Media Compilation #110: Shining a Spotlight on Some Important News And Initiatives

January 21, 2003

Media Compilation #110: Shining a Spotlight on Some Important News And Initiatives

Dear journalist

Here is some quite interesting and bold material for your consideration.

Jean Hudon
Earth Rainbow Network Coordinator
http://www.EarthRainbowNetwork.com

This compilation is archived at
http://www.EarthRainbowNetwork.com/Archives2003/MediaCompilation110.htm

"War will exist until that day when the Conscientious Objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the warrior does today."

- John F. Kennedy

CONTENTS

1. Bush First Mentioned Attacking Iraq in 1999
2. A Republican Dissent on Iraq
3. "Big Brother" is No Longer a Fiction, ACLU Warns in New Report
4. Impeachment Resolution Against President George W. Bush
5. Women Bare All in the Name of Peace
6. Space Centre to Screen 'Proof of UFOs'

See also:

AMERICANS SAY "NO!" TO WAR
http://www3.bc.sympatico.ca/Willthomas/action/NotInOurName.htm
Global protests fill streets. Half-million Americans rallied outside their nation's Capitol Saturday!

Car wars (Jan 18)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,877203,00.html
The US economy needs oil like a junkie needs heroin - and Iraq will supply its next fix.

U.S. Plans for Interim Military Rule in Postwar Iraq (Jan 17)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3610-2003Jan16.html

Germany Unlikely to Back Iraq War Plan (Jan 17)
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Germany-Iraq.html
BERLIN (AP) -- Germany is unlikely to back any U.N. resolution to authorize war against Iraq, Defense Minister Peter Struck said in remarks published Friday that spelled out the Berlin government's stance with unusual bluntness. Germany joined the U.N. Security Council on Jan. 1 and is set to play a pivotal role in Iraq diplomacy when it chairs the council next month. Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder has hinted that Germany will refuse to support a war resolution in the council, but Struck was more direct. (...) A poll released Friday showed strong public support for Schroeder's anti-war stand, which is credited with helping him win re-election last year. About three quarters of Germans -- 76 percent -- believe their country should vote against an Iraq war in the Security Council, the infratest-dimap poll said. One of Germany's most prominent intellectuals, Nobel laureate author Guenter Grass, underscored his opposition to war with a caustic attack on President Bush, who he said was intent on provoking a war and motivated by gaining control of Iraq's oil. ``The arrogance of power of the one remaining superpower, America, keeps them from even considering any advice,'' Grass said on ARD television Thursday night. ``That is what makes a man like the current president such a public danger.'' CLIP

Direct Action May Become a Necessity (January 16)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,875639,00.html
The UN is being used as a fig leaf for war in the face of world opinion - If anyone could sell George Bush's planned war of aggression against Iraq, surely it should be Tony Blair, a politician whose career has been built on his ability to smoothtalk his way out of a crisis. He has been straining every nerve to do just that for the past week. (...) But all the signs are that his spin offensive simply isn't working. (...) Not only does public opinion - along with key sections of the civil service, military, churches and trade unions - appear to be hardening against the expected war, but the Labour party itself shows every sign of risking rupture if that war goes badly. (...) Last week, in the first such incident since Britain's war of intervention against the Soviet Union more than 80 years ago, two traindrivers based at Motherwell in Scotland refused to move a freight train carrying ammunition destined for British forces in the Gulf in protest against the threat of war against Iraq. More than a dozen workers at the depot have now supported the action. If this war goes ahead, many others are likely to follow their lead. In such circumstances, direct action will not simply be justified, it will be a democratic necessity.

White House Sees Deficits for 'Foreseeable Future' (Jan 15)
http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/011703F.wh.deficits.htm

Anti-war movement broadening (Jan 17)
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2003-01-16-protests-usat_x.htm
Opposition to war with Iraq may not be deep, but it's getting wider. From liberal environmental groups to mainstream labor organizations to conservative Republican businessmen, anti-war sentiment is spreading beyond college students, the radical fringe and those who protested the Vietnam War.

"National Sanctity of Life Day" (January 17)
http://yt.org/article.php?sid=996
If you are not already aware, Israel's intelligence agency, the Mossad, has been granted permission by the Bush administration to find and kill those who they deem as "terrorists." The major change, however, is that Mossad is now allowed to do so on American soil. The Mossad can find those they consider "terrorists" inside the United States and do what they want with them.

RFID tags: Big Brother in small packages (January 13, 2003)
http://news.com.com/2010-1069-980325.html
Could we be constantly tracked through our clothes, shoes or even our cash in the future? I'm not talking about having a microchip surgically implanted beneath your skin, which is what Applied Digital Systems of Palm Beach, Fla., would like to do. Nor am I talking about John Poindexter's creepy Total Information Awareness spy-veillance system, which I wrote about last week. Instead, in the future, we could be tracked because we'll be wearing, eating and carrying objects that are carefully designed to do so. The generic name for this technology is RFID, which stands for radio frequency identification. RFID tags are miniscule microchips, which already have shrunk to half the size of a grain of sand. They listen for a radio query and respond by transmitting their unique ID code. Most RFID tags have no batteries: They use the power from the initial radio signal to transmit their response. You should become familiar with RFID technology because you'll be hearing much more about it soon. Retailers adore the concept, and CNET News.com's own Alorie Gilbert wrote last week about how Wal-Mart and the U.K.-based grocery chain Tesco are starting to install "smart shelves" with networked RFID readers. In what will become the largest test of the technology, consumer goods giant Gillette recently said it would purchase 500 million RFID tags from Alien Technology of Morgan Hill, Calif. (...) It becomes unnervingly easy to imagine a scenario where everything you buy that's more expensive than a Snickers will sport RFID tags, which typically include a 64-bit unique identifier yielding about 18 thousand trillion possible values. KSW-Microtec, a German company, has invented washable RFID tags designed to be sewn into clothing. And according to EE Times, the European central bank is considering embedding RFID tags into banknotes by 2005. It becomes unnervingly easy to imagine a scenario where everything you buy that's more expensive than a Snickers will sport RFID tags. That raises the disquieting possibility of being tracked though our personal possessions. Imagine: The Gap links your sweater's RFID tag with the credit card you used to buy it and recognizes you by name when you return. Grocery stores flash ads on wall-sized screens based on your spending patterns, just like in "Minority Report." Police gain a trendy method of constant, cradle-to-grave surveillance. You can imagine nightmare legal scenarios that don't involve the cops. CLIP

Israel holding 1,000 Palestinians without trial
http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2003/1/2/latest/9409Israelhol&sec=latest
JERUSALEM (AP) : Israel is holding 1,007 Palestinians in indefinite detention, without charges or trial, the largest number in more than a decade and a sharp increase from last year, an Israeli human rights group said Thursday. The human rights group B'tselem said Israel is violating international law by using so-called administrative detentions on a wide scale, arbitrarily and in cases where there are only slight suspicions against people. (...) In all, more than 5,000 Palestinians are in Israeli custody at the moment, including those being interrogated or awaiting trial. CLIP

1.

From: http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0301/S00059.htm

Bush First Mentioned Attacking Iraq in 1999

Jason Leopold: Bush Sticks Closely To His Script

17 January 2003

Here's a history lesson. Go back to December 1999 when President Bush was still governor of Texas and wasn't even the Republican candidate for President yet. Back then, Bush Jr. had said that if elected President of the United States he would use military force to "take out" Hussein and Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. Most Americans believe Bush first mentioned the possibility of a war with Iraq after the September 11 terrorist attacks.

Bush First Mentioned Attacking Iraq in 1999

Back in 1999, just as today, there was no evidence that Iraq concealed any such weapons. Bush was governor of Texas at the time and the presidential race was still one year away. Bush couldn't have possibly had any intelligence information, which he claims he presently has but refuses to make public, that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction. Still, Bush knew exactly what he would do first when he got to office: bomb Iraq.

"Gov. George W. Bush of Texas talks about contingencies in which he would use American military power to 'take out‚ Iraq's illegal weapons" if elected president, according to a Dec. 12, 1999 editorial in the New York Times. The Times editorial was headlined Rhetoric and Reality on Iraq and it too presumed that Iraq still had weapons of mass destruction but the editorial offered no evidence.

"More than eight years after American-led military forces triumphed in the Persian Gulf war, Saddam Hussein still rules Iraq and continues to cheat on the surrender terms that require him to eliminate all biological, chemical and nuclear weapons and missiles capable of delivering them. His galling defiance and America's frustrations in dealing with him have again made Iraq an issue in a United States presidential campaign," the editorial says.

But then, two years later, the terrorist attacks of September 11 took place. Bush war plans for Iraq were sidelined while he dealt with this new war. Americans forgot about those statements he made pre-911, but Bush uses that date to push his war and wants the public to believe we are in grave danger if our troops don't topple Iraq. Hussein is a tyrant and he has done despicable acts against his own people, but that is no reason for the United States to attack. This is Bush's war. He made that clear as far back as 1999.

But asking Bush not to go to war is like, unfortunately, asking Bush when he was governor of Texas to put a moratorium on the death penalty. That request also fell on deaf ears.

"As far as I'm concerned there has not been one innocent person executed since I've become governor,'' Bush said in June 2000 during a presidential campaign trail visit to Los Angeles.

While Bush was governor, there were 134 executions in Texas, despite the fact that many activists and lawyers said that some executed prisoners may not have received fair trials.

One particular death penalty case that celebrities including the Reverend Jesse Jackson and Amnesty International activist Bianca Jagger have called on Bush to stay was the execution of Gary Graham, who was executed for shooting to death a Houston man during a supermarket holdup in 1981.

Graham was convicted on the basis of testimony from one eyewitness. But that witness also gave police a statement saying the shooter she saw had darker skin and a narrower face than Graham.

Graham's lawyer at the time slept through parts of the trial and failed to call six other witnesses who either were not able to identify Graham as the suspect or described the killer differently.

"I've thought about it. We don't need a moratorium,'' Bush said about the Graham case. "I'm going to continue to uphold the laws of the land. I believe the system is fair and just."

Now, some of those same celebrities oppose the possibility of a war in Iraq and are asking Bush not to use military force in the region. But Bush won't listen.

---

- Jason Leopold is an investigative journalist based in California, he is currently finishing a book on the California energy crisis. He can be contacted at jasonleopold@hotmail.com. This story is available for republication, please contact the author by email.

2.

This is encouraging news! Public dissent rising from all directions...

A full-page ad in the Wall Street Journal, Monday, January 13, 2003, page A5 reads as follows:

A Republican Dissent on Iraq

To President Bush, his advisors and the American People:

Let's be clear: We supported the Gulf War.
We supported our intervention in Afghanistan.
We accept the logic of a just war.

But Mr. President, your war on Iraq does not pass the test. It is not a just war.

The candidate we supported in 2000 promised a more humble nation in our dealings with the world. We gave him our votes and our campaign contributions

That candidate was you. We feel betrayed. We want our money back. We want our country back.

War is the most extreme action a society can take. I can only be unleashed after exploring every other road. You have not explore all the roads.

How many young American lives will be lost in this dubious war? How many more innocent Iraqis will be killed and maimed and made homeless? Haven't they suffered enough, after two decades of terrible wars and sanctions? Among the one billion Muslims in the world there is now a steady trickle of recruits going to Al Qaeda. You will turn the trickle into a torrent. A billion bitter enemies will rise out of this war. And out of war may rise an Iraq regime every bit as brutish as the present one. What will you do then? Our jaws drop when we read that you may decide we have to occupy Iraq for years, that the next ruler of Iraq may be...an American general! Is there anyone in this country who thinks this will work? Your odds of success are infinitesimal! The world wants Saddam Hussein disarmed. But you must find a better way to do it. Why would you lead us into a situation where we are bound to fail? You cannot keep proclaiming peace while preparing for war. You are waltzing blindfolded into what may well be a catastrophe. Pride goeth before a fall. Show the humility and compassion that led us to elect you.

War with Iraq is not inevitable. Now is the time to stop it. Speak out at your place of worship, at your business, among your friends and relatives. Make your convictions know to your Mayor and Governor and -above all-to your elected leaders in Washington.

(signed)

Edward H. Hamm, Republican Regent, former Chairman, The Northland Company * Richard S. Johnson, Founder, former CEO, Hotjobs.com * Barbara Lifflander, President, Hastings Art Ltd. * Huyler C. Held, Esq. John C. Haas, Rohm & Haas (Ret.) * Howard S. Brembeck, Found CTB Inc., Chairman, Fourth Freedom Forum * Betty B. Blauner * Peter A. Benoliel, Chairman of the Executive Committee, Quaker Chemical Corporation * Vice Admiral (ret.) John J. Shanahan * Chris Berghogg * Starr Tomczak, Attorney * George Zeo, Psy. D. * Professor Jeffrey G. Barlow, Ph.D. * Lind and Larry Black, Owners, College Park Bicycle, Inc. and Mt. Airy Bicycles, Inc. * Albert Lowe * Rober Mumford, President, Matzel and Mumford Org. * Martine REsick, Chapter President, World Federalist Assn., Pittsburgh, PA * Paul Hally, Esq. * Elizabeth Viering * Peter B. Viering, Atty. * Brenda Ungerland, M.A. LifePath * Brooks Jealous * Nancy F. Puls * Pamela Davis * Frank K. Marin, CFA, Managing Partner, Martin Capital Management, LLP Affiliations for identification only.

---

"A clique of U.S. industrialists is hell-bent to bring a fascist state to supplant our democratic government and is working closely with the fascist regime in Germany and Italy. I have had plenty of opportunity in my post in Berlin to witness how close some of our American ruling families are to the Nazi regime. They extended aid to help Fascism occupy the seat of power, and they are helping to keep it there."

- William E. Dodd, US German Ambassador 1937

3.

From: http://www.aclu.org/Privacy/Privacy.cfm?ID=11612&c=130

"Big Brother" is No Longer a Fiction, ACLU Warns in New Report

January 15, 2003

SAN FRANCISCO — The United States has now reached the point where a total "surveillance society" has become a realistic possibility, the American Civil Liberties Union warned in a report being released today.

"Many people still do not grasp that Big Brother surveillance is no longer the stuff of books and movies," said Barry Steinhardt, Director of the ACLU's Technology and Liberty Program and a co-author of the report.

"Given the capabilities of today's technology, the only thing protecting us from a full-fledged surveillance society are the legal and political institutions we have inherited as Americans," he added. "Unfortunately, the September 11 attacks have led some to embrace the fallacy that weakening the Constitution will strengthen America."

The ACLU said that its report, Bigger Monster, Weaker Chains: The Growth of an American Surveillance Society, is an attempt to step back from the daily march of stories about new surveillance programs and technologies and survey the bigger picture. The report argues that even as surveillance capacity grows like a "monster" in our midst, the legal "chains" needed to restrain that monster are being weakened. The report cites not only new technology but also erosions in protections against government spying, the increasing amount of tracking being carried out by the private sector, and the growing intersection between the two.

"From government watch lists to secret wiretaps – Americans are unknowingly becoming targets of government surveillance," said Dorothy Ehrlich, executive director of the ACLU of Northern California. "It is dangerous for a democracy that government power goes unchecked and for this reason it is imperative that our government be made accountable."

A recent illustration of the danger, according to the ACLU report, is the Pentagon's Total Information Awareness (TIA) program, which seeks to sift through a vast array of databases full of personal information in the hunt for terrorism. "Even if TIA never materializes in its current form," Steinhardt said, "what this report shows is that the underlying trends are much bigger than any one program or any one controversial figure like John Poindexter."

Steinhardt said that Americans haven't yet felt the full potential of the new technology for invading privacy because of latent inefficiencies in how government and businesses handle information. "Database inefficiencies can't be expected to protect our privacy forever," said Steinhardt. "Eventually businesses and government agencies will settle on standards for tying together information, and gain the ability to monitor many of our activities – either directly through surveillance cameras, or indirectly by analyzing the information trails we leave behind us as we go through life."

The report, by Steinhardt and Jay Stanley, Public Education Coordinator with the Technology and Liberty Program, is online at http://www.aclu.org/Privacy/Privacylist.cfm?c=39

See also:

Privacy & Technology : Government surveillance
http://www.aclu.org/Privacy/PrivacyMain.cfm

Democrats to Challenge Domestic Spying
http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/011903A.dems.fgt.spy.htm

ACLU Applauds Senate Efforts To Put a Hold On Total Information Awareness (January 16)
www.aclu.org/SafeandFree/SafeandFree.cfm?ID=11629&c=206
WASHINGTON – The American Civil Liberties Union today applauded Sen. Russell Feingold's (D-WI) for moving to prohibit the cyber-snooping program known as Total Information Awareness. "Public concern and anger about John Poindexter's Total Information Awareness program is beginning to build," said Katie Corrigan, an ACLU Legislative Counsel. "By acting swiftly, Congress can stop a program that if allowed to continue will inevitably lead to intrusive and unnecessary government surveillance of American households."

In First-Ever Ruling, Secret Appeals Court Allows Expanded Government Spying on U.S. Citizens
http://www.aclu.org/Cyber-Liberties/Cyber-Liberties.cfm?ID=11332&c=58

ACLU Asks Court to Order Government to Account for its Use of Vast New Surveillance Powers http://www.aclu.org/Privacy/Privacy.cfm?ID=11048&c=130

Ashcroft v. ACLU Challenge to Congress's Second Internet Censorship Law http://archive.aclu.org/issues/cyber/Ashcroft_v_ACLU_feature.html

How Monopoly Control of the Internet Threatens Free Speech http://archive.aclu.org/issues/cyber/broadband.html

5.

From: http://dailynews.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=573&ncid=757&e=1&u=/nm/20030117/od_nm/nude_dc

Women Bare All in the Name of Peace

January 17, 2003

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Donna Sheehan wants to stop what she believes is the U.S. military's naked aggression in Iraq by taking off her clothes and getting women across the world to do the same.

The 72-year-old California artist has recruited her friends and neighbors to use their nude bodies to spell out the words "No War" and "Peace" in protests that are drawing attention and spurring women worldwide to bare all in the name of peace.

"We are doing this from the heart and from a feeling of desperation," Sheehan said. "It is a wonderful, physical way of creating a powerful statement."

Sheehan said she receives about 25 e-mails a day from people who are interested in shedding their clothes like the Northern California women who plan a "major" protest action at an anti-war rally in San Francisco on Saturday.

Women in Montana posed nude in a snowstorm while a group in England has carried out a number of their own high-profile peace photos sans clothes. Men are also getting into the act, which Sheehan said made it necessary to change the group's name from "Unreasonable Women Baring Witness" to "Baring Witness."

"We are calling it a national spelling bee and there are actions popping up just like crop circles, mysterious here and there," Sheehan said.

Sheehan said the idea for her first protest came to her in a dream and was reinforced by the Nigerian women who threatened to disrobe last year in a fight with Chevron-Texaco over more jobs and services in their local community.

The artist eventually convinced about 50 women in her small town of Marshall just north of San Francisco to take part in the first peace photo back in November. Since then there have been two other photo shoots with women aged between 20 to 83.

6.

From: http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_740006.html

January 18, 2003

Space Centre to Screen 'Proof of UFOs'

Images claiming to be proof of alien UFOs will be shown to members of the public at the National Space Centre later this month.

Hundreds of the objects were captured on film by the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (Soho), a spacecraft a million miles from Earth observing the sun.

The glowing, saucer-shaped "craft" were apparently moving in a way that suggested intelligent control.

Nasa originally dismissed the images as being the result of a camera fault, and will not now comment on them.

But UFO investigators are convinced they are spacecraft flown by aliens.

Mike Murray, 54, a founder of the UFO group Euroseti, which is holding the exhibition at the Space Centre in Leicester, said: "Some of the pictures are real crackers. They are the archetypal flying saucers - disc-shaped objects with some kind of glow around them. Many have a pulsing light and leave a trail behind them."

Mr Murray, who has been interested in UFOs for 30 years, obtained the images from a Spanish businessmen who picked them up from Soho using a giant satellite dish at his home outside Barcelona.

Mr Murray said: "The first thing we did when we got the images was to speak to Nasa, who said it was a camera fault. But by enhancing the images we proved this wasn't the case."

He said Nasa then suggested the objects could be asteroids or comets - but this did not explain the way they appeared to move independently and make turns.

The images will be screened at the National Space Centre on the evenings of January 24, 25 and 26.

GO SEE THE AMAZING PICTURE AT http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_740006.html

SUBSCRIPTION TO THE EARTH RAINBOW NETWORK MEDIA LIST

If you would like to subscribe to the Earth Rainbow Network automated Media listserver and regularly receive similar compilations covering a broad range of subjects, please click on this SUBSCRIPTION page.

BACK TO THE FIRST HOME PAGE OF THIS SITE