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Not In Our Name protester arrested

Greetings,

  As you may know, I was in court yesterday for the start of my anti-war trial. I face a year in jail for participating in an anti-war protest in Cleveland on March 28, 2003.  I wanted to give you an update on what happened. For background info, get the current "Free Times" and read my Statement on page 9.  

  A spirited march and rally took place outside the Justice Center before we went into the court.  There was a lot of interest among passersby, with people eagerly taking fliers.  Stationed nearby was the crew of plainclothes cops that have been following peace activists for months.  I was interviewed by channel 19/43 and WCPN.  

  As people entered the courtroom, the bailiff immediately announced that no one wearing shorts would be allowed in!  Huh?  This was just the beginning of an atmosphere of arbitrariness and hostility from the City that would mark this day.  It's a good thing for the plainclothes cops that followed us into the courtroom that they weren't wearing shorts.

National credulity fitness

DUBLIN, N.H. -- What a summer for national credulity fitness. My credulity gets a lot of exercise, since I cover Texas politics. Like Alice in Wonderland's White Queen, years of practice have enabled me to believe as many as six impossible things before breakfast. But here we are with a perfect feast of mind-bogglers, everyone's credulity stretching and straining in a giant national workout session.

            Arnold Schwarzenegger as governor of California. Well, sure, I can handle that one. Manna from heaven for political humorists of all stripes. I'm afraid the joke will begin to wear thin, however. I know we all like to make fun of California as the epicenter of nuttiness, but in fact that big, beautiful state is in terrible trouble. A $36 billion deficit is not amusing. Teachers are being fired, programs to help the most helpless -- the oldest, the youngest, the most frail -- are being cut.

            The state's economy took a terrible blow in the artificially created energy crisis of 2000-2001. Enron and the other corporate thieves -- empowered by years of the Republican mania for deregulation -- drained as

Democracy Is Under Attack -  Let's Take it Back

Harlem, N.Y. - July 31, 2003

                      How proud I am to stand at Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem USA!

Thank you Reverend Butts, Bob, Ruby Dee, Ossie Davis, Sonia Sanchez, Ralph Carter, Hakim, the Coalition of Artists and Activists, and all who worked hard to put this rally together.  And thank you for inviting me.

How appropriate that we gather here at this Church, with all its rich history of proud resistance and indignant defiance of a social order that relegated the giants of their day to second class citizenship.

And what an honor for me, to stand among the giants of our day, if only for a moment, and see America's landscape from their gaze.

What this rally means, is that America's vista has now become as ravaged in its pristine hillside villas as it has always been for those of us who muddle behind the cities' shadows.

Our people are dying.

On the streets of America our people are dying.

Gathered tonight in this room are people from all walks of life; and for that reason, this is a very dangerous meeting for the powers that be.

A question almost unthinkable

Did President George W. Bush and his governing consortium know of the impending attack on the Trade Towers and the Pentagon and intentionally allow it to occur?  

This question seems almost unthinkable, yet it is so obviously in need of an answer that it may as well be written across the sky.  The report of the House and Senate intelligence committees does not address the question, which now belongs to the National Commission on Terror Attacks Upon the United States, chaired by Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton, to report by May 2004.  The following narration is meant to enable the reader to understand the situation giving rise to the question.

NPR's ombudsman responds... and a debate on CNN

Thought you might be interested in these two items:

*  The ombudsman at National Public Radio has written a piece that’s partly a response to a recent column I wrote about media attacks on Rep. Jim McDermott for going to Baghdad and questioning the veracity of President Bush. The NPR ombudsman’s piece is at: www.npr.org/yourturn/ombudsman/2003/030730.html

*  I was in a live debate on CNN today that included a discussion of the California recall and Iraq-related events. The transcript is posted at: www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0308/08/nfcnn.04.html

Best wishes,
Norman Solomon

NPR Correspondents: Impartial Journalists or Corporate Media Pundits?

It seems as though the issue of NPR journalists casually airing personal opinions on other media outlets has drawn complaints from many listeners and caused a bit of an internal ruckus, so much so that the news service is reviewing its ethics policies.  

A recent column by NPR Ombudsman Jeffrey Dvorkin refers specifically to an episode last fall in which NPR correspondent Mara Liasson, speaking on Fox News, chastised Congressmen Jim McDermott of Washington and David Bonior of Michigan for visiting Iraq and suggesting that President Bush was misleading the nation about Iraq's weapons capabilities in order to win support for an military invasion.

Here, exactly, is what Liasson said: "These guys [McDermott and Bonior] are a disgrace. Look, everybody knows it's 101, politics 101, that you don't go to an adversary country, an enemy country, and badmouth the United States, its policies and the president of the United States. I mean, these guys ought to, I don't know resign."

We found the weapons of mass destruction. They're in the President's budget.

As the Bush administration's deception about Iraq's potential nuclear capacity has come to light, the administration and Congress have begun to quietly re-ignite the nuclear arms race.

  a. They are preparing to build new nuclear weapons and resume nuclear testing.
  b. The administration's official nuclear plan lowers the threshold for using nuclear weapons and calls for developing "more usable" nuclear weapons for "certain battlefield situations."
  c. The administration is threatening non-nuclear countries with nuclear weapons. These are some of the most dangerous developments in two decades. They could decimate international efforts to control, and ultimately abolish these weapons.

We are launching ads nationwide as part of our Campaign for a New Foreign Policy in order to challenge these hypocrisies.

With your help, we are going to run ads just like this one across the county:

You can make this ad campaign happen. Just go to: www.peace-action.org/forms/WMDads.php

Left of What?

I suppose I should have a colorful Howard Dean anecdote, but I don’t. When he was governor here, the newspapers would run a photo of him every year, ceremonially tapping the first sugar maple. His blue blood was betrayed by his choked-up grip on the hammer; obviously a man not used to swinging a tool. One year, he wore a helmet for the ceremony. I can’t begin to explain that.

That’s the Howard Dean I know; I’m not sure who this guy is I keep reading about in the newspaper. Al From and Joe Lieberman keep warning Howard Dean will drive the Democratic Party off the left side of the road, but where’s the evidence for that?

Howard Dean was governor of the only state where it’s legal to carry a concealed weapon without a permit and the only state where it’s legal to shoot fish. He has high marks from the National Rifle Association. In 1997, when Gov. Dean first began to covet the presidency, he announced his switch from anti- to pro-death penalty. Definitely a political move, but not to the left.

Untitled

Dribbling, Droning, Cloning, Consumers!
Get a grip.
Put Down your Nintendo joysticks and step out of your vehicles.
I and I have arrived at a cusp.

The human species
dependence addiction
to consumables
is altering the global biosphere upon which 2 million species depend.

Thousands already,
Committed to extinction,
The light of their stars,
Extinguish,
with blatant disregard.
I throw a flag on that foul.
This ain’t no game,
It might go by many names,
But it’s all suicide.

Foolish indeed
Our lust and our greed,
For disposability.
That desire is sold to us everyday in everyway,
Convenience is our culture.


Temptation of cheap transportation
Has HUMAN bounding across a sky that might look clear,
But I swear,
From here,
From here airplanes drop sound bombs on my ears every 15 minutes,
the numbing roar punctuates the low drone that is another rush hour.
My Peoples
Pounding out a combustible rhythm,
That is a constant reminder,
I live under the devil of petrotyranny.

Untitled

Genetic Evolution
Will outlast this nation
This U.S. nation,
hijacked by corporations,
funding Solutions in solutions of chemicals,
mixtures of bombs and beauty creams,
preformed lifeforms of plastic pieces replace scenic mountains and plains,
where
All is Free…
for those who can pay,
and where,
There ain’t enough clean water to go around.

But… but, wait,
this Is a great nation.
And many a great notion was born here.
So listen here.

Adaptive radiation
Will bring back
The trees, the bees, the bugs, the fish, and the cubs,
but it might just take
a revolution,
And 500 million years…
I just ain’t got that long to wait.
No, I ain’t got that long to wait.

I say,
Cultural Revolution
In this Generation,
Yes, Cultural Revolution.
Representing a quantum leap
in evolution,
Will save this nation.
‘Cause Material Wealth
is not the same as
Strength and Health.
No, Material Wealth
is not the same as
Strength and Health.

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