whitebeard

Don't curse the darkness, light a candle.

-- 

 

posted by: Whitebeard at 10:40 | link | comments |

   Giordano Bruno

Campo dei fiori (in Rome) 17th february 1600
It is an incredible story

 He was a sensitive, imaginative poet, fired with the enthusiasm of a larger vision of a larger universe ... and he fell into the error of heretical belief. For this poets vision he was kept in a dark dungeon for eight years and then taken out to a blazing market place and roasted to death by fire.

In the year 1582, at the age of 34 he wrote a play Il Candelajo, The Chandler. He thinks as a candle-maker who works with tallow and grease and then has to go out and vend his wares with shouting and ballyhoo:

"Behold in the candle borne by this Chandler, to whom I give birth, that which shall clarify certain shadows of ideas ... I need not instruct you of my belief. Time gives all and takes all away; everything changes but nothing perishes. One only is immutable, eternal and ever endures, one and the same with itself. With this philosophy my spirit grows, my mind expands. Whereof, however obscure the night may be, I await the daybreak, and they who dwell in day look for night ... Rejoice therefore, and keep whole, if you can, and return love for love."

In his book De la Causa, principio et uno, On Cause, Principle, and Unity we find prophetic phrases:

"This entire globe, this star, not being subject to death, and dissolution and annihilation being impossible anywhere in Nature, from time to time renews itself by changing and altering all its parts. There is no absolute up or down, as Aristotle taught; no absolute position in space; but the position of a body is relative to that of other bodies. Everywhere there is incessant relative change in position throughout the universe, and the observer is always at the center of things."

found here

On January 20 of the first year of the new century Pope Clement VIII ordered that Bruno be handed over to secular authorities for punishment. Sentence is read on February 8th: Bruno is declared an impenitent, obstinate and pertinacious heretic, to be stripped of priesthood and expelled from the Church, and his works to be publicly burned at the steps of St Peters and placed on the Index of Forbidden Books. Bruno replies: "Perhaps you who pronounce my sentence are in greater fear than I who receive it."

Execution is delayed, why we do not know. At dawn on the 17th, Bruno is taken to the Campo dei Fiori, looking emaciated and broken. Even in his last moments on earth the church does not leave him alone. A company of monks from S. Giovanni Decollato accompany him, chanting, exhorting him till the last moment to abandon his heretical beliefs. Before the pyre is lit a monk offers him a crucifix to kiss. Bruno turns his head away angrily. He says he dies willingly, as a martyr, and that his soul will rise with the fire to paradise. He is stripped naked, tied to a stake, and burned alive, while the cantors sing continuous litanies.
found here

 

posted by: Whitebeard at 17:49 | link | comments |

 Did you sign

For Giuliana Sgrena and Florence Aubenas?

www.petitionspot.com/petitions/freevoicesfreedom

posted by: Whitebeard at 08:37 | link | comments |

The new Not In Our Name statement
continues to grow as a national repudiation of the whole Bush program.

Next Tuesday the statement will appear as a full page in the Los Angeles Times! If you have not yet signed the statement, please go to www.nion.us and do so, and forward this message to your friends.

In addition to mass circulation newspapers, we are seeking your ideas for where else the statement could be published. For example, there are publications that reach special audiences, such as scientists, artists, or legal workers.

Where would you like to see the statement published next? And can you help organize the publication in that venue? Please send your suggestions to nion@cloud9.net.

The Not In Our Name statement has no organizational sponsor; it is the joint effort of all of us who want to make our voices heard. Thus we alone are the source of financial support. Each of us can contribute by credit card on the internet at www.nion.us, to make this movement grow and resound. 

posted by: Whitebeard at 17:49 | link | comments |

A signature, please

Dear friends I would like to invite all of you to put your signatures on the
petition for the release of the two women journalists kiddnapped in Baghdad:
Giuliana Sgrena and Florance Aubenas, two important voices of truth.

Please link the petition to your websites.

Somos movimientos e asociaciones que en todo el mundo luchamos contra la
guerra y por terminar la ocupación y pedimos la inmediata liberación de
Giuliana y Florence
En tant que mouvements et associations qui se battent dans le monde
entier contre la guerre et pour la fin de l'occupation, nous réclamons leur
immédiate libération.
As movements and associations active all over the world in the struggle
against the war and to put an end to the occupation, we demand their
immediate release.

For Giuliana Sgrena and Florence Aubenas.

You'll find here

www.petitionspot.com/petitions/freevoicesfreedom

Thank to all of you

Thank to all of you

posted by: Whitebeard at 22:43 | link | comments |

Salvador Option

By any standard, the ongoing American occupation of Iraq is a disaster. The highly vaunted US military machine, laurelled and praised for its historic march on Baghdad in March and April of 2003, today finds itself a broken force, on the defensive in a land that it may occupy in part, but does not control. The all-out offensive to break the back of the resistance in Falluja has failed, leaving a city destroyed by American firepower, and still very much in the grips of the anti- American fighters.

...According to press accounts, the Pentagon is considering the organisation, training and equipping of so-called death squads, teams of Iraqi assassins who would be used to infiltrate and eliminate the leadership of the Iraqi resistance.

...Called the Salvador Option, in reference to similar US-backed death squads that terrorised the population of El Salvador during the 1980s, the proposed plan actually has as its roots the Phoenix assassination programme undertaken during the Vietnam war, where American-led assassins killed thousands of known or suspected Vietcong collaborators.

Having started the game of politically motivated assassination, the US has once again found itself trumped by forces inside Iraq it does not understand, and as such will never be able to defeat.

The Salvador Option fails on a number of levels. First and foremost is the moral and ethical one.

While it is difficult at times to understand and comprehend, let alone justify, the tactics used by the Iraqi resistance, history has shown that the tools of remote ambush, instead of a direct assassination, have always been used by freedom fighters when confronting an illegitimate foreign occupier who possesses overwhelming conventional military superiority.

And history will condemn the immorality of the American occupation, which has debased the values and ideals of the American people by legitimising torture, rape and murder as a means of furthering an illegal war of aggression.

Ethics aside, the Salvador Option will fail simply because it cannot succeed.

It is hard as an American to support the failure of American military operations in Iraq. Such failure will bring with it the death and wounding of many American service members, and many more Iraqis.

As an American, I have hoped that there was a way for America to emerge victorious in Iraq, with our national security and honour intact, and Iraq itself a better nation than the one we "liberated". But it is far too late for this to happen. We not only invaded Iraq on false pretences, but we perverted the notion of liberation by removing Saddam and his cronies from his palaces, replacing them with American occupiers who have not only kept open Saddam's most notorious prisons, but also the practice of torture, rape and abuse we were supposed to be bringing to an end.

As an American, I hope and pray that common sense and basic morality prevail in Washington DC, terminating the Salvador Option before it gets off the ground. Failing that, I hope that the programme of US-backed death squads is defeated. That is the most pro-American sentiment I can muster, given the situation as it currently stands.

The Salvador Option   
     
.........  by Scott Ritter  January 25, 2005  

Scott Ritter was a senior UN arms inspector in Iraq between 1991 and 1998. He is now an independent consultant. 
Bravo, Scott. Courage, american people!
 

posted by: Whitebeard at 23:44 | link | comments |

Giuliana here

Video

posted by: Whitebeard at 09:39 | link | comments |

Giuliana Sgrena

           

What about her?              I told to you;  It's not Honduras

posted by: Whitebeard at 21:38 | link | comments |

 

STATEMENTS OF CONSCIENCE

Yesterday 3th of february 2005 in the San Francisco Chronicle

 Not In Our Name

As George W. Bush is inaugurated for a second term, let it not be said that people in the United States silently acquiesced in the face of this shameful coronation of war, greed, and intolerance. He does not speak for us. He does not represent us. He does not act in our name.

 

No election, whether fair or fraudulent, can legitimize criminal wars on foreign countries, torture, the wholesale violation of human rights, and the end of science and reason.

 

In our name, the Bush government justifies the invasion and occupation of Iraq on false pretenses, raining down destruction, horror, and misery, bringing death to more than 100,000 Iraqis. It sends our youth to destroy entire cities for the sake of so-called democratic elections, while intimidating and disenfranchising thousands of African American and other voters at home.

 

In our name, the Bush government holds in contempt international law and world opinion. It carries out torture and detentions without trial around the world and proposes new assaults on our rights of privacy, speech and assembly at home. It strips the rights of Arabs, Muslims and South Asians in the U.S., denies them legal counsel, stigmatizes and holds them without cause. Thousands have been deported.

 

As new trial balloons are floated about invasions of Syria, or Iran, or North Korea, about leaving the United Nations, about new “lifetime detention” policies, we say not in our name will we allow further crimes to be committed against nations or individuals deemed to stand in the way of the goal of unquestioned world supremacy.

 

Could we have imagined a few years ago that core principles such as the separation of church and state, due process, presumption of innocence, freedom of speech, and habeas corpus would be discarded so easily? Now, anyone can be declared an “enemy combatant” without meaningful redress or independent review by a President who is concentrating power in the executive branch. His choice for Attorney General is the legal architect of the torture that has been carried out in Guantánamo, Afghanistan, and Abu Ghraib.

 

The Bush government seeks to impose a narrow, intolerant, and political form of Christian fundamentalism as government policy. No longer on the margins of power, this extremist movement aims to strip women of their reproductive rights, to stoke hatred of gays and lesbians, and to drive a wedge between spiritual experience and scientific truth. We will not surrender to extremists our right to think. AIDS is not a punishment from God. Global warming is a real danger. Evolution happened. All people must be free to find meaning and sustenance in whatever form of religious or spiritual belief they choose. But religion can never be compulsory. These extremists may claim to make their own reality, but we will not allow them to make ours.

 

Millions of us worked, talked, marched, poll watched, contributed, voted, and did everything we could to defeat the Bush regime in the last election. This unprecedented effort brought forth new energy, organization, and commitment to struggle for justice. It would be a terrible mistake to let our failure to stop Bush in these ways lead to despair and inaction. On the contrary, this broad mobilization of people committed to a fairer, freer, more peaceful world must move forward. We cannot, we will not, wait until 2008. The fight against the second Bush regime has to start now.

 

The movement against the war in Vietnam never won a presidential election. But it blocked troop trains, closed induction centers, marched, spoke to people door to door -- and it helped to stop a war. The Civil Rights Movement never tied its star to a presidential candidate; it sat in, freedom rode, fought legal battles, filled jailhouses -- and changed the face of a nation.

 

We must change the political reality of this country by mobilizing the tens of millions who know in their heads and hearts that the Bush regime’s “reality” is nothing but a nightmare for humanity. This will require creativity, mass actions and individual moments of courage. We must come together whenever we can, and we must act alone whenever we have to.

 

We draw inspiration from the soldiers who have refused to fight in this immoral war. We applaud the librarians who have refused to turn over lists of our reading, the high school students who have demanded to be taught evolution, those who brought to light torture by the U.S. military, and the massive protests that voiced international opposition to the war on Iraq. We affirm ordinary people undertaking extraordinary acts. We pledge to create community to back courageous acts of resistance. We stand with the people throughout the world who fight every day for the right to create their own future.

 

It is our responsibility to stop the Bush regime from carrying out this disastrous course. We believe history will judge us sharply should we fail to act decisively.

 

 

Over 11,000 people have now signed this statement. Among the initial signers are:

 

James Abourezk, former U.S. senator

Janet Abu-Lughod, professor emerita, New School

As`ad AbuKhalil, California State University, Stanislaus

Michael Albert

Edward Asner

Ti-Grace Atkinson

Michael Avery, president, National Lawyers Guild

Russell Banks

Amiri Baraka

Rosalyn Baxandall, chair, American Studies/Media and Communications, State University of New York at Old Westbury

Medea Benjamin, cofounder of Global Exchange and Code Pink

Phyllis Bennis

Larry Bensky, Pacifica radio

Michael Berg

Terry Bisson

Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen

William Blum, author, US foreign policy

St. Clair Bourne

Judith Butler, author and professor, University of California at Berkeley

Julia Butterfly, director, Circle of Life Foundation

Leslie Cagan, national coordinator, United for Peace and Justice

Kathleen & Henry Chalfant

Noam Chomsky, MIT

Ramsey Clark, former U.S. Attorney-General

Marilyn Clement, nat’l coordinator, Campaign for a National Health Program NOW

Robbie Conal, artist

Peter Coyote

John Cusack

Angela Davis

Diane di Prima, poet

Ronnie Dugger, co-founder, Alliance for Democracy

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

Michael Eric Dyson

Nora Eisenberg, author of War at Home and Just the Way You Want Me

Daniel Ellsberg, former Defense and State Department official

Kathy Engel

Eve Ensler

Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Laura Flanders

Carolyn Forché

Michael Franti

Su Friedrich

Boo Froebel

Nancy Garden

Peter Gerety

Jorie Graham, Harvard University

André Gregory

Jessica Hagedorn, writer

Suheir Hammad

Sam Hamill, Poets Against the War

Danny Hoch, playwright/actor

Marie Howe

Abdeen M. Jabara, past president, American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee

Jim Jarmusch, filmmaker

Bill T. Jones

Rickie Lee Jones

David Kazanjian

Barbara Kingsolver

C. Clark Kissinger, Refuse & Resist!

Evelyn Fox Keller, Professor of History of Science, MIT

Hans Koning, writer

David Korn

David C. Korten

Rabbi Michael Lerner, editor, TIKKUN magazine & Rabbi, Beyt Tikkun Synagogue , SF

Phil Lesh, Grateful Dead

Staughton Lynd

Reynaldo F. Macías, chair, National Association for Chicana & Chicano Studies

Karen Malpede

Dave Marsh

Maryknoll Sisters, Western Region

Jim McDermott, Member of Congress, State of Washington

Robert Meeropol, executive director, Rosenberg Fund for Children

Ann Messner

Robin Morgan, author and activist

Walter Mosley

Wayne Nafziger

Jill Nelson, writer

Odetta

Rosalind Petchesky, Distinguished Professor of Political Science, Hunter College & the Graduate Center - CUNY

Jeremy Pikser, screenwriter (Bulworth)

Frances Fox Piven

James Stewart Polshek, architect

William Pope L

Francine Prose

Jerry Quickley, poet

Michael Ratner, president, Center for Constitutional Rights

David Riker, filmmaker

Larry Robinson, mayor of Sebastopol, CA

Stephen Rohde, civil liberties lawyer

Matthew Rothschild, editor, The Progressive magazine

Luc Sante

James Schamus

Peter Dale Scott

Roberta Segal-Sklar, communications director, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force

Frank Serpico

Betty Shamieh

Wallace Shawn

Gregory Sholette

Zach Sklar

Peter Sollett

Starhawk

Tony Taccone

Grace Tsao

Alice Walker

Naomi Wallace

Immanuel Wallerstein

Leonard Weinglass

Peter Weiss, president, Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy

Cornel West

C.K. Williams, poet, Princeton University

Saul Williams

Krzysztof Wodiczko, director, Center for Advanced Visual Studies, MIT

Damian Woetzel, principal dancer, New York City Ballet

David Zeiger, Displaced Films

Zephyr

Howard Zinn, historian

 

(for a more complete list of signers, click here for A-K and here for L-Z)

 

* * *

 

You may sign this statement on this web site at http://www.nion.us/READ_AND_SIGN.htm. You may also e-mail your name, how you would like to be identified and your state of residence to sign@nion.us. (Personal contact information will not be shared or utilized for any other purpose.)

 

The suggested financial contribution is $200, but larger contributions are encouraged. Please contribute through Pay Pal at the www.nion.us web site. Checks should be made out to Not In Our Name and mailed to Not In Our Name, 305 W. Broadway, #199, New York, NY 10013. If you are mailing a check, please let us know by e-mail so we know how much newspaper space we can reserve.

 

 Bravi! This the american way of life, of safety. 

posted by: Whitebeard at 19:04 | link | comments |

Media Fairyland
The Us Media Is Creating A World Of Make Believe
  
     
.........  by George Monbiot  January 19, 2005  
  Guardian Printer Friendly Version
EMail Article to a Friend   
 
  On Thursday, the fairy king of fairyland will be re-crowned. He was elected on a platform suspended in mid air by the power of imagination. He is the leader of a band of men who walk through ghostly realms unvisited by reality. And he remains the most powerful person on earth.
 
...take a look at two squalid little stories which have been concluded over the past ten days.

Cast a look

 Support Our Troops: Bring Them Home   
     
.........  by Howard Zinn  January 26, 2005  
  The Miami Herald  Printer Friendly Version
EMail Article to a Friend   
 
  We must withdraw our military from Iraq, the sooner the better. The reason is simple: Our presence there is a disaster for the American people and an even bigger disaster for the Iraqi people.

 ...
Our military presence in Iraq is making us less safe, not more so. It is inflaming people in the Middle East, and thereby magnifying the danger of terrorism. Far from fighting 'there rather than here,' as President Bush has claimed, the occupation increases the chance that enraged infiltrators will strike us here at home.

 

In leaving, we can improve the odds of peace and stability by encouraging an international team of negotiators, largely Arab, to mediate among the Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds and work out a federalist compromise to give some autonomy to each group. We must not underestimate the capacity of the Iraqis, once free of both Saddam Chasseing and the U.S. occupying army, to forge their own future.

 

But the first step is to support our troops in the only way that word support can have real meaning -- by saving their lives, their limbs, their sanity. By bringing them home.

Howard Zinn is author of the best-selling A People's History of the United States.

The article

 

posted by: Whitebeard at 23:01 | link | comments |