Wednesday, February 19, 2003

Patriots and Traitors QUOTE OF THE DAY "We must make clear to the Germans that the wrong for which their fallen leaders are on trial is not that they lost the war, but that they started it. And we must not allow ourselves to be drawn into a trial of the causes of the war, for our position is that no grievances or policies will justify resort to aggressive war. It is utterly renounced and condemned as an instrument of policy." - - Supreme Court Justice Robert L. Jackson, Chief US Prosecutor, Nuremberg Tribunal, 8/12/45. RHINO HERE: The historically huge worldwide turnouts for last weekend's anti-war protests were largely due to the work of thousands of internet activists who have worked for months communicating with their friends, relatives, business associates & other contacts. Much like spiders spinning their webs, internet activists spin their small medium & large cyber webs which interconnect with each other via key web based news & urgent action websites. One such key site is the organization, MoveOn, which over the last few months has grown to a membership of over 750,000 members in the U.S. & several hundred thousand more around the globe. Run by 22 year old International Campaigns Director, Eli Pariser, MoveOn has been able to gather hundreds of thousands of signatures & hundreds of thousands of dollars in short periods of time, all focused on stopping shrub & company's war plans. "Moving On: A New Kind of Peace Activism" AlterNet, February 11, 2003 http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=15163 Virtual March on Washington This month, MoveOn is teaming up with the Hollywood based group "Win Without War" in an effort they call a Virtual March on Washington. On February 26th, every Senate office will receive a call EVERY MINUTE from a constituent, as they receive a simultaneous crush of faxes and email. In New York & Los Angeles, "anti-war rooms" will highlight the progress of the day for national media. Local media will visit the "anti-war room" online, to monitor this constituent march throughout the day. Please join The Rhino in registering to participate in this effort to ask Congress to stop the shrub gang's rush to war & to Let the Inspections Work!. For more info go to: http://www.moveon.org/winwithoutwar/ Patriots and Traitors I just finished watching Tuesday's Donahue show featuring Media Benjamin of Global Exchange... http://www.globalexchange.org ...and Jesse Jackson scrapping it out with 3 self avowed patriots who leveled charges that all the peace protesters were traitors & hated America. It's fascinating to me that the difference between "Patriot" and Traitor" is just two letters, and ironically, they're "PR". How can these blustery dunces appear on national TV with a straight face claiming that they & THEIR president & his cronies are patriots? Get this: We know Saddam has Anthrax, as well as botulism & bubonic plague, because the Reagan Administration GAVE him the starter cultures. The emissary on that mission? Donald Rumsfeld. Don't believe it? Type "Rumsfeld" + "Anthrax" + "Iraq" into your search engine. That Dick Cheney's sure a patriot! He'd never aid our enemies, right? Think again. As CEO of Halliburton, he went around the UN embargo by using foreign subsidiaries Dresser-Rand & Ingersoll-Dresser Pump to rebuild Iraq's oil infrastructure just 3 years ago. Not only did he seek to do business with the enemy, he broke the law doing it. Estimates of the deal vary from between 23 and 78 million. Cheney's take amounted to approximately thirty pieces of pirate silver (adjusted for inflation from 33 A.D.) Need proof? Type "Halliburton" + "Iraq" into your search engine. Admiral John Poindexter, recently put in charge of going over your e-mails & credit card receipts, is a convicted felon who sold Stinger missiles to the Iranians, used the profits to fund an international terrorist organization, then lied to congress about it. Along with the Stinger missiles, Poindexter delivered to the Ayatollah a Bible and a key-shaped cake. Go ahead and and call us protestors as unpatriotic as you like, at least we didn't bake any stinking cakes for the Ayatollah. Too young to remember this? Keywords are "Poindexter" + "Iran". Worried that you or a loved one may have to serve in the Persian Gulf? Take a tip from shrub. Keywords "George Bush" + "AWOL" Peace Is Patriotic! The anti-war alliance founded by the long time pacifist community in Tennessee, known as "The Farm" has been busy the last 3 months renting commercial size billboard space in cities across the nation. Their messages read: PEACE IS PATRIOTIC . They're making their money go a long way by carefully selecting billboards available for non-profit rates. Thus far they've placed nearly 50 billboards for less than $8,000. If you think this is a good idea, &/or if you'd like a billboard in your home town, I encourage you to make a contribution to the Signs Of Peace project at: http://www.peaceroots.org/billboards/index.htm Besides encouraging other like minded people who may have thought (before last weekend) that they were the only ones that thought this war was bogus, the "Signs Of Peace" project has also inspired several copy cat efforts such as Ben Cohen's (of Ben & Jerry's) True Majority web site that now offers free downloads of small signs that say, Patriots For Peace. http://www.truemajority.com/patriots/poster.asp Nuremberg Diary I think it fitting to include today a piece of an interview by Gustave Gilbert (author of the book, Nuremberg Diary) with Nazi leader Hermann Goering during the Easter recess of the Nuremberg trials, April 18, 1946. Goering: "Why, of course, the people don't want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship." Gilbert: "There is one difference. In a democracy the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars." 8:55:18 AM    comment

America Orders 100,000 Body Bags THE BOTTOM LINE today is an article excerpt meant to remind us that shrub & the boyz know exactly what war is all about, in spite of the fact that nearly none of them have seen action themselves. America Orders 100,000 Body Bags The Mirror (UK), by Stephen White & Paul Gilfeather, 2/10/03 Up to 100,000 'body bags' and 6,000 coffins have been secretly delivered to a US base in Italy, a Catholic archbishop claimed yesterday. Archbishop Renato Martino, president of the Pope's Council of Peace and Justice, said the consignment had arrived at the Sigonella base near Catania on the island of Sicily 10 days ago. He said: "Americans are expecting a high number of casualties. That is why so many body bags and coffins have been sent to the base. "I am very apprehensive about this. War brings only destruction, misery and hate. It doesn't resolve anything and is always like this. "A true preventative action would be to try and avoid war. The consequences of this war will make themselves all too obvious on the American people when they start to see coffins with loved ones in them returning home". Archbishop Martino added that he would be willing to travel to Washington and meet President Bush if the Pope asked him to be his special envoy. The naval air station at Sigonella has been an American "hub" command centre since 1959. More than 3,000 US marines and Navy personnel are stationed there... "RHINO'S BLOG" is the responsibility of Gary Rhine. (rhino@kifaru.com) Feedback, and requests to be added or deleted from the list are encouraged. SEARCH BLOG ARCHIVES / SURF RHINO'S LINKS, AT: http://www.rhinosblog.info RHINO'S OTHER WEB SITES: http://www.dreamcatchers.org (INDIGENOUS ASSISTANCE & INTERCULTURAL DIALOG) http://www.kifaru.com (NATIVE AMERICAN RELATIONS VIDEO DOCUMENTARIES) Articles are reprinted under Fair Use Doctrine of international copyright law. http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html All copyrights belong to original publisher. 8:43:25 AM    comment

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