Thursday, March 31, 2005

Advance Directives

“In this political climate, with this kind of thing going on in Congress, everyone must take steps to protect themselves—making advance directives, documenting their wishes, making sure their loved ones know about them. The greatest fear of our constituents is that other people—complete strangers—will make end-of-life decisions for them. And God forbid that it be politicians.”

—Barbara Coombs Lee, co-CEO of Compassion & Choices.

We're here

posted by: Whitebeard at 09:32 | link | comments |

Wednesday, March 23, 2005

Should the federal government intervene to restore the feeding tube for Terri Schiavo?

Yes 19.29 % (173)

No 77.26 % (693)

Not Sure 3.46 % (31)

Total votes: 897
We allow one vote per day

Here

"People who are suffering badly because of a terminally illness have been denied their right to a dignified death for too long.

We must Act Now to stop this cruel injustice – please help by sending a message below."

posted by: Whitebeard at 18:10 | link | comments |

Tuesday, March 22, 2005

Divertissement

turkey pardoning
The best allegory for New Racism is the tradition of "turkey pardoning" in the United States. Every year since 1947, the National Turkey Federation has presented the US President with a turkey for Thanksgiving. Every year, in a show of ceremonial magnanimity, the President spares that particular bird (and eats another one). After receiving the presidential pardon, the Chosen One is sent to Frying Pan Park in Virginia to live out its natural life. The rest of the 50 million turkeys raised for Thanksgiving are slaughtered and eaten on Thanksgiving Day. ConAgra Foods, the company that has won the Presidential Turkey contract, says it trains the lucky birds to be sociable, to interact with dignitaries, school children and the press. (Soon they’ll even speak English!)

That’s how New Racism in the corporate era works. A few carefully bred turkeys – the local elites of various countries, a community of wealthy immigrants, investment bankers, the occasional Colin Powell or Condoleezza Rice, some singers, some writers (like myself) – are given absolution and a pass to Frying Pan Park. The remaining millions lose their jobs, are evicted from their homes, have their water and electricity connections cut, and die of AIDS. Basically they’re for the pot. But the Fortunate Fowls in Frying Pan Park are doing fine. Some of them even work for the IMF and the WTO – so who can accuse those organizations of being antiturkey? Some serve as board members on the Turkey Choosing Committee – so who can say that turkeys are against Thanksgiving? They participate in it! Who can say the poor are anti-corporate globalization? There’s a stampede to get into Frying Pan Park. So what if most perish on the way?

Arundhati Roy

Found here

posted by: Whitebeard at 16:28 | link | comments |

Saturday, March 19, 2005

push the candle

posted by: Whitebeard at 18:20 | link | comments |

Web
Google 1 - 10 on about 1.050.000 for 19th march against war.

United for Peace and Justice -
... the US invasion of Iraq (March 19th), the Church would like to voice its
peaceful presence. ... March against war and occupation / post-demo conference ...
www.unitedforpeace.org/ - 54k - 17 mar 2005 -

March 19th Anarchist March Against War : SF Bay Area Indymedia
... ANARCHIST ACTION AGAINST WAR & EMPIRE On March 19th and 20th 2005, people
across the world will march to commemorate the invasion of Iraq two years ago, ...
www.indybay.org/news/2005/03/1726178.php - 33k - 18 mar 2005 -

Stop the War Coalition - [ Traduci questa pagina ]
... Military Families Against the War. MFAW members are relatives and loved ones
... to you to urge to you attend the demonstration on March 19th. continued ...
www.stopwar.org.uk/ - 14k - 17 mar 2005 -

Chicago Coalition Against War and Racism -

... The March 19th Chicago Coalition has been in a protracted permit fight with
... Chicago Independent Media Center, Chicagoans Against War & Injustice, ...
www.chicagoantiwar.org/ - 15k -

March 19th Seattle - War Costs, Who Pays? -

... MARCH 19, 2005 RALLY AT NOON SEATTLE CENTER. BRING THE TROOPS HOME NOW! ...
SCCC Students Against War The Seattle Community Colleges Federation of ...
www.march19.info/ - 5k - 17 mar 2005 - Copia cache - Pagine simili

PGA call against war proffiteers on March 19th, & 20th : Houston ... -

... We call for actions to be carried out against war profiteers on and around
March 19th, and for information on war profiteers to be passed on throughout ...
houston.indymedia.org/news/2005/02/37439.php - 21k - Copia cache - Pagine simili

demandmedia || Manchester Organises for March 19th Global ... -

Manchester Organises for March 19th Global Demonstration Against War ... for the
global demonstration on March 19th 2005 against the occupation of Iraq. ...
demandmedia.net/story/2005/2/12/13024/2375 - 18k - 18 mar 2005 - Copia cache - Pagine simili

Iraq Veterans Against the War -

National Anti-War Rally and IVAW Meeting March 19th and 20th, 2005 Fayetteville,
North Carolina. Join us in the home of Fort Bragg for a weekend of ...
www.ivaw.net/ - 8k - 17 mar 2005 - Copia cache - Pagine simili

No War -

... 19th March is the second anniversary of the start of the war against Iraq.
A war, justified using false arguments, which has reduced the country to ...
www.motherearth.org/nowar/en/home_en.php - 26k - 18 mar 2005 - Copia cache - Pagine simili

ISR :: YOUTH AGAINST THE WAR -

... Stop the War demonstration - 19th March Central London ... The school strikes
against the war on Iraq in March 2003 showed the huge amount of anger ...
www.anticapitalism.org.uk/antiwar/ - 42k - Copia cache - Pagine simili

posted by: Whitebeard at 17:51 | link | comments |

Tuesday, March 15, 2005

American people, wake up, hurry up and go to Rohnert Park

We want this meeting being broadcast in Worldvision: is it possible?

Author of "Crossing the Rubicon," Michael Ruppert Comes to Sonoma State University

Sonoma State University welcomes controversial author of "Crossing the Rubicon" and contributor to "From the Wilderness," Michael Ruppert on Tuesday, March 15th at 7pm in the Cooperage.

Mike Ruppert is the publisher/editor of "From the Wilderness," a newsletter read by more than 16,000 subscribers in 40 countries. A former LAPD narcotics investigator, he is widely known for his groundbreaking stories on US involvement in the drug trade, Peak Oil and 9/11.

In his most recent book, Ruppert delves into the details of the attacks of September 11, 2001. His book claims that 9/11 attacks were accomplished through an amazing orchestration of logistics and personnel with mastermind Dick Cheney behind it all. Crossing the Rubicon discovers and identifies key suspects - finding some of them in the highest echelons of American government - by showing how they acted in concert to guarantee that the attacks produced the desired result. Crossing the Rubicon is unique not only for its case-breaking examination of 9/11, but for the breadth and depth of its world picture - an interdisciplinary analysis of petroleum, geopolitics, narco-traffic, intelligence and militarism - without which 9/11 cannot be understood. Crossing the Rubicon is more than a story. It is a map of the perilous terrain through which, together and alone, we are all now making our way.

Bold, extreme, radical or accurate; no matter what you think you know, Michael Ruppert's talk will blow your ideology out of the water and leave you questioning everything you thought you knew. Michael Ruppert's talk is on Tuesday, March 15th at 7pm in the Cooperage. FREE for Sonoma State Students and $7 general admission. Tickets are available at the Student Union front desk. For more information visit www.sonoma.edu/as/asp/ or call 664-2382. Sponsored by Associated Students Production and the Student Union.

--

Peter Phillips Ph.D.
Sociology Department/Project Censored
Sonoma State University
1801 East Cotati Ave.
Rohnert Park, CA 94928
707-664-2588
http://www.projectcensored.org/

posted by: Whitebeard at 08:23 | link | comments |

Friday, March 11, 2005

Que viva New Mexico

--"instant engagement anywhere" or unannounced destruction of any place on earth.

If you can imagine some rational observers from Mars looking at this curious species down here, I don't think they'd put very high odds on survival--another generation or two. In fact, it's kind of miraculous that we've come along this far.

New Mexico is one of the centers where this potential destruction of the species is taking place.

Cast a glance

posted by: Whitebeard at 10:00 | link | comments |

   "I'm still in the dark.
That of Friday has been the most dramatic
     day of my life. It had been many a days that I had been
     kidnapped. I had spoken only a short while ago with my
     kidnappers that had been saying since many days they would let
     me free. And so I was passing hours in the waiting. They talked
     of things whose importance I would realise only later. They
     talked of problems that 'had to do with the transferring'."

Sgrena: This is the truth

posted by: Whitebeard at 09:28 | link | comments |

Tuesday, March 08, 2005

Invest in

not in

http://www.globalwomenstrike.net/

posted by: Whitebeard at 09:11 | link | comments |

Sunday, March 06, 2005

- Dear american people, what are you waiting for? -

Threshold Fears and Unanswered Questions about 9/11
By Peter Phillips

For many Americans, there is a deep psychological desire for the 9/11 tragedy to be over. The shock of the day is well remembered and terrorist alerts from Homeland Security serve to maintain lasting tensions and fears. The 9/11 Commission report gave many a sense of partial healing and completion - especially given the corporate media's high praise of the report. There is a natural resistance to naysayers who continue to question the US government's version of what happened on September 11, 2001. This resistance is rooted in our tendency towards the inability to conceive of people we know as evil; instead evil ones must be others, very unlike ourselves.

We all remember, as young children, scary locations that created deep fears. We might imagine monsters in the closet, dangers in a nighttime backyard, and creepy people in some abandoned house down the street. As we get older we build up the courage to open the closet, or walk out into the backyard to smell the night air. As adults there are still dark closets in our socio-cultural consciousness that make it impossible to even consider the possibility of the truthfulness of certain ideas. These fearful ideas might be described as threshold concepts in that they may be on the borders of discoverability, yet we deny even the potentiality of implied veracity - something is so evil it is completely unimaginable.

A threshold concept facing Americans is the possibility that the 9/11 Commission Report was on many levels a cover-up for the failure of the US government to prevent the tragedy. Deeper past the threshold is the idea that the report failed to address sources of external assistance to the terrorists. Investigations into this area might have lead to a conclusion that elements of various governments - including our own - not only knew about the attacks in advance, but also may have helped facilitate their implementation. The idea that someone in the Government of the United States contributed support to such a horrific attack is inconceivable to many. It is a threshold concept that is so frightening that it brings up a state of mind akin to complete unbelievability.

Philosophy/Religion professor David Ray Griffin has recently published his findings on the omissions and distortions of the 9/11 Commission report. Griffin's book brings into question the completeness and authenticity of the 9/11 Commission's work. Griffin questions why extensive advanced warnings from several countries were not acted upon by the administration, how a major institutional investor knew to buy put-options on American and United Airlines before the attack, and why photos of the Pentagon immediately after the attack show damage inconsistent with a crash of a 757 airliner.

Additionally, Griffin notes questions remain on why the 9/11 Commission failed to address the reports that $100,000 was wired to Mohamed Atta from Saeed Sheikh, an agent for Pakistan's Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI), under the direction of the head of ISI General Mahmud Ahmed. General Ahmed resigned his position less than one month later. The Times of India reported that Indian intelligence had given US officials evidence of the money transfer ordered by Ahmad and he was dismissed after the "US authorities sought his removal."

Also, the 9/11 Commission report failed to address the reasons for the collapse of World Trade Center (WTC) building 7 more than six hours after the attack. WTC-7 was a 47-story steel frame building that had only small fires on a few floors. WTC buildings 5 & 6 had much larger fires and did not collapse. This has led a number of critics to speculate that WTC 7 was a planned demolition.

Overall concerns with the official version of 9/11 have been published and discussed by scholars and writers around the world including: Jim Mars, Nafeez Ahmed, Michael Ruppert, Cynthia McKinney, Barrie Zwicker, Webster Tarpley, Michel Chossudovsky and many others. The response to most has been to label these discussions as conspiracy theories unworthy of media coverage or further review. Pursuit of a critical analysis of these questions is undermined by the psychological barrier about 9/11 issues as threshold concepts - too awful to even consider.

We may be on the borders of discovery regarding the possibility of a great evil within our own government, and perhaps others outside as well. We must step past the threshold and have the courage to ask the questions, demand answers, and support research into all aspects of this American tragedy. Perhaps the closet isn't as dark and as fearful as we envision. If we don't courageously look and search into the deepest regions of our fears how can we assure our children and ourselves a safe and honest future?

Peter Phillips is a Professor of Sociology at Sonoma State University and Director of Project Censored a media research organization.
David Ray Griffin's book "The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions" is available from Olive Branch Press.

--

Peter Phillips Ph.D.
Sociology Department/Project Censored
Sonoma State University
1801 East Cotati Ave.
Rohnert Park, CA 94928
707-664-2588
http://www.projectcensored.org/

posted by: Whitebeard at 08:16 | link | comments |

Friday, March 04, 2005

European Jews for a Just Peace – Executive Committee

Singelkanaal 140/142, Amsterdam

Letter to the Government of Italy,

from European Jews for a Just Peace:

To the Honourable

Silvio Berlusconi, Prime Minister of the Government of the Republic of Italy.

Honourable Prime Minister,

We, European Jews for a Just Peace, a Federation of Associations of citizens of several European States, most of which are members of the European Union, are worried to learn that the Italian Government decided to establish a military co-operation with Israel. Such co-operation includes the development of new weapons and military electronic devices, the training of military personnel and armaments trade.

We strongly object to such an agreement between Italy and Israel, on both ethical and political grounds.

According to international law, Israel is culpable, since many years, of continuous violations of the most basic of human rights. The military occupation, since 1967, of the territory on which the Palestinian State should be established, according to UN decision, and the uninterrupted establishment of Israeli settlements in those Territories, are against internationally established rules, to which Israel is itself subscribed.

A wall is being built, mostly in Palestinian territory, which often separates villages from their own cultivated land, depriving Palestinian farmers of their livelihood. The construction of the wall, condemned by the International Court of Justice, takes away a considerable part of Palestinian territory. Oppressive methods employed against Palestinians have included retaliation against relatives of Palestinian opponents and resistance fighters, not only of the terrorists, destruction of houses and of cultivated crops, subtraction of water from Palestinian population, indiscriminate killing of civilians, including women and children. Palestinian schools are prevented from functioning, public health structures cannot perform their duties and civilians are prevented from moving around by Israeli military checkpoints. Roads, built to connect Israeli illegal settlements, are forbidden to Palestinians. In Israel itself, citizens of Arab descent and/or Islamic religion are very heavily discriminated against for what regards most basic rights.

Such deeds are against international laws, and Israel is responsible of criminal violations. In such conditions, we believe we should object, from an ethical point of view, to any military co-operation with Israel; besides this, we think such a co-operation to be politically insane and against international rules. We believe that increasing the amount of weapons in the region does not help the difficult peace process between Israelis and Palestinians. We urge you, Mister Prime Minister, to take action to abolish the treaty of military co-operation between Italy and Israel.

On behalf of the Executive Committee of European Jews for a Just Peace,

Paola Canarutto – c. Lecce 52 – 10143 Torino (Italy)

Liliane Cordova Kaczerginski

Dror Feiler
Sveva Haertter

Dan Judelson

Marcel Stelzer

Daniela Fariba Vorburger

Max Wieselmann

January the 19^th, 2005

posted by: Whitebeard at 11:05 | link | comments |

Tuesday, March 01, 2005

Fallujah: the truth at last

Doctor Salam Ismael took aid to Fallujah last month. This is his story of how the US murdered a city

IT WAS the smell that first hit me, a smell that is difficult to describe, and one that will never leave me. It was the smell of death. Hundreds of corpses were decomposing in the houses, gardens and streets of Fallujah. Bodies were rotting where they had fallen—bodies of men, women and children, many half-eaten by wild dogs.

A wave of hate had wiped out two-thirds of the town, destroying houses and mosques, schools and clinics. This was the terrible and frightening power of the US military assault.

The accounts I heard over the next few days will live with me forever. You may think you know what happened in Fallujah. But the truth is worse than you could possibly have imagined.

In Saqlawiya, one of the makeshift refugee camps that surround Fallujah, we found a 17 year old woman. “I am Hudda Fawzi Salam Issawi from the Jolan district of Fallujah,” she told me. “Five of us, including a 55 year old neighbour, were trapped together in our house in Fallujah when the siege began.

“On 9 November American marines came to our house. My father and the neighbour went to the door to meet them. We were not fighters. We thought we had nothing to fear. I ran into the kitchen to put on my veil, since men were going to enter our house and it would be wrong for them to see me with my hair uncovered.

“This saved my life. As my father and neighbour approached the door, the Americans opened fire on them. They died instantly.

“Me and my 13 year old brother hid in the kitchen behind the fridge. The soldiers came into the house and caught my older sister. They beat her. Then they shot her. But they did not see me. Soon they left, but not before they had destroyed our furniture and stolen the money from my father’s pocket.”

Hudda told me how she comforted her dying sister by reading verses from the Koran. After four hours her sister died. For three days Hudda and her brother stayed with their murdered relatives. But they were thirsty and had only a few dates to eat. They feared the troops would return and decided to try to flee the city. But they were spotted by a US sniper.

follows here with photos