Those who would take over the world and manage it,

I see that they cannot grasp it;

for the world is a spiritual vessel

and cannot be forced.

Whoever forces it spoils it.

Whoever grasps it, loses it.

- Chuang-tzu

Political Action

Saturday, October 25, 2003, International March on Washington DC, by International Action Center, NY, NY. Mass March on Washington to say:

- Bring the troops home now
- End the occupation of Iraq
- Money for jobs, education & healthcare - Not war [more]

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Report on the July 24 Deportation Hearing of Palestinian Activist, Amer Jubran, July 25, 2003, by Les Blough, Axis of Logic

Boston - The Deportation Hearing for Amer Jubran, a well-known leader in the growing U.S. movement to save the Palestinian people from Israeli occupation and oppression, took place yesterday at the INS in Boston. [more]

Economy

White-collar jobs moving abroad: A spate of new studies points to an exodus of skilled labor, from high-tech to financial services, by Stacy A. TEicher, The Christian Science Monitor, July 29, 2003

For decades, Americans watched as manufacturing plants set up shop overseas to capitalize on cheap labor. Ross Perot immortalized the anger many workers felt, vividly terming the potential exodus of jobs to Mexico that "giant sucking sound." [more]

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Citigroup, JP Morgan Settle for $305m after helping Enron cheat investors out of billions, by Chris Sanders & Paul Tomasch, Reuters, July 28, 2003  [more]

 

"In matters of development there is a problem of choosing the right 'level of technology' to fit the given circumstances; in other words, there is a choice of technology and it cannot be assumed that the level of technology used by affluent societies is the only possible level, let alone that it is necessarily the best for poor societies.  The technologies most likely to be appropriate for development in conditions of poverty would be in a sense 'intermediate' between - to speak symbolically - the hoe and the tractor, or the panga and the combine harvester" 

- E.F. Shumacher, from
his book, Good Work

 

War/Anti-War

US death toll hits 50 in the 90 days since war 'ended', by Robert Fisk, July 29, 2003

American casualties in Iraq since President George Bush declared the war over reached the critical figure of 50 yesterday. Fifty young American lives have thus been sacrificed since 1 May in a growing guerrilla war that Washington and London still will not acknowledge. [more]

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You say tomato, by Paul Krugman, NYT, July 29, 2003

Two leaders politicized intelligence to sell a war. But while one has suffered a catastrophic loss of public trust, the other hasn't, at least not yet [more]

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American agents are blamed for raid that became a massacre, by Robert Fisk, July 29, 2003

The American killing of up to 11 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad during an abortive attempt to seize Saddam Hussein on Sunday has provoked disturbing questions as well as widespread anger in the city. Many witnesses now say armed Americans in civilian clothes also participated in the raid - after which at least three of the wounded were spirited away by US troops and have not been seen since.  [more]

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Think the Democrats are "anti-war"? - Lieberman's attack on anti-war rivals shows deep divide within Democrats, The Independent (UK), July 29, 2003

The deep divisions on Iraq among the Democratic presidential contenders burst into the open yesterday when the senator Joseph Lieberman, a strong supporter of the conflict, accused his more critical rivals "of not knowing a just war when they see it". [more]

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The mass of men live lives of quiet desperation.

- Thoreau

 

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America's maimed come home from war, by James Conachy, WSWS, July 30, 2003

The last official figure was given on July 9, when the Pentagon announced that 1,044 American soldiers had been injured in Iraq since March 20. Of these, 662 US troops were reportedly injured between March 20 and May 1, the date Bush declared "major combat" to be over. The remaining third were wounded subsequently.

Blair accused by Greeks of crimes against humanity, by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, The Telegraph, UK, July 29, 2003

Tony Blair was accused yesterday of "crimes against humanity" in a lawsuit lodged at the International Criminal Court in The Hague by Greek lawyers. [more]

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Iraqi Communist Party joins Washington�s puppet administration in Baghdad, by Peter Symonds, WSWS, July 29, 2003

"The very fact that Washington invited the ICP to join its puppet administration in Baghdad testifies to the depth of the crisis that the US confronts in Iraq."

 

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly,
the true place for a just man is also a prison.

- Thoreau

 

Civil/Human Rights

The ugly truth of America's Camp Cropper, a story to shame us all, by Robert Fisk, The Independent, July 22, 2003

Now here's a story to shame us all. It's about America's shameful prison camps in Iraq. It's about the beating of prisoners during interrogation  [more]

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The humanitarian crisis and prospects for the roadmap to peace, Christian Aid, 28 July 2003 By Christian Aid

Since the publication of Losing Ground, Christian Aid's investigation into the extent and causes of Palestinian poverty, in January 2003, the humanitarian situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories has deteriorated sharply. Poverty levels and unemployment are now reaching crisis proportions creating a humanitarian crisis, the levels of which Christian Aid has not seen in fifty years of work in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. [more]

Update on the trial of Ernst Zundel, Political Prisoner with a personal letter from his wife, July 29, 2003, by Ms. Zundel & Paul Fromm, July 298, 2003  [more]

 

The dissenter is every human being at those moments of his life when he resigns momentarily from the herd and thinks for himself.

�Archibald MacLeish

 

Phillipines

Philippine Mutiny: Corruption is U.S. Ally's Biggest Enemy, by Rene P. Ciria-Cruz, Pacific News Service, July 29, 2003

PNS Editor's Note: Corruption in its U.S.-supported military establishment is bringing political instability to the Philippines and turning it into a weak link in the U.S.-led international front against terrorism. [more]

Palestine

Israeli forces opened fire on activists and wounded five protesting Israel's apartheid wall, EI, July 28, 2003

Today activists from the International Solidarity Movement, working with local Palestinians and Israelis succeeded in opening a small but symbolic hole in the Wall of Apartheid in the village of Anin, west of the city of Jenin. [more]

 

 

"There are ... minds that deposit their dangerous unripe thoughts
here and there to lie still for a time and be brooded in other minds,
and the shell not to be broken until the next age,for them to begin
as new individuals, their career"

- Emerson

 

Workers and Labor

Workers Struggles in the Americas, WSWS, July 29, 2003

Despite its $4.1 billion in profits, the company, which formed as a result of the merger of Bell Atlantic, GTE and NYNEX, is demanding reductions in medical coverage and greater latitude to impose mandatory overtime and subcontract work. One hundred fifty Verizon workers have been on strike against similar demands in North Carolina since May 19. [more]

Society cannot share a common communication
system so long as it is split into warring factions.

- Bertolt Brecht

Media Critiques

Breakdown of 'Veto-proof' House Vote on FCC Ruling, by CWA, Reclaim the Media, July 24, 2003 

Representative David Obey Sends Deafening Message to the White House on Behalf of the American People.  [more]

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Canadians blast cross-ownership: from the Guild Reporter (TNG), Reclaim the Media, July 28, 2003

"... too much (media) power is falling into too few hands..."

Wrestling with the same market pressures that have convulsed U.S. media markets, the House of Commons Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage has released a long-awaited report on the state of Canada's broadcasting system. The verdict, after two-and-a-half years of work: things have gone too far. [more]

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Media's War Boosters Unlikely to Voice Regret, by Norman Solomon, MediaBeat, July 17, 2003

The superstar columnist George Will has an impressive vocabulary. Too bad it doesn�t include the words "I�m sorry." [more]

 

"Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number -
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you -
Ye are many - they are few."

- P.B. Shelley

India

Compounding Injustice: The Government's Failure to Redress Massacres in Gujarat, Human Rights Watch, July, 2003

Khalid Noor Mohammed Sheikh and R. Bibi are former residents of Naroda Patia, Ahmedabad, site of one of the deadliest massacres in Gujarat on February 28, 2002. They were interviewed by Human Rights Watch in January 2003. Their stories are representative of many of the testimonies contained in this report.  [more]

Science and Nature

Global warming is now a weapon of mass destruction. It kills more people than terrorism, yet Blair and Bush do nothing., The Guardian (UK), July 28, 2003 [more]

Africa suffering worst effects of global warming, by Steve Conno, Science Editor, The Independent (UK), July 29, 2003

Global warming is affecting Africa more than the industrialised world despite being the inhabited continent least to blame for the greenhouse effect.  [more]

You �d scarce expect one of my age
To speak in public on the stage;
And if I chance to fall below
Demosthenes or Cicero,
Don�t view me with a critic�s eye,
But pass my imperfections by.
Large streams from little fountains flow,
Tall oaks from little acorns grow.

David Everett. (1769�1813)

Thank you for reading.  Come  visit us at www.axisoflogic.com!

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