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Forecast Sept 5-11********************//YOU UPGRADEmag// sept 18 2001 The UPGRADEmag (the Upgrade Emag, or just the "UP") is a global edutainment news round-up, ‘broadcast’ weekly to =[10,567]= Trance// New Age// Alternative// Activist folks who have been recommended to the Parallel YOUniversity/ Megatripolis Dance Dept as "showing signs of life". Since many recipients choose to forward it to their own lists, we estimate 26,500+ recipients. Further, because of its less 'specialist' content, it's increasingly being posted on a variety of sites worldwide, making a total weekly ‘readership’ of, conservatively, 275,000+ H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H MAKE THE EMAG FIT YOUR SCREEN BY CLOSING ANY BOX ON LEFT OF SCREEN Autumn Equinox occurs Saturday night. Like the I Ching symbol, celebrate the great balance between the light and the dark. Both are part of life. The autumn season will give us ample opportunity to manifest both, and will encourage joining in affinity groups. For details, read the Calendar in www.daykeeperjournal.com. *************************************************************** #* Eliminated $39 million of federal spending on libraries [HOPES RAISED BY BUSH ADMIN IN PREVIOUS SIX MONTHS] YES, IT'S ANOTHER # TOPPLING TOWER ISSUE # with comments, pleas, rants and sermons from Deepak Chopra, Alexei Sayle, Chomsky, Buddha, Greg Sams, John Pilger, Robert Fisk, Gay Times, Theodooore Rozak, Mark Heley, Jules Marshall and … YOU! NOTE TO AMERICAN FRIENDS AND ALLIES: WE HAVE ALWAYS MADE AN ALMOST TOTAL DISTINCTION BETWEEN YOU LOVELY, CREATIVE, GENEROUS AND PROUD PEOPLE AND THE CORRUPT SYSTEM OF ELITE CONTROL THAT'S CALLED THE US GOVERNMENT. I SAY "ALMOST TOTAL DISTINCTION" BECAUSE, ULTIMATELY, PEOPLE GET THE GOVERNMENT THEY DESERVE. TO PUT IT VERY BLUNTLY, THE TIME HAS NOW COME FOR YOU TO DESERVE BETTER! AND FAST! IT'S THE UPGRADE's DUTY, REMEMBER, TO SUPPLY THE INFO THAT'S SCREENED OUT BY THE HOURLY BARRAGE OF THE OFFICIALLY CONTROLLED MEDIA. IF IT SEEMS OFTEN VERY CRITICAL IT'S NOT BECAUSE WE DON'T LOVE YOU! IT'S BECAUSE WE LOVE YOU. thank you. i couldn't agree more. Clarinda #* Eliminated $39 million of federal spending on libraries [HOPES RAISED BY BUSH ADMIN IN PREVIOUS SIX MONTHS] Hi Fraser, thanks for your mails. prompting and pushing these issues out into the light. Easy. James (backspace) #* Eliminated $35 million in funding for doctors to get advanced pediatric training. [HOPES RAISED BY BUSH ADMIN IN PREVIOUS SIX MONTHS] thank you for this. I am trying to spread the word. Is there a website we can refer people to? thanks. annie.nightingale@bbc.co.uk we need a site, yes. all I can offer is our own where people can read the last 2 UPGRADEs and also participate in, and make announcements on the GroupMind debating board. i think we need people to arrange public events against a Holy War all round the planet. #* Cut by 50% funding for research into renewable energy sources. [HOPES RAISED BY BUSH ADMIN] HOW DARE YOU USE PEOPLE'S E-MAIL TO SEND YOUR POLITCAL CRAP. IMMEDIATELY REMOVE ME FROM YOUR LIST Graham actually we were just sorting out the 'crusaders' from the truly caring. #* Proposed elimination of new marine protections for the Channel Islands and the coral reefs of northwest Hawaii. [HOPES RAISED BY BUSH ADMIN] A SUGGESTION TO GALVANISE A WORLDWIDE PEACE MOVEMENT TO DEAL WITH THE CRISIS BY SETTING UP A UNITED NATIONS GEO-POLITICAL RECONCILIATION COMMISSION TO SETTLE ALL OUTSTANDING TERRITORIAL DISPUTES. PLEASE SEND IN YOUR IDEAS. Posted by fraser. on September 18, 2001 at 00:30:53: i need help here and i can't think of a better place to find it. the first and obvious step is to say NO HOLY WAR! but that's negative. we learned back in the hippy times that you have to emphasise the beauty or whatever of what you r protecting. thus we changed to CELEBRATIONs OF LIFE sorta thing. means the same, but inspires positive emotions. what i want to see is a peace movement being galvanised across the planet - as pretty much only rave culture can manage. but what would it be FOR? what IS "LIFE"? here's my notes on thoughts beyond this point. - - - - the idea is that, SHOCKED TO THE CORE BY THE TOPPLING OF THE TOWER, humanity must wake up and take its destiny into its own hands. we cannot, we simply CANNOT afford to leave it to politicians with national electoral considerations as their primary motivation. that way lies madness, horror and disaster. - we need planetary citizens whose first and only duty is seen to be for the planet. - and here's my further thought, always trying to reach a PRACTICAL VISION that could galvanise a people's movement to save planet earth in time. - how about we invite (dunno how but it could be by a vote) planetary citizens from all round the planet to sit on the commission and make these final decisions? overseen by the UN but not directed by it. see? mandela is obvious. for africa maybe. clinton for america? (he's gotta big heart and there's no money or sex involved here :) you could say chomsky but we need to aim for a general lack of bias that could inspire trust and agreement among all sides) gorbachev for russia. geldof for britain? heh heh. - the commission could go into emergency session for one year, see and hear all the parties involved in all the geographical disputes, and settle all these flash points once and for all, their decisions to be accepted as morally binding by all parties. perhaps it would not have the sanctity of law nor be enforceable, not yet, that might force some political leaders to oppose it, but it would have moral authority. and you can bet the world public will be watching! such an historical concordat would be unique in our history. but this is a very unique moment, and THE OTHER WAY IS TO TAKE HOMO SAPIENS' WORST SIDE TO ITS FINAL LOGICAL CONCLUSION, CONTINUOUS WAR FOR THE REST OF OUR LIVES or to a very literal CONCLUSION. please send some feedback. please pass the idea along for feedback. please do this quickly before all our countries are stampeded into a terrible and possibly irretrievable series of mistakes. NOTE - whether you want to go for the idea or not, it's certainly 'edutaining' to consider which countries would be least likely to accept such a proposal - those whose leaders know in their hearts that their aims are unjust. no prizes for this one i'm afraid. :) #* Eliminated 28% of funds for research into cleaner, more efficient cars and trucks. [HOPES RAISED BY BUSH ADMIN] http://www.parallel-youniversity.com/dboard/messages/139.html A SUGGESTION TO GALVANISE A WORLDWIDE PEACE MOVEMENT I like the idea a lot - similar to something I've been mulling around for a few days. I'd go further and attempt to solve more than the geographical disputes. We need something akin to South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Committee, on a global scale. Then ask them - what did you do, why did you do it, who gave you permission and/or armed protection, how much money did you make, and are you sorry. Take their ill-gotten profits and re-distribute to the complainants. Punish no-one. No pogroms ma'am, just the facks. We just want to know the truth, and make things as right as we can. Hell, I'd be generous - let them keep, ooh, say $500,000 as a generous start in their new lives in the Moral Witness Protection Scheme. No-one deserves to accumulate the 100s of millions and billions of some individuals and families. jules marshall / holland shhh, jules, that would be next, but take 'em into it a step at a time, we're dealing with dangerous psychopaths 'ere. #* Suspended rules that would have strengthened the government's ability to deny contracts to companies that violated workplace safety, environmental and other federal laws. [HOPES RAISED BY BUSH ADMIN] I was just forwarded text from 'Stop Holy War' and i just wanted to let you know that it's a great relief to me to hear that not all of the US has fallen down the 'WANTED: DEAD OR ALIVE' path. Up until receiving that mail, the only other opinion i had heard/read on our wonderfully unbiased (yeah, right) media that did not back Dubya (other than, of course the Taliban) was that of one Mr. Hussein of Baghdad. You can correct me if i am wrong here, but i think he mentioned something about 'chickens' and 'coming home to roost' (or thereabouts)? i had a bit of a Bill-Hicksian moment when i realised that the only person on the news that i even partly agreed with was him. So did my friends. Dubya was right; the world has changed. Now my opinions are closer (in media terms) to a mass-murdering dictator than that of the general public of the 'civilised' west. Anyway, thanks Stewart. #* Appointed John Negroponte - an un-indicted high-level Iran Contra figure - to the post of United Nations ambassador. [HOPES RAISED BY BUSH ADMIN] THE DEEPER WOUND As fate would have it, I was leaving New York on a jet flight that took off 45 minutes before the unthinkable happened. By the time we landed in Detroit, chaos had broken out. My wife and son were also in the air on separate flights, one to Los Angeles, one to San Diego. My body went absolutely rigid with fear. All I could think about was their safety, and it took several hours before I found out that their flights had been diverted and both were safe. Strangely, when the good news came, my body still felt that it had been hit by a truck. Of its own accord it seemed to feel a far greater trauma that reached out to the thousands who would not survive and the tens of thousands who would survive only to live through months and years of hell. And I asked myself: Why didn't I feel this way last week? Why didn't my body go stiff during the bombing of Iraq or Bosnia? Around the world this horror and worry of mine are experienced every day. Mothers weep over horrendous loss, civilians are bombed mercilessly, refugees are ripped from any sense of home or homeland. Why did I not feel their anguish enough to call a halt to it? Everything has a cause, so we have to ask, What was the root cause of this evil? We must find out not superficially but at the deepest level. There is no doubt that such evil is alive all around the world and is even celebrated. Does this evil grow from the suffering and anguish felt by people we don't know and therefore ignore? Have they lived in this condition for a long time? One assumes that whoever did this attack feels implacable hatred for America. Why were we selected to be the focus of suffering around the world? Can any military response make the slightest difference in the underlying cause? Is there not a deep wound at the heart of humanity? If there is a deep wound, doesn't it affect everyone? When generations of suffering respond with bombs, suicidal attacks, and biological warfare, who first developed these weapons? Who sells them? Who gave birth to the satanic technologies now being turned against us? If all of us are wounded will revenge work? Will punishment in any form toward anyone solve the wound or aggravate it? Will an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, and limb for a limb, leave us all blind, toothless and crippled? Tribal warfare has been going on for two thousand years and has now been magnified globally. Can tribal warfare be brought to an end? Is patriotism and nationalism even relevant anymore, or is this another form of tribalism? What are you and I as persons going to do about what is happening? Can we afford to let the deeper wound fester any longer? Everyone is calling this an attack on America, but is it not a rift in our collective soul? Isn't this an attack on civilization from without that is also from within? When we have secured our safety once more and cared for the wounded, after the period of shock and mourning is over, it will be time for soul searching. I only hope that these questions are confronted with the deepest spiritual intent. None of us will feel safe again behind the shield of military might and stockpiled arsenals. There can be no safety until the root cause is faced. In this moment of shock I don't think anyone of us has the answers. It is imperative that we pray and offer solace and help to each other. But if you and I are having a single thought of violence or hatred against anyone in the world at this moment, we are contributing to the wounding of the world. Deepak Chopra # Abandoned campaign pledge to invest $100 million for rain forest conservation. [HOPES RAISED BY BUSH ADMIN] In the words of the Buddha: "The worse of the two is he who, when abused, retaliates. One who does not retaliate wins a battle hard to win." Samyutta Nikaya I, 162 #* Rescinded a proposal to increase public access to information about the potential consequences resulting from chemical plant accidents. [HOPES RAISED BY BUSH ADMIN] IS THE ISRAELI TAIL STARTING TO WAG THE AMERICAN DOG? "It is now time f or the strong to crush the weak." Sharon, Israel's prime minister. #* Suspended rules that would require hardrock mining companies to clean up sites on Western public lands. [HOPES RAISED BY BUSH ADMIN] Fraser I'm so pleased some other people are out there who are thinking the way I am, I was beginning to feel very isolated. Crises like this highlight how biased the UK media are towards the US. I'm more interested in how many lies we are going to be fed now - I mean finding a copy of the Koran near an airport is hardly evidence to condemn whole countries to US bombing - but the media reported it like it should be. How many planes did the US actually shoot down last week? And - when Islamic Fundamentalists are immediately blamed, it puts a lot of pressure on the American Government to find evidence to back that up - a dangerous way of getting to the truth. We weren't told the truth about JFK were we - or the Gulf War Respect Scott Bethell #* Pulled out of the 1997 Kyoto Treaty global warming agreement. [HOPES RAISED BY BUSH ADMIN] Fraser, A little feed-in for the debate: First point: There are many outraged countries in the world, having been attacked by US Bombs. I was in the IRAN/IRAQ war, The Gulf War '90, and served 3 years in a row (6 months each) in Bosnia. I have held dying, innocent civilians in my arms having been deliberately bombed by US attacks, and cradled children as they died of lack of food and medical supplies having had them demolished by US/UN attacks on their countries. I HATE terrorism, and bloodshed in whatever context it is put. You MUST realise I have experience of these things first hand, and you MUST make the effort to see things from their point of view. Bringing the group responsible to justice is the only way, not carpet bombing countries in revenge. Stop this talk of revenge America, you put our PLANET at risk, not least many civilians who will lose their lives as a backlash of the actions you threaten. Second point: For many years many American people/companies have funded and even supported IRA causes, and not batted an eyelid at the atrocities we have come to live with since the '70s. You have my deepest sympathies at what you and the world have experienced over the past few days, but now you must realise what terrible things have been going on for years. NOW STOP YOUR SUPPORT FOR THE IRA - as we will help in the understanding for what you have experienced. joonnyb #* Eliminated program to provide childcare to low-income families as they move from welfare to work. [HOPES RAISED BY BUSH ADMIN] I agree - we should have a global movement for peace Jenny@weinstein #* Cut $700 million in capital funds for repairs in public housing. [HOPES RAISED BY BUSH ADMIN] just a word to say I'm with you on what you are saying........ thanks for putting it out there!! dai owen / wales #* Proposed to curtail the ability of groups to sue in order to get an animal placed on the Endangered Species List. [HOPES RAISED BY BUSH ADMIN] As an Englishman living in New York let me tell you that the city and the country are in mourning and America is reacting to this atrocity with all the fanfare and drama you would expect of them, this is America and everything is extreme, from the mourning to the anger to the calls for retribution. But the fact is that Muslims are not being hunted down and attacked in the streets, my girlfriend is a Muslim from Morocco and hasn't had any trouble from anybody. We have a Mosque in the street behind us, a man who had lost his wife in the towers stood outside the Mosque with his flag and a banner saying "Our vengeance will lay its hands on you", but the people of our neighbourhood, though sympathetic to his loss, called for him to move on, to go home and stop blaming the innocent Muslims in this city. On the whole this has been the reaction everywhere, Arabs and Muslims live in New York, they run Delis 24 hours a day and they are NOT being attacked by a rabid New York Pack. I have seen nothing but strength in my fellow New Yorkers across the city, the city hardly missed a beat in getting back on its feet, people facing the atrocity with resolve rather than the apparent street Tub Thumping that your site seems intent on promoting. steve hulme . new york i am very glad to hear this. however other reports do not confirm this. new york, let's face it, is more european than any city in the US, no? #* Repealed workplace ergonomic rules designed to improve worker health and safety. [HOPES RAISED BY BUSH ADMIN] when i travelled in the amazon basin long ago. i saw how the rich american sat on his hammock drinking cuba libre, he said he did yoga to meditate with god?, whilst of course his skivvies plundered the river for gold out of the big boat, spitting poison mercury and killing the lives of fishes and worms, pushing aside the little indians who travelled mountains by foot to get to the blessed rivers, or rather cursed by the american dollar it seemed. but not the sacred tears of my indian friend who with naked hands washed the left overs of the gringo shit. koru #* Abandoned campaign pledge to regulate carbon dioxide (CO2), the waste gas that contributes to global warming. [HOPES RAISED BY BUSH ADMIN] does our incomplete relationship with our mother dictate how we behave in traumatic conflict situations? does our frightened child act irrationally in panic and act when faced with pain, danger and the feeling of being out of control? is the journey of completion of that parental relationship fundamental in our quest for world peace? and... where does the balance lie between dealing with current realities and the self-examination necessary for us to avoid more action/reaction cause and effect cycles. ps it's mostly men who are terrorists and warmongers. why? :) (GroupMind debate on //YOU site) #* Closed White House Office for Women's Health Initiatives and Outreach. [HOPES RAISED BY BUSH ADMIN] Call to Action In the first three day's of commentary on the appalling act of terrorism against the US, hardly a female voice was heard. The message sent out to us was loud and clear: war is a man's game and men will decide what to do. Women must make their voices heard and have a say in the response to the attack on the US. It was a symbolic as well as a physical act of aggression. It will determine the kind of world we live in and our futures. Our views must be taken into account. … write a letter to your representative urging a considered and measured response that is not about retribution and addresses causes and not just effects … organise a petitioning action in support of your letter … join our e-mail petition by sending an e-mail with your response to Action@FEMVision.org We are compiling a petition of responses to be made available to everybody for use as a lobby tool for action in their countries. Dr Clare Howard, Vice-President FEMVision, Berkshire, UK Clare@FEMVision.org web site: www.femvision.org FEMVision, a collaboration of women entrepreneurs, is a European lobbying group. By voicing our personal and often different experiences as women in business and in our communities, we work to introduce a female vision into the European political economy and transform the civil and economic framework of business. In particular, FEMVision works to ensure that women's contributions and needs, are more visible in the economic and leadership arenas across the European world. #* O.K.'d Interior Secretary Gale Norton to go forth with a controversial plan to auction oil and gas development tracts off the coast eastern of Florida. [HOPES RAISED BY BUSH ADMIN] Dear Dad, All my prayers seem to have helped. Remember think White light. It is the only thing that will protect us and the world. Please send my condolences to grandma for her dear friend Ruth . I know she will be missed greatly. Just give her some extra love. Please take care of her. My prayers are with the families of the victims. I have here something I want to send you from a friend here in Europe, some very interesting opinions from Fraser Clark PhD psychology, leading light of the young club scene in London about the "American Paranoia". I would like you to send these important views, but not to dismiss them but accept them with an open mind please, World Peace may depend on it! Please send this info to Uncle Malcolm, especially since he is working in the Pentagon. The most influential politicians and business leaders must see and hear this. I love you, Give my Love to Alta, And Uncle Malcolm & Maria & the boys And just let them know i am glad they made it safely out. Love, Nicole. #* Renegotiating free trade agreement with Jordan to eliminate safeguards for the environment and workers' rights. [HOPES RAISED BY BUSH ADMIN] Maybe the planet would be better off without any of us When bad people do evil things, then those who profit most are other bad people: it's like they have a sort of arrangement with each other. We have already seen the Israeli government of Ariel Sharon taking advantage of last Tuesday's attacks in New York by invading Palestinian areas and murdering their citizens more or less at random. Of course, with the impeccable instinct for public relations that Palestinians have always shown, some of the silly bastards allowed themselves to be taped celebrating the events at the World Trade Centre - there's one fat woman in ugly specs whose witless, grinning gob will stay with me for a long time. But then 50 years of poverty, humiliation and cruelty do not, amazingly, automatically make you into a good, kind or sensible person. However, I am left wondering, given how much circumstances always seem to conspire against the entirely reasonable cause of the Palestinian people, whether they wouldn't be better off in the end just jacking the whole thing in, giving up, closing the business, shutting up shop with the whole looking-for-justice thing, because it's not really working out, is it? Yasser Arafat might be wise to issue a statement saying something like "Look lads, we've given it a good go, but every time we think we're getting somewhere then some bloody thing happens which strengthens our enemies and puts us back to square zero. I mean, I know our only crime in the first place was to be somewhere where a load of people from Europe wanted to be, but there's too many powerful forces ranged against us, so all of your mates at the PLO high command have decided we're going to knock the whole protest on the head. From now on we're going to let the Israelis push us around, steal our land, destroy our homes and we're going to let them do it without a bleat of protest. From now the Fateh supreme council can be contacted via a bed and breakfast hotel in Dover. See you around, Yasser, Hanan and all the gang." Seeing the destruction wrought in the United States, watching all the various odious factions scrambling for advantage, unable to understand anything except their own twisted point of view, made me think what a nasty, dangerous species we really are. Our brains don't seem to have evolved at the same pace as our fingers, so that what we have in us is a creature with the basic mentality of a coyote but with the ability to create all manner of terrible weapons. I know that James Cameron and Arnold Schwarzenegger are currently working on the third in the Terminator series of movies. Maybe in this latest version the heroes should be SkyNet, the computer that wants to wipe out mankind, and Cyberdyne Systems, manufacturers of the killer Cyborgs. After a titanic struggle, John Connor, the leader of the human resistance, is defeated and our kind is wiped from the face of the Earth. The machines convert themselves into singing cappuccino machines or fly off to explore other worlds or miniaturise themselves until they are the size of an atom and the planet that formerly housed us begins to heal itself. The rainforests start to re-grow over the shattered landscape, cute, furry, almost-extinct animals emerge to sniff the air and to repopulate, the seas again teem with life, the skies grow dark with birds. And maybe, when you think about it, George W Bush might be arranging that situation for us right now. Alexei Sayle / London #* Will no longer seek guidance from The American Bar Association in recommendations for the federal judiciary appointments. [HOPES RAISED BY BUSH ADMIN] To truly honor the horrific death of our brothers and sisters we can find a way to settle this thing by not perpetuating the cycle that has led to their deaths. Take care of business, but don't feed the beast - revenge/ anger although understandable is a dysfunctional behavior. Feel the pain america, cry the tears, and do the right thing with action that isn't distorted by these emotions. (GroupMind debate on //YOU site) #* Appointed recycling foe Lynn Scarlett as Undersecretary of the Interior. [HOPES RAISED BY BUSH ADMIN] Send me this shit again and I shall personally make sure you are tracked down and prosecuted for sending hate mail under the Race Relations Act. Take my email address off your lists NOW! Chris.Orr@virginwines.com #* Appointed Otto Reich - an un-indicted high level Iran Contra figure-to Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs. [HOPES RAISED BY BUSH ADMIN] "I'm astounded by people who want to "know" the universe when it's hard enough to find your way around Chinatown." Woody Allen wot the hell is that doing in here? #* Cut Environmental Protection Agency budget by $500 million. [HOPES RAISED BY BUSH ADMIN] Fraser, your call for Americans to get the government we deserve is quite idealistic, but I don't know how realistic, seeing as how we have a president that didn't even win the popular vote, which only represented under 10% of the population anyway and who was thrust into his party's leadership through some corrupt, sketchy primary process. a generation of ravers has to now become radicalised, i think. ravers worldwide now know and feel together, with each other, on a much higher level than mere nationalism and politics. now we must, while maintaining that unity, descend into the material plane in every way we can to sort out the world. i don't see that as difficult or unlikely, not at all, but it may need a spark. Although the media has declared the people want war, I have yet to meet or communicate with a single individual who feels that way, including relatives of victims in NYC. But, it should be noted, as I haven't heard much on the subject, that many of us have been very seriously effected by the events in other ways. Here in Hawaii for example, where the economy is totally based on tourism, the bottom has fallen out, just about everyone I know is scrambling to figure out how to pay rent and buy food. Fortunately, once we all make transitions, everything we need to survive is on the Island. this last line of yours could almost be our future motto: Fortunately, once we all make transitions, everything we need to survive is on the Island. perhaps an immediate Move is to offer 25% of this year's GDP to begin sorting out the economic injustices on the planet a sign to the huddled masses that americans CAN act unselfishly. everyone taking a cut in hir own consumption level? the Hippies got quite far down this road. I hear your call and wonder, WHAT CAN BE DONE to stop this impending violence. Major protests at Democratic and Republican conventions during the last elections, were not only not acknowledged, but barely reported by the media. Our secretary of state, supposedly a diplomatic position, wears a military uniform! It is clear we are not a government of the people in any way shape or form. Pray for the American people, living and dead. Our mission is to center ourselves in our inner radiance and spread that light, one by one, forming a growing community. Thank you so much for providing balanced viewpoints and heartfelt dialogue. IMURI Odysseus / hawaii #* Took steps to abolish the White House Council on Environmental Quality. [HOPES RAISED BY BUSH ADMIN] ATTACK WITH BREAD? Given that we all know that America will attack Afghanistan, the least they can do is attack with bread! Maybe you could publish this! Peace, Philip #* Cut the Community Oriented Policing Services program. [HOPES RAISED BY BUSH ADMIN] good responses Fraser, my take below Forget, for a moment, the immediate issues of cause, blame and effects. The sheer symbolism of this historic tragedy seems inescapable to me. When a handful of men armed with knives so successfully attack the world's last and mightiest-ever superpower it can herald but one thing. The days of that superpower's eminence are coming to an end. It will be dissolution from here for the American Empire - a wounded Goliath. Perhaps it will bleed slowly away as it bankrolls a doomed and deadly new high-tech production of The Crusades. greg sams / london #* Allowed Interior Secretary Gale Norton to shelve citizen-led grizzly bear re-introduction plan scheduled for Idaho and Montana wilderness. [HOPES RAISED BY BUSH ADMIN] Dear sir/madam, Thank you for this very interesting e-mail. I sent it to all my partners. Eelni Tsala / PROTASIS #* Makes sure convicted misdemeanor drug users cannot get financial aid for college...though convicted murderers can. [HOPES RAISED BY BUSH ADMIN] It seems that any opinion relating to NYC should be prefaced with a few basic facts, such as: 1) yes, it was a tragedy 2) yes, it was a black, black day for humanity 3) yes, it was the innocents who suffered. But it also seems that the voicing of any doubts about the American / world reaction is to align yourself with the perpetrators of this appalling crime. And that seems to cut to my major problem, the heart of the matter as far as I can see it: the unswerving assumption that whatever America says, does or thinks, is the "right" thing. (One other thing to point out - the use of the word America in what follows generally means the US government - too many people seem to assume that by questioning the background to the attack and to the reaction, you're suggesting that those who died were in some way culpable. That's clearly utter bollocks...) As a Londoner who's been living with terrorism all his life (as have the citizens of many countries) I think the reaction to the NYC tragedy is more a knee-jerk one from a country who clearly genuinely believed they were loved and admired worldwide. But we're the good guys, goes the cry, we must have revenge. The simple fact is that the NYC incident WAS revenge. Revenge for 50 years of foreign policy that the average American citizen has no understanding of. The people I have spoken to genuinely believe that America is a force for good. That the times they've become involved in any foreign dispute/ war/ skirmish, it was because civil liberties were threatened. That innocents were suffering. You only have to look at how many situations have been "overlooked" to realise that any involvement has been because of economic threat (Oil in the Gulf, for example) or because it was strategically advantageous to do so (Korea, Vietnam...). Expressing such doubts gets the jingoistic response along the lines of "after all we did for you guys in the Second World War" (one even said I should be thankful for the US' help during the Battle of Britain! Which took place in 1940. Er...). Well, let's look at that. Yes, without the Americans, there's no way of saying what would have happened. Yes, we needed their help in defending the liberty of Europe. But millions died before the US ever got involved. And they didn't want to know. It was only when there was the possibility of Europe falling under one leader and, as a result, possibly becoming an even greater superpower than the US, and after the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor (in 1941 for those who didn't understand the Battle of Britain reference) got the US directly involved that they sprung into action. So liberty? A force for good? Or defence of their economy? As a superpower, the Americans must be aware that they are envied and that they are hated. But, as a superpower, they can afford to brush this hatred off. And look at what they've done to become so hated. And work to change that. The waste of life is appalling. But it's not unprecedented and there are too many people who don't realise that. The problem seems to be that, unlike the victims in the Middle East, not forgetting Omagh, Eniskillen, the assorted London bombs, the bombing of the Sudan, etc., the victims here are mostly American. And apparently their lives are more valuable than anyone else's in the rest of the world. Personally, I observed a two minute silence because that's always been regarded as a sufficient mark of respect for the hundreds of thousands of similarly innocent people who died in the World Wars etc, defending our freedom. If two minutes is good enough for them, then it's certainly good enough for the innocent victims of this atrocity... Others have also raised the question of just who George W. has declared war on. That is a major problem. The perpetrators are probably not a country. It's a faction with members everywhere. Anyone harbouring such people will be held to be equally guilty and must pay the price, says Bush. Er... Don't forget that the fax claiming Bin Laden's responsibility for the bombing of the US Embassy was sent from a grocer's shop in Willesden, North London. Does that mean we're harbouring these people in the UK? Does that mean we must look forward to carpet bombing? Or does it mean that citizens around the world will now point fingers of suspicion at everyone who looks vaguely foreign in order to save themselves? That and the threats on your e mail from that person wanting to be removed from the list that they'll report this sort of opinion to the FBI leads to perhaps my greatest worry. The chance for the US government - and, sadly, a number of American citizens - to use this to eradicate whatever the hell they want to define as "anti-American activities". Already there's stories of Sikhs with Bin Laden style beards and turbans being attacked. Of Mosques being vandalised. Of anyone expressing a doubt as to the American government's right to impose their will upon the world... Think McCarthyism. Multiply it by 100. And you still might not be close. As a final side note, there's an interesting statistic that any power that has had the eagle as its emblem has become a fascist dictatorship. Before you doubt my worries, and talk about the need to defend the world from genuine dictators, the ones who ignore democracy, etc. just think about what happened in the US election. Then tell me I'm crazy... Yours appalled and scared, in roughly equal measure Neil Davey / footloosemagazine #* Refused to fund continued cleanup of uranium-slag heap in Utah. [HOPES RAISED BY BUSH ADMIN] INEVITABLE RING TO THE UNIMAGINABLE by JOHN PILGER (Britain's most respected alternative reporter) IF the attacks on America have their source in the Islamic world, who can really be surprised? Two days earlier, eight people were killed in southern Iraq when British and American planes bombed civilian areas. To my knowledge, not a word appeared in the mainstream media in Britain. An estimated 200,000 Iraqis, according to the Health Education Trust in London, died during and in the immediate aftermath of the slaughter known as the Gulf War. This was never news that touched public consciousness in the west. At least a million civilians, half of them children, have since died in Iraq as a result of a medieval embargo imposed by the United States and Britain. In Pakistan and Afghanistan, the Mujadeen, which gave birth to the fanatical Taliban, was largely the creation of the CIA. The terrorist training camps where Osama bin Laden, now "America's most wanted man", allegedly planned his attacks, were built with American money and backing. In Palestine, the enduring illegal occupation by Israel would have collapsed long ago were it not for US backing. Far from being the terrorists of the world, the Islamic peoples have been its victims - principally the victims of US fundamentalism, whose power, in all its forms, military, strategic and economic, is the greatest source of terrorism on earth. This fact is censored from the Western media, whose "coverage" at best minimises the culpability of imperial powers. Richard Falk, professor of international relations at Princeton, put it this way: "Western foreign policy is presented almost exclusively through a self-righteous, one-way legal/moral screen (with) positive images of Western values and innocence portrayed as threatened, validating a campaign of unrestricted political violence." That Tony Blair, whose government sells lethal weapons to Israel and has sprayed Iraq and Yugoslavia with cluster bombs and depleted uranium and was the greatest arms supplier to the genocidists in Indonesia, can be taken seriously when he now speaks about the "shame" of the "new evil of mass terrorism" says much about the censorship of our collective sense of how the world is managed. Alas, it is no comfort to the families of thousands of ordinary Americans who have died so terribly that the perpetrators of their suffering may be the product of Western policies. Did the American establishment believe that it could bankroll and manipulate events in the Middle East without cost to itself, or rather its own innocent people? The attacks on Tuesday come at the end of a long history of betrayal of the Islamic and Arab peoples: the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the foundation of the state of Israel, four Arab-Israeli wars and 34 years of Israel's brutal occupation of an Arab nation: all, it seems, obliterated within hours by Tuesday's acts of awesome cruelty by those who say they represent the victims of the West's intervention in their homelands. "America, which has never known modern war, now has her own terrible league table: perhaps as many as 20,000 victims." As Robert Fisk points out, in the Middle East, people will grieve the loss of innocent life, but they will ask if the newspapers and television networks of the west ever devoted a fraction of the present coverage to the half-a-million dead children of Iraq, and the 17,500 civilians killed in Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon. The answer is no. There are deeper roots to the atrocities in the US, which made them almost inevitable. It is not only the rage and grievance in the Middle East and south Asia. Since the end of the cold war, the US and its sidekicks, principally Britain, have exercised, flaunted, and abused their wealth and power while the divisions imposed on human beings by them and their agents have grown as never before. An elite group of less than a billion people now take more than 80% of the world's wealth. In defence of this power and privilege, known by the euphemisms "free market" and "free trade", the injustices are legion: from the illegal blockade of Cuba, to the murderous arms trade, dominated by the US, to its trashing of basic environmental decencies, to the assault on fragile economies by institutions such as the World Trade Organisation that are little more than agents of the US Treasury and the European central banks, and the demands of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund in forcing the poorest nations to repay unrepayable debts; to a new US "Vietnam" in Colombia and the sabotage of peace talks between North and South Korea (in order to shore up North Korea's "rogue nation" status). Western terror is part of the recent history of imperialism, a word that journalists dare not speak or write. The expulsion of the population of Diego Darcia in the 1960s by the Wilson government received almost no press coverage. Their homeland is now an American nuclear arms dump and base from which US bombers patrol the Middle East. In Indonesia, in 1965/6, a million people were killed with the complicity of the US and British governments: the Americans supplying General Suharto with assassination lists, then ticking off names as people were killed. "Getting British companies and the World Bank back in there was part of the deal", says Roland Challis, who was the BBC's south east Asia correspondent. British behaviour in Malaya was no different from the American record in Vietnam, for which it proved inspirational: the withholding of food, villages turned into concentration camps and more than half a million people forcibly dispossessed. In Vietnam, the dispossession, maiming and poisoning of an entire nation was apocalyptic, yet diminished in our memory by Hollywood movies and by what Edward Said rightly calls cultural imperialism. In Operation Phoenix, in Vietnam, the CIA arranged the homicide of around 50,000 people. As official documents now reveal, this was the model for the terror in Chile that climaxed with the murder of the democratically elected leader Salvador Allende, and within 10 years, the crushing of Nicaragua. All of it was lawless. The list is too long for this piece. Now imperialism is being rehabilitated. American forces currently operate with impunity from bases in 50 countries. "Full spectrum dominance" is Washington's clearly stated aim. Read the documents of the US Space Command, which leaves us in no doubt. In this country, the eager Blair government has embarked on four violent adventures, in pursuit of "British interests" (dressed up as "peacekeeping"), and which have little or no basis in international law: a record matched by no other British government for half a century. What has all this to do with this week's atrocities in America? If you travel among the impoverished majority of humanity, you understand that it has everything to do with it. People are neither still, nor stupid. They see their independence compromised, their resources and land and the lives of their children taken away, and their accusing fingers increasingly point north: to the great enclaves of plunder and privilege. Inevitably, terror breeds terror and more fanaticism. But how patient the oppressed have been. It is only a few years ago that the Islamic fundamentalist groups, willing to blow themselves up in Israel and New York, were formed, and only after Israel and the US had rejected outright the hope of a Palestinian state, and justice for a people scarred by imperialism. Their distant voices of rage are now heard; the daily horrors in faraway brutalised places have at last come home. #* Refused to fund continued litigation of the government's tobacco company lawsuit. [HOPES RAISED BY BUSH ADMIN] WIRELESS PHONE SALES MAY RISE AFTER TERROR ATTACK, ANALYST SAYS http://quote.bloomberg.com/fgcgi.cgi?ptitle=Technology%20News&s1=blk&tp=ad_topright_tech&T=markets_bfgcgi_content99.ht&s2=ad_right1_technology&bt=ad_position1_technology&middle=ad_frame2_technology&s=AO6IwYBaKV2lyZWxl Capitalism never stops, does it? Who'll be the good performers when the New York stock market re-opens today? Sell blood! Buy armaments! Glad to hear that not everyone is a hypocrite. Even the usually reliable Radio 4 news is in God Bless America mode. Daniel James LATE LATE NEWS: "These cowardly attacks will not break America's spirit nor resolve to go on selling shit for a profit" declares defiant US president, reading prepared message live on TV. #* Proposed a $2 trillion tax cut, of which 43% will go to the wealthiest 1% of Americans. [HOPES RAISED BY BUSH ADMIN] Dear fraser, Over the last few days I've received countless unsolicited chain emails from people I don't know - many full of the most awful, jingoistic, sabre rattling, neo-imperialist, hypocritical bullshit. (I've been emailing them back with Chomsky's 'On The Bombings' and Zinn's 'Retaliation'). Thanks for your good sense and humanity. Richard Smith / Associate Editor / Gay Times #* Signed a bill making it harder for poor and middle-class Americans to file for bankruptcy, even in the case of daunting medical bills. [HOPES RAISED BY BUSH ADMIN] Fuck you and take me off of your mailing list. adam@giantstep.net I guess the giant step u mean is a huge foot crushing what's left out of people that already have nothing. #* Appointed a Vice President quoted as saying "If you want to do something about carbon dioxide emissions, then you ought to build nuclear power plants." [Vice President Dick Cheney on "Meet the Press."] [HOPES RAISED BY BUSH ADMIN] Thank you for your voice of sanity at this time, Fraser.... it's such a shame that we're just email pen friends now - 'spose that's life in the big city.... i got back from NY just in time - last weekend. i've thought of myself as living in NY-Lon, but maybe this combination isn't going to be viable much longer.... lots of love mee xoxxx #* Proposed elimination of the "Reading is Fundamental" program that gives free books to poor children. [HOPES RAISED BY BUSH ADMIN] "I DON'T GIVE A FUCK ABOUT YUPPIES IN FLAMES" As an anarchist with green sympathies (though not part of the 'Green Anarchist' network or ideology) I was horrified at this posting. This person is not an anarchist in any way! He's either a loony or an agent of the State spreading disinformation. He's as much of an anarchist as Charles Manson was a Hippy!! Lets get it clear that anarchism is about authentic HUMAN emancipation from all forms of control and slavery (political, economic or ideological) not the kind of fascism this guy is spouting (remember Hitler preferred animals to people too)! I think his chosen handle speaks volumes! Reich Black anarchx totally agree, anarchx! but that's how deep some people have been pushed and if this Holy War gets going I might very well start to feel like him myself - except for all you beautiful, intelligent and moral people on this site and elsewhere! #* Is pushing for development of small nuclear weapons to attack deeply buried targets-weapons, which would violate the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. [HOPES RAISED BY BUSH ADMIN] good work fraser, what u're doing is vital. we need a place where we can feel solidarity while coming to terms with the awful truth, where we can share knowledge through sincere debate, and where we can find the perspective we need to understand the way out of all this madness. charley / london. #* Proposes to reverse regulation protecting 60 million acres of national forest from logging and road building. [HOPES RAISED BY BUSH ADMIN] Today Bush declared he'd start bombing the Taliban if they didn't give up Osama Bin Laden by Thursday. The day he picked is the very last day of the current galactic spin - Yellow Cosmic Sun - the highest frequency galactic activation portal of the Dreamspell Calendar.* All the karma of these end times is stored in a microfractal that will be activated that day. The apocalypse vs jihad script has left us with a plain choice. Do we declare war - or do we declare peace? Does the world descend into a spiral of violence? Or do we redeem history at the very last moment? You decide. Not Bush. Not Bin Laden. Can the people of this planet break the chain of violence that has engulfed us so often in our recent times? Many are dead in New York. How many more innocent people will have to die before WE wake up and reclaim our power from the warmongers and terrorisers? The solution is to hand - a declaration of planetary peace by each and every one of us. What if they threw a war and nobody came? Can we dare to imagine a world of peace - or will we go on with 'business as usual' asleep as our leaders bring us to the brink of apocalypse? Resist the mind control. Resist the programming. War is futile, murderous and messy - and it won't bring back a single loved one. Who benefits from all of this? Bin Laden was made what he is today by the CIA - the Bush 'family firm'. Can we escape this karmic spiral and break the chain of violence? Let us mobilise - not for war- but for peace. Let us unite, not as 'pacifists' but as peace activists. For each other. For our unborn children. For humanity. For the planet. Let's make this the day the world changed forever- not because of another sickening act of violence, but because we woke up and said 'ENOUGH'. Don't wait until it's too late. World Peace Now! Inlak'ech All My Love Mark Heley - White Galactic Wind #* Eliminated the "We the People" education program which taught schoolchildren about the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and citizenship. * Appointed John Bolton - who opposes nonproliferation treaties and the U.N. - to Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security. [HOPES RAISED BY BUSH ADMIN] Dear fraser, Although I completely agree with your approach to questioning the roots of Anti-Americanism and global imbalance due to America, your fanaticism might be your worst enemy in your crusade to inform the world. moi? Just like the increasing ridiculousness of the G8 riots in Italy for example, in my mind, it is turning the activists into idiots getting killed. I was fully supportive of the Seattle riots, and completely agree with all the demands of the activists, but, preaching what they (we) are against, without presenting the solution in a sane way is equally as destructive as the powers that oppress us. Kenji. partly true for sure. but a system can be more damaging than good for everyone involved. i have an essay on this somewhere but it was true about soviet communism and it could be true about this one - from whose corruption, after all, communism first took off. but i certainly agree that it's easier to criticise than to do it. i know that only too well from my clubs and indeed from this UPGRADE. but i think the truth is that there are MANY MANY alternatives on offer - and i speak as a hippy who was asked for 20 years "What would you put in its place - you want COMMUNISM?!" eh, no thanks, that's not what i mean at all. nowadays there is much more knowledge to bring in beneficial changes. but maybe it's a root and branch moral change that's required. and don't underestimate feelings. consider this: " 'For it is written I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things that are mighty.' "Saint Paul said that. It is a familiar passage from what is now an oppressively respectable source. So familiar and so respectable that we easily lose sight of how aggressively perverse a declaration it is ... how loaded with unabashed contempt for a long established culture rich with achievement. And whose contempt was this? That of absolute nobodies, the very scum of the earth, whose own counter-culture was, at this early stage, little more than a scattering of suggestive ideas, a few crude symbols, and a desperate longing. It was the longing which counted most, for not all the grandeur of Greco-Roman civilisation could fill the desolation of spirit which Christianity bred on." Theodore Rozak: The Making of a Counter Culture. #* Nominated Terrence Boyle - ardent opponent of civil rights - to a federal judgeship. * Canceled 2004 deadline for automakers to develop prototype high mileage cars. [HOPES RAISED BY BUSH ADMIN] INTERVIEWING CHOMSKY / RADIO B92, BELGRADE A sensible person would try to ascertain Bin Laden's views, and the sentiments of the large reservoir of supporters he has throughout the region. About all of this, we have a great deal of information. Bin Laden has been interviewed extensively over the years by highly reliable Middle East specialists. Bin Laden and his "Afghanis" turned against the US in 1990 when they established permanent bases in Saudi Arabia -- from his point of view, a counterpart to the Russian occupation of Afghanistan, but far more significant because of Saudi Arabia's special status as the guardian of the holiest shrines. Bin Laden is also bitterly opposed to the corrupt and repressive regimes of the region, which he regards as "un-Islamic," including the Saudi Arabian regime, the most extreme Islamic fundamentalist regime in the world, apart from the Taliban, and a close US ally since its origins. Bin Laden despises the US for its support of these regimes. Like others in the region, he is also outraged by long-standing US support for Israel's brutal military occupation, now in its 35th year: Washington's decisive diplomatic, military, and economic intervention in support of the killings, the harsh and destructive siege over many years, the daily humiliation to which Palestinians are subjected, the expanding settlements designed to break the occupied territories into Bantustan-like cantons and take control of the resources, the gross violation of the Geneva Conventions, and other actions that are recognized as crimes throughout most of the world, apart from the US, which has prime responsibility for them. And like others, he contrasts Washington's dedicated support for these crimes with the decade-long US-British assault against the civilian population of Iraq, which has devastated the society and caused hundreds of thousands of deaths while strengthening Saddam Hussein -- who was a favored friend and ally of the US and Britain right through his worst atrocities, including the gassing of the Kurds, as people of the region also remember well, even if Westerners prefer to forget the facts. These sentiments are very widely shared. The Wall Street Journal (Sept. 14) published a survey of opinions of wealthy and privileged Muslims in the Gulf region (bankers, professionals, businessmen with close links to the U.S.). They expressed much the same views: resentment of the U.S. policies of supporting Israeli crimes and blocking the international consensus on a diplomatic settlement for many years while devastating Iraqi civilian society, supporting harsh and repressive anti-democratic regimes throughout the region, and imposing barriers against economic development by "propping up oppressive regimes." Among the great majority of people suffering deep poverty and oppression, similar sentiments are far more bitter, and are the source of the fury and despair that has led to suicide bombings, as commonly understood by those who are interested in the facts. #* Nominated John Walters - strong opponent of prison drug treatment programs-for Drug Czar. * Nominated J. Steven Giles - an oil and coal lobbyist - as Deputy Secretary of the Interior. [HOPES RAISED BY BUSH ADMIN] Nothing the Israelis have ever launched on the Palestinians has ever matched the sick cowardly attacks of whoever has not even heard the guts to claim responsibility on New York and DC today. Not even close. You are now officially marked down as an anti-Semite and I will be sure to let people know whenever your name comes up. Over and out. <tony@ijamming.net> # NOVELTY OVERLOAD..... REALITY SYSTEM COLLAPSE IMMINENT .......! I think the world just went through a 'history warp', we switched dimensions and entered another timeline. The "Manhattan Transfer Effect" punched a hole in the fabric of the space-time continuum, History is now different and we are literally in a parallel universe where "mass death events" and our responses to them will now be the defining moments of our civilisation. THE NEXT LEVEL: ASYMMETRIC WARFARE! Nuclear Terrorism. Nuclear Assassination of the terrorist enemy. We are now on the wrong side of History. The dark side. May God save our souls. AMEN Peter Solomon #* Nominated Bennett Raley - who advocates repealing the Endangered Species Act - for Assistant Secretary for Water and Science. * Earmarked $4 million in new federal grant money for HIV and drug abuse prevention programs to go only to religious groups and not secular equivalents. [HOPES RAISED BY BUSH ADMIN] MAYBE WE SHOULD JUST LET THE AMERICANS DIG THEMSELVES ANOTHER VIETNAM? Here's what Robert Fisk, a much trusted reporter from the area, wrote in The Independent, 18 September 2001 President Bush is talking about a "crusade'' it would be difficult to find a word more likely to enrage Muslims but if he plans to wage it in Afghanistan, the United States faces a military campaign more fraught and potentially even more costly than Vietnam. Ground troops may be necessary to seize Osama bin Laden but they will be entering a country containing one tenth of the world's land mines, left by Soviet occupation forces across 80 per cent of the land. Besides, anyone who wants to invade Afghanistan needs friends. The Russians had the communist government of Babrak Karmal. But, with the murder of the only serious opponent of the Taliban, Shah Masood, by Arab suicide bombers nine days ago, the United States hasn't a single friend in that cemetery of foreign armies. So, are the Americans planning a mere attack by cruise missiles? They fired 70 missiles at Osama bin Laden's camps after the bombing of the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam they knew where they were, of course, because the camps were built by the CIA during the Afghan-Russian war but they did not touch Mr bin Laden. Do they plan to use special parachute units to descend on the areas around Kandahar where Mr bin Laden has been known to live in the past? And what about those mines? If the Americans are even contemplating a ground force, it can enter only from Pakistan the most dangerous main supply route it would be possible to find and up the Kabul Gorge from Jalalabad. But the Russians seeded the perimeters of Jalalabad, Kandahar, Khost and Herat with anti-armour mines. There are, in Afghanistan today, more than 10 million mines. They lie in fields, on mountainsides, beside roads, around the big cities, along irrigation ditches. On average, between 20 and 25 Afghan men, women and children are blown up by mines every day even if we take the lower figure, this indicates 73,000 civilian casualties from these mines in the past 10 years alone. A military incursion would, therefore, need an army of mine clearance specialists as well as soldiers, men who would have to inch their way over the roughest terrain in the world while under attack to make the roads and countryside safe for the Americans and their allies. Of Afghanistan's 29 provinces, 27 are littered with mines. During their savage 10-year occupation, the Russians also planted thousands of mines in "security zones'' around Afghanistan's airports, power stations and government installations. Western non-governmental organisations working in the country two years ago estimated that it would cost £80 per mine to clear Afghanistan's 10 million mines and 45 days to clear merely a square mile of land. There are now two million disabled men, women and children in Afghanistan. No infantry can march across this territory. And then there is that main supply route. Pakistan has already made clear that it will not involve its own military in a campaign, although there are suspicions that enough money might persuade General Musharraf now respectfully referred to as President by the Americans even though he took the presidency illegally to change his mind. However, the "Jihadi" culture has already impregnated the Pakistan army and there is a real possibility of unrest turning to civil war if the Americans arrived to invade Muslim Afghanistan. The very border areas through which a Western army would have to pass are held by men loyal to the Taliban. On the Pakistani side of the frontier, there are now 2,000 Taliban madrassas (schools) where religious teaching is given not only to potential mujahedin but to Chechen and Tadjik fighters as well. The policemen who guard these madrassas constitute a mere facade of governmental control. Even if the Americans penetrated Afghanistan, their shells would only plough over the ruins. The Russians tried to destroy the Taliban's predecessors with 10 years of bombing, destroying whole villages, with their people, farm animals, fields, trees and mud huts. And still they could not get rid of the mujahedin, still they could not to use Mr Bush's inappropriately folksy phrase "smoke them out of their holes''. With Pakistan as its only, broken ally among Afghanistan's neighbours, with no friends inside the country and 10 million hidden land mines lying across its mountains and fields and cities, Mr Bush's "crusade'' looks more than dangerous. We are now being told that the United States is no longer afraid to take casualties. America, the President says, will have to accept losses. He'd better be right. #** Proposes to ease permit process - including environmental considerations - for refinery, nuclear and hydroelectric dam construction. * Proposes that $1.2 billion in funding for alternative renewable energy come from selling oil and gas lease tracts in the Alaska National Wildlife Reserve. [HOPES RAISED BY BUSH ADMIN]* YOU 2600 H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H * YOUR PLANET NEEDS //YOU! this HipList grows by recommendation. RECOMMEND SOMEONE 2DAY!!!!!!!!!! * TO BE REMOVED from the HipList, simply hit REPLY with the word REMOVE in the Subject box * TO DEBATE ANYTHING in the UPGRADE, visit the GroupMind Debating Board on www.parallel-youniversity.com * WE NEVER HAVE SPACE to publish everything, so check the EMAG on our site for the longer, deeper stuff * YES, YES, SEND US EDUTAINING NEWS’N VIEWS no need to ask! :-) * FOR MORE ON RAVE CULTURE ETC VISIT http://easyweb.easynet.co.uk/fraserclark/ H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H Fraser Clark http://easyweb.easynet.co.uk/fraserclark/ Parallel-YOUniversity, Box 833, London NW6, UK. www.parallel-youniversity.com IMPORTANT: This email is intended for the use of the individual addressee(s) named above and may contain information that is confidential privileged or unsuitable for overly sensitive persons with low self-esteem, no sense of humour or absurd religious beliefs. 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