that she had also been hit with a baton from behind by a soldier as she tried to run away.
Juliano Merr, 45, an Israeli film star who is half Arab and half Jewish, had a bloody gash over his left eye which he and other witnesses said had been caused when police kicked him as he was held on the ground. He was also one of several protesters saying they had been hit by rubber bullets.
"Five or six policemen were on top of me at once," he said. "There seemed to be no reason for the attack on us. It happened just as everyone thought the truck was going to be let through and was cheering."
Auni Khalil, an Israeli Arab doctor representing Physicians for Human Rights, who had cuts to his arm and leg, said he had been set on by police even though he was wearing a doctor's coat bearing the group's insignia.
About 30 people needed medical treatment.
There were other worrying signs of a backlash against the Arab minority asserting its rights to free speech.
Three demonstrators were arrested at a protest outside the American Embassy in Tel Aviv last Thursday after Palestinian flags were raised in front of the building. Police charged into the crowd with batons, injuring some 25 people, including six who needed treatment at the scene.
Police officials told Israeli television afterwards that officers had acted to prevent the waving of the flags, which they called an illegal act.
It was a worrying development for the Arab minority. The legality of Palestinian flag-waving has been unclear since April 2000 when 13 students were arrested at a demonstration at Jerusalem's Hebrew University. Afterwards the attorney- general ruled that local police commanders had discretion to detain demonstrators who raised the flag if it was likely to promote hostility to Israel.
The decision has yet to be tested in the courts, largely because police have kept away from Arab areas since the clashes of October 2000. But if Arab protesters continue to take their campaigns into Jewish areas, there are likely to be more violent clashes and arrests.
At the weekend, large demonstrations were staged in many Arab towns. In Nazareth 10,000 demonstrators chanted "Sharon is a murderer" as they marched down the main street.
At Umm Al-Fahm, in the central Triangle region, the main Wadi Ara road was closed for an hour by youths throwing stones at cars before police moved in to arrest seven of them. It was an event heavy with symbolism for both sides: the last time the road was shut, at the start of the Intifada, police shot dead three protesters after they were ordered to reopen it.
Police have been taking a particularly harsh line against the Bedouin in the Negev.
Leaders at the town of Rahat were not allowed to deliver to the Palestinians $3,500 in cash and 100 tons of rice, sugar and flour they had collected.
And this week there was a spate of belated arrests following 30 March Land Day demonstration. Five days after a rally near Beersheva, two community leaders, Youssef Al-Atawneh and Abdel-Karim Atika, were detained, accused of expressing support for a terror organisation.
By Tuesday five more demonstrators, including Ibrahim Baransi, the leader of the Arab student union at Ben Gurion University in Beersheva, had been taken into custody. It was unclear whether the organisation referred to in the police indictments was Hizbullah or the Palestinian Authority.
Morad Al-Sana, a Beersheva lawyer for the Adalah Legal Centre for Arab minority rights, said: "We have been warned to expect many more arrests in the next few days."
According to the Web site of the Yediot Aharonot newspaper, the police used undercover agents at the Land Day demonstration and filmed the demonstrators. It is the first time the event had been held in the Negev.
Dr Rawda Atallah, head of the Arab Cultural Centre in Nazareth, the parent organisation of the Arab Youth Centre in Rahat run by Atika, said: "A political decision has been taken to victimise the community leaders among the Bedouin to nip their protests in the bud. The Negev has traditionally been quiet and I suspect the authorities have been unnerved by the strength of feeling shown on Land Day and the fact that they can no longer rely on the support of the Bedouin."
Source: http://www.ahram.org.eg/weekly/2002/581/inv42.htm
4/14/02
6:59:11 PM
Check But Not Mate
For Azmi Bishara* , it is too late to turn back the clock
The ferocious, tightly coordinated assault on Palestinian cities in the West Bank was not a spontaneous act geared to satiating popular outrage in Israel over the Netanya suicide bombing. The plan for this assault, which certainly contains alternative scenarios, existed well in advance, as did the political resolve to put it into effect, even if the decision to attack was only taken in a recent emergency cabinet session.
This plan and the decision to act on it were the product of a cumulative process of trial, error and compromise guided by the Sharon compass, which is set to three coordinates: 1) his opposition to the Camp David solutions, 2) US-Israeli relations and their effect on political actions, and 3) preserving the Likud-Labour alliance in the "national unity" government. While the last two factors may have worked to defer the decision and Palestinian suicide operations may have brought it forward, a massive military offensive into the West Bank had been on the Israeli government agenda for some time.
The Israeli military operation launched on 29 March is barbaric, but it is important to consider it within its political context if we are to transcend the emotions being expressed in the streets of Arab capitals, on the Internet through messages voicing the (undoubtedly sincere) desire to become martyrs for the cause, and in the astonishing reaction of some Arab leaders, who are calling upon others to open their borders and allow the would-be martyrs to march on Palestine. To hear such cries, one would be forgiven for imagining that Israel's Arab neighbours are the obstacles to victory because they refuse to let the Arab masses through (of course, the enthusiastic leaders would form the vanguard, with their children and staff following devotedly) so that they can throw themselves in front of Israel's tanks and missiles. How very reminiscent of 1948 and 1967. This clamouring for the impossible is just the other face of impotence -- another way of avoiding what is possible.
The political context we must bear in mind is defined by the Palestinians' rejection of Israeli and US dictates regarding the conditions for a settlement, from the Camp David II formula to the Israeli interpretations of the Mitchell and Tenet proposals. This Palestinian refusal poses an obstacle not only to the stability of state and society in Israel, but also to Washington's plans for the region, and specifically Iraq and the Gulf.
Under the foreign occupation that is reality in Palestine, any rejection of the occupying power's dictates is inevitably a form of confrontation. As against the situation with Syria or other sovereign Arab states, a Palestinian rejection of Israeli stipulations means that the conflict must continue. Neither Arafat nor the PA can control the course or conditions of this confrontation, simply because the Palestinian resistance has no united leadership to formulate and shape its tactics in achieving its political objectives effectively. Indeed, that is putting it mildly; rivalry and antagonism are the factors ruling relations within and between the PA and the opposition.
Palestinian society inside Palestine and in the Diaspora shall continue to refuse Israel's dictates. That stance is a rallying cry; but it must be backed by a resistance strategy that makes the occupation too costly for the Israelis to sustain and, simultaneously, enables the Palestinians to sustain their struggle over the long term. To regulate its means and resources, the resistance must serve a unified political strategy. It must also be well-timed and clearly thought out, even inside the territories occupied in 1967, if it is to avoid drawing the occupying power into a comprehensive "bone- smashing" operation. Resistance movements, by definition, do not work like armies, which mobilise for decisive, face-to-face engagements. On the contrary, resistance movements must seek to survive in order to cause the occupying power greater damage, in the long term, than it can possibly inflict upon the occupied population.
Unfortunately, this discussion has come too late to be of use under the current all-out attack, but perhaps it will serve a purpose in the future. The reoccupation of Palestinian cities will require another united resistance strategy, and therefore the organisational structures capable of promoting the necessary political alternative to Israel's decrees. Structures capable of perpetuating resistance under a unified strategy will ensure that the recent Israeli assault is the last round in the tyranny of occupation and a prelude to ending the battle. It is impossible to return to partial negotiations, because it is clear what the Palestinians will and will not accept and because the recent assault demonstrates that even the most extreme brutality cannot break Palestinian determination to survive.
The plan for defeating the Palestinian national movement, prepared by the Israeli Ministry of Security, divides Palestinian cities into quadrants, each of which is to be combed in search of weapons and to eliminate anyone capable, even potentially, of bearing arms. Many will be imprisoned and others executed, in accordance with arbitrary lists. Intimidation through terror is the purpose of this campaign. Sharon believes blindly that "force works" and "terror can break the will." Hence his campaign to terrorise Palestinian society systematically; an entire generation of young people is one specific target, to be divested of weapons, hope and faith in the value of resistance.
Israel has also targeted organised Palestinian political forces, including PA elements, who share an ability to say no to Israeli and American orders. The Israeli government believes that after it eliminates these forces, the Palestinian negotiators will be able to say yes. This is what Sharon means when he says it will be possible to reach a settlement once terrorism has been uprooted. The Palestinian strategy for resistance should be equally clear.
As Israel's crimes continue to devastate major Palestinian cities, including Ramallah, the besieged compound of the elected Palestinian president is still the main focus of attention. Why did Israel target Arafat as well?
In recent years, he has been the primary obstacle within the PA to the acceptance of Israeli dictates. Those who were unsure of this before Camp David realised it afterwards. Thus, following the collapse of Camp David, Israel zeroed in on Arafat personally, with the press endlessly hinting that those in his "inner circle" were fed up with his perpetual prevarication. Evasion is the weapon of the weak who want to say no, but cannot say it openly without risk of an all-out confrontation. Arafat, however, could not control the Intifada that led to the current confrontation -- a confrontation he did not want and for which he was not prepared.
Israel has isolated Arafat from the outside world to prove his irrelevancy to the negotiating process. This policy aims to drive him out of Palestine and bulldoze the Oslo accords and their results. It is unlikely that the Israelis will succeed here either. The Palestinian president is not about to submit willingly, which means that Israel will have to reassess its premises. This appears to be one of those moments in history when the personal resolve of a leader determines subsequent political developments.
The siege on Arafat is also deliberately intended to humiliate and break the Palestinians, which is why it has triggered such outrage in the Arab world. This is the first time since the conflict between Zionism and the Arabs began that Israel has hand-picked an Arab leader for imprisonment and personal degradation. It is worth noting in this regard that Sharon wanted to expel Arafat, and decided to isolate him in deference to the Labour Party. Now, Israeli politicians are showing less and less concern for his fate; Ran Cohen, one of the warmongering Meretz leaders who take every opportunity to express their loathing for the Palestinian president, said that Arafat's fate is as important to him as "garlic peelings."
The Israeli offensive took place in Zinni's presence, as though he kept visiting the region to monitor the assault and its political consequences. Washington not only gave the green light to the current military operations, it assisted in the propaganda buildup and offered the advice of its security and intelligence services as well. Given the intimacy of US-Israeli relations, the scale of the current offensive and its regional ramifications, it is impossible to assume otherwise.
At the same time, however, Washington, eager to implement its plans for "stability in the Gulf," is keeping close tabs on reactions to the offensive, and is urging Israel to wrap it up as soon as possible. In this regard, grass-roots action in the Arab world is of utmost importance. So too is an official Arab response. Yet for the time being, bilateral communications are the only step Arab governments have been willing to take.
The attack on Palestine is not just a military operation that will pave the way for diplomacy. The Sharon government has declared war, in its fullest sense, on the PA; this war is its endgame. The Palestinians and the Arabs must face this reality and its results. Above all, they should not allow this war to end when Israel decides it should, because that will hand Israel victory on a plate. The Palestinian resistance must continue after Israel has announced the end of its military operation, for Israel's failure resides in the continuation of resistance alone. To this end, the Palestinians must create frameworks for sustaining resistance and political strategy. They must have a cohesive political platform to present to Israel and the international community.
Such a platform should not undermine the Arab initiative adopted in Beirut. Proposals such as this are not like disposable tissues. The Arab initiative put Sharon in a corner and the timing of his assault on the West Bank took into account not only the Netanya suicide bombing and the Easter holidays in Europe and the US, but also the dilemma in which the Arab peace initiative placed him. Israel's predicament, however, will not end when this war does. The Arab initiative will still force it to consider some very crucial questions, especially because Palestinian blood will prevent anyone from accepting conditions they paid so dearly to refuse.
Washington asked the Arabs to adopt the Saudi initiative without committing itself and without asking Israel for a commitment. Washington considered the initiative a "positive step forward," implying that further steps had to be taken. The US already used the tactic of encouraging the Arabs to lower their negotiating ceiling before asking them to make further concessions, in Camp David. The Arabs must insist that the peace initiative represents a minimum demand, not a maximum. They must remind the world that Israeli society, currently mobilised to support savagery, would have accepted this initiative had the Israeli government agreed to it or the Labour Party adopted it as a platform for withdrawal from the coalition. They must also remind the world that the Labour Party, instead, chose to be Sharon's accomplice in a crime initiated by Barak, and which Sharon is driving to its ultimate conclusion.
In response to this crime, the Arab people have poured into the streets to voice their anger. That is a healthy response. Arab societies are seething and through the Palestinian cause they are venting innumerable frustrations. But at the beginning of the Intifada, such outpourings did not translate into concrete political action, largely because Arab opposition parties are just as impotent as Arab governments, and have failed to generate a united democratic force. If the rhetoric of Arab governments is desperate and confused, that of Arab opposition parties is a litany of histrionics and imprecations against Israel just as effective as casting spells. If magic worked, we could have turned Sharon into a monkey long ago, without having to draw a picture and post it on the Web. Casting spells on-line is not very different from laying amulets upon the tombs of holy men.
The media make events, and Arab television audiences seem to be flipping from one channel to the next in search of the highest casualty estimates and the most footage of the appalling events taking place in Palestine. The prevalent attitude is that the highest figures are the most accurate. Should a journalist suggest that there were no casualties at all in the assault on the Preventive Security headquarters, contrary to the claims of one of the satellite networks, then that journalist must be playing up to Israel. However well intentioned, laments and anguish are not helping the inhabitants of Palestinian cities; nor are discussions of human shields and somber references to transfer. The Palestinian rumour machine, in its day, transformed the massacre of Deir Yassin, an atrocity in its own right that needed no exaggeration, into one of Israel's most successful vehicles for driving the Palestinians off their land. There is no need to overstate the extent of Israel's crime. It is quite monstrous enough.
A war is in progress. Wars are won by the party that knows how to rally its forces, has better strategies, can channel its energy to outlast the adversary and address public opinion more persuasively and convincingly. Wars are not won by those who can scream the loudest or by those who can turn on popular sentiment and channel it to their camp.
*The writer is a Palestinian with Israeli citizenship and a member of the Knesset.
Source: http://www.ahram.org.eg/weekly/2002/581/op2.htm
4/14/02
6:39:31 PM
Unlimited Forced Drugging OK'd By Court
AAPS: Unlimited Forced Drugging OK'd By Court Physician Group Calls Ruling 'Shocking & Inhumane'
WASHINGTON, March 8 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Defendants can be forcibly drugged even though they haven't been convicted of any charges and pose no danger to themselves or others. That's the ruling issued yesterday by the Federal Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit in the case of United States vs. Charles Thomas Sell. (see http://www.ca8.uscourts.gov/opndir/02/03/011862P.pdf) The 2-1 split decision establishes government power to forcibly medicate a person with mind-altering drugs even before trial.
"It's a shocking, inhumane decision. Now, all the government needs are allegations and a cooperative psychiatrist to forcibly drug any citizen," said Andrew Schlafly, general counsel for the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS). That group filed an amicus brief opposing the government drugging.
"It's unprecedented to allow prosecutors to drug peaceful defendants presumed to be innocent. Government cannot force citizens to pledge allegiance to the flag, but now can forcibly medicate them with mind-altering drugs," said Schlafly.
Dr. Sell, a St. Louis dentist, has been imprisoned for more than 4 years, including 1-1/2-half years in solitary confinement after being charged with Medicaid fraud. He has never been brought to trial.
While acknowledging that "the evidence does not support a finding that Sell posed a danger to himself or others" the majority opinion still found that "charges of fraud" alone are "serious" enough to justify forced medication. Further, the Court held that there are no limits on the quantity or type of drugs.
"There's no good reason why Dr. Sell has been held so long without trial, and this decision will most likely prolong his imprisonment with no end in sight," said Schlafly. The dissenting judge pointed out that even if Dr. Sell were to be found guilty, his sentence would be no more than 41 months -- one year less than he's already served.
A similar case is pending before the same court to allow the state to forcibly medicate a convicted murderer for execution.
"It's appalling that the court will drug a man presumed to be innocent, even if it's illegal to do the same thing to a convicted killer," Schlafly said. He said that AAPS will seek to overturn the ruling.
AAPS is a non-partisan, dues-supported professional association of physicians in all practices and specialties, dedicated since 1943 to protecting the sanctity of the patient-physician relationship from third-party interference.
Contact: Kathryn Serkes, 202-333-3855, for AAPS
mailto:kaserkes@worldnet.att.net
or Andrew Schlafly, Esq. mailto:aschlafly@aol.com
For more information on Dr. Sell's case, see
and click on "Court Okays Forced Drugging"
Source: http://www.usnewswire.com/topnews/temp/0308-140.html
4/14/02
6:32:50 PM
Dear All,
Please be advised that April 2002 letters have been posted on our website,
http://www.earthactionnetwork.org
One of the most recent features of the site is Tell a Friend About this Site page.
Thanks for your support and for continuing to tell your friends about EAN. And, as always, feel free to contact us (by mail, email, fax or phone) with any feedback and suggestions!
James Shvarts webmaster, Earth Action Network
4/14/02
6:28:04 PM
Treesitter Falls To Her Death In Mt. Hood National Forest
PORTLAND, Oregon, April 13, 2002 (ENS) - A treesitter with the Cascadia Forest Alliance has died in a fall from a tree she was attempting to protect from logging.
Last night, Beth O'Brien, 22, was using a rope to climb to a platform in an old growth tree in the Mt. Hood National Forest when she fell to the ground from 150 feet.
Tim Ream, a volunteer with the Cascadia Forest Alliance, told ENS that O'Brien was still alive when she hit the ground and a cell call was immediately made for help.
Officials took more than two hours to arrive at the scene, Ream explained, because they could not reach the remote location by four wheel drive truck and had to go back and get more help. Volunteers on snowmobiles finally made it to the scene, but they arrived too late to save O'Brien's life.
Treesitters' platform in the Eagle Creek Timber Sale similar to the one O'Brien was trying to reach. (Photos courtesy Cascadia Forest Alliance)
O'Brien had hiked in on showshoes for two hours loaded with supplies for the treesit on the Eagle Creek Timber Sale. Two other people, both men, were on the scene. One was on a platform in the tree and the other on the rope behind O'Brien when she fell. Ream said they told authorities that a safety device was available to O'Brien which she chose not to use.
O'Brien was the kind of person who was, "Dedicated to life, to joy and to the living of life," Ream said.
She was the founder of an organization that fed the homeless in Santa Rosa, where her mother lives. She had been to a number of the tree sits in Oregon and had been on the Eagle Creek Timber Sale treesit on and off for about a year.
Four days before O'Brien's death, Oregon Senator Ron Wyden announced the cancellation of the Eagle Creek timber sales on Mt. Hood National Forest.
The Eagle sales are located in roadless forests of the Clackamas watershed, drinking source for 185,000 residents of West Linn, Lake Oswego and Oregon City and several smaller Portland suburbs.
Most of the logging would have occurred on steep slopes in the "transient snow zone," raising concerns about landslides and water quality. Forests more heavily logged in the Clackamas basin suffered hundreds of landslides during rain-on-snow events in 1996 while unlogged and unroaded areas fared well.
While logging of the Eagle forest generated broad public opposition, blowdown of trees adjacent to previously logged forest also drew the attention of independent scientists. They found that the U.S. Forest Service did not adequately analyze the risk of blowdown that was associated with logging units.
Regna Merritt of the Oregon Natural Resources Council said, "Our roadless forests are our very best sources of clean water and a legacy we must pass on to our children."
Old growth tree in the Eagle Creek timber sale
"Logging proposed for the forest adjacent to the historic Old Baldy Trail and the Salmon-Huckleberry Wilderness has now been cancelled. Because of its importance as a drinking watershed and a popular hiking destination, the Eagle Creek roadless area is proposed by the Oregon Wilderness Coalition as an addition to the Salmon-Huckleberry Wilderness Area in the Oregon Wild 2002 wilderness proposal." said Susan Ash, Director of the Oregon Wild Campaign.
The contractor who originally purchased the right to cut the area, Oregon based Vanport Manufacturing Industries, was willing to let the sale be cancelled and has repeatedly stated that the company has no need for a replacement volume of wood.
"They have been supportive of cancelling the timber sale," Ream said. "Even the logging company didn't want the sale to go through."
"This is something that could have been handled years ago if the Forest Service had listened to the public, but they didn't," said Ream, "so now this has dragged on and now a young woman has given her life."
The Cascadia Forest Alliance is holding a memorial candlelight vigil for Beth O'Brien Sunday evening at sunset in Mount Tabor Park in Portland.
Related Links:
Cascadia Forest Alliance:
http://www.spiritone.com/~cfa/
History of Eagle Creek Timber Sale protests at the Oregon Natural Resources Council:
http://www.onrc.org/alerts/082.eagle.html
4/14/02
6:21:02 PM
ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE
TREESITTER FALLS TO HER DEATH IN MT. HOOD NATIONAL FOREST
PORTLAND, Oregon, April 13, 2002 (ENS) - A treesitter with the Cascadia Forest Alliance has died in a fall from a tree she was attempting to protect from logging.
http://ens-news.com/ens/apr2002/2002L-04-13-01.html
ENVIRONMENTALISTS GIVEN 48 HOURS TO COMMENT ON ENERGY PLAN
WASHINGTON, DC, April 12, 2002 (ENS) - A new set of documents released Wednesday by the Department of Energy show that the Bush administration gave 11 conservation groups a mere 48 hours to submit their comments on a national energy policy. An email sent in March shows the agency seeking proposals "that are consistent with the Administration's energy statements to date."
http://ens-news.com/ens/apr2002/2002L-04-12-06.html
DOE COULD SHIP PLUTONIUIM OVER SOUTH CAROLINA OBJECTIONS
COLUMBIA, South Carolina, April 12, 2002 (ENS) - The Department of Energy intends to dispose of 34 metric tons of weapons grade plutonium by the end of 2019, through the conversion of the material to a mixed-oxide fuel (MOX) for use in commercial nuclear power reactors. But these plans have hit a snag in the office of South Carolina Governor Jim Hodges.
http://ens-news.com/ens/apr2002/2002L-04-12-01.html
G-8 ENVIRONMENT MINISTERS FOCUS ON SUSTAINABILITY SUMMIT
BANFF, Alberta, April 12, 2002 - Canada's Environment Minister David Anderson welcomed his counterparts from the world's largest industrialized countries to Banff today for the annual meeting of the G8 environment ministers. The ministers are meeting in advance of this year's G-8 heads of government meeting in Alberta in June.
http://ens-news.com/ens/apr2002/2002L-04-12-02.html
ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE AMERISCAN: APRIL 12, 2002
Nevada Sues Over Yucca Mountain - Again
Invasive Water Species Target of Educational Campaign
U.S. Could Soon Feel Impacts of El Niño
Imported Sheep Had "Mad" Disease
Greenpeace Boards Shipment of Brazilian Mahogany
Central Ohio Added to Clean Cities Program
Hickory Pass Ranch Protected for the Birds
http://ens-news.com/ens/apr2002/2002L-04-12-09.html
4/14/02
6:06:03 PM
Ariel Sharon
Israel's newly elected Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, knows a thing or two about power. The white-haired old warrior had been languishing on the political margins and was widely assumed to be drifting into welcome retirement on his 400-hectare ranch, said to be the largest private agricultural land-holding in the country. But then Benjamin Netanyahu was trounced at the polls by Labour's Ehud Barak in 1999. When Netanyahu resigned, the wily former general was appointed transitional leader of the right-wing Likud Party and quickly saw a chance to make his mark.
The peace talks between Israel and the PLO had stalled and the question of who would control Jerusalem was one of the big stumbling blocks. What better time for the pugnacious brawler to announce a visit to Islam's third-holiest site, the Haram al-Sharif in old Jerusalem? - a site which is also one of Judaism's most sacred spots, the Temple Mount.
The move was deliberate and well orchestrated - and Sharon got exactly what he wanted. Palestinian anger exploded at the deliberate provocation and the intifada was reborn: hundreds died as Arab demonstrators clashed with Israeli soldiers in the months that followed. Then, in the subsequent elections the Israeli electorate, confused and frightened by the Palestinian protests, returned the 72-year-old Sharon to power in a sweeping victory.
For the bellicose Prime Minister this was further proof of his fundamental credo: when in doubt, escalate. Sharon has always been a firm believer in upping the ante. 'In the muddle resulting from an increase in violence, he will always come out the winner,' writes Israeli political scientist Avishai Margalit. He knows 'how to create a situation in which people turn to him because he is self-confident and he knows what he wants'.
The short, husky Sharon has been a presence in Israeli politics since he joined the Haganah, a Jewish self-defence force, at the age of 14. From there he moved to the armed forces, eventually leading an Israeli commando attack on the West Bank village of Qibya, just east of Tel Aviv, in October 1953. Sharon's unit blew up 45 homes and massacred 69 people, more than half of them women and children according to a later UN Security Council report. Undaunted, the plucky Sharon then went for broke in the 1956 Sinai War - ignoring direct orders, he sent his paratroopers into an Egyptian ambush, resulting in the death of 38 Israeli soldiers.
That temporarily derailed his military career until the 1967 Six Day War against Egypt when he engineered a stunning victory in the Sinai and became an instant war hero. After that, as leader of Israel's Southern Command in the early 1970s, he systematically wiped out Palestinian guerrilla cells in the Gaza Strip, bulldozing hundreds of homes in the process. That was followed by further military success in the 1973 Arab-Israeli war and then another spate of Arab home-wrecking in the late 1970s. As Minister of Agriculture in the Likud Government from 1977 to 81 the ebullient Sharon zealously promoted Jewish settlement in the West Bank and Gaza, building so many roads to encourage settlers that he was nicknamed the 'bulldozer'.
But the blackest stain on Sharon's record and the one that confirms his status as a war criminal in the eyes of the Arab world and beyond is the mass murder of Palestinian refugees outside Beirut in 1982. As Defence Minister in Menachem Begin's Government Sharon was determined to wipe out the PLO in neighbouring Lebanon. The solution? Provoke a border conflict, then bomb the place and send in troops.
The Israeli army was assisted by the Lebanese Christian Phalangist militia which had been armed by Israel since the beginning of Lebanon's civil war in 1975. Israeli soldiers surrounded the Sabra and Chatila refugee camps outside the city. Sharon then personally sent in the Phalange to flush out suspected PLO fighters. A three-day massacre followed in which 2,000 refugees were murdered, including women, children, the elderly and hundreds of men in their twenties and thirties. Sharon would henceforth be known by Arabs and Palestinians as 'the butcher'.
An official Israeli commission of inquiry found the defence minister guilty of 'blunders' and held him and others directly responsible for the slaughter. Sharon was forced to resign his defence brief but continued to serve as a minister in all the Likud governments of the 1980s and 1990s.
IndictSharonNow@aol.com
http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/biography/sharon.html
http://www.oneworld.org/ni/issue334/worldbeaters.htm
4/14/02
6:03:33 PM
World finally gets glimpse of refugee camp devastation
The world finally got to see what Israel has done in the Jenin refugee camp yesterday. Piles of rubble where homes once stood. Gaping holes rent in the sides of buildings. Electricity wires torn down and strewn amid the wreckage. Water flooding out of broken mains and running down the broken streets.(...) This is the wreckage where hundreds of terrified civilians were trapped inside their homes as Israeli helicopters poured rockets all around them, ambulances not allowed to treat the wounded as they bled, where Palestinians captured by the Israelis say they were forces to strip in front of their families, where Palestinian fighters armed only with rifles resisted the Israeli attack for nine days.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=284108
Israel buries the bodies, but cannot hide the evidence (13 April)
Israel was trying to bury the evidence in Jenin refugee camp yesterday, but it cannot bury the terrible crime it has committed: a slaughter in which Palestinian civilians were cut down alongside the armed defenders of the camp. Israeli tanks circled journalists menacingly as foreign reporters tried to get into the camp, cutting off their approach. But a man who had just fled the camp said he had seen Israeli soldiers burying the bodies of the dead in a mass grave. "I saw it all with my own eyes," said the man. "I saw people bleeding to death in the streets. I saw a 10-year-old child lying dead. There was a big hole in his side and his arm had been blown away. "I saw them burying the bodies. They started work on the grave a few days ago. I recognised some of the bodies in it. I can give you the names." (...) the Israeli army will have done that to keep the devastating sight of the carnage away from the eyes of the waiting world. Yesterday, though, they were unable to stifle the evil smell. The reek of putrefying bodies wafted out of the narrow, rubble-strewn alleys which were barred for a fifth day to international aid agencies trying to send ambulances and doctors to evacuate the many wounded, and recover the dead. One after another, international officials, angered by Israel's rampant violations of the Fourth Geneva Convention and the human misery that has resulted, confided to The Independent yesterday that they had reached the inevitable conclusion: a crime has been committed which Israel is trying to cover up. (...) "People who got to the edge of the camp found it incredibly smelly," one UN official said. How much of the camp still stands is unclear; reports say that bulldozers have cut a swath through homes near the entrance - a tactic which the Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, used against the refugees of Gaza 30 years ago, when he was an army commander trying to subdue the same forces that have now reared up against him anew. Some accounts say that a third of the camp has been flattened.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=284436
Jenin: 'My mother ran for help. A soldier shot her in the head' (11 April)
Abdullah Washai had to watch his 17-year-old brother, Munir, slowly bleed to death. He took several hours to die. A hole had been ripped in his shoulder by a round from an Israeli helicopter. When the boy's mother, Mariam, ran into the street screaming for help, Mr Washai says, Israeli soldiers shot her dead. These are typical of the claims of those who have managed to escape the carnage of Jenin refugee camp, the scene of the worst fighting of Israel's onslaught in the West Bank. The question that was facing Israel yesterday was: what will happen when the full story of what Israel has wreaked in the Jenin camp is revealed? (...) "The soldiers made four of us walk in front of their tank as it advanced. There were two of my cousins and another man. Then they took us to a house where the soldiers were inside. They put us outside the front door so if anyone shot we would be shot first." Ariel Sharon toured an army base near Jenin refugee camp yesterday. "Our wonderful soldiers have to be able to continue this struggle," he said.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=283752
International force must be deployed, says Annan (13 April 2002)
Mr Annan, speaking in Geneva, warned that "the situation is so dangerous and the humanitarian and human rights situation so appalling, the proposition that a force should be sent in ... can no longer be deferred." The killings on both sides were "an affront to the conscience of mankind".
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=284434
ISRAEL, PALESTINE AND JUSTICE
When Israelis and Palestinians demonize each other, it is the people who suffer. Both sides need to accept responsibility and find a non-violent path to a just peace.
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12811
Israel arrests thousands as Powell flies in (12 April 2002)
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=284110
Witnesses tell how elderly were used as human shields for tank forces
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=283026
MANY MORE such articles on the Middle East at
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/
A petition calling for the cancelation of Shimon Peres's Nobel Prize
4669. Anthony Nahas: I hope that the Norwegian Parliament will have the courage to revoke Shimon Peres' Nobel Peace Prize. Rather than stand up heroically and fearlessly AGAINST Sharon and the Israeli government's overseeing of the destruction of Palestinian society and the murder of hundreds of innocent civilians after 35 years of ILLEGAL occupation and oppression, Peres has chosen to acquiesce to Israel's gruesome, and cruel devastation of Palestinian civil society. This is morally repugnant and unacceptable given the spirit and letter of the Nobel Peace Prize. 4646. Fadi Daher: Peres' participation in war crimes is incompatible with the Nobel Peace Prize.
http://www.PetitionOnline.com/semsem/
David Horovitz: This is why the Israelis support Mr Sharon's tactics
(...) Israelis are deeply troubled about the impact on Palestinian civilians of the current military offensive - natural empathy, combined with the realisation that the bitterness this assault is causing will rebound to their detriment. But they feel strongly that at the root of the Intifada is not "the occupation", which Mr Barak tried to end, but an Arafat-engineered, suicide-bomber-backed effort to destroy all of Israel. They believe that Mr Arafat failed to tell his people the truth about what was offered at Camp David, that he used his media to whip them up into a state of despair and hatred.
http://argument.independent.co.uk/commentators/story.jsp?story=283686
Vatican outrage over church siege [8 April, 2002)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/middle_east/newsid_1916000/1916580.stm
4/14/02
5:58:20 PM
t r u t h o u t | 04.13
BREAKING NEWS SPECIAL | Israel and Palestine in Mortal Conflict Powell Calls Off Arafat Meeting
http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/03.31.BK.IDFvArafat.htm
Congresswoman; 9-11 Probe Must Extend to White House
http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/04.13A.Extend.Probe.htm
Venezuelan Military Overthrows Government
http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/04.13B.Military.htm
Bush Moves to Radically Overhaul Military Top Ranks
http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/04.13C.Top.Ranks.htm
Xerox Charged with Enron-Type Accounting Scheme Fraud: to Pay $10M
http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/04.13D.Enron.Type.htm
Senate GOP Wins Time on Arctic Drilling Plan
http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/04.13E.Arctic.Plan.htm
Ashcroft Urged To Drop New Rule On Gun Sales
http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/04.13F.Gun.Sales.htm
State Tells how Enron's 'Sham' Raised Prices
http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/04.13G.Enron.Sham.htm
Pelosi and 200 House Members Sign Discharge Petition To Force Vote on Health Care for the Unemployed
http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/04.13H.Health.Care.htm
Paul Krugman | The White Stuff
http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/04.13I.PK.White.htm
t r u t h o u t, is a non-profit independent news source.
4/14/02
5:56:48 PM
FAIR
Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting
Media analysis, critiques and activism
ACTION ALERT: Palestinian Deaths Aren't Headline Material at New York Times
April 12, 2002
How many Palestinian lives equal one Israeli life, according to the editors of the New York Times?
The main headline on the front page of the New York Times' April 10 final edition was "At Least 8 Killed In Suicide Bombing On A Bus In Israel." The late edition, which is available to more readers, had "13 Israeli Troops Killed in Ambush; Bus Bomb Kills 10," in the 36-point headline size that the paper reserves for what it considers major events.
Six paragraphs into the story, the paper provided this additional information: "More than 100 Palestinians have been killed in Jenin, the Palestinian town that has brought the stiffest resistance to the broad Israeli sweep through the West Bank. Many of the Palestinian dead still lie where they fell."
By its headline choice, the Times suggested that the deaths of 23 Israelis (or eight, in the final edition) are more important than the deaths of 100 Palestinians.
But even those ratios may understate the greater weight that the editors place on Israeli casualties. Beneath the main headline in the late edition were two subheads: "Worst Army Toll" and "A 14th Soldier Is Killed in Separate Attack at a Refugee Camp." The Times might have used one of the subheads to acknowledge the deaths of more than a hundred Palestinians, but evidently noting the death of a single additional Israeli soldier was considered more newsworthy.
One might suggest, in the New York Times' defense, that large numbers of Palestinian deaths have been a constant since Israel's military invasion of the West Bank began on April 1, whereas the deaths on April 9 were the first time since the offensive began that Israelis-- civilians or combatants-- had seen casualties on that scale.
But when were the hundreds of Palestinians killed considered to be major, front-page news by the New York Times? A review of the page A1 headlines used by the Times since the March 29 start of the invasion reveals a striking lack of references to the Palestinians killed in the Israeli operations. Generally the headlines were antiseptic: "Israelis Broaden West Bank Raids as Arabs Protest" (4/2/02); "U.S. Envoy Meets Arafat as Israel Steps Up Its Sweep" (4/6/02).
When an April 5 headline used the word "carnage," it was not a reference to the scores of Palestinians dying in the ongoing Israeli attack, but to a suicide bombing that had killed three (including the bomber) a week earlier.
One April 4 front-page subhead, "Bleeding to Death," did allude to Israeli killing of Palestinians-- under the "balanced" headline, "Arabs' Grief in Bethlehem, Bombers' Gloating in Gaza"-- but this was an exception to the general trend.
There's more to news than front-page headlines, of course, and the Times has done some valuable reporting of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on its inside pages. Front-page headlines are, however, a clear indicator of what a paper's editors consider to be the most important events of the day. In the case of the powerful and prestigious New York Times, these headlines can set news agendas around the world. The Times should not use its front page to send the message that some lives matter more than others.
ACTION: Please tell the New York Times not to suggest through its headline choices that the lives of Palestinians and Israelis should be valued differently.
CONTACT:
New York Times
229 West 43rd St.
New York, NY 10036-3959
Toll free comment line: 1-888-NYT-NEWS
As always, please remember that your comments are taken more seriously if you maintain a polite tone.
Please cc fair@fair.org with your correspondence.
Source: http://www.FAIR.org
4/14/02
5:49:44 PM
War Tax Resistance: An Idea Whose Time Has Come . . . Again?
by Michelle Kinnucan
If a thousand men were not to pay their tax-bills this year, that would not be a violent and bloody measure, as it would be to pay them, and enable the State to commit violence and shed innocent blood. --Henry David Thoreau, "On the Duty of Civil Disobedience"
Let them march all they want, so long as they continue to pay their taxes. --Attributed to Alexander Haig, US Secretary of State (1981- 1989), commenting on demonstrations by anti-nuclear weapons protestors
The past seven months have been especially trying for Americans who long for justice and peace and find that US government policy often has little to do with either. First came the heinous carnage of September 11th. Then came war--more heinous carnage--in Afghanistan and rumors of war in the Philippines, Yemen, Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Colombia and so on. Then, last December, the US withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty. More recently, the Bush administration suggested its intention to end a decade-long nuclear weapons testing moratorium, in part, to develop "mini-nukes" for possible use against non-nuclear enemies. Finally, the smoldering embers of hatred in the occupied Palestinian territories and Israel have burst into a (lopsided) conflagration of heart-wrenching death and destruction.
As we honor the lives of all victims of violence; as we contend with a "patriotic correctness" that sometimes seems pervasive; as we confront the political realities of American militarism and its hold on the government and the minds of our brothers and sisters; as we write, protest, and engage in other forms of activism, war tax resisters offer us another tool to work for peace, support justice, channel anger, and challenge hopelessness. They suggest: "If you work for peace, stop paying for war."
According to the War Resisters League (WRL), $776 billion--46% of the total discretionary funding--in the proposed 2003 federal budget is allocated to military spending. The WRL points out, paraphrasing radical pacifist A.J. Muste, "in order to conduct a war or build a military, the government requires two chief resources: soldiers and money. People are drafted through the Selective Service System, and money is drafted through the Internal Revenue Service." Tax resistance in this view is the financial counterpart of conscientious objection to military conscription.
One method of war tax resistance is refusing to pay federal income taxes. Both the WRL and the National War Tax Resisters Coordinating Committee (NWTRCC) can provide detailed information for persons contemplating this type of non-violent civil disobedience. The WRL publishes War Tax Resistance: A Guide To Withholding Your Support From The Military, which explains the rationale and long history of war tax resistance along with in-depth information concerning the Internal Revenue Service. In addition to full-blown income tax resistance, activists have developed other lower stakes strategies such as telephone tax resistance and the "1040 Club."
The federal telephone excise tax began with long distance calls under the Spanish War Act of 1898; it was applied to local calls shortly before the US entered World War II. The WRL estimates that in 1972, perhaps one-half million people resisted the US war in Southeast Asia by refusing to pay the federal telephone tax. In 1990, the tax was set permanently at 3%; the IRS administers the funds, which like the income tax revenues are allocated for general expenditures including military spending. According to the Congressional Research Service, from 1980 through 1999, the tax brought in over $57 billion to the US Treasury, including a record $5.2 billion in 1999.
The NWRTCC says telephone tax resistance is "a strong, positive way to protest increasingly militaristic U.S. policies and actions." Resisters deduct the itemized 3% federal excise tax from their telephone payment(s) and include an explanatory note to the phone company with the payment(s). The WRL and NWRTCC both claim that it is unusual and generally illegal for a phone company to discontinue service for non-payment of the federal excise tax.
Earlier this year, Sonoma County Taxes for Peace a local, California affiliate of the NWTRCC launched its One Million Taxpayers for Peace the War campaign. Their goal is to get one million taxpayers to join the "1040 Club" by subtracting $10.40 from any payment due to the IRS when filing their federal income taxes. Taxpayers who are owed a refund by the IRS enclose a note with their return requesting an additional $10.40 from the IRS.
War tax resisters stress that they are different from run-of-the-mill tax evaders because they act for reasons of conscience and do not attempt to conceal their defiance of the law. In fact, advocates encourage resisters to write letters to the IRS, members of Congress, and local newspapers explaining their objections to paying their taxes. Additionally, resisters often redirect unpaid tax money to non-profit groups that provide services more consistent with their philosophy of non-violence or to escrow funds such as the Conscience and Military Tax Campaign Escrow Account or the New York City People's Life Fund.
This April 15th, NWTRCC members and friends will leaflet, parade, show films, and stage "Pentagon Porkbusters Penny Polls" in communities in every section of the country. For more information, you may call the NWTRCC at (800) 269-7464 or the WRL at (800) 975-9688.
Michelle Kinnucan is a freelance writer. Her work has previously been published in PS: Political Science and Politics, Commondreams.org, and The Record.
She may be contacted by email at: mailto:mjkinnuc@juno.com
Source: http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0412-01.htm
4/14/02
5:44:26 PM
DAILY GRIST
<http://www.gristmagazine.com>
LIES, LIES, AND VIDEOTAPE
A picture is worth a thousand words: So reasoned Interior Secretary Gale Norton when she mailed copies of a videotape of Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to major television stations and encouraged news producers to use the footage in their coverage of the debate over drilling. (In contrast to videos of the Arctic Refuge produced by conservation organizations, which generally feature wildlife and breathtaking views, the video shows a desolate-looking winterscape.) According to Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Norton committed a major no-no. The video was developed by Arctic Power, a pro-drilling lobbying group, and Markey says Norton illegally used her office -- and by extension taxpayer money -- to distribute propaganda from a special-interest group. An Interior spokesperson denied any wrongdoing on Norton's part. Meanwhile, Republicans bought extra time to prepare for the showdown over the Arctic Refuge when the Senate agreed to postpone introduction of the GOP drilling proposal until next Tuesday.
straight to the source: Anchorage Daily News, Associated Press, H. Josef Hebert, 12 Apr 2002 <http://www.adn.com/business/story/925061p-1025584c.html>
straight to the source: Washington Post, Helen Dewar, 12 Apr 2002 <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A34555-2002Apr11.html>
do good: Take action to save the Arctic Refuge <http://www.gristmagazine.com/dogood/mining.asp?source=daily#arctic>
A GOOD SEED
Some environmental activists do their best work while sitting in a tree, others while sitting at a desk. As the king of conference calls, Peter Altman falls into the latter category. Altman is the national coordinator of Campaign ExxonMobil and executive director of the Sustainable Energy and Economic Development Coalition. (All that, and this week's diarist for Grist, too!) Campaign ExxonMobil is a nationwide coalition founded to convince the eponymous company to take a responsible position on global warming, while the SEED Coalition advocates for clean energy in oil-happy Texas. Needless to say, Altman's got his work cut out for him. Check out what he's up to, only on the Grist Magazine website.
only in Grist: Dueling with the Darth Vader of the environment -- a day in the life of Peter Altman, Campaign ExxonMobil <http://www.gristmagazine.com/dearme/altman040802.asp?source=daily>
SUPREMELY BAD JUDGEMENT
The Florida Supreme Court dealt a blow to environmentalists and landowners yesterday by ruling that property owners in the state must continue to foot most of the bill for Everglades restoration, despite overwhelming support for a 1996 amendment to the state constitution that would have made polluters pay instead. The court determined that the amendment, which was approved by two-thirds of state voters as part of a plan to restore the Everglades, was too vague for the state legislature to be able to act on. Environmentalists contend that state lawmakers purposely failed to implement the amendment because they are beholden to the sugar industry, which helped engineer the defeat of a second part of the plan that would have imposed a tax on sugar growers. The ruling means that, under a 1994 law, funds for an $800 million water-treatment system will continue to come from everyday tax-paying property owners.
straight to the source: Miami Herald, Lesley Clark, 12 Apr 2002 <http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/state/3046311.htm>
do good: Take action to stick up for the Everglades <http://www.gristmagazine.com/dogood/forests.asp?source=daily#everglades>
BOXER TAKES OFF HER GLOVES
Senate Democrats accused the Bush administration yesterday of slowing the pace of toxic waste cleanups under the Superfund program as a favor to industry, which historically has picked up most of the tab for the costly cleanups. A Senate Environment and Public Works subcommittee asked Superfund officials to explain why the administration dropped 25 sites from the cleanup list this year and shifted much of the cost from industry to taxpayers. The Bush administration explained the reduced number of cleanups by saying it had chosen to focus on a handful of "megasites," but Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), who chairs the Superfund oversight subcommittee, said, "The most important parts of the program -- the pace of the cleanup and the principle that the polluter must pay -- are now under attack by this administration." The tax on industry that funds the cleanups expired in 1995, and the White House has declined to ask Congress to reinstate it. However, as Superfund coffers run low, administration officials said they might reconsider that position in 2004.
straight to the source: Washington Post, Eric Pianin, 11 Apr 2002 <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A28927-2002Apr10.html>
do good: Take action to stand up for Superfund <http://www.gristmagazine.com/dogood/toxic.asp?source=daily#superfund>
LOGAN'S HEROES
Here's a stellar example of your tax dollars at work: Last week, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers published an Anna Karenina-sized draft study of a proposal by Arch Coal to strip mine 3,100 acres of West Virginia. The strip mine would be the largest ever in the state, and the company has been seeking a permit since 1997. The environmental impact study, a necessary step on the way to approval, provided an exhaustive discussion of the potential economic benefits of the mine to Boone County. Trouble is, the strip mine is planned for Logan County; it even says so on the cover of the study. Oops. The Corps blamed the error on Michael Baker, Jr., the consulting firm it hired, which claimed it could "lawsuit-proof" the study; the Corps also contends that the blooper does not cast doubt on the credibility of the rest of the report. Environmentalists aren't buying it: "Unfortunately, this is the kind of carelessness we've come to expect from the Corps," said Nathan Fetty of the West Virginia Rivers Coalition.
straight to the source: Charleston Gazette, Ken Ward, Jr., 11 Apr 2002 <http://www.wvgazette.com/news/News/200204115/>
do good: Take action to reform the Army Corps <http://www.gristmagazine.com/dogood/rivers.asp?source=daily#corps>
4/14/02
5:16:16 PM
Thai Villagers Making The Shift To Solar
Greenpeace helped villagers install solar power on two public buildings of Bo Nok and Ban Krut, in the Prachuap Khiri Khan province of Thailand, to stress that the villagers are doing something about achieving clean, sustainable energy. The installation was a follow-up to last week's action at Edison Mission Energy's headquarters in Irvine, CA, Greenpeace and the people of Prachuap Khiri Khan are opposing unjust dumping of old, dirty energy technology by energy giants onto poorer communities -rather than implementing clean renewable energy that would not destroy the climate or the subsistence of local livelihoods. For the past eight years, communities in the Prachuap Khiri Khan province have opposed plans by Edison and Gulf Power to build two coal-fired power plants in the area. In February 2000, Finnish power company, Fortom, divested from the controversial plans after pressure from Greenpeace.
Check out the Greenpeace report "Edison Out: The Struggle to Stop Coal Fired Power Plants in Bo Nok and Ban Krut, Thailand" at:
http://www.cleanenergynow.org/pdfdocs/edison_out.pdf
You can also find out more about the current environmental struggles in Thailand by visiting:
http://www.greenpeacesoutheastasia.org
4/14/02
5:11:24 PM
Latest Solar Technologies
Less Expensive? More Flexible? More Jobs?
After nearly six years in development, company officials from Global Solar Energy, Inc. announced they are close to supplying commercial markets with their high-tech, thin-film lightweight solar devices. Expecting that there will be a strong interest in these solar cells, which are less expensive and more flexible than current commercial solar technology, the company is expected to double its work force in order to reach manufacture productivity that is competitive with today's silicon technology by next year.
A report on Global Solar Energy can be read on:
http://www.azstarnet.com/star/wed/20410GLOBALSOLAR.html
Painting Solar Power onto Electronics?
Chemists in UC, Berkeley have found a way to produce cheap plastic solar cells (using nanotechnology) that are flexible enough to paint onto any surface. Although still early in its development, researchers predict that this technology will be used to provide electricity for wearable and portable electronics. They hope to overcome efficiency limitations faced by other plastic semiconductors by their use of hybrid plastic solar cells that incorporates nanorods with a plastic semiconductor.
Read the report on plastic solar cell technology at:
http://www.theengineer.co.uk/item.asp?ch=e4_home&type=News&id=45149
4/14/02
5:06:39 PM
IN THE NAME OF GOD, SEEK PEACE AND PURSUE IT
The destruction of lives and communities and human dignity now happening in the Middle East besmirches the very Name of God and endangers the peace of the world.
We condemn the deliberate targeting of civilians through suicide bombings.
We condemn the totally foreseeable and inevitable deaths of civilians through the shelling and bombing of their neighborhoods.
We condemn the use of violence to pursue political ends.
Whether these various acts of violence are "morally equivalent" or not means little to the dead, the maimed, and their suffering survivors. What matters is to end this violence.
The Israeli and Palestinian peoples seem unable to do so because they are caught up in the fear and rage that has spiraled out of control. For the sake of human decency and for the sake of the peace of the world as a whole, we call on the United States to act.
The immediate present and the future are intertwined so tightly that action by the United States must address both: On the one hand, the immediate violence cannot be ended without swift motion to achieve a solution in which a secure State of Israel and a viable State of Palestine live side by side in peace. On the other hand, that goal cannot be achieved without ending the present violence. Both hands are necessary.
We therefore call on the United States to take two actions at once, and simultaneously:
1. Bring about the creation of an international force to protect both Israelis and Palestinians from violence.
2. Call a regional peace conference including Israel, the Palestinian Authority, and all the Arab states, and peace- committed religious leaders and leaders of civil society in the region, to take up at once the Saudi proposals for regional peace endorsed by the Beirut Conference and the peace proposals that came close to agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority at Taba late in 2000.
The United States should bend every effort to secure agreement on the emergence of a viable Palestine and a secure Israel, based on the 1967 boundaries with adjustments that the two parties mutually agree on, and on commitments to meet the moral and material needs of the region's refugees while preserving Israel's character as an expression of Jewish peoplehood and Palestine's ability to meet the deep needs of the Palestinian people wherever they live.
Today all the holy places in the Middle East are being desecrated by violence, whether they are under direct attack or not. Only in such a settlement can the holiness of those places be affirmed. Today the Image of God in every human being is being desecrated. Only through such a settlement can the greatness of God be affirmed.
In the Name of God Who is compassionate and just, in the Name of God Who suffers in the suffering of human beings, in the Name of God Who demands that we pursue justice through just means and seek peace by actively pursuing it, we call on the United States to act at once.
Rabbi Rebecca Alpert *Associate Professor of Religion and Women's Studies, Temple University
Rabbi Haim Dov Beliak * Coalition for Justice in Hawaiian Gardens and Jerusalem
Rabbi Lewis Bogage * DePauw University, Greencastle, IN
Rabbi Stephen Booth, Denver, CO
Rabbi Marcelo Bronstein * B'nai Jeshurun, NYC
Cherie Brown Break the Silence
Rabbi Michael M. Cohen Rabbi Emeritus, Israel Congregation, Manchester Center, VT
Rabbi Andrea Cohen-Kiener West Hartford, CT
Rabbi Hillel Cohn San Bernardino, CA
Jeffrey Dekro * The Shefa Fund
Rabbi Fred Scherlinder Dobb * Adat Shalom Reconstructionist Cong., Bethesda, MD
Rabbi Amy Eilberg Palo Alto, CA
Rabbi Sue Fendrick
Rabbi Everett Gendler Massachusetts
Rabbi Jonathan H. Gerard * Temple Covenant of Peace, Easton, PA
Rabbi Dan Goldblatt * Beth Chaim Congregation, Danville, CA
Rabbi Roberto D. Graetz * Temple Isaiah, Lafayette, CA
Professor Susannah Heschel * Dartmouth College
Rabbi Margaret Holub * Mendocino Coast Jewish Community
Rabbi Shaya Isenberg, Chair, *Department of Religion, University of Florida
Rabbi Steven B. Jacobs * Kol Tikvah, CA
Rabbi Douglas E. Krantz * Congregation B'nai Yisrael, Armonk, NY
Rabbi Mordechai Liebling Break the Silence
Rabbi Rebecca Lillian Jewish Peace Forum Brit Tzedek V'Shalom
Rabbi Jeffrey Marker * St. Vincent's Catholic Medical Center, NYC
Rabbi Rolando Matalon *B'nai Jeshurun, NYC
Rabbi David Mivasair (US citizen resident in Vancouver, BC)
Marge Piercy, poet, novelist, memoirist
Rabbi Barry L. Schwartz Cherry Hill, NJ
Rabbi Sid Schwarz Rockville, MD
Mark Seal Break the Silence
Rabbi Gerry Serotta Chevy Chase, MD
Rabbi Judy Shanks * Temple Isaiah, Lafayette, CA
Rabbi David Shneyer * Am Kolel Social Action Committee.
Rabbi Toba Spitzer * Congregation Dorshei Tzedek, Newton, MA
Rabbi Brian Walt * Mishkan Shalom, Philadelphia, PA
Rabbi Arthur Waskow Break the Silence
Rabbi Sheila Weinberg * Jewish Community of Amherst
4/14/02
4:49:40 PM
Sea Level Rise Caused By Greenhouse Warming Threatens Marshes In Chesapeake And Delaware Bays
WASHINGTON, April 11 (AScribe Newswire) -- Chesapeake and Delaware Bays, the two largest estuaries on the east coast of the United States, are losing marshland to rising sea levels caused by greenhouse warming. Research by University of Maryland scientists suggests that virtually all coastal marshes along these bays could disappear before 2100, if the sea level continues to rise at present rates or higher rates predicted by climate models.
Loss of these marshes would be devastating, the researchers say, due to its effect on the food chain, water quality, and the amount of carbon that would be released into the oceans and atmosphere. Marshes act as carbon sinks, holding it in solid form, so it does not emerge as carbon dioxide gas. The study, by Prof. Michael S. Kearney and colleagues, is reported in the April 16 issue of Eos, a publication of the American Geophysical Union.
Kearney describes a new technique he and his colleagues developed, based on 1993 images from the Thematic Mapper instrument on the Landsat satellite, updated with more recent aerial photography and field surveys. The model measures reflectance from the marsh's soil or sediment layer, its vegetation, and the water, in order to determine its Marsh Surface Condition Index (MSCI), which tracks the overall health of the marsh. A key benefit of the MSCI is that it helps scientists focus on the role of long term sea level rise, without regard to annual variations caused by heavy storms and other transitory phenomena.
In Chesapeake Bay, the greatest degradation of marshes has occurred in the middle portion of its eastern shore at Blackwater Wildlife Refuge. The upper reaches of both Chesapeake and Delaware Bays are less degraded than the middle and lower reaches. This, the researchers say, is due to the smaller amount of river sediment, which helps the upward growth of the marsh, reaching the lower parts of the bays.
In addition, impoundments, which limit stream flows into Delaware Bay from New Jersey, have resulted in greater degradation of marshes on that shore than on the Delaware shore opposite. From 1984 to 1993, the area of degraded marshes in Delaware Bay increased from 25 percent to 54 percent of total marshland, especially on the New Jersey shore. Currently, in both estuaries, about 70 percent of marshland has been affected, according to the researchers.
Kearney notes that the processes affecting Chesapeake and Delaware Bays could also be at work in other parts of the Atlantic coast. Georgia and South Carolina alone have 300,000 hectares (1,000 square miles) of coastal marshes. Widespread disappearance of these marshes during the 21st century could severely affect coastal ecosystems, particularly food sources at the bottom of the chain. In addition, the sediments now held by the marshes would erode into coastal waters, seriously affecting their quality. Part of this sediment consists of long sequestered carbon, and the potential collapse of hundreds of thousands of hectares (thousands of square miles) of coastal marshes in the coming decades could have a significant effect on the overall North American carbon budget, the researchers say.
The study was supported by grants from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Public Service Electric & Gas, and the Environmental Protection Agency.
The article, Michael S. Kearney, Andrew S. Rogers, John R.G. Townshend, Eric Rizzo, David Stutzer, J. Court St