[APR-news] Weekend Edition (February 4-5, 2006)

Sun Feb 5 14:28:59 PST 2006

Alternative Press Review - Your Guide Beyond the Mainstream
www.altpr.org - Weekend Edition (February 4-5, 2006)
"Magazine of the Year" -  2005 Press Action Award

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Blast from the Past
http://www.altpr.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=Sections&file=index&req=viewarticle&artid=169&page=1
An Interview with Al Lewis
The many faces of Grandpa Munster

Best known as Grandpa Munster from the 1960s television show "The Munsters," 
Al Lewis talks about his acting career, his life-long involvement in social 
and political activism, and his thoughts on today's crop of radical 
activists in this entertaining and funny interview. This appeared in the 
Winter 1998 issue of Alternative Press Review. Al Lewis died February 3, 
2006. He was 95.

http://www.altpr.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=593&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0
Detroit Dialectic: The Irony of the Super Bowl in a Supercilious Nation
by Zbignew Zingh

The Chief Executive Officers, the captains of industry, the bankers, the 
politicians, the financiers, the business gurus and show biz glitterati, the 
movers and shakers of our times, will pack the luxury boxes dining and 
wining like Roman patricians. The proles, sitting in the bleachers or at 
their big screen televisions (purchased on revolving credit at 18% 
interest), will watch the spectacle and lustily indulge in the party. Eat. 
Drink. Be merry. For tomorrow we lose everything.

http://www.altpr.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=594&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0
NSA Snoop Program Toll: One FBI Patsy
By Kurt Nimmo

According to FBI head honcho Robert Mueller, the NSA's J. Edgar Hoover 
Memorial Vacuum Cleaner approach to violating the Constitution "hasn't 
nabbed any Al Qaeda agents in the U.S. since the Sept. 11 attacks," the New 
York Daily News reports.

http://www.altpr.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=592&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0
What Would Jesus Do?
By Remi Kanazi

Picture this: A cartoon of Jesus, with his pants down, smiling, raping a 
little boy. The caption above it reads "Got Catholicism?" Or how about a 
picture of a Rabbi with blood dripping from his mouth after bludgeoning a 
small Palestinian boy with a knife shaped like the Star of David-the caption 
reads "The Devil's Chosen Ones."

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Other articles of interest

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060213/chester
The End of the Internet?
Jeff Chester, The Nation

The nation's largest telephone and cable companies are crafting an alarming 
set of strategies that would transform the free, open and nondiscriminatory 
Internet of today to a privately run and branded service that would charge a 
fee for virtually everything we do online. Verizon, Comcast, Bell South and 
other communications giants are developing strategies that would track and 
store information on our every move in cyberspace in a vast data-collection 
and marketing system, the scope of which could rival the National Security 
Agency. According to white papers now being circulated in the cable, 
telephone and telecommunications industries, those with the deepest 
pockets--corporations, special-interest groups and major advertisers--would 
get preferred treatment. Content from these providers would have first 
priority on our computer and television screens, while information seen as 
undesirable, such as peer-to-peer communications, could be relegated to a 
slow lane or simply shut out.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=PET20060202&articleId=1870
Why 'freedom of expression' defence is questionable in the Muslim dispute 
with a Danish publication
Stuart Pethick, GlobalResearch.ca

The newspaper claims that in Europe it has the right to print whatever it 
likes, free from religious threat. Many would agree that this is a noble 
sentiment, if only the mainstream media of Europe would print what it liked, 
free from ideological and corporate interests. It clearly does not, and the 
republication of the drawings that have already caused widespread anger and 
offence can only be seen as further incitement and a deliberate act of 
antagonising Muslims. With the current global tensions, grandstanding by the 
Western media is not a responsible or intelligent thing to do, particularly 
as its claims of freedom are thin and failing.

http://www.greenanarchy.org/index.php?action=viewwritingdetail&returnto=viewjournal&printIssueId=6&writingId=543
On the Origins of War
John Zerzan, Green Anarchy

Civilization has always had a basic interest in holding its subjects captive 
by touting the necessity of official armed force. It is a prime ideological 
claim that without the state's monopoly on violence, we would be unprotected 
and insecure. After all, according to Hobbes, the human condition has been 
and will always be that of "a war of all against all." Modern voices, too, 
have argued that humans are innately aggressive and violent, and so need to 
be constrained by armed authority. Raymond Dart (e.g. Adventures with the 
Missing Link, 1959), Robert Ardrey (e.g. African Genesis, 1961), and Konrad 
Lorenz (e.g. On Aggression, 1966) are among the best known, but the evidence 
they put forth has been very largely discredited. In the second half of the 
20th century, this pessimistic view of human nature began to shift. Based on 
archaeological evidence, it is now a tenet of mainstream scholarship that 
pre-civilization humans lived in the absence of violence-more specifically, 
of organized violence.

http://www.chris-floyd.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=454&Itemid=1
Hellfire and Damnation: The Washington Consensus for Murder
Chris Floyd, Empire Burlesque

Last month, President George W. Bush murdered four children. This is not a 
controversial statement. There is no dispute about the facts. Indeed, Bush's 
own minions fully acknowledge - even celebrate - the deed. Nor has the 
political opposition or the national media offered the slightest objection 
to the principle of presidential murder. Strange, isn't it?  While the 
American Establishment is now convulsed over the issue of a president 
ordering wiretaps without court approval, the same president's assertion of 
the right to kill anyone on earth he chooses without charges, trial or 
judicial review is readily accepted on all sides.

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0202-32.htm
A 9/11 Conspirator in King Bush's Court?: Sheehan Wasn't Welcome But a Saudi 
Accused of Support for al Qaeda Was
Jeremy Scahill, Common Dreams

While Cindy Sheehan was being dragged from the House gallery moments before 
President Bush delivered his State of the Union address for wearing a 
t-shirt honoring her son and the other 2,244 US soldiers killed in Iraq, 
Turki al-Faisal was settling into his seat inside the gallery. Faisal, a 
Saudi, is a man who has met Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants on at least 
five occasions, describing the al Qaeda leader as "quite a pleasant man." He 
met multiple times with Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar. Yet, unlike 
Sheehan, al-Faisal was a welcomed guest of President Bush on Tuesday night. 
He is also a man that the families of more than 600 victims of the 9/11 
attacks believe was connected to their loved ones' deaths.

http://newstandardnews.net/content/index.cfm/items/2753
Do-it-Yourself Disaster Relief Snubs New Orleans Planners
Michelle Chen, The New Standard

With little useful assistance from FEMA and an abandon-and-wait attitude 
from the city, irrepressible hurricane survivors assert to reoccupy their 
neighborhoods and rebuild their homes - by doing it.

http://www.eye.net/eye/issue/issue_02.02.06/theend/lovebites.html
The Foreign Fuck
Sasha, Eye Weekly

You may be surprised to know that there is an organization of prostitutes in 
India called the Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee, and one of their 
objectives is to get Americans to stop sending them money to buy sewing 
machines. Believe it or not, these people would rather be independent sex 
workers than labour in filthy, ill-paying factories sewing clothes for 
Kathie Lee Gifford, and there are 60,000 of them. This same organization 
publicly criticized the award-winning documentary Born into Brothels. 
Members of the DMSC were not aware that their children were being filmed, 
and many found the representation of mothers keen to usher their children 
into the business sensationalistic. Clamen says the perception that all 
Asian sex workers are forced into the trade "is born out of xenophobia and 
complete ethnocentrism." As the Thai organization Empower collectively 
writes in an article for the prison issue of the sex-worker magazine 
ConStellation, "We are seen as empty pages that the anti-prostitution 
lobbyists and other misled bleeding hearts can write upon. They do not 
respect us as adult women with full histories, lives, skills, plans, and 
dreams of our own. They think we are stupid, ignorant and pity us and judge 
us as powerless."

http://www.counterpunch.org/ferguson02042006.html
Police Become Ferocious Defenders of Civil Rights, When They're Under 
Investigation
Sarah Ferguson, CounterPunch

As reported on the front page of today's New York Times,the lawsuit, whose 
plaintiffs include New York firefighters and other police unions, charges 
that the NYPD's own surveillance of off-duty cops who attended these rallies 
was so heavy-handed and "intimidating" that it violated their civil rights. 
The cops' lawyer even called videotaping a form of "political harrassment." 
Talk about the cat calling the kettle black.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1698420,00.html
We will not sell our people or principles for foreign aid
Khalid Mish'al, The Guardian

Our message to the Israelis is this: we do not fight you because you belong 
to a certain faith or culture. Jews have lived in the Muslim world for 13 
centuries in peace and harmony; they are in our religion "the people of the 
book" who have a covenant from God and His Messenger Muhammad (peace be upon 
him) to be respected and protected. Our conflict with you is not religious 
but political. We have no problem with Jews who have not attacked us - our 
problem is with those who came to our land, imposed themselves on us by 
force, destroyed our society and banished our people. We shall never 
recognise the right of any power to rob us of our land and deny us our 
national rights. We shall never recognise the legitimacy of a Zionist state 
created on our soil in order to atone for somebody else's sins or solve 
somebody else's problem.

http://www.wired.com/news/columns/0,70128-0.html?tw=rss.index
Worship Not These False Idols
Tony Long, Wired

[W]hile you might believe that Apple or Microsoft or some other company 
produces things that make your life worth living, worshipping at the feet of 
their captains is misplaced. In the end, who cares whether Gates gives away 
millions or that Jobs does or doesn't? It's easy to have billions and give 
away millions, because you're not really sacrificing a thing. Besides, 
noblesse oblige is to be expected, not admired. I'll save my admiration for 
the guy making minimum wage who still finds the time and a few bucks to help 
someone less fortunate than he is. Or the schoolmarm who teaches your 
children how to read. Or the doctor who provides affordable medical care to 
a needy community instead of setting up a lucrative practice in Beverly 
Hills.

http://www.robertsilvey.com/notes/2006/01/solidarity_not_.html
Solidarity Not Charity
Molly McClure, Rubicon

A big slogan at the Common Ground Clinic was "Solidarity not Charity," which 
is easy to say, but what does it mean? And how do we know if what we're 
doing is charity or solidarity-is it as simple as choosing to work with 
Common Ground instead of the Red Cross? This was one of the biggest lessons 
for me, and something I'm still thinking a lot about. A definition of 
solidarity I've heard is that it's about providing concrete support to an 
oppressed group so that they can more easily use their own power to change 
the conditions of their lives. As I understand it, solidarity is about 
working with people who are struggling for their own liberation in a way 
that means my future gets bound up with theirs.

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NewsWire

http://www.dahrjamailiraq.com/hard_news/archives/hard_news/000357.php
Al-Jazeera Succeeding Under Pressure

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,1700692,00.html
US media at an all-time low

http://medialifemagazine.com/artman/publish/article_2581.asp
Time-wise, internet is now TV's equal; way ahead of other media at 14 hours 
a week

http://www.motherjones.com/mojoblog/archives/2006/02/zahn_moves_cnn.html
Right-wing wackos: CNN's Paula Zahn Cheerleads for Bush administration and 
Rush Limbaugh

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/local/13769218.htm?source=rss&channel=inquirer_local
Voices from Iraq on campus radio: Students capture the ordinary amid the 
extraordinary

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/wn_report/story/388032p-329252c.html
Years of NSA domestic spying has nabbed a grand total of ZERO Al Qaeda 
agents

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/020306O.shtml
Police Officers Sue over Police Surveillance

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11766.htm
Bush and Blair discussed using American Spyplane in UN colours to lure 
Saddam into war

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=48&ItemID=9655
Indigenous people fight for their rights

http://ktla.trb.com/news/la-na-whitesinger4feb04,0,4523075.story?coll=ktla-news-1_
Her life belongs to the land: For 32 years, Navajo Pauline Whitesinger has 
resisted U.S. efforts to force her off Hopi land

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0205-01.htm
Bottled water: Nectar of the frauds?

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/PEK339684.htm
China's pollution galvanises peasants to action

http://planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/34843/story.htm
Destruction of world's wetlands exacerbating global disasters, about 50 
percent of the wetlands worldwide are gone

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/257515_deadbirds30.html
Scientists fear unusual weather behind massive seabird die-off

http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/story?id=1562145
How the Govt Supports the Troops: Wounded Soldiers Told They Owe Money to 
Army

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2006/02/02/waivers/index_np.html
Facing enlistment crisis, Army granting "waivers" to increasingly high 
percentage of recruits with criminal records -- and trying to hide it

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11783.htm
Pentagon database leaves no child alone

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article342643.ece
'Marlboro Man' Turns Against War He Symbolized

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