[APR-news] APR -- Sep 30 - Oct 3, 2005

[Alternative Press Review]

Alternative Press Review - Your Guide Beyond the Mainstream
www.altpr.org
September 30 - October 3, 2005

http://www.altpr.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=495&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0
Anti-war beyond anti-Bush
by Phoenix Insurgent

There are three forces that can end this war and bring the troops home. The
first is the Iraqi people themselves, who can defeat the American army
through a war of attrition and general resistance. The second is a movement
of the American people that builds its own autonomous power and forces
American elites to abandon their imperial project in Iraq. And a third
movement could involve American soldier resistance and refusal. In all
likelihood, it will be a combination of all three that will end the war.

http://www.altpr.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=494&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0
Why a Water Crisis Exists in Gaza
By Sonia Nettnin

Gaza has a water crisis. Most people in the international community do not
know the details as to why it exists and the root causes of the resource
deficiency. For the more than 1.4 million Palestinians who live in Gaza
water shortages and water deterioration affects their health. Moreover, the
water crisis creates agricultural, economic, social, and political
instabilities that have regional ramifications. Most of the existing
problems are a direct and indirect result of Israeli policy.

******
Other articles of interest

http://www.alternet.org/envirohealth/26077/
Stepping Up the Attack on Green Activists
Kelly Hearn, AlterNet

A coordinated campaign by conservative lawmakers and the FBI aims to label
environmental protests the newest form of terrorism.

http://usa.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/20573
Technological Capitalism, Endangered Species, and the Human Prospect
Stan Moore, Media Monitors

People are led to ignore their own peril. People are more interested in the
features of their next cell phone than in the fact that cell phone towers
kill hundreds of millions of birds annually. People are more concerned about
the cost of gasoline to operate their SUV than the impact of their SUV on
the global climate. People are more worried about the cost of protecting
bio-diversity than on the cost of living on a planet with reduced
bio-diversity. People are more worried about getting higher credit ratings
and limits than in the impacts of passing unimaginable debt to their
children and grandchildren, not to mention the ecological deficits that are
ubiquitous and increasing in every biosphere imaginable on the planet.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/environment/article316604.ece
Melting Planet
Andrew Buncombe and Severin Carrell, The Independent

Species are dying out faster than we have dared recognise, scientists will
warn this week. The erosion of polar ice is the first break in a fragile
chain of life extending across the planet, from bears in the north to
penguins in the far south.

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0930-25.htm
The Real Threat of Fascism
Paul Bigioni, Common Dreams

Neo-liberal intellectuals often recognize the need for violence to protect
what they regard as freedom. Thomas Freidman of the New York Times has
written enthusiastically that "the hidden hand of the market will never work
without a hidden fist", and that "McDonald's cannot flourish without
McDonnell Douglas, the designer of the U.S. Air Force F-15...". As in
pre-fascist Germany and Italy, the laissez-faire businessmen call for the
state to do their bidding even as they insist that the state should stay out
of the marketplace. Put plainly, neo-liberals advocate the use of the
state's military force for the sake of private gain. Their view of the
state's role in society is identical to that of the businessmen and
intellectuals who supported Hitler and Mussolini. There is no fear of the
big state here. There is only the desire to wield its power. Neo-liberalism
is thus fertile soil for fascism to grow again into an outright threat to
our democracy.

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Oct05/Goldsmith1003.htm
Nazis
Patricia Goldsmith, Dissident Voice

We have reached the paralytic stage of Bush spin, where a large percentage
of the population are ready to forget the horrors they've just seen and
felt, in return for comforting lies -- lies they can live with. A large
proportion of people are willing to place major responsibility for the
recent bloodbath on the Gulf Coast on media-targeted scapegoats -- both
local officials and the victims themselves -- in exchange for the ability to
deny the most threatening portion of the Bush response: the active
intervention of the federal government to prevent outside help from getting
in. This was not neglect, incompetence, or failure. This was what Rummy
calls a "catastrophic success."

http://atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/GI30Dj01.html
The silent oil crisis
James Howard, Asia Times

Around the world, silent to us, the oil crisis has truly begun. They are at
the beginning of what some are calling "The Great Decline".

http://www.onlinejournal.com/Commentary/100105Chin/100105chin.html
Facing up to the coming energy crisis
Larry Chin, Online Journal

Given the Gulf Coast hurricane devastation that threatens a US economy
already on the brink, and given the US failure to secure supplies from its
illegal wars (Afghanistan, Iraq), the Venezuelan supplies become all the
more crucial-as does (in the eyes of the Bush administration, Wall Street,
etc.) the toppling of the Hugo Chavez government. Following the Bush
administration's previous botched coup, a more careful inside-out
destabilization of Venezuela has been in process, in earnest, for well over
one year. There is also Colombia, and its oil, nearby.

http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2005/9/24/233315/937
A Conversation with Richard Heinberg
Stuart Staniford, Oil Drum

I see this discussion in a larger ecological context, because that's what I
teach - I'm not a trained ecologist, but I do teach human ecology, I managed
to educate myself in the science of ecology over the years. I see the energy
problem, the problem with fossil fuel depletion, in the larger context of
the ecological dilemma: the population pressure, resource depletion, habitat
destruction. The only way to solve that ultimately is to scale down the
human project.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ucru/20050929/cm_ucru/whodidyoutortureduringthewardaddy
WHO DID YOU TORTURE DURING THE WAR, DADDY?
Ted Rall, Yahoo News

In his 2000 book "Unspeakable Acts, Ordinary People: The Dynamics of
Torture" John Conroy presciently describes the surprising means by which
democracies are actually more susceptible to becoming "torture societies"
than dictatorships: Where "notorious regimes have fallen, there has been a
public acknowledgement that people were tortured. In democracies of long
standing in which torture has taken place, however, denial takes hold and
official acknowledgement is extremely slow in coming, if it appears at all."
Conroy goes on to describe the "fairly predictable" stages of governmental
response: First, writes Conroy, comes "absolute and complete denial."
Rumsfeld told Congress in 2004 that the U.S. had followed Geneva "to the
letter" in Afghanistan and Iraq. "The second stage," he says, is "to
minimize the abuse." Republican mouthpiece Rush Limbaugh compared the murder
and mayhem at Abu Ghraib to fraternity hazing rituals. Next is "to disparage
the victims." Bush Administration officials and right-wing pundits call the
victims of torture in U.S. custody "terrorists," implying that
detainees--who are not charged because there is no evidence against
them--deserve whatever they get.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8451.htm
Torture Inc. Americas Brutal Prisons
Deborah Davies, BBC Channel 4

The images of abuse and brutality he records are horrifyingly familiar.
These were exactly the kind of pictures from inside Abu Ghraib prison in
Baghdad that shocked the world this time last year. And they are similar,
too, to the images of brutality against Iraqi prisoners that this week led
to the conviction of three British soldiers. But there is a difference.
These prisoners are not caught up in a war zone. They are Americans, and the
video comes from inside a prison in Texas.

http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?emx=x&pid=25288
Interview with Cindy Sheehan
Tom Engelhardt, TomDispatch

I think Kerry lost because he didn't come out strong against the war. He
came out to be even more of a nightmare than George Bush. You know, we'll
put more troops in; I'll hunt down terrorists; I'll kill them! That wasn't
the right thing to say. The right thing to say was: This war was wrong;
George Bush lied to us; people are dead because of it; they shouldn't be
dead; and if I'm elected, I'll do everything to get our troops home as soon
as possible. Then, instead of seeing the failure Kerry was with his
middle-of-the-road, wishy-washy, cowardly policies, the rest of the
Democrats have just kept saying the same things. Howard Dean came out and
said he hopes that the President is successful in Iraq. What's that mean?
How can somebody be successful when we have no goals or defined mission or
objectives to achieve there? They've been very cowardly and spineless.

http://www.wrmea.com/archives/August_2005/0508016.html
Washington's Fateful Cover-Up of Israel's Attack on the USS Liberty
Paul Findley, WRMEA

The assault was deliberate. It was committed in broad daylight during a
two-hour span in the afternoon, following a series of close-in aerial
surveillance flights by Israeli aircraft hours earlier. The attack began
three hours after Israel's naval command precisely identified the target as
an unarmed U.S. Navy reconnaissance vessel. The American flag flew in a
brisk breeze at the ship's stern. The large U.S. Navy insignia was clearly
visible on the ship's hull. When General Moshe Dayan issued the order to
destroy the Liberty, one of the generals on his staff remonstrated: "This is
pure murder." Several Israeli pilots, knowing the target was American,
refused to take part. Testimony of survivors leaves no doubt that Israel's
military high command intended to sink the ship and kill all personnel
aboard, leaving no trace of Israel's responsibility.

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20051017/smith
Gitmo's Hunger Strikers
Clive Stafford Smith, The Nation

"I am slowly dying in this solitary prison cell," says Omar Deghayes, a
British refugee and Guantánamo Bay prisoner. "I have no rights, no hope. So
why not take my destiny into my own hands, and die for a principle?"

http://www.counterpunch.org/felux10012005.html
The Bennett Rule: Abort Every White Baby!
Justin Felux, CounterPunch

Bill Bennett, a prominent right-wing blowhard, has recently come under
intense fire for remarks made on his radio show, in which he stated, "I do
know that it's true that if you wanted to reduce crime, you could ... abort
every black baby in this country." He quickly backed away from the
proposition, saying "That would be an impossible, ridiculous, and morally
reprehensible thing to do, but your crime rate would go down." It's
unfortunate that Bennett chose to be so politically correct, because I think
he may be onto something here. He's just wrong about the target. If we
really wanna get tough on crime, it's the white babies who should start
getting the coat hanger treatment.

http://www.clamormagazine.org/issues/34/people.shtml
School of Punk Rock
Antonio Lopez, Clamor

Now I have former students, beautiful young people full of life, off
fighting that nasty bullshit of a war in Iraq; it breaks my heart every time
I think of it. So here's my punk rock response to the situation: fuck the
school system. In the near future that is. Believe me, as schools become
more militarized and begin to simulate virtual police states and prisons,
school administrators are so bogged down dealing with the failed system, 
it's
impossible to innovate anymore.

http://www.plannedparenthood.org/pp2/scf/news/?doc=/files/portal/webzine/newspoliticsactivism/fean-050929-moral-panics.xml
Sex, Lies, and Moral Panics
Cindy Kuzma, Planned Parenthood

One of the most memorable examples of moral panic - a furor in the 1980s
over the supposedly widespread satanic ritual abuse of children by daycare
workers and parents - fit this formula perfectly when it turned out to be a
series of hysterical events that have since been entirely discredited -
although scores of the falsely accused still remain in prison.

http://www.alternet.org/story/24796/
Going Postal: A Brief History of Rage, Murder and Rebellion
Jan Frel, AlterNet

Ames takes a systematic look at the scores of rage killings in our public
schools and workplaces that have taken place over the past 25 years. He
claims that instead of being the work of psychopaths, they were carried out
by ordinary people who had suffered repeated humiliation, bullying and
inhumane conditions that find their origins in the "Reagan Revolution."
Looking through a carefully researched historical lens, Ames recasts these
rage killings as, essentially, failed slave rebellions.

http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/mickeyz031005.html
Becoming Conscious of Our Own Strength: Gabriele Zamparini Listens to Voices
of Dissent
Mickey Z., MR Zine

We are bombed by propaganda every day since we are born. I am not only
thinking of media and news. Religion, education, entertainment . . . all
this affects strongly our lives. In Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell
writes: "But the proles, if only they could somehow become conscious of
their own strength, would have no need to conspire. They needed only to rise
up and shake themselves like a horse shaking off flies. If they chose they
could blow the Party to pieces tomorrow morning. Surely sooner or later it
must occur to them to do it? And yet--!" Too many people still feel
powerless, isolated, hopeless. It's still very common -- the idea that only
the "leaders" or the "famous" can change things.

******
NewsWire

http://electroniciraq.net/news/2169.shtml
Iraqi journalists routinely jailed by U.S. forces

http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=16314&s2=01
Federation of Journalists calls on US army to end targeting journalists

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/usmediapropaganda
Bush administration found involved in illegal 'covert propaganda'

http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20050929/1a_cover29.art.htm
Former US Marine joins Al-Jazeera

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/29/AR2005092901974.html
Judith Miller released, will testify

http://newstandardnews.net/content/index.cfm/items/2419
FCC Releases Orders for Internet Backdoor Wiretap Access

http://www.onlinejournal.com/Media/100105Madsen/100105madsen.html
Rather prevented by CBS from going after GOP operatives who doctored the
documents

http://tvnewslies.org/blog/?p=138
CNBC's Ron Insana Propaganda Exposed on Live Radio

http://mediamatters.org/items/200509280006
Bill Bennett: "[Y]ou could abort every black baby in this country, and your
crime rate would go down"

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4290944.stm
Inside the secretive Bilderberg Group

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/1002-01.htm
Deadly Bacteria Detected in US Capital During Anti-War March

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050930/ap_on_re_us/army_recruiting_slump
Army Faces Worst Recruiting Slump Since 1979

http://dc.indymedia.org/newswire/display/130509/index.php
Student brutalized and arrested for passing out anti-military-recruitment
flyers on George Mason University campus

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/4BF32568-5714-46C9-AD45-C093C86EE24A.htm
Iraq affecting British army morale; troops seen as "guilty by association"

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1580244,00.html
US forces 'out of control', says Reuters chief

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/content/world/epaper/2005/10/02/a29a_courtmartial_1002.html
Soft on Crime: US soldiers get off easy for terror crimes

http://www.walter-c-uhler.com/Reviews/invade_iran.html
The U.S. Has Plans to Invade Iran Before Bush's Term Ends

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10494.htm
Iraqi government totters

http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGB60MB97EE.html
Number of Iraqi battalions capable of combat without U.S. support has
dropped from three to one

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/printFriendly/0,,1-3-1050175,00.html
Al-Qaeda cleric exposed as an MI5 double agent

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article4213.shtml
What's behind Israel's savage bombardment of Gaza?

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N29383647.htm
Brazil landless stage "Red September" invasions

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,1580627,00.html
Acidic oceans threaten marine food chain

http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,1564,1726287,00.html
Drastic climate changes affect Germany

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20051001/ts_alt_afp/usstormenergyenvironmentbicycles_051001131528
Bicycle sales boom in US amid rising gas prices

http://www.energybulletin.net/9476.html
The world is quickly being split into two hostile camps: those with cars,
and those without

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/oct2005/hous-o01.shtml
California housing bubble impending disaster for working people

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/story/0,3604,1580401,00.html
Blood on the shop floor as retailers report sales falling at the fastest
rate since records began

http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/092905_world_stories.shtml
We can do this the nice way. or the nasty way

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/sep2005/agri-s30.shtml
Hurricanes' destruction deepens US farm crisis

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-09-29-power-grids-mess_x.htm
Storms make tangled mess of power grid

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/sep2005/econ-s30.shtml
Jobless claims, an end to the housing bubble: storm signals for US economy

http://www.planetjh.com/klobnak/klobnak_2005_09_28_energy.html
Matt Simmons: "We could be looking at $10-a-gallon gas this winter"

******
http://www.altpr.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=Sections&file=index&req=viewarticle&artid=81&page=1
Subscribe to Alternative Press Review magazine

To help support Alternative Press Review you can make donations online at
the APR website (www.altpr.org), or send donations by mail to:

Alternative Press Review
PO Box 6245
Arlington, VA 22206