[APR-news] Holiday Weekend Edition (December 22-25, 2006)

Mon Dec 25 07:06:55 PST 2006

Alternative Press Review - Your Guide Beyond the Mainstream
www.altpr.org - Holiday Weekend Edition (December 22-25, 2006)

http://www.xmasresistance.org/
Boycott Christmas! The Christmas Resistance Movement

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig2/denson4.html
Soldiers Against War
The Story of the World War I Christmas Truce

http://www.counterpunch.org/barber12202006.html
Jesus is a Terrorist

******
http://www.altpr.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=709
Jimmy Carter's Glossary
By Joe Mowrey

During his term as President, Mr. Carter ordered the CIA to train death 
squads (benignly labeled "contras") based in Honduras to oppose the 
Sandinistas after they overthrew the dictator Somoza in Nicaragua. Nice. 
This little bit of creative obstructionism was expanded during the Reagan 
administration and would later become what is commonly known as the 
Iran/Contra scandal. After a coup in El Salvador, Carter sent aid and 
weapons to the El Salvadoran military who proceeded to massacre tens of 
thousands of civilians. Good work Mr. Carter. His generous foreign policy 
initiatives weren't limited to Central America. Carter increased the supply 
of arms and munitions to the Indonesian government despite their invasion of 
East Timor. More than 200,000 civilians were slaughtered there, nearly a 
third of the population.

http://www.altpr.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=708
Deep Tooth: A Mol(ar) in the White House
By Zbignew Zingh

It was one of those flukey things that we've all experienced at some point 
in our lives. While lying in bed last night, one of the fillings in my teeth 
started to receive radio transmissions that reverberated inside my skull. If 
I turned my head in the direction of Washington D.C., I seemed to be tuned 
into one of President Nixon's covert listening devices in the Oval Office 
that, somehow, the Secret Service had failed to remove. Incredibly, Nixon's 
secret little bug was still transmitting after all these years, and I heard 
these voices talking about foreign policy in the White House.

******
Other articles of interest

http://thetyee.ca/Life/2006/12/19/JingleHell/
Jingle Hell: War on Christmas? Where do I enlist?
Shannon Rupp, TheTyee.ca

The Christian complaint against Christmas is beautifully argued in The 
Hundred Dollar Holiday: The Case for a More Joyful Christmas (1998), by 
Harper's writer Bill McKibben. He happens to be Methodist, but unlike the 
dogma-spouting twits who use the Bible to justify their own malevolent 
impulses, he actually knows something about his religion. For example, he's 
aware December 25 was celebrated as the birthday of the sun god Mithras, 
long before it was co-opted as part of a PR campaign to reinvent pagan myths 
as Christian.

http://www.infowars.net/articles/december2006/191206Boyle.htm
Esteemed Professor and Law Expert Warns Of Police State
Steve Watson, Infowars.net

The professor pointed out that it is now being argued by lawmakers that the 
14th amendment does not mean what it has been taken to mean and that under 
the Military Commissions Act any US citizen can be stripped of their 
citizenship and thus be labeled an enemy combatant. "So in other words they 
are taken the position that in some point in time if they want to, they can 
unilaterally round up United States native born citizens, as they did for 
Japanese Americans in World War Two, and stick us into concentration camps. 
That is correct. They haven't actually yet done it but my guess is that the 
papers have been drawn up... and we know that the FEMA camps are out there."

http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=1877
Will the Democrats Save our Civil Liberties?
Anthony Gregory, Independent Institute

For one thing, Democrats have supported the worst of Bush's policies. Only 
one Democrat in the Senate, Russ Feingold, opposed the Patriot Act when it 
was first proposed. Just this year, Democratic members of the House 
overwhelmingly, and Democratic Senators unanimously, approved the Defense 
Authorization Act for 2007, which contains frightening modifications of the 
Insurrection Act and new exceptions to Posse Comitatus, empowering the 
president to summon the National Guard, without gubernatorial authority, and 
to enforce martial law during "emergencies" ranging from natural disasters 
to health crises.

http://kurtnimmo.com/?p=699
Mike Gallagher Hates the First Amendment
Kurt Nimmo, Another Day in the Empire

If talk radio host Mike Gallagher has his way, Matt Damon, Joy Behar, Keith 
Olbermann, and any number of dedicated or casual readers of this blog will 
be shipped off to a FEMA camp for the crime of exercising their once 
respected right to freedom of speech under the First Amendment. According to 
Gallagher, the above "traitors" should be incarcerated for the duration of 
the "war on terror," promised to last a couple generations, possibly a 
hundred years or more. In other words, Gallagher is calling for life in 
prison for disagreeing with the unitary decider and his minions, such as 
Donald Rumsfeld, a malicious war criminal who would, during normal times, 
stand accused of murdering 650,000 Iraqis.

http://www.leftturn.org/Articles/Viewer.aspx?id=980&type=M
Oaxaca: Confronting power, Building alternatives
Rochelle Gause, Left Turn

A popular uprising that shakes the roots of a long-held exploitive power 
dynamic is occurring in Oaxaca, Mexico. Not only does it threaten the 
corrupt and repressive government that has controlled the region for years, 
the movement is also creating an alternative structure for popular 
governance.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/122006R.shtml
Bush "Developing Illegal Bioterror Weapons" for Offensive Use
Sherwood Ross, Truthout

In violation of the US Code and international law, the Bush administration 
is spending more money (in inflation-adjusted dollars) to develop illegal, 
offensive germ warfare than the $2 billion spent in World War II on the 
Manhattan Project to make the atomic bomb. So says Francis Boyle, the 
professor of international law who drafted the Biological Weapons 
Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989 enacted by Congress. He states the Pentagon "is 
now gearing up to fight and 'win' biological warfare" pursuant to two Bush 
national strategy directives adopted "without public knowledge and review" 
in 2002.

http://www.eugeneweekly.com/2006/12/21/news1.html
FLAMES OF DISSENT: Part V: The Ashes
Kera Abraham, Eugene Weekly

"What's upsetting is how quickly people are folding and how namby-pamby and 
weak Earth First! looks when you compare it to the Black Panthers and the 
American Indian Movement, where people have held out for decades without 
talking," said former Earth First! Journal co-editor Jim Flynn. "It just 
makes our movement look weak and soft and middle-class. For people like me, 
who have spent years in the movement, it's embarrassing. How will we recruit 
new people?"

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/12895234/the_low_post_find_out_why_matt_taibbi_hates_christmas/1
'Christian' Game Leaves Behind A Pile of Corpses
Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone

If you haven't bought it already, I strongly advise everyone reading this to 
log on to leftbehind.com and buy the game. It is the perfect American 
holiday gift. Celebrate the birth of Jesus by wasting dozens of people at a 
time, using a provocative variety of Christ-sanctioned weapons! You can even 
operate tanks to destroy whole areas of New York City! Who knows, you might 
even get to kill Ethan Hawke ("slumming" in a ball cap and dirty jeans) in a 
Marxist bookstore-coffeeshop on Eighth Street! Kill, kill, kill! Merry 
Christmas, America.

http://www.whatcomwatch.org/php/WW_open.php?id=765
Peak Food and Population Overshoot
John Rawlins, Whatcom Watch Online

By far the largest population increase in the history of humans occurred in 
the 20th century, and the resources making that possible were oil and 
natural gas. Now that we face a very near-term decline in both of these 
resources, it is time to start planning how we will continue to feed a 
population of over 6 billion humans. In about 100 years, when oil and gas 
are essentially gone, will it even be possible to provide enough food for 
six to 10 times as many people as populated the planet before oil and gas?

http://resourceinsights.blogspot.com/2006/12/cubas-strange-path.html
Cuba's Strange Path
Kurt Cobb, Resource Insights

Cuba has become the poster child for a transition away from an agricultural 
economy based on fossil fuel inputs and for a society focused on 
self-sufficiency. Strangely, it may owe much of its success in this regard 
to its relative backwardness and its isolation from the world community. The 
implications for so-called modern industrial countries in a world 
approaching peak oil couldn't be more striking.

http://www.villagevoice.com/books/0651,fleischerblack,75316,10.html
Spaced out: The collective costs of suburban sprawl
Matt Fleischer-Black, Village Voice

Suburbia's failings have been obvious for half a century. Housing 
subdivisions have stranded kids and mothers in communities devoid of 
communal life. They have forced residents to spend more time in cars than in 
conversation. They have chewed up God's green earth. And yet: Two out of 
three Americans now live there, up from one-third of the 1960 population.

http://www.alternet.org/sex/45390/
Sex Workers' Lit Ruined My Sex Life
Anneli Rufus, AlterNet

A host of new books by authors who entered the sex trade and wrote about it 
make you not want to have intercourse again, ever, with anyone.

******
NewsWire

http://mediamatters.org/items/200612220015?src=item200612220015
CNN: White House mouthpiece?

http://cpj.org/Briefings/2006/killed_06/killed_06.html
In Iraq, journalist deaths spike to record in 2006

http://www.newshounds.us/2006/12/19/fox_guest_says_joy_behar_matt_damon_keith_olbermann_should_be_rounded_up_and_put_in_a_detention_center_because_theyre_traitors.php
Fox Guest Says Joy Behar, Matt Damon & Keith Olbermann Should Be Rounded Up 
And Put In A Detention Center Because They're Traitors

http://articles.news.aol.com/business/_a/che-guevara-cd-case-pulled-from-shelves/20061222155709990014?ncid=NWS00010000000001
Target pulls Che Guevara CDs from shelves

http://www.capitolhillblue.com/news2/2006/12/racist_congress.html
Racist congressman stands by anti-Muslim tirade

http://www.guardian.co.uk/religion/Story/0,,1978045,00.html
Poll: Religion does more harm than good

http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/20061220_turks_acquitted_for_publishing_chomsky/
Turks acquitted for publishing Chomsky

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2006/dec2006/bush-d21.shtml
Bush sets stage for major escalation in Iraq

http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=nation_world&id=4874374
Selective Service Plans 'Readiness' Military Draft Tests

http://www.counterpunch.org/hughes12232006.html
Cop Assaults Activist at Lockheed Protest: "We're Not Disturbing the Peace, 
We're Disturbing the War!"

http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article2099971.ece
Global warming claims tropical island

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/1221-06.htm
The Last Tide Could Come at Any Time. Then These Islands at the End of the 
Earth Will Simply Vanish

http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article2091875.ece
Climate Change vs Mother Nature: Scientists reveal that bears have stopped 
hibernating

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/1220-02.htm
Biofuels Eating Into Food Grain Stocks

http://newstandardnews.net/content/index.cfm/items/4007
Navajo Dissidents Take Action to Stop Tribe-Backed Power Plant

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2006/dec2006/canc-d21.shtml
US breast cancer decrease tied to drop in hormone replacement therapy use

http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/77371.html
Superbug linked to antibiotic used on farms

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/12855294/national_affairs_the_2_trillion_dollar_war
Paying the Price For The $2 Trillion Dollar War

http://www.forbes.com/2006/12/19/mortgage-lenders-bust-biz-cz_ms_1219bust.html
The mortgage bust goes on

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-6294879,00.html
More rap lyrics showing up in court