Page Zero 3/25: Stiglitz Warns of Violence If Wolfowitz

My friend here at RIDES, Marty, puts together a weekly news bulleton:

> From: "Martin Dooley"
>
> MARCH 19/20 ANTIWAR ACTION REPORTS FROM HUNDREDS
> OF CITIES
> http://www.pephost.org/site/R?i=F_x252h_cw-72suC2Mm5YQ..
>
> ZNet Commentary
> The Normalization of Torture, Death Squads and
> Contempt for the Rule of Law March 19, 2005
> By Edward Herman
> http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2005-03/18herman.cfm
>
> World Bank Workers Reject Wolfowitz
> http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/031905D.shtml

See Ilana's response I will post in the comments. (Ilana is my sister who works at the World Bank.)

>
> ZNet Commentary
> Harassment Laws March 20, 2005
> By George Monbiot
>
> It was the greatest legal victory against
> corporate power in living memory. Last week, two
> penniless activists, Dave Morris and Helen Steel,
> persuaded the European Court of Human Rights that
> Britain's libel laws, under which they had been sued
> by McDonald's, had denied them their right of free
> speech. The law will probably have to be changed, depriving the
> rich and
> powerful of their most effective means of stifling public protest.
> So why
> aren't they hopping mad about it? The company which sued Dave and
> Helen will
> say only that "the world has moved on ... and so has
> McDonald's."(1) The
> Confederation of British Industry, so quick to denounce the legal
> rulings it
> doesn't like, hasn't uttered a word. They don't care, and they
> don't need
> to. You can see why by reading the Serious Organised Crime and
> Police Bill,
> which has now passed through the Commons for the third time. What
> civil law
> once gave them, criminal law now offers instead. The law is left
> wide open:
> there is nothing in it to prevent a company from seeking an
> injunction and
> damages against someone who has handed out leaflets to two of its
> customers.
> To demonstrate harassment, it needs to show that the protester's
> conduct has
> caused its customers "alarm or distress": but again the law grants
> it as
> much scope as it could ask for. This bill, like the 1997 Protection
> from
> Harassment Act, fails to distinguish between the manner in which
> information
> might be presented, and the information itself. If you stood
> outside a
> chemist's shop, telling people that one of the drugs they were
> using caused
> mutations in human foetuses, you would be alarming or distressing
> them even
> if you behaved with the greatest courtesy. The bill goes on
> (sections 122
> and 123) to redefine harassing someone in his home in such a way as
> to
> permit the police to ban all protest in a residential area. Under
> the bill
> you don't have to go knocking on someone's door to merit a year
> inside and a
> £2500 fine. You merely need to represent to "another individual"
> (ie
> anyone) "in the vicinity" of someone else's home, "that he should
> not do
> something that he is entitled or required to do; or that he should
> do
> something that he is not under any obligation to do". Which is, of
> course,
> the purpose of protest.
> http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2005-03/08monbiot.cfm
>
> NY REVIEW OF BOOKS
> The Real Afghanistan
> By Pankaj Mishra
> http://www.nybooks.com/articles/17787
>
> Protests in US, Europe as Bush Defends Iraq War
> http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/032005B.shtml
>
> Oil Drilling In Alaska
> Richard Lott
> Civil Engineer "They're drilling in the Alaskan wilderness? That's
> too bad.
> Someone really ought to look into passing laws to put such places
> under
> federal protection so this doesn't happen again."
> Cecelia Mayo
> Systems Analyst "This can't be true. Bush described himself as an
> environmental guardian last fall, and I've seen photos of him
> standing in
> front of trees."
> Angel Macias
> Lifeguard "At least now we'll see the area destroyed in 10 short
> years
> instead of watching global warming do it over a painful, drawn-out
> 40."
> Ted Bonner
> Locksmith "What I don't get is why this counts as 'a victory for
> the energy
> lobby' instead of 'a loss for the country at large.'"
> Floyd Holden
> Author "But... but where will there be pristine and untouched
> wonders left
> for me to drive my GMC Yukon through?"
> http://www.theonion.com/index.php?pre=1
>
> The Return Of Latin America's Left
> by Alvaro Vargas Llosa, The New York Times
> There's a new pragmatic left ascending in Latin America, and
> it's a
> great opportunity for reform.
> http://www.tompaine.com/opinion/#004178
>
> Remembering Romero
> by Mark Engler, TomPaine.com
> Archbishop Oscar Romero was murdered 25 years ago today as
> part of the
> original 'Salvador Option.'
> http://www.tompaine.com/articles/remembering_romero.php
>
> Strange Bedfellows Unite to Fight Patriot Act
> http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/032305G.shtml
>
> SEC may sue Perle over Hollinger
> http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20050324/RPERLE24/TPBusiness/Canadian
> By OTIS BILODEAU AND PETER ROBISON
> Thursday, March 24, 2005 PageB3 Bloomberg, with files from staff
> According to an investigation by a special committee of Hollinger
> International's board last year, Mr. Perle admitted that he signed
> off on
> many of the transactions without reading the documents. In a
> report, the
> committee sharply criticized Mr. Perle as a "faithless fiduciary"
> whose
> "head-in-the-sand behaviour" breached his duty to protect
> shareholders. The
> committee also found that Mr. Perle and an affiliated company
> pocketed more
> than $7-million in compensation and investments from Hollinger
> International
> and a subsidiary.. . .
> The board at Hollinger International ousted Lord Black in January,
> 2004. The
> company later sued him, saying in a report issued in August that he
> and
> other top executives looted the company of more than $400-million
> over seven
> years.
>
> March 27, 2005
> FRANK RICH
> The God Racket, From DeMille to DeLay
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/27/arts/27Rich.html?8hpib=&pagewanted=print&position=
> As DeMille readied his costly Paramount production for release a
> half-century ago, he seized on an ingenious publicity scheme. In
> partnership
> with the Fraternal Order of Eagles, a nationwide association of
> civic-minded
> clubs founded by theater owners, he sponsored the construction of
> several
> thousand Ten Commandments monuments throughout the country to hype
> his
> product. The Pharaoh himself - that would be Yul Brynner -
> participated in
> the gala unveiling of the Milwaukee slab. Heston did the same in
> North
> Dakota. Bizarrely enough, all these years later, it is another of
> these
> DeMille-inspired granite monuments, on the grounds of the Texas
> Capitol in
> Austin, that is a focus of the Ten Commandments case that the
> United States
> Supreme Court heard this month.
> That bullying, stoked by politicians in power, has become
> omnipresent,
> leading television stations to practice self-censorship and high
> school
> teachers to avoid mentioning "the E word," evolution, in their
> classrooms,
> lest they arouse fundamentalist rancor. The president is on record
> as saying
> that the jury is still out on evolution, so perhaps it's no
> surprise that
> The Los Angeles Times has uncovered a three-year-old "religious
> rights" unit
> in the Justice Department that investigated a biology professor at
> Texas
> Tech because he refused to write letters of recommendation for
> students who
> do not accept evolution as "the central, unifying principle of
> biology."
> Cornelia Dean of The New York Times broke the story last weekend
> that some
> Imax theaters, even those in science centers, are now refusing to
> show
> documentaries like "Galápagos" or "Volcanoes of the Deep Sea"
> because their
> references to Darwin and the Big Bang theory might antagonize some
> audiences. Soon such films will disappear along with biology
> textbooks that
> don't give equal time to creationism.
> James Cameron, producer of "Volcanoes" (and, more famously, the
> director of
> "Titanic"), called this development "obviously symptomatic of our
> shift away
> from empiricism in science to faith-based science." Faith-based
> science has
> in turn begat faith-based medicine that impedes stem-cell research,
> not to
> mention faith-based abstinence-only health policy that impedes the
> prevention of unwanted pregnancies and diseases like AIDS.
> Faith-based news
> is not far behind. Ashley Smith, the 26-year-old woman who was held
> hostage
> by Brian Nichols, the accused Atlanta courthouse killer, has been
> canonized
> by virtually every American news organization as God's messenger
> because she
> inspired Mr. Nichols to surrender by talking about her faith and
> reading him
> a chapter from Rick Warren's best seller, "The Purpose-Driven
> Life." But if
> she's speaking for God, what does that make Dennis Rader, the
> church council
> president arrested in Wichita's B.T.K. serial killer case? Was God
> instructing Terry Ratzmann, the devoted member of the Living Church
> of God
> who this month murdered his pastor, an elderly man, two teenagers
> and two
> others before killing himself at a weekly church service in
> Wisconsin? The
> religious elements of these stories, including the role played by
> the
> end-of-times fatalism of Mr. Ratzmann's church, are left largely
> unexamined
> by the same news outlets that serve up Ashley Smith's tale as an
> inspirational parable for profit.
> But faced with McCarthyism in God's name, most Democratic leaders
> went into
> hiding and stayed silent. Prayers are no more likely to revive
> their spines
> than poor Terri Schiavo's brain.
>
> NEW STRAITS TIMES
> Two carry medical data in their arms
> GEORGE TOWN, Wed. - Two Malaysians have had the world's smallest
> identification chips embedded in their arms.
> http://www.nst.com.my/Current_News/NST/Thursday/National/NST32285911.txt/Article/indexb_html
> LOWES FOODS BRINGS BIOMETRIC FINGERPRINT PAYMENTS AND CHECK CASHING
> TO
> CUSTOMERS
> http://www.lincolntribune.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=978
> US Document Indicates Bin Laden Escaped Tora Bora
> http://www.voanews.com/english/2005-03-23-voa53.cfm
> PATRICK BOND
> A New War? On Wolfowitz's World Bank
> http://www.ukzn.ac.za/ccs/default.asp?2,40,5,609
> HOW TO TURN YOUR RED STATE BLUE
> Christopher Hayes, In These Times
> In order to grow, progressives need to learn from
> evangelical movements: Systematically expand the
> universe
> of access points to their worldview and actively
> recruit
> people into the fold.
> http://www.alternet.org/story/21584/
>
> RAGING FOR THE MACHINE
> Scott Thill, AlterNet
> In Brian K. Vaughan's 'Ex Machina,' the comic
> book hero
> paradigm is turned upside down -- a gay mayor of
> New
> York dealing with rather more real -- but no less
> heroic -- situations.
> http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/21587/
>
> BRAZIL'S BOLD MOVE
> Kelly Hearn, AlterNet
> Determined to get affordable drugs for its
> citizens living
> with HIV/AIDS, the Brazilian government threatens
> to break
> some of Big Pharma's patents.
> http://www.alternet.org/envirohealth/21586/
>
> ONE-WAY PLANET
> Tom Engelhardt, Tomdispatch.com
> Exactly how narrow have the boundaries of
> discussion about
> the American "mission" in the world grown in the
> Bush
> years?
> http://www.alternet.org/story/21589/
>
> TRAGEDY AT RED LAKE
> H. Mathew Barkhausen III, SNAG Magazine
> "I can only wonder how things might have turned
> out
> differently if Weise had had a traditional Ojibwe
> upbringing, was well-acquainted with his native
> tongue and
> traditions."
> http://www.alternet.org/wiretap/21594/
>
>
> JUST SAY ... NOTHING
> Alexandra Marks, Christian Science Monitor
> Today's parents are more likely to have used
> drugs in
> adolescence than any other generation. Yet
> they're proving
> more reluctant to talk about it to their
> children.
> http://www.alternet.org/drugreporter/21438/

I was just discussing this matter, indirectly, with Elizabeth and Wendy last night. I observed that in my on-camera public speaking coaching video tape, I look like a teenager. Elizabeth observed that this is probably because our parents never grew up, and therefor we do not know how. We have role models for what it is to be, or at least look like, an adult.

> Army Misses Recruiting Goal Again; To Use 'Patriotic Appeal
> http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0324-08.htm
> George McGovern | Patriotism Is Nonpartisan: Challenging a Mistaken
> War Can
> Take More Courage than Fighting One
> http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0324-36.htm
> Reverend Jesse L. Jackson, Sr. | If It's Really A 'World' Bank,
> Then Let's
> Look South
> http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0324-35.htm
>
> Journalists tell of US Falluja killings
> http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/6890A8DA-AF79-45AD-BB4F-42C060978A07.
> htm
> Thursday 17 March 2005, 13:41 Makka Time, 10:41
> GMT
> Journalists accuse US soldiers of targeting
> children
>
> The picture they are painting is of US soldiers
> killing whole families,
> including children, attacks on hospitals and
> doctors, the use of
> napalm-like weapons and sections of the city
> destroyed.
>
> '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."
>
> Journalist and writer Naomi Klein has also come
> under attack for insisting
> that US forces are eliminating those who dare to
> count casualties.
>
> No less than the US ambassador to the UK David
> Johnson wrote a letter to
> British newspaper The Guardian that published
> Klein's work, demanding
> evidence, which she then provided.
>
> Why graft thrives in postconflict zones
> A report issued Wednesday said Iraq could become
> 'the biggest corruption
> scandal in history.'
> By Mark Rice-Oxley | Correspondent of The
> Christian Science Monitor
> http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0317/p06s01-wogi.html
>
> LONDON - Five Polish peacekeepers are arrested
> for allegedly taking
> $90,000 worth of bribes in Iraq. Several Sri
> Lankan officials are suspended
> for mishandling tsunami aid. US audits show large
> financial discrepancies
> in Iraq. Reports of aid abuse taunt Indonesia.
>
> America's Agenda for Global Military Domination
> by Michel Chossudovsky
> http://globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO503A.html
>
> 03/17/05 "CRG" - - The Pentagon has released
> the summary of a top
> secret Pentagon document, which sketches
> America's agenda for global
> military domination. This redirection of America's military
> strategy seems to have passed
> virtually unnoticed. With the exception of The
> Wall Street Journal (see
> below in annex), not a word has been mentioned in
> the US media.
> Israeli Nuclear Whistleblower Vanunu Faces New Jail Term
> http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0318-06.htm
> Medea Benjamin | Reigniting the Anti-War Movement
> http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0318-28.htm
> Jimmy Carter To Chair Election Reform Commission
> http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=politicsNews&storyID=2005-03-25T012905Z_01_N24598718_RTRIDST_0_POLITICS-ELECTION-USA-CARTER-DC.XML
> U.S. Using Anti-Terror War to Gain World Oil
> Reserves - Soviet
> Intelligence Chief
> http://www.mosnews.com/news/2005/03/21/shebarsh.shtml
> Created: 21.03.2005 14:05 MSK (GMT +3), Updated:
> 14:05 MSK
>
> On the pretext of fighting international
> terrorism the United States is
> trying to establish control over the world's
> richest oil reserves, Leonid
> Shebarshin, ex-chief of the Soviet Foreign
> Intelligence Service, who heads
> the Russian National Economic Security Service
> consulting company, said in
> an interview for the Vremya Novostei newspaper.
>
>
>
> THE APOCALYPSE WILL BE TELEVISED
> Posted on Friday, March 11, 2005. A review of
> selected
> books from the "Left Behind" series. Originally
> from
> November 2004. By Gene Lyons.
>
> http://harpers.org/TheApocalypseWillBeTelevised.html
>
> UNDEMOCRATIC MEDIA OVERSEAS
> Rory O'Connor, AlterNet
> A new book argues that Japan has the least
> trustworthy media
> in the democratic world -- and guess how it
> began.
> http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/21553/
>
> http://www.metrotimes.com/editorial/story.asp?id=7302
> Why we must lose this war
>
> by Jack Lessenberry
>
> 02/09/05 "Metro Times" - - Gwynne Dyer isn't
> exactly a wimp. Not many
> guys from Newfoundland are. Born during World War
> II, he has been
> fascinated by things military all his life, and
> has served in three navies
> - ours, Canada's and Great Britain's. He has
> university degrees from
> all three countries too, and a Ph.D. in military
> and Middle Eastern
> history. During the 1980s, he produced and
> narrated the best documentary
> series about the nature of war that I've ever
> seen.
>
> "The United States needs to lose the war in Iraq
> as soon as possible.
> Even more urgently, the whole world needs the
> United States to lose the war
> in Iraq. What is at stake now is the way we run
> the world for the next
> generation or more, and really bad things will
> happen if we get it
> wrong."
>
> Interestingly, if that happens, we may not be
> able to afford to be a rogue
> state for very long. In what's surely the most
> telling and terrifying
> part of this book, the author takes on the most
> frightening topic of all
> - the real condition of the American economy,
> which is now totally
> dependent on foreign investment.
>
> You'd scarcely know it from the "mainstream
> media," but we're now
> the biggest debtor nation in history, owing far
> more to foreign countries
> than they do to us, and running up $500 billion
> more on our "credit
> card" every year.
>
> Why does this go on? Dyer argues what other
> economists have told me in
> whispers: "The U.S. economy is a confidence trick
> based on everybody
> else's perception that the United States is
> centrally important for the
> world's security and that its economy is
> centrally important for the
> world economy."
>
> That was absolutely true in 1945, and largely
> true even in 1985. But not
> anymore. If you look at only those foreign
> investments that could be
> liquidated fairly quickly, the total, he
> estimates, would come to about $8
> trillion. If those investments started to move
> elsewhere, the value of the
> dollar could be cut in half, Dyer estimates,
> overnight.
>
> Guantanamo Abuse 'Videotaped'
> http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0321-06.htm
>
> Danny Schechter | Miscovering Anti-War Protests (Again)
> http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0321-21.htm
> Institute for Public Accuracy : Responses to "Sweeping" UN Report
> http://www.commondreams.org/news2005/0321-06.htm
> Halliday, who was head of the oil-for-food program in Iraq until
> resigning
> in protest in 1998, added: "Secretary General Annan -- a Washington
> creation
> -- pussyfoots on USA corruption of the UN, the Charter and
> international law
> as highlighted by the illegal invasion of Iraq, threats of armed
> aggression
> against other member states (Iran, Syria, North Korea) and
> unwillingness to
> sign on to the minimalist Kyoto environmental accords. The
> Secretary General
> does however push the International Criminal Court, which has
> frightened
> those guilty in Washington into rejection. Bottom line -- unless
> all member
> states begin to respect and apply international law the UN will
> continue to
> fail, and fall short."
> HIJACKING DEMOCRACY IN IRAQ
> Scott Ritter, AlterNet
> What occurred in Iraq on Jan. 30, 2005 was an
> American-brokered event, not an expression of
> Iraqi
> national unity. The U.S. lowering of the Shi'a
> vote is case in point.
> http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/21566/
>
> THE SECRET LIFE OF DUST
> Beverley Thorpe, AlterNet
> The first U.S. study to test chemicals in
> household dust
> found a toxic cocktail in our homes, made of
> hazardous
> chemicals emitted from commonly used products.
> http://www.alternet.org/envirohealth/21562/

**** of critical importance!****

>
> America leads the world in mental illness
> http://www.mydd.com/story/2005/3/14/15253/7082
> http://www.who.int/mental_health/en/

OMG! Look at the top 3. I've been meaning to observe for a while now, that when I was in France, I heard people say ALL THE TIME that they couldn't do thus and such because their friend/parent/sibling/partner was depressed. Of course, in this puritalican country (US), we WASPs never EVER talk about how we feel. So, where does that leave us? The most depressed and doing the most ineffective things about it (medications, suicide).

>
> The World Health Organization has released a
> study that verifies the
> United States is the undisputed champion in
> mental illness*, dominating
> various pathologies ranging from anxiety to
> depression to poor impulse
> control. We easily vanquished underachieving Old
> Europe in
> post-traumatic stress syndrome, bipolar disorder,
> and bulimia nervosa.
> Additionally, our magnificent land trounced the
> supposedly productive
> Asian countries in both senility and agoraphobia,
> while coasting past
> Africa in pediatric hyperactivity.
>
> The End for GM Crops: Final British Trial Confirms Threat to
> Wildlife
> http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0322-04.htm
> Huge blast rocks Texas oil plant
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4377519.stm
>
> An explosion has rocked an oil refinery in Texas,
> killing several people
> and injuring dozens.
> A year ago, the complex was evacuated after an
> explosion that cost the
> refinery $63,000 in fines for safety violations.
> Story from BBC NEWS:
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/americas/4377519.stm
>
> Administration Kept Mum About Unapproved Modified Corn Sold
> http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0323-02.htm
>
> Ted Rall | Buck Up, The World Hates Us More Than Ever; Why the Left
> Was
> Right After All
> http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0323-30.htm