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By Les Blough, Editor
Axis of Logic
Tuesday, Apr 20, 2004
AXIS OF LOGIC E-ZINE
April 20, 2004
Dear Readers,
Welcome to this month's issue of Axis of Logic! Because of the crisis in Iraq and related demands on our time, we haven't sent out a newsletter for over a month now. Also because of the terrible events in Iraq, you may have noticed that the front page of Axis of Logic has recently focused on the Iraqi resistance to the Invader-Occupiers. We will keep our eyes focused on continuing developments in Iraq, but you will also see us gradually return to broader coverage of a broader of the many issues that concern you and your region of the world.
Before we begin, may I also invite you to visit the wonderful new poetry and art in their respective sections on Axis of Logic and also the new "Hotlinks" section that will soon provide you with some of the world media outlets that we as editors use in our research. We also want to thank the new contributing writers who have joined us.
Les Blough, Editor
Axis of Logic
Boston, MA (USA)
617-787-3498
No man can reveal to you aught but that which already lies half asleep in the dawning of your knowledge. The teacher who walks in the shadow of the temple, among his followers, gives not
of his wisdom, but rather of his faith and loveingness. If he is indeed wise he does not bid you
enter the house of his wisdom, but rather leads you to the threshold of your own mind.
- Kahlil Gibran
Oh thou whose face hath felt the Winter�s wind
Oh thou whose face hath felt the Winter�s wind,
Whose eye has seen the snow-clouds hung in mist,
And the black elm tops, �mong the freezing stars,
To thee the spring will be a harvest-time.
O thou, whose only book has been the light,
Of supreme darkness which thou feddest on
Night after night when Phoebus was away,
To thee the Spring shall be a triple morn.
O fret not after knowledge - I have none,
And yet my song comes native with the warmth.
O fret not after knowledge - I have none,
And yet the Evening listens. He who saddens
At thought of idleness cannot be idle,
And he�s awake who thinks himself asleep.
John Keats, The Complete Poems (Penguin)
Ahh Spring! It beckons us to it's arbours of new life, after a long, hard winter here in Northeastern United States. We are awash in sunlight for the first time in months and people are in the streets with smiles - even for the stranger. On the sidewalks outside my office and nearby home, the music of many different world languages can be heard and I can easily imagine being where you are - anywhere in the world. With Spring comes renewal of body, heart and mind - the renewal only nature can bring.
Revolutions are not made; they come.
-Wendell Phillips 1859
IRAQ!
FREEDOM, INDEPENDENCE AND SELF DETERMINATION
The Editors of Axis of Logic want to state clearly our position on what has been happening during the last two weeks in Iraq. We stand firmly with the valient Iraqi Resistance in their quest for independence, freedom and self-determination as a sovereign nation - Against the U.S. - British invasion, occupation and destruction of their land and the killing of their people. We support an immediate and total withdrawal of all military, mercenary and "reconstruction" personnel garnered by the U.S. and U.K. for continued occupation and war. We also stand against any suggestion that an "International Peace-Keeping Force" be imposed on the Iraqi people. If any foreign government or international body is to help the Iraqi people recover from the mayhem caused by the invaders, they must offer that help only at the request of the Iraqi people once they have had time to determine their new form of government and empower leaders of their own choosing to represent them in the international community.
Horses live on dry land, eat grass and drink water. When pleased, they rub their necks
together. When angry, they turn round and kick up their heels at each other. Thus far
only do their natural dispositions carry them. But bridled and bitted, with a plate of metal
on their foreheads, tehy learn to cast vicious looks, to turn the head to bite, to resist, to
get the bit out of their mouth or the bridle into it. And thus are their natures become depraved.
- Chuang-tzu, taken from Alan Watts'
book, The Watercourse Way
"Hold fast to the lessons learned from nature."
The I Ching
THE MOVEMENT HAS BEGUN AND THE ENEMY IS FULLY ENGAGED
Perhaps the biggest mistake we make in the Anti-War Movement is to expect a recurrence of the phenomena that occurred in the era of the Vietnam War. Phenomena does not and can never be replicated. Many are frustrated because their expectations of the movement are not recurring. David Stills wrote over 30 years ago: "Don't let the past remind us of what we are not now". Many ask me about the direction of the Anti-War Movement today and when are we going to "do something". As aptly stated in an earlier quote in this issue by Wendell Phillips in 1859: "Revolutions are not made; they come".
People wait for the sudden appearance of "a leader", a Ghandi, a Nelson Mandela, a Martin Luther King. Others have proscribed expectations about where and when the movement will take hold. Proscriptions are foreign to phenomena. Our national-centrism and ... perhaps our ego-centrism ... has blinded us to the fact that the movement against empire does not have to begin in America. Only our myopia tells us that it must. In fact, this time, it has not. This movement against empire is world-wide and the heroic Iraqi resistance is leading the way. We can either join the Iraqi Resistance in their battle against empire, or we can "join the other side" as Graham Nash wrote in Chicago 1971. - LMB
Antiwar Movement
REVOLUTION IS IN THE AIR. IT IS ALSO ON THE GROUND.
Les Blough, Editor, -Axis of Logic
War loves to seek its victims in the young.
-Sophocles
"Did General Abizaid think that if he led a horde of killers to occupy, kill, steal from, humiliate, and
obliterate defenseless people 10,000 miles away from his home he would be welcomed with roses?
"The crash course on Iraq offered by the US military to new cadets failed to mention that Iraqis are human beings who have integrity, sovereignty, and freedom. There should have been a prerequisite course on Vietnam offered to these killers-in-training. Like the Vietnamese, Uncle Sam failed to gauge the determination of the Iraqi people to fight back."
- Amer Jubran
All the survivors of the war had reached their homes and so put the perils of battle
and the sea behind them.
Homer , The Odyssey, line 1
I believe demolishing Hussein's military power and liberating Iraq would be a cakewalk.
Let me give simple, responsible reasons: (1) It was a cakewalk last time; (2) they've
become much weaker; (3) we've become much stronger; and (4) now we're playing for keeps.
Richard Perle 3-29-03
No government ought to be without censors & where the press is free, no one ever will.
- Thomas Jefferson, letter to
George Washington 1792
THE 2004 ELECTIONS IN AMERICA AND CORPORATE GLOBAL EMPIRE
The editors of Axis of Logic have taken a position on the 2004 Elections in the United States. It is not a popular one, especially among some of our friends in the Anti-War Movement. We believe the election process in America and the "American-style democracy" have been illusory for decades. We believe the political parties in America, both Republican and the Democrat are in service to the American-led Corporate Global Empire. We believe that it is wrong to lend validity to an undemocratic system by supporting it with our vote. We believe that the most powerful "vote" any American can make against the empire is their decision to Boycott the Vote. We do not accept the arguments to which many subscribe: Anybody But Bush (ABBB) - or "The Lesser of Two Evils". In the following article, one of our Contributing Editors, Beth Henry, delivers her passionate address to revolt - by Boycotting the Vote. To read the apology for our position, please consider visiting our section, "The 2004 Elections" (top left column, front page).
"State is the name of the coldest of all cold monsters. Coldly it tells lies too;
and this lie craws out of its mouth: 'I, the state, am the people.' That is a lie!
It was creators who created peoples and hung a faith and a love over them:
thus they served life."
Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra
"When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace."
Jimi Hendrix
CORPORATE GLOBAL EMPIRE
"We must bear in mind that imperialism is a world system, the last stage of capitalism-and it
must be defeated in a world confrontation. The strategic end of this struggle should be the
destruction of imperialism. Our share, the responsibility of the exploited and underdeveloped
of the world, is to eliminate the foundations of imperialism: our oppressed nations, from where
they extract capital, raw materials, technicians, and cheap labor, and to which they export new
capital-instruments of domination-arms and all kinds of articles, thus submerging us in an
absolute dependence."
- Che Guevara
Global Empire
No one can stop this war machine: American militarism today is intimately linked with and to the needs and interests of global capital, and today in the Iraqi theatre we can see the sordid pageant
of capitalist interests working hand in glove with the military-industrial complex
Farish A Noor, -Daily Times (Pakistan), Apr 17, 2004
"Guerillas have never lost a war"
OTHER NATIONS AND ISSUES COVERED IN AXIS OF LOGIC
"It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else,
that prevents us from living freely and nobly. "
- Bertrand Russell
Palestine
Top Hamas Leader Rantissi Killed in Israeli Missile Raid. "We will all die one day.
Nothing will change. Whether by Apache or by cardiac arrest, I prefer Apache,"
Rantissi once said
-The Guardian
"If you want to be free, be free,
because there's a million things to be."
- Cat Stevens
World Refugees
Axis of Logic Joins Hope Caravan to Demand Freedom for Aladdin Sisalem!
Report on Aladdin Sisalem, -Hope Caravan
"If a man does not make new acquaintances as he advances through life,
he will soon find himself alone. A man should keep his friendships in constant repair."
- Samuel Johnson
Unspoken
When the sun strikes your eye from the eastern casement and
the voice of your heart replies from the wells of your spiritual fathers,
the essence of life will no longer be dimmed by desire and
your foot will be set on the way of the blessed.
Turn your eye to east, beyond the lost valleys and
cast your bread upon the waters.
Find the cornice bearing my name, beyond the reach of matter.
Ask with yearning from the well of your heart.
You will drink from cool waters and breathe the air of heaven.
Your skin will be bathed in cool breezes from lost continents of the soul,
where you have been, but which you do not remember.
You will rise up with wings as the eagle.
You will find your place in the unwalled city of the unnamed name
where the word is known, but never spoken.
You will know where you are
When you are flooded with a continent of light
- Les Blough, 1997
On behalf of our editors and writers, thank you for listening ... and reading ... and thinking - Axis of Logic.
Your comments are most welcome. We also invite you to share this issue of the Axis E-Zine with your friends and to encourage them to subscribe to future publications.
Peace,
Les
Les Blough, Editor
Axis of Logic
Boston, MA (USA)
617-787-3498
� Copyright 2004 by AxisofLogic.com
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