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Settlers Guarded By Israeli Soldiers Continue To Destroy Ba'qaa Valley

HEBRON- Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) has learned that ten days ago, the Abdul Jawad Jabber family suffered another ruinous attack on their fields by reportedly forty Israeli settlers, many of them armed. At about noon March 28, the settlers, escorted and guarded by three jeeploads of Israeli soldiers, invaded a Jabber grape arbor at the corner of the settlers-only entrance road to Harsina Settlement and Highway 60 and began to systematically saw down--level with the ground--twenty three grape vines. Some of the vines were thirty years old and about three inches across at the cut.

CPTers learned of the destruction while making a collegial visit to their long time Ba'qaa Valley friends. While sitting on the porch of the Jabber home, overlooking the ruins of the house of one of Adbul Jawad's middle aged sons, Joudy, and which was demolished by the Israeli Army sixteen months ago, family members sadly told CPTers about their latest ordeal.

Abdul Jawad, the family's 71-year-old patriarch said that for two hours Jabber men, women, and children were held at bay by gun toting security

Extreme Makeovers

Iraq! Stay, leave or could there be a third option?

President Bush told us how he wasn't going to allow the world's most destructive weapons to fall into the hands of terrorists and along with freeing the Iraqi people these were justifications for us to remove Saddam Hussein from power by any means necessary.  Over the past few weeks the world has witnessed a steady increase in clashes reported in Iraq.  The decision to close a Baghdad weekly affiliated with Shiite Cleric Muqtada al-Sadr sparked a new round of protests from thousands of Shiite Iraqis.  We were told we'd be welcomed with open arms.

As for keeping Iraqi weapons of mass destruction from being passed to terrorists, well they apparently didn't exist to the surprise of some.  And while removing Saddam Hussein from power to free the Iraqi people was an admirable goal, that job is now complete.  Continuing the US-led occupation now has less to do with removing Saddam Hussein or destroying the 'one-man' Baath Party system he headed, locating WMD, or keeping Americans safe and more to do with guiding the formation of a new Iraq more amicable to our interests.  And by narrowing the acceptable choices for the Iraqis, we are

The Quest for a Monopoly on Violence

With warfare escalating in Iraq, syndicated columnist George Will has just explained the logic of the occupation. “In the war against the militias,” he wrote, “every door American troops crash through, every civilian bystander shot -- there will be many -- will make matters worse, for a while. Nevertheless, the first task of the occupation remains the first task of government: to establish a monopoly on violence.”

     A year ago, when a Saddam statue famously collapsed in Baghdad, top officials in Washington preened themselves as liberators. Now, some of the tyrant’s bitterest enemies are firing rocket-propelled grenades at American troops.

     Hypocrisy about press freedom has a lot to do with the current Shiite insurrection. Donald Rumsfeld had an easy retort seven months ago when antiwar protesters interrupted his speech at the National Press Club in Washington. “You know, I just came in from Baghdad,” he said, “and there are now over 100 newspapers in the free press in Iraq, in a free Iraq, where people are able to say whatever they wish.” But actually, Iraq’s newspapers “are able to say whatever they wish” only if they wish to say

Death of democracy

AUSTIN, Texas -- You may be wondering why House Majority Leader Tom DeLay is raising money for a legal defense fund and telling his fellow Republicans in Washington to be prepared to name his replacement in the event he is indicted. DeLay and Texas House Speaker Tom Craddick may have achieved the near-impossible by breaking Texas campaign finance laws. Since Texas essentially has no campaign finance laws, this is no mean feat.

            In Texas, anyone can give any amount of money to any candidate -- the sky's the limit -- you just have to report it. You would think that pretty much solves any legal or ethical complaints, but there is just this one little tiny rule: no corporate or union cash to candidates.

Pulitzers and Prozac

It's been a bad 12 months for American journalism. Given fourth estate gullibility regarding Bush's WMD claims, plus fictioneering at The New York Times and USA Today, I'd been hoping (with the dulled, hopeless hope that people on Death Row clutch to their bosoms) that maybe this year the Pulitzer Board would give its prizes a pass, at least so far as the press is concerned.

            But the Pulitzer industry, eternally clubby and corrupt, is designed in part to reassure the citizens that, all available evidence notwithstanding, the press is a vigilant watchdog for our liberties and fully deserves those Constitutional protections that guarantee it a 20 percent rate of return on capital invested.

Faking Democracy - Americans Don't Vote, Machines Do, & Ballot Printers Can't Fix That

Machines will produce 99.4% of the election results for the upcoming 2004 presidential election. With all the hoopla over voting machine "glitches," porous software, leaked memos, and the creepy corporations that sell and service these contraptions, and with all the controversy that surrounds campaign financing, voter registration, redistricting issues, and the general privatization of the election process  -  we are missing the boat on the biggest crisis facing our democracy.  

Americans aren't really voting. Machines are. Call it faking democracy.  

And no one seems to be challenging it. As far as I can tell from my own investigations and from discussions with law professors, attorneys, and others, there has never been a lawsuit that challenges the right of machines to be used in the voting process. Recent lawsuits that have been filed by Susan Marie Webber of California and Congressman Robert Wexler (D-FL) are based on verification. The plaintiffs want voting machines to produce paper ballots so that voters can verify that the machine's output matched their input. They also want paper ballots for manual audits and recounts.

Request absentee ballots!

Please get the word out:  REQUEST AN ABSENTEE BALLOT!!!  Nice, hardcopy ballot.  Re-countable.  Easy to obtain.  As a temporary solution.

We can figure out the complex, multi-jurisdictional electronic voting maching problems AFTER THIS CRUCIAL '04 election.  There is no time now.  PLEASE ALERT PEOPLE to this temporary solution.  I'm not saying stop current efforts to change the voting system--watchdogging, challenging, pressuring, seeking legislation, suing, etc.  But the Republican Congress is NOT going to fix this before Nov. '04--nor can anyone else.

And we have a built-in solution.

'Night of Noise' to Break OSU Day of Silence

The National Day of Silence will be held this year on Wednesday, April 21, and at Ohio State, the day will conclude with students presenting stories, poems, essays, and other work about being LGBT, in what is being called the "Night of Noise."  The event will feature a reading by Kevin Kumashiro, the director of the Center for Anti-Oppressive Education in El Cerrito, California, and the editor of Restoried Selves: Autobiographies of Queer Asian-Pacific-American Activists.

The Day of Silence began in 1996 at the University of Virginia to call attention to the school-based discrimination and harassment experienced by LGBT youth, which serves to silence their voices.  LGBT students and their allies take a vow of silence for the day, while handing out information to others to explain their action.  In 2003, more than 2,000 middle schools, high schools, and colleges and universities across the country participated, making it the largest student-led LGBT event ever held in the United States. At Ohio State, more than 50 students took part in the event last year, and more are expected to do so this year.  "Students from a wide array of

War tax resisters balk at paying for American militarism

Lee Gough won’t be paying her federal income taxes this year.

That doesn’t mean, however, that the artist and part-time temp worker won’t be setting money aside for April 15th – just that the federal government won’t be getting any of it. The 37-year old Brooklynite has decided to make 2004 the year that she takes a stand, a move she’s been working towards for some time now. “I’ve asked the temp agency to increase the number of allowances on my W-4 form, and when I had unemployment I told them not to take any taxes out,” she says. “I’ve also stopped paying the federal excise tax on my phone bill, and when tax time comes along, I’ll take the $13 I’ve collected and redirect it to a more worthy cause.”

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