Revolution

A climate of change

A rainbow coalition of angry residents, greens and a local MP will defy BAA to join next week's Heathrow camp. Helen Pidd and John Vidal on the new face of protest Britain

Helen Pidd and John Vidal
Saturday August 11, 2007
The Guardian

Only three people in the world are in on the secret of where the second Camp for Climate Action is going to set up next week. All anyone else - including the rest of the 150-strong organising team - knows is that it will be somewhere near Heathrow airport. If they want to find out exactly how near, they are to be at Staines railway station in west London on Tuesday by 10am. Then, after many months of planning, all will be revealed.

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/green/story/0,,2146575,00.html

"At the risk of seeming ridiculous, let me say that the true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love. It is impossible to think of a genuine revolutionary lacking this quality." - Ernesto Che Guevara

"If you tremble indignation at every injustice then you are a comrade of mine". - Ernesto Che Guevara




Che Guevara in the Sierra Maestra with his puppy "Hombrito", 1958


"I know you've come to kill me. Shoot, coward, you're only going to kill a man." - Ernesto Che Guevara (just before he was shot and murdered)

"There is no other definition of socialism valid for us than that of the abolition of the exploitation of man by man." - Ernesto Che Guevara



"There is more repression of individual freedom here than in any country we've been to, the police patrol the streets carrying rifles and demand your papers every few minutes, which some of them read upside down. The atmosphere is tense and it seems a revolution may be brewing… In summary, it's suffocating here." - Ernesto Che Guevara, in a letter to his mother from Bogotá, Columbia - July 6, 1952

"To accomplish much you must first lose everything." - Ernesto Che Guevara


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Che_Guevara
(Links)

Published on Sunday, August 12, 2007 by The Boston Globe
US Doles Out Millions For Street Cameras
Local Efforts Raise Privacy Alarms
by Charlie Savage

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/08/12/3134/

It's true. There are cameras everywhere here.

Yeah, the camera thing is crazy - it's all too hollywood for me -
i'm starting to feel like i'm in some sort of quirky SF film ......
hopefully not this one

Talking of cameras - take a look at this photographer, Greg Constantine
who is working on a project about statelessness and has been photographing the plight of the Rohingya in Myanmar/Burma


Photographing 'nowhere people' - 12 Aug 07

http://youtube.com/watch?v=zBb9uMtIwS0


Everyone has the right to a nationality, according to the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights. But it is estimated that more than 11 million people in over 70 countries can be classed as "stateless".

No asylum for Palestinians in Canada - 11 Aug 07

http://youtube.com/watch?v=KhDK3IAgG1M

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/790225F4-CD7E-4CBF-B30A-7EAE12CD5339.htm

Dick's Driveway
Hundreds topple Cheney effigy outside Wyoming home


August 14th, 2007 1:38 pm

War Protesters March on Cheney's Home in Wyoming

Hundreds Cheer 'Toppling of Vice President's Statue'

By Gil Brady / New West Politics

WILSON, Wyo. ?- Demonstrators gathered Saturday afternoon at the rustic crossroads of U.S. Highway 22 and the Village Road to protest the war in Iraq and local resident Vice President Dick Cheney.

Following anti-war speeches and folksy, 60s-style sing-a-longs, the crowd of about 250?-ranging in age from toddlers in strollers to a 92-year-old woman?-marched peacefully along the mile-plus county bike path before assembling outside the gates of the tony Teton Pines Country Club where the vice president owns a home.

Cheney, who earlier in the day attended the dedication of Grand Teton Park's new visitor center, honoring the late Senator Craig Thomas of Wyoming, did not appear at the rally or the protest outside his residence.

Military veterans, friends, families, at least one politician and unaffiliated individuals carrying anti-war signs and other messages - some demanding the vice president's impeachment and accusing the White House of lying about why America invaded Iraq ?- attended the event.

"No more blood of children. Not theirs, not ours," read one cardboard and black marker sign hanging around the neck of a young boy standing near a makeshift stage.

During the pre-march rally, a towering effigy of the vice president, carrying a fishing pole and squirting oil derrick, and smaller bust of President Bush, with red devil's horns, was unveiled to hoots, hollers and other expressions of approval prior to performances by musicians and speakers.

Nick Rowley, a veteran of the war in Bosina who said he served in the military for six years and left just before 9/11, spoke at length about what he thought supporting the troops in Iraq meant.

"What you all are doing here is you're here supporting the troops," Rowley told the crowd. "We need more of that…As soldiers we make a promise to fight for freedom and we expect to be sent into harm's way only when necessary and for the right reason."

About the official rationale for going to war, Rowley added, "It's all based on a lie. The morale (among the troops) is not good. It's only getting worse and no one is doing anything about it."

Outstretching his arms while rubbing his thumbs along his fingertips, Rowley continued, "We're there for money, for oil, for Halliburton. We're not there for freedom or any American reason."

The vice president's former employer, oil service giant Halliburton, was as much a subject of criticism and ridicule at Saturday's event as Cheney himself.

Other guest speakers and artists attending the anti-war rally included state Rep. Pete Jorgensen, (D-Jackson), writer Alexandra Fuller, Jackson lawyer Kent Spence and musician Peter Chandler.

"You don't know me, but Cheney I know you," a musician, strumming a guitar, sang. "Operation Iraqi Liberation spells..."

"O-I-L," the crowd loudly rejoined before Fuller, a South African native who now lives in Wyoming, took the stage.

"We need to find creative ways to make peace," Fuller said. "Our leaders have let us down. I genuinely think that they think they could go over (to Iraq) and scribble (out) anyone who didn't look like us. That's middle-school thinking. I don't want to live in a middle-school world."

Jorgensen encouraged those dissatisfied with the status quo to let their congressional delegation not in attendance?-Republicans Barbara Cubin, Sen. John Barrasso and Sen. Mike Enzi?-know how they felt. He also warned the crowd composed of many baby-boomers and seniors that politicians want to "put Social Security in the stock market."

"Who's bailing us out? Europe and China," the state lawmaker cautioned before telling those present to "pick a candidate, I don't care who, that generally agrees with you then vote next November."

Event spokesman Jim Stanford, a former Jackson Hole News & Guide reporter and campaign aide to Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal (who did not attend), said the peace rally was organized about a month earlier with the help of Jackson resident Karen Hogan.

On Thursday nights on the Jackson Town Square, Hogan and others have assembled to protest the war.

In recent days an unnamed group had taken out full-page advertisements in the local press announcing the march. The ads also blamed the vice president for the deaths of American soldiers and Iraqis and for taking his August vacation in Jackson Hole and going fishing, a favorite Cheney past time, "while Iraq burns."

Since his arrival here earlier this week, Cheney has come under fire from locals complaining about black helicopters, presumably part of the vice president's security detail, flying overhead and disturbing their peace. During his four-decade Washington career, Cheney's frequent August vacations in Jackson had never been met with such bold and outspoken public dissent before today's rally.

According to the News & Guide, the vice president's office declined to comment on the event. But Joe Schloss, chairman of the Teton County Republican Party, dismissed the notion that any one administration official could be responsible for the deaths of troops during wartime. Schloss also told the paper that protesters were looking for a scapegoat in the vice president.

Asked about Democrats in Washington recently voting with Republicans to extend the White House's controversial rewrite of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, allowing the government to intercept and eavesdrop on the communications of Americans without warrants, Jorgensen said, "I didn't understand how that happened at all. It looks to me like the Democrats rolled over and there's no excuse for that."

Regarding accusations by some rally-goers that Cheney and Bush lied before sending troops to invade Iraq, Jorgensen added, "From my point of view...I think (Bush and Cheney) misrepresented the reasons for why they went to war and the intelligence for WMD. I don't think they've been honest about anything."

The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence revealed last September that U.S. analysts were strongly disputing the alleged links between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda while senior Bush administration officials were publicly asserting those links to justify invading Iraq. However, the committee, run by chairman Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV, (D-W.Va.), has not issued its phase two report on whether the White House deliberately manipulated available intelligence before going to war.

Comparing the current administration to age-old tyrants, Spence encouraged the crowd to remember that America was founded by those who he agreed rightly resisted the unjust rule of a British king.

"We are there (in Iraq ) based on a fraud by Cheney and Bush," Spence said during a speech that also criticized Halliburton's questionable war contracts and profits.

"Blood money!" a man shouted as Spence spoke.

Spence's law firm, founded by his famous father Gerry Spence, is currently suing Halliburton and others on behalf of the family of a mineral field worker who died in Wyoming several years ago.

Decked in a cap, shades and green army jacket with his last name over the breast pocket, Stanford told rally-goers readying to march, "Today we have struck a blow against apathy..., which is how we got into this mess. We have struck a blow against fear and tyranny!"

Stanford also spoke of the rights and duties of citizens to promote robust dialogue through peaceful assembly and civil dissent.

Responding to a question about what the "W" to his "Worst Ever" sticker on his black briefcase meant, local resident Capt. Bob Morris, who served during Vietnam, said "W stands for W, President Bush."

Gazing from under his floppy straw hat, Morris continued: "The invasion of Iraq is greater than all previous blunders put together." Compared to the Vietnam War, Morris clarified, "That was worse than all previous blunders before this."

Before bicycling off after the half-mile queue of marchers headed for Cheney's home, Morris handed this reporter his handwritten speech, which he did not deliver at the rally. It is reprinted here in its entirety.

"Our occupation of Iraq is a recruiting and training bonanza for al Qaeda," Morris wrote. "One of their spokesmen has said they hope that we'll stay. When finally we leave, there'll be chaos and probably regional war. But the longer we stay, the worse it'll be. On the other hand, let's celebrate our 1991 liberation of Kuwait?-brilliantly done by Defense Secretary Cheney. Let's be grateful to him for that. If only he had rested on his laurels."

Upon rolling the wobbly, 11-foot tall effigy over a mile to the front gate of Cheney's residence, shouting protesters waved anti-war signs at passing and honking motorists, as U.S. Secret Service officers sitting in a black truck and sheriff's deputies looked on, while Stanford hung a lasso around the effigy's neck.

To the chants of "No more war," Stanford, Spence and others toppled the Cheney effigy a second time, knocking the head off as it smashed into the pavement. The delighted crowd applauded and hollered in mock victory as a man draped in a white beach towel, waving an American flag, kicked the effigy's head toward the busy street.

During the early days of the Iraq war, American soldiers and Iraqis memorably toppled a statue of Saddam Hussein that had stood in Baghdad.

No arrests were reported during the rally and march. And by 3 p.m. most of the protesters had disbanded, returning up the bike path to their cars and the bus stop at the Stilson Ranch subdivision.

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=10123

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[IMG]http://[/IMG]

Hollywood tears up script to make anti-war films while conflicts rage
Tradition overturned as star-studded movies deal with Iraq and Afghanistan


Ewen MacAskill in Washington
Tuesday August 14, 2007
The Guardian

For Americans sitting in cinemas watching the summer's fun movies, such as The Simpsons and Hairspray, the trailer for Lions for Lambs is jarring and unexpected. It opens with a moody shot of the Washington Memorial, and shifts to a series of quick-fire scenes about President George Bush's "war on terror".

Lions for Lambs, scheduled for release in the US on November 9, is not a documentary nor an art house film nor even a Michael Moore-style piece of agitprop. It is mainstream Hollywood, starring Tom Cruise, Meryl Streep and Robert Redford, who also directed it. It is one of about a dozen Hollywood films due for release or being made that deal with America divided, the national debate over Iraq and Afghanistan, and other consequences of 9/11.

This is a departure for Hollywood. During the second world war, there were almost no films made other than propaganda ones. The same happened during Vietnam: it was three years after the fall of Saigon before film-makers felt brave enough to make explicit anti-war movies - Mash hid its colours behind humour and a previous war.

Controversy

Jerry Sherlock, director of the New York Film Academy and executive producer of movies including The Hunt for Red October, welcomed the prospect of movies coming out while wars were being waged. "I think it is great because films do influence people. I hope that the films coming out influence people. The truth sets us free, after all the bullshit that we get every day in Washington and the airways and Cheney... I am surprised it has taken so long," he said.

Lions for Lambs interweaves the stories of two American students who end up in Afghanistan, their idealistic professor, a senator and a journalist. The trailer shows Cruise, who plays the senator, in his office on Capitol Hill shouting at the journalist, Streep: "Do you want to win the war on terror? Yes or no? This is the quintessential yes or no question of our time."

The films are bound to be politically controversial, particularly coming in the run-up to next year's presidential election. American conservatives, without having seen it, have begun vilifying Lions for Lambs as anti-war propaganda.

Other films on the way include Rendition, with Reese Witherspoon as the wife of an Egyptian chemical engineer spirited away for interrogation by the CIA. In the Valley of Elah, due for release on September 14, is directed by Paul Haggis, and stars Tommy Lee Jones, Charlize Theron and Susan Sarandon. It is about post-combat stress and is based on a real incident in which a soldier was murdered while on a drinking spree with his comrades on return from Iraq.

That, too, has already run into trouble. Dennis Griffee, national commander of the Iraq War Veterans Organisation, refused to help after learning that Sarandon, an anti-war critic, was involved.

Grace is Gone, due out in October and directed by James Strouse, looks at the impact on a family of the loss of a wife and mother killed in Iraq, while Kimberly Peirce's Stop Loss, scheduled for release next March, deals with a veteran who refuses to return to Iraq. Redacted, to be released in December, is directed by Brian de Palma and is about US soldiers persecuting an Iraqi family.

The Hurt Locker, on which filming is due to begin this week in Jordan and Kuwait, is written by Mark Boal, who also worked on In the Valley of Elah. The Hurt Locker concentrates on a US army explosives disposal unit in Iraq.

"It's the first movie about the Iraq war that purports to show the experience of the soldiers," Boal, a former journalist, told the Hollywood Reporter from location in Jordan. "We wanted to show the kinds of things that soldiers go through that you can't see on CNN."

He added: "Most war movies don't come out until after the war is over. It's really exciting for me, coming out of the world of journalism, to have a movie come out about a conflict while the conflict is still going on."

Hollywood is normally averse to risk but it may have decided the public mood is anti-war and unlikely to change. Darrell West, who specialises in politics and the mass media at Brown University, Rhode Island, said: "I think the outpouring of movies reflects the widespread public disenchantment with the war. It took longer with Vietnam."

One factor that is different from Vietnam is 24-hour news. "The news cycle is definitely faster now than it was 40 years ago, so when bad things happen, they definitely become aware of them very quickly," Professor West said.

Pentagon

In the past, many war movies were sanitised because they relied on the Pentagon to provide equipment and extras and the Pentagon in return often asked for a degree of control over scripts.

David Robb, the Los Angeles-based author of Operation Hollywood, which investigated the relationship between film-makers and the Pentagon, is sceptical about whether the films will find a market or even get made. "I think it is impossible to sell an unpopular war while it is going. People go for entertainment. We will see how many get made and how many get distributed and how many get military assistance," he said.

But while movies such as Top Gun required the help of the Pentagon, most of the present batch of movies do not involve large set pieces or require aircraft carriers or tanks and have been made independent of the military.

Sherlock believes making films while conflicts are ongoing is positive, not least because "this war is lasting longer than world war two". "I think there are things we did not find out about the Vietnam war until after. I think now the American public is much more advanced. There are fairly few people saying our flag right or wrong," he said.

Getting serious

Almost all the Hollywood movies made during the second world war tended to be feel-good propaganda ones. The same was true during the Vietnam conflict, led by John Wayne's Green Berets.

In spite of the high-profile anti-war protests of the Vietnam era, it was very late in the conflict before the public mood turned. And it was not until 1978, three years after the war ended, that the first serious films appeared, Coming Home and the Deer Hunter. Apocalypse Now followed a year later. Platoon, Full Metal Jacket and Born on the Fourth of July were not made until the late 1980s.

Movies about recent US involvement in the Middle East have been thin. Rules of Engagement (2000), an Alamo-like siege in the US embassy in Yemen, mainly involved shooting lots of Arabs. A similar movie, The Kingdom, is due out next month and is based in Saudi Arabia.

But there have been a series of American documentaries about the "war on terror" in addition to Michael Moore's Farenheit 9/11. Those dealing with Iraq include: Gunner Palace (2005), an account of US soldiers confronting the insurgency, and How I Planned to Kill Tony Blair (2006).

In Iraq, sex is traded for survival
By Afif Sarhan in Baghdad

When Rana Jalil, 38, lost her husband in an explosion in Baghdad last year, she could never have imagined becoming a prostitute in order to feed her children.
A mother of four, Jalil sought out employment, but job opportunities for women had decreased since the US invasion.

She begged shop owners, office workers and companies to hire her but was treated with what she calls chauvinistic discrimination.

Within weeks of her husband's death, a doctor diagnosed her children with malnutrition.
Fighting tears, she recalled the desperation which led her to the oldest profession: "In the beginning these were the worst days in my life. My husband was the first man I met and slept with, but I didn't have another option … my children were starving."

She left the house in a daze, she recalled, and walked to the nearest market to find someone who would pay her for sex.
She said: "I'm a nice-looking woman and it wasn't difficult to find a client. When we got to the bed I tried to run away … I just couldn't do it, but he hit and raped me. When he paid me afterwards, it was finished for me.

"When I came home with some food I had bought from that money and saw my children screaming of happiness, I discovered that honour is insignificant compared to the hunger of my children."

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/36B04283-E43F-4367-90BB-E6C60CB88F76.htm


Prior to the US invasion, Iraqi widows, particularly those who lost husbands during the Iran-Iraq war, were provided with compensation and free education for their children. In some cases, they were provided with free homes.
Now they are destitute.


There are now 350 THOUSAND widows in Baghdad alone


The average age of Iraqis prior to invasion? 14 years old


Half the population are under 18 years old


Tthe NGO has documented the disappearance of some 4000 women, 20 per cent of whom are under 18, since the March 2003 invasion.
OWFI believes most of the missing women were kidnapped and sold into prostitution outside Iraq.

Forced Sex and Labor Trafficking in the U.S.

By Rebecca Clarren, Ms. Magazine. Posted August 15, 2007.

An investigation into the shadow world of sex and labor trafficking in the United States reveals not just the dimensions of the problem but the startling inadequacy of the federal response.

**

About 80 percent of those enslaved are women, pawns in the fastest-growing and one of the largest criminal industries in the world, second only to the drug trade and tied with the arms trade. With an estimated 800,000 people trafficked across all international borders each year, the shadow industry is estimated to generate $31.6 billion in profits annually.

http://www.alternet.org/workplace/59646/

We've been neglected and let down say combat troops
Campaign to be launched over medical care, compensation and inquests

Audrey Gillan
Wednesday August 15, 2007
The Guardian

The (British) government is failing in its historic duty of care towards frontline troops who put their lives on the line in Iraq and Afghanistan, forces charities and campaigners claim.

There is growing anger in the service community that the Military Covenant, which says soldiers should always be able to expect fair treatment in return for the rights they forgo, is not being upheld.

The newly-founded British Armed Forces Federation, Baff, says that the covenant is "now a dead letter". And in an unprecedented move, the Royal British Legion - widely known for its poppy appeal and welfare work for old soldiers - is to launch a campaign demanding that the government upholds the covenant and provides its armed forces and their families with proper care in return for asking them to risk making "the ultimate sacrifice for their country".

The campaign aims to "address the growing sense of disillusionment among service personnel and veterans about their treatment by the state".

"The Legion believes that our servicemen and women deserve more from their government. By committing themselves to put their lives on the line for their country, they deserve immediate medical treatment and just compensation if they are injured," the organisation says on its website.

Pressure on the government is growing after six men died under enemy fire in one of the bloodiest weeks in Iraq and Afghanistan. It includes:

· The Legion's campaign, to be launched during the autumn party conference season, will highlight medical care, military inquests and iniquities in the compensation system for injured troops;

· The rising toll of the seriously injured, with casualty figures for this year already set to outstrip the whole of 2006;

· Growing concern about the mission purpose in Basra, where soldiers told MPs troops face "nightly suicide missions";

· Soldiers losing faith in their equipment - particularly the Snatch Land Rover, which is extremely vulnerable to roadside bombs

Last year General Sir Richard Dannatt, the head of the army, warned that the government was in danger of breaking the covenant.

Published as an army doctrine the covenant states that: "Soldiers will be called upon to make personal sacrifices - including the ultimate sacrifice - in the service of the nation. In putting the needs of the nation and the army before their own, they forgo some of the rights enjoyed by those outside the armed forces. In return, British soldiers must always be able to expect fair treatment, to be valued and respected as individuals, and that they (and their families) will be sustained and rewarded by commensurate terms and conditions of service."

Douglas Young, chairman of Baff, told the Guardian: "If the military covenant is anything other than spin and hot air, then it has to be at the forefront of policymakers' minds whenever defence policy is being formulated and not just trotted out when there's a good news story. The sacrifices made by members of all three armed services in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere in the past few years have been immense and in return they need to be recognised with the special consideration that the covenant appears to promise."

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffairs/story/0,,2148954,00.html

Are You Scared?

By Craig Winters

08/14/07 "ICH" -- -- Multinational corporations sell our jobs to the lowest overseas bidders. The credit industry preys on our poor. The for-profit healthcare system is the leading cause of bankruptcy while hospitals dump indigent patients on skid row. Our country's infrastructure is breaking down from New Orleans levees to Minnesota bridges even as we are mired in a war that drowns us in debt and advances only the interests of big oil and arms merchants. The Medicare prescription drug law leaves an enormous hole in coverage while it forbids the government from negotiating lower prices on behalf of the people. Bush signed into law a bill making bankruptcy harder and more expensive for people who need relief and now he threatens to veto health insurance for poor children.

How can the government ignore such obvious and immediate needs?

The regulatory and general welfare roles of the government have totally succumbed to the unassailable wealth that corporations have amassed over many generations. Blind quest for personal wealth and power now bind government officials (as well as universities, NGOs and think thanks) into an integrated corporate dominated power structure. Corporations use their money and vast resources to control every aspect of our public institutions. More than just campaign contributions and cash bribes, they offer a rich array of incentives to "team players" including private jets, resort vacations, in kind services, indulgence of vices, and obscenely high paying private positions when they leave government. Corporations use their influence over government officials not just to buy their vote or a favorable ruling, but to seduce them into playing the power game, a life-long pursuit of power and wealth at the expense of principles, allegiances, and common decency. Politicians have neither the will nor the capacity to dismantle this system.

So what can desperate citizens do in the face of a captured government?

Some suggest that efforts to reshape today's world are pointless when today's world will not exist in ten years. This view holds that "peak oil" will impose an inescapable world-changing transition to the "post-carbon" era. Without abundant cheap oil we will all be living local existences. Washington will be far away and insignificant in our lives. Wal-Mart will cease to exist due to the rising costs of materials and transportation. Sporadic or absent electricity will place a premium on manual skills and hand labor. The food we eat and much of the material goods we use in daily life will come from our local economy, and the Washington power crowd will be a vanishing relic of the past.

While I respect this view and believe that peak oil will drastically change all our lives, I also believe that there is time before the worst effects are felt. Now more than ever we need responsible collective action to begin making preparations, investing in alternative energy, and promoting sustainable living. The ruling class also sees these changes coming, but their response is to secure maximum assets for themselves, squeeze our economy for their short-term gain, and leave the common people to scrap among themselves.

The electoral process has failed us - it failed us in Florida, it failed us in Ohio, and it is failing us in Congress today. Seeking change through the political system will beget the usual political response - cosmetic reforms for us, and fat contracts for the corporate overlords. Our government no longer represents our interests so we must speak for ourselves, en mass, not asking but demanding change. For examples of true substantive change look back to the trust busting of Roosevelt and Taft that followed the Populist uprisings in the late 19th century, or the Civil Rights legislation following massive nationwide demonstrations by everyday people. History shows us that a popular uprising will bring about meaningful change. As recently as March of last year HR 4437 criminalizeing undocumented immigration was stopped in its tracks when a million people joined public protests across the country. If we want change now we need people in the streets, lots of angry people, not merely to get the attention of the powerful or to gain their respect, but to put them in fear for their opulent lives.

September 15th could be the day when the people declare they will no longer quietly suffer these corporate and political abuses. Protest events in Washington invite a massive outpouring of pent-up anger from people with many political concerns including issues of war, civil liberties, economic justice, climate change, and 9-11 truth, and it's going to feel damn good to get out in streets and tell the world how we feel. United, we have sufficient power to threaten the existing structure, and I expect their enforcement machine will respond with disproportionate violence and large scale round ups and detention. The media will then be forced to cover these events and the public will awaken to the true face of the authoritarian system under which we live.

I think the best thing we can do to promote this day is to share with others the thoughts we have late at night when we are alone with our fears and hopes. As we find more like-minded people in our communities we gain confidence and clarity so that when that day comes we will not be cowed by authority but will rise to our feet and join our voices and our strength in challenging this illegitimate government. Politicians will rail and police will crack heads, but I pray we will stand our ground and demand a new balance of power that puts the needs of the people ahead of the insatiable desires of the wealthy few.

Craig Winters <[email protected]> is a civil engineer and software professional in Las Cruces, NM who suffered a political awakening while trying to make sense of the US invasion of Iraq.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18186.htm

The Battle For Iwo Jima - Part One


Endymion 2007


Tonight I watched the first part of The Battle For Iwo Jima -
Flags of our Fathers. This was a story told from the American side.

The second part - Letters from Iwo Jima, is the same story, told from the Japanese side.

I always liked Clint Eastwood.
The first film I ever saw him in was Kelly's Heroes. It came on tv at a mate's house and he said I had to see Donald Sutherland in this really 60s American 'war' movie. Being only sixteen at the time, I thought tanks that fired paint bombs and played soppy flower music was the funniest thing I'd seen since my guardian broke his own toe trying to kick the neighbour's cat.

And yeah, I thought Donald Sutherland was hilarious - but Clint Eastwood - I immediately liked and respected the man. It was just something about him. I was later introduced to the spaghetti westerns, and I (like millions before me) was hooked.

I've no idea how old Clint Eastwood is now, but I'd say he's come a long way. I see a parallel in Flags of our Fathers with his own story.
Basically it's about dispelling the hero myth - in favour of honouring those who sacrifice themselves for their country, by remembering who they really were as people.
It's a compassionate war film - with some extremely powerful scenes and I know it will piss off some die hards - but I believe its message is universal as well as topical and it will be a slow burning success.

Because of the excellent way in which Eastwood has dealt with he traumatic after effects of war (the raspberry sauce scene for instance) and also the obvious respect he has for the American soldiers he is portraying, I would recommend this film to anyone who wants to understand war better - but be warned - Eastwood has captured very well, one of the most frightening aspects of flashbacks - the continuing, unstoppable and repetitive way in which the brain will work over and over something to try and understand it - and how that can be triggered by many things - some less obvious than others.

(A little side rant)

The film confirmed something for me - and I would like to see more public awareness regarding war trauma and the use back home of fireworks (which these days are designed to sound like rockets and rapid gunfire).
To me, there is real disrespect in emulating explosives and the explosions that are killing and disfiguring people -

I have actually rung up a city sports ground before, who were having a massive firework display on a Sunday following 5th Nov - which happened to be Remembrance Sunday (I was later told no one had thought of that).

The bloke I spoke to (Security) told me that mine was the latest in an evening of complaints he'd been left to deal with and that he agreed with us all that it was inconsiderate and out of order and I swear, he was near to crying when he said it.
It sounded like he was speaking to me from a war zone… but people were laughing and clapping and cheering and some comedian was singing on a mic about a party…
I don't think I've ever felt quite so depressed in my whole life.

I hope people take the time to watch The Battle for Iwo Jima

And I hope that Clint Eastwood's film(s) helps get a message across to the public, explaining that war, in the end, affects us all… and we must all take responsibility for it - not just the men on the ground, who stand at the front…

And … that the country who sends soldiers off to fight - should care for those that return - and if they won't do it out of respect -- they should at least do it out of loyalty.

I am putting off watching the second of Clint Eastwood's Battle for Iwo Jima films - the Japanese side, I mean.
I've a feeling it may take some hard watching.




Flags of our Fathers



Letters from Iwo Jima

The Heathrow Protest



"There's been some pushing and shoving but we've managed them safely and they've been allowed to make their protest."
Commander Joe Kaye, of the Metropolitan Police

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_pictures/6954251.stm

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This Says It All, Really



Mounted riot police ride down peaceful climate camp protesters
...in the fields surrounding the camp on the way to BAA building on Bath Road, Sunday 19th Aug...

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/08/379117.html

Published on Sunday, August 19, 2007 by the Boston Globe
When Ignorance Isn't Bliss
by Derrick Z. Jackson

Newsweek recently detailed how ExxonMobil, the oil lobby, and other earth-plundering apologists spend millions of dollars to keep us ignorant on global warming. Time reported that in the rebuilding of New Orleans, "environmental ignorance is setting up the city for another catastrophe."

America's catastrophic ignorance continues.

Time said the US Army Corps of Engineers understands that protecting New Orleans from hurricanes like Katrina or worse will require not just bigger and stronger levees. It also means preserving and restoring marshes, swamps, and barrier islands that offer natural protection against winds and high water.

"But for all the talk about restoring wetlands," Time wrote, "almost every dime of the $7 billion the Corps has received since Katrina is going to traditional engineering: huge structures designed to control rather than preserve nature."

On global warming, which is predicted to pound our coasts with a higher percentage of Katrina-like storms, ExxonMobil pumped $19 million into conservative causes dedicated to pooh-poohing the science. Those causes paid tens of thousands of dollars to those who doubt climate change. In 2003, Republican Party consultant Frank Luntz wrote a memo saying, "You need to continue to make the lack of scientific certainty a primary issue."

This worked, even though, as Newsweek wrote, "few of the experts did empirical research of their own."

The two-decade onslaught on science and sanity resulted in the Clinton White House being neutralized and enabled the outright denial of the Bush administration, which edited and deleted key portions of government reports linking human greenhouse gas emissions to climate change.

Even with Democrats now in control, Congress still plays games with fuel economy. The Senate's new energy bill would raise fuel economy to 35 miles per gallon by 2020. The House bill has no new standards because of the auto lobby and key Democratic auto hacks such as Representative John Dingell of Michigan. Optimists hope to still get new standards when the two bills go to conference committee.

The most important measure of the onslaught is American ambivalence. Even though 600 scientists from 40 countries concluded this year that global warming is "unequivocal," Newsweek pollsters found that still less than half of Americans ?- 46 percent ?- say climate change is being felt today. Less than half of Americans support requiring much more fuel and energy efficient vehicles and appliances. In the best dreams of the pooh-pooh lobby, 42 percent of Americans say "there is a lot of disagreement that human activities are a major cause of global warming."

In New Orleans, a bipartisan nightmare is being recreated. Bush was castigated around the globe for his response to Katrina. But US Senators Mary Landrieu, a Democrat, and David Vitter, a Republican, proposed pork-barrel reconstruction projects backed in part by the oil lobby. Some projects were already judged to be a waste of money. Vitter (who has other problems in the escort scandal in Washington) wanted timber companies to be allowed to keep slashing cypress swamps.

Levees are being so poorly thought out that they risk the further destruction of marshes or rendering them useless against storms. Louisiana State University hurricane researcher Ivor van Heerden said some of the levees are "absolutely screwy, the exact opposite of what we need."

The head of the state's science review team, LSU ecologist Robert Twilley, told Time, "My great fear is that we're going to cut off the coast with barriers, just like we did to the river. I'd hate for that to be my legacy."

The planned ignorance of the oil lobby and the ignorant planning in New Orleans make it clear that too few people care whether the nation cares about its legacy. In the Newsweek poll, 42 percent of Americans say the press "exaggerates the threat of climate change." In New Orleans, the devastation and displacement in that precarious aqualand has not made many people rethink our exaggerated entitlement to crowd the coasts with development.

Despite Katrina, Time reminds us that the United States still "has no water-resources policy." The Army Corps of Engineers remains funded by individual congressional earmarks, regardless of whether any specific project is worthwhile. Gerry Galloway, president of the American Water Resources Association, told the magazine, "It's a sinister system. Water is a national security issue, but we treat it like the Wild West."

The oil lobby tells us to ignore the swamping of our planet. In New Orleans, we are building to be swamped again. America apparently needs a more direct hit than even Katrina to wake up to the catastrophe of ignorance.

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/08/19/3264/

Endy, My Vietnam vet dad just showed me the movie Kelly's Heroes. He said it reminded him of Vietnam. The way the General was and all the wheeling and dealing going on and disregard for chain of command.

wheeling and dealing
f*cking and thieving
skiving and scheming


........ and that's just the Generals …



hey, Amigo
must be good to watch a film with your dad, huh? Has he got The Eagle Has Landed? That's a good one from that era.

I watched a new Jet Li film last night -
Huo Yuan Jia (2006) (Fearless) with sub-titles -(f*ck dubbed) - it wasn't bad - based on a true story set in China 1910


( - traditional martial arts i consider a discipline in self patience - the opposite of the picture above)

Global appeal for N Korea flood aid

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/0CCF0810-0546-4218-B7EE-B8E170387BC1.htm