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Wednesday, March 26, 2003 |
QUOTE OF THE DAY
"The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion
but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often
forget this fact, non-Westerners never do."
- - Samuel
P. Huntington (Director of the John M. Olin Institute for Strategic
Studies at Harvard University)
RHINO HERE:
Please don't miss THE
BOTTOM LINE today which I believe to be one of the most
important reads in awhile that anyone who tends to lean left should take
in. It's by the prolific historian & author Thom Hartman entitled, "How
To Take Back America".
So shrub says it'll take 75
BILLION to wage his war on Iraq. Meanwhile he's pushing
a budget that includes huge tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, even though
the U.S. has never cut taxes during wartime, but that won't stop shrub's handlers.
Just
2 years ago when the U.S. had record surpluses, Washington told us we didn't
have enough money to give every kid health insurance, fully fund Head Start or
get serious about the poverty of children around the world. Now, as we face record
deficits and a huge war bill they're telling us we still don't have money for
those things, but they have found more than twice that sum to use for tax cuts
for millionaires.
If you're not yet a member of TRUE MAJORITY, I urge you to go to their web
site and sign up. They facilitate the writing of tens of thousands of letters
to Congress
each month and all it will take you is 2 minutes. That's right, 2 minutes per
month. This month it's TELL YOUR REPRESENTATIVES...
A Reckless Wartime Budget Will Hurt Kids For Decades to Come
We Can't Afford to Enrich the Rich While Paying for War in Iraq
TO JOIN TRUE MAJORITY &/OR SEND YOUR MESSAGE IN A WINK, GO TO:
TrueMajority
FOR MORE DETAILS ON THE BUDGET, CHECK OUT:
Budgetary Shock and Awe, NY Times, 3/25/03
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/25/opinion/25TUE2.html?th
BLOGGING GOES TO WAR
Blogging has become part of the war. Most notably... The Blogger Of Baghdad...
...an Iraqi citizen named Salam Pax has been posting his blog from Baghdad with
eyewitness accounts of life under the mother bombs. Amazing stuff, at:
http://www.dear_raed.blogspot.com/
Reuters featured him in a story just yesterday, at
Iraqi Uses Web to Chronicle a City Under the Bombs
And then a recent S.F. Chronicle article reports on some news correspondents
publishing editor-free personal observations from the front lines. Among the
first was by Kevin Sites, a CNN reporter stationed in northern Iraq, whose blogsite
was not officially sanctioned by CNN, and at the time of the writing of the article,
the network had no comment about it. Since then, they have apparently asked
him to cool it, but there are some amazing photos he posted before suspending & he
says he'll be back.
http://www.kevinsites.net
The article also featured Christopher Albritton, a former reporter for the
New
York Daily News & AP but currently freelance, who's been using his blog to
raise travel funds to travel to Iraq. He's already been posting stories and observations
at:
http://www.back-to-iraq.com.
"Web logs offer stream of consciousness from the front"
SF Chronicle, 3/21/03
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/03/21/BU272657.DTL
And Another - A Minute by Minute Iraq War Blog
by Sean Paul Kelley.
http://www.agonist.org
The Freedom Forum's Front Lines and Deadlines: Perspectives on War Reporting
The Freedom Forum is a nonpartisan foundation dedicated to free press, free speech
and free spirit for all people. They've just published a collection of essays
to provide an in-depth look at war-time journalism, including censorship, secrecy,
media-military relations & the risks journalists take in combat zones. Contributors
include Judy Woodruff, Tom Gjelten, Jane Kirtley, Derald Everhart, Frank
Aukofer, Peter Arnett, Frank Bolden, Walter Cronkite, Ed Bradley and Janine di
Giovanni.
To download a copy, go to:
http://www.freedomforum.org/templates/document.asp?documentID=17632
-by economist & NY Times columnist, Paul Krugman reporting on the nation's
largest owner of radio stations being in bed with the shrub gang, & being
responsible for organizing & funding pro-war rallies across the country.
Now there's a bunch of PATRIOT$
This one, by economist & NY Time columnist Paul Krugman, reports on the nation's
largest owner of radio stations, Clear Channel, being in bed with the shrub gang & organizing & funding
pro-war rallies.
Channels of Influence
By Paul Krugman, NY Times, 3/25/03
...There's something happening here. What it is ain't exactly clear, but a good
guess is that we're now seeing the next stage in the evolution of a new American
oligarchy. As Jonathan Chait has written in The New Republic, in the Bush administration "government
and business have melded into one big `us.' " On almost every aspect of
domestic policy, business interests rule: "Scores of midlevel appointees
. . . now oversee industries for which they once worked." We should have
realized that this is a two-way street: if politicians are busy doing favors
for businesses that support them, why shouldn't we expect businesses to reciprocate
by doing favors for those politicians - by, for example, organizing "grass
roots" rallies on their behalf?...
READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE AT
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/25/opinion/25KRUG.html
THE BOTTOM LINE IS A MUST READ!
It's by Thom Hartmann, author of over a dozen books, including "Unequal
Protection" and "The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight."
http://www.unequalprotection.com
8:02:33 AM 
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How To Take Back America
by Thom Hartmann, CommonDreams.org, 3/24/03
Marching in the streets is important work, but wouldn't we have greater success if we also took control of the United States government?
It's vital to point out right-wing-slanted reporting in the corporate media, but isn't it also important to seize enough political power in Washington to enforce anti-trust laws to break up media monopolies?
And how are progressives - most standing on the outside of government, looking in - to deal with oil wars, endemic corporate cronyism, slashed environmental regulations, corporate-controlled voting machines, the devastation of America's natural areas, the fouling of our air and waters, and an administration that daily gives the pharma, HMO, banking, and insurance industries whatever they want regardless of how many people are harmed? This lack of political power is a crisis others have faced before. We should learn from their experience...
PLEASE READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE AT:
http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0324-12.htm
7:36:39 AM
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© Copyright 2005 Gary Rhine.
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