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Sept 2000 archives
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tokyo progressive
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Jan 14, 2001 00:55 PST
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Sept 26 Prague/Email VERY SHORT TODAY
Sept 24 Some Humor: George Bush
Sept 23 Thai Sex Slaves, Secret SONY Document, Japanese Peace
Constitution
Sept 23 #39 East Timor/ UN Summits
Sept 20 Edward Said, New BREAKING NEWS, Prague Demonstrations
Sept 18 CPN #37 Japan News (Mitsubishi,Genpatsu Gypsies, etc.)
Sept 17 CPN # 35: Africa and Aids, Nadar interview
Sept 14 Ny Times' Dishonesty Questioned (34)
Sept 12 From Paul: IMPORTANT!!
Sept 7 To laugh or to cry: The last issue until the weekend!!!
Sept 7 Japan News
Sept 3 1) EMail (2) Humor
Sept 3 ANNOUNCEMENT-EMAIL
Sept 3 Support ZNET part II
Sept 3 SUPPORT ZNET (part 1)
Sept 3 Email change, "Green Olympics", Discrimination Against Japanese
Women, and more
Starting from the earliest
ChocoPaul News # 26:
News/Views/Email
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Copyrighted material is reprinted under the principle of FAIR USE
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CONTENTS
(1) Women protest sexual discrimination ruling in Japan
(2) Tokyo Government steals land for waste site
(3) The Sydney Olympics are NOT as Green as you may have thought
(1) SEXUAL DISCRIMINATION RULING
OSAKA -- Hundreds of people, mostly women, formed a human chain around
the Osaka District Court building in Kita Ward, Osaka, on Thursday
afternoon to protest the court's dismissal in July of a sexual
discrimination suit filed
by two female employees of Sumitomo Electric Industries, Ltd.
In their suit, Katsumi Nishimura and Eiko Shirafuji claimed the company
had
passed them over for promotion and wage raises simply because of their
sexes.
Although the court acknowledged that the employment system the firm used
when the women were hired in the 1960s violated the Constitution because
it
differentiated between jobs for men and women, it rejected the suit,
saying
that the firm's policy was typical of the corporate world at the time.
The women have appealed the ruling.
About 330 people listened to speeches made by the plaintiffs and their
lawyer
before joining hands and encircling the court building.
Nishimura said, "I am sure the protest will make people all over the
country
aware of the importance of equal rights for men and women."
Laura Dales, an Australian graduate student at Ritsumeikan University in
Kyoto, said, "Women in Japan and across the world need to demonstrate
against this
kind of discrimination."
Adriane Richter, a German student at the university, described the
court's
ruling as "unjust"
-----------------------
For more information on this campaign, contact Koedou Shizuko- Email:
hk6s--@j.asahi-net.or.jp
(2) TOKYO STEALS OWNERS LAND FOR WASTE FACILITY
Tokyo City Government to Impound Land to Expand Waste Disposal Facility
TOKYO--The Tokyo municipal government, faced with dwindling waste
disposal
capacity, has decided to impound tracts of land beginning in early
October
to expand a waste disposal facility currently in operation.
The owners of the land oppose the decision, saying it is illegal and
environmentally damaging (23 INER 456, 6/7/00).
The row is drawing national attention as other municipalities and
residents
are increasingly confronted with similar problems. Like Tokyo,
municipalities in urban areas are in desperate need of securing waste
disposal sites as their landfill and incineration capacities--especially
the former--are being exhausted in response to increases in waste
generation.
But residents are concerned that acquiescing on construction of waste
facilities may turn their communities into dumpsites like Teshima,
Kagawa
Prefecture, causing hazardous chemical leakage to their water, soil, and
air (23 INER 470, 6/7/00).
The Tokyo site is called the Futatsuzuka Waste Processing Facility, 59.1
hectares (146 acres) of land located in Hinode Town, about 30 miles west
of
central Tokyo. Twenty-seven Tokyo municipalities are transporting a
total
of 650 tons of waste--incinerated ash and shredded plastics--to the site
per day.
Waste transport has been in operation since January 1998, but the 27
municipalities decided to build an additional facility for landfill--a
hole
with a huge plastic sheet spread on its walls to prevent
leakage--because
the current site will become full in less than three years.
"We were told that the Tokyo government plans to hand to us a court
document to impound our land soon and that it will start doing it from
Oct.
10," Yutaka Osawa, administrator of the Hinode-no-mori opposition
movement
organizing 2,800 residents and environmentalists, told BNA Aug. 14.
Movement members Aug. 17 visited the Tokyo City Hall, the Construction,
Health and Welfare, and Labor ministries, and the Environment Agency,
asking them to prod Tokyo to cancel its decision to impound the land,
Osawa
said in a telephone interview that day from Hinode where he is camping
out.
From International Environment Reporter
Volume 23 Number 18 Wednesday, August 30, 2000 Page 672
ISSN 1522-4090 News
--By Toshio Aritake
(3) THIS SPORTING LIE: THE 'GREEN' OLYMPICS
By David Edwards
(Daily Commentaries are a premium sent to Sustainer Donors of
Z/ZNet. To learn more about the project and possibly join,
folks can consult ZNet at http://www.zmag.org and
specifically the ZNet Sustainer Pages at
http://www.zmag.org/Commentaries/donorform.htm - )
A month before the great 'Green Games' in Sydney were due to
open, a group of international scientists arrived at the
North Pole to find, not ice, but a stretch of open water at
least one mile wide - the first time the North Pole has not
been ice-bound for 50 million years. "It was totally
unexpected," Dr. James McCarthy, a Harvard oceanographer
said. "There was a sense of alarm. Global warming was real,
and we were seeing its effects for the first time that far
north."
At a time when the world stands in desperate need of truth,
honesty and action over environmental issues, it will
continue to receive only gesture, hype and nonsense at the
'Green Games' in Sydney.
At the official website of the Sydney Olympics, PR
executives have been working overtime to produce
cringe-making soundbites: The Olympic Movement is "Turning
green into gold", they declare; it is "Going for gold and
staying green".
The International Olympic Committee has declared that the
environment is now "the third dimension of Olympism", behind
sport and culture. In 1994, President Juan Antonio Samaranch
emphasised that, "The necessity of respecting the
environment must figure among the Fundamental Principles of
the Olympic Charter." Samaranch subsequently identified the
environment as a consideration in awarding the Games to
Sydney: ". The Olympic Games in the year 2000 were awarded
to the city of Sydney, Australia, partly because of the
consideration they gave to environmental matters." Michael
Knight, the Australian Government's Minister for the
Olympics, has reaffirmed the commitment:
"There is no doubt the 2000 Olympic Games will be the most
environmentally friendly Games ever staged." Sydney, he
announced, "was breaking new ground and the Earth Council
had recognised that the standards set by Sydney will be
adopted and built upon by other Olympic host cities in the
future."
While green groups have applauded the establishment of
environmental Olympic guidelines for the Sydney Games, the
use of new clean-up technology for dioxin waste, and the use
of renewable energy, they remain scathing. Greenpeace
concluded this month: "The past year has seen a number of
appalling failures. Solutions to environmental problems
exist. The Sydney Olympics could have been a world class
showcase for these solutions, instead they only just manage
to scrape in under the title, 'Green Games'."
Greenpeace reports the extensive use of PVC in temporary
venues at the Sydney Olympics, a lack of commitment to
natural gas buses, and the use of highly polluting vehicles
for VIP travel. Even the official ice cream, Streets, will
be sold in wrappers that do not comply with the Olympic
waste strategy. All venues will also use both
ozone-depleting and global warming air-conditioning. But
even these are small beer beside the deeper betrayal of the
environment at Sydney.
The 'Green Games' will be held at Homebush Bay in Sydney.
Ironically, Homebush Bay is a former industrial site and
armaments depot which was previously subjected to years of
unregulated waste dumping. In recent years
asbestos-contaminated waste and chemicals including dioxins
and pesticides have been found there, along with arsenic,
cadmium, chromium, copper, lead, mercury and zinc. According
to Sharon Beder, Senior Lecturer in Science and Technology
at the University of Wollongong, it is the worst toxic waste
dump in Australia, and the bay into which the waste leaches
is so contaminated that there is a fishing ban:
"The sediments in the bay have concentrations of dioxin that
make it one of the world's worst dioxin hot spots. The
dioxin is largely the result of waste from a Union Carbide
factory which manufactured the notorious herbicide Agent
Orange there during the Vietnam war", Beder says.
Greenpeace adds, "Our investigations show that not only is
the 'Green Games' concept rapidly becoming a cynical farce,
but that the presence of high levels of dioxin at Homebush
Bay presents a real environmental and health threat."
Two of the biggest sponsors of the Syndey Olympics,
Coca-Cola and McDonald' s, are riding the 'Green Games'
bandwagon, enthusiastically brandishing their green
credentials. Coke's continuous association with the Olympic
Games is the longest of any corporate sponsor. It is the
'Official Soft Drink' of the Games. The total consumption of
Coca-Cola products at the Games is expected to be greater
than 10 million drinks - enough to fill the 50 metre Olympic
Pool at Homebush one and a half times.
The marketing strategy behind Coke's sponsorship of sporting
events - it spent more than $350 million for sponsorship,
advertising, and marketing at the 1996 Atlanta Games alone -
was explained by Sergio Zyman, Coke's advertising supremo:
"Sports more than any other activity connects with consumers
practically in the stem of the brain, rather than in the
front lobe where reasoning and calculation take place."
Coke is keen to emphasise its environmental awareness: "Our
commitment to the environment is based on the principle that
we shall conduct our business in ways that protect and
preserve our environment."
And yet, in one year, 10 billion plastic Coke bottles
containing over 800 million pounds of new plastic are
discarded. In 1990 Coke promised to begin making plastic
soft drink bottles sold in the United States with 25 percent
recycled plastic. This happened in selected markets until
1994, when Coke abandoned recycled plastic entirely, citing
high costs. Since then, the percentage of plastic soft drink
bottles sold that were collected for recycling dropped
dramatically for three years in a row, from 50 percent in
1994 to 36 percent in 1997. No other recyclable material has
dropped by more than 5 percent in the last decade, and none
has dropped for two years in a row. In late 1996 and early
1997 the market price for reclaimed plastic reached record
lows.
The U.S. pressure group, GrassRoots Recycling Network, says:
"For nearly 30 years, Coke has spent tens of millions of
dollars to defeat or repeal the most effective container
recycling programmes - financial incentives in the form of
deposits on beverage containers. Coke's attempt to claim
credit for beverage container recycling rates is ludicrous
in light of Coke's vigorous opposition to container deposit
legislation. Coke opposes bottle bills because they make
beverage producers like Coke share responsibility (with
consumers) for recycling used containers."
In 1998, the U.S. corporate watchdog, Multinational Monitor,
listed Coca-Cola as one of 'The Ten Worst Corporations' of
the year:
"Coca-Cola, for hooking America's kids on sugar and soda
water. Today, teenage boys and girls drink twice as much
soda pop as milk, whereas 20 years ago, they drank nearly
twice as much milk as soda."
The real betrayal of the environment, though, is found in
Coke's plans for endless expansion, for unlimited mass
consumption. Amidst the talk of 'sustainable development'
and 'treading lightly on the planet' at Sydney, Coke will be
taking a more traditional approach to profit-making. In
their 1993 Annual Report, Coke declared:
"All of us in the Coca-Cola family wake up each morning
knowing that every single one of the world's 5.6 billion
people will get thirsty that day... If we make it impossible
for these 5.6 billion people to escape Coca-Cola,.... then
we assure our future success for many years to come. Doing
anything else is not an option."
McDonald's, the world's largest franchised food service
organisation, will operate a restaurant in the Olympic
Village, Main Press Centre, International Broadcast Centre
and Sydney Olympic Park during the Games. The International
Olympic Committee describes McDonald's as "Proud Partner of
the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games".
At the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games, McDonald's served 98,000
Big Macs, 97,000 Double cheeseburgers and 173,000 orders of
fries. The irony of McDonald's selling millions of burgers
at the Olympics is suggested by the words of the judge at
the McLibel trial between two Greenpeace activists and
McDonald's. People who eat McDonald's food several times a
week, the judge concluded, "will take the very real risk of
heart disease if they continue to do so throughout their
lives, encouraged by the Plaintiffs' advertising." He also
ruled, "it is possible it increases the risk to some extent"
of breast cancer and "strongly possible that it increases
the risk to some extent" of bowel cancer.
On environmental issues, McDonald's takes a firm stand: ".
as a global leader we have a responsibility to be an
environmental leader as well. We are constantly taking steps
that move us closer to doing all we can to preserve and
protect our earth for you and your family".
Responding to allegations that it has benefited from the
clearance of rainforests, McDonald's responded: "McDonald's
does not, has not and will not permit the destruction of
tropical rainforests for its beef supply."
Nevertheless, during the McLibel trial, McDonald's admitted
in their opening speech that they had used beef in Costa
Rica from cattle reared on former rainforest land, some of
which "had been rainforest up to the 1960's". Charles
Secrett, Executive Director of Friends of the Earth UK,
explained, "McDonald's Corporation, as a global supplier of
beef products to mass markets, must accept some
responsibility for encouraging development and land use
pressures that result in the clearance of tropical forests."
Public relations for the 'Green Games' in Sydney is being
masterminded by PR firm Hill & Knowlton. Hill & Knowlton
have a long track record of involvement with environmental
issues, helping the nuclear industry to generate statements
such as:
"Nuclear protects the public against an unacceptable level
of peril from air pollution". Hill & Knowlton were also a
member of industry front group 'Alliance for Responsible CFC
Policy', which argued that the substitution of
hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs) for Chlorofluorocarbons
(CFCs) would not be in the public interest because of the
costs. They also helped in the aftermath of the Exxon Valdez
spill and the Three Mile Island accident. One of Hill &
Knowlton's ex-employees described it as "a company without a
moral rudder."
The links between the Olympics and controversy, and
controversy regarding the environment, do not end there.
The overwhelming environmental issue of our time is global
warming. The 2,500 climate scientists of the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a UN body
set up to study the climate, are clear that a 60% reduction
in greenhouse gas emissions is required to stabilise global
temperatures at existing levels. In the last decade there
have been more extreme weather events than in the previous
century.
The sum total of the world's meaningful response to global
warming is the Kyoto Climate Treaty, proposing a 5.2% cut in
emissions, as opposed to the minimum 60% required. Climate
scientist Dr. Mike Hulme of East Anglia University describes
this as "trivial in terms of stabilising the climate".
It is not trivial to big business, however. The powerful
National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), for example, is
working all out to prevent action.
As recently as October 1999, the NAM reaffirmed its
opposition to the Kyoto treaty:
"On April 4, 1998, the board of the National Association of
Manufacturers (NAM) adopted the following resolution on the
Kyoto Protocol: We oppose the Kyoto Protocol and urge the
President and Congress to reject it. We also oppose attempts
by the Administration to mandate greenhouse-gas emission
reductions in the absence of Senate ratification of a
protocol to the Convention on Global Climate Change and/or
enactment of specific authorizing statutes."
Important members of the NAM include corporate giants
Coca-Cola and McDonald 's - the major sponsors of the Sydney
Olympics. Perhaps not so remarkably, these sponsors of the
'Green Games' are members of a business association battling
tooth and nail to prevent the ratification of the Kyoto
climate treaty.
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Date: Sep 03 2000 08:01:08 EDT
From: "Chocopaul News" <pa-@arenson.org>
Subject: SUPPORT ZNET (part 1)
ChocoPaul News # 27
EXCERPTS FROM Z Net
including commentary by
Noam Chomsky
Now at 56 members from all corners of the earth
and even beyond
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Note: One of my main interests is how little
we actually know about what goes on about us.
Another is how to live one's life in a way that-at
the very least-doesn't contribute to others' suffering
The Japanese or U.S. media is largely useless
in being able to supply an accurate picture
of what goes on (mostly by design). Doubtless
this is true elsewhere as well. This then is a major
reason for my CP News and the web site I run,
which serves as both a resource for my students
and as a general information site for people who
share this view in some respect.
None of us, no matter how much we may think
are lives are unrelated to the misery done in
our names by banks, coprorations and governments,
is able to say that what we do with our lives
has nothing to do with what these companies and
governments do.
If one of my students is a police officer who will
one day spy on the activities of my activist friends,
I am contributing to his ability to do his job. If you
make a product which the military uses in their
aircraft, you may thus be helping them to
kill people you otherwise campaign for. NEC
computer systems were sold to the South African
police during apartheid, as they were to the Japanese
police to monitor foreign residents, many whom were
actively opposed to police surveillance. If you
work for NEC, you are contributing to state repression.
I am not saying we should feel guilty--the econmies
we live under do not allow us to only choose
institutions which do good as our employers. But I am saying
that these are questions we need to think about: how the
media distorts the truth because the media itself is controlled
by the corporate elite; how we can allow ourselves to
believe one kind of "ethnic cleaning" in Kosovo warrants
NATO killing of civilians while for 25 years another kind of
ethnic cleansing in East Timor was never mentioned by CNN
or NHK because those doing the killing were clients of
our governments. (GE, maker of many killing
machines, is also one of the largetst media
corporations...and it is not an exception.)
That is why we never saw U.S. military intervention against
the Indonesian government, though far many
more people were killed by his regime.
If Indonesia were a client of the former Soviets, or of North
Korea or China, Indonesia's rape of East Timor would have
made the nightly news 25 years ago instead of last year.
(Even as late as last year, the New york Times falsely
called East Timor a part of Indonesia, and the people's
struggle was falsely presented as an attempt to "break away"
from Indonesian rule.)
If the media's failure to present the truth can easily be documented
here, it can be documented in so many other cases as well.
And so, it can be argued that, not having access to the whole
truth, we in the so-called "free countries" are just as brainwashed
as what the media says about the Chinese or North Koreans.
If this is true, then how can we act responsibly in our lives?
These questions are dealt with consistently and often by
the people in Z magazine and on ZNET. That is why
I am including the following information, especially since much
of what appears on these pages has its origins on ZNET.
PART ONE---Plug for ZNET
PART TWO--Excerpts from Chomsky Chat
in this order:
(1) How to convince people that the mass media
and the government (even in our so-called "free" countries)
are telling us lies. In it he refers to is the
U.S. involvement in the 1954 overthwow of the Guatemala
government.
(2) Whether to support the "lesser evil" (Nato's "collateral deaths"
in Kosovo) in order to oppose Milosevic and his polices.
(3) On Nato's "environmental intervention" in Serbia given Nato's
own destruction of the environment in its bombing campaign.
(4) Something I don't understand about "Newton's
discovery about action at a distance, terrestrial and
planetary motion, Alexander Koyre, lasers, and F=Gmm/r2.
Also about"differences" in British and American education, the Internet
(5) On Rosa Luxemburg, Anarchism, Marxism
(6) On economist Krugman's "Diminished Expectations, the extent to which
the U.S. economy is globalised, Paul Bairoch's ideas on
protectionism INCREASING trade, etc.
(7) On sociologist Richard Sennet's ideas about the changing patterns of
'work'and the ways to counter trends of global capitalism, of
male-female relations, racism, and global capitalism
PART ONE
Many of the commentaries and information you see here
come from ZNET, a huge site. Most of it is available for
free, but commentaries are sent daily to people who make
a minimum contribution of 5 dollars a month. That is why
I can only reprint the occasional article from the sustainer
section.
Znet is a collective of people who also put out Z Magazine, a
left-wing periodical reflecting diverse views and visions.
As a sustainer, I am also able to engage in exchanges with
the authors of commentaries and articles. Feel free to
ask me to pose a question to them. They are generally
very good about responding.
Of course, if you are interested
in progressive ideas and movements, you are invited to subscribe
yourself (to either the magazine or forum/commentaries or both).
Also, you are more than welcome to take advantage of many of the
resources that are available for free from ZNet.
Here is a listing of some of them.
ZNET ENTRY PAGE http://www.zmag.org/
Direct links to:
-ZNET creative (poetry, short fiction, lyrics by you-the user)
-Pen Pals with interest in progressive movements
-Watch areas, inclusing Alternative media, Biotechnology, Japan, Labor,]
Third Party, Queer, Foreign Policy, Ireland, and more
-Crises such as Zapatista, Columbia (the next Vietnam??),
Iraq, Kosovo, Puerto Rico, Mumia, Russia, G;obal Economics, more
-Ideas, including feminism, AIDS controversies, Post Modernism, etc.
-Multilingual ZNET (Spanish, French, Bulgarian, Swedish)
ZNET MAIN PAGE
http://www.zmag.org/weluser.htm
All of the above and more in an easy-to-navigate format, including:
-Nadar Laduke campaign (Edward Said, Lesser Evils, Michael Moore, Jello
Biafra)
-Other 3rd parties
-Free twice monthly email updates and articles, something like ChocoPaul
News
-Song archive
-East Timor
-South Asia
-Police Violence (Diallo, etc.)
-Anti-Racism
-The Philippines Case
-Ecuador and Columbia struggles
-China and the WTO
-Mumia still facing death penalty in Philadelphia
-Praque (What after Seattle and DC?)
-School of the Americas (U.S. sponsored instruction for global state
terrorists)
-Featured books (whole books and excerpts) from Marable, Shiva,
Albert, Tucker, Hahnel, and more
-Debate on Finkelstein's book about the "Holocaust Industry" and
inciting anti-Semitism
And more and more and more.......
There is also:
-Invitation to join the sustainer program
http://www.zmag.org/Commentaries/donorform.htm
This includes the rational, sample commentaries, introduction to the
confercing system, and an explanation of why these facilities are not
free. Note that
there are commentaries in this program from dozens of people, including
Noam Chomsky,
Howard Zinn, Barbara Ehrenreich, Manning Marable, Leslie Cagan, John
HighTower,
and many more.
And there are forums by the following people (and more), meaning you can
talk to them..
As said, I am willing to pose questions for users of ChocoPaul News whoa
re not ZNET sustainers:
Moderated Forums (Q and A)
Noam Chomsky
Howard Zinn
Hahnel Hall
Mokhiber and Weissman
Tim Wise
Michael Bronski
Tariq Ali
Dorothy Guellec
Barabara Ehrenreich
Michael Albert
Steve Shalom
Sean Gonslaves
Cynthia Peters
Sonia Shah
and more
Unmoderated Forums (free discussions)
Activism
Anytopic
Books/Mags
Cultural Community/RaceReligionEthnicity
Current Events
Ecology
Economics and Class
Gender/Kinship/Sexuality
Government/Polity
Humor-------I will be excerpting some of this soon!!!
Ideas
International Relations
Partipatory Economics
Popular Culture
and more
PART TWO
Question 1
| | Dr. Chomsky,
I'm looking for a way to reach intelligent people who have
bought the media/state-created picture of the world. I
could show them your books, but then they'd pull out The
Economist, or some such thing, and although you would have
no problem de-bunking their arguments, I would.
I've read Manufacturing Consent and Necessary Illusions,
which were quite convincing to me (having seen first-hand
what the mainstream media did with the DC and Philly
protests), but I guess I'm looking for what you think is the
best original source, such as a declassified govt document
(like NSC-68?), that demonstrates beyond a shadow of a doubt
that some part of the official story is an absolute lie.
Seems to me it could be on any topic.
If the spell could be broken by one unassailable fact (which
for me was the protest disconnect; for them would be in this
mystery document), then I assume the process could be
continued by referring them to the activist literature.
I realize the real answer may be "read these 1000 books."
But that would make it difficult for me to reach people who
do not already distrust the official story, because they've
never seen/experienced the disconnect. So I'm hoping....
And if there is, and it's not readily available in a
bookstore (like declassified govt documents), could someone
on the newsgroup tell me how I might find it?
Thank you so much.
Rick Stahlhut
|
Reply from NC,
I appreciate your dilemma, but I'm afraid you are
looking for something that doesn't, and can't,
exist. Even in the hard sciences. Suppose one
asked for one fact that could definitely disprove
the Ptolmaic theory of planetary motion, or the
claim that the earth was created 6000 years ago,
or the phlogiston theory. There just isn't any.
Any collection of facts is subject to various
interpretations. There are no proofs, in the
strong (technical) sense of the word, in dealing
with the empirical world. Certainly not the human
and social worlds.
The document you mention -- NSC-68 -- is very
important, in part because of the outlandish
picture of the word it presents (such an
embarrassment that it's rarely quoted in
scholarship, though the document has long been
recognized to be of fundamental importance), in
part because of the plans it outlined and the
reasons for them.
That's usually the case with other documents too.
They do reveal with considerable clarity the huge
discrepancy between internal planning and public
rhetoric, and that discrepancy does reveal
government lying and (more importantly) the real
reasons for actions that are undertaken. There
are innumerable examples.
One striking example, about which there is a fair
amount of documentation, is the overthrow of the
democratic government of Guatemala in 1954,
setting off one of the worst reigns of terror of
the modern period. The documentary record is very
revealing; there's a brief review in a collection
of recent articles of mine called "Rogue States"
(South End; check "Guatemala" in index). The
picture is enriched by a look at background
planning documents on Latin America generally
(there's a review in my "On Power and Ideology").
And one can find the same on topic after topic;
plenty of material is presented in the books you
mention. But if someone chooses not to be
convinced, there are always ways, as in the hard
sciences.
Noam Chomsky
Questions 2 and 3
| | Hello Mr. Chomsky,
1.) "Lesser evil" means less deaths: 7,000 collateral NATO
deaths were horrible, yet a lot less than the estimated
100,000 collateral deaths every year of Milosevic's
Stalinist public policies. (One of its fruits I mentioned,
the drug shortage has been killing people several years
before the NATO strike) So the bottom line is NATO
colonialization of Yugoslavia vs. the far worse Milosevic
colonialization of it. Shouldn't one align with the lesser
evil ?
2.) The opposition *is* united against Milosevic. The
parties not united against him aren't his opposition.
The united opposition will take part in the polls, and
Milosevic will steal the elections again. Hence my first
question: which way to democracy, then ?
|
Reply from NC,
Let's accept your factual claims for the sake of
argument, though it would be helpful if you would
document them. On these grounds, you advocate
NATO colonization of Yugoslavia: that is, an
invasion to conquer Serbia (or what's left of it
after an invasion) and institute a colonial
regime.
Are you suggesting that that would be welcomed by
the population? By the various factions of the
opposition, for example?
Can you refer us to the popular demonstrations
calling for NATO to bomb and invade (there have
been plenty of anti-Milosevic demonstrations over
the years, and the Albanian Kosovar Parliament --
illegal, but not barred by force -- had openly
declared independence under Milosevic's rule)? Or
the calls for bombing, invasion, and occupation by
dissidents in the West? As for the factions of
the opposition, they are far from united, and that
has been one of their problems for years,
something they themselves have bewailed for a long
time.
Suppose Milosevic steals the election. That's
surely not unlikely. In fact, that he will try to
do so is an almost inevitable consequence of the
war crimes indictment, hence an expected
consequence (assuming rationality). That he will
necessarily succeed, whatever the oppoisition
does, is obvious to you, but again it would be
interesting to know your grounds. For example, on
what grounds do you refute the observation of
historian Miranda Vickers, hardly pro-Milosevic,
that he would have been voted out if the Kosovar
Albanians had not boycotted earlier elections?
"Which way to democracy then?" The way to
democracy should respect the will of the
population. If they are calling for NATO to bomb,
invade, destroy what's left of the society, and
impose foreign rule, as you seem to be suggesting,
then one would at least have to consider that
option. But the question is academic, unless the
claim can be shown to be plausible. Outsiders
therefore have to seek different ways to enhance
the prospects for democracy by encouraging and
supporting internal forces that are committed to
constructive socioeconomic and political
development. One would hardly expect much from
governments; their policies are shaped by
different interests. People can act, however.
Acting to support constructive developments
somewhere else is never easy. There are better
and worse ways. The worst that I can think of is
the one you suggest -- unless of course you
provide firm evidence that the population is
pleading to be invaded, in which case your
proposal would at least have to be considered; and
recall that always, the proposal to bomb, invade,
and impose foreign military occupation must bear
quite a substantial burden of proof. Perhaps that
burden can be met, but not simply by assertion.
Noam Chomsky
| | Dear mr. Chomsky,
I have many questions to ask you, but let me just pick out a
relatively small one for now.
What is your opinion on the recent KFOR/UNMIK "intervention"
in the Trepca mining complex in Kosovo? How substantial do
you think the argument is that the intervention was for
environmental reasons, as argued by the official Western
spokespersons? What would the real reasons have been, if
any?
You probably know about the ICG-advise to take over the
mines before the up-coming Yugoslavian elections. What is in
your opinion the status and influence of the ICG in relation
to the Balkan/Yugoslavia/Kosovo-policies of the US and the
other NATO-countries?
I thank you for your time.
Lennart van der Linde
Rotterdam, The Netherlands
|
Reply from NC,
It's been argued with some plausibility (by Diana
Johnstone for one) that the takeover of the mines
was planned long ago and is part of the general
project (not in doubt) of "privatizing" the
economies of southeastern Europe, meaning placing
them in the hands of Western corporations. That's
the case in Bosnia as well, as Susan Woodward and
others pointed out years ago. To the extent that
that is correct, there is justice in the Serb
condemnations. NATO's claims of environmental
concerns certainly arouse skepticism, considering
the reaction to the huge environmental disasters
caused by the bombing. NATO can easily
demonstrate that its claims are valid in this
specific case, by devoting resources to overcoming
the (doubtless real) environmental problems
connected with the mines and then handing them
over to the workforce. I'm not holding my breath.
On ICG, I'm not sure how influential it is. It
seems to work closely with the occupying
authorities, and keep to their goals and
conceptions, but I haven't tried to analyze what
it does closely enough to venture a firm opinion.
Noam Chomsky
Question 4
At 09:20 AM 9/2/00 +0100, you wrote:
| |
You argued in your posting about machines that Newton's
discovery about action at a distance meant terrestrial and
planetary motion could not be understood mechanistically.
F=Gmm/r2 does describe motion well. There are multi-million
dollar projects (292 million) like the Laser Interferometer
Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO) of MIT and the
California Institute of Technology that are trying to
understand gravitational waves. Physicists (and
Scientists) it seems still search for mechanistic
explanations of phenomena. Could I also write you at MIT
for references on this topic? Scientists might not have a
complete understanding of the phenomena, but they still seem
to be searching for machine like explanations. I admit the
uncertainty principle and wave particle duality point to a
complicated physical structure, but, at least with gravity
acting at a distance, it seems physicists search for
mechanistic explanations. I must be misunderstanding
something.
I saw Jane Goodall speak last week about animal
intelligence. She mentioned in her speech that the British
educational system requires only writing a thesis for a PHD-
not numerous classes and numerous exams. (I may be taking
her out of context) Still, do you see the internet as a tool
to level the educational playing field? If BA degrees, MA
degrees and PHD degrees could all have their content placed
on the internet and then made accessible in public
libraries, could not more people get educations more
cheaply? I know our current classroom discussion structured
system is wonderful in allowing people to learn from
eachother, but I become sad when I see the debts people have
to take on to study at many american schools. I know there
is a lot more to education than just memorizing facts, but
it seems some fields could have their content placed on the
internet and discussion groups like this forum could allow
some of that valuable exchange of ideas and perspectives. I
know that if many programs were offered on the internet in
public libraries that many people-including probably me-
would lose their jobs. Still, I would love to see more
people be able to attain their educational goals more
cheaply. Some of the 16.3 million people who have died of
AIDS died because they could not pay for medication. Some
people do not get the educations they dream about, because
they can not pay for these terrribly expensive degrees. I
know its a complicated issue, but I was just hoping for some
insight. (There is also not a discussion forum on this
forum devoted to education. I would have posted there, but
there is not one currently)
Thanks much,
James T. Struck
|
Reply from NC,
It's not correct that I argued that conclusion.
Rather, I just referred to standard sources, which
document the fact that Newton recognized it to be
true (though "an absurdity"), and struggled
(vainly) to show that it was false for the rest of
his life, and that it was later simply
incorporated into the sciences, and is now
recognized by standard history of science. I
think I may have quoted Alexander Koyre, one of
the leading figures of modern history of science,
that a "purely materialistic or mechanistic
physics" is "impossible," in the light of Newton's
discoveries. This has nothing to do with the
existence of laws (like Newton's) that describe
motion well. Rather, it has to do with the
traditional (and common sense) concept of "a
machine" -- something that works like a clock, or
complex automaton made by a master artisan (these
were objects of much fascination in the early
scientific revolution), working by interaction
with direct contact, without appeal to what were
sometimes called "occult forces," like attraction
and repulsion. For Galileo and his successors,
including Newton, that was virtually a criterion
of intelligibility. The collapse of the system
has nothing to do with quantum mechanics: rather,
with the concept "mechanistic explanation," which
does not mean "law-governed explanation". I'd
suggest that we drop this matter. If you'd like
some references, or would like to follow up, you
could contact me directly:
chom-@mit.edu.
The British and American systems can't be compared
that simply. Theoretically, one can get a Phd here
too without taking many (or probably any) courses,
or preliminary exams, etc. I know that from
personal experience. Conditions are often quite
flexible (in principle, sometimes in fact).
Before getting a British Phd one has typically
taken plenty of courses, tutorials, written many
papers, etc. Undergraduate and graduate
education are quite different in the US from what
exists in most other places.
About the internet, just about everything that
might be placed on the internet -- at least,
everything that's already been published -- is in
libraries. In fact, interlibrary loan works so
well in many places that one can have access even
to university libraries. It's true that the
internet could make all of that far more quick and
efficient -- again, in principle. There are also
by now "virtual universities," with courses,
exams, degrees, etc. Some huge. They are less
expensive in that they have no physical plant, but
by the same token, no personal interchange.
Discussion through the internet is very different
from live discussion, a seminar, a classroom, a
lab, etc. There's a lot to say about all of these
things (Dave Noble, for one, has written about
them, critically, I think).
My own feeling is that you are right to bring up
the enormous financial burden of higher education,
but it seems to me the best way to deal with that
is the way it's done in most countries (often
badly, but it's the right idea), and here too:
public higher education. There's no reason why
that can't be the highest quality available, and
it often is. True, it's being priced higher here
than it used to be, but that's part of the same
"structural adjustment" policy that we're
struggling against on all fronts, here and
elsewhere.
Even with completely free higher public education
there would still be serious bias in access, for
obvious reasons: earlier opportunities, support,
etc. But these are also feasible targets of
public policy, in forms that exist in much of the
world, and can be improved. Maybe "virtual
universities" have some role in a reasonable
society. Worth keeping an open mind on that and
exploring the possibilities. Personally, I tend
towards skepticism.
Noam Chomsky
Question 5
| |
From: "Robert Bassett" <bick-@hotmail.com>
What works of Rosa Luxemburg to you recommend? Did she go
through any ideological changes? I ask because I read part
of one of her works (_The Mass Strike_), and she seems
adamantly opposed to anarchism. I'm curious how you account
for that, yet still admire this left-Marxist.
Thanks a Lot,
Robert
|
Reply from NC,
In "Mass Strike" Luxemburg did bitterly condemn
what she called "anarchism," as you say. For her,
anarchism was an array of gestures: "heroic deeds"
and "theatrical coups" that degenerated into petty
crime when the working class undertook serious
revolutionary action. She was defending the
"scientific" teaching of Marx and Engels, and "the
tactics of political struggle" that allegedly
followed from the principles of "historical
materialism" that they had developed and
expounded, and that had led to the conditions in
which the anarchist tactic of mass strike could
now be taken over by scientific socialists,
relegating anarchists to the dustbin of history
where they belonged. That's the opening chapter
of her pamphlet, designed to explain why she is
advocating the tactic formerly condemned by
orthodox Marxists. After having passed this
barrier, she goes into an exposition of the tactic
as she thinks it should be adopted under the
specific circumstances of Russia in 1905 -- what
she hoped would be "the Russian revolution." That
discussion can be evaluated on its own. Her
polemics against the "anarchists," which form part
of an anarchist-Marxist conflict that had been
going on for years over a wide range of issues,
are not her finest hour, in my opinion.
Nonetheless, the pamphlet is of value, I think,
and though she would have hotly denied it, I
think draws from anarchist tendencies, including
not only the mass strike concept (which is earlier
in origins) but also the critique of
parliamentarianism, her mockery of the practice of
the German left parties and her claim that a few
months of revolutionary activity mean more than
years of parliamentary struggle. That is part of
the conception, which she shared with the
anarchists, that revolutionary struggle has to be
undertaken by the workers themselves, not
organized and directed by some leadership elite,
and that it is an educational experience, in which
the ideas and understanding and goals of the
participants are formed and refined: "the masses
must learn how to use power by using power," and
not wait to be "educated" by intellectuals, and
must "transform themselves" -- not be transformed
by their leaders -- "from dead machines assigned
their place in production by capital...into the
free and independent directors of the process."
Those commitments animated much of her writing,
including the condemnation of reformist socialism,
the opposition to the chauvinism of the World War
(which was quite unusual), her critique of
Leninism, her support for workers and soldiers
councils, and the Spartacist league documents from
her last days before she was murdered, from which
I have been quoting. Throughout her life she
declared her loyalty to "scientific" teachings of
Marx and Engels and even their tactical judgments,
often fervently and piously, while condemning the
reformist parliamentarianism and support for state
violence of the orthodox Marxist German social
democracy and fending off the charges that she was
succumbing to the disease of anarchism. It's a
complicated story. There are several useful
collections of her writings (among others, Monthly
Review and Harper Torchbooks collections should be
easily accessible, both from about 30 years ago,
when there was a revival of interest in left
Marxism and anarchism (which had many varieties,
some often closer than the polemics might
suggest). There's also a comprehensive biography
by Peter Nettl, from about the same time, which
covers the ground pretty well.
Noam Chomsky
CONTINUED IN NEXT NOTE
Date: Sep 03 2000 08:06:31 EDT
From: "Chocopaul News" <pa-@arenson.org>
Subject: Support ZNET part II
ChocoPaul News # 28
EXCERPTS FROM Z Net
Part 2
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The last number was soooooooo long that I ran out of
space. Here is the remainder (questions from
ChomskyChat forum on ZNET)
Question 6
| |
From: "Jonathan Winawer" <jawin-@hotmail.com>
Professor Chomsky:
I have read some of your work recently and heard you speak
once in New York. I have a couple questions based on what
I've heard and read from you. You often discuss US policy as
reflecting business interests, particularly those of large
corporations. One example that comes to mind is the Middle
East, with Israel as a strategic ally to help the US control
"the greatest prize in history." You also discuss more
generally the constant efforts of American foreign policy to
ensure, wherever possible, a good climate for (US)
investors, usually at the local populations expense, as
well as access to foreign natural resources often viewed as
our own. These strategies seem to extend throughout most of
the world, and are presumably costly.
I recently read Diminished Expectations by Paul Krugman, in
which, despite arguing for free trade as a benefit to all
partners (because of comparative advantage), he claims that
the mainstream press greatly exaggerates the extent to which
our economy is globalized. Specifically, he claims that our
economy is 88% domestic (I think the claim is that 88% of
what is consumed in the US is produced here, and about the
same percent of what is produced here is consumed here). He
further argues that trade policy only marginally effects the
domestic economy, and that long term domestic economic
trends (national economic growth, wages, etc.) tend to
follow quite closely growth in productivity.
If he is right, would one not expect that business leaders,
as well as the press and the government that support them,
would only be marginally concerned with world affairs? Or do
we assume that economic growth and (domestic) productivity
are not important to corporations and business leaders? Or
do we conclude that as costly as it may be to maintain US
dominance around the world, the burden is mostly covered by
the working class, and thus not a concern for the "ruling
class"?
Thanks for reading. Would appreciate any thoughts.
|
Reply from NC,
By comparative standards, US trade with the rest
of the world has been very low relative to the
size of the economy, increasing in recent years.
It will always be true that most of the economy is
domestic. The proportion that is international
means little as a determinant of policy. For
example, British and American trade with China was
minuscule, but the dream of the "China market" was
a very significant factor in policy-formation --
for the US, including the Panama canal (and
derivatively, the Caribbean), the conquests of
Hawaii and the Philippines, and much of post-war
Asia policy. Same for Britain. From the 18th
century it was trying to break into the "China
market," and was rebuffed; part of Britain's
interest in India was that it was an important
opium producer, and opium was about all that
Britain could hope to sell to China. North
America was the leading oil producer in the world
until about 1970, but that didn't change the fact
that the US devoted extreme efforts to ensuring
its domination of the world's richest energy
reserves in the Middle East, driving out the
French, marginalizing the British (whom it had
driven out of the major oil producer Venezuela 80
years ago), and blocking indigenous nationalism.
US intervention forces have been directed largely
towards the Middle East for such reasons, a system
that extends from the Pacific to the Azores and
takes up a good part of the budget. That's not
changed by the fact that Venezuela is the largest
foreign source of US oil. When the US became the
dominant player in world affairs, post-World War
II, it sought to construct a global system in
which US corporations could flourish. A major
concern right away was "the dollar gap" -- the
fact that Europe could not purchase the huge US
manufacturing surplus. A good deal of early
postwar policy was motivated by that, along with
the need to secure resources, markets, and
investment opportunities for the future. Again,
the proportions of the economy that relied on
these have slight relevance to their role in
guiding policy formation, just as 2 centuries ago
when New England and British merchants were
eagerly eying "the China market," and throughout
modern history.
It's also true that long-term growth tends to
mirror productivity, and has only weak relations
with trade. So weak that one of the leading
economic historians, Paul Bairoch, goes so far as
to conclude that protectionism increases trade,
derivatively, because it provides the conditions
for domestic economic growth which ends up
increasing trade (the US is one of his prime
examples). The contribution of productivity to
growth, given various measures but generally
assumed to be dominant, has been called "the
measure of our ignorance." There are case studies
(e.g., of the computer industry, to take an
example of much current significance). What they
reveal, pretty consistently, is a very substantial
state component, often military industry,
something that goes way back. This work is mostly
outside the framework of academic economics.
Sure, corporations are greatly interested in
productivity growth, one of the main reasons they
(and their most loyal representatives in
government, like the Gingrich-Lott-etc.
Republicans and the Reaganites) tend to support
huge military budgets, the expansion of the NIH,
and so on. And they also want to ensure an
international environment in which they have ready
access to, and control over, resources, investment
opportunities, markets, in the modern period the
means to internationalize production and
administer what is misleadingly called "trade,"
etc.
Krugman's descriptive observations,
which you cite, are accurate as far as I know, and
often useful. But they don't bear much on policy
formation, as far as I can see.
Question 7
| | Professor Chomsky,
Richard Sennett,a socialist sociologist,in an interview with
Redpepper(Sep),U.K based red/green monthly,said about
changing patterns of 'work'and the ways to counter trends of
global capitalism:
'If we are thinking in terms of group portraits, or in terms
of being a victim, we are simply reacting to the force that
is dominating us. When movements succeed, they go beyond
this. It was important for the women's movement to get
beyond simply thinking in terms of male-female relations,
and to develop notions of female autonomy - of a space which
men could not enter. Likewise, it has been important in
America to develop ideas of what it is to be black beyond
one's relation to whites - being African American.
Ultimately, this is how we need to think about dealing with
global capitalism. We do not fight it head on, but we bypass
it. Limited examples of this would include local co-ops,
local exchange trading schemes (Lets), and even illegal
street markets..
I find it helpful to use an idea of philosopher GWF Hegel's
when thinking about this, an idea that had a particularly
strong influence on Karl Marx - the master-slave dialectic.
Hegel argues that the slave remains subordinate to the
master for as long as he is saying to the master, 'look what
you did to me'. One remains a slave for as long as one still
addresses the master and seeks redress from the master. The
slave only becomes free at the point at which he or she
begins talking a language the master cannot enter into, for
the master relies on his power being ratified and recognised
by the slave. We need to stop asking the master for redress,
and begin to think instead in terms of how we might get on
with each other independently of the master. In practical
terms, this means finding ways to interact and live with
each other in ways that are indifferent to global
capitalism'.
1)Would like to know your thoughts on this,as above approach
is quite contrary to what trade unions or other platforms of
activism/labor militancy entail.
2)Can workers or other oppressed groups reach a point where
they can afford to bypass the system of oppression,without
taking it head on first.
thanks for your time
Faraz.
|
Reply from NC,
Sennett's work has always been very interesting
and enlightening. But I do not see why we should
assume that we have to make a choice between
"dealing with global capitalism" and constructing
alternative modes of life that we hope will
replace it -- planting the seeds of the future in
the present society, in an old anarchist formula.
These are not alternatives. Both are necessary,
and they should be mutually supportive. That goes
on all the time.
For example, the set of institutions related more
or less to Z don't deny the existence of state
capitalist society or refuse to enter into
struggles to mitigate its repressive and
destructive features and to change it; but they at
the same time seek to function as worker-run
cooperatives based on principles of solidarity and
mutual respect that could be components of a very
different form of social, economic, and
cultural life. Why should we see these as
alternatives that we have to choose among?
The master-slave relation illustrates the same
thing, I think. There was no way for the slave to
"get on independently of the master," to deny the
existence of the master-slave relation. To
succumb to that illusion would have been a great
gift to the masters. It was entirely proper for
the slave to seek redress, struggle to eliminate
the master-slave system, and at the same time
construct alternatives modes of life, to the
extent that that was possible under the
master-slave system. All these paths were
followed. Same with global capitalism. We cannot
deny the existence of the social world, any more
than we can of the material world, but that
doesn't mean that we should succumb to its
doctrines and authority structures and refuse to
create spaces within them that might be points of
growth for a very different future.
Please access ZNET, and if possible contribute to
their sustainer program. If people are interested
in posing questions to any of the people in the forums
listed in issue 27, please send me some email
from the main page. Or use pa-@arenson.org
ZNET ENTRY PAGE
http://www.zmag.org/
ZNET MAIN PAGE
http://www.zmag.org/weluser.htm
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Date: Sep 03 2000 21:27:01 EDT
From: "Chocopaul News" <pa-@arenson.org>
Subject: ANNOUNCEMENT-EMAIL
======================
EMAIL ADDRESS FOR PAUL
======================
--->aren-@twics.com<---
Hi from Paul
The new mail facility at ChocoPaul Page will be delayed while
the providers involved work out a few details.
Unfortunately, this has also affected my OWN ability to receive
mail so please use the above address ONLY until
further notice. Also, do not try to use ChocoPaulMail until
then.
Thanx
===================
ChocoPaul News # 29
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(1) ANNOUNCEMENT
(2) HUMOR
ANNOUNCEMENT
First, the email address pa-@arenson.org should now be working.
Apologies for any difficulties you may hvave had. Please
send any bounced mail again.
Second, by the end of the weekend, everyone subscribing
to ChocoPaul News will have been mailed a user id
and password for ChocoPaul mail. Now you will have
a second account that you can use (or not-it's up
to you). The address will be xx-@arenson.org, so
at least for members of the Arenson family it might
be fun!!! With this email address, you can send
and receive mail directly from my web site, and you
can also read mail from your other account(s). This
will make it convenient to keep up with ChocoPaul News.
You can also keep in touch with other users and even chat,
all from one central location, hopefully making things
less confusing. I believe most non English languages
are also ok to use with this mail program.
Keep an eye out in the next few days..
HUMOR
From Z NET Sustainer Humor forum. See CPN #27 for information on
ZNET. Disclaimer: CPN does not necessarily think that
any joke appearing here is funny, but the original poster
did. Hopefully it will be to at least some people!
JOKE 1
A squad of US soldiers was patrolling along the Iraqi border. To their
surprise, they found the badly mangled dead body of an Iraqi soldier
in a ditch along the road. A short distance up the road, they found
a badly mangled US soldier in a ditch on the other side of the road,
who was still barely alive. They ran to him, cradled his
blood-covered head and asked him what had happened. "Well," he
whispered, "I was walking down this road, armed to the teeth. I
came across this heavily armed Iraqi border guard. I looked him right
in the eye and shouted, "Saddam Hussein is an unprincipled, lying
bastard!" He looked me right in the eye and shouted back, "Bill
Clinton is an unprincipled, lying bastard!" "We were standing there
shaking hands when the truck hit us."
JOKE 2
For those of you that are not following the recent controversy
that has to do with Laura Schlessinger, a U.S radio personality who
dispenses advice to people who call in to her radio show. Paramount
Television Group is currently producing a "Dr. Laura" television show.
Recently she has become a convert to Judaism, and now she is
Ba'al T'shuvah.
Recently, she has made some statements about homosexuals that
has caused the Canadian anti-hate laws (Paul=??)to censure her....The
following is an open letter to Dr. Laura which was posted on the
internet....ENJOY.
Dear Dr. Laura,
Thank you for doing so much to educate people regarding God's
Law. I have learned a great deal from your show, and I try to share that
knowledge with as many people as I can. When someone tries to defend the
homosexual lifestyle, for example, I simply remind him that
Leviticus 18:22 clearly states it to be an abomination. End of debate.
I do need some advice from you, however, regarding some of the
specific laws and how to best follow them.
a) When I burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice, I know it creates
pleasing odor for the Lord (Lev. 1:9). The problem is my
neighbors. They claim the odor is not pleasing to them.
Should I smite them?
b) I would like to sell my daughter into slavery, as sanctioned in
Exodus 21:7. In this day and age, what do you think would be a fair
price
for her?
c) I know that I am allowed no contact with a woman while she is
in her period of menstrual uncleanliness (Lev. 15:19-24). The problem
is,
how do I tell? I have tried asking, but most women take offense.
d) Lev. 25:44 states that I may indeed possess slaves, both male
and female, provided they are purchased from neighboring nations. A
friend of mine claims that this applies to Mexicans,
but not Canadians. Can you clarify? Why can't I own Canadians?
e) I have a neighbor who insists on working on the Sabbath.
Exodus 35:2 clearly states he should be put to death.
Am I morally obligated to kill him. Am I morally obligated to kill him
myself?
g) Lev. 21:20 states that I may not approach the altar of God if I
have a defect in my sight. I have to admit that I wear reading glasses.
Does my vision have to be 20/20, or is there some wiggle room here?
h) Most of my male friends get their hair trimmed, including the
hair around their temples, even though this is expressly forbidden by
Lev.19:27. How should they die?
i) I know from Lev. 11:6-8 that touching the skin of a dead pig
makes me unclean, but may I still play football if I wear gloves?
j) My uncle has a farm. He violates Lev. 19:19 by planting two
different crops in the same field, as does his wife by wearing garments
made of two different kinds of thread (cotton/polyester blend) He also
tends to curse and blaspheme a lot. Is it really necessary that we go to
all the trouble of getting the whole town together to stone them?
(Lev.24:10-16)
Couldn't we just burn them to death at a private family affair like
we do with people who sleep with their in-laws? (Lev. 20:14)
I know you have studied these things extensively, so I am
confident you can help. Thank you again for reminding us
that God's word is eternal and unchanging.
Your adoring fan,
Martha
(from "The Onion" web site)
JOKE 3
NYPD Apologizes For Accidental Shooting-Clubbing-Stabbing-
Firebombing Death
NEW YORK -- New York City police commissioner Howard
Safir issued a formal apology Monday for the accidental
shooting-clubbing-stabbing-firebombing-choking-impaling-
electrocution-lethal-injection death of a 38-year-old
Jamaican immigrant in the Bensonhurst section of Brooklyn.
Robert Livingston, who had emigrated from Kingston last
July, was surrounded and killed by 27 police officers
on April 20 while standing on the stairs in front of an
apartment building reaching for what the officers thought
was a gun. The object turned out to be a doorbell.
"We deeply regret that this terrible tragedy has happened,"
said Safir, reading an official NYPD statement at City Hall.
"But I must stress that it was understandable given the
circumstances. There was no way those officers could have
known for certain that Mr. Livingston was not heavily armed
and about to kill them."
According to NYPD sources, at approximately 11:30 a.m. on
the day in question, a detachment of 12 officers observed
Livingston, a delivery driver for a Chinese restaurant,
standing at the entrance to an apartment building "acting
in a suspicious and aggressive manner." After ignoring the
officers' repeated commands to put down the threatening item
in his hand, a bag containing a double order of General
Chao's Chicken and a pint of rice, Livingston reached for
the doorbell. The officers responded by opening fire on his
strategic top-of-the-stairs position from point-blank range,
discharging their standard-issue 9mm handguns 245 times and
striking him with approximately 175 teflon-coated hollow-
point slugs.
Defiantly ignoring the officers' orders to freeze,
Livingston dropped to the floor and convulsed wildly,
kicking and thrashing and hurling blood in all directions.
"It was an extremely dangerous, volatile situation,"
Brooklyn 26th Precinct Sgt. Raymond Sullivan said. "We were
dealing with a man who was out of control and willing to do
anything to stop us. It was clear that subduing him would
necessitate extreme measures."
After calling for backup, the officers threw 25 phosphorus
grenades at the suspect and opened fire with 12-gauge riot
shotguns, their vision aided by the illumination of
Livingston's body, which was burning at roughly 1,500
degrees. Though most of Livingston's clothes had melted
off, officers concentrated their fire on his remaining
shoe, which they feared held a concealed weapon.
Once 15 extra officers and an NYPD armory van had arrived on
the scene, Det. James McPhee took 10 men to the top of the
stairs to engage Livingston in hand-to-hand-combat.
"Mr. Livingston attempted to resist, raising his remaining
forearm and striking at the officers' weapons with his face,
teeth, knees and genitals," McPhee told reporters. "Acting
in accordance with standard police procedure, we countered
by stabbing the suspect 59 times in the chest and throat."
Patrolman Edward Caggiano, who sustained a mild bruise
when hit by a piece of Livingston's jaw in the melee, then
grabbed the suspect's head and began standard-procedure
neck-snapping.
According to the officers involved, Livingston's head then
attempted to flee the scene by separating from his torso and
proceeding down the front steps. "I shouted several times
for the fleeing head to halt," Caggiano said. "But the more
I yelled, the faster it seemed to roll. After every other
option and tactic was exhausted, we were finally left with
no choice but to subdue the head with rocket launchers."
Forensics experts said they hope to recover the several
thousand missing fragments of the head by next week.
Shortly after 1 p.m., Livingston was finally brought under
control when a second team of officers impaled his headless
body on a sharpened oak pole. Once the body was skewered,
members of the NYPD medical team were given clearance to
move in and administer a lethal injection.
Speaking at a press conference Monday, New York mayor
Rudolph Giuliani called for the immediate paid suspension
of all 27 officers involved in the incident. He also urged
Safir to keep the officers suspended "until they can be
cleared of all wrongdoing following an extensive internal
NYPD investigation that will conclude sometime Friday
afternoon."
"And to the families of those officers involved," Giuliani
said, "I would like to extend my deepest, most heartfelt
apologies. Your loved ones went through a terrible trauma,
and I want to assure you that the New York Police Department
is doing everything in its power to help them put it behind
them."
(also from "The Onion")
Coming later today--Issue 30 (News and Commentary)
main site page http:// arenson.org
email pa-@arenson.org
earlier issues http://Chocopaul.listbot.com/
=============================================
Date: Sep 07 2000 01:22:58 EDT
From: "Chocopaul News" <pa-@arenson.org>
Subject: Japan News
===================
ChocoPaul News # 30
main site page http:// arenson.org
email pa-@arenson.org
earlier issues http://Chocopaul.listbot.com/
======================================================
(1) REQUEST
(2) Japan news
Do you have know of any links, articles, cartoons, etc. that
would be of interest to others? Why not send them to me
at the above email address and I will try to publicize them
here. You can also send them to the LINKS section
of my site.
Japan News
(excerpted from the Japan Press Service
http://www.twics.com/~jpspress/home.html)
JPS 09-006
Notorious Moonies to take over anti-JCP campaigning from Soka Gakkai
TOKYO SEP 4 JPS -- The Moonist Unification Church, notorious for its
anti-social cultist "inspiration business," has recently produced new
anti-Japanese Communist Party handbills, which are distributed by
unknown
persons but apparently systematically....[and are] similar to the
slanderous
papers which Soka Gakkai [lay Buddhist group backing the Komeito
political party] distributed on a large scale during the general
election in late June.
The Unification Church has another name, the International
Federation
for Victory over Communism. An extra August issue of the IFVC organ
paper
was totally devoted to attacking the JCP. The copies, which were
distributed in Saitama Prefecture in late August, demanded the JCP
answer
the questions raised during the general election in spite of the fact
that
the JCP during the election campaign had answered all the questions.
Reporting this, Akahata on September 2 said the point to note is the
apparent collaboration among the Unification Church (IFVC), the Liberal
Democratic Party, Soka Gakkai, and the Komei Party in the underhand
anti-JCP propaganda....
JPS 09-007
Memorial service held for Korean victims in the 1923 Great Kanto
Earthquake
TOKYO SEP 2 JPS -- On the 77th anniversary of the 1923 Great Kanto
Earthquake on September 1, a memorial service was held in Tokyo for
Korean
residents in Japan who were killed in massive repression by the police
and the army in the midst of flaw rumors that "the socialists are
attempting civil war" and "the Koreans have risen in a riot."
...Keiichi Yamaguchi, a historian, spoke on behalf of the organizing
committee:
"The Imperial Army and the police, for fear of the growing national
liberation movement in Korea spread, the rumor that Koreans were
poisoning
wells. Serious reflection on the tragic incident is indispensable for
developing friendship between Japan and Korea.
"With the movement beginning towards the peaceful reunification of
Korea, we want to establish genuine friendship and solidarity between
the
two nations in the 21st century."
Sutra recitation by the chief priest of Tamonji Temple was followed
by
a
Korean dancer performing in remembrance of the Korean victims.
Note by Paul: Tokyo mayor Shintaro Ishihara, who was widely criticized
for
disparaging remarks several months ago about the need to be on guard
against foreigners who might riot during the next earthquake, organized
an earthquake drill on disaster day" (Sept. 3), making unprecendented
use of Self defenseforces. At that event, he referred to "idiot"
leftists who oppose the SDF.
While outside obervers may wonder why Self Defense Force mem-
bers would be a controvserial issue at a disaster drill, it should be
noted that Japan's right wing has been pushing ever since the
end of World War II for a return to militarism, and that despite
the rhetoric that Japan needs a new constitution rather than the one
"imposed"on it after the WWII, both the Japanese right and the U.S.
have steadily moved Japan into the position of being a key part
of the American war machine. Some also interpret the nationalist
mayor's remarks as a thinly veiled attack on non Japanese
residents of the capital (His co-author of "A Japan that Can Say No,
the
late chairman
of Sony, Morita, removed his name from the the English version to
avoid embarrassment caused by Ishihara's brashness).
See next article
JPS 9-010
SDF armoured cars running on "Ginza" streets in Tokyo's disaster drill
TOKYO SEP 4 JPS -- The Tokyo Metropolitan Government's major
disaster
drill "Big Rescue Tokyo 2000" took place on September 3, with about
25,000
people taking part, 7,100 of whom were Self-Defense Force personnel.
The drill started with the arrival of about 200 Ground SDF personnel
on three Air SDF C-130 transport aircraft at Haneda Airport. The GSDF
personnel in camouflage wear moved on a public subway line in an
exercise
to go into action.
The drill, designed by Governor Shintaro Ishihara, was based on the
assumption that a major earthquake hit Tokyo and the SDF was called in
to
deal with disasters on a wide area.
In most of the ten drill sites, the major players were SDF
personnel,
who carried out exercises for giving first-aid to the injured,
transporting relief materials, moving on armoured cars,
the original task of which was to deal with poison gas and
radiation, and rescuing people from a high-rise
building.
The fire department only posted information on large boards,
and all that the Metropolitan Government arranged was
Governor Ishihara's inspection.
After the inspection, the governor said this kind of drills with
the SDF at the center should be carried out in all parts of Japan.
At all drill sites, members of the Japan Lawyers Association for
Freedom Tokyo Branch, trade unions, democratic organizations, and the
Japanese Communist Party Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly Members Group kept
watch on what was going on.
Setsuo Naruo, a lawyer who monitored the drill in Koto Ward, said,
"Fire fighters were only watching GSDF personnel rescuing people
from under a collapsed house. Today's drills were
only useful for the SDF." (end item)
JPS 09-008
Symposium probes into background of JCO nuclear criticality accident a
year
ago
TOKYO SEP 4 JPS -- The 24th National Symposium on Nuclear Power
Generation was held on September 2 and 3 in Tokaimura, Ibaraki
Prefecture.
Discussion on the first day was devoted to the background and the
influence
of the nuclear criticality accident at JCO's uranium fuel conversion
plant
in Tokaimura last September.
Speaking on how the criticality accident occurred, Takashi Iwai of
the
Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute Workers Union held the central
government responsible for the inadequate staffing for securing safety
at
the nuclear fuel processing plant and the defective guidelines for
maintaining safety. He also blamed the governmental Nuclear Fuel Cycle
Development Organization (formerly called Donen) for outsourcing the
processing to JCO.
A serious question is that the Nuclear Safety Commission of the
Prime
Minister's Office has still failed to take any concrete steps to improve
examination on safety.
Hiroyuki Tomii of the JAERI union said the central government must
publish all sets of radiation survey data, not only the summary result.
Villagers who attended the symposium said they are concerned about
possible after-effect on children. They thought that the myth that
nuclear
energy is safe has been broken down and that the people and
administrative
authorities must never forget the criticality accident.
main site page http:// arenson.org
email pa-@arenson.org
earlier issues http://Chocopaul.listbot.com/
======================================================
Date: Sep 07 2000 01:54:42 EDT
From: "Chocopaul News" <pa-@arenson.org>
Subject: To laugh or to cry: The last issue until the weekend!!!
===================
ChocoPaul News # 31
main site page http:// arenson.org
email pa-@arenson.org
earlier issues http://Chocopaul.listbot.com/
===========================================
More Humor
(Or is it something to cry about?)
Following on the heels of CPN 30, I would like to present this one from
the Z Magazine Sustainers Program. (Yes, you get 3 in one day!!!
I promise no more until the weekend!)
Preface: Many of you know my views on corporate media,
the major reason for this site. In this piece by
Danny Schechter we learn how the media manufacturers the
news in partnership with the political elite. We also
see how "other" views are almost always excluded.
Thus both Americans and non Americans reading this may
be surprised that they have not read it elsewhere. To
my students in Japan, I hope that you can find parallels
in the Japanese media and government.
Since this is from the ZNET Sustainer Program, to learn more
about the project and join folks can consult
ZNet at http://www.zmag.org or the ZNet Sustainer Pages at
http://www.zmag.org/Commentaries/donorform.htm
Dissector's Diary: "Leave It To Lieberman"
By Danny Schechter
Thursday, August 17: Don't say independent media analysts
can't get on the air. On Wednesday might, hours before Joe
Lieberman would speak to the Democratic Convention, Seth
Ackerman was invited to have his say. Seth, who works with
Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), was asked to
comment on the media coverage in Los Angeles. No, he wasn't
on any of the big networks, just a radio show hosted by Joan
Rivers, the on-the-way-down comedienne who went from prime
time to less time and occasionally shows up with a good
one-liner on ABC's "Politically Incorrect." She demonstrated
her lack of political correctness once more as she welcomed
Seth into her studio and asked with a straight face: "Why
are the police getting such bad coverage in L.A. after being
treated so badly by the protesters?"
Seth, who had come on the show to release a detailed new
FAIR study
documenting the way the protests had been ignored, distorted
and misreported, couldn't believe what he was hearing.
"I was stunned by the question, and I tried to change the
subject back to reality," he told me at a book party for
John Nichols and Robert W. McChesney's call to arms, "It's
the Media, Stupid" (Open Media Pamphlet-Seven Stories
Press.) "I told her about an ACLU report and law suit
against pervasive First Amendment violations by the Los
Angeles Police Department. But then she changed the
subject."
Joan had not been to L.A., of course, and was relying for
her prejudices on the skewed media coverage. She herself has
been doing some convention commenting for CNN but not
exactly on politics. Her task has been to give expert
commentary on what the politicians are wearing, a subject
she may be better suited to handle. (Pun intended!)
I am not sure what she thought of Joe Lieberman's attire,
but in the end it didn't really matter. The chairman of the
Democratic Leadership Conference (DLC), the Party's right
wing, wowed the crowd with a speech that tied Al Gore to
"larger themes of American legend and myth," according to
one obtuse analyst on PBS. As the minions chanted "Go Joe
Go," he galvanized the crowd, with shtick, chutzpah and
cliches like "Only in America." When it was over - after he
had invoked the name of God and his "Republican friends"
more times than I could count - NBC's Tom Brokaw compared
him to the GOP's Dick Cheney, rather negatively, as someone
who also couldn't really be called an orator. I flipped to
CBS, and there was Ed Bradley weighing in with: "They said
he wasn't much of an orator, but to this crowd it didn't
matter." My partner Rory O'Connor compared Lieberman's
performance - unfavorably - to Mr. Roger's on PBS.
While the major media enthused about Lieberman as a
breaking-through -the-barriers Jew making it to the top, and
as a symbol of tolerance and Al Gores's "courage," other
Jews who are critical of Lieberman's politics were not being
heard on any network that I saw. Reported Jenn Bleyer on the
Indy media Web site: "Rabbi Michael Lerner, the editor of
progressive Jewish magazine Tikkun and author of "Spirit
Matters: Global Wisdom and the Healing of the Soul," echoed
others' mix of pride and criticism."
"On one hand, I was celebrating American society for being
able to transcend two hundred years of Christian
anti-Semitism. On the other hand, I was very unhappy that it
was Lieberman who was chosen, because he is bad for Jews and
bad for the country. He has further moved the Democrats from
being champions of working and poor people, at least in
their own eyes, to being a clone of the Republican party."
Lerner, who spoke at the Shadow Convention about the
dangerous convergence of the left and the right, also
commented on the media's relentless infatuation with
Lieberman's orthodoxy. He asserted that though Lieberman
adheres to religious law, he is an "assimilated Jew"
nevertheless, having assimilated to the American values of
materialism and selfishness, a trap into which many American
Jews have fallen. "America offered Jews an incredible deal
when they came here," Lerner explained. "They said we could
be white, as long we turned our religion into ritual and
reinforced the status quo." Speculating on how non-Jews
might react to a Lieberman vice-presidency, Lerner predicted
that "it will intensify negative images about who Jews are,
namely as people who support corporate power over human
needs."
As the network cameras roamed the arena, they spotted
celebrities who were out in force - Stevie Wonder, Whoopie
Goldberg and a movie star in every aisle. Actor Tommy Lee
Jones, who was Al's college roommate, was there to tell us
what a great guy Al is and then nominate him for president.
Gore's daughter later seconded the nomination. Whatever
happened to political leaders and party members nominating
the President? Seems those days are gone. Today, all of this
is being treated as family-friendly entertainment with
frequent cutaways to Tipper and the daughters with the great
teeth. I noticed that AFL-CIO President John Sweeney was
seated in the box along with former Secretary of State
Warren Christopher, but they did not get much face time.
Soon we were told that Al G. himself was in the room. The
cameras caught him briefly in a back hall of the Staples
Center surrounded by "his friend and donor" media-mogul
David Geffen and some of Geffen's colleagues from
Dreamworks. Gore, clearly big media's new darling, will soon
be getting the full Hollywood treatment, although,
paradoxically, the New Democrats want to distance themselves
from what they call "Hollywood liberals." According to Doyle
McManus in Thursday's Los Angeles Times: "A Gore advisor,
speaking on condition of anonymity, agreed [with Gore's
strategy of moving away from liberals]. 'If Hollywood
liberals are complaining, that's fine,' he said. 'We kind of
enjoy that.'"
And some liberals are complaining. At a meeting Wednesday
afternoon, there was criticism that the Gore-Lieberman
ticket had strayed too far into the middle of the road. "I
long for the day when we are inside the convention
delivering the keynote, and most of the corporate interests
are outside protesting," said Rep. Jesse L. Jackson, Jr. of
Illinois, the Rev. Jackson's son. "This should be the last
convention we come to where our position is not represented
on the ticket."
We, the viewers, don't see or hear too much of this debate.
In fact, we barely saw Al Gore. The needs of the TV business
come before the needs of the political culture - at least in
the East, it was time for the networks to cut back to local
news. Football games that go into overtime may get to
override the cash-cow news shows, but political conventions
no longer have that status. I had to swing to C-SPAN to see
the states cast their ballots. As a kid, I loved the mix of
accents and boasts about the Great State of Wherever of this
part of the convention process, but that fun political
ritual is no longer considered worthy of mainline TV
coverage. So suddenly, we New York viewers were yanked back
into stories about the dying Russian sub and its condemned
crew and yet another murder in Brooklyn.
Meanwhile, back in the convention hall, many journalists are
not just being massaged by the "on message" DNC
spinmeisters. For some, the message became the massage. I
have the Online Journalism Review to thank for a report that
many of those covering the convention are having more than
their brains massaged.
"That's right," reports Jim Benning. "At the DNC the stories
can wait. The journalists are getting massages. In droves.
Just don't tell their editors. Event411.com, whose
representatives are eager to tell you that they built the
planning software incorporated into the Democratic Party's
Dems2000.com site, has sprung for the service for the week,
providing massages, gratis, from 10 to 2."
And if you talk to Vivian Geffen, one of five massage
therapists working in the hall, she will tell you that this
a very good, very important thing.
Journalists at the DNC, she reports as she kneads a weary
left arm, are very tight. "Camera people have big shoulder
problems," Geffen says matter-of-factly, shaking the arm and
then tugging at it. "Reporters have a lot of tightness in
their wrists from their computers."
I am jealous not to have one of those all-access
credentials. At this point, after watching hours of
convention speak and pouring over mountains of conventional
coverage, I think my eyeballs need a massage just about now.
Maybe its finally time to let these eyelids down...
Danny Schechter (dan-@mediachannel.org) is the executive
editor of MediaChannel, and the author of News Dissector:
Passions, Pieces and Polemics (www.electronpress.com) and
the forthcoming Falun Gong's Challenge to China (Akashic
Books, 2000).
Date: Sep 12 2000 22:28:35 EDT
From: "Chocopaul News" <pa-@arenson.org>
Subject: From Paul: IMPORTANT!!
Chocopaul News Update 33
Hi....
Where is ChocoPaul News? Well, you are getting a (much needed?)
rest this week because of a stupid mouse. When the last one
broke (the little wheel inside that controls vertical scrolling
decided to go on strike), I went out and bought a shiny
grey (what better color for a mouse?) optical one. When I plugged it
in,
the computer decided it did not want to recognize the techno rodent.
A partial install of Windows (yuck) only crashed the machine. and
so for the last 24 hours I have:
(1) done an f-disk (NO, this is not pornographic)
(2) Done a format and partition
(3) Reinstalled Windows
I am not waiting to reinstall the telecom software, whereupon I will be
ready (by the weekend?) to send out more newsletters.
I am happy to say the mouse is cooperating, or the computer
is cooperating with the mouse.
Soon, I will have a new connection to the internet (meaning a new
provider). Even so, for the time being, the address should not
change. Therefore, please use:
pa-@arenson.org
If that doesn't work, please use:
aren-@twics.com (the ultimate detination)
You can also use the ChocoPaul address.
Avoid abosolutely:
the stellarsite and lonestar addresses (used for convenience
of reading my mail but soon to be discontinued)
If you have sent ANYTHING to the lonestar address, please
resend as that system is down so much this week it seems the messages
may
be irretrievable.
In the meantime, a few people have received a Chocopaul Email address.
Feel free to use it as an additional address (web only), and by all
means
PLEASE change your password and update name and other personal details.
To friends who have written, I hope to reconstruct the email address
list and messages, but if at all possible, please resend.
Finally, I hope to be linking up with several other progressive sites
in the next few weeks. That should make things even more
interesting.
See you soon,
Paul
=============================================
main site page http:// arenson.org
email pa-@arenson.org or aren-@twics.com
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Date: Sep 14 2000 03:32:11 EDT
From: "Chocopaul News" <pa-@arenson.org>
Subject: Ny Times' Dishonesty Questioned (34)
Chocopaul News Update # 34
=============================================
main site page http:// arenson.org
email pa-@arenson.org
this list http://Chocopaul.listbot.com/
==============================================
NY Times Distorts Facts on Iraq
What does this mean for the readers of CPN?
===========================================
PREFACE by pa
What follows is a lesson in how deliberate misinformation
by our "trusted" mainstream media can have serious
consequences that go beyond simply creating a misinformed
public. The following is reprinted in full from FAIR-"Fairness
and Accuracy in Reporting". It does not attempt to
justify Iraqi policies. Rather, it shows how
our supposed "FREE PRESS" is actually a partner in
the miltary-business alliance that is increasingly
involved in everything from globalisation to miltary
adventures even though the cold war ended 10 years ago.
In Japan the 1991 U.S. bombing of Iraq--seen "live on
CNN"-- and the 1998 version (kept secret even from the
rest of the Security Council) was used somewhat incongrously
by Japan's military establishment to help pave the
way for an end to its peace constitution,
initially with a call for seemingly benign PKO participation.
The lie in Japan is that somehow the U.S. is contributing
to world peace by its murderous military actions and sanctions.
Press reports like those by the NY Times are used by
the defense industry, politicians seeking greater
control of oil resources, militarists and related
vermin to push Japan closer to U.S. policies and to
whip up support among gullable Americans who believe their
country can do no wrong.
As even Japanese civilians will be forced by the recently revised
defense guidelines to lend support to U.S. military actions
far away from Japan (the guideline wording was left vague on purpose),
this story about how America's most"respected" newspaper tells
lies should be a warning:
--A warning NOT to believe what one reads just because it is
printed in our favorite daily newspaper
--A warning that we should inform ourselves and
do everything within our power NOT to cooperate with
the military-industrial death machine hiding behind
a mask of compassion.
And now the article from Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting
ACTION ALERT: "Paper of Record" Distorts Record on Iraq Sanctions
September 13, 2000
On September 12, the New York Times ran a blatantly biased front-page
article by U.N. correspondent Barbara Crossette about Iraq's decision
not
to
allow two teams of United Nations experts into Iraq to assess the
effects
of
the sanctions. This article is only the latest example of Crossette's
alarming willingness to repeat increasingly shrill-- and largely
discredited-- charges from the U.S. State Department that the Iraqi
government is sabotaging the U.N.'s relief work. (See
http://www.fair.org/extra/0003/crossette-iraq.html )
Throughout the article, Crossette's reporting aims to give the
impression
that Iraq does not allow any outside experts to investigate humanitarian
conditions inside the country. The headline reads, "Iraq Won't Let
Outside
Experts Assess Sanctions' Impact on Lives." The lead paragraph reported,
"Iraq will not allow independent experts into the country to assess the
living conditions of Iraqis a decade after economic sanctions were
imposed,
Secretary General Kofi Annan told the Security Council today."
Crossette anonymously quotes "a diplomat" who says, "They claim they
can't
get things done, but won't let anybody come in and fix it." She cites an
anonymous "official" as saying that government repression has "made it
almost impossible to work there." An anonymous "European diplomat" is
quoted
as saying that there are "fairly solid reports" that Iraq is exporting
its
medicines abroad, with no further evidence given. Crossette writes that
"concern is growing" that "if no independent collection of information
is
possible, Iraq can continue to blame outsiders, particularly the United
States, for illnesses and deaths from disease or malnutrition."
In fact, there are literally hundreds of outside experts in Iraq who
regularly collect such information and have done so for years. They
include
officials from the World Health Organization, the World Food Program,
the
Food and Agriculture Organization, the United Nations Development
Program,
UNESCO, UNICEF and the United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator's office
in
Baghdad. They make thousands of visits each year to water projects,
power
plants, farms, warehouses, mills, food distributors, schools, hospitals
and
ordinary homes.
The U.N.'s Baghdad office maintains a 150-person verification team, the
Multidisciplinary Observer Unit, to inspect relief distribution. It also
employs a Swiss auditing company on contract with the United Nations to
verify humanitarian shipments. Not only do the Iraqi ministries
cooperate
with these groups, but the U.N. requires Iraq to *pay* for the operating
expenses of these last two groups out of the proceeds used to buy food
and
medicine.
All of this is documented in the very same United Nations briefing that
is
the subject of Crossette's article. For example, the briefing describes
a
World Food Program study carried out this summer to investigate Iraq's
system for transporting food. It "found most of the equipment...in a
deplorable state, owing to age, poor maintenance and lack of spare
parts."
The investigators were "encouraged to learn, however, that the
government
of
Iraq was already entering into contracts for the gradual replacement" of
the
aging equipment.
In July, a World Health Organization team visited an Iraqi medicine
factory.
"The observers reported that the plant would require substantial
investment...to bring it up to international standards." The factory's
Iraqi
management "gave assurances that it will cooperate fully with the United
Nations and that observation of its facilities can be carried out at any
time, with or without prior notification," the Secretary General
reported.
Several other examples of Iraq's cooperation with UN humanitarian
workers
were discussed in the report. Yet Crossette's article, based on the same
report, sought to give exactly the opposite impression.
Last year, UNICEF worked with the Iraqi Ministry of Health on a
comprehensive nationwide survey of child and maternal mortality.
Ironically,
the study was reported in the New York Times in an article by Barbara
Crossette (8/13/99). It went unmentioned in yesterday's article.
In a December 1998 letter to the London Independent, Michael Stone, the
outgoing chief of the U.N.'s Multidisciplinary Observation Unit wrote
that
British officials, like their American counterparts, "frequently state
that
the Iraqi leadership have diverted supplies under this [humanitarian]
program. This is a serious error. Some 150 international observers,
travelling throughout Iraq, reported to the United Nations
Multidisciplinary
Observer Unit, of which I was the head. At no time was any diversion
recorded. I made this clear in our reports to the UN Secretary General,
and
he reported in writing to the Security Council accordingly."
Other top United Nations officials have also challenged the assertion
that
Iraq interferes in the relief effort. Former U.N. Humanitarian
Coordinator
Denis Halliday and his successor, Hans von Sponeck have both expressed
frustration that the U.S. and British governments were putting out
misleading information designed to make it appear that Iraq was
sabotaging
the U.N.'s relief work. Crossette has refused to cover their criticism
(Hans
von Sponeck, U.N. Press Briefing, 10/26/99; Denis Halliday, press
release,
9/20/99).
Crossette's reporting is astonishingly selective. The Secretary
General's
briefing, which Crossette's article is based on, is a 90-day progress
report
that covers all aspects of the oil-for-food program. Typically, the
Secretary General notes both improvements and problems in the ongoing
program, praising and criticizing the Iraqis as necessary. But Crossette
notes only the criticisms, inflating and distorting them out of all
recognition.
Out of this week's 50-paragraph briefing, Crossette's entire front-page
article is devoted exclusively to paragraphs 11 and 12, which note that
Iraq
declined to host the newly proposed teams of experts. She fails to
mention
that elsewhere in the briefing, Secretary General Kofi Annan praised
Iraq
for improvements in its nutrition program that were made in response to
criticism Annan offered in a briefing last year.
In August 1999, Crossette wrote an entire article about that
two-paragraph
criticism, found in Annan's 104-paragraph briefing, which noted some
flaws
in Iraq's distribution of food supplies. Crossette trumpeted the
comments
as
an example of the U.N.'s alleged exasperation with Iraq ("Do More to Aid
Nourishment of Very Young, U.N. Tells Iraq," 8/24/99).
Since then, Iraq has implemented the changes that the Secretary General
recommended. In this week's briefing, Annan praised the government for
having followed his suggestions: "I welcome the decision by the
Government
of Iraq to increase considerably the allocations... to meet the food,
nutrition and health requirements of the population.... [The steps taken
by
Iraq] are both welcome and in line with the recommendation contained in
my
supplementary report."
The praise went unmentioned in Crossette's September 12 article.
ACTION: Call on the New York Times to publish an editor's note
clarifying
two points: (1) that Iraq has hundreds of outside inspectors and experts
verifying the humanitarian relief programs, contrary to the Times'
front-page September 12 story; and (2) that United Nations humanitarian
officials who dispute the charge that Iraq sabotages the U.N. aid
programs
should have been quoted in this story.
As always, please remember that your comments are taken more seriously
if
you maintain a polite tone. Please cc fa-@fair.org with your
correspondence.
CONTACT:
Barbara Crossette
Bureau Chief, United Nations
mailto:bcro-@nytimes.com
Joseph Lelyveld
Executive Editor
mailto:lett-@nytimes.com
To read the original New York Times article:
http://www.fair.org/articles/crossette.html
To read the United Nations report discussed in the New York Times
article,
visit: http://www.un.org/Depts/oip/reports/phase890.html
----------
Feel free to respond to FAIR ( fa-@fair.org ). We can't reply to
everything, but we will look at each message. We especially appreciate
documented example of media bias or censorship. And please send copies
of
your email correspondence with media outlets, including any responses,
to
us
at: fa-@fair.org .
http://www.fair.org/
E-mail: fa-@fair.org
Request from Paul. If you like what you read in Chocolate Paul News,
or the rest of my site, why not tell other people about it? They
can write and request that I add them to the list, or sign themselves up
by going to the address below.
We are still experiencing some small problems bu should be back
with a number of new reports and essays in several days. Also,
those who have not yet received their usernames and
passwords for the EMAIL service should be in 3-4 days. Sorry for
the delay caused by my new (!) mouse.
main site page http:// arenson.org
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==============================================
Date: Sep 17 2000 13:27:38 EDT
From: "Chocopaul News" <pa-@arenson.org>
Subject: CPN # 35
Chocopaul News # 35
=============================================
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(1) ANNOUNCEMENT ABOUT EMAIL
(2) ARTICLE: Africa and AIDS
(3) Interview: Ralph Nadar
(4) PeaceNet and WomensNet Excerpts
Coming Soon: Japan Press Service Excerpts
Australian Shame and East Timor
===========================================
(1) Well, my computer is up again and I am sending out usernames and
passwords
for email access at ChocoPaul Mail. Some will probably get duplicates,
sorry about that.
Expect to get them by Thursday, if not earlier.
All in all, the email program should be much more reliable than the
previous
one. It is hosted by Everyone.net
(2) Killing Africa with Kindness
By Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman
With the announcement of a billion-dollar-a-year U.S.
government loan program for African countries to buy AIDS
drugs, the fight to deliver affordable drugs to people with
HIV/AIDS in Africa and elsewhere in the developing world has
entered its third phase.
If the drug companies' current kill-them-with-kindness
scheme fails, many of the more than 20 million people with
HIV/AIDS in Africa may finally receive access to the
treatments that could save their lives.
In phase one of the dispute (Deny, Deny, Deny), the world's
leading drug companies, through their pricing policies,
simply refused treatment to people with HIV/AIDS in Africa.
With per capita incomes in many developing countries at less
than a dollar a day, people with HIV/AIDS were simply unable
to pay the $12,000 a year or so required for the AIDS drugs
cocktails that enable many or most people with HIV/AIDS in
the United States to survive. If any developing country made
noises about finding ways to provide the drugs more cheaply,
the U.S. government -- operating at the behest of the big
drug makers -- threatened trade sanctions and forced them to
back down.
In phase two (Who Me?), the U.S. government resigned from
its bullying role. AIDS activists forced the Clinton
administration to reformulate its policy, culminating in an
announcement that the U.S. government would not challenge
African countries' efforts to make generic AIDS drugs
available to their people, so long as the countries complied
with World Trade Organization rules.
Now, in phase three, the industry and the Clinton
administration are conspiring to kill Africans with
kindness.
Through the United Nations, the industry has offered to
provide discounted AIDS drugs to Africa -- but at prices
that remain wildly inflated over the cost of production, and
far too high to be affordable by most Africans. Although no
one seems to know exactly what those rates will be, many
published reports suggest discounts will be in the 80
percent range. Such price levels almost surely will enable
the pharmaceutical companies to continue to profiteer from
drug sales.
Then, last month -- in a move immediately denounced by a
wide range of organizations working on drug access and debt
issues, including Doctors Without Borders, Oxfam and the
Health GAP coalition -- the U.S. Export-Import Bank, a
government agency, announced it would loan a billion dollars
annually to African countries for the purchase of HIV/AIDS
drugs.
The high-interest Ex-Im loans would pile new debt
obligations on African nations at a time when existing debt
burdens are undermining the countries' ability to prevent
and treat HIV/AIDS, and when the AIDS epidemic is itself
already undermining their economic capacity to make interest
payments on foreign loans.
The African countries' pain will be the drug manufacturers'
gain. The Ex-Im loans are be used to buy drugs made by U.S.
companies, apparently at the highly profitable "discount"
level provided to the UN.
Organizations like Doctors Without Borders believe that
efficient procurement of generic drugs could drop the cost
of HIV/AIDS medicines an additional 90 percent from the
estimated drug industry "discounts." That would put the cost
of combination HIV/AIDS drug therapies at approximately $200
per person per year.
The most insidious aspect of the Ex-Im proposal is how it
will work to preempt efforts by African and other developing
nations to lower costs through purchases of generic versions
of AIDS drugs
As the New York Times reported, "It seems unlikely that
Brazil, India or other nations that produce such drugs for
home consumption would have the export financing available
to help African nations buy the goods. The American loans,
along with a recent commitment by the World Bank to provide
at least $500 million to help African nations set up
anti-AIDS initiatives, give added incentive to African
nations to treat many of their AIDS cases with Western
medicine." ("Western" medicine means expensive, brand-name
drugs, as opposed to lower-cost generics.)
But the momentum for African countries to buy generic
versions of the drugs, or to acquire the technology to make
their own generics, may be too great for the industry's
killer-kindness ploy to succeed.
Already, South Africa and Namibia have reportedly indicated
their refusal to accept the Ex-Im loans, a welcome sign that
African nations may be ready to take serious measures --
irrespective of the drug industry's or the U.S. government's
desires -- to provide treatment to the horrifyingly large
population with HIV/AIDS.
Russell Mokhiber is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based
Corporate Crime Reporter. Robert Weissman is editor of the
Washington, D.C.-based Multinational Monitor and co-director
of Essential Action, a corporate accountability group that
is part of the Health GAP coalition. Mokhiber and Weissman
are co-authors of Corporate Predators: The Hunt for
MegaProfits and the Attack on Democracy (Monroe, Maine:
Common Courage Press, 1999,
http://www.corporatepredators.org)
(3) RALPH NADER
On the Campaign Trail
Interviewed by David Barsamian
Denver, Colorado. September 10, 2000
Ralph Nader, founder of Public Citizen, is a longtime
advocate for consumer safety and workers rights. He has
exposed the misdeeds of the corporate sector as well as the
political system. He is perhaps best known for Nader's
Raiders and for sparking debate on issues ranging from the
Corvair to the Dalkon Shield. In 1990, Life magazine ranked
him among the century's 100 most influential Americans. He
is the Green Party candidate for President.
You've made your reputation on the issue of auto safety.
Could you comment on the current situation regarding
Firestone and Ford Explorer?
That was avoidable if the auto safety agency was on its
feet. But under Clinton/Gore it's been asleep. They were
notified by State Farm of these tire problems back in 1998.
They just shoveled them in a file and didn't act on it.
There are other signs that they could have heeded. They
didn't. They auto safety agency under Clinton/Gore has been
deregulated. It's not a law enforcement agency. Eighty-eight
people have died already, hundreds injured. This is what
happens when you get deregulation.
But didn't that deregulation really start with Reagan? The
auto safety agency, the National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration, was heavily defunded. There were 30% staff
cuts.
Yes, but when Clinton/Gore took office they didn't try to
reverse it. Instead, they went the other way. It's actually
a worse agency now than it was under Reagan/Bush. There's
never been a statement on its behalf by Clinton/Gore. They
haven't pushed for a larger budget. They've had eight years
to upgrade the tire safety standard, which is obsolete,
having been issued in 1968. In other ways, including the
appointments of the administrators of this agency, the
Clinton/Gore administration has been on its knees in front
of the auto companies.
What's been happening around fuel economy and sport utility
vehicles?
For example, for thirty years the auto safety agency has
been doing nothing about vehicle handling requirements so
these SUVs don't tip over. Second and most interesting,
Clinton/Gore have given the auto industry eight years'
holiday in the proposed fuel efficiency standards. So the
fuel efficiency of motor vehicles has been going down,
depleting family pocketbooks, because they're paying more
for fuel for less miles traveled. It's down to 24.5 MPG at
the present time. That's the lowest since 1980. Clinton
promised in 1992 that by the year 2000 motor vehicles would
have an average fuel efficiency of forty miles per gallon.
What is the Commission on Presidential Debates and why is it
preventing you from participating?
It's a private corporation, first of all. It's not a
government commission. It was created by the Republican and
Democratic parties in the late 1980s. It's funded by
tobacco, auto, and beer money. Their purpose is to exclude
third-party candidates of any significance from debates.
They let in Ross Perot in 1992, and they never want to do
that again. I think we've got to bypass the Commission and
press the four television networks to sponsor their own
debates, get big enough so Gore and Bush couldn't say no to
them.
There are demonstrations at Commission HQs in D.C. and
others planned in the debate cities of Boston,
Winston-Salem, and St. Louis.
And they're going to get bigger every week.
Winona LaDuke, your vice presidential running mate, said
she's resentful that she's always referred to in the media
as a "Native American activist," instead of a Harvard trade
economist, which is what she is.
She's more than that. She's a worldwide leader for
indigenous people's rights and for human rights, for
everybody. She has her feet on the ground. She's a working
farmer, a mother of three, an author of many books and
articles. Her latest book, All Our Relations, is an almost
lyrically-written account of the devastating conditions on
Indian reservations in the U.S.
Why is it that the New York Times has a particular animus
towards you? There have been a number of op-ed pieces and a
very critical editorial. Thomas Friedman called Public
Citizen an "extremist" organization. Paul Krugman accused
you of being on "a destructive crusade." Anthony Lewis
accused you of being "in bed with some of the most
reactionary forces in the country." And Robert F. Kennedy,
Jr. labeled your candidacy as a "threat" to the environment.
These are frightened liberals. Frightened liberals are
people who know their own party is going downhill but want
to try to support it because they think the Republican Party
is worse. They don't understand that what they're supporting
morphed from two parties into one corporate party. They're
not doing any service to the Democrats by letting their
leaders keep pushing the Democrats closer to the Republican
Party.
What does it take to get someone from being a gazer and a
spectator into being an activist, a citizen in the full
sense of the term?
They have to feel that they count, that they can make a
difference with their fellow citizens and that they don't
feel powerless. The biggest asset of the power brokers who
have hijacked our democracy is the feeling among millions of
people that they don't matter politically, that they don't
count. We've got to overcome that hurdle and get people
saying, just like our forebears, We're going to build a
progressive political movement for justice in all areas, for
workers and environment, consumer and clean politics and the
ability of people to have public services and universal
health care and the protection and nurturing of childhood.
Something like a hundred million Americans don't bother to
vote. The conventional wisdom to explain that is that people
are apathetic.
If you're apathetic, that's the other side of feeling
powerless. If you feel powerless, you give out symptoms of
apathy. If you give people power, they're no longer
apathetic. Almost everybody has a sense of injustice, and
they want to correct things, whether it's their own personal
grievances with the insurance agent or the local city hall
or the local bank or the HMO that denies their kids adequate
coverage even though it's been paid for. The issue in
politics is power. Who has it, who doesn't have it, who
abuses it, who uses it, who needs it.
That's what the two major candidates are ignoring. They're
ignoring that the issue of the distribution of power and
wealth is what the presidential campaigns and what electoral
politics has to be all about. Instead, they're squabbling
over hypothetical numbers about budget surpluses in the next
ten years that they can't possibly predict and squabbling
about debases instead of getting down and campaigning with
citizen groups, they're campaigning for photo opportunities.
And the press is letting them get away with it. They're
allowing Gore to go six months without a news conference and
George W. Bush, who is really a corporation running for the
presidency disguised as a person, goes around the country
with a force field of scripted statements from little cue
cards. The press is pouring millions of dollars into
covering the campaign, but they're not challenging. They're
not asking important questions. They're just dittoing the
two candidates' repetitive statements day after day.
Katha Pollitt in The Nation has been critical of you. Have
you responded to her concerns about the Supreme Court and
Roe v. Wade?
I think other correspondents in The Nation have responded to
her.
Republican Party operatives have told me for years that if
they are ever held responsible for reversing Roe v. Wade it
would destroy their party. The talk against women's
reproductive rights is largely for the Republican Party's
right wing. Republican nominees like Souter and O'Connor
could have achieved the majority and overruled Roe v. Wade
three times in the last ten years. But they didn't do so.
Someone apparently close to you is quoted by Pollitt as
saying, Nader only talks about issues that he's comfortable
with and gender is not among them.
I was for women's rights back in the fifties and sixties. I
wrote an article on eleven states prohibiting women from
serving on civil juries back in the late 1950s for the
Harvard Law Record.
I think maybe what some feminists are looking for is an
acknowledgement that you're aware of their concerns.
I'm very aware. But I'm also aware that there are all kinds
of groups talking about these issues for women's rights.
Very few of these groups are talking about how women are
discriminated against in the marketplace, unnecessary
operations, credit discrimination, auto dealer rip-offs.
They never talk about that. We put out major books on these
issues and we can never get the women's groups interested. I
think it's time to say, Why don't they come into those
areas? Why don't they talk more about corporate power? Maybe
women will be better off if we have less corporate power and
more democracy.
You met with Jesse Ventura.
I had a press conference with him in Minneapolis. He came
out for my participation in the debates. He also supports
same-day voter registration, which he attributes to be a
significant factor in Minnesota for his win, that people
could go right down to the polls on Election Day, register
and then vote instead of having to register in late
September or early October, as many state barriers make them
do.
You found some areas of convergence with Governor Gary
Johnson, Republican of New Mexico.
He also wants me to be in the debates. He too is for
same-day voter registration. October 4 is the deadline now
in New Mexico. He favors the initiative referendum recall,
which he has proposed to the legislature. He favors the
legalization of farmers growing industrial hemp, a great
versatile crop for textiles, paper and lots of other things.
What was the campaign swing like through Albuquerque, Santa
Fe, Durango, Montrose, and finally Denver?
There were large and enthusiastic crowds, good exchange with
audiences and lots of sign-ups. The website is being
flooded, votenader.com and votenader.org. We literally have
tens of thousands of volunteers ready to roll. But we have
to remember that the system is rigged against significant
third parties. We don't have much of a television ad budget.
We're not accepting PAC money or soft money so that we can
practice what we preach and not just preach what we
practice. We're taking only individual contributions. So
it's an uphill fight. But we'll break through. There will be
a significant Green Party after November that will be a
watchdog on the two parties, hold their feet to the fire. I
keep telling them if they don't shape up they're going to
shrink down. The Green Party's going to keep growing to
majority status.
Why is MasterCard suing you?
They said that our TV spot, which was a parody, infringed on
their trademark on the word "priceless." Can you imagine,
putting a price on "priceless"? and that I was absorbing to
enhance my political campaign the popular reputation and
goodwill of MasterCard. That has to be one of the greatest
jokes. I sent the legal complaint that they filed against me
in court to Saturday Night Live. It should give them good
material, especially since for twenty years I've been
pointing out credit card company gouging, excessive interest
rates, penalties, fees and invasions of privacy. And they're
saying I am absorbing for my campaign their popular
reputation. This has to be one of the funniest episodes of
our campaign. MasterCard should lighten up. They're taking
their name, "Master," too seriously. [Note: On Sept. 12 a
federal judge in New York threw out MasterCard's lawsuit.)
Where do you draw the line in terms of forming alliances
with people you ordinarily wouldn't be found in the same
room with, let's say, Pat Buchanan?
We have similar criticisms of WTO and NAFTA, and we're
making them separately. There's really no alliance. He has
his hands full just getting control of his own candidacy,
given all the divisiveness of the Reform Party.
How do you keep yourself fresh and inspired after these
one-nighters and campaign talks?
The struggle for justice is the greatest struggle in the
history of the world. Where would the world be without
justice? We have an opportunity to build a progressive
political movement that will support the civil society which
the two parties and their corporate benefactors are shutting
down in Washington and making impossible for us to
participate in and do what we did in the sixties and
seventies in the environment, consumer protection,
government accountability and corporate responsibility area.
If we have an opportunity to do that, it's a gratification,
something we should all see as a privilege and make the most
of with millions of other Americans.
For information about obtaining cassette copies or
transcripts of this or other programs, please contact:
David Barsamian
Alternative Radio
P.O. Box 551
Boulder, CO 80306
(800) 444-1977
a-@orci.com
www.alternativeradio.org
(4)
*************************************************
PeaceNet and WomensNet Excerpts
This Week's Headlines and Alerts from PeaceNet
http://www.igc.org/igc/gateway/pnindex.html
*************************************************
Take Action for East Timor: Stop the Violence Now
STOP THE VIOLENCE NOW Murderous Militias Rampage Through West Timor U.S.
Must Publicly Suspend All Contact With Indonesian Security Forces
Read More...
http://headlines.igc.apc.org:8080/pnalerts/968952945/index_html
"Paper of Record" Distorts Record on Iraq Sanctions
On September 12, the New York Times ran a blatantly biased front-page
article by U.N. correspondent Barbara Crossette about Iraq's decision
not to allow two teams of United Nations experts into Iraq to assess the
effects of the sanctions. This article is only the latest example of
Crossette's alarming willingness to repeat increasingly shrill-- and
largely discredited-- charges from the U.S. State Department that the
Iraqi government is sabotaging the U.N.'s relief work.
Read More...
http://headlines.igc.apc.org:8080/pnalerts/968952228/index_html
Halt US Executions
Join Moratorium 2000, Sr. Helen's non-profit anti-death penalty
organization, in calling for a moratorium on the death penalty.
Read More...
http://headlines.igc.apc.org:8080/pnalerts/968951571/index_html
New Website: USoutofColombia.org
New Web Site To Educate, Agitate & Organize Against US Military
Intervention in Colombia
Read More...
http://headlines.igc.apc.org:8080/pnalerts/967652629/index_html
USA: Death penalty -- Time for Leadership
The US Government should offer the leadership required to guide the
United States away from judicial killing, Amnesty International said
today, following the release of the US Justice Department's review of
the federal death penalty system.
Read More...
http://headlines.igc.apc.org:8080/pnheadlines/968954540/index_html
World Leaders Strengthen Committment to Human Rights Protection
Amnesty International welcomes the commitment made by many states to
increase human rights protection for their citizens by signing and
ratifying or acceding to human rights treaties at the United Nations
Millennium Summit
Read More...
http://headlines.igc.apc.org:8080/pnheadlines/968955043/index_html
Exhuming the Truth about Genocide in Guatemala
Since 1992, Guatemalans --mainly Mayans-- have been digging up mass
graves ("clandestine cemeteries"), searching for the remains of their
loved ones, massacred in the 1970s and 1980s. Dozens of exhumations have
taken place since 1992; there are thousands of mass graves scattered
across the country.
Read More...
http://headlines.igc.apc.org:8080/pnheadlines/968958403/index_html
US Riled by Economic Sanctions Report
A report commissioned by the United Nations Sub-Commission on Human
Rights that points out 'the inefficiency of comprehensive economic
sanctions as a coercive tool' to bring about desirable political changes
in a particular government, has invoked the ire of the United States,
which has imposed crippling economic embargoes on Iraq and Cuba.
Read More...
http://headlines.igc.apc.org:8080/pnheadlines/968959205/index_html
Bring Lori Berenson Home Now
The government of PerEhas admitted that it made a mistake, that Lori
Berenson was never a leader of a terrorist group, that she should not
have been tried by a military tribunal, that she was not guilty of
treason to the fatherland, and, therefore, her life sentence was
nullified. But she is still far from free -- there's talk of a civilian
trial, though all the charges have been dismissed and she continues
serving time for no reason. And if there is a new trial, there is good
reason to believe that it cannot be fair, given the state of the
Peruvian judicial system and the biased coverage of her case over the
last 4 years and 9 months. We must continue to pressure the U.S.
government to bring Lori home.
Read More...
http://headlines.igc.apc.org:8080/wnalerts/968459393/index_html
WomensNet Headlines: September 14, 2000
MYANMAR: Aung San Suu Kyi at Risk
The Myanmar government should immediately reveal the whereabouts of Daw
Aung San Suu Kyi and her colleagues, who have been held incommunicado
since 2 September, Amnesty International said today, expressing grave
concern for their safety.
Read More...
http://headlines.igc.apc.org:8080/wnheadlines/968453857/index_html
ASIA: No End in Sight to Violence Against Women
''Homes where a woman is present, have their windows painted so that
outsiders can never see her,'' she said. Women cannot appear in public
without a male relative accompanying them.
Read More...
http://headlines.igc.apc.org:8080/wnheadlines/968454997/index_html
ARGENTINA: Psychoanalysis Embraces Gender Perspective
BUENOS AIRES, Sep 7 (IPS) - Argentina is making swift progress towards
incorporating a gender perspective in psychoanalysis, a field in which
the capital city is the world leader in terms of the number of
psychologists per capita.
Read More...
http://headlines.igc.apc.org:8080/wnheadlines/968456689/index_html
Same Sex Marriage Penalty
According to a 9/2 Boston Globe newspaper article, "One couple's penalty
remains another's privilege", same-sex marriage would produce up to $1.3
billion in additional, annual federal tax revenue for the United States.
Read More...
http://headlines.igc.apc.org:8080/wnheadlines/968457988/index_html
=============================================
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==============================================
Date: Sep 18 2000 11:22:44 EDT
From: "Chocopaul News" <pa-@arenson.org>
Subject: CPN #37 Japan News (Mitsubishi,Genpatsu Gypsies, etc.)
Chocopaul News # 37
=============================================
main site page http:// arenson.org
email pa-@arenson.org
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==============================================
Japan News from the Japan Press Service
and other sources
(1) Mitsubishi/Ford-Bridgestone Scandals
(2) Labor News
(3) Peace News
(4) Special: Nuclear "Gypsies" and
Japan's Nuclear Power Plants
A shocking article by Professor Nagamitsu Miura, Tsuda College, Tokyo,
revealing government and media coverups of dozens of nucelar-related
deaths, and the fact that under-employed and even unemployed or homeless
people are targeted by the industry for this dangerous work
Coming in Issue 38:
Chomsky on the UN Summit
Australian Complicity in Indonesian Atrocities in
East Timor
===========================================
New recall scandal at Mitsubishi group
TOKYO, Sept 12 (AFP) - [FAIR USE]
Mitsubishi Electric Corp. said Tuesday it was recalling nearly 100,000
televisions in Japan, after confessing that it concealed
complaints about defective sets that could burst into flames.
In shades of a huge recall scandal damaging group partner Mitsubishi
Motors
Corp., the electrical arm came clean to the cover-up
after a report in the Sankei Shimbun newspaper.
Mitsubishi Electric admitted it had failed to report to the Ministry of
International Trade and Industry (MITI) 66 customer complaints
about the defective CZ-1 and CZ-2 television sets, made from 1987 to
1990.
"This problem of ignition was not something that would happen in many
instances so at the time we judged it was unnecessary to
report this to MITI," said company spokesman Matthew Nicholson.
"But looking back from the standpoint of cause of injury or cause of
property damage, that was not an appropriate judgement at the
time," he acknowledged.
Electronics makers are obliged to report to MITI serious faults that may
threaten safety, although there is no obligation to recall such
products.
"We changed our judgement on our obligation to report (the faults) after
the report," Mitsubishi Electric director Fumio Ookusa told a
news conference.
The cost of repairing the sets will be around 7,000-10,000 yendollars)
each, he said.
Nicholson declined to comment on whether Mitsubishi Electric would have
continued the cover-up but for the Sankei Shimbun's
revelations Tuesday.
He added that "this affects only TVs for domestic Japanese use, there is
absolutely no effect on overseas operations."
A total of 50,000 CZ-1 televisions and 49,950 CZ-2s will be either
recalled
or repaired by Mitsubishi Electric engineers at customers'
homes, the company said.
It admitted it had failed to report 66 complaints about the sets, which
have screens ranging from 29-37 inches (74-94 centimetres),
including seven in which they emitted smoke or burst into flames.
"There were six cases involving the CZ-1 series and one with the CZ-2
series resulting in flames, but nobody suffered any physical
harm," Nicholson said.
The problems were caused by a build-up of humidity in the TV sets
affecting
cooling parts on the circuit board, Mitsubishi Electric
said.
The case bears echoes of the scandal that has swept through Mitsubishi
Motors, which confessed last month to keeping the Transport
Ministry in the dark about 64,000 complaints about vehicle defects since
1977.
That resulted last Friday in the resignation of Mitsubishi Motiors
president Katsuhiko Kawasoe and the company had to agree to cut
the price for DaimlerChrysler AG to take a 34-percent stake in the
Japanese
automaker.
The Mitsubishi Electric spokesman declined to comment on the
similarities,
or on the possible damage to the electrical company's
image.
"Mitsubishi Motors is a separate company. I can only speak for
Mitusbishi
Electric," Nicholson said.
Ford/Firestone: Homicide?
(Note that Firestone is a member of the Bridgestone Group of Japan)
By Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman
September 12, 2000
In 1998, in Corpus Christi, Texas, 17-year-old Matthew Hendricks was on
his way to pick up his girlfriend. He was driving a Ford Explorer. The
tread ripped off one of the Ford's Firestone's tires, causing him to
lose
control. He was thrown from the vehicle and killed.
"When I was told that my son died, I felt like someone had reached in
and
ripped my heart out," Vicki Hendricks, Matthew's mom, said last week.
Matthew Hendricks is one of more than 150 deaths around the world linked
to Firestone tread separations. The families and friends of those killed
in these accidents want to know -- what did Ford and Firestone know
about
these tires and when did they know it?
Journalists, members of Congress, and trial lawyers are seeking to
provide
answers. Reporters have informed us that Ford and Firestone knew that
they
had a problem, but failed to notify federal regulators. Many months ago,
Ford and Firestone were ordering the recall of problem tires in Saudi
Arabia, Venezuela and Asia -- but not in the United States.
Ford and Firestone knew of at least 35 deaths and 130 injuries before
the
federal government launched its probe earlier this year. They knew about
these cases, because they were being sued by the families of the
victims.
(The parents of Matthew Hendricks settled their case against Firestone
earlier this year.) And as a condition of these settlements, Ford and
Firestone were demanding that the lawyers who bring these cases not
speak
to anyone about what they found out during discovery.
With Congressional hearings ablazing in an election year, klieg light
fever has overcome our elected officials, and the keepers of the
corporate
flame, like Billy Tauzin (R-Louisiana), Thomas Bliley (R-Virginia) and
John Dingell (D-Michigan), have been transformed overnight into clones
of
Ralph Nader.
There is much talk in Washington about expanding the authority of
federal
enforcement officials, of increasing penalties, of requiring auto
companies to report overseas recalls to federal authorities here in the
United States.
But these reforms are being pushed by the liberal corporate elite to put
out a very hot fire that threatens not the reputations of not just Ford
and Firestone, but that also may plant the seed of doubt in the American
mind (in an election year, nonetheless) about the ethical foundation of
corporate America. (Or as Business Week asked in its cover story this
week, "Too Much Corporate Power?")
The families of the victims not only want the truth, and reform, but
they
also are demanding justice. And justice begins and ends with the
criminal
law.
Last week, Attorney General Janet Reno said she was looking into whether
any criminal case can be brought. But when the auto safety law was first
passed in 1966, the auto companies prevented criminal penalties from
becoming law. And they have blocked criminal penalties ever since. So
why
is Janet Reno blowing smoke?
Senator Arlen Specter (R-Pennsylvania) took the floor of the Senate last
week and introduced legislation that would establish criminal sanctions
for executives who knowingly market a defective product that kills or
maims. Auto safety activists want criminal penalties for any knowing or
willful violation of the federal auto safety law. But that doesn't help
bring justice here and now to the families and victims of Ford and
Firestone's act of violence.
Michael Cosentino knows what this game is about. Cosentino is the
Republican prosecuting attorney for Elkhart, County Indiana. Twenty-two
years ago, Cosentino brought a homicide charge against Ford Motor Co.
for
the deaths of three teenaged girls. The girls were riding in their Ford
Pinto when it was rear-ended. The doors on the Pinto slammed shut, the
gas
tank split open, gas leaked out, caught fire and the girls were
incinerated.
Cosentino had been reading about a 1973 memo that Ford executives had
written about the Pinto gas tank problem. In the memo, Ford put a price
on
a human life ($200,000) and a burn injury ($67,000) and calculated that
the cost of saving lives and prohibiting burn injuries by recalling the
Pinto's and fixing the fuel tank ($11 per auto) would be prohibitive.
Faced with a murder charge, Ford brought in its best legal guns, and
hired
the judge's best friend as its local counsel. The judge in turn ruled
that
much of Cosentino's evidence (including the smoking gun cost/benefit
memo)
could not get to the jury, and the jury found Ford not guilty.
We called up Cosentino last week and asked him if he would consider
criminally prosecuting either Ford or Firestone today. He said the
situation has yet to present itself.
E. Michael McCann, the district attorney in Milwaukee County knows that
he will launch a criminal homicide investigation if the situation
presents itself. He has called on the county medical examiner to search
whether any recent death in Milwaukee County has been linked to a
Firestone tire tread separation. McCann has a track record of
criminally prosecuting corporations for reckless homicide. He currently
has an investigation open into the deaths of three workers who died in a
crane collapse during construction at the new Milwaukee Brewers
ballpark.
But the list of prosecutors with sufficient resources and courage to
take on America's most powerful corporations is short. The families of
victims need to approach their local prosecutors and demand they open
criminal homicide investigations now. (If they need advice, they should
give a call to McCann or Cosentino.)
Earlier this week, the New York Times ran a long investigative article
by Keith Bradsher. Bradsher concludes that the story of the Firestone
tire debacle is one of "missed hints and lost opportunities." That it
might have been. But it also might one of corporate crime and violence.
And maybe even homicide. It's time we found out.
------------->LABOR NEWS
SEGA: World Class Game Machine Maker Gives
Second Class Treatment to Its Workers
(A secret shared by Japan IBM And Japan NCR)
TOKYO SEP 11 JPS -- The All Japan Metal and Information Machinery
Workers' Union (JMIU) on September 7 called on the Justice Ministry
Civil
Liberties Bureau to take firm action to deal with human rights
violations
in the workplace. JMIU representatives submitted signatures from 177
scholars and lawyers calling for an immediate investigation and relief
of
workers from human rights violations such as keeping particular workers
in
quarantine in a small cell.
Sega Enterprises, a major game machine maker, Japan IBM, a major
computer maker, and the Japan NCR in the production and sale of
automatic
teller machines are some of those companies notorious for such human
rights
violations as forcing employees into a small cell with no work to do
those
who disobey company orders for early retirement and changing affiliation
to
subsidiaries as part of corporate restructuring. In some instances, such
workers are assigned with the same work as that for part time workers.
A female Sega worker who took part in the representation to the
ministry
said she had been ordered to stay home indefinitely without any specific
reasons given, which was like a house arrest for her. (end item)
TOKYO SEP 14 JPS -- The National Confederation of Trade Unions
(Zenroren) on September 12 hailed the overall victory of workers in
their
32-year long labor disputes with Hitachi, Ltd. These workers have been
calling for an end to discrimination and a withdrawal of arbitrary
dismissal.
Mitsuo Bannai, Zenroren secretary-general, in a statement said that
this
settlement has significant bearing on all major companies in Japan,
which
are under public criticism for their moral hazard and lack of social
responsibility, making them rethink what they should be like and how
they
should change. And this will greatly encourage many other workers who
are
struggling to protect their jobs and rights against company
restructuring,
he added.
He pointed out the importance of the victory from the following
three
points of view: 1. Hideyuki Tanaka's case was included in the settlement
en
masse although Hitachi had insisted that the Supreme Court upheld
Tanaka's
dismissal; 2. Women workers' complaint about sex discrimination was
accepted and Hitachi agreed to increase their wages and raise their
ranks
according to single standards; and 3. Thirty-three workers who haven't
filed a suit for some reason were also included in the settlement and
the
company agreed to end discrimination against them.
In conclusion, Bannai expressed thanks to all the people, trade
unions,
and local organizations throughout the country for their support for
Hitachi workers' struggles. He also expressed his determination to make
further efforts to get some 400 labor disputes currently fought in Japan
settled at the earliest possible time. (end item)
JPS 09-048
Nurses resolve to provide more safe medicare
TOKYO SEP 14 JPS -- The Japan Federation of Medical Workers' Unions
have
resolved to call for an increase in the number of nurses and improvement
of
the medical system to secure safer care for patients.
In a meeting held in Shizuoka Prefecture on September 12 and 13 with
about 200 nurses attending, Chieko Tanaka, chair of the federation,
emphasized that nurses' duty is to provide patients with safe and
reliable
medical services.
It is also a duty for nurses to accuse their harsh working
conditions
in
a hospital and to call for more nurses to be placed, said Tanaka.
A nurse from Tokyo reported that 74 percent of nurses think a major
cause of medical mistakes is fatigue and shortage of medical staff.
The participants determined to work for a 2 million-nurse system to
be
established, an end to putting priority more on efficacy than safety,
and
education to promote practical nurses' position to be started. (end
item)
JPS 09-049
Court punishes freight transporters' unionbusting
-----------> PEACE NEWS
JPS 09-033
Japan paying 679.9 bill. yen for U.S. Forces in Japan
TOKYO SEP 11 JPS -- Japan is paying a total of 679.9 billion yen in
FY
2000 for the 47,000-strong U.S. Forces stationing in Japan (USFJ),
including 275.5 billion yen known as the "sympathy budget." This means
that
Japan this year is shouldering 14.47 million yen per U.S. personnel in
Japan as its generous support for the cost for USFJ.
Akahata on September 9 reported this based on the Foreign Ministry's
announcement. The total sum, which includes 14 billion yen related to
the
Special Action Committee on Okinawa (SACO) for relocation of U.S. bases
in
Okinawa, will be 5.9 billion yen more than last year's.
Although tiny changes such as putting the upper limit of payment of
costs for public utilities on the bases were made, there is no change in
its general framework.
U.S. Department of Defense annual report on contribution by 22
allies
for common defense says that Japan is distinguished in its amount of
payment for USFJ; 3.6 times over that of Italy, which ranks second, and
4.2
times over Germany, the third.
Japan has no obligation to furnish the "sympathy budget" under the
Japan-U.S. Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA). But in the Japan-U.S.
Security Consultative Committee on September 11 in New York, both
governments will sign a new five-year special agreement to take effect
after the current one expires on March 31. With this, the "temporary,
limited and extraordinary" agreement will have continued nearly 20
years.
(end item)
Genpatsu Gypsies:
The Hidden Tragedy Of Japan's Nuclear Labor Force
By
Professor Nagamitsu Miura, Department of Philosophy, Tsuda College,
Tokyo
Email: nmi-@lily.ocn.ne.jp
Radiation exposure of nuclear power plant workers in Japan is a fact
that is suppressed from public consciousness. While people sit in their
homes and enjoy the comforts of modern living due in part to the
electricity that is supplied by nuclear energy, most remain relatively
unaware of the darker side of the process which goes into lighting their
cozy dwellings.
In September, 1999, an accident occurred at the JCO uranium
processing
facility in the town of Tokai, Ibaragi prefecture, Japan. The accident
occurred when nuclear fuel suddenly rose to a critical temperature
because
of it's improper handling by workers. Of the three men who worked in the
nuclear plant and were exposed to radiation, two of them, Hisashi Ouchi
and
Masato Shinohara, died several months later. The workers had not been
properly trained by their employers for the necessity of dealing with
nuclear fuel with utmost caution due its extreme danger during
processing.
This nuclear power related accident was the worst in Japan's
history
and revealed to the world that dangerous nuclear substances are
routinely
being handled by careless and unskilled employees who are often ignorant
of
the consequences of their tasks. But due to the mainstream media's
obfuscating coverage of the issue, still unknown to the Japanese public
is
the fact that the deaths of Ouchi and Shinohara were not the first
suffered
by nuclear plant workers due to radiation exposure. And they will
probably
not be the last.
Since the first nuclear power station in Japan began operation in
1966, nuclear plants have been maintained not only by engineers but by
a
variety of other workers. According to the Central Registration Center
of
Radiation Workers, the number of nuclear plant workers in Japan in the
fiscal year 1999, amounted to 64,922. About 10% of them are full-time
workers employed by nuclear companies while 90% are subcontracted
workers.
Thus, the vast majority of the nuclear industry's labor force is
comprised
of temporary employees who work at plants for between 1-3 months at a
time.
These people are mostly farmers, fishermen or day laborers seeking to
supplement their incomes or simply to get by. Some of them are homeless.
They work mainly at nuclear power plants, but they also find jobs at
nuclear fuel facilities (refining, processing, reprocessing and using
plants), and at nuclear waste burial and storage facilities. The workers
work twice or thrice a year at the same nuclear plant or move about to
other plants. Thus, the nickname they have been tagged with by
journalists,
"genpatsu gypsies" (ie., nuclear nomads).
The question that would immediately come to mind for most people
before working around nuclear materials is "how safe is it"?
Admittedly, as many of the workers' backgrounds are in farming or
fishing,
they are less educated as to the workings of high-tech, industrial
society,
and at any rate, they need the money. Some may be naive in regards to
trusting the government and the nuclear industry, who they think would
probably never intentionally mean to cause them harm.
Concerning the maximum permissible exposure to radiation, the
Ministry
of International Trade and Industry formerly rated safe levels of
radiation
exposure at 1 milli-Sievert a day, 30 mSv per three months and 50 mSv a
year for nuclear plant workers while setting 5 mSv a year for the
general
population. However, it relaxed these limitations in 1990 to: 50 mSv a
year and no limitations for the period of three months or a day for
nuclear
plant workers, while it tightened the ceiling for radiation exposure for
ordinary citizens to 1 mSv a year. Bear in mind, there is much
controversy
about whether there is any safe dose of nuclear radiation whatsoever.
The purported reason MITI gave for changing the maximum permissible
radiation exposure is obscure. But the hidden meaning is not hard to
decipher-- the restrictions of 30msv per three months and 1msv a day are
too rigid and ineffective for the nuclear industry to abide by. If they
had
to record radiation exposure doses for workers at daily and tri-monthly
intervals, it would be far more difficult to falsify data than under the
mere limitation of exposure over a year's time.
Under MITI's new provision, a nuclear plant worker who was exposed
to
a radiation dose of 50 mSv in a short period (eg. a week) is judged as
"safe". But according to Kenji Higuchi, a photo journalist who has
investigated the situation of nuclear plant workers for nearly 30 years
and
has observed the effects of low level radiation exposure, 50 mSv in a
short
period is extremely dangerous. Again, while in former times the maximum
permissible exposure for nuclear plant workers was ten times that for
ordinary citizens (50 mSv : 5mSv), the new provision has widened
the
difference to 50 times (50 mSv : 1 mSv). Higuchi stated in an interview,
"This is an obvious policy of discrimination against nuclear plant
workers."
According to the Central Registration Center of Radiation Workers,
of
a total of 64,922 nuclear plant workers in Japan in the fiscal year
1999,
those who were exposed to radiation doses of less than 5 mSv numbered
59,319 (91.4 % of the total); 5-10 mSv, 3,280 workers (5.1 %); 10-15
mSv,
1,514 (2.3 %); 15-20 mSv, 773 (1.2 %); 20-25 mSv, 26 (0.0 %); 25-30 mSv,
4
(0.0%); 30-40 mSv, 2 (0.0 %); 40-50 mSv, 4 (0.0 %); and those who were
exposed to a radiation dose of more than 50 mSv numbered zero.
Therefore,
the maximum permissible exposure to radiation of 50 mSv set by MITI was
observed, concludes the CRCRW. The Center has published annual reports
of
similar data every year since 1978 and demonstrated that there were no
problems about the safety of nuclear plant workers. The Center reports
that
the total number of nuclear plant workers from 1977 to March 2000
amounts
to 352,888 people.
According to Higuchi, however, the maximum permissible exposure of
50
mSv a year is too high, though this is also the limitation of radiation
exposure set by the International Commission on Radiological Protection.
Since 1974, he visited many nuclear power stations in Japan. Based on
interviews with approximately 80 workers at nuclear plants as of 1993,
he
found that many of them suffered from skin inflammation, lymphatic
swelling, head balding, falling out of teeth, arthralgia (pain in the
joints), nose bleeding, rash on the skin of the whole body, cerebral
tumor,
leukemia, cataract, glaucoma, diploid, and languor throughout the body.
These ex-employees could no longer work and could only lay in bed or
suffered from lingering illness.
In addition to the deaths of Ouchi and Shinohara that occurred at
the
JCO accident in 1999, Higuchi confirmed at least five other deaths of
nuclear plantworkers: Saburo Yamada, at age 20, by cerebral tumor in
1974;
Yoshimi Kitame, at age 49, by cerebral apoplexy in 1975; Shigeru Sato,
at
age 68, by leukemia in 1977; an anonymous supervisor at a nuclear power
plant, at age 40, by an unknown disease in 1989; and Nobuyuki
Shimahashi,
at age 29, by leukemia in 1991.
According to an investigation report published in March 1977, by
Yanosuke Narasaki, a member of the Japanese House of Representatives,
the
deaths of nuclear plant workers numbered 106 at that time.
According to an investigation made in 1983 by anti-nuclear groups
in
Fukushima and Fukui Prefectures, the deaths of nuclear plant workers in
both prefectures from 1970 to 1983 numbered 200. These groups and
Higuchi
estimated from this data the total number of workers in Japan's nuclear
plants who died as a result of exposure to radiation to be between
300-400.
In 1993, the researchers drew an inference based on the same data that
workers who died as a result of exposure had grown to approximately 700
individuals. Higuchi estimates based on studies from the atomic bombings
that anywhere from 1 to 17 persons per 10,000 subcontracted workers "are
sure to die by cancer" due to routine radiation exposure on the job.
How is it that the reports published by the Central Registration
Center, MITI and nuclear power companies on radiation exposure of
nuclear
plant workers are at variance with witnesses of the workers themselves?
How
is it that the official position contradicts other well documented
studies
on the dangers of low level radiation exposure?
Higuchi heard nuclear power plant workers report that they worked
in
temperatures ranging from 30 degrees centigrade to 50 degrees centigrade
inside the reactors during periods for inspection, maintenance and
decontamination. They work wearing masks and protection suits. But since
the face-glass on the mask soon becomes clouded in the high temperature
and
humidity, they must take the mask off to finish their work in time. In
order to earn what is for most subcontracted workers-- a badly needed
daily
wage-- workers prefer bringing their task quickly to fulfillment instead
of
observing the regulations for protection against radiation exposure. As
a
result, the workers inhale air contaminated with high levels of
radiation.
This internal radiation exposure is more dangerous than external
exposure
through the skin.
Workers reported to Higuchi that they were scarcely warned about
the
danger of radiation exposure before going on the job. They carry
radiation
dose meters and pocket radiation alarm meters with them while working
inside the reactor. But they often take these off following the
direction
of their overseer or of their own accord. Ironically, due to the
insecure
nature of their jobs, they are afraid that they will be fired by their
employer if their radiation exposure dose exceeds the permitted level.
Under these circumstances, workers are in fact often exposed to far more
radiation than the dosage level their radiation meters record.
Higuchi notes that nuclear plant workers who become sick and
consult
doctors of the hospitals nearby nuclear plants are often pronounced to
be
"not abnormal" and the doctors will not tell them their dosage level of
radiation exposure. It proved that after the death of Shimahashi as
mentioned above, the nuclear company for which he worked had tampered
with
his medical records. Higuchi believes that such juggling of data
regularly
occurs in regards to the health inspections of nuclear plant workers in
Japan.
When Kunio Murai and Ryusuke Umeda who suffered illnesses after
working at nuclear plants tried to bring suit against their employers,
they
were threatened by gangsters and then were offered 6,000,000 yen and
1,060,000 respectively (about 60,000 USD and 10,600 USD each) for
settlements from their subcontracting companies. In each case they
decided
to quit their law suits. Higuchi says these cases make apparent the way
in
which the nuclear industry unscrupulously hinders workers from exposing
to
the public the egregious lack of safety standards within the industry.
While the deaths of Ouchi and Shinohara caused by the JCO accident
were from acute radiation sickness, some specialists in radio
therapeutics
believe that radiation exposure also causes diseases such as cancers
which
may arise many years after initial exposure. Higuchi decisively
states,"There is no such thing as a 'maximum permissible exposure to
radiation' for nuclear power plant workers. They are all more or less
exposed to radiation and will probably suffer from it, whether they are
conscious of its symptoms or not."
The following month after the JCO plant accident, the Japanese
government announced that it would improve the system for emergency
medical
service for helping to save victims of radiation exposure from accidents
at
nuclear power plants. But both the government and nuclear power industry
are still a long way off from being determined to review the safety
standards of plants and the conditions for workers. Improvements will
come
about only through public pressure. Concerned citizens from Japan and
abroad, labor unions, human rights, health care and environmental
advocates
will need to focus attention on this problem and expose these dangerous
and
inhumane policies being propagated by Japanese industry and the
government.
~~~
A Note About Kenji Higuchi. He was born in 1937 and is a freelance
photo-journalist who has authored the following books which include his
original photographs: "Genpatsu" (Nuclear Power Station); "The Islands
Exposed to Radiation From Nuclear Power Stations" (Genpatsu Hibaku
Retto);
"Nuclear Power Plant Workers Are Put Out Into The Dark" (Yami ni
Kesareru
Genpatsu Rodosha); "Nuclear Power Stations in Asia and the Workers
Exposed
to Radiation at Nuclear Plants" (Ajia no Genpatsu to Hibaku Rodosha);
"This is a Nuclear Power Station" (Kore ga Genpatsu da). He was also
featured in a documentary film produced by the BBC called "Nuclear
Ginza".
=============================================
main site page http:// arenson.org
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Date: Sep 20 2000 00:33:56 EDT
From: "Chocopaul News" <pa-@arenson.org>
Subject: Edward Said, New BREAKING NEWS, Prague Demonstrations
ChocoPaul News # 38
=============================================
main site page http:// arenson.org
email pa-@arenson.org
this list http://Chocopaul.listbot.com/
==============================================
Hi. I hope all subscribers to ChocoPaul News have received their
email usernames and passwords. Let me know if you haven't or things
are not working. Please don't forget to change your password and other
desired information.
With this issue, we are expanding by adding a new section with
BREAKING NEWS and other resources as well as expanding our
alliances with other progressive web sites.
There are also two articles that deal with the breakdown of social
services under capitalism. The first is by Edward Said,
author of Orientalism. The second is by a U.S. woman
who at age 65 finds her insurance company has suddenly discontinued
her health insurance. This should be as relevant in other countries,
such as Japan, where privatisation is destroying people's lives
even as politicians lie and say things are getting better all the time.
I hope you find these articles and the new section informative and
inspiring.
CONTENTS
(1) New Section: Today's News/Political Cartoons (replaces Cartoons)
On the main page, you will notice a new section:
"Today's News's/Political Cartoons". This is separate from the Media
portion of the green reference section. This is the place to come to
get:
(a) Breaking news not covered sufficiently (or at all) by the mainstream
media
(b) Analysis of ongoing events and campaigns
(c) Bitter, biting, better humor (for now, from Znet)
One of the links, Indymedia Newswire, even lets YOU upload news
and announcements. There is also a link to World news in Japanese
by InterPress. Please give them a try and let me know how you
like this new section.
(2) Two articles on the breakdown of civil society and the social
welfare
state:
(a) Problems of Neoliberalism by Edward Said, Columbia University
"...What has disappeared is the sense citizens need to have
of
entitlement -- the right, guaranteed by the state, to
health, education, shelter, and democratic freedoms. If all
those become the prey of the globalised market, the future
is deeply insecure for the large majority of people...
(b) A Culture of Rage, Margaret Randall
"[There is] massive depression and despair. A sense
of disenfranchizement that forces people who care, in
one election after another to swallow hard and cast
their vote for whomever they presume to be the least
damaging of the available 'choices.' This rage has been
palpable
for years in poor minority communities, inner city ghettos,
on Indian reservations and in areas of rural poverty. The
only change is that it has now invaded middle America:
Please note that the commentaries are from ZNet, and you
can help support their work and get them daily by visiting
the Sustainer Pages at http://www.zmag.org/Commentaries/donorform.htm
Problems of neoliberalism
Edward Said
In the decade after the fall of the Soviet Union, most
of the world is in the grip of an ideology whose most
dramatic embodiment is currently to be found in the race
between the two main candidates for the American presidency.
Without wishing to list the various issues that divide them,
I should like very quickly therefore to note what it is that
unites them and in many ways makes them mirror images of
each other. As I said in my last article (Al-Ahram Weekly,
24-30 August), both are passionate, indeed unquestioning
believers in the corporate free market system. Both advocate
what they call less government, oppose "big" government, and
together continue the campaign against the welfare state
that was inaugurated two decades ago by Margaret Thatcher
and Ronald Reagan. It is this 20-year continuity that I
would like to describe in view of what has been the
emergence and hegemony of neo-liberalism, a doctrine that
has almost totally transformed the British Labour Party (now
called New Labour) and the American Democratic Party under
Clinton and Gore. The dilemma we all face as citizens is
that, with few exceptions here and there (most of them
desperately isolated economic disasters, like North Korea
and Cuba, or alternatives that are useless as models for
others to follow), neoliberalism has swallowed up the world
in its clutches, with grave consequences for democracy and
the physical environment that can be neither underestimated
nor dismissed.
As practiced in Eastern Europe, China and a few other
countries in Africa and Asia, state socialism was unable to
compete with the energy and inventiveness of globalised
finance capital, which captured more markets, promised rapid
prosperity, and appealed to vast numbers of people for whom
state control meant underdevelopment, bureaucracy and the
repressive supervision of everyday life. Then the Soviet
Union and East Europe switched to capitalism, and a new
world was born. But when the doctrines of the free market
were turned on social security systems like those that had
sustained Britain in the post-war period, and the United
States since Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal, a massive
social transformation was to ensue. I will come to that in a
moment. But one must make an effort to remember those
genuinely progressive policies had once produced a
relatively new condition of widespread democratic equality
and social benefits, all of them administered and financed
by the central state. They were what gave strength to
post-war Britain and the United States in the 1940s and
1950s. Taxes were therefore quite high for the wealthy,
although the middle and working classes also had to pay for
the benefits that accrued to them (mainly education, health
and social security). Many of these benefits were the result
of an aggressive and well-organised labour union system, but
there was also a prevailing idea that the large costs of
health and education, for example, which the individual
citizen could not afford to pay alone, should be subsidised
by the corporate body of the welfare state. By the beginning
of the '90s all this was not only under attack but had
started to disappear.
First the labour unions were dissolved or broken (the
British miners, and the American air traffic controllers).
Privatisation of major services like transportation,
utilities, education and heavy industry followed, mainly in
Europe. In the US (where except for utilities, most
industries were already in private hands, but prices were
controlled by the government in the basic services sector),
deregulation was the order of the day. This meant that the
government would no longer play a role in making sure that
the price of travel, basic commodities, health, education,
as well as utilities such as gas and electricity, should
stay within certain bounds. The market was to be the new
regulator, which meant that costs and profits of individual
airlines, hospitals, telephone companies, and later gas,
electricity, and water were left to the private companies to
set, frequently at considerable financial pain to the
individual consumer. Soon even the postal service and a
major part of the prison system were also privatised and
deregulated. In Britain, Thatcherism virtually destroyed the
university system, since it viewed each institution
university as a supplier of learning, and hence like a
business that in terms of profit and loss tended to be a
loser, rather than a maker, of money. Many teaching
positions were slashed, with an extraordinary loss in morale
and productivity, as thousands of professors and teachers
looked for positions abroad.
With the collapse of socialism everywhere and the triumph of
aggressive right-wing parties and policies such as those
headed by Reagan and Thatcher, the old liberal left in
British Labour and the US Democratic party had two
alternatives. One was to move closer to the successful
policies of the right. The other alternative was to choose
an approach that would protect the old services but make
them more efficient. Both the British New Labourites under
Tony Blair and the American Democrats under Bill Clinton
chose the former course (moving towards the right), but
skillfully kept some of the rhetoric of the past, pretending
that many of the welfare services the state used to provide
were there, albeit packaged differently.
That was simply false. Deregulation and privatisation
continued, with the result that the profit motive took over
the public sector completely. Budgets for social welfare,
health for the poor and aged, and schools were slashed;
defence, law and order (i.e. police and prisons) were fed
more state money and/or privatised. The major loss has been
in democracy and social practices. For when the country is
ruled by the market (in the US a period of great prosperity
for the top half of the country, poverty for the bottom) and
with the state in fact given over to the most powerful
corporations and stock market businesses (symbolised by the
tremendous growth in electronic business), there is less and
less incentive for the individual citizen to participate in
a system perceived as basically out of control so far as the
ordinary population is concerned. The price of this
neoliberal system has been paid by the individual citizen
who feels left out, powerless, alienated from a market place
ruled by greed, immense transnational corporations, and a
government at the mercy of the highest bidder. Thus
elections are controlled not by the individual voter but by
the major contributors, the media (who have an interest in
maintaining the system), and the corporate sector.
What is most discouraging is the sense most people have that
not only is there no other alternative, but that this is the
best system ever imagined, the triumph of the middle-class
ideal, a liberal and humane democracy -- or, as Francis
Fukuyama called it, the end of history. Inequities are
simply swept out of sight. The degradation of the
environment and the pauperisation of huge patches of Asia,
Africa and Latin America -- the so-called South -- are all
secondary to corporate profits. Worst of all is the loss of
initiative that could bring significant change. There is
hardly anyone left to challenge the idea that schools, for
instance, should be run as profit-making enterprises, and
that hospitals should offer service only to those who can
pay prices set by pharmaceutical companies and hospital
accountants. The disappearance of the welfare state means
that no public agency exists to safeguard personal
well-being for the weak, the disadvantaged, impoverished
families, children, the handicapped, and the aged. New
liberalism speaks about opportunities as "free" and "equal"
whereas if for some reason you are not capable of staying
ahead, you will sink.
What has disappeared is the sense citizens need to have of
entitlement -- the right, guaranteed by the state, to
health, education, shelter, and democratic freedoms. If all
those become the prey of the globalised market, the future
is deeply insecure for the large majority of people, despite
the reassuring (but profoundly misleading) rhetoric of care
and kindness spun out by the media managers and public
relations experts who rule over public discourse.
The question now is how long neo-liberalism will last. For
if the global system starts to break down, if more and more
people suffer the consequences of a dearth of social
services, if more and more powerlessness characterises the
political system, then crises will begin to emerge. At that
point, alternatives will be a necessity, even if for the
time being we are being told "you never had it so good!" How
much social suffering is tolerable before the need for
change actually causes change? This is the major political
question of our time.
A CULTURE OF RAGE
By Margaret Randall
This week's mail brought a letter quite suddenly and
unceremoniously informing me that my health insurance
provider is discontinuing my group policy. "Your existing
QualMed health care coverage will end on October 31, 2000. .
. this is the only notice you will receive" is the way the
company's account representatives put it. I am one year and
three months away from 65, the age I will be eligible for
Medicare (if Medicare still exists). And if HMOs still have
senior plans by then, I may be able to draw on some
combination of government and private coverage. Last year I
earned $11,000. My partner is our household's main provider,
but I cannot be on her health plan because she is a teacher
and the Public School System for which she works does not
recognize domestic partners as families. For the past good
many years we have been spending an additional two to three
hundred dollars a month on my individual coverage. Now this
cost will no longer be an option.
I am one of the lucky ones. The same mail that delivered the
above letter brought another telling me that longtime peace
and justice activist Marv Davidov is currently fighting
prostate cancer, diabetes, and a broken ankle. The letter
asks for donations to help a man older than I am and with
neither health insurance, a 401(k) plan, stocks and bonds or
even a guaranteed job. I put what I could in the enclosed
envelope, hope many others will be moved to do the same, and
made a mental note to call my old friend.
Still, I am not representative of the millions of U.S.
Americans currently living below the poverty line, without
health insurance, often even without adequate shelter and
food. When compared with these citizens of the richest
nation on earth, I have little about which to complain. Yet
I am complaining. I am furious. A cursory look at either
presidential candidate's campaign promises in the area of
health care and prescription drug accessibility shows cheap
promises of "caring and commitment." Never mind that neither
major party has placed our nation's health high enough on
its political agenda to insure the coverage enjoyed by
citizens of all other industrialized countries and some
countries that have nowhere near our level of
industrialization. Attention to people's health, education,
and other basic needs is forever subordinate to maintaining
the U.S. death machine.
Those in power, whether they be our elected officials, the
CEOs of tobacco companies, manufacturers of automobile
tires or insurance industry magnates, ontinue to seduce our
support and then, when we need them, tell us they just can't
afford to help or that they want to "apologize to the
American people" or say sorry: the coverage you've paid into
all these years will end on such and such a date. Quite in
spite of whom we vote into office, it is clear that
corporate interests rule our lives. Further, increasingly
sophisticated handling techniques are aimed at giving us the
sense that our disempowerment is our fault. Any reassignment
of priorities is our responsibility.
The ever widening gap between those in power and those whose
needs are not being met, the rhetoric that describes
promises never intended to be kept, and the subtle and not
so subtle shifting of blame from those in power to the
victims of such a system, is creating a culture of rage
whose effects upon our way of life are impossible to
compute. But we can make some predictions. If we continue to
spend more on prisons and the military than on people's
health and education, if corporate CEOs continue to draw six
figure salaries while one fourth of our country's children
live in poverty, if more and more U.S. Americans swell the
ranks of the homeless, the downsized, the throw-away elderly
and those without healthcare, we cannot be surprised by the
social rage that is everyday more evident.
Road rage. Telephone rage. Massive depression and despair. A
sense of disenfranchizement that forces people who care, in
one election after another to swallow hard and cast their
vote for whomever they presume to be the least damaging of
the available "choices." This rage has been palpable for
years in poor minority communities, inner city ghettos, on
Indian reservations and in areas of rural poverty. The only
change is that it has now invaded middle America: white
middle-class suburbia. We are no longer surprised or even
shocked by the teenager who goes on a killing spree or the
presidential candidate who lies about his opponent's and/or
his own record and intentions. Still saddened but not
shocked.
An impotent rage courses through the nation's veins, all its
veins. Whether or not we as a people have a future with any
degree of dignity and peace depends upon our collective
ability to channel that rage into constructive action.
Through lesson after painful lesson we are learning that
this constructive action will not work if it is within the
framework of electoral politics as we know it.
Please let me know how you like the articles
and features you find here. Send mail to
Pa-@arenson.org
CP Community:
I am also hoping to hear from people in the
ChocoPaul Talk section (the forum for sharing your
views with me and one another) and hope that
you will also post your own favorite links in the
facility provided. Any links you add will automatically
appear the next time you refresh that page.
COMING ATTRACTIONS
Issue 39 will have the articles promised for Issue 38:
(1) Chomsky on the UN Summit
(2) Australian Complicity in Indonesian Atrocities in East Timor
Those immediately following will possibly include
leaked SONY Corporation documents on how they have been monitoring
the Environmental movement to try to defeat progressive legislation.
Look for coverage of the Anti-Globalisation demonstrations at the
Prague IMF summit next week both here and in the BREAKING NEWS
section. President Havel's government has already been reported
to have initiated cooperation with the FBI in attempting to
restrict democratic protest and virtually sealing the borders.
He should know better, considering that the one-time dissident,
on getting rid of the Soviet-era monster of repression had
named the late American rock musician Frank Zappa to an honoary
government post. Zappa, it should be rememebered, was a
target of Vice President Gore's (or is it Bore?)wife, Tipper,
for his sexually explicit lyrics. Havel, a writer as well as a
former dissident, seems to have forgotten his past and is now
an endorser of the same sort or repression he endured, this
time in service to the corporate elite and neoliberalism. For shame.
=============================================
main site page http:// arenson.org
email pa-@arenson.org
this list http://Chocopaul.listbot.com/
==============================================
Date: Sep 23 2000 02:43:15 EDT
From: "Chocopaul News" <pa-@arenson.org>
Subject: 39 East Timor/ UN Summits
Chocopaul News # 39
=============================================
main site page http:// arenson.org
email pa-@arenson.org
this list http://Chocopaul.listbot.com/
(1) Australia encouraged Invasion of East Timor-Secret
Documents
(2) Chomsky on the U.N Summit
=====================================================================
Note--Some typos are a result of wrong encoding used in original-pa
Statement on Howard government's release of secret papers
Action in Solidarity with Indonesia and East Timor (ASIET)
September 14, 2000
Australian governments must be brought to justice for 30 years of wrong
foreign policy on East Timor
"The Howard government's selective release of foreign affairs documents
relating to the 1974-1976 period under the Whitlam Labor and Fraser
Coalition governments is a cynical ploy to attempt to distance itself
from the stink surrounding bipartisan support for the Suharto
dictatorship's invasion and occupation of East Timor", Max Lane,
national chairperson of Action in Solidarity with Indonesia and East
Timor said today.
"Last year's strong public outrage at the Howard government's failure to
intervene to stop the post-ballot slaughter in East Timor is testimony
to the fact that the majority of Australians have, for some time,
opposed Labor and Coalition foreign policy on East Timor.
"The documents confirm former PM Gough Whitlam's public actions and
statements at the time Ethat the Australian government encouraged the
Suharto dictatorship to invade East Timor", commented Lane.
In September, 1974 in Central Java Whitlam told Suharto that Timor was
"too small to be independent", a sentiment confirmed by the internal
documents. "I am in favour of incorporation but obeisance must be made
to self-determination", one document quotes Whitlam as saying.
The legal front for the Indonesian military's black operations at the
time, the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), was so
convinced of the Australian government's support for the invasion that
it briefed the Australian Embassy on their covert operations. The
Australian Embassy was informed three days before hand that Indonesian
troops would attack Balibo where the Australian reporters were killed.
The documents underscore the fact that all public references to
"self-determination in East Timor" were designed to prevent "argument in
Australia" Eanother of Whitlam's concerns. This pretence was part of a
greater pretense: Australian government support for democracy in the
region.
"Whitlam's support for East Timor's incorporation into Indonesia meant
that he supported the same dictatorial regime to rule over the East
Timorese. Whitlam knew what kind of government Suharto's was, and that
‘obeisance to self-determinationEcould only be pretense when he was
dealing with a military dictatorship with Suharto regime's record", said
Lane.
PM Howard's attempts to distance the current government from the
bipartisan wrong policy on East Timor is hypocritical on two counts,
said Lane.
"First, Howard was a member of the opposition during the Whitlam period
which enthusiastically supported the Indonesian occupation. Howard was a
member of the Fraser government, the first to legally recognise
Indonesia's take over of East Timor. The Fraser government also
massively increased material aid to the Indonesian military throughout
the late 1970s, the period when it was engaged in its most savage
operations against the East Timorese guerrilla resistance.
"Secondly, Howard's government was a no less enthusiastic supporter of
Suharto, than Whitlam, Hawke and Keating. While Hawke raised the by now
infamous champagne glass and told Suharto: "Our people love you, Mr
PresidentEduring his 1983 visit to Jakarta, Howard described Suharto as
a "Caring and sensitive leader."
The Howard government also continued previous government policy with
more joint military exercises with Jakarta and military training for the
elite Kopassus troops.
It was the Howard government who wrote to President Habibie suggesting
he try to con the East Timorese into dropping their resistance by
promising a vaguely described act of self-determination at some
indefinite time in the future, said Lane. When this backfired and
Habibie called a referendum, Howard did his best to aid the
pro-integration military in East Timor.
"It was his government which refused to apply pressure on the Habibie
government to reign in the army and the militias in 1999. Howard and
Downer gave repeated assurances to the Australian people that everybody
could rely on the Indonesian military to do the right thing in East
Timor, even as the militia violence was broadcast over television sets
world-wide.
"It was the Howard government which refused to pressure the Habibie
government to allow the UN referendum process to be protected by an
armed force.
"The Howard government stood by as the post-referendum violence
exploded, afraid of any confrontation with Jakarta.
"Only the massive explosion of public anger forced the government into a
frenzied lobbying of the US to get it to pressure Habibie into
surrendering East Timor to UN forces.
"Today, as Jakarta refuses to take any serious action against the
militias, Howard and Downer still express their confidence in President
Wahid's stated commitment to improve the situation" just as they did
with Suharto and Habibie before him.
"But it is obvious that Wahid is not interested in subjugating the
militias in East Timor. He has made no statements attacking or
criticising the militia activities. The situation in West Timor was not
raised in the recent sitting of the Peoples Consultative Assembly", said
Lane.
The Howard government knows that Wahid is intimately connected to the
CSIS. Lane continued. Wahid is a member of the CSIS advisory council. He
appointed one of the key crony businessmen, also a central figure in the
CSIS, Yusus Wanandi, to a top governmental advisory role. Wahid
maintains close contact with General Benny Murdani, who was in charge of
Timor invasion. He appointed General Luhut Panjaitan, the general held
responsible for the Dili massacre by US courts, to an important economic
ministry. When Wahid visited East Timor before the referendum, Eurico
GutierresEAitarak militia provided the security outside his residence.
His long-time friend and vice-president, Megawati Sukarnoputri, has
appointed Gutierres as head of her party's youth organisation in West
Timor.
According to Lane, Australian governments, Liberal and Labour, have been
and still are complicit in the oppression of the East Timorese people.
"An international war crimes tribunal should not only haul Suharto and
his military and political cronies before it, but also Whitlam,
Woolcott, Fraser, Hawke, Keating, Howard and all the other Australian
government accomplices to the crimes committed against the East Timorese
people", Lane concluded..
**********************************************************
Action in Solidarity with Indonesia and East Timor (ASIET)
PO Box 458, Broadway NSW 2007 Australia
Phone: 61-(0)2-96901230
Fax : 61-(0)2-96901381
Email: asi-@asiet.org.au
WWW : www.asiet.org.au
**********************************************************
Summits
By Noam Chomsky
Chomsky on UN Summit from ZNET. Please
check the following URLS to see how you can help ZNET remain
as one of the best independent sources of essential information
and progressive commentary:
http://www.zmag.org
Sustainer Pages at
http://www.zmag.org/Commentaries/donorform.htm
The United Nations Summit in New York in September was the
second major gathering of government leaders marking the
millennium. The first was the South Summit in Havana in
April. The UN Summit received considerable national
publicity, while the South Summit was barely reported, a
reflection of the "imbalance" in the global system that it
deplored.
The South Summit brought together heads of state of the
"Group of 77" (G77), now 133 countries, accounting for 80%
of the world's population. The name G77 is carried over from
the founding meeting of the UN Conference on Trade and
Development (UNCTAD) in 1964, attended by 77 of the
"developing countries." The April 2000 Summit was of unusual
importance. The first meeting ever at the level of heads of
state, the Summit focused on the concern that the South is
"collectively endangered" by the global economic system that
has been instituted by the rich countries.
A leading third world journal described the Summit as "a
defining moment in G77 history," ending on "a note of
confidence and determination from the leaders to work
together to bring about a new world order based on equity
and fairness," with South-South cooperation as a centerpiece
and a plan of action seeking significant changes in the
global system (Third World Economics, Penang).
In the New York Times Week in Review, UN correspondent
Barbara Crossette reported that the Summit "denounced the
global economy and its symbols" (the World Bank, IMF, and
WTO), dismissing it as insignificant because "slogans and
oratory do little to illuminate the profound complexity of
human development in the new economic order." According to
"development experts," for the poor "nothing could be more
irrelevant than global theories or rants against
multinational corporations." "The experts," who recognize
the "profound complexities," prefer serious measures to deal
with them: for example, persuading multinationals to "help
workers improve their lives" and inducing "big international
institutions" to adopt policies that "work for all levels of
society."
The experts are also bemused by the "irony" that the World
Bank is moving "dramatically into social programs...just as
protestors operating on outdated images single it out for
attack." Translating to the real world, the World Bank is
reacting to protestors who have been operating for years on
quite accurate images, as the experts now tacitly concede;
whether the reaction will pass beyond rhetoric depends
substantially on the dedication of the critics who are
largely responsible for bringing it about.
Each Summit produced a Declaration. The Declaration of the
UN Summit consisted largely of pieties, though at least one
resolution had a certain bite: "to encourage the
pharmaceutical industry to make essential drugs more widely
available and affordable by all who need them in developing
countries." There is little need to elaborate on the
extraordinary human catastrophes to which the resolution
alludes, and it is clear enough who bears the primary
responsibility to address them.
One central topic, much discussed in commentary, was what
Secretary-General Kofi Annan described in his call to the
Summit as "the dilemma of intervention": "national
sovereignty must not be used as a shield for those who
wantonly violate the rights and lives of their fellow human
beings." That much is generally agreed, at least at the
rhetorical level. But a rift appears with Annan's next
sentence: "In the face of mass murder, armed intervention
authorized by the Security Council is an option that cannot
be relinquished." The US and its allies, which monopolize
military power, adopt a very different stance: they insist
on their unique right of armed intervention without such
authorization. Annan is relatively popular in the West
because of his efforts to accommodate the interests of the
rich and powerful, but in this case he sided with the South
Summit, which rejects what it calls "the so-called `right'
of humanitarian intervention" by the powerful in violation
of the UN Charter and "the general principles of
international law."
The Declaration of the South Summit also "firmly reject[s]
the imposition of laws and regulations with extraterritorial
impact and all other forms of coercive economic measures,
including unilateral sanctions against developing
countries." The Declaration calls on "the international
community neither to recognize these measures nor apply
them," alluding obliquely to US initiatives, primarily. The
Declaration insists on "the right of developing countries,
in exercise of their sovereignty and without any
interference in their internal affairs, to choose the path
of development in accordance with their national priorities
and objectives." It views "with alarm the recent unilateral
moves by some developed countries to question the use of
fiscal policy as a development tool," reiterates "the
fundamental right of each State to determine its own fiscal
policies," and reaffirms "that every State has the
inalienable right to choose political, economic, social and
cultural systems of its own, without interference in any
form by other States." It calls for "reformulation of
policies and options on globalization from a development
perspective," and is sharply critical of the specific forms
of international integration that have been imposed by
concentrated political and economic power -- what is called
"globalization" in Western rhetoric, often depicted as a
neutral force to which "there is no alternative," in
Thatcher's famous slogan.
These calls are directed primarily to Washington. The same
is true of the call to "promote respect for all universally
recognized human rights and fundamental freedoms, including
the right to development." The first part is ritual
incantation: the right to development the US has forcefully
rejected.
For the South Summit, "our highest priority is to overcome
underdevelopment, which implies the eradication of hunger,
illiteracy, disease and poverty." The UN Summit adopted
similar wording. "Although this is primarily our
responsibility," the South Summit declares, "we urge the
international community to adopt urgent and resolute
actions, with a comprehensive and multidimensional approach,
to assist in overcoming these scourges, and to establish
international economic relations based on justice and
equity." It goes on to deplore "Asymmetries and imbalances
that have intensified in international economic relations"
to the severe detriment of the South, and calls for reform
of "international economic governance" and "international
financial architecture" to make them "more democratic, more
transparent and better attuned to solving the problems of
development," reviewing current problems in some detail.
The Declaration also warns that "the prevailing modes of
production and consumption in the industrialized countries
are unsustainable and should be changed, for they threaten
the very survival of the planet." Furthermore,
"technological innovations should be systematically
evaluated in terms of their economic, social and
environmental impact, with the participation of all the
social sectors involved," including "groups that have not
traditionally been part of this process" -- almost everyone.
It calls on "the developed countries to fulfil their
commitment to provide developing countries with financial
resources and environmentally sound technologies on a
preferential basis." Further provisions, also elaborated in
some detail, will not be unfamiliar to the ranting
protestors with their outdated images.
Annan's recommendations to the UN Summit included
implementation of the Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse gases;
providing "the necessary resources" for the UN "to carry out
its mandates," specifically its "peacekeeping operations";
debt relief; and "more generous [overseas] development
assistance" (ODA). In all of these categories, the US has a
special responsibility, though it is not alone.
The US has been evading the Kyoto protocol, and has one of
the worst records for violating it: emissions have in fact
considerably increased. The US is notorious for its refusal
to meet its funding obligations for the UN, including
peacekeeping operations. In July, the House and Senate
Appropriations committees again rejected an administration
request for a miserly $107 million for peacekeeping expenses
in Kosovo and East Timor, while cutting the small request
for peacekeeping by almost 50%, to $500 million. Debt relief
remains words, tied to strict conditionalities ("reforms").
ODA has declined sharply in the past 10 years, most
radically in the US, which by now provides virtually
nothing, far less than other industrial countries as a
proportion of GNP; by far the leading beneficiary of the
minuscule ODA budget is a rich country, Israel, with Egypt
second by virtue of its relations with Israel.
When the Cold War ended, the conventional self-applause held
that at last Western elites could now act in accord with
their ideals and treasured values. So they did, expressing
their ideals and values with great clarity as soon as there
was no longer any need for even cynical gestures to the
poor, the space for nonalignment having disappeared.
The standard version holds that the end of the Cold War
coincided with the discovery that trade is more helpful to
the poor than aid. Accordingly, Annan called on the rich
countries to open their markets to goods produced in the
South. On that they have been dragging their feet, while
demanding free access for their own products and services
and using a variety of methods to impose their will. Among
these are trade barriers and subsidies that are direct or
hidden "under the rubric of `defense'," as remarked by
then-World Bank chief economist Joseph Stiglitz, deploring
the mixture of liberalization and protectionism in the
mislabelled "free trade" regime, geared to the wishes of the
masters of the economy. Just as the South Summit was
gathering the Clinton Administration announced its
opposition to a World Bank proposal to allow poor countries
of Africa, Asia, and Latin America to export to the US
without tariffs or quotas; that would provide "a huge
economic advantage for those developing countries," the New
York Times reported, "going significantly beyond the
administration's efforts to get Congress to forgive their
debts as they undergo economic reforms" -- that is,
facilitate the takeover of their economies by Western firms.
The World Bank and IMF endorse the complaint of the South
"that the United States and other rich nations are using
their enormous prosperity and technology to grow rapidly at
the expense of countries being left far behind by economic
globalization" -- to which we should add that a similar
process continues internally.
While the Declaration of the UN Summit is more muted than
that of the South, behind the scenes the mood seems to have
been similar. A good report in the Boston Globe by John
Donnelly is headlined "African leaders lash out," accusing
the UN and the West of "keeping [the] continent in poverty."
The "overriding theme" of the African heads of state,
Donnelly reports, is that "the forces of globalization are
enriching the West anew while sentencing them to even more
misery," essentially the message of the South Summit. "They
said the Western powers talked a good game about the
benefits of globalization to Africa, but then stood by as
corporations plundered riches from the continent," following
the classic pattern, sometimes assisted by World Bank
programs: for example, the Bank's demand for privatization
in Gambia, leading to elimination of the peanut industry by
a foreign buyer that shifted processing abroad so that the
country now imports its own product.
African leaders pointed out that the "voices in the street"
in the West are repeating what "the developing countries
have been saying for many years in various international
fora with little success." Several suggested that "an
alliance was possible." That has been taking shape at the
grass-roots level, an impressive development, rich in
opportunity and promise, and surely causing no little
concern in high places.
What topics are you interested in?
What information do you have that you thinks others would
benefit from reading?
What sites do you know that provide incite on Jpanese or World Affairs?
What questions do you have for the authors of these articles?
I will try to enable a two way dialogue between contributors, readers
and
others. Please send your comments to pa-@arenson.org or use the form
on
my main page below.
Please recommend that your friends visit the list page (below) and sign
up, or
send me an email asking me to sign them up. Coming soon: collaboration
with
other progressive web sites.
Paul
Chocopaul News # 39
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Coming in Issue 40: Japan News, Eco/Peace/Women's/Anti-Racism News
Date: Sep 23 2000 02:47:57 EDT
From: "Chocopaul News" <pa-@arenson.org>
Subject: Thai Sex Slaves, Secret SONY Document, Japanese Peace
Constitution
Chocopaul News # 40
=============================================
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Progressive News summaries
==============================================
(1) JAPAN NEWS from Human Rights Watch,
Japan Press Service,IWP Extra, and other sources
--Thai Women Forced to be Sexual Slaves
--Consumers Act for Food Safety
--Japanese Communist Party policy on the Self Defence Forces and
the Constitution's anti-militarist "Article 9"
--Leaked SONY Document shows industry trying to counter-act
Environmentalists
(2) News from PeaceNet, EcoNet, WomensNet and Anti-Racism Net
(3) News from the Indy Media Center
(1) JAPAN NEWS
From: Human Rights Watch <hrwat-@igc.org>
Subject: Thousands of Thai Women Trafficked to Japan
Thousands of Thai Women Trafficked to Japan
Japanese Government Unresponsive, Says Report
(New York, September 21, 2000) Thousands of Thai women are "trafficked"
every year into Japan, where many of them endure slavery-like conditions
in the Japanese sex industry, Human Rights Watch said in a new report
released today.
According to the 227-page report, "Owed Justice: Thai Women Trafficked
into Debt Bondage in Japan," the women are typically promised lucrative
jobs by traffickers in Thailand, but arrive in Japan to find themselves
trapped in "debt." To repay these exorbitant sums -
usually US$25,000 to US$40,000 - they must work for months, or
even years, without pay, under highly coercive and abusive conditions.
...[O]ver the course of a six-year investigation
in both Japan and Thailand, Human Rights Watch found that the Japanese
government has taken no concrete steps to stamp out the practice.
"[T]hese women are reluctant to seek assistance
from authorities [and know] that as 'illegal aliens' and
'prostitutes,' the best treatment they can hope for is summary
deportation, while authorities turn a blind eye toward the abuses
they've suffered at the hands of their traffickers."
The Thai government has undertaken significant effort
The report can be found at: http://www.hrw.org/reports/2000/japan
For more information, please see:
Campaign Against the Trafficking Of Women and Girls
http://www.hrw.org/about/projects/traffcamp/intro.html
Beijing +5: Stop Violence Against Women Now
http://www.hrw.org/campaigns/women/beijing/
From the Japan Press Service
JPS 09-075
Consumers act toward food safety
TOKYO SEP 22 JPS -- The Japanese Consumers' Cooperatives Union on
September 21 held a gathering in Tokyo to make a fresh determination
toward
strengthening food safety.
About 250 people representing prefectural cooperatives and other
organizations attended the meeting.
As public concern is growing about genetically modified foods,
virus-
or
dioxin-contaminated foods, and expansion of imported products, the co-op
movement is developing a campaign to collect 10 million signatures
calling
for the law to be strengthened to regulate food hygiene and supply safe
foods to consumers. 4.32 million signatures have already been
collected,
an organizer reported.
The co-op movement has launched the campaign in solidarity with
many
other consumer advocate groups and food producers demanding that the
government revise the Food Hygiene Act and strictly keep its practice to
secure the food safety.
An executive of the Japanese Co-op said that the campaign is aiming
for
the law to be revised in an ordinary Diet session next year.
The participants informed each other of their creative activities to
appeal to the public by such means as puppet shows, picture-story shows,
short plays, and comic backchats. (end item)
JCP's view on relationship between Constitution's Article 9 and the
Self-Defense Forces
TOKYO SEP 21 JPS -- Japanese Communist Party Secretariat Head Kazuo
Shii
in the 7th Central Committee Plenum on September 19 explained the JCP's
view on the relationship between the struggle to defend Article 9 of
Japan's Constitution and the issue of the Self-Defense Forces.
Following are excerpts from the draft resolution of the JCP 22nd
Congress:
The focal point of the struggle over the Constitution is its Article
9.
Those who want to get the Constitution revised are also bringing up
issues
of other provisions of the Constitution, but obviously their true aim is
to
remove Article 9.
They are advocating the removal of Article 9 in order to remove the
obstacle to Japan's full-scale participation in U.S. global interference
and interventionist wars.
The War Laws were imposed in 1999 to create mechanisms for Japan's
participation in U.S. wars. But because of Article 9, the government
officially had to state that the SDF are not allowed to go abroad with
aim
of using force and that their action is limited to rear-area support.
What
the government describes as "rear-area support" is actually logistics
which
is part of war. What the government is saying is a deception. At the
same
time, we should note that Article 9 is effective to certain degree in
putting a brake on sending the SDF abroad.
After World War II, Japan has never taken part in wars abroad with
its
armed forces. This is owing to Article 9 and the people's peace
movement.
Article 9 has consistently been trampled upon in postwar politics led by
the Liberal Democratic Party, but it has been and is playing an
important
role of preventing the SDF from being sent abroad and Japan from
becoming
a
military power. Can we allow this brake to be released and a system to
be
established to allow the SDF to be sent abroad unrestricted? This is the
focal issue in the struggle around Article 9. Opposition to an adverse
change in Article 9 can bring together both those who regard the SDF
unconstitutional and those who do not.
The JCP calls on a broad range of the people to cooperate on the
single
task of opposing the adverse revision of Article 9 of the Constitution
and
prevent any attempt against its peace principles.
(3) How to view the relationship between the 'Constitution's Article
9
and Japan's Self-Defense Forces, and how to resolve the contradictions
is
a
crucial issue for a Japan in the 21st century.
Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution does not deny the right of a
state to self-defense as an inherent right. However, by providing that
the
Japanese people "renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the
threat or use of force," it states that "land, sea, and air forces, as
well
as other war potential, will never be maintained." This provision
prohibits
Japan from possessing a regular army. Such a thoroughgoing adherence to
lasting peace in a constitution is almost unparalleled in the world. We
should take pride in Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution heralding
the
major 20th century movement towards outlawing war.
The world is now giving renewed attention to the true significance
of
Article 9, as is clear from the appeal made by the action guideline of
the
World Citizens Peace Conference held last year in The Hague, the
Netherlands. It called on the world's parliaments to adopt a
war-renouncing
resolution similar to Japan's Article 9. This is a reflection of the
emerging international movement of peace and progress toward the 21st
century. The 21st century will be an era in which international disputes
are not "settled" by military force; it will be an era in which world
politics will be driven by diplomatic efforts based on international
reason
through peaceful talks. In the new century Article 9 of the Japanese
Constitution will be present globally. It will be highly valued
particularly in Asia in which a strong movement toward peace and
progress
is now gaining momentum.
It is clear that under Article 9 the Self-Defense Forces are
unconstitutional. Stretching interpretation of the Constitution to a
virtual revision by describing the SDF as not being war potential but
forces for self-defense is no longer tenable, because the SDF take in
the
world's third biggest military budget and are armed with state-of-the
art
weapons.
Then, how to resolve the contradictions between the Constitution's
Article 9 and the SDF?
The JCP has no intention of "settling" the question by striking out
Article 9 to adjust the Constitution into the actuality with the SDF. We
maintain that political efforts should be made to reform the
unconstitutional reality through a complete implementation of Article 9
which pioneers in world history.
These contradictions cannot be solved overnight. The complete
implementation of Article 9 of the Constitution must be achieved through
a
step-by-step approach by respecting the people's consensus on this
issue.
In the first stage, a stage prior to the abrogation of the
Japan-U.S.
Security Treaty, the burning task is to prevent Article 9 from being
further violated by the War Laws being invoked and by the sending of the
Self-Defense Forces abroad.
In the present-day world embracing the major current toward
disarmament,
the urgent task now is to make efforts to end Japan's arms buildup
policy
and turn to disarmament efforts.
The second stage will correspond to the subsequent situation created
after the abrogation of the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty, which means
Japan's
secession from the Japan-U.S. military alliance. Naturally, there is
discrepancy between the people$B%f(Bs consensus on the abrogation of the
Security Treaty and the people$B%f(Bs consensus on the disbanding of the
Self-Defense Forces.
In this stage the JCP must tackle democratic reform of the SDF
through
ending the SDF subservience to the U.S. forces, firmly establishing the
political neutrality of SDF personnel as public servants, and a sizable
reduction of the SDF.
The third and last will be the stage for complete implementation of
the
Constitution's Article 9, which will include disbanding the SDF, based
on
the people's consensus.
A Japan which declares independence and neutrality, will join the
world
movement towards non-alignment and neutrality, establish friendly
relations
with all countries in Asia and the rest of the world based on equality,
impartiality, and reciprocity, so that Japan's neutrality can be secured
internationally.
Standing for the reason and the Constitution's peace principles,
such
efforts to establish peaceful foreign relations will contribute to Asia
and
the rest of the world.
Also, the JCP will work toward substantial steps being taken to get
the
SDF disbanded, on condition that stable peace in Asia is maintained
firmly,
and that, helped with this, people's consensus has matured on the
complete
implementation of the Constitution's Article 9.
If Japan, after declaring independence and neutrality, develops true
friendly relations with foreign countries and contributes to world peace
by
means of reasonable diplomatic efforts, it would guarantee Japan's
security
without depending on a standing military force. This is how the JCP
views
the 21st century and it's our objective.
The new JCP policy calling for a step-by-step solution of the SDF
question can be summarized as follows: in the process towards the
complete
implementation of the Constitution's Article 9, there is no change in
our
view that the SDF are unconstitutional, but it is also inevitable that
the
SDF goes on existing in that period.
It will be natural for us to make use of the existing SDF, if situation
demands it, to assure the people's safety. (end item)
LEAKED SONY DOCUMENT SHOWS INDUSTRY SEEKING TO DEFEAT ENVIRONMENTALISTS
According to documents obtained by Inside EPA, Sony Co. this summer
prepared an "action plan" for counteracting the efforts of several
domestic and international environmental groups--including Friends of
the
Earth, Greenpeace and Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition. The plan
includes
such activities as "pre-funding intervention" and creates a "detailed
monitoring and contact network" to track the activities of these
groups. A
copy of the strategy is available on the online document service, IWP
Extra.
See page 2 for details.
http://www.iwpextra.com/ee00708.pdf
Sony presented the document during a July technology sector
meeting in Brussels on the so-called "WEE" directive--a European
Union proposal that would phase out a raft of toxic substances in
electronics and would require manufacturers to take back their
products for recycling once their useful consumer life is over. The
WEE initiative has been heavily lobbied by several U.S. environmental
groups, but bitterly opposed by most multinational electronics firms.
The Sony paper and sources close to the issue say the monitoring
network would employ one of the dozens of new internet
"intelligence" agencies --such as London-based Infonics PLC--that
monitor chat rooms, e-mail lists, electronic bulletin boards, online
news services, newsgroups and other sources of public information for
specific data requested by a company or industry group. This
information
includes press releases and news stories, discussions of particular
issues
and campaigns, and overall strategy, and is typically compiled in digest
form for subscribers to the service.
Although sources with Infonics were not available for comment, the
company has been involved in international environmental issues in
the past, most notably when it hired Royal Dutch Shell, Inc. to
polish its corporate image after the Nigerian military executed a
local environmentalist who was fighting to require Shell to address
contamination.
An industry official says "pre-funding intervention" means providing
groups with industry data prior to the beginning of their campaigns
to ensure "they have good information" about company products and
practices. But an observer familiar with industry efforts says it likely
refers to a
growing movement in the business community to take industry
problems with activists' agendas directly to donors, charitable
foundations
and
companies that sponsor the environmental organizations, in an
effort to stall the campaigns before they even commence.
Sources say the Sony paper only highlights what some contend is
a growing movement in the industry to try and cripple
environmentalists and other activists organizations because of their
demands on trade issues. Sources also point to a new website--
truthabouttrade.com--that was reportedly set up by the
agribusiness sector in response to last year's protests at the World
Trade
Organization (WTO) meeting in Seattle. The organizers of the site have
collected a list
of environmental groups that took part in the protests, their sponsors,
and a list of "myths" about trade and environment and their rebuttals--
including charges that that global warming is not a real phenomenon and
that the government should not protect certain species from extinction
due
to human activities.
Environmentalists say the site is a clear attempt to intimidate
charitable foundations into not providing the groups with funds.
And while the groups' site stops short of actually calling for the
foundations to halt funding for these groups, it does say "we intend to
shine a very bright light on these groups, and hold them accountable for
their actions."
Activists say the efforts could set a dangerous precedent, and warn
of an industry "Big Brother" mentality that seems to be becoming
more prevalent in the business community. One observer says the
Sony strategy also appears to be the first example of a
coordinated, international effort by business to monitor and
counteract activists' efforts.
Several sources say that prior to the Seattle demonstrations, much
of the industry did not view environmentalist working on trade
issues as a threat. But after protesters--led in large part by
environmental and labor groups--successfully shut down the WTO
meetings and their subsequent wins in the realm of public opinion,
many in the business community have begun to take notice and
are actively seeking a way to address the situation.
(2) News FROM the "4 Nets"
PeaceNet: peacenet-new-@igc.topica.com
EcoNet: econet-news-@igc.topica.com
WomensNet: womensnet-ne-@igc.topica.com
AntiRacismNet: antiracismnet--@igc.topica.com
This week on PeaceNet, read Project Censored's take on how the
mainstream media have consistently missed the point of the past year's
major grassroots demonstrations:
http://www.igc.org/igc/gateway/pnindex.html
This week on EcoNet, Ron Daniels writes of the Growing Assault on the
Environmental Justice Movement:
http://www.igc.org/igc/gateway/enindex.html
This week on WomensNet, Women
Count shares some impressions of women and the "tradition" of education:
http://www.igc.org/igc/gateway/wnindex.html
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Top PeaceNet Alerts
http://headlines.igc.apc.org:8080/pnalerts
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Support The Innocence Protection Act (Relevant to people in Japan too)
A recently released bi-partisan poll has just confirmed that 80% of
voting Americans support reforming or abolishing the death penalty and
that 64% support suspending executions entirely until issues of fairness
in capital punishment can be resolved.
Read More...
http://headlines.igc.apc.org:8080/pnalerts/969472637/index_html
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Top PeaceNet Headlines
http://headlines.igc.apc.org:8080/pnheadlines
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Activists Gear Up for Europe's Biggest Anti-Globalisation Protests
WASHINGTON, Sep 18 (IPS) p Memories of last year's anti- globalisation
protests at the World Trade Organisation summit and at the Spring
meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund will be
re-lived on the streets of Prague at the end of this month with a series
of demonstrations against the two Bretton Woods institutions.
Read More...
http://headlines.igc.apc.org:8080/pnheadlines/969474722/index_html
U'Wa Activists Occupy Gore HQ in Olympia WA
Oly Earth Firsters and other activists and rabble rousers have occupied
the Gore Headquarters in Olympia WA since about 11:30 this morning.
Read More...
http://headlines.igc.apc.org:8080/pnheadlines/969469074/index_html
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Top EcoNet Alerts
http://headlines.igc.apc.org:8080/enalerts
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Top EcoNet Headlines
http://headlines.igc.apc.org:8080/enheadlines
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Dolphins May Vanish From British Waters
DOLPHINS and porpoises could soon disappear from the seas around
Britain, driven away by overfishing and pollution, says a report out
this week.
Read More...
http://headlines.igc.apc.org:8080/enheadlines/969321335/index_html
Humans Stress Ecosystems To The Limit
09/17/00 OVERVIEW & COMMENTARY Without ecosystems nothing else matters.
Economics, politics, agriculture, arts and sports and all other areas of
human endeavor are completely and totally dependent upon operable
ecological systems. Yet a new report highlights the extent to which
humans are pushing natural ecosystems to the breaking point, with
disregard for the services they provide and what is required to sustain
their operation. UNDP, UNEP, the World Bank and WRI have released a
global assessment of the state of coastal, forest, grassland, freshwater
and agricultural ecosystems that seeks to lift the profile of ecosystem
loss and diminishment, and lead to an international response on par
(although hopefully more effective) to those which address reductions in
the ozone layer and climatic system.
Read More...
http://headlines.igc.apc.org:8080/enheadlines/969321725/index_html
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Top WomensNet Alerts
http://headlines.igc.apc.org:8080/wnalerts
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Top AntiRacismNet Alerts
http://headlines.igc.apc.org:8080/arnalerts
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Grassroots Preparatory Conference to Prepare for the UN World Conference
Against Racism
Activists will gather in Atlanta, GA December 1-3 for a Grassroots
Preparatory Conference to prepare for the UN World Conference Against
Racism.
Read More...
http://headlines.igc.apc.org:8080/arnalerts/969022344/index_html
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Top AntiRacismNet Headlines
http://headlines.igc.apc.org:8080/arnheadlines
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Racism, Prisons and the Future of Black America
There are today over two million Americans incarcerated in federal and
state prisons and local jails throughout the United States. More than
one-half, or one million, are black men and women. The devastating human
costs of the mass incarceration of one out of every thirty- five
individuals within black America are beyond imagination.
Read More...
http://headlines.igc.apc.org:8080/arnheadlines/969118215/index_html
*********************************
World Conference Against Racism Updates
http://www.ngoworldconference.org
*********************************
Alert: New Events Concerning NGOs and the UN World Conference Against
Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance.
For NGOs wanting to attend the Americas PrepCom in Chile without ECOSOC
status, Geneva must receive your accreditation application by 3 October.
See http://www.ngoworldconference.org/accreditation.htm for
accreditation form.
The Ford Foundation has agreed to host a Symposium on U.S. Compliance
with the Race Convention on Tuesday October 17, 2000. The event is being
organized by the World Organization Against Torture (WOAT).
Activists will gather in a Grassroots Preparatory Conference to prepare
for the UN World Conference Against Racism on December 1-3, 2000, in
Atlanta, GA.
Read more about these events and the U.S. NGO Connection to the WCAR at
http://www.ngoworldconference.org/involved.htm
Las Vegas Declared Nuclear-Free Zone
On 6 September 2000, the Mayor and City Council of Las Vegas, Nevada
passed resolution R-85-2000, declaring the City of Las Vegas a Nuclear
Free Zone.
Read More...
http://headlines.igc.apc.org:8080/pnheadlines/969470493/index_
Indy MediaCenter
CATCHING UP WITH RALPH NADER
by chance martin
Transcript of Ralph Nader's meeting with San Francisco
social justice.
http://www.indybay.org/display.php3?article_id=23
ZAPATISTA MESSAGE ON MEDIA
This 10 minute video message by the Zapatistas emphasizes the importance
of
opening up spaces in establishment media, and in developing autonomous
networks
of resistance and communication for movement-building. Posted to the
Mexico IMC.
Video: http://mexico.indymedia.org/display.php3?article_id=271
(Text:
http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/mexico/ezln/1997/marcos_inter_media_feb.html)
BREAKING NEWS:
OCCUPATION OF VP GORE HEADQUARTERS: UPDATE FROM OLYMPIA
Updates from Olympia Direct Action
by Oly Earth First!
Yesterday more than 150 activists took over VP AL Gore's campaign
headquarters
for more than 7 hours. This excellent post contains a summary of events,
media
links covering the protest, and includes poetic narrative read at the
beginning of
the office occupation.
http://www.indymedia.org/display.php3?article_id=4758
UPCOMING DIRECT ACTIONS
Protest in Prague Sept. 26 2000
http://go.to/s26
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Coming this Week: ChocoPaul Page will also be know as
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and the Association for Progressive Communications
Date: Sep 24 2000 22:58:24 EDT
From: "Chocopaul News" <pa-@arenson.org>
Subject: Some Humor: George Bush
ChocoPaul News # 41
=============================================
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ChocoPaul Page and the
Tokyo Progressive
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Humor
To laugh or to cry? That is the question.
These are statements by U.S. Presidential candidate
George Gush..... er, Bush. While we all know that the
United States of America, Inc. is run by Taco Bell,
miltary contractors, & the CIA (and other terrorist agencies),
it is still frightening to contemplate the limitations
of Mr. Bush's intellect:
"Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning?"
--Florence, South Caroina, Jan. 11, 2000--
Ok...an honest mistake, but...
"I know how hard it is for you to put food on your family."
-- Greater Nashua, New Hamshire, Chamber of Commerce, Jan. 27,
2000.
Yes. Whenever I try it, they wake up immediately. And they always
throw it back at me.
Ok...how about this one:
"What I am against is quotas. I am against hard quotas, quotas they
basically delineate based upon whatever. However they delineate. Quotas,
I think, vulcanize society*. So, I don't know how that fits into what
everybody else is saying, their relative positions, but that's my
position."
Did he mean to say "vulgarize"? Vulcanize is in
my dictionary, but.....let's see, something to do with rubber?
With volcanos? With Star Trek and Mr. Spock?
-- Quoted by Molly Ivins, San Francisco Chronicle, Jan. 21, 2000--
He is probably talking about making up for past (and present) policies
which marginalize people of color, women, gays, and other "minorities"
by excluding them. These programs, called "affirmative action,"
give extra educational and employment opportunities to those who
have been systematically denied these oppotunities. But they have been
under attack by those who seek to keep power in the hands of
white, upper-middle class men and their exclusive
clubs (corporations). It seems to be a general rule that
those who have been silent in the face of discrimination
against minorities are the most vocal in calling affirmative
action reverse discrimination. One can fairly ask
why they seem to have no moral objection to discrimination unless
and until it is against those who are already on top.
"When I was coming up, it was a dangerous world, and you knew exactly
who they were. It was us vs. them, and it was clear who 'them' was.
Today,
we are not so sure who the they are, but we know they're there."
-- Iowa Western Community College, Jan. 21, 2000.--
Yes. Often this was the "communist bogeyman". We used to hide under our
desks at school (nuclear air-raid drills). We were taught to fear them,
and if someone questioned this kind of thinking, they were
labelled communist sympathizers. In the U.S. something called
McCarthyism sprouted in the 1950s, ruining the lives of hundreds of
thousands of people. Something similar happened in Japan,
and it still exists in the repression practiced by the
police and other agents of State repression against those
who identify themselves with the left.
As a teenager againstthe Vietnam war, I was kicked in the leg
in front of Saint Patrick's Cathedral when I handed an anti-war leaflet
to a"good Christian" exiting the church. The church's Cardinal
Spellman was an infamous supporter of American militarism.
Therefore, although the church teaches that "thou shalt not kill,"
the man who kicked me understood that killing communists and kicking
high school kids like me was ok, since God was on "our side". No
doubt Bush believes that it is ok to kill several thousand
Iraqi childen each month with sanctions in order to fight "rogue states"
and state terrorism as practiced by people like Saddam Hussein.
Another"virtuous" person with religion, Democratic Vice Presidential
candidate Lieberman, also supports American state terrorism (oops,
"humanitarian intervention") in places like Iraq and Kosovo.
Here is why there is no difference between the candidates. They
all seek to maintain the myth that America represents
good fighting against (an often imaginary) evil, which is how they
make profits for the military-industrial complex (a term invented
by former President Eisenhauer). To them the end of the
cold war was terrifying because it made it harder for them
to invent reasons for bullying the rest of the world with
American weapons.
But since God is on our side, it is ok and even patriotic to kill
and die to keep America #1. It doesn't matter that the bible
which Bush and Lieberman and every war maker quotes
as their "moral compass" says we should "love thy neighbor" and that
killing is wrong. The enemies of "good" are out there.
As Bush says, "we are not so sure who they are,"
but we know they're there". So they will continue to get elected,
continue to ask us to do their killing, and continue to
brand as traitors, communists or simply "misguided" those of us
who raise our voices in protest.
"This is still a dangerous world. It's a world of madmen and uncertainty
and potential mental losses."
-- At a South Carolina oyster roast, as quoted in the Financial Times,
Jan. 14, 2000--
Yes. Let's guard against losing our mentals!
"The administration I'll bring is a group of men and women who are
focused on what's best for America, honest men and women,
decent men and women, women who will not stain the House."
-- Des Moines Register debate, Iowa, Jan. 15, 2000--
I am not sure if this is a reference to menstrual cycles or Monica
Lewinsky. In any case, this may be a difference between Republicans
and Democrats. I am not sure, but a Democratic opponent of Clinton
might have said "men and women who stain...". To the more
puritanical Republicans, only women stain. The White house is
a male institution, and women do the staining. No doubt
Mrs. Bush will be baking cookies for the troops Bush stations along the
Mexican border making sure the country is not stained by illegal
immigrants seeking relief from a life made all the worse by
the policies of neoliberaism which both Bush and Gore advocate.
In any case, White house cleaners will be relieved to have fewer
stains to deal with.
---------------
This issue of CPN is brought to you by Stain-Away stain remover.
"If I had known about Stain-Away my life would have been
different, and the taxpayers would not have had to pay for
the investigation into my privates...er, my private life."
--Bill Clinton, husband, Christian, father, family man and president
"I am happy to announce that I am now a spokeswoman for the makers of
Stain-Away. In addition to my job representing Jenny Craig Weight
Loss Systems, this will put me in a better position for a new career
in politics, and possibly even the White House again. "
--Monica Lewinsky
"In my heart I have sinned. While I myself would never have
needed this fine product, because I have only sinned internally,
for those who still do so externally, this product is a godsend.
At least until we live in a world where all sins are internal."
--Jimmy Carter, ex-president
Stain Away contains no genetically modified corn or other organisms.
Manufactured under license from the Los Alamo Nuclear Laboratory,
an equal opportunity employer, and Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream.
Contains no Bovine Growth Hormone. Pasturized for purity. We
are a socially responsible company because we care.
If you have a complaint about our products, please call 1-800-333-9989
in the United States. Operators are standing by letting the phone ring.
Stain-Away and its packaging can be recycled, though if you read
carefully, it doesn't mean much because we certainly do not recycle
anything.
Try these other fine products by the makers of Stain-Away:
Bombs-Away recycled plutonium shells, used exclusively by
the American military and other fine international sub-licensees
Lay-Away condoms, made of Vulcanized rubber
Crap-Away potato chips, with Olestra (Trademark of P&G), an artificial
fat that does not make YOU fat because it is excreted
(along with essential vitamins and minerals)--Should not be used
by HIV patients or those with compromised immune systems (children,
the elderly) without approval from a doctor.
REQUEST TO INCREASE READERSHIP
Please help increase readership.
To students and friends alike with an interest in the kinds of social
issues talked about here, tell your friends about CP PAGE.
The "green menu" at the top is good for research
on political and social topics in the area of American
and Japanese politics, human rights, the media, globalisation,
and other social issues.
The links below that are ongoing things....
To people outside Japan, it is a good way to get to know
about some of the issues the mass media does not deal
with. The mainstream media concern themselves with
state-to-state relations. CPP is about people and our
common concerns.
Plus, we will soon have links to expanded news coverage and
social action sites due to our affiliation with GreenNet and
the Association for Progressive Communications. Look for more links with
other Japanese sites (Japanese and English) sites soon too.
I hope that soon CPP will serve as a two-way conduit of
infomation and collaboration between people and activists.
There is also email, some pictures of my late, great cat, Chibi, and
much
more.
Just send an email to your friends, quoting any of the above,
or whatever you care to say.
Also, always feel free to send copies of CP News
to your friends, or to link to CP Page from your own
web site.
The relevant pages are listed below. I urge people
to sign up for CPN. If they are unsure how to do it, your friends can
simply email me.
Thanks!
=============================================
main site page http:// arenson.org
email pa-@arenson.org
this list http://Chocopaul.listbot.com/
Affiliated with the Association for Progressive Communications
==========================================
________________
CP Announcements
27 Sept 2000
________________
(1) Apologies if email has bounced. Please
resend. Have been installing new cable modem
provider. All should be ok now
(2) Check out our'front page' for a link to the Prague
branch of the Independent Media Center for live coverage of
the anti-IMF and World Bank protests.
http://arenson.org
For analysis and discussion, you might try the following:
http://www.zmag.org/weluser.htm
Right now I see a number of articles at the top of that page:
(a) ZNet Commentator is in Prague for the demos (Mark Weisbrot)
(b) Corporate Watch Correspondent on the scene (Julie Light)
(c) A major strategic essay on Global Economics (Walden Bello)
I will post directly on the front page. Please check there
to see ifthere is anything new.
(3) ChocoPaul Page's website is being moved to a progressive
provider. The move will take several months, but service will
not be interrupted for the most part. CPP will also be known
as the Tokyo Progressive.
That's all for now. I know some of you will be glad!
paul
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