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December, 2003 | ABOUT INTERACT | JOIN | ACT | DONATE | CONTACT |
The plight of the world's 300,000 child soldiers during the merriest of all seasons. by Lila Schow
Who Is Selling Arms?
Above, in a still from the Control Arms
Campaign video, school children hide under their desks to escape
gunfire.
InterAct has been working with Senator Allard's office to introduce a bill Suspending the Sale and Use of Depleted Uranium in Munitions. Learn more about this bill and Depleted Uranium. InterAct has made a correction to one of the articles in Depleted Uranium, Gradual Genocide. Read the correction to the section concerning Pentagon Spokesperson, Dr. Kilpatrick.
Shallow
men believe in luck, believe in circumstances -- it was somebody's name,
or he happened to be there at the time, or it was so then, and another day
would have been otherwise. Strong men believe in cause and effect.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) InterAct’s 5 Minutes to Make a Difference
The other
day, I asked a media veteran if he had ever seen anything like what passed
for news coverage during the Iraq War. I opined that it represented the
final stage of the collapse of journalism as an independent force in our
society.
Interview with Danny Schechter about his new book,
EMBEDDED: WEAPONS OF MASS
DECEPTION: How the Media Failed to Cover the
Just one Iraqi civilian death is horrible
blood on our hands given that the attack on Iraq appears to have been based
on a lie. Yes, Saddam Hussein killed thousands of his own people. But an
American massacre does not make things right. If Americans have half the
humanity they claim, they will no longer accept Bush at face value when his
officers say, "We don't do body counts."
If we do not count the bodies, this atrocity will never have a face. Derrick Z. Jackson Editorials: Notable and Newsworthy Without Honor By William Rivers Pitt US stays blind to Iraqi casualties By Derrick Z. JacksonToxic Immunity By Jon R. Luoma
War Profiteers Flourish; Education Out Of Reach By C.P. Pandya Progress in Iraq? Shot Down, Killed, Wounded, Depressed By Frida Berrigan Shafted: The Other Side of Free Trade By Sean Gonsalves Anywhere but Here By Tim Wise I want to challenge the Bush Administration’s implicit assumption that we have to give up many of our traditional freedoms in order to be safe from terrorists. Because it is simply not true. In fact, in my opinion, it makes no more sense to launch an assault on our civil liberties as the best way to get at terrorists than it did to launch an invasion of Iraq as the best way to get at Osama Bin Laden. In both cases, the Administration has attacked the wrong target. In both cases they have recklessly put our country in grave and unnecessary danger, while avoiding and neglecting obvious and much more important challenges that would actually help to protect the country. In both cases, the administration has fostered false impressions and misled the nation with superficial, emotional and manipulative presentations that are not worthy of American Democracy. In both cases they have exploited public fears for partisan political gain and postured themselves as bold defenders of our country while actually weakening not strengthening America. File Sharing Pits Copyright Against Free Speech By John Schwartz Diebold Election Systems, which makes voting machines, is waging legal war against grass-roots advocates, including dozens of college students, who are posting on the Internet copies of the company’s internal communications about its electronic voting machines. The students say that, by trying to spread the word about problems with the company’s software, they are performing a valuable form of electronic civil disobedience, one that has broad implications for American society. They also contend that they are protected by fair use exceptions in copyright law. Diebold, however, says it is a case of copyright infringement, and has sent cease-and-desist orders to the students and, in many cases, their colleges, demanding that the 15,000 e-mail messages and memorandums be removed from each Web site. “We reserve the right to protect that which we feel is proprietary,” a spokesman for Diebold, David Bear, said. “Are these companies staffed by folks completely ignorant of computer security, or are they just blatantly flaunting that they can breach every possible rule of protocol and still sell voting machines everywhere with impunity?”
Throughout the 1990s, Dean's cuts in state aid to
education ($6 million), retirement funds for teachers and state employees
($7 million), health care ($4 million), welfare programs earmarked for the
aged, blind and disabled ($2 million), Medicaid benefits ($1.2 million)
and more, amounted to roughly $30 million. Dean claimed that the cuts were
necessary because the state had no money and was burdened by a $60 million
deficit.9
But during the same period, Dean found $7 million for a low-interest loan program for businesses, $30 million for a new prison in Springfield, VT, and he cut the income tax by 8 percent (equivalent to $30 million)-a move many in the legislature balked at because they didn't feel comfortable "cutting taxes in a way that benefits the wealthiest taxpayers."10 By 2002, state investments in prisons increased by nearly 150 percent while investments in state colleges increased by only 7 percent. Keith Rosenthal, The Dean Deception
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by Jodie Hemerda
[I]t became clear that the only mission that had been accomplished in Iraq was the looting of the American Treasury William Rivers Pitt
Iraq -Iraq
Said to Have Tried to Reach Last-Minute Deal to Avert War :
Soldier Accused as Coward
Says He Is Guilty Only of Panic Attack
:
Iraq 'faces severe health crisis'-The
people of Iraq may have poorer health for generations as a result of the
war, a report says. :Destruction
of Iraqi Homes Within 'Rules of War,' Spokesman Says
You couldn't make him up, and you don't have to. Like him or loathe him, George Bush is for real.
Indonesia -
Martial law extended in Aceh. Indonesia extends
martial law in Aceh for six more months, admitting it has failed to suppress
separatist rebels.
Africa -
New voluntary measures are agreed to curb the trade in
conflict diamonds, but critics say it does not go far enough. :
Key Rwandan
genocide trial begins-Four former ministers go on trial accused of masterminding
the killing of some 800,000 people in the 1994 genocide.
:
The leader of a Rwandan Hutu rebel group gives himself
up and returns to a cordial welcome in the capital Kigali. :
UN redeploys troops in DR Congo
:
Ebola virus erupts in Congo Republic, nine dead
The number of US soldiers dead now EXCEEDS the number killed in the first three years of the Vietnam War. Reuters Civil Liberties - The Maher Arar case: Washington’s practice of torture by proxy : Arsonist Burns Peace Activists' Home War
On Terror -
Interview
with US soldier who refused to abandon children and return to Iraq :
Terrorism commission caves in to White House
over 9/11 documents :
Despite Bush Boast of Ouster, Taliban is
Rebuilding on the Ground in Afghanistan :
Terrorism Panel Subpoenas Tapes From New York
: As Deadline for 9/11 Aid Nears,
Many Relatives Haven't Filed
History, despite its
wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be
lived again.
-- Maya Angelou Government To Call
More Troops . . . One Week After Bush Says They're Not Needed President Bush often emphasizes his commitment to veterans, saying in 2001, "My administration understands America's obligations not only go to those who wear the uniform today, but to those who wore the uniform in the past: to our veterans." . . . But the 200,000 veterans waiting six months or more for their first appointment at a VA facility would be denied access to VA health care under Bush's plan. Others will be charged $250 annual enrollment fees, doubled prescription costs and increased co-payments. President Bush has
not articulated a clear exit strategy for American forces "If the Iraqi regime wishes peace, it will cease persecution of its civilian population, including Shi'a, Sunnis, Kurds, Turkomans, and others, again as required by Security Council resolutions. We can harbor no illusions -- and that's important today to remember. Saddam Hussein attacked Iran in 1980 and Kuwait in 1990. He's fired ballistic missiles at Iran and Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Israel. His regime once ordered the killing of every person between the ages of 15 and 70 in certain Kurdish villages in northern Iraq. He has gassed many Iranians, and 40 Iraqi villages." -George Bush Sept 12, 2002 . . . And now the US finds itself fighting in those same Kurdish villages.
The commission investigating the Sept. 11 terror attacks said on Thursday that its deal with the White House for access to highly classified Oval Office intelligence reports would let the White House edit the documents before they were released to the commission's representatives. PHILIP SHENON, The New York Times, 11/13/2003 The House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed the Advancing Justice Through DNA Technology Act of 2003 (HR 3214/S 1700) on November 5, 2003. This important legislation incorporates the Innocence Protection Act, which would help ensure eligible death row inmates access to DNA testing to establish their innocence and would authorize grants to improve the quality of legal representation in capital cases. House passage is a significant step! ---Now encourage more Senators to cosponsor and pass the bill. Please take action. Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
Martin Luther King Jr.
From Strength to Love,
1963
Special Registration for
Arab Immigrants Will Reportedly Stop
Give Thanks for our Energy Victory
One of my favorite green bond proposals [in
the energy bill] is a $150 million riverfront area in Shreveport, LA. This
Riverwalk has about 50 stores, a movie theater and a bowling alley. One of
the new tenants in this Louisiana Riverwalk is a Hooters restaurant. Yes,
my friends. Here we have an energy bill subsidizing both hooters and
polluters.
-- Sen. John McCain, on the monstrosity otherwise known as the Energy Bill In a significant
victory for disarmament, the conferees for the energy and water
appropriations bill cut half the funds for the nuclear bunker buster, from
$15 million to $7.5 million. The conferees fully funded the $6 million
requested by the President for advanced nuclear weapons concepts, but of
which $4 million will be unavailable until the Energy Department submits
to Congress a report detailing future nuclear reductions. The conferees
also approved $10.8 million for the Modern Pit Facility, a reduction of
$12.0 million from the Administration's request. |
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