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Oct Archives 2000
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tokyo progressive
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Jan 14, 2001 01:00 PST
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Oct 25 CPN 51: the lie of the Mid-East Peace Process by Noam Chomsky
Oct 25 CPN 50 ( 1) Mid East from Israeli left perspective/NATO crimes
and living in an evil system that calls itself a democracy
Oct 21 CPN 49 (1) Emergency: Protest Radio Station Censorship, (2)
Also Tsuda College Student Arrest Report and Demonstration (Radio Show
can be HEARD here)
Oct 19 CPN 48--New index, Africa and the anti-Globalisation Movement,
Japanese Social Deterioration
Oct 17 CPN 47 Japan News/Middle East
Oct 10 CPN 46 Many Japanese Links/MidEast section...
Oct 6 CPN 45 INDEX of articles
Oct 6 CPN 44 YUGOSLAVIA EVENTS: Not seen on CNN
Oct 4 CPN 43 Nadar, Middle East, more
Oct 1 CPN 42: Japanese Police Attack Tsuda/Waseda Students
IN REVERSE ORDER.
Starting from the first
Date: Oct 01 2000 19:11:45 EDT
From: "Chocopaul News" <pa-@arenson.org>
Subject: CPN 42
Chocopaul News # 42
=============================================
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News summaries you can't find in the mainstream media
from Japan Press Service, PeaceNet, WomensNet,
EcoNet, Corporate Watch, IndyMedia, AntiRacismNet
and other sources
==============================================
More changes happening on main page--please
bear with us if some links do not work for
the next week or so.
(1) From Prague-Was Violence Committed by the Police
(2) Japan News-Police Attack University Students Protesting Militarism
(3) World News--GM food, Indian Dams
(4) Special repoprt on Nestle Corporation boycott (and a note about Snow
Brand)
(4) Get Z MAGAZINE at 30 dollars (instead of 60)-international or
at 8 dollars (instead of 29)-domestic -->SEE BOTTOM OF THIS NEWSLETTER
Czech Newspaper Accuses Police of Using Provocateurs
--By Lucie Tvaruzkova-Independent media Center, Prague--
Police were probably involved in looting in the center of Prague on
Tuesday,
where the destruction of Mc Donalds took place. The organization of
Citizens'
Legal Observers (OPH) filed a charge against alleged agents yesterday.
Using men in disguise during demonstrations is a common
police practice. Policemen masked as anarchists walk in front
of almost every mass action. However, it is illegal to use
agents-provocateurs. But according to photographers and
eyewitnesses OPH has at their disposal, this is exactly what
happened on Tuesday. For example, observers have filmed a
man smashing a McDonald's window and then walking away
through a police cordon without any hassle.
"We have video footage, photographs and eyewitness
accounts," said Dusan Stuchlik, one of the OPH observers.
At the same time,the police didn't even allow the press to get anywhere
near the spot. The organization wil file a report in order to find out
whether the
agents were really police. Lidove Noviny (a Czech Newspaper) reporters
met policemen dressed up as demonstrators in black sweatshirts with
black
scarves or hoods over their faces. At Tylovo Namesti,
reporters saw one of the masked policemen hit metal bars on
a showcase window with a pole torn off a railing; later, he
arrested activists.
9/23/00
According to Hitomi Hikichi, Chairperson of the Tsuda College Student
Committee, Tokyo police brutally attacked and beat three men who had
taken
part in protests on September 3rd, 2000 in Tokyo. People gathered at
various locations throughout Tokyo to protest Tokyo Governor Shintaro
Ishihara's military training exercises which were carried out that day.
After five protestors left the day's first protest in Nerima and then
departed a subway at Nakano-sakaue station on the Ouedo subway line, ten
police rushed the three men in the group. While some officers held them
up,
others beat them in the body and face, then threw them on the ground and
continued to kick them. The three protestors, a Waseda University
student
and two labor union members, suffered lacerations and bleeding from the
facial area.
Some nearby passengers were said to have seen the occurence and made an
effort to restrain the police from committing further violence. Video
camera recordings which recorded the event were confiscated by police
and
not returned. The arrested were not charged for any crimes at the
initial
scene and only later charged with "invasion of a building" and
"disrupting
official business". The two women who were arrested are students of
Tsuda
women's college and were not physically beaten but were only recently
released from police custody.
Governor Ishihara's military training exercises were supposed to have
been
carried out to ready Japan in case of natural disaster. However, the
very
same day on the Tokyo island of Miyake, residents were forced to
evacuate
due to the extreme situation of volcanic eruption. According to the
Asahi
Shimbun and the Tokyo Shimbun (newspapers), Ishihara dismissed the real
disaster on Miyake island because "it is only one part of Tokyo, but all
of
Japan rests on a volcanic mountain and is imminent danger. Therefore we
need these training exercises..."
Elsewhere, Ishihara is well known for his racist statements and denial
of
Japanese war crimes during World War II. His grand plan to turn Japan's
legitimate day of preparation for natural disaster into a glorification
of
Japanese military might revolts many Japanese citizens who turned out on
the day of the exercises to oppose his plans. A noisy assembly of 1,500
protestors began their march at Shiba park and wound up near Tokyo
station.
However, in the Koto ward of Tokyo, an anti-war group was denied its
constitutional rights of assembly by the local government there which
blocked their meeting in a local park.
As a teacher of Tsuda College and a person who took part in the protest
marches on September 3rd, I would personally like to urge people out
there
to contact the Tsuda College Student Committee (Tsuda College, 2-1-1
Tsuda,
Kodaira city, Tokyo 187-8577, Japan, TEL/FAX 81-042-346-0359) and lend
their support to the two students who were arrested. The police
continued
their harrassment of the students by visiting the campus in search of
further details on the student's activities.
-- Richard Wilcox, Tokyo, <rwil-@interlink.or.jp>
JPS 09-095
The U.S. outrage even angers pro-Japan-U.S. Security Treaty people
TOKYO SEP 28 JPS -- As protest rises at U.S. nighttime touch-and-goes
in populated areas, an increasing number of municipalities hosting U.S.
military bases are saying they would cut friendship ties with the U.S.
Forces and call for the bases to be removed.
They are outraged by the U.S. Forces carrying out night-landing
practices (NLP) with aircraft from the U.S. aircraft carrier in defiance
of repeated requests from local governments and residents that such
exercises be canceled.
Akahata's editorial of September 28 said that the U.S. outrage has
even
angered those who support the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty. The excerpts
of
the editorial follow:
The mayor of Misawa City in Aomori Prefecture, who in the past called
for "co-existence and co-prosperity with the U.S. base," expressed his
anger at NLP in a recent city assembly session, saying, "The U.S. Forces
are treating Japan as a colony." the Yamato City mayor in Kanagawa
Prefecture, who is pro-U.S. Forces and pro-Security Treaty, said he
would
oppose the use of Kanagawa's Yokosuka Port for calls by the U.S.
aircraft
carrier and as home port for a nuclear-propelled aircraft carrier,
unless
those NLPs end.
The NLP by U.S. forces began in 1973 when Yokosuka was made to serve
as
a home-port for U.S. aircraft carriers. Later it was also conducted on
Iwojima island, the U.S. Atsugi base, the U.S. Yokota base in Tokyo, the
U.S. Misawa base in Aomori, and the U.S. Iwakuni base in Yamaguchi. The
number of practices was 2,800 in 1997 and 3,680 in 1998.
In NLPs aircraft make their approaches to runways by maintaining
propulsion for touch-and-goes, causing unbearable noise. Moreover, NLP
takes place when residents near bases enjoy family life or sleep in bed.
NLPs which are conducted for many hours disrupt people's quiet life and
threaten them with possible crashes.
U.S. forces in the U.S. mainland refrain from conducting NLPs in
residential areas and areas which would affect the ecology of wild life.
The U.S. Forces in Japan carry them out in military bases closely
adjacent
to densely-populated cities, and that in defiance of protests by local
residents and governments.
Japan is the only country that allows the U.S. aircraft carrier task
force to use military bases on its soil.
Japan's Foreign Minister Yohei Kono, in his meeting with U.S.
Secretary
of Defense William Cohen on September 22, neither protested against the
NLPs nor asked for their cancellation.
Being servile to the U.S., the Japanese government puts the interests
of the U.S. Forces and the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty before Japan's
national sovereignty and the people's lives and living conditions.
Japanese politics is faced with the crucial question whether Japan in
the 21st century should maintain the nation structured on U.S. military
bases.
Okinawa landowners sue prime minister for violating Constitution
TOKYO SEP 26 JPS -- Two Okinawan landowners on September 25 filed a
lawsuit against Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori in the Naha District Court,
claiming that he allowed their land to be used for U.S. bases in
violation
of the Constitution which guarantees the right to private properties.
This is the first legal action against land use under the Special
Arrangement Act for the Expropriation of Land for U.S. Forces revised in
July 1999.
Shoichi Chibana, who owns a plot of land now used for the U.S. Sobe
Communication Site in Yomitan Village, and Yutaka Kohagura, who owns a
plot of land used for the U.S. Makiminato Service Area in Urasoe City,
said that Japan's Constitution permits a land expropriation for public
well-being but the Special Arrangement Act is aimed at land offer to
U.S.
bases which often damage people's daily lives.
With the expiring date of the use of these plaintiffs' land
approaching, the government had approved the continuous use of these
lands
based on the Special Arrangement Act. (end item)
JCP urges P.M. to solve WWII sex slaves problem
TOKYO SEP 28 JPS -- A Japanese Communist Party Dietmember on
September
27 called on the government to solve the problem of comfort women whom
old
Japanese Imperial Army forced to serve as sex slaves during WWII.
In the House of Councilors plenary session, Sachiyo Abe criticized
several cabinet members for denying or distorting the facts about
comfort
women and Japan's war of aggression, and said that internationally Japan
is much criticized for that reason.
In 1993, then Chief Cabinet Secretary Yohei Kono stated that Japanese
Imperial Army forcibly collected women and built sex houses to comfort
its
soldiers.
Japan's government had once promised to send a letter of apology and
pay compensation to the former comfort women in Taiwan and Korea, but
Japan now tries to shirk its duty on the pretext of Asian Women's Fund,
she said.
Abe pressed the government to accept the responsibility once for all
and compensate those who suffered as comfort women.
The prime minister replied that wartime problems between Japan and
other nations were legally settled with by the San Francisco Peace
Treaty
signed, so the government has no intention to compensate those Asian
women. (end item)
Residents of the Narmada Valley express their thanks for the
international support of activists like you in the latest victory over
the construction of India's Maheshwar Dam. This week on EcoNet:
http://www.igc.org/igc/gateway/enindex.html
Pollution and Waste Increasing in Five Countries
WASHINGTON, DC A new report released today by the World Resources
Institute (WRI) reveals that the total output of wastes and pollutants
in Austria, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, and the USA has increased
by as much as 28 percent since 1975 despite their increasing efficiency
in using natural resources.
Read More...
http://headlines.igc.apc.org:8080/enheadlines/969934971/index_html
Leaked Monsanto Report
A confidential internal report leaked to GeneWatch UK reveals that
Monsanto is involved in a global campaign to promote GM foods by
influencing which experts get on international scientific committees,
promoting their views through supposedly independent scientists and
gaining influence with key decision makers in government departments in
developing countries.
Read More...
http://headlines.igc.apc.org:8080/enheadlines/969935607/index_html
Gender Inequality Causes Unsafe Abortions and AIDS
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 20 (IPS) - The UN Population Fund (UNFPA) says that
gender inequality is a key factor in a growing number of unsafe
abortions, sexually transmitted diseases and maternal deaths worldwide.
Read More...
http://headlines.igc.apc.org:8080/wnheadlines/969643818/index_html
Thousands of Thai Women Trafficked to Japan
(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.
Read More...
http://headlines.igc.apc.org:8080/wnheadlines/969546794/index_html
Nestle is the target of an international boycott, led by IBFAN (the
International Baby Food Action Network) a network of over 150 citizens
groups in over 90 countries. Why? Nestle pushes infant formula through
massive PR instead of breast feeding. Check out the excellent resources
on
this campaign at http://www.babymilkaction.org/
Here is a summary of some of the issues raised by the campaign against
Nestle.
BOTTLE-DEAD
"A bottle fed child is 25 times more likely to die from diarrhoea than a
breast fed child where water is unsafe."
- UNICEF
"Over 4,000 babies die every day in poor countries because they're not
breastfed. That's not conjecture, it's UNICEF fact."
- Baby Milk Action.
"Many people now believe in modern superstitions, these include the use
of
bottle milk; these are superstitions no less pernicious than the
unhealthy
folk traditions. But while the wrong traditional ways are superstitions
borne out of ignorance, the wrong 'modern' ways are superstitions borne
out
of greed. And we all know that greed has strong powerful interests. "
- A former Philippine Health Secretary.
SchNEWS has an old chestnut for you this week. Corporate giants, Nestle
would have us believe they're overflowing with 'the milk of human
kindness'
these days; a response to Baby Milk Action's long-term campaign exposing
dodgy dealings in developing countries.
A few months back the company got their wrists slapped and advert banned
by
the Advertising Standards Authority after claiming they marketed their
babymilk " ethically and responsibly ". So they turned to advertising
gurus
Saatchi and Snaatchi who suggested Nestle " go on the offensive by using
advertising showing the benefits of Nestle financial contributions to
charities ". Nestle general manager, Arthur Furer stated, " It is clear
that we have an urgent need to develop an effective counter-propaganda
operation ".
With an annual promotion budget of nearly $8 billion Nestle has a slight
advantage over mothers who produce breastmilk naturally and do not have
a
fortune to spend promoting the advantages of their 'product' Their new
tactic has been to advertise through publications who are respected for
their discerning views (such as the Big Issue) and to make
self-promoting
donations to childrens' charities and the church. The first, presumably
to
counteract the mental image that the word Nestle conjures up of third
world
babies dying in their millions after converting from breast to bottle;
the
latter to persuade the church to chill out on their Nestle boycotting
campaign. Nestle have now launched a new range of baby food on the
European
market. Reliable sources indicate that in the remaining 4 months of this
year Nestle's promotion budget of #2 million for their new range exceeds
the equivalent expenditure of the two rival brands for the whole year.
Plenty of scope for 'nestleing' up to the public.
Just to remind you of the facts, the World Health Organisation (WHO)
estimate that more than a million babies die every year as a result of
diarrhoea picked up from unhygienic bottle feeding. That's one baby
every
30 seconds. Nestle control about 40% of the world baby milk market,
aggressively promoting their babymilk products in developing countries,
and
discouraging breastfeeding. Of course, after a short period of bottle
feeding a mother's breastmilk dries up and another consumer is born.
They
give 'sweeteners' to healthworkers encouraging them to promote their
products. They are still 'donating' freebies to health facilities in
Gabon,
Africa, to encourage the use of their product, despite the Gabon
government
asking them to stop. In the Philippines, the company have been exposed
for
hiring graduate nurses as 'health educators' to visit mothers at home
and
try to convince them to use their products. Ignoring WHO recommendations
that complimentary foods only be introduced from 6 months, Nestle market
teas labelled for feeding 2 week old infants. They do not always provide
clear information and in some cases the labels are in a language that
mothers can't understand.
Sickeningly, Nestle have been getting away with this for longer than you
would believe possible. As early as 1873, Nestle was exporting its 'milk
food' to the colonised world. It's a measure of their power that 126
years
on they still see themselves as above the law, and they're 'milking it'
for
all it's worth. Currently in court in India over their baby food labels,
Nestle's reaction is to use their clout to have key sections of the
Indian
baby food marketing law scrapped. Back in '39 they were exporting
condensed
milk to Singapore and Malaysia as "ideal for delicate infants", though
it
was banned in Britain for causing rickets and blindness. In a speech
that
would sadly be as relevant 60 years later, Dr Cecily Williams said
"misguided propaganda on infant feeding should be punished as the most
miserable form of sedition; these deaths should be regarded as murder."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
BREAST FEEDING : SOME FACTS
* "Breastfeeding declined rapidly between 1960-70 as the formula milk
market expanded. In Mexico from 100% to 40%, in Chile from 90% to 5%
and in Singapore from 80% to 5% "
- UK Food Group.
* In the 50's & 60's, doctors working in the 'developing' world
observed
that diarrhoea, infections and malnutrition were increasing in babies.
This is rare amongst breastfed babies.
* Breastfeeding is vital not only because of the nutrients but
because
the anti-infective properties protect against disease.
* In developing countries, extra food for the mother can cost as
little
as one tenth of the cost of artificial food for the baby.
* Poor people often over-dilute baby milk powder with unsafe water to
make it last longer resulting in malnourishment.
* Recent research by the British Medical Council found that cow's
milk
at 26p a pint is just as good for six month old babies as formula milk
which costs around #5 for 10 pints.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
BOYCOTT THE BASTARDS
* Nescafe, Gold Blend, Rowntree, After Eights, Quality Street,
Sarsons
seasonings, Perrier, Buxton, Findus, Buitoni, Crosse and Blackwell,
Maggi, Branston pickle , Sun-Pat, Shredded Wheat, L'Oreal and Lancome
cosmetics, Winalot, Felix and Choosy pet foods and many, more...For a
comprehensive list contact Baby Milk Action , 23 St Andrews St.,
Cambridge CB2 3AX Tel: 01223 464420 http://www.gn.apc.org/babymilk/
* Nestle is the worlds largest food manufacturer, with factories in
more
than 80 countries and a turnover of $52 billion, taking over #1000 a
second. They are also the focus of the worlds longest running consumer
boycott (22 years). " Breaking the boycott is like crossing the
world's longest running picket line " said a pissed off hack. As a
final accolade, when the European Parliament start holding public
hearings on multinational responsibility and corporate abuses later
this year, Nestle are the first company they intend to put in the
hotseat.
Source: SchNEWS, PO Box 2600, Brighton, BN2 2DX, England
Phone/Fax (call before faxing): 01273 685913
Email: schn-@brighton.co.uk Web: http://www.schnews.org.uk/
IRONY OF IRONIES
SNOW BRAND in Japan, badly damaged by its recent milk contamination
scandal, has signed on with Nestle to help improve its image:
TOKYO, Sept 26 (AFP) -
The dairy company at the centre of Japan's biggest ever food-poisoning
outbreak said Tuesday it was tying up with Swiss giant
Nestle, as it unveiled big job cuts in a bid to repair the financial
damage.
Famous sports clubs owned by Snow Brand Milk Products Co. Ltd. will also
be
axed as part of a reconstruction program, under
which 1,300 jobs would go to cut the workforce to 5,500 by March 2003.
In an attempt to restore battered consumer confidence, Snow Brand said
it
was joining forces in product development and marketing
with Nestle Japan Ltd.
"We have been tossing the idea around for some time. We have been
partners
in selling pasta in Japan," Snow Brand president Kouhei
Nishi told a news conference.
"But this (food poisoning) incident accelerated the talks," he said.
"Our
brand name has been damaged beyond all expectation."
Snow Brand hoped to gain from Nestle "know-how on all parts of
production,
including product management, hygiene management
and quality management," the president added.
Concrete details of the business alliance will be decided by the end of
the
year.
But it will not involve any equity tie-up or exchanges of personnel,
said
Nestle Japan president Wolfgang Reichenberger.
"We want to give trust to both of our brands with strong programs of
marketing and innovation," he told the news conference.
The companies will work together in yoghurt, frozen desserts and ice
cream,
all markets peripheral to Snow Brand's main business of
selling milk.
That has slumped as consumers boycott Snow Brand products following the
food-poisoning outbreak in late June, which made more
than 14,000 people ill around the western city of Osaka.
According to revised earnings forecasts for the year to March 2001, Snow
Brand expects to fall into the red for the first time since it
was founded in 1950.
Snow Brand said it expected to post a group net loss of 47.5 billion yen
(441 million dollars) for the current year, reversing its earlier
estimate of a nine-billion-yen net profit.
Group sales are projected at 1,155 billion yen, down from an earlier
estimate of 1,320 billion yen and last financial year's 1,264 billion
yen.
"We have resumed retailing but a full recovery is far away," Snow Brand
acknowledged in a statement.
Executives' salaries will be slashed by 30 percent and winter bonuses
for
all employees will be cut 40 percent, the statement said. The
job cuts will come through natural wastage.
Snow Brand will also sell off real estate and reorganise overseas
affiliates.
The mass poisoning outbreak was caused by bacteria-ridden Snow Brand
milk
which was produced in unhygienic conditions, forcing
plants in Osaka and elsewhere around Japan to shut.
The halt to milk production cost Snow Brand 750 million yen a day.
Japanese police raided Snow Brand's Tokyo headquarters in late August in
connection with the scandal, which forced Nishi's
predecessor as president and seven other executives to resign.
Under the reform plan, Snow Brand will close its 36-strong ice hockey
team
after this season. The team, including Canadian players,
ended fifth last season in the Japan Hockey League.
Snow Brand's athletic club will also be shut but its famous skiing team
including Olympic ski-jumping gold medallist Masahiko Harada
will be retained.
Many professional sports clubs in Japan are owned by corporations.
Z MAGAZINE OFFER
FOR NEW SUBSCRIBERS ONLY!
(1) If you don't already have one you can get a one-year
U.S. or International print Z subscription for a full $30,
or for a one-third off $20, or for a 60% off $12 or even for
a rock bottom 73% off $8 -- and outside the U.S., you can
get an international sub at comparable discounts too, all
at:
http://www.zmag.org/newsubs.htm
CPN does not necessarily agree with views expressed here. Copyrighted
material appears here under fair use guidelines.
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Date: Oct 04 2000 23:01:31 EDT
From: "Chocopaul News" <pa-@arenson.org>
Subject: CPN 43 Nadar, Middle East, more
ChocoPaul News # 43
=============================================
A mailing list from
ChocoPaul's Tokyo Progressive
main site page http:// arenson.org
email pa-@arenson.org
this list http://Chocopaul.listbot.com/
(1) U.S. Elections: Nadar not allowed into debate
(2) Related links (Edward Said, etc.)
(3) Middle East Emergency Coverage (Including
Israeli Peace Activists, something missing
from most mainstream coverage)
(4) Other Links of interest (IMF, Nike, etc.)
==============================================
ANNOUNCEMENT: CP's Tokyo Progressive site will be down in part
until this weekend due to the stupidity of his ISP, which
rejected his incoming email until he erased some files on his
web site. Also, if you sent mail between Monday and today and suspect
I didn't get it (I estimaqte 30 messages were rejected),
please send it again. Thanks.
For people following the U.S. election campaigns, you may have read
about a so-called "debate" by the two mainstream candidates, both of
whom are basically the same (corporate-interest politicians).
Gore talks differently, but it is all talk.
Meanwhile, to see how democracy DOESN'T function
in the U.S., have a look at these reports:
IMC REPORT --Nader barred from debate site--
by Gregory Geboski
Despite having a valid ticket, Ralph Nader was tonight barred
from even sitting in the audience of the presidential debate in Boston.
According to AP reports, Nader was personally barred from entering
by Commission on Presidential Debates official John Bezeris.
According to AP, Bezeris, surrounded by police, told Nader,
"It's already been decided that whether or not you have a ticket
you are not welcome in the debate."
At a 5:30 press conference at Harvard Law School, from which Nader
graduated in 1958, the Green Party presidential candidate displayed
a ticket to the Bush-Gore debate that had been
given to him by Todd Tavares, a political science junior
at Boston's Northeastern University. According to Tavares,
he was assured on Thursday by debate organizers that all
ticket holders would be admitted to the October 3 event,
on the campus of the University of Massachusetts-Boston. "I intend
to be in the audience," said Nader. "We'll see if they come up
with another way to keep me out."
Tavares, when asked if the regretted giving up "the chance
of a lifetime" to attend the debate, said, "This is
a small sacrifice for the good of the nation."
"I'll be in there, and there won't be a U Mass-Boston student
in sight," said Nader, referring to the largely working-class
commuter university that has been shut down for two days because
of the debates. "I'll be surrounded by corporate executives and
their families. But it won't matter. This event is the ultimate
kamikaze dive of a corrupt two-party system."
Nader portrayed the two candidates and the event's
organizing committee, the Commission on Presidential Debates,
as corrupt agents of corporate power. "This so-called 'debate'
will be nothing but a question-and-answer session," said Nader.
"It will not address the problem of the concentration of
wealth and power in too few hands, and away from the people who do
the work--the workers, consumers, taxpayers, and voters.
Not one question to Mr. Bush or Mr. Gore will ask how they
will transfer this corporate power to the people."
"Our country is more important than their sleazy fundraisers
and their sleazy debate commissions," said Nader. The Committee
on Presidential Debates is a private corporation under the
directorship of representatives of the Democratic and Republican
parties. "This is the last four-year election that a corrupt
commission will deny a real debate to tens of millions
of American voters," he promised.
But the courts have not helped so far. Nader said he was
unaware of a ruling, issued today, against the petition of
Libertarian Party candidate Harry Browne to participate
in the debates. An earlier federal lawsuit by Nader,
challenging the debate as a form of illegal corporate campaign
contribution, was dismissed. It is now on appeal.
When asked what issues should be addressed, Nader rattled off
without pausing for breath, "Full funding of elections.
An end to corporate welfare. Fraud and abuse in government
contracting. Ending oppressive labor laws that keep workers
from organizing. The corporatization of universities. The need
for regulation of biotechnology. Withdrawal from the World Trade
Organization and NAFTA until fair and enforceable reciprocal
agreements protecting the rights of average people have been
made. Doing away with the Commission on Presidential Debates.
For starters."
Nader, his running mate Winona Laduke, and the Green Party promise to
institute universal, accessible health insurance for all
Americans now; end corporate welfare; empower working people
by, among other measures, repealing the Taft-Hartley Act of
1947; and ending what they call "cash register politics"
funded by corporations and the rich.
Nader said he favors the federal recent approval of RU-486
abortion pill, and would fund its use under his party's
health care plan.
Nadar Campaign-related links
In These Times Magazine interview with Wiona LaDuke (Vice Presidential
Candidate)
http://www.inthesetimes.com/kolb2422.html
Nadar Interviewed by David Barsamian
http://zmag.org/campaign_trai.htm
Edward Said on Nadar from Al-Ahram Weekly
http://zmag.org/saidnader.htm
Bush and Gore Make Me Wanna Ralph (Michael Moore)
http://zmag.org/moorenader.htm
Middle East Emergency Links
Clashes Information Center
http://www.addameer.org/september2000/index.html
THE EXPLOSION
BY Adam Keller & Beate Zilversmidt
Tel-Aviv, October 3
http://zmag.org/explosion.htm
Mount Temple, by Tanya Reinhardt
http://www.zmag.org/ZSustainers/ZDaily/2000-10/02reinhart.htm
Other Links of Interest
Helping the poorest to get poorer
The World Bank and the IMF: Shut them down (from The Guradian)
By George Monbiot
http://zmag.org/monbiotimf.htm
From Melbourne to Prague:
the Struggle for a Deglobalized World
By Walden Bello
http://zmag.org/melbourne_to_prague.htm
Nike Wages Page
Campaign against Nike and Sweatshop Factories
http://www.nikewages.org/index2.html
-------------------------------------------
main site page http:// arenson.org
email pa-@arenson.org
this list http://Chocopaul.listbot.com/
Date: Oct 06 2000 09:22:57 EDT
From: "Chocopaul News" <pa-@arenson.org>
Subject: CPN 44 YUGOSLAVIA EVENTS: Not seen on CNN
===========================================
Chocopaul News # 44
=============================================
main site page http:// arenson.org
email pa-@arenson.org
this list http://Chocopaul.listbot.com/
Yugoslavia
==============================================
Some are celebrating what a appears to be a
successful revolution against Milosevic.
Meanwhile, I just heard one of the most obscene things on TV a moment
ago: American Secretary of State Albright said that
the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia helped to bring freedom
to the Yugoslavian people. This is the same Albright who
said US sanctions against Iraq, causing 5000 deaths
a month at least (by United Nations estimates), is the
"price 'we' have to pay to get rid of Saddam Hussein.
Mrs. Albright, herself a war criminal by her actions, claiming
credit for what happened over the last 24 hours.
The issues are complex, but at least we should ask ourselves
why the NATO countries are aligning themselves with Serbians
who only a short year ago they were bombing.
The great lie that NATO wants you to believe is that they are on the
side
of democracy, of human rights (humanitarian intervention is another
name for murder).
Milosevic is definitely not someone deserving of support--tyrant,
dictator, etc. But the U.S. is NOT thefriend of human rights and self
determination that some would seem to believe.
Here is a list of links to help get you up to speed:
Some are historical. it is crucial to go back and understand what the
war over Kosovo was all about.
LATEST NEWS FROM YUGOSLAVIA FROM INDEPENDENT JOURNALISTS AND CITIZENS
http://news.freeb92.net/index.phtml
Institute for War and Peace Reporting
http://www.oneworld.net/anydoc2.cgi?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Eiwpr%2Enet
Oneworld.net
http://www.oneworld.org/news/today/index.html
(Former?) Opposition media sites
http://www.freeb92.com/
http://www.otpor.com/
FREE SERBIA (OTHER VOICES FROM SERBIA)
http://www.xs4all.nl/~freeserb/e-index.html
COUNTERSPIN (AUDIO!) COVERAGE OF KOSOVO WAR
(Includes: International Law, Depleted Uranium, Rambouillet Agreement,
more)
http://www.fair.org/international/yugoslavia.html#counterspin
INDY MEDIA NEWS (UPDATED AS REPORTS COME IN) ON SITUATION IN YUGOSLAVIA
http://uk.indymedia.org/display.php3?article_id=463
CANADIAN POLL WATCHERS REPORT
http://zmag.org/press_releasecan.htm
FREE SERBIA REPORTAGE ON NATO ATROCITIES IN YUGOSLAVIA
(You didn't see this on CNN or NHK)
http://www.freeserbia.org/arhiva/e-index.html
Recent History
http://www.zmag.org/ZMag/kosovo.htm
Hypocrisy of American Support for Free Elections in Yugoslavia (Norman
Solomon)
http://belgium.indymedia.org/display.php3?article_id=780
CBS TV (U.S.) REEFUSES TO AIR AMNESTY INTERNATIONL CHARGES OF
AMERICAN/NATO WAR CRIMES
http://www.fair.org/activism/cbs-warcrimes2.html
UNCLE CHUTZPAH AND HIS MEDIA MINIONS ON THE YUGOSLAV AND OTHER ELECTIONS
http://www.zmag.org/ZSustainers/ZDaily/2000-09/29herman.htm
The NATO-Media Lie Machine (Herman and Peterson)
http://www.zmag.org/ZMag/articles/hermanmay2000.htm
One year Later (Parts 1 and 2) A Review of Nato's War Over Kosovo
(Chomsky)
http://www.zmag.org/ZMag/articles/chomskyapril2000.htm
http://www.zmag.org/ZMag/articles/chomskymay2000.htm
FAIRNESS AND ACCURACY IN REPORTING SECTION ON YUGOSLAVIA
http://www.fair.org/international/yugoslavia.html
INCLUDES THESE IMPORTANT SECTIONS
US MEDIA OVERLOOKS CHINESE EMBASSY BOMBING EXPOSE (see next link)
http://www.fair.org/activism/embassy-bombing.html
CHINESE EMBASSY DELIBERATELY BOMBED
http://www.guardianunlimited.co.uk/Kosovo/Story/0,2763,203214,00.html
HUMANITARIAN HYPOCRISY
http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/hayden.htm
main site page http:// arenson.org
email pa-@arenson.org
this list http://Chocopaul.listbot.com/
The next issue will be a summary of all CP News items so far.
======================================================================
Note: CP Page (Tokyo Progressive) will be hosting very shortly
with another provider (Bye bye Twics). As we make the transition,
some
links may be down.
Date: Oct 06 2000 10:37:06 EDT
From: "Chocopaul News" <pa-@arenson.org>
Subject: CPN 45 INDEX of articles
===========================================
Chocopaul News # 45
=============================================
main site page http:// arenson.org
email pa-@arenson.org
this list http://Chocopaul.listbot.com/
ChocoPaul News Index
==============================================
The following is a list of the CP News items from 1-44.(July to October)
Please use this as a quick link to existing issues.
(1) Introduction to CP News
http://www.listbot.com/cgi-bin/customer?Act=view_message&list_id=Chocopaul&msg_num=3&start_num=5
(2) Okinawa Summit
http://www.listbot.com/cgi-bin/customer?Act=view_message&list_id=Chocopaul&msg_num=4&start_num=5
(3) Okinawa Bases
http://www.listbot.com/cgi-bin/customer?Act=view_message&list_id=Chocopaul&msg_num=5&start_num=5
(4) Okinawan Bases Part II
http://www.listbot.com/cgi-bin/customer?Act=view_message&list_id=Chocopaul&msg_num=6&start_num=25
(5) Okinawa Bases Part III
http://www.listbot.com/cgi-bin/customer?Act=view_message&list_id=Chocopaul&msg_num=7&start_num=25
(6) Okinawan and U.S. policy
http://www.listbot.com/cgi-bin/customer?Act=view_message&list_id=Chocopaul&msg_num=8&start_num=25
(7) Okinawa Summit: Waste of time, waste of money From Shyam Bhatia
Deccan Herald, India
http://www.listbot.com/cgi-bin/customer?Act=view_message&list_id=Chocopaul&msg_num=9&start_num=25
(8) Hinomaru (flag)/Kimigayo (song)
and Amnesty International report on Human Rights violations
http://www.listbot.com/cgi-bin/customer?Act=view_message&list_id=Chocopaul&msg_num=10&start_num=25
(9) Frequently Asked Questions about ChocoPaul Page
http://www.listbot.com/cgi-bin/customer?Act=view_message&list_id=Chocopaul&msg_num=11&start_num=25
(10) Environment and Peace news
New Guinea rain forests, U.S. Environmental crimes, Sakhalin,
Biotechnology,
Indonesia, Chili, American death penalty, more
http://www.listbot.com/cgi-bin/customer?Act=view_message&list_id=Chocopaul&msg_num=12&start_num=25
(11) American Policy on "ROGUE STATES"
http://www.listbot.com/cgi-bin/customer?Act=view_message&list_id=Chocopaul&msg_num=13&start_num=25
(12) Mass Media Ignores Iraq Bombing
21ST CENTURY GENOCIDE: A MISSION OF PEACE TO IRAQ
http://www.listbot.com/cgi-bin/customer?Act=view_message&list_id=Chocopaul&msg_num=14&start_num=25
(13) CPN 15 News summaries (Peace, Women, Environment, Racism, etc.)
BURKINA FASO, MEXICO CITY, RIO DE JANEIRO, AUSTRALIA, INDIA, U.S.,
COLOMBIA,
HAITI, more
http://www.listbot.com/cgi-bin/customer?Act=view_message&list_id=Chocopaul&msg_num=15&start_num=25
(14) CPN 16 Petition to Japanese government: STOP extension of the
mining lease in the Kudremukh National Park
(India) and the involvement of Japanese corporations in importing iron
ore
from this area.
http://www.listbot.com/cgi-bin/customer?Act=view_message&list_id=Chocopaul&msg_num=16&start_num=25
(15) CPN 17 Japan punishes teachers who protest foreced flag and song,
New wiretapping law, Tokyo Disneyland violates workers' rights
http://www.listbot.com/cgi-bin/customer?Act=view_message&list_id=Chocopaul&msg_num=17&start_num=25
(16) CPN 18 East Timor and Australian Shame
Howard Zinn on American bombing of Hiroshima
http://www.listbot.com/cgi-bin/customer?Act=view_message&list_id=Chocopaul&msg_num=18&start_num=25
(17) CPN 19 Ralph Nadar: Who????? The 3rd party U.S. presdidential
candidate
http://www.listbot.com/cgi-bin/customer?Act=view_message&list_id=Chocopaul&msg_num=19&start_num=25
(18) CPN 20 Death Penalty (Capital Punishment)
http://www.listbot.com/cgi-bin/customer?Act=view_message&list_id=Chocopaul&msg_num=20&start_num=25
(19) CPN 21 News:
(1) Cassini Plutonium Rocket Anniversary
(2) (3) Georgia (US) TO Kill Child in Violation of International
Law
(4) The Lie that the Democrats are a Caring Party
(5) Colombia Kills Children (and Clinton gives them aid--the next
Vietnam?)
(6) End Sanctions in Iraq
(7) Gore's connection to the destruction of Nigerian tribal group
(8) U.S. cutting saftey margins of Nuclear Power Plants
(9) Logging and destruction of rainforests
(10) Ecuador bans U.S. chemical in "drug war"
(11) (12) Japanese local governments refuse to cooperate with
U.S.
war
plans
(13) Japanese victims of Wartime government urge compecnsation to
domestic
and foreign victims
(14) Tokyo Disneyland Illegal Labor Practice
http://www.listbot.com/cgi-bin/customer?Act=view_message&list_id=Chocopaul&msg_num=21&start_num=25
(20) CPN 22 Research shows Genetically Modified corn kills monarch
butterflies
http://www.listbot.com/cgi-bin/customer?Act=view_message&list_id=Chocopaul&msg_num=22&start_num=25
(21) CPN 23
SECTION ONE: Anti Racism Net excerpts
-Racial profiling
-Immigrant deaths hit record high
-Police Brutality in New York
SECTION TWO: Reply by Noam Chomsky to a ZNET forum inquiry
on crime, police control, minorities
SECTION THREE: Japan Press Service excerpts
-Military: Fiscal 2001 proposal would terrorize Asia
-Kanagawa: Field Exercises protested by peace groups
-Agriculture: Fighting for food security/against WTO
-Okinawa: Avoiding 15-year limit in discussions on new base
SECTION FOUR: Womens Net excerpts
-Nairobi: Food Security
-Africa: Illegal abortions kill
-Harare: Women leaders
-Pakistan: Breast Feeding
-Sri Lanka: Multinational Tobacco Companies
-UN: Gender Violence
-Abortion in Mexico
http://www.listbot.com/cgi-bin/customer?Act=view_message&list_id=Chocopaul&msg_num=23&start_num=25
(22) CPN 24 JAPANESE POLICE DETAIN BURMESE ACTIVISTS
http://www.listbot.com/cgi-bin/customer?Act=view_message&list_id=Chocopaul&msg_num=24&start_num=25
(23) CPN 25
News Alerts (Palestinians, Star Wars, Anti-IMF Demonstrations, East
Timor,
Nigeria, India, Papua New Guinea, United Nations)
Japan Press Service Summary (Corporations profit while the people
suffer,
Major Japanese Daily
confirms that Japan and U.S. have secret agreement on nuclear
weapons
despite Prime Minister's
Lies to the contrary.)
ZNET Commentary: Professor Manning Marable on Racism and the
American
Prison-Industrial
Complex
http://www.listbot.com/cgi-bin/customer?Act=view_message&list_id=Chocopaul&msg_num=25&start_num=25
(24) CPN 26
(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
http://www.listbot.com/cgi-bin/customer?Act=view_message&list_id=Chocopaul&msg_num=26&start_num=45
(25 and 26) CPN 27 and 28 EXCERPTS FROM Z Net including commentary by
Noam Chomsky
This is a great site for commentary and links that tell us what the
mainstream media
does not. ZNET has such topics as:
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
http://www.listbot.com/cgi-bin/customer?Act=view_message&list_id=Chocopaul&msg_num=27&start_num=45
http://www.listbot.com/cgi-bin/customer?Act=view_message&list_id=Chocopaul&msg_num=28&start_num=45
(27) CPN 29 HUMOR!
http://www.listbot.com/cgi-bin/customer?Act=view_message&list_id=Chocopaul&msg_num=30&start_num=45
(28) CPN 30 Japan news: Moonies (Toitsu Kyokai), Ishihara and SDF,
JCO,
http://www.listbot.com/cgi-bin/customer?Act=view_message&list_id=Chocopaul&msg_num=31&start_num=45
(29) CPN 31 Dissector's Diary: "Leave It To Lieberman" By Danny
Schechter
(The media and the candidates --how the media manufactures the news)
http://www.listbot.com/cgi-bin/customer?Act=view_message&list_id=Chocopaul&msg_num=32&start_num=45
(30) CPN 34--I know the numbers are off!!!!
NY Times Distorts Facts on Iraq
(What this means for us in Japan)
http://www.listbot.com/cgi-bin/customer?Act=view_message&list_id=Chocopaul&msg_num=34&start_num=45
(31) CPN 35 (1) Africa and AIDS
(2) Interview: Ralph Nadar
(3) PeaceNet and WomensNet Excerpts
http://www.listbot.com/cgi-bin/customer?Act=view_message&list_id=Chocopaul&msg_num=35&start_num=45
(32) CPN 37 Japan News
(1) Mitsubishi/Ford-Bridgestone Scandals
(2) Labor News
(3) Peace News
(4) Special: Nuclear "Gypsies" and
Japan's Nuclear Power Plants
http://www.listbot.com/cgi-bin/customer?Act=view_message&list_id=Chocopaul&msg_num=36&start_num=45
(33) CPN 38 Prague IMF demonstrations
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)
(2) Two articles on the breakdown of civil society and the
social
welfare
state:
(a) Problems of Neoliberalism by Edward Said, Columbia
University
(b) A Culture of Rage, Margaret Randall
http://www.listbot.com/cgi-bin/customer?Act=view_message&list_id=Chocopaul&msg_num=37&start_num=45
(34) CPN 39
(1) Australia encouraged Invasion of East
Timor-SecretDocuments
(2) Chomsky on U.N Summits
http://www.listbot.com/cgi-bin/customer?Act=view_message&list_id=Chocopaul&msg_num=39&start_num=45
(35) CPN 40
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
http://www.listbot.com/cgi-bin/customer?Act=view_message&list_id=Chocopaul&msg_num=40&start_num=45
(36) CPN 41 Some Humor: George Bush
http://www.listbot.com/cgi-bin/customer?Act=view_message&list_id=Chocopaul&msg_num=41&start_num=45
(37) CPN 42
(1) From Prague-Was Violence Committed by the Police
(2) Japan News-Police Attack University Students Protesting
Militarism
(3) World News--GM food, Indian Dams
(4) Special repoprt on Nestle Corporation boycott (and a note
about
Snow
Brand)
(4) Get Z MAGAZINE at 30 dollars (instead of 60)-international or
at 8 dollars (instead of 29)-domestic -->SEE BOTTOM OF THIS
NEWSLETTER
http://www.listbot.com/cgi-bin/customer?Act=view_message&list_id=Chocopaul&msg_num=43&start_num=45
(38) CPN 43
(1) U.S. Elections: Nadar not allowed into debate
(2) Related links (Edward Said, etc.)
(3) Middle East Emergency Coverage (Including
Israeli Peace Activists, something missing
from most mainstream coverage)
(4) Other Links of interest (IMF, Nike, etc.)
==============================================
http://www.listbot.com/cgi-bin/customer?Act=view_message&list_id=Chocopaul&msg_num=44&start_num=45
(40) CPN 44 Yugoslavia Revolt and NATO links (how western media
distorts
and lies too)
http://www.listbot.com/cgi-bin/customer?Act=view_message&list_id=Chocopaul&msg_num=45&start_num=45
Date: Oct 10 2000 11:47:35 EDT
From: "Chocopaul News" <pa-@arenson.org>
Subject: Many Japanese Links/MidEast section...
ChocoPaul's TOKYO PROGRESSIVE
=============================================
main site page http:// arenson.org
email pa-@arenson.org
this list http://Chocopaul.listbot.com/
Issue 46
=============================================
Many new things this week:
--Turmoil in Palestine: The Basic Context--
By Alex R. Shalom and Stephen R. Shalom
CNN and all the rest of the mainstream media never give you this
perspective
http://zmag.org/turmoil_in_palestine.htm
--MidEast Watch--a new ZNET section--
http://zmag.org/meastwatch/meastwat.htm
--Iraq Crisis Pages revisted
http://zmag.org/CrisesCurEvts/Iraq/IraqCrisis.htm
--John Pilger documentaries on Iraq, Vietnam, Burma--
It was amazing that the BBC broadcast his anti-Clinton/Blair documantary
the other day on
how the sanctions kill 5000 people a month. Rare mainstream coverage of
an issue most of
the media, in love with "the new military humanism", totally ignore.
http://pilger.carlton.com/
And a very special section for my students:
( see the main page http:// arenson.org)
--Japanese sites belonging to the Association for Progressive
Communications (APC)--
--Japanese NGO and activist sites
--English APC, NGO and Activist sites
APC links in Ukranian, Russian, Spanish, German, Romanian, etc...
from Africa, Europe, Asia....
Hundreds of new links!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Note to students: When you get the invitation to join CPN and the class
pages,
please send a reply from the SAME EMAIL ADDRESS!
Thanks and good night--it is 12:30 in the morning....
=============================================
main site page http:// arenson.org
email pa-@arenson.org
this list http://Chocopaul.listbot.com/
=============================================
Paul does not necessarily agree with opinions which appear on
sites featured on his page. He hopes that they are thought provoking
and provide an inspiration as well as suggest means for engaging in for
social activism on behalf of peace, social justice, human rights, and a
safe environment.
Date: Oct 17 2000 11:01:13 EDT
From: "Chocopaul News" <pa-@arenson.org>
Subject: Japan News/Middle East
ChocoPaul's TOKYO PROGRESSIVE
=============================================
main site page http:// arenson.org
email pa-@arenson.org
this list http://Chocopaul.listbot.com/
Issue 47
=============================================
ChocoPaul News is just one of the things you can find at
Tokyo Progressive. You can also find a great many
links in Japanese and English, plus several in other
langauges like Bulgarian or Korean.
How to find what you are looking for?
Well, the brown window that opens when you click
http://arenson.org has a list of the most recent additions to
my site as well as breaking stories. New users can get a little
help there too.
By clicking on the "TV" in the yellow window,
you will get to the MAIN PAGE.
The green menu at top (or click SIMPLE MENU for RESEARCH PAGES
if you do not see it) has the research pages. Here is where to
find important storied of the last several years. Go here, for
example, to find out what happened in East Timor, or Kosovo,
or at Tokaimura, or to learn about genetically modified food.
There are several sections, and each as more than one page of materials.
The green menu also has the class pages for several classes...
Student who have trouble accessing (or joining) should contact me.
News and links from right now are on the main page under Japanese links
and English and European language links.
There is a table of contents for the English links in the middle
column (some of the links don't yet work, but they are there). But you
can
just browse by scrolling down the page and finding them.
You can also get today's news on the main page. And you can
access previous issues of this newsletter.
Soon I will have a menu of all ChocoPaul News stories so you can
research
them more easily. In addition, all the main items at my site will soon
have a new search facility as soon as I complete moving my page to the
UK
in two weeks or so.
And please check out the links on my page to the Middle
East...you will be surprised by the types of things that are found
no-where in the mainstream media most of the time.
And now, a few recent links....
(1) JAPAN NEWS
(2) US MEDIA IGNORES UN VOTE ON MIDEAST
JPS 10-041
Scholars call for fund to compensate foreigners who engaged in forced
labor for Japan during WWII
TOKYO OCT 12 JPS -- Scholars and lawyers proposed on October 11 that
the government and companies establish a fund to compensate foreign
nationals who were forced to work for Japan in the Asia/Pacific region
from the 1930s until the end of World War II. This is the first such
proposal calling for compensation for forced labor.
The foreigners who were mobilized to forced labor were the people of
Korea, China, and Southeast Asia, plus soldiers of Britain, the U.S.,
Australia and the Netherlands who were taken prisoners.
Since 1937, when Japan launched a full-scale aggression against
China,
more than 700,000 people from Korea and some 40,000 people from China
were
brought to Japan to work and over 3.8 million people in Korea and some
one
million people in China were mobilized to forced labor in coal mines,
construction work, and factories of Mitsui, Mitsubishi, and others.
Japan's government has refused to compensate those victims of forced
labor.
Shoichi Matsuo, professor at Hosei University, said, "Many of those
victims are dead and others still alive are very old. Japan's government
and companies should accept their responsibilities." (end item)
JPS 10-042
Victims of Militarism during WWII call for enactment of state
compensation
law
TOKYO OCT 12 JPS -- Calling for a law for state compensation for
victims of the wartime law to deprive the people of freedom and
democracy
and mobilize them to war of aggression, a citizens group made
representations on October 11 to the House of Representatives speaker.
Sanyo Nakanishi, president of the League for State Compensation for
Victims of Public Order Maintenance Law, told the speaker, "Only Japan
hasn't apologized to or compensated the people for their sufferings, who
had been oppressed during WWII because of their opposition to the war.
In
Korea, the people who were arrested for violation of the Public Order
Maintenance Law receive a pension."
Hamako Matsuzaki, the League's advisor, said, "I was arrested at 18
because I was opposed to the war. All of my friends who were arrested
were
killed but I have survived. I demand an apology from the government."
(end item)
JPS 10-043
IUCN Amman Congress calls for saving Okinawa's dugong
TOKYO OCT 12 JPS -- The Second World Conservation Congress of the
IUCN
(International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural
Resources)
in Amman, Jordan on October 10 recommended that the Japanese and U.S.
governments take steps for the research and conservation of dugong in
the
sea off the northern Okinawa.
Acknowledging that dugong swims and cruises in the sea off the Henoko
District of Nago City in Okinawa, the congress warned that new military
facilities will seriously damage coral reef and seaweed in dugong's
essential habitat.
It recommended both governments, which abstained from voting, to
carry
out environmental assessment of the planned military facilities and
military exercises, and to take appropriate measures to preserve the
rare
animal.
It also stressed the need to reserve several rare species of birds,
including the Okinawa Woodpecker and the Okinawa Rail.
With this, the world's voices calling on both governments to stop
constructing a new U.S. military base at the site will be further
focused
on this area, said Akahata on October 12.
* * *
The Amman 2000 IUCN World Conservation Congress on October 10 also
adopted a resolution with the majority support, calling for preserving
rare species living at the Kaisho Forest in Aichi Prefecture where
Japan's
government plans to host the 2005 World Exposition.
The IUCN also requested the BIE (Bureau International des
Expositions)
to continue advising Japan's government to pay environmental care for
the
2005 World Exhibition. (end item)
JPS 10-044
Anti-U.S. base group calls on prefecture to revoke decision to accept a
new U.S. base
TOKYO OCT 12 JPS -- Okinawa's anti-military base activists on October
11 demanded that the Okinawa prefectural government revoke its decision
to
accept the new U.S. base construction plan and disband a working group.
Representatives of the "Nago Council against the Construction of U.S.
On-Sea Heliport" argued that Okinawa should reject the plan to relocate
the U.S. Futenma Air Station to Nago City now that the Okinawa governor
has broken his public promise that a 15-year limit would be imposed on
the
base use as a prerequisite for the relocation.
Referring to the movement developing in favor of peace on the Korean
Peninsula and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and
Natural Resources (IUCN) advice about the protection of dugongs,
threatened animal inhabiting in the sea around Okinawa, the protesters
proposed that the prefecture seize these opportunities to refuse the new
base.
The deputy governor took a so-what attitude, saying, "Are you
requesting that the U.S. Futenma base continue to function as it is now?
The IUCN advice isn't for Okinawa Prefecture but for the central
government." (end item)
MEDIA ADVISORY:
Muffled Coverage of U.N. Vote:
Media Ignores Broad Mideast Consensus
October 16, 2000
U.S. media have been ignoring or downplaying an important dimension of
the
ongoing turmoil in the Middle East. On October 7, the United Nations
Security Council voted 14 to 0 for a resolution condemning Israel's
"excessive use of force against Palestinians" and deploring the
"provocation" of Israeli opposition leader Ariel Sharon's September 28
visit
to the Temple Mount.
The United States was the only Security Council member to abstain from
the
vote, which it did after trying to soften the language of the
resolution.
The outcome was generally interpreted as assigning most of the
responsibility for the violence to Israel. The conservative Times of
London
editorial page called it a "stinging rebuff" (10/9/00).
The Security Council members who voted in favor of the unanimous measure
included the United States' closest allies in NATO-- Britain, Canada
and
the Netherlands. Britain, America's closest ally, "in part brokered" the
resolution, according to foreign secretary Robin Cook, "and we certainly
stand by it" (Agence France Presse, 10/8/00).
NATO ally France also voted in favor, as did Argentina, which generally
votes with Washington. Permanent members Russia and China voted in
favor,
as
did several countries in Africa, Asia and the Caribbean. The Associated
Press (10/7/00) described the measure as "bitterly fought-over," but
Argentina's U.N. delegate told Agence France Presse (10/7/00): "Most
members
of the council have no problem with the resolution. It is a problem for
the
American delegation."
Despite the broad global consensus-- minus the United States and
Israel--
highlighted by the resolution's passage, coverage in the U.S. media was
scant and indifferent. When the media did report the vote, it was almost
always treated as a dilemma for U.S. policymakers rather than a
statement
of
world opinion. Virtually no news outlet reported which countries voted
for
the measure. In a news cycle that has focused overwhelmingly on the
question
of who is to blame for the current violence, the media's indifference to
an
international vote on the issue is striking.
As Britain's U.N. delegate noted during the debate over the vote, the
Security Council "does not have an army, but is a judge of international
affairs and is expected to pronounce on such matters" (AFP, 10/7/00).
Information about world opinion is especially needed in the U.S., whose
government has long been internationally isolated in its staunch support
for
Israeli military actions.
But important newspapers with substantial international coverage
relegated
the U.N. vote to a few passing sentences within other stories-- e.g.,
the
Washington Post, Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune (all 10/8/00) and USA
Today
(10/9/00). Only three of the top 36 U.S. papers in the Nexis database--
the
New York Times, Los Angeles Times and Long Island Newsday-- devoted
articles
to the vote (all 10/8/00). None of these papers' headlines mentioned
Israel
by name; for example, Newsday's misleadingly vague "U.N. Measure
Condemns
Violence." Although all three of these papers have full-time U.N.
correspondents, all used wire stories. None of the 36 newspapers
reported
which Security Council members voted for the resolution.
A week later (10/14/00), the New York Times' U.N. correspondent, Barbara
Crossette, mischaracterized what the resolution said. She reported
American
U.N. Ambassador Richard Holbrooke's vow to veto any further Security
Council
resolutions after the U.S. "abstained on a resolution in the Security
Council last weekend broadly criticizing the renewal of fighting." (The
resolution actually singled out Israel.)
On television, coverage was even thinner. The only chance CBS Evening
News
viewers had to learn about the resolution was from a story on the
Hillary
Clinton/Rick Lazio Senate debate (10/8/00). Lazio said he was "gravely
disappointed" that the Clinton administration didn't veto the
resolution.
"Mrs. Clinton agreed," added reporter Diana Olick.
NBC's Middle East coverage included some passing remarks by White House
correspondent Joe Johns (NBC Nightly News, 10/8/00) reporting that "the
disagreement over which side should bear the greatest blame spilled over
to
the United Nations." Johns explained that the measure criticized Israel
and
that the U.S. abstained-- but viewers were not told whether the
resolution
passed, or what the vote was.
On ABC's World News Tonight (10/8/00), the vote didn't even make it into
State Department correspondent Martha Raddatz's story, but had to be
inserted by anchor Carol Simpson in a three-sentence lead-in.
The U.N. resolution got the most coverage on the Sunday morning talk
shows,
where the pundits could barely contain their dismay at the
administration's
failure to veto the measure. On NBC's Meet the Press (10/8/00), Tim
Russert
grilled Secretary of State Madeleine Albright on the abstention. When
Albright said she "felt that it was important that we abstain on this
resolution because of the kind of language that was in it," Russert
prodded:
"Well, why not veto it?" After she responded, Russert persisted: "But by
abstaining and not vetoing, it did go into force, a resolution which
condemns in effect Israel for excessive use of force."
Interviewing National Security Advisor Sandy Berger on ABC's This Week
(10/8/00), Sam Donaldson called the decision to abstain "remarkable,"
adding
that "perhaps not since the Falklands War" had the U.S. failed to veto a
resolution condemning one of its allies.
For the pundits, the United States' isolation in abstaining from a
unanimous
U.N. resolution never came up as an issue.
As New York Times reporter Barbara Crossette noted a week after the vote
(10/14/00), "the Clinton Administration came under criticism from across
the
political spectrum for abstaining, and not vetoing, the resolution last
week." Perhaps the media were hesitant to cover the unanimous U.N. vote
because it showed how isolated this domestic consensus is from world
opinion. The American public should hear from all sides in the volatile
debate over the Mideast conflict.
Today's news is from the Japan Press Service and Fairness & Accuracy in
Reporting (FAIR)
You can subscribe to FAIR-L at our web site: http://www.fair.org , or by
sending a "subscribe FAIR-L enter your full name" command to
LIST-@AMERICAN.EDU . Our subscriber list is kept confidential.
Date: Oct 19 2000 10:24:00 EDT
From: "Chocopaul News" <pa-@arenson.org>
Subject: # 48 Japanese economy, Africa and the movement against
Globalisation
Tokyo Progressive's ChocoPaul News
http:arenson.org
pa-@arenson.org
--------------------------------------------------
Issue #48: Japanese issues are World Issues
World issues are Japanese Issues
--------------------------------------------------
(1) New Feature: Index of CP News articles
Click the SIGNUP button and you will now find a convenient index of all
issues of CP News. This index is also reachable from the Search menu
(Search this site).
(2) Today's articles:
(a) Japan in the 21st Century (Paul)
(b) The African grassroots and the global movement (Patrick Bond)
(A) Japan in the 21st Century
According the National Union of General Workers South District (Tokyo),
(English http://www.twics.com/~maxim/nambu/eng/nugwts-top-e-fs.html
Japanese http://www.jca.apc.org/nugw_ts/ ) a labor union to which I
belong that represents the interests of workers belonging to small and
medium sized enterprises, globalisation of the world economy is having
profound effects on Japanese society,
as it is on the rest of the world.
To encourage restructuring as well as employment specialization and
fluidity, the Industrial Rejuvenation Law, the Civil Rejuvenation law
and
the Corporate Division Law have been enacted. Bankruptcies have
increased, and the unemployment rate has risen to 5% (in official
terms,
the real rate, is much higher since the Labor Ministry counts
as employment people working only part of any given month, etc.). In
short, Japan has gone further astray from the myth of a society of
"100,000,000 members of the middle class" to an increasingly unequal
society. Whereas capitalism formerly made profits on the backs of
people
in the "third world", increasingly in Japan (as in the U.S.),
it is being made at the expense of the people right here in Japan.
At the same time, NUGW's latest Annual Report says, a series of
nationalistic laws have been enacted one after another, posing a great
threat to Japan's would-be image of a democracy. These include the new
Guidelines-related laws (compelling even Japanese civilians to assist
any
war effort initiated by the U.S. in undefined "areas surrounding
Japan"),the National Flag and Anthem laws (forcing "patriotism" on
kids),
and the Wiretapping law. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Mori calls Japan
'God's nation' and Tokyo's Governor Ishihara talks disparagingly of
Korean
residents and other "foreigners" (sangokujin)--many of whom have lived
here all their lives, using them as an excuse to
push for greater use of Japan's Self Defense forces on the pretext that
they may be required if foreign residents riot during a massive
earthquake. (For the record, it was Japanese police rumors about
Koreans
poisoning the wells that led to the State-instigated murder of Koreans
by ordinary civilians during the 1923 earthquake, exactly the opposite
scenario that the demagogic Ishihara wants the Japanese to believe
is a real threat.
But the real threat comes from governments and companies that stress
corporate profit and blind obedience over the welfare of their people.
Using undocumented workers as scapegoats for example, when the reason
they come here is that the economic policies of Japan, the U.S. and the
other powerful economies have forced them to come in
search of a livelihood despite the risks, is the way the government and
business leaders try to turn worker against worker, when the real enemy
is
the system that regards ALL of us as disposable slaves in service to the
rich and powerful.
The fight against restructuring is the fight against the
government-corporate hold over our lives. It is part of the fight
against
the WTO, IMF and World bank, against the crushing burdens put on the non
industrialised countries, who extend loans on the condition that the non
industrialised societies destroy their civil society in order to earn
the
capital to pay the interest on those loans. Japanese ODA, in addition,
exists to earn profits for Japanese companies. The same companies that
think nothing of laying off and firing their own loyal workers. The same
companies, as part of a multi-national alliance of profit over all else,
create the need for military alliances and bases that throw Okinawan
people off their lands, that destroy East Timorese and Yugoslavian
lives,
that destroy Iraqi society at the rate of 200 children a month because
of
sanctions that regard ambulances as weapons of mass destruction.
But there are signs that the movement against these evils is beginning
to
pick up steam and win important victories that will make it difficult
for
the industrial-military alliance to keep doing what it has been doing.
What follows is an article on that by Patrick Bond, an important article
for many people. I know students who are eagerly hoping to work for
NGOs
or developments projects, but they might consider that so many of these
aim to keep the present system going and do not offer real change. Bond
shows how many people are working to take back NGO activity from
government and corporate control and put it back in the hands of the
people.
Here in Japan, I often hear people idealistically talking about what
Japan
can do for world peace and economic justice. But this is often in the
context of top-down programs that do not put power back into the
people's
hands. By the same token, I hear idealistic talk about what Japan can
contribute to the U.N. But there is no meaning to talk about Japan
contributing to PKO activities (an excuse by the Liberal Democratic
Party,
many of whose members have not renounced the fascism of pre-war Imperial
government, to justify the legitimization of its Self Defense forces),
or
about it becoming a permanent member of the Security Council (What
contribution does this morally bankrupt government have to make when it
always supports the use of violence by the United States and its
maintenance of nuclear weapons, which are also stored in Japan in
violation of Japan's sovereignty and public image as an anti-nuclear
nation?).
Rather, we need to talk about dismantling institutions like the WTO,
which
is an undemocratic institution that is destroying the lives and
livelihoods of so many. Bond's article has some encouraging reports on
how
this may very well come to be.
Tomorrow is the the start of the ASEM meetings in Seoul, and while the
mainstream press uses the word "radical" as a perjorative, equating it
with violent protests, they ignore the violence done to increasingly
large
numbers of people in both the non industrialised and industrial
countries
by governments like the U.S. and Japan, their multinational companies,
and
their militaries.
In hoping that demonstrations tomorrow call attention to the violence
committed by these institutions, and help to put them to an end, here is
Bond's article.
(b) The African grassroots and the global movement
By Patrick Bond
In a ZNet commentary last month, Noam Chomsky observed
South-South-North alliances "taking shape at the grassroots
level--an impressive development, rich in opportunity and
promise, and surely causing no little concern in high
places." I want to firmly endorse this trend and today
reflect upon some tangible evidence of activism, visible
from even my Johannesburg armchair. (Last month, I reviewed
some key African movements' statements and resolutions
against neoliberalism and compradorism.)
To set the scene, I just read a fantastic e-account of
Prague: "The People's Battle," by Boris Kagarlitsky. In a
September 23 debate organised by Vaclav Havel, the
outstanding Filippino political-economist Walden Bello was
trashing Bank president Jim Wolfensohn and IMF managing
director Horst Kohler. Recounts Kagarlitsky,
"Trevor Manuel, a one-time communist and revolutionary, and
now South African finance minister, objects to Bello:
`Without the international financial institutions, things
would be even worse for poor countries.' The right-wingers
applaud. Someone among the leftists mutters: `Traitor!'"
This is one of the most interesting cleavages in global
politics today. Over the coming weekend, Manuel--who is
chairperson of the IMF/Bank Board of Governors--and other
finance ministers from the "emerging market" countries will
meet in Montreal with G8 leaders, especially the notorious
skinflint Larry Summers, who has spent the past few days
lobbying the Senate against a House of Representatives
prohibition on IMF/Bank imposition of userfees in Third
World education and primary healthcare programmes.
Manuel and his colleagues often allege that anti-neoliberal
protests represent merely the misguided efforts of spoiled,
Northern, petit-bourgeois youth. Manuel's press secretary
last week had this to say about recent university audiences
at the film "Two Trevors go to Washington" (about the A16
protests): "They are the richest students in the world and
would hardly miss the World Bank." (Tonight, the film wraps
up its leg of a N. American tour associated with the
excellent World Bank Bonds Boycott campaign--victorious a
few days ago in San Francisco! www.worldbankboycott.org --at
New York's Monthly Review office, 122 W.27th St, at 6PM, so
if you're in town, don't miss it; http://go.to/two.trevors).
Hard as it may be for Manuel and co. to appreciate, Northern
leftists, feminists, and greens are not the only ones angry
with the Bank and IMF. All too often over the past year, the
struggle sites under media glare--Seattle (N30), Washington
(A16), Prague (S26), and to a lesser extent Davos (January),
London (May), Geneva (June), Windsor (July), Okinawa (July),
Philly/LA (August), Melbourne (September) and NY
(September)--have deflected attention from much larger
actions in the Third World as well as from smaller-scale but
even braver anti-neoliberal campaigns against the Bretton
Woods Institutions and the repressive governments they fund.
Here's my ongoing (and merely partial) list of events that
link grassroots and labour struggles in the South to the
higher-profile protests of which the global movement is
justifiably proud.
* An indigenous people's uprising against neoliberal
policies in Ecuador in January generated a
momentarily-successful alliance with military coup-makers in
January.
* The movement's energy shifted to steamy Bangkok in
February, where a formidable Thai network of unemployed
rural and urban activists protested daily at the
semi-decennial meeting of the United Nations Conference on
Trade and Development.
* In early April, grassroots anti-globalization protest
intensified in the main square of Cochabamba, Bolivia, where
thousands of residents forced water-privatiser Bechtel out
of the country (and precipitated a national state of
emergency in the process).
* When soon thereafter, Washington came under unprecedented
attack from 30,000 militants who paralysed a large area
surrounding the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World
Bank headquarters, substantial solidarity protests were held
in various Third World settings, including Brazil and South
Africa. Especially notable, under harsh circumstances, were
anti-IMF demonstrations mainly by small groups of women in
Lusaka and Nairobi, which were harshly broken up by police.
* The next month, the small Thai city of Chiang Mai was
awoken by 5,000 angry students, unemployed workers,
environmentalists and displaced rural people, who
overwhelmed police lines protecting an Asian Development
Bank meeting.
* On May 10, South Africa was the site of a national general
strike by half the country's workforce, furious over
job-killing neoliberal policies adopted at the behest of the
World Bank, and protest marches brought 200,000 out into the
streets in several cities.
* The next day, twenty million Indian workers went on strike
explicitly to protest the surrender of national sovereignty
to the IMF and Bank.
* Smaller but still very sharp anti-IMF demonstrations
quickly led to police crackdowns in Argentina in mid-May,
followed by a mass protest of 80,000.
* Turkish police also repressed anti-austerity
demonstrations in May.
* In Port-au-Prince, Haiti in June, thousands turned out for
anti-debt activities.
* In Paraguay, a two-day general strike was called against
IMF-mandated privatisation.
* Also in June, Nigeria's trade unions allied with Lagos
residents in a mass strike aimed at reversing an
IMF-mandated oil price increase, which also had the effect
of cutting short Larry Summers' visit.
* In July, South Korean workers repeatedly demonstrated
against IMF-mandated austerity policies.
* The Brazilian left hosted a plebiscite in August on
whether the society should accept an IMF austerity
programme, and more than one million voted, nearly all
against.
* S26 solidarity events occurred all over the world, and in
South Africa (as a leading example) included a march by
1,000 NGO activists in Durban, a demo at the US consulate in
Cape Town, and a march by hundreds into the lobby of the
Johannesburg headquarters of Africa's largest company (Anglo
American Corp), attracting violence and pepperspray by
corporate security guards.
* Tens of thousands of Korean workers, students and
social-movement protesters are preparing for a day of
confrontation on October 20, at a Seoul gathering of
European and Asian leaders.
I get a sense, in these discrete examples, of a broader and
potentially universal maturity, in which the most powerful
structural forces responsible for Third World degradation
are now being named and forcefully confronted. Each setting
has a different emphasis, but most aim for decommodified,
destratified and even degendered,
environmentally-responsible access to basic goods and
services: jobs, water, electricity, free anti-retroviral
drugs to combat AIDS, education, lower food and petrol
prices.
To be sure, some of the ongoing activism in Africa is
difficult to interpret from a distance, since much of it is
based on a liberal-sounding "rights discourse" rather than
an explicitly "redistributionist agenda," to recall an
argument presented at a Harare conference last month by
Zimbabwe's leading civil-society scholar-activist, Brian
Raftopoulos. In that setting, Raftopoulos hopes that the
official opposition party, the Movement for Democratic
Change, will ultimately encourage its mass-movement
supporters to counteract quite damaging internal neoliberal
pressure (associated with campaign fund-raising for the June
2000 parliamentary elections), and thus begin to harness the
potent, anti-neoliberal (and anti-government) sentiments of
poor and working-class people.
When not nurtured and harnessed, such sentiments have
tragically led to "IMF riots" in Harare on several occasions
over the past decade, including earlier this week, after
prices on staple goods were hiked yet again. Indeed, most
Third World social movements have this trouble--i.e., they
are often unprepared to work with those most prone to
socio-economic rioting, instead relying too much upon
traditional "governance" demands.
Worse yet, instead of synthesising with mass-lumpen protest,
some local activities undertaken by grassroots groups too
easily fall into the trap of neoliberal economic policies.
Consider a warning by the great Nigerian intellectual Claude
Ake, in a book (The Feasibility of Democracy in Africa)
finished prior to his 1996 death, which has just been
published by Codesria Press in Dakar. Since the 1980s, Ake
reports, "there has been an explosion of associational life
in rural Africa. By all indications, this is a by-product of
a general acceptance of the necessity of self-reliance,
yielding a proliferation of institutions such as craft
centres, rural credit unions, farmers' associations,
community-run skill development centres, community banks,
cooperatives, community-financed schools and hospitals and
civic centres, local credit unions, even community vigilante
groups for security. Some have welcomed this development as
a sign of a vibrant civil society in Africa. It may well be
that. However, before we begin to idealise this phenomenon,
it is well to remind ourselves that whatever else it is, it
is first and foremost a child of necessity, of desperation
even."
The rise of "Community-Based Organisations" (CBOs) and
associated development NGOs closely corresponds with the
desire of the international agencies to shrink Third World
states as part of the overall effort to lower the social
wage. The result is an ongoing conflict between technicist,
apolitical development interventions on the one hand, and
the people-centered strategies (and militant tactics) of
mass-oriented social movements of the oppressed on the other
hand.
Thus by the early 1990s, two out of five World Bank projects
involved NGOs (including well over half in Africa), and in
projects involving population, nutrition, primary health
care, and small enterprise, the ratio rose to more than four
out of five. In his seminal 1995 study, Paul Nelson found
that NGOs were "primarily implementors of project components
designed by World Bank and government officials." Moreover,
especially since an upsurge in such participation began in
1988, NGOs have often been used to "deliver compensatory
services to soften the effects of an adjustment plan"; in
some cases the NGOs were not even pre-existing but were
"custom-built for projects" and hence could "neither sustain
themselves nor represent poor people's interests
effectively."
But from a recent era in which "Co-Opted NGOs"--CoNGOs, as
they're termed--happily picked up crumbs from the neoliberal
table, I think we may be on the verge of a return to
dominance by radical, people's-movement NGOs. In South
Africa, the 3,000 member SA NonGovernmental Coalition
deserves this recognition, as do component think-tanks and
campaigning groups currently fighting for free access to
anti-retroviral drugs, water, electricity and the like.
(Next month, I'll provide an update on the mixed reactions
from government and the ruling ANC, as the December 5
municipal elections approach, thereby heightening populist
campaigning promises rather more than I sense from the US
election.)
The campaigns really do, now, think globally, act locally,
and network globally for support. In his new book, Spaces of
Hope (Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press), marxist
scholar David Harvey seeks out instances of the "global and
universal taken together," which in practical terms means we
must "take globalisation seriously and make universal claims
of precisely the sort that the Zapatistas have advanced from
their mountainous retreats in Southern Mexico. These claims
rest firmly on local experience but operate more
dialectically in relation to globalisation."
The Zapatistas' international alliances are a model along
these lines, but so too are their distinctly
radical-democratic "development" strategies, based upon
short-term demands to their nation-state. Tellingly, when
these are not forthcoming due to neoliberalism, Zapatista
self-activity takes forms such as liberating household
electricity supplies from the pylons that cross Chiapas,
invading underutilised ranches and plantations, and
declaring municipal autonomy in dozens of sites of community
struggle.
For the rest of us, working in solidarity with such Southern
rebellions and in self-interest, too, the common target
appears global and universal taken together: shutting down
the IMF, Bank and WTO. A prerequisite to global social
justice is to fell the agencies which most directly negate
our claims of universal access to decommodified,
destratified, degendered and environmentally-responsible
"rights," such as essential drugs and clean water. It is
here that evolving grassroots activity in Africa has lots to
teach the international movement.
***
(By the way, I'll be presenting a longer version of this
article in New York, at Columbia University's Institute of
African Studies at noon on October 19--11th floor of the
International Affairs building--in the event anyone wants to
stop by and check it out.)???
Date: Oct 21 2000 00:21:38 EDT
From: "Chocopaul News" <pa-@arenson.org>
Subject: (1)EMERGENCY APPEAL and (2)Japan Police arrest Tsuda College
Students
=CPN49=
======================================
ChocoPaul News # 49
WEB SITE http://www.arenson.org/
CP NEWS http://Chocopaul.listbot.com/
EMAIL pa-@arenson.org
======================================
FIRST ITEM: EMERGENCY APPEAL ON RADIO STATION CENSORSHIP
SIGN THE LETTER!
SECOND ITEM: UPDATE ON JAPANESE POLICE ARREST OF TSUDA COLLEGE/WASEDA
UNIVERSITY STUDENTS AT ANTI-ISHIHARA PROTEST
-->Also PROTEST DEMONSTRATION at Miyashita Park in Shibuya (Tokyo) at
1:00 pm on Sunday, October 22.
Please read the following and sign the letter of protest that follows.
Pacifica Radio is a U.S. listener-sponsored network of radio stations.
However, thanks to the Internet, you can hear one of their award winning
programs on news and commentary no matter where you live, Democracy Now.
(http://www.webactive.com/pacifica/demnow.html).
Its host, Amy Goodman, is an award-winning journalist whose programs, in
collaboration with Juan Gonzales, Allan Nairn, and many volunteers,
have
brought the world stories that the regular news media ignores or refuses
to cover. Both Amy and Allan were almost killed in East Timor 10 years
(Alan was almost killed again last year as well) trying to cover that
story.
In addition to Indonesian atocieties in East Timor, she has covered the
exclusion of Ralph Nadar from coverage of the U.S. presidential
campaign,
third world sweatshops, police brutality, prison growth, corporate
globalization, genetically modified foods, and more.
These are issues that affect all of us. Without knowing what our
governments are doing, how our lives are bought and sold by
multinational
corporations with the complicity of our governments, we are unable to
organize and fight back.
Pacifica has traditionally given access to voices from all parts of the
political spectrum (left and right), but that has been challenged in a
way
that will make Pacifica and its programs as bad as the corporate media.
Compared to Pacifica, public and listener-supoprted stations like
stations
like NPR and PBS (U.S.), BBC (Britain) and NHK (Japan) are just
mainstream
stations close to the powerful elite in business and government.
And now Pacific's board, in violation of its charter, is attempting to
sanitize and censor Pacifica by forcing Amy Goodman to clear all shows
before she does them. They want to deny you the right to know what is
REALLY going on. She must not allow volunteers to help produce the show
either, and she must get
approval from management before accepting speaking engagements.
Violations
could and probably will result in her dismissal.
Pacifica, which is supposed to be serving the interests of its listeners
(yes, you!), is attemping to silence the voice of Amy Goodman, exert
political control and kill her show--Democracy Now--if not in name, then
in terms of what it is and isn't allowed to talk about. In effect,
Pacifica is saying there will be NO
DEMOCRACY ANYMORE.
Sites like TokyoProgressive (ChocoPaul Page)depend on shows like Amy's
to
give readers an alternative to the news found in the maintream media.
That
is why I hope you will copy the letter below and send it to Pacifica's
board (or write your own).
Information on the crisis, which hasd a long history, can be found below
this sample letter (just cut and paste).
Thanks for your help,
Paul Arenson
Webmaster, Tokyo Progressive and
Co-founder of the Japan Human Rights Appeal
pa-@arenson.org
SEND THE LETTER BELOW
(or your own but please be polite as several of the board members are
sympathetic) to PACIFICA BOARD MEMBERS (LIST OF MEMBERS IS BELOW)
If possible, send me a note telling me that you have done so,
and also enlose a copy of the letter if different than the one below.
I will pass this on to Amy.
----------------cut and paste-------------------------------
Dear Pacifica Management,
As a user of the site Tokyo Progressive (http://arenson.org), I was
disappointed to read of the restrictions being put upon the host of
Democracy Now, Amy Goodman. Amy's show helps inform me of events that
are rarely covered in the regular media. I wonder how you can even use
the name "Democracy" in the
show's title when you seem to be denying Amy and her listeners access to
views which, although they may be unpopular or even contrary to those
of
some board members, deserve a place on the one radio station that has
traditionally given a voice to such views.
I urge you to reverse your decision, and I urge sympathtic board members
to
take a stand against those on the board who are trying to dismantle all
that Pacific has stood for over the past decades.
Sincerely,
NAME-----
---
EMAIL ADDRESS---- ---
CITY/COUNTRY--- ---
----------------cut and paste-------------------------------
Use the above link, or copy the below addresses:
LIST OF CURRENT BOARD MEMBERS OF PACIFICA:
David Acosta, Chair
102 S. Lockwood Houston Tx. 77011-3124 phone: (713) 926-4604 e-mail:
cpa-@aol.com
Andrea Cisco, Secretary
2390 Champlain Street, NW, Washington, D.C. 20009 Phone: (toll free)
888-770-4944
e-mail: acda-@aol.com
Ken Ford, Vice Chair
11303 Sherrington Ct. Largo, Md 20774-2317 Phone: (202) 822-0228 (works
at
National
Assoc. of Home Builders)
Wendell L. Johns
5117 Warren Place, NW Washington, D.C. 20016 phone: (202) 752-8193
e-mail:
wendell_-@fanniemae.com (works at Fannie Mae)
Frank Millspaugh
32 King Street New York,. NY 10014 phone: (212) 741-0839 e-mail:
fmil-@aol.com
(works at WBAI!!)
Bob Farrell
c/o Los Angeles Sentinel 3800 S. Crenshaw, PO Box 11456 Los Angeles, CA
90008
phone: (323) 299-3800 x255 e-mail: rfar-@kamber.com
Bertram Lee
800 25th Street NW Washington,D.C. 20037-2207 phone: (202) 965-6224
(sports
magnate, investor in broadcast stations)
John M. Murdock
Epstein Becker & Green 1227 25th Street NW, Suite 700 Washington, DC
20037
phone:
(202) 861-0900 e-mail: jmur-@ebglaw.com
Micheal Palmer
Industrial Properties, Houston Texas CB Richard Ellis 2500 W. Loop
South,
Suite 100
Houston, Tx 77027-4502 phone: (713) 840-6646 e-mail:
mpal-@cbrichardellis.com
Karolyn Van Putten
Western Public Radio Fort Mason Center, Bldg. D, San Francisco, CA 94123
phone:
(415) 771-1160 e-mail: KvP-@aol.com
Valerie Chambers
14602 Quail Creek Court Houston Tx. 77070 e-mail: vcham-@UH.EDU
Pete Bramson--KPFA e-mail: prb-@aol.com
Rabbi Aaron Kriegel--KPFK e-mail: HAR-@aol.com
Tomas Moran--KPFA e-mail: tomas-@aol.com
Rob Robinson--WPFW e-mail: robr-@erols.com
Leslie Cagan--WBAI e-mail: leslie-@igc.org
Beth Lyons--WBAI e-mail: bethl-@aol.com
To educate yourself on the crisis, see:
http://www.zmag.org/CrisesCurEvts/progpacif.htm
ZNet Top Page: http://www.zmag.org/weluser.htm
an important information website is www.savepacifica.net
Other important sites are: http://www.radio4all.org/freepacifica/
http://home.pon.net/wildrose/remove.htm
New York area: http://www.wbai.net/
http://www.glib.com/union.html
http://www.wbaifree.org/
Los Angeles area: http://www.pacfolio.org/
Washington, D.C. area: http://www.freewpfw.org/
and http://www.stationadvisoryboards.org (currently under construction)
http://www.zmag.org/CrisesCurEvts/progpacif.htm
http://www.webactive.com/pacifica/demnow.html
UPDATE ON TSUDA/WASEDA ARRESTS BY JAPANESE POLICE
from Roger Wilcox
There will be a rally dealing with the rise of the political right and
the steady deterioration of civil rights in this country held at
Miyashita
Park in Shibuya (Tokyo) at 1:00 pm on Sunday, October 22. To get there,
depart the JR station at the Hachiko exit, walk toward the millions of
cell
phone users in the square to the main street/crossing and turn right. Go
up
to the next main crossing I believe, and turn left and walk about five
or
ten minutes, Miyashita park if I recall is along the train tracks, a
fairly
prominent location and on a main street. Sorry for the foggy directions,
but don't get off on one of the millions of narrow allies in Shibuya, or
you are lost.
In this regard, I have been following the details of the five people
who were illegally detained by police on September 3rd at a protest
rally
against Ishihara's "big rescue" in Tokyo. The fiercesome five (haha, I
met
one of the ladies and she was demure and serious, and no airhead I can
tell
you, a courageous person in a sea of post modern flotsam) legally
assembled
at the Tokyo city metropolitan building (known as "tochoo").
What I realize now is that it was a strategic mistake for so few
protestors to choose such a symbolic place to make their, albeit
entirely
legal point. They might have been wiser to have been part of a larger
group, this may have minimized the chances for police terror. After
leaving
that site they were attacked by police on the platform of the Oeido
subway
line. As far as I am able to ascertain, the commissars in the daily
press,
Japan Times et. al. dutifully reported that the fieresome five had
gotten
onto the train tracks in an attempt to block the Jieitai. But the
reports
apparently offered no witnesses' testimony other than the police. One
would
expect that the police's claim would be verified by, perchance, one of
the
attendants working at the train station, or some other eye witnesses
waiting for their train. To my knowledge, this intentionally erroneous
reporting has gone uncorrected to date. Once the five arrestees were
finally released due to lack of evidence, the press had still not
corrected
its story (unless someone has learned otherwise, please share details).
The woman I met, Ms. Ishimoto denied that at any point in their
activities had they broken the law, and indeed they were found innocent
by
the judge. When their lawyer attempted to file suit against the police,
the
judge threw the case out.
The point is, we do not live in a democracy. We live in a quasi-police
state with a largely fraudulent parlimentary system where the press and
media are compliant lap dogs to the mendacious and the powerful. Those
who
see the society sliding in a dangerous direction may want to have their
voices heard on Sunday. Thanks,
RW
---------------------------------------------------
Note--ChocoPaul News and Tokyo progressive do not necessarily agree with
all views expressed by others whose comments appear on these pages. We
present them because we think they deal with important issues about
which we should all be concerned.
Please make your own decisions about supported any recommened actions
or causes.
Paul
---------------
http://www.webactive.com/pacifica/demnow.html
LINK TO RADIO SHOW
-----------------------
Date: Oct 25 2000 04:03:39 EDT
From: "Chocopaul News" <pa-@arenson.org>
Subject: (1) MidEast (2) Crimes of the U.S. and friends
=== ===
Tokyo Progressive's ChocoPaul News
http:arenson.org
pa-@arenson.org
NEW EMAIL ADDRESS SOON
--------------------------------------------------
Issue #50
(1) MidEast-An Israeli Peace Activist's perspective
from c2o - Community Communications Online | Andrew Garton
- PO Box 304 | agar-@c2o.org
- Richmond 3121 Victoria AUSTRALIA | http://www.c2o.org
(future home of Chocopaul Email, another APC site)
(2) Living in an evil system and being somehow unaware of it
(Silent Democracy)
All about the crimes of the U.S. and its friends and how people
persist in wanting to believe that in a fictional world of good-guys and
bad-guys, the U.S. is one of the good ones.
--from ZNET Sustainer system--please consider subscribing (click ZNET
on my page)
--------------------------------------------------
(1) October 22, 2000
This is from Israeli journalist Uri Avnery.
1950-1990 : Former Publisher and Editor-in-Chief, "Ha'olam Haze"
newsmagazine.
1979-1981 : 3 Terms as member of the Knesset (Israeli Parliament)
Since 1948 has advocated the setting up of a Palestinianstate alongside
Israel. In 1974, Uri Avnery was the first Israeli to establish contact
with
PLO leadership. In 1982 he was the first Israeli ever to meet Yassir
Arafat, after crossing the lines in besieged Beirut.
For detailed biography check web page at:
http://www.gush-shalom.org/uri2.html
------------------------
Uri Avnery: 21.10.00
12 Conventional Lies
(1) Barak has turned every stone to achieve peace."
Truth is, he has turned every stone to build settlements. Since his
first
day in office, he has accelerated the pace of setting up new settlements
(in the guise of "enlarging" existing ones), confiscating lands,
demolishing Palestinian homes and building "by-pass roads" (whose main
purpose is to add Palestinian lands to the 'settlement blocs" which he
wants to annex to Israel.) In all these activities, Barak has done more
than Netanyahu. In the political field, too, Barak has upstaged
Netanyahu:
Bibi returned at least the greater part of the town Hebron to the
Palestinians. Barak has not returned one single inch of occupied
territory.
(2) "At Camp David, Barak went further than any previous Prime
Minister."
Even if this were true, it would mean very little. If one Marathon
runner
(Netanyahu) falls down after one mile, and another (Barak) falls down
after
three, the difference between them is not really important. What is
important is that neither of them got even near the finishing line (26
miles). Barak's proposals at Camp David were far from the minimum
necessary to make peace with the Palestinian people and the whole Arab
world: Palestinian sovereignty over East Jerusalem, and especially the
compound of the holy mosques (Haram al-Sharif). Barak indicated at Camp
David that he might "consider" some cosmetic changes (and thereby he
indeed broke some of the Israeli taboos concerning Jerusalem) " but as a
matter of fact he denied the Palestinians, the Arabs and the Muslims
sovereignty over the compound of the holy mosques and the major Arab
neighborhoods in the city. That's why the summit failed and the
escalation
started, leading up to the "al-Aksa intifada".
(3) "Arafat blew up the Camp David summit."
On the eve of his departure for the summit, Barak announced five "Red
Lines", which he would not cross under any circumstances. Among them:
Israeli sovereignty over the entire city of Jerusalem, No return to the
1967 bor
der, Keeping 80% of the settlers were they are, No return of a single
refugee to Israel!!! Afterwards he softened some of these stands, but
not
enough to come anywhere near an agreement.
(4) "All the time, we give, give, give. Arafat doesn"t give anything."
When the Palestinians agreed to a peace settlement based on the pre-1967
border (the Green Line), they were already giving up in advance 78% of
the
land between the sea and the Jordan river. They are ready to set up
their
state in the remaining 22%. Our government wants a "compromise" over
this
area. Meaning: "What's mine is mine, about what's yours, we shall
compromise". (Factual background: the November 29, 1947, UN partition
resolution gave the Jewish state 55% and the Arab state 45% of
Palestine.
In the ensuing war [started by the Arabs], we conquered half of the
territory allotted to the Arab state. Thus the "Green Line" came about,
leaving 78% of the country in our hands.) The problem is not expressed
in
percentage points only. Barak appears to be asking for only 10% of the
occupied territories. In reality, it's closer to 30%, taking into
account
the territories he wants to annex in the Jerusalem area and place under
his 'security control" in the Jordan valley. But even worse, in the map
submitted to the Palestinians, these percentage points cut the country
up
from East to West and from North to South, so that the Palestinian state
will consist of a group of islands, each surrounded by Israeli settlers
and soldiers.
(5) "How can one make peace with the Palestinians when they break every
agreement?"
Well, Palestinian violations pale in comparison with ours. Before the
end
of the 5-years interim period (May 1998), the IDF had to withdraw from
all
the West Bank and the Gaza Strip except 'specified military locations",
settlements and Jerusalem. Barak refuses to do this even at this late
date.
Also, four 'safe passages" between the West Bank and Gaza should have
been in operation long ago. In practice, only one was opened, and this
one
can only be used by Palestinians after much harassment.
(6) "Barak is the heir to Rabin."
Far from it. Within a few months he has succeeded in destroying not only
all the achievements of Rabin, but those of Begin, too. He has buried
the
Oslo agreement (to which he objected from the beginning) and destroyed
the
relations built up with much effort between Israel and a number of Arab
countries. He has created ferment among the Arab citizens in Israel
itself.
In many respects, he has thrown us back to 1948, even 1936.
(7) "The lynching in Ramallah shows that the Arabs are animals."
In a confrontation like this one, each side points to the atrocities
committed by the other, "forgetting" the atrocities committed by his own
side. Israel points to the horrible lynching, the Palestinians point to
the killing of 12- years old Muhammad al-Dira in the arms of his father
and
the brain-killing bullets used by Israel army snipers against
stone-throwing children. Our acts of violence come in response to the
actions of the Palestinians, theirs come in response to ours. It's a
vicious circle.
(8) "The Palestinian media are instruments of incitement."
That is true, but unfortunately there is no great difference between
theirs
and ours in this respect. Ours and theirs speak the same language,
following guidelines from above. When Palestinian TV shows over and over
again the picture of the boy dying in the arms of his father, that's
incitement. When our TV shows dozens of times a day, day after day, the
atrocious lynching in Ramallah, that's incitement.
(9) "They shoot at us and the Israeli army is exercising
self-restraint."
It is strange that in two weeks of 'self-restraint"" about 110
Palestinian
and 3 Israeli soldiers have been killed. No Israeli officer has
explained
(or was asked to explain) this curious ratio. (The explanation is, of
course, that the Israeli army has long in advance trained snipers to
choose a person from among the demonstrators, take exact aim through a
telescopic sight and hit him with a special deadly, high-velocity
bullet.
Instead of "pacifying" the area, as intended, this method has inflamed
it
even more. Every funeral has led to another confrontation.)
(10) "The Arabs send their children against our army positions, so that
they can be killed, in order to provide pictures for the world media."
This is a horrendous accusation, betraying an obnoxious racism. It
contains
the belief that Arab parents do not care about their children dying. In
the struggle waged by our underground organizations before 1948 and
during
our War of Independence, boys and girls played an important part. The
arms
training of Palestinian boys is no different from the training of our
own
Gadna youth battalions. The boy who, in 1948, destroyed a Syrian tank at
kibbutz Deganya has become a national hero. When a people fights for its
very existence and freedom, its youth cannot but take part. (I joined
the
Irgun, defined by the British as a terrorist organization, at the age of
14 and a half. By the age of 15 I carried guns.) It is an illusion to
think that Palestinian parents can restrain their children from going
out
into the street and throwing stones, when they live under a cruel
occupation and their brothers and sisters provide examples of heroism
and
self-sacrifice. It is quite natural for the Palestinian people to be
proud
of them. Joan of Arc, by the way, was 16 years old when she led the
French
army into battle. The settlers routinely exploit their children and
babies, not hesitating to put them in harm's way.
(11) "Again it is proved that the whole world is against us. They are
all
anti- Semites."
World public opinion is always on the side of the underdog. In this
fight,
we are Goliath and they are David. In the eyes of the world, the
Palestinians are fighting a war of liberation against a foreign
occupation. We are in their territory, not they in ours. We settle on
their land, not they on ours. We are the occupiers, they are the
victims.
This is the objective situation, and no minister of propaganda (like Mr.
Nachman Shai) can change that.
(12) "We have no partner for peace."
True, we have no partner for a peace that Palestinians see as a
capitulation to Israeli ultimatums. We do have a partner for a peace
based
on equality and mutual respect. The solution is quite clear: the State
of
Palestine must be set up within the pre-1967 border, with Jerusalem
serving as the capital of the two
states - East Jerusalem with the Haram al-Sharif must belong to
Palestine, West Jerusalem with the Western Wall and the Jewish quarter
must belong to Israel.. When this solution is accepted in principle,
negotiations can start about the other problems: mutual security,
exchange
of territories, a moral and practical solution for the refugee problem,
water allocation etc. This peace will come about, because the only
alternative is hell for both sides.
(2) SILENT DEMOCRACY
By David Cromwell and David Edwards
"It's sociologically interesting, though scary", said the
actor Anthony Sher in a recent interview, "that you can be
inside an evil system and be somehow unaware of it." South
African by birth, Sher was talking about the former system
of apartheid. But what if the same could be said of our
"liberal-democratic" western society?
During last year's 78-day NATO bombing campaign of the
Former Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY), Guardian columnist
Jonathan Freedland, wrote, "Future historians will spend
long hours and write fat books working out this phenomenon.
Why have the Serbs not risen in outrage at the unspeakable
horrors committed in their name?"
Future historians, in fact, have already examined Freedland's
"unspeakable horrors" and found them to be pure fantasy,
the product of the overheated imagination of NATO warmongers
and credulous journalists. It is now clear that in the
twelve months prior to the bombing, between 1,000 and 2,000
people were killed on both sides of the conflict, with
deaths running at an average of one per day in the weeks
running up to the attack $B!&(Jappalling, but hardly genocidal.
In its examination of 30 mass gravesites the FBI unearthed a
total of some 200 bodies. In Ljubenic, a mass grave alleged
to contain some 350 bodies was found to contain just seven.
In town after town, alleged mass graves were found to be
empty or contained only one or two bodies.
The head of a Spanish forensic team attached to the
International Criminal tribunal, Emilio Perez Pujol,
denounced the way his time had become part of "a semantic
pirouette by the war propaganda machines, because we did not
find one $B!&(Jnot one - mass grave."
The timing of the famed flood of refugees has also been of
interest to future historians. Prior to the bombing, and for
two days following its onset, the United Nations
Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reported no data on
refugees. On March 27, three days into the bombing, UNHCR
reported that 4,000 had fled Kosovo to Albania and
Macedonia. By April 5, the New York Times reported "more
than 350,000 have left Kosovo since March 24".
Long after this had all become clear, Lord Robertson,
Secretary General of NATO, did his best to exploit public
(media-assisted) ignorance of these matters in an ITV
interview in June 2000: "We were faced with a situation
where there was this killing going on, this cleansing going
on; the kind of ethnic cleansing we thought had disappeared
after the Second World War. You were seeing people there
coming in trains, the cattle trains, with refugees once
again. Were we supposed to stand back? Were we supposed to
stand back and watch people being murdered, butchered,
tortured, raped, expelled from their country, simply to do
nothing?"
To prevent what, in fact, was low-level killing and a tide
of refugees that did not exist (until after the bombing had
begun), NATO sent bombs crashing through 33 medical clinics
and hospitals, 344 schools, a mosque in Djakovica, a
Basilica in Nis, a church in Prokuplje, trains, tractors,
power stations, and the rest. It polluted the land with
depleted uranium shells and unexploded cluster bomblets
which continue to kill children and adults. Also, in June of
this year, Amnesty International reported how "NATO
forces...committed serious violations of the laws of war
leading in a number of cases to the unlawful killings of
civilians." Amnesty focused in particular on the April 23,
1999 bombing of the headquarters of Serbian state radio and
television, which left 16 civilians dead, describing it as
"a deliberate attack on a civilian object" which therefore
"constitutes a war crime." The report noted that the
requirement that NATO aircraft fly above 15,000 feet to
provide maximum protection for aircraft and pilots "made
full adherence to international humanitarian law virtually
impossible".
The real question, not just for future historians, but for
all thinking people, is how so many respected journalists,
like Jonathan Freedland, could yet again be so readily taken
in by the deceptions of power? Spokespeople for state power
have always insisted that they are acting for the good of
all humanity, and respected commentators have always
accepted their words at face value as although they were
born, if not yesterday, then since the previous set of lies
had been exposed as utterly fraudulent. This happens with
such consistency that there is clearly something more than
random chance at work. Noam Chomsky explains how the
selection process can best be understood: "In any society,
the respectable intellectuals, those who will be recognised
as serious intellectuals, will overwhelmingly tend to be
those who are subordinated to power. Those who are not
subordinated to power are not recognised as intellectuals,
or are marginalised as dissidents, maybe ideological. The
tendency is just as obvious as the fact that corporate media
serve corporate interests."
The notion of a Western-led "moral crusade" becomes even
more extraordinary when we consider that millions of people
have died, and many millions more have been condemned to
lives of misery and torture, as a result of Western
interventions in Iran, Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia,
Guatemala, Chile, Brazil, Nicaragua, Iraq and elsewhere. The
leading academic scholar on human rights in Latin America,
Lars Schoultz, found, for example, that US aid "has tended
to flow disproportionately to Latin American governments
which torture their citizens... to the hemisphere's
relatively egregious violators of fundamental human rights".
The rationale is not hard to divine: exploitative
conditions - "good investment climates" benefiting local
elites and Western corporations (the real power) - require
violence to pacify the discontent of impoverished
majorities. Britain and the US actively supported Suharto's
bloody coup in Indonesia in 1965-66 at the cost of one
million lives. Some 90% of the bullets used in Indonesia's
subsequent invasion of East Timor in 1975 were US-supplied.
Around 200,000 people died in a slaughter for which Suharto
"was given the green light" by the US, according to former
CIA operations officer in Jakarta, Philip Liechty: "We sent
the Indonesian generals everything that you need to fight a
major war against somebody who doesn't have any guns. We
sent them rifles, ammunition, mortars, grenades, food,
helicopters. You name it; they got it. And they got it
direct," Liechty adds.
Pragmatic need is more than sufficient to ensure that these
facts are either unknown or dismissed out of hand.
Corporations are naturally not keen to discuss the role of
terror and murder in imposing 'development' on the Third
World; nor are their allies in government; and nor is the
"free press"- itself made up of corporations, owned by
parent corporations, and dependent on corporate advertisers.
It is not that the above facts are not true, they _can't_ be
true, and so they are ignored, or dismissed as delusions.
The familiar notion of the essential benignity of Western
power, by contrast, _must_ be true - it is a 'necessary
illusion' - and so it _is_ true: we are proud supporters of
'democracy', 'fair play' and 'respect for law and order' in
a world that somehow comes to be filled with violent thugs
supported by Western states and businesses which
coincidentally profit immensely from their violence. The
first casualty of the war for profit is the capacity to make
elementary rational connections.
The United States, after all, is massively rich and
powerful. Central and South America are weak and afflicted
with terrible poverty. The United States is an ardent
supporter of democracy and freedom. Central and South
America are eternally plagued by authoritarian governments
and outright dictators. US corporations profit massively
from the vulnerability of Central and South American human
and natural resources. A secondary school child could work
it out, and yet such connections are totally alien, indeed
unknown, to our corporate press.
Take another example of our silent 'democracy'. Climate
change. According to the London-based Global Commons
Institute, there will be more than two million deaths from
climate change-related disasters worldwide in the next ten
years. Damage to property will amount to hundreds of
billions of dollars. But where are the in-depth media
debates exposing the chasm between the magnitude of the
climate threat and the pitiful political response to it? No
wonder that Ross Gelbspan, the Pultizer Prize-winning
journalist, once wrote that news stories about the warming
of the planet generally evoke an eerie silence
There are exceptions. A recent Sunday Times article reports
that the legendary Northwest Passage has at last been opened
by climate change. Peter Conradi notes "The benefits are
considerable: up to 2,500 miles will be cut from journeys
from one coast of America to the other, and as much as
double that from Europe to Asia." A marvellous boost to
global trade, in other words. "Not all experts share the
euphoria", however, as there remains a depressing, if
slight, risk that local temperatures might actually fall
slightly over the next few years, threatening the passage.
The academic community is, by and large, complicit in this
mixture of silence and absurdity. When one of the authors,
an oceanographer, attends meetings on the politics of
climate change, he is commonly asked by management whether
he is attending "as an individual or as a representative of
the organisation". But what does such a question actually
mean? Where and how can the line be drawn between the
professional self and the personal self? The disjunction is
profoundly unhealthy, echoing R.D Laing's concept of 'the
divided self' $B!&(Ja division that is characteristic of the
truly insane mind.
The renowned German psychologist Erich Fromm analysed the
psychology of obedience in modern corporate society. The
"organization man", Fromm wrote, "is not aware that he
obeys; he believes that he only conforms with what is
rational and practical". In academia, to be "rational and
practical" means to conform to a system that rewards
obedience to power: elite interests - transnational
corporations and international investors - which benefit
from 'free trade' and deregulated capital flows. Meanwhile,
their political allies in government trip over themselves to
cut public services to boost 'international
competitiveness'.
Sober academics are not 'supposed' to step outside our
specialised field of knowledge to criticise the private
interests which pollute precious ecosystems, destroy
communities, abuse human rights and threaten the global
climate system. They are 'supposed' to restrict our public
utterances to safe topics that do not reflect badly on their
institutions or upset funding sources. Such 'neutrality'
ensures that today's headlong rush to environmental
devastation and social injustice proceeds apace. In truth
'neutrality' is impossible: to do nothing is to vote for
disaster.
When Chomsky was challenged to explain what qualified him as
a commentator on US domestic and foreign policy, he replied
simply, "I'm a human being". How many times have scientists
told us informally, "Get me down the pub over a pint and
I'll tell you what I really think about climate change and
oil companies"? What kind of professional 'objectivity' is
that? It is the kind that acquiesces in research and
teaching moulded to fit a corporate-shaped economy; that
does not challenge our political paymasters about the deaths
of 5000 young Iraqi children every month as a direct result
of Western-imposed economic sanctions; and that allows one
in six British children to live in poverty with barely a
murmur in the press or academia.
How can we reconcile these facts with the widespread belief
in the essential goodness of our "liberal-democratic"
society? We cannot. "Our boasted civilisation", said the
writer Jack London, "is based upon blood, soaked in blood,
and neither you nor I nor any of us can escape the scarlet
stains." Far from living in a benign, democratic society, we
are living under a system that promotes power and profit
above concern for justice and life. By now the deluding
power of institutionalised greed for profit and personal
compromise are at a level where society can work
remorselessly to ensure its own destruction by undermining
even trivial moves to control greenhouse gas emissions.
Witness the response of big business - the National
Association of Manufacturers and US Chamber, for example -
to the Kyoto Protocol on climate change: obstructionism all
the way.
And what about us? How much do we really care? How much does
it really matter to us so long as we get on with playing
safe, with getting paid and climbing the promotional ladder?
If some kind of stand needs to be made, then it is surely
someone else who will have to make it. And if some kind of
price needs to be paid, then it is surely someone else who
will have to pay it.
As historian and activist Howard Zinn has noted, we are
kidding ourselves if we think we have no choice, or that no
choice needs to be made: "In a situation where one's job is
within someone else's power to grant or to withhold, still
there is the possibility of choice. The choice is between
teaching and acting according to our most deeply felt
values, whether or not it meets approval from those with
power over us or being dishonest with ourselves, censoring
ourselves, in order to be safe."
David Cromwell is an oceanographer and author of the
forthcoming "Private Planet" (Jon Carpenter Publishing).
David Edwards is the author of "Free to be Human" (1995) and
"The Compassionate Revolution" (1998 - both Green Books).
----------------------------
All views expressed on CP News/Tokyo Progressive
are those of the authors.
Date: Oct 25 2000 23:52:51 EDT
From: "Chocopaul News" <pa-@arenson.org>
Subject: The lie of the Isralii-U.S.-Arafat Peace process
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Tokyo Progressive's CP News
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Issue # 51
http://arenson.org
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Noam Chomsky: Al-Aqsa Intifada
(Introduced here and continued on the ZNET web site)
Read this important new essay on the myth propagated in
the Western press that there is or ever has been an Israeli-
Palestinian Peace Process, and how once again the U.S.
government is at the center of the deceit. This is a part of the ZNET
sustainer program, sent daily to those who contribute as little as 5-10
dollars a month to ZNET. To learn more about the project and join, you
can consult ZNet at http://www.zmag.org or the ZNet Sustainer Pages at
http://www.zmag.org/Commentaries/donorform.htm
And now Chomsky' s Al-Aqsa Intifada
After three weeks of virtual war in the Israeli occupied territories,
Prime Minister Ehud Barak announced a new plan to determine the final
status of the region. During these weeks, over 100 Palestinians were
killed, including 30 children, often by "excessive use of lethal force
in
circumstances in which neither the lives of the security forces nor
others
were in imminent danger, resulting in unlawful killings," Amnesty
International concluded in a detailed report that was scarcely mentioned
in the US. The ratio of Palestinian to Israeli dead was then about 15-1,
reflecting the resources of force available.......
Continued at
http://zmag.org/ZSustainers/ZDaily/2000-10/26chomsky.htm
All opinions expressed are those of the original authors.
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Tokyo Progressive's CP News
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