Thursday, April 17, 2003

A Chill Wind Blowin' QUOTE OF THE DAY " Many people find themselves in a state of despair these days, and with good reason. Yet we must not let our voices, our No to war and Yes to peace, be silenced. What has happened? The stone that we pushed to the peak is once again at the foot of the mountain. But we must push it back up, even with the knowledge that we can expect it to roll back down again." - - Günter Grass ('99 Nobel Prizewinner for literature) APRIL 17 IN HISTORY: 1965 -- USA: Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) sponsors first nationwide demonstration against the Viet Nam war. 25,000 participated in the "March on Washington to End the War in Vietnam", roughly the same number of of US troops at the time are "in country". RHINO HERE: Over the last six years, approximately 25,000 people have died from acts of terrorism, worldwide. Over that same period, 52 million people have died from preventable hunger; about 24,000 people per day. Ponder ponder. Meanwhile Lockheed Martin, the world's largest weapons manufacturer & a primary focus in Michael Moore's Oscar winning film, Bowling For Columbine, is doing business as usual, as in Billions & Billions. If you haven't seen the movie, I'll give you a teaser. Turns out not only has Lockheed sold the American taxpayers Missiles, Depleted Uranium shells, landmines, F-16s, F-22s, C-130s, Laser weapons, Missile Defense, Drones, and Homeland Security database management, but they also have the government contract for the "Welfare to Work" program. So making & marketing WOMD's & overseeing single parents on welfare, "assisting" them into jobs which don't pay a living wage & sometimes require long bus commutes. Business business. So those hard headed folks in San Francisco known as Direct Action To Stop The War are planning a "Mass demonstration and non-violent direct action" at the Sunnyvale, CA site of Lockheed-Martin next Tuesday. Hopefully the dispositions of the city police down there will be more, well... sunny, than Oakland. http://www.actagainstwar.org THE BOTTOM LINE is Tim Robbins' speech to The National Press Club day before yesterday. But first, Günter Grass is a German writer, recipient of the 1999 Nobel Prize for literature. The following comment by him was translated from German by Daniel Slager. The Moral Decline of a Superpower by Günter Grass, International Herald Tribune, Friday, April 11, 2003 BEHLENDORF, Germany   A war long sought and planned is now under way. All deliberations and warnings of the United Nations notwithstanding, an overpowering military apparatus has attacked preemptively in violation of international law. No objections were heeded. The Security Council was disdained and scorned as irrelevant. As the bombs fall and the battle for Baghdad continues, the law of might prevails. Based on this injustice, the mighty have the power to buy and reward those who might be willing and to disdain and even punish the unwilling. The words of the current American president - "Those who are not with us are against us" - weigh on current events with the resonance of barbaric times. It is hardly surprising that the rhetoric of the aggressor increasingly resembles that of his enemy. Religious fundamentalism leads both sides to abuse what belongs to all religions, taking the notion of God hostage in accordance with their own fanatical understanding. Even the passionate warnings of the Pope, who knows how lasting and devastating the disasters wrought by the mentality and actions of Christian crusaders have been, were unsuccessful. Disturbed and powerless, but also filled with anger, we are witnessing the moral decline of the world's only superpower, burdened by the knowledge that only one consequence of this organized madness is certain: Motivation for more terrorism is being provided, for more violence and counterviolence. Is this really the United States of America, the country we fondly remember? The generous benefactor of the Marshall Plan? The forbearing instructor in the lessons of democracy? The candid self-critic? The country that once made use of the teachings of the European Enlightenment to throw off its colonial masters and to provide itself with an exemplary constitution? Is this the country that made freedom of speech an incontrovertible human right?... THERE'S MORE - IT'S POSTED AT: http://www.iht.com/articles/92876.html 8:36:36 AM    comment

THE BOTTOM LINE - Tim Robbins To The National Press Club THE BOTTOM LINE 'A Chill Wind is Blowing in This Nation...' Speech by Tim Robbins to the National Press Club, Washington, D.C., 4/15/03 Published on Wednesday, April 16, 2003 by CommonDreams.org TIM ROBBINS: Thank you. And thanks for the invitation. I had originally been asked here to talk about the war and our current political situation, but I have instead chosen to hijack this opportunity and talk about baseball and show business. (Laughter.) Just kidding. Sort of. I can't tell you how moved I have been at the overwhelming support I have received from newspapers throughout the country in these past few days. I hold no illusions that all of these journalists agree with me on my views against the war. While the journalists' outrage at the cancellation of our appearance in Cooperstown is not about my views, it is about my right to express these views. I am extremely grateful that there are those of you out there still with a fierce belief in constitutionally guaranteed rights. We need you, the press, now more than ever. This is a crucial moment for all of us. For all of the ugliness and tragedy of 9-11, there was a brief period afterward where I held a great hope, in the midst of the tears and shocked faces of New Yorkers, in the midst of the lethal air we breathed as we worked at Ground Zero, in the midst of my children's terror at being so close to this crime against humanity, in the midst of all this, I held on to a glimmer of hope in the naive assumption that something good could come out of it... THERE'S MORE - IT'S AT: http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0416-01.htm "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. 8:05:41 AM    comment

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