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the UP! //:-) 152 april 2, 2003
la - la - la - lap-toppling da system!
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“love peace awareness to the YOUniversal YOUmanistic YOUniversity! and the UP! is a welcome antidote to TV's 24/7 wet dream!” john ‘crow’ constable
TEXT JOCKEY // TJ PHRASER (Fraser Clark) & THE MEDIA EVOLUTION MIXING THE TRACTS LIVE ON THE KEYBOARD @ A MEDIA-MEME RATE OF 160 IPP *
* Ideas Per Paragraph
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Click Here to read the last UP!!
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The UP! (or UP!grademag) is a global edutainment round-up, ‘broadcast’ weekly to =[11,092]= Alternative// Activist// Zippy// Trance// New Age folks who have been recommended to the Parallel YOUniversity//Megatripolis Dance Dept as "showing signs of life". Since many recipients choose to forward it or parts of it to their own lists, we conservatively estimate 30,000+ direct recipients. Further, because of its less 'specialist' content, it's increasingly being posted on a variety of sites worldwide, making an estimated total weekly ‘readership’ of =[275,000+]=
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* * * * * * * * * ASTRO ENERGY ANALYSIS FOR APRIL 2-8 * * * * *
PREPARE FOR ANYTHING
If strange things happen this week, blame Churn the centaur,
who knew about healing and astronomy,
and also likes technology and outer space.
Chiron now is travelling through Capricorn,
sign of the Establishment.
And Mars gives it a push into its high tech never-never land.
For details, see Maya’s Daily Success Guide at
www.daykeeperjournal.com
UP!PREPARE FOR ANYTHING
If strange things happen this week, blame Churn the centaur,
who knew about healing and astronomy,
and also likes technology and outer space.
Chiron now is travelling through Capricorn,
sign of the Establishment.
And Mars gives it a push into its high tech never-never land.
For details, see Maya’s Daily Success Guide at
www.daykeeperjournal.com
“STOP THIS WAR NOW! As Baghdad will be encircled, this is the time to get the UN back in to inspect Baghdad and the rest of Iraq for biological and chemical weapons.
AMERICAN TROOPS should not have to be the ones who will find out, in house-to-house combat in a city of 5 million people, Before we ask our troops to take up the burden of shooting innocent civilians in the fog of war, we must ask: Why put them at greater risk when we could get the UN inspectors back in?!
“STOP THIS WAR NOW! Show our wisdom and our humanity, to be able to stop it, to bring the UN back into the process. Rescue this moment. Rescue this nation from a war that is wrong, unjust, illegal and immoral."
Dennis Kucinich in a speech on the floor of the house yesterday.
(http://www.kucinich.us)
UP!
'orrible 'orrible deeds seem to be happening on the fronts where there are few reporters as, FRUSTRATED & ENRAGED , the
DINOS TAKE THE GLOVES OFF!
55% OF AMERICANS SAY GOVT WAS “OVERLY OPTIMISTIC”, 90% ARE AGAINST WAR IN FRANCE, 85% AGAINST THE WAR IN GERMANY, 75% AGAINST WAR IN ITALY AND ONE MILLION MARCH AGAINST IT IN MOROCCO. morocco?!!!
8,700 BOMBS HAVE RAINED DOWN ON IRAQ IN LAST 12 DAYS, INCLUDING 3,000 MISSILES OVER THE WEEKEND.
INDEED THEY ARE ACTUALLY RUNNING OUT OF SMART MISSILES!
MARCH 30 AFGHANISTAN - US SPECIAL FORCES CONVOY AMBUSHED BY TALIBAN, 2 DEAD
AND BIG MOUTH RUMSFELD REVEALS ‘SECRET’ PLAN TO “SORT OUT” IRAN AND SYRIA etc etc
“A HUNDRED BIN LADENS WILL BE CREATED BY THIS ILLEGAL ATTACK” President Mubarak, Egypt.
“Iraq! Saddam! Will never be defeated!” South Iraqi kids to tv cameras.
MARCH 31 KABUL - INTERNATINAL PEACEKEEPERS HQ HIT BY ROCKET
THE DAMAGE WE ARE DOING TO MIDDLE EAST RELATIONS COULD LAST A LIFETIME Independent.
"We had a great day," US Sergeant Schrumpf said. "We killed a lot of people."
STOCK MARKETS CRASH! IS THERE A SINGLE NON-BANKRUPT COUNTRY LEFT?!
ESTIMATED CIVILIAN CASUALTIES SO FAR 600
http://www.iraqbodycount.org/
- the dinos are daily getting uglier... look deep and hard, folks, they always disguise what they are like behind fancy “blairy” talk, but now they’re out in the open for all to see.
'"I wanna get in there and get my nose dirty" Private AJ said. "I wanna take revenge for 9/11"' CNN interview.
MARCH 30
PALESTINIAN WOUNDS 30 IN SUICIDE BOMBING
"Palestine's gift to the heroic people of Iraq” Islamic Jihad
THREE BRITISH SOLDIERS PROTEST A WAR THAT’S KILLING INNOCENT CIVILIANS / SENT HOME FOR DISOBEYING ORDERS / SEEKING LEGAL ADVICEIt's sobering how quickly morale can slip. Only a few days before, soldiers in our unit were mugging for photos - shirts off, muscles flexed, guts sucked in. A female private with freshly applied lipstick squealed: "War is sexy!" But our plodding progress and the growing Iraqi threat extinguished the party mood fast. "I felt a lot better when I thought this was only going to take a matter of days," said First Lieutenant Sara Creely. "Soldiers at the perimeter are freaking out at everything, even when they see a dog or a camel." Business Week Online
MARCH 31 KABUL - PUL E ECAREA HIT BY ROCKET FIRE.
Sergeant Ali Jaffar Moussa Hamadi al-Nomani is the first Iraqi combatant to stage a suicide attack ever. Not even during the uprising against British rule did an Iraqi kill himself to destroy his enemies. He was also a Shia Muslim a member of the very sect the Americans believed would be their secret allies in their invasion of Iraq.
as i predicted last week, the dinosaurs have reacted to “REALITY HITTING THEM IN THE FACE” in the only way they know how, the way that’s always worked in the Past (as they think): TAKING THE GLOVES OFF!!!
as i wrote in last week’s UP!
>>> it’s almost certainly too much to hope that the strutting billionaire bush, having painted himself into his macho corner, won’t first try to bash his way back to dominance (as dinosaurs have always done) by casting aside the ‘nice blairy words’ and launching All Spectrum Destruction in the Greatest Crime Against Humanity since the Holocaust. already they’ve started referring to Basra as a “military target”
COMMANDOS LAUNCH BATTLE FOR BASRA
(read Siege of Basra / Storming of Basra)
“There is no more brutal form of warfare than a siege. People go hungry. The water and power to provide the sinews of a city snap. Children die.” Robin Cook, ex foreign minister of Blair’s government.
“Unlike L.B.J. in Vietnam, Bush won't quit. He's a different kind of Texan. He'll escalate and keep escalating.” C. Holbrooke, former US representative at the UN
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VETERAN NEWSMAN PETER ARNETT AXED BY NBC JOINS THE DAILY MIRROR!
“I report the truth of what’s happening and won’t apologise for it. I’ve always admired your newspaper and am proud to be working for it.”
WARS WERE CREATED TO TEACH AMERICANS GEOGRAPHY!!
"Thanks to Bush and his war agenda, we've learned that the Tigris runs through Iraq,and the Hubris runs through the White House."
Larry Wilcox (in the LA Times)
UP!
UNAVOIDABLE?
"The Pentagon’s claims that civilian casualties are unavoidable is patently false. Civilian casualties are unavoidable only if the war is unavoidable. This war was NOT unavoidable" Peter Zunes, specialist on the Mideast, including Syria.
UP!
thank god you're back! i hope your vacation was amazing. but damn i was getting down on the major media stories buzzing past my ears, fearful of all the misinformation, and just as i was letting it get me down, the UP! pops in my inbox! yippeee!!
i was in miami last week for the winter music conference, made some great connections (i sing & produce music) & heard some kick-ass music, danced my ass off, and it was surreal when i was having so much fun, and learned that we had just started to bomb baghdad. crazy times.
thanks for being there for all of us who just want to understand, and spread love, light & healing to the world. can't wait to read this latest UP!
love
natalie / new york
UP!
"This will be no war -- there will be a fairly brief and ruthless military intervention. The president will give an order. It will be rapid, accurate and dazzling ... It will be greeted by the majority of the Iraqi people as an emancipation. And I say, bring it on." Christopher Hitchens, Vanity Fair, JAN 28, 2003
UP!
//YOU FEEDBACK: LAST WEEK’S EDITORIAL
You're absotively right about this:
>>>oh please, all-wise and all-loving goddess, this american elite’s public failure in the desert, though terrible for those young american boys, would be by far the least painful path for the maximum of human beings (including all those young american boys who’ll be killed in the 20 Year War). in one Play of Destiny’s Dice, we could cast these Dinosaurs aside forever, and leap into the Community of Peoples whose Spirit can already be glimpsed in the massive Peace Demonstrations which presage its eventual arrival.
It is the Goddess WE are invoking. Who is WE? WE are the harbingers of the coming evolution of the human spirit. You said it well: Community People of Spirit. It takes a long time for evolution to unfold. Our eyes might not readily see it unfolding. But our spirits can smell it every now and then, wafting in under the sills, jambs, and jalousies.
Write on!
Briefer, I wouldst thou do... but write on, posilutely!
Lanny / Melbourne
UP!
US WILL LOSE THE IRAQ WAR
SAYS SCOTT RITTER
Former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter warned on Irish radio RTE1’s "Tonight Show" that America will lose the Iraq war, and the American military "will leave Iraq with its tail between its legs."
The conflict will become an "absolute quagmire," with the US-UK advance stalled outside Baghdad, unable to capture the city. "We are facing a nation of 23 million, with armed elements numbering around 7 million - who are concentrated in urban areas. We won’t win this fight. America will lose this war."
Too many in the Pentagon have listened to "the blethering of Iraqi expatriates," whose agenda coincides with neo-conservatives in the White House. "We're in Iraq, carrying out the right-wing neo-conservative motives of a handful of people, the Richard Perles, Paul Wolfowitzs; the Dick Cheneys. And we've allowed them to hijack our foreign policy,”
Iraqi government intimidation was not the reason Shia Muslims in the South were not fighting, it was driven by nationalistic and religious reasons. "They're doing it because the American Crusader Infidel has invaded and violated Holy Iraq, and they will resist us, and they will resist us strongly. We are not liberating Iraq, we are destroying Iraq."
Ritter, a ballistic-missile technology expert who worked in military intelligence during his 12-year career in the U.S. armed forces, resigned in 1998 from the U.N. Special Commissions team to protest American policies which he said subverted the weapons inspection process.
http://www.gulufuture.com/news/scott_ritter030325.htm
UP!
HANG TOGETHER?
thanks for the reality mail and the real links, ie russian news etc.
don’t stop! many know what’s UP! and can see through the smoke screen (& fog of war!), but the UP!dates, the ON!goingIN!formation - that helps... solidarity and fluidity...
we can hang together, or they'll hang us separately... :)!
mark laplume / paris
UP!
"The read we get on the people of Iraq is there is no question but that they want to get rid of Saddam Hussein and they will welcome as liberators the United States when we come to do that." Vice President Dick Cheney, "Meet the Press" MAR 16
UP!
“The current debate over U.S. military strategy in Iraq is hollow; it routinely accepts the continuation of a war that is a flagrant violation of the U.N. Charter. The only way to end that violation - and to halt the ongoing slaughter - is to stop the bombing and immediately withdraw American troops from Iraq." Norman Solomon, executive director
Institute for Public Accuracy.
UP!
TO STAND BESIDE THE ROAD AND SALUTE WOULD BE RIDICULOUS
"The most supportive thing that anyone can do for our troops right now is to halt this invasion and protect their lives as well as the people in Iraq. We need to end not just this war, but also the foreign policy that drives these aggressive wars.
"If I saw my son getting into a car with a drunk driver, I would try to stop that car from moving. To stand on the side of the road and salute would be ridiculous." Nancy Lessin, Military Families Speak Out.
UP!
The Curse Of Oil
The Arabs are a beaten people, betrayed by the British at the end of the WW1 and then again after WW2. As the British withdrew from ’East of Suez¹the Americans took over the mantle of promising riches and democracy to the Arabs and then setting them up with dictatorships and tyrants.
But most of all the Arabs are a people betrayed by their own leaders. Sadat gave his country to the Americans and threw the Palestinians into hell. As did the Hashimites. The Al-Sauds and puppet rulers of the Gulf subjugate their people in feudal societies supported by American counter-insurgency intelligence and technology, whilst indulging in as much sin as they can get in London and New York.
Saddam worked for the CIA?
Saddam Hussein may be many things, a crafty and merciless politician prepared to kill and torture, but he is also a brave and heroic Arab, a product of his generation. But an ex-agent of the CIA? There is no truth, no evidence and no logic to this rumour. People say, why would the CIA spread such a rumour? It is to denigrate him in our and Arab eyes. How can he have any credibility if he worked for the enemy?
The media, left and right, are united in slagging him off. He's a typical Arab leader with no real integrity or honesty. Well actually this is not true. He may be a horrific individual, but he and the Ba'ath using nationalised oil wealth and sheer brute force created the most equitable, modern and secular country in the middle east. In many areas, Women, education and health, Iraq was a model to the world, of course a model that was destroyed by the trap set in 1990.
The Arab ‘Infection¹
The CIA and MI6 psy-ops people have for 4 decades tried to convince us that all Arabs are like the leaders they chose for them. Lazy, feckless, hypocritical and feudal in their culture. When radical Arab Socialism swept the Arab world it was crucial to stop it from spreading to Europe (‘infecting¹ in intelligence parlance). If we can be persuaded not to have any sympathy for the Arabs we will not link up with them to overthrow the oil Empire of the USA.
During the ‘70¹s, counter-insurgency wars were fought across Europe by NATO (Operation Gladio) to kill this infection and the hope that the Palestinian rebellion brought us. The Palestinians were proving that a civilian population could over-throw a military force and that Arabs were a brave and educated people with a strong political intellectual culture. Indeed they were rather like us.
But the counter revolution worked. Counter-insurgency against leftist Arabs and Israeli & CIA funding of radical Feudal Islamics have, in our eyes, shown the Arab opposition to be sexist, macho, fanatical etc. all the things modern westerners abhor. This is pervasive in the media, Guardian included.
Let us now look at the Arabs for what they are, a people betrayed and impoverished by British and American intrigues & lies for 100 years. And a people with a sense of community, unity and destiny who have a dream of a future free, most of all free from the curse of oil.
John Murray / loungeabout
john@open-eye.com
UP!
“Saddam won't win. Unlike L.B.J. in Vietnam, Bush won't quit. He's a different kind of Texan. He'll escalate and keep escalating. In the end his military strategy will probably succeed in destroying Saddam.
“But it may result in a Muslim jihad against us and our friends. Achieving our narrow objective of regime change may take so long and trigger so many consequences that it's no victory at all. Our ultimate goal, which is promoting stability in the Middle East, may well prove elusive." Richard C. Holbrooke, former US representative at the UN
UP!
Fraser,
love peace awareness to the YOUniversal YOUmanistic YOUniversity!-a welcome antidote to TV's 24/7 wet dream!
john ‘crow’ constable / london
UP!
HOW TO STAY INVOLVED & SEEMINGLY HAPPY
AND ADJUSTED TO THIS AWFUL WORLD
by Howard Zinn
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>>> and it’s good for your health! (see previous UP!’s)
UP!
"Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral." Paulo Freire
UP!
"Saddam is much weaker than we think. Militarily, we know he's got about a third of what he had in 1991. But it's a house of cards. He rules by fear because he knows there is no underlying support. Support for Saddam, including within his military organization, will collapse at the first whiff of gunpowder." Richard Perle, Defense Policy Board chairman till recently resigning over accusations of financial conflicts of interest, PBS, JUL 11, 2002
UP!
HIPPIE CRAP SAVES THE WORLD
IF PROTESTING DOESN'T WORK, PARTY!!!
by Joyce Marcel
O.K., you've sent your plastic baggies of white rice to the President, marched in freezing weather several times for peace, gotten into the habit of reading the on-line international papers to glean some real news, listened to poetry being read up the ying-yang, given money to Parallel YOUniversity - and it still hasn't made a damn bit of difference.
You sit there scratching your head and wondering why America has gone crazy. We were attacked by a man named Osama bin Laden and a loosely-knit band of America-hating terrorists called al Qaeda, but we're gearing up for a major war against an American-hating dictator in Iraq named Saddam Hussein, whom we already beat 12 years ago.
Even Saddam is scratching his head and saying "Why me?" As he pointed out to Dan Rather a few weeks ago, al Qaeda hates him almost as much as they hate America.
We're alienating most of our friends and allies abroad, tearing up every protective treaty with our signature on it, and squandering all our good will on this war with Iraq, while at the same time we're turning a blind eye to a real lunatic in North Korea who has nuclear weapons and nothing to lose by using them. We stand there and do nothing while he's trying to decide whether to bomb Seoul, Tokyo or Los Angeles.
At home, we're squandering the country's vast financial resources on this crazy war and tax cuts for the rich while we have no money to run our schools and educate our children. Meanwhile, the government is hell-bent on giving away our only remaining safety nets, Medicare and Social Security, to the two institutions least deserving of our trust and respect - the HMOs and the stock market.
And worst of all, nothing we say or do can stop the madness. Not even putting tens of millions of protesting people in the streets in over 600 cities around the world on the same day can make a dent in this insanity.
What can we do besides despair? Well, I recently found a one-word answer...
PARTY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I'm not trivialising the pain, terror, horror and destruction that America will soon wreak on the civilized world, but we really need to do something in order to stay sane. And Mark Morford of the San Francisco Chronicle has found the perfect answer to the right-wing lunatics who have hijacked our country:
"Here is what conservatives hate the most:-- the idea that you really can, and do, make a difference. That you, hopefully working to align yourself with something deeper and more informed and perhaps not exactly Christian, or corporate, not exactly lockstep mainstream flag-waving God-fearing asexual consumer drone, you can affect the world, directly, right now, in ways you might not even realise, in ways that make them tremble and wince, in how much you laugh and love and eat and sleep and screw and breathe and in how deeply you penetrate into the soul's raison d 'etre.... They really hate that."
According to Morford, who titled his piece "Hippie Crap Saves the World," the more we choose Life, the more we create art, the more we love one another, the more orgasms we have, the more we refuse to inject "deliberate doses of bitter bile straight into the cultural bloodstream," the more hope there is that we might be able to save the world.
"The world consists of energy, billions of swirling masses of it contained in living vessels - that's YOU - and aimed out to the world, often radiating at random, intermingling, interacting, often uncontrolled and unaware, an enormous dizzying gorgeous complex kaleidoscopic organism of human interaction and interplay. We are abuzz. We are electric. We posses actual psychic and electromagnetic force. Duh. It's a fact."
Negative energy begets negative energy - and you have only to watch television news or read about the Bush Administration to know that for certain - while positive energy begets positive energy. "Notions of peace, individual thought, reason, simple acts of attuned mindfulness, of buying products and foods that sustain the planet, of making
really good messy enthusiastic generous love, of regular laughter in the face of scowling Ashcroft or Cheney's corporate henchmen, of reading deeply and recalling wisdom people like the Dalai Lama talk about all the time - these things literally up your anima's vibration, add positive energy back in, turn the collective volume back up.
"Mystics and healers and sages and scientists and philosophers across the spiritual spectrum have known it for millennia: more advanced and enlightened souls and cultures vibrate at a higher level, a more bright and rigorous pitch. It's true. Bliss and joy and notions of peace and healing and laughter and personal choice, these things crank up the vibe. War and angst and fear and self-fulfilling prophecies of war and preemptive strikes and Jenna Bush, these things slam it down."
At a time when decent people around the world are in true despair over our hijacked democracy, I agree with Morford that the best thing we can do is "pump up the vibration" and have a great big rocking happy loving time.
They really hate that :)
UP!
lament for a telephone exchange
It's difficult to weep about a telephone exchange. True, the destruction of the local phone system in Baghdad is a miserable experience for tens of thousands of Iraqi families who want to keep in contact with their relatives during the long dark hours of bombing. But the shattered exchanges and umbilical wires and broken concrete of the Mimoun International Communications Centre scarcely equals the exposed bones and intestines and torn flesh of the civilian wounded of Baghdad.
The point, of course, is that it represents another of those little degradations which we (as in "we, the West") routinely undertake when things aren't going our way in a war. Obviously, "we" hoped it wouldn't come to this. The Anglo-American armies wanted to maintain the infrastructure of Baghdad for themselves after they’d "liberated" the city under a hail of roses from its rejoicing people because they would need working phone lines on their arrival.
robert fisk
UP!
BELGIUM VOTES BY 30-19 TO LEGALISE CANNABIS
As “Old Europe” Continues With Its Legalising Policies, Even UK Government Slams United Nations Drug Lies
In the same week that Belgium joined other European countries in ‘legalising’ cannabis, British government minister Bob Ainsworth attacked an ‘extremely misleading” report published by the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB).
>>> surely not!
“It does great damage to the credibility of the messages we give to young people about the dangers of drug misuse if we try to pretend that cannabis is as harmful as drugs such as heroin and crack cocaine,” he said Mr Ainsworth, ‘writing on behalf of the United Kingdom Government’.
>>> i expect their apologies at any moment
“It quite clearly is not, and if we do not acknowledge that by ensuring our drugs law accurately reflect the relative harms of drugs, young people will not listen to our messages about the drugs which do the greatest harm”.
The Minister concluded by saying his officials will be challenging the INCB report at the upcoming conference in Vienna and will be “correcting the extremely misleading picture” the report presents.
UP!
fas-cism "A system of Government which exercises a dictatorship of the extreme right, typically through the merging of state and business leadership, together with belligerent nationalism." The American Heritage Dictionary (Houghton, Mifflin Company, 1983)
UP!
"Critical Supplies...Are Unaccounted For"
OVEROPTIMISTIC EXPECTATIONS GIVE WAY TO FATIGUE AND PARANOIA, AS ONE INFANTRY DIVISION FINDS ITSELF INCREASINGLY WORRIED ABOUT FOOD WATER & AMMUNITION
It seemed like a mission to Mars. At 4 p.m. on Mar. 25, the desert of central Iraq was bathed in an eerie red glow, and visibility was down to a few yards as 40-mph winds whipped up the sand. Mud-coloured hailstones pummelled the temporary supply camp where I'd hunkered down with the 3rd Infantry Division's D-Rear logistical unit. In my worst imaginings, an apocalyptic event loomed on the horizon.
We’d encountered few Iraqis, but all along the 3ID's 190-mile supply line, the blowing sand was wreaking havoc. Lieutenant Colonel Robert Lovett, a procurement expert, told me he feared every general's nightmare: that the division's fighting arm, in this case the 3-7 Cavalry squadron, would get too far ahead of the supply chain.
"Due to the fog of war and severe weather conditions, critical supplies that should have arrived 2, 3, 4 days ago are unaccounted for." He was talking about the lifeblood of any military operation: food, water, fuel, ammunition.
UNREAL EXPECTATIONS
Guerrilla harassment, too, was becoming an increasing worry. Less than 3 miles away, an officer told me, U.S. forces had killed eight Iraqis brandishing rocket-propelled grenade launchers. Although the 3ID had supposedly cleared and secured the area, the Iraqis apparently ditched their uniforms for civilian clothes. Now, with snipers on the loose and U.S. forces focused on protecting the rear, a unit of 44 tanks was policing the perimeter of our camp.
Weather, enemy harassment, intermittent communications -- all had conspired to slow our advance over the previous few days. We were supposed to roll through southern Iraq with minimal resistance, barrelling up Highway 8, the principal route north. But that assumption proved wrong. Unexpectedly fierce fighting raged in the cities of Basra, al-Nasiriya, and al-Samawa -- places where U.S. commanders had brashly predicted mass surrenders.
Things began falling apart within half a day of crossing the Iraq-Kuwait border. Because the Army wasn't able to secure the highway, nearly 10,000 vehicles were forced to share secondary routes that were decidedly infantry-unfriendly. Tanks, flatbed trucks, Humvees, and rocket launchers snaked their way bumper to bumper through the desert in near-zero visibility. In no time, the route was littered with 45-foot trailers stuck in the sand, and the carefully orchestrated departure had deteriorated into chaos.
EXHAUSTION
By the time we made it to the temporary camp, some 160 km south of Baghdad, nearly a third of the trucks in our convoy had fallen at least 12 hours behind and couldn't be contacted. Amid the mounting chaos, communications suffered; a major told me that 60 fuel tankers sat in al-Nasiriya for 2 days because no one issued the order to move forward.
It's sobering how quickly morale can slip. Only a few days before, soldiers in our unit were mugging for photos -- shirts off, muscles flexed, guts sucked in. A female private with freshly applied lipstick squealed: "War is sexy!" But our plodding progress and the growing Iraqi threat extinguished the party mood fast. "I felt a lot better when I thought this was only going to take a matter of days," said First Lieutenant Sara Creely. "Soldiers at the perimeter are freaking out at everything, even when they see a dog or a camel."
Back in Kuwait, Brigadier General Louis W. Weber had spoken confidently of shortly taking a bath in one of Saddam Hussein's gilded tubs. Now it seemed churlish to remind the 3ID's No. 3 commander of his earlier boasts. Like all of us, the general had slept in his vehicle for three days straight, and clearly, he was exhausted.
WIND AND WEAR
Already, it seemed like a long war. Fresh-faced soldiers I'd met just two weeks before seem to have aged. Their weariness reflected more than lack of sleep: The strain of living with danger 24-7 was every bit as draining. The incessant wind and dust wear you down, making arduous even the simplest outdoor chores - brushing your teeth, unpacking a bed roll, finding your way back from the field latrine. I can only imagine the hardship for soldiers trying to fight.
Luckily, the generals of 3ID had had sufficient foresight to load up their fighting troops with a full 7 days' worth of supplies. So, though none of the units had yet reached a point of critical shortages, the situation was getting tense. Everyone was waiting anxiously for the weather to let up - and no one wanted to find out what would happen if the rations or ammunition ran out.
Frederik Balfour Business Week Online, now on the road to Baghdad.
http://businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/mar2003/nf20030328_4776_db071.htm
UP!
KRAVITZ RELEASES PEACE SONG WITH IRAQI STAR
Rocker Lenny Kravitz is the latest to jump on the peace train. He’s recorded a new anti-war track called "We Want Peace" with Iraqi pop star Kadim Al Sahir. The song was posted Tuesday for download on the web site of Rock the Vote, a youth-oriented political organization.
www.rockthevote.org
UP!
BOYCOTT OF AMERICAN GOODS SPREADS
by Erik Kirschbaum
No more Coca-Cola or Budweiser, no Marlboro, no American whiskey or even American Express cards -- a growing number of restaurants in Germany are taking everything American off their menus to protest the war in Iraq
Waiters in dozens of bars and restaurants in Hamburg, Berlin, Munich, Bonn and other German cities are telling patrons, "Sorry, Coca-Cola is not available any more due to the current political situation."
The boycotts appear to be part of a nascent worldwide movement. One Web site, www.consumers-against-war.de http://www.consumers-against-war.de , calls for boycotts of 27 top American firms from Microsoft to Kodak while another, www.adbusters.org <http://www.adbusters.org> , urges the "millions of people against the war" to "Boycott Brand America."
Demonstrators in Paris smashed the windows of a McDonald's restaurant last week, forcing police in riot gear to move in to protect staff and customers of the American fast-food outlet. The attackers sprayed obscenities and "BOYCOTT" on the windows.
In Indonesia, protesters have pasted signs on McDonald's and other American food outlets, trying to force them shut by "sealing them" and urging Indonesians to avoid them.
In Basel, Switzerland, 50 students staged a sit-down strike in front of a McDonald's to block customers' entry, waved peace signs and urged people to eat pretzels instead of hamburgers. Anti-American sentiment has even reached provinces in Russia, where some rural eateries put up signs telling Americans they were unwelcome, according to an Izvestia newspaper report. A German bicycle manufacturer, Riese und Mueller GmbH, cancelled all business deals with its American suppliers. "Americans only pay attention when money is on the line," director Heiko Mueller told Reuters, whose firm buys $300,000 worth of supplies from half a dozen American firms each year. "We wanted to make a statement against this war and told our American partners that unless they renounce what their government is doing we won't do any business with them anymore."
"If people all around the world boycott American products it might influence their policies," said Jean-Yves Mabileau, owner of "L'Auberge Francaise" which joined 10 Hamburg restaurants in banning Coca Cola, Philip Morris, Marlboro cigarettes, whiskey and other American goods. "This started as a light-hearted reaction to Americans dumping French wine in the gutter and renaming 'French Fries' as 'Freedom Fries'," he said. "But it feels good to take a stand against this war. It is just a small gesture, but a good one."
Diners at the Osteria restaurant in Berlin are finding that "things go better without Coke" and are ordering Germany's long overshadowed imitation of "the real thing" -- the slightly sweeter "Afri-Cola" -- to express their outrage. Many Arabs, as previous UP!’s have reported, have switched to Mecca Cola. I had one myself in London last week, in a plastic bottle.
In Bonn, bartender Bruno Kessler said he was refusing to sell American whiskey or American beer such as Anheuser-Busch's Budweiser at his "Eifeler Stuben." "I asked myself 'What can I possibly do to show my anger over this barbarity?'," he told Germany's N-24 television network. UP!
'There is no limit to the good you can do if you don't care who gets the credit' William Penn
UP!
WHAT BETTER TIME?!
“You know the world’s going crazy when the best rapper’s a white guy, the best golfer’s a black guy, the Swiss hold the America's cup, France is accusing the US of arrogance, and Germany doesn't want to go to war."
I see great hope in that statement, supposedly by Chris Rock. All the old stereotypes are flying out the window. Anything truly is possible. I spent this past weekend in Northern California, helping with some events where Dennis Kucinich was speaking. Talk about joy and hope. How about a guy running for President challenging the notion that war is inevitable by countering that, no, it’s peace that’s inevitable.
Why not, in the year that Swiss hold the America's Cup and Germany’s against war? What better time for this man to be running? What better time to be a joyful activist, than when the world seems to be cracking up but is really just making room for bold new ideas to flow in?
Francis California
>>> it’s birthing is wot it’s doing :) if u dunno what it’s birthing you haven’t been paying attention :)
UP!
The Vampire Elite makes its move
We had to bomb your ancient capital to save it
Our tanks bring you democracy
We lowered your defences as far as possible
Through labyrinthine UN protocols
Before we struck
We needed to start the war quickly -
Our chemical scam had fallen apart -
Our forged documents becoming exposed
We'll bring you water, Starbucks and Pornography
And you will must thank us for re-bombing Baghdad
Your oil will be safe in our hands
Nick K. / Devon.
UP!
UK’S EX FOREIGN MINISTER DEMANDS:
'PULL OUT OF THIS BLOODY, UNJUST WAR'
'There will be a legacy of hatred for the West if the Iraqis continue to suffer from the war we started'
"I have already had my fill of this bloody and unjust war. I want our troops home and I want them home before more of them are killed."
Robin Cook, who resigned from the Blair government the day before war broke out, attacked Mr Bush for "sitting pretty in the comfort of Camp David" while Allied forces risked death in an "unnecessary and badly planned" war.
"It is easy to show you are resolute when you are not one of the guys in a sandstorm peering around for snipers," he wrote. "Nobody should start a war on the assumption that the enemy's army will co-operate. But that is exactly what President Bush has done.
"And now his Marines have reached the outskirts of Baghdad, he does not seem to know what to do next."
He was scathing about the new tactic outlined by the US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, which Mr Cook summarised as sitting down outside Baghdad "until Saddam surrenders... There is no more brutal form of warfare than a siege. People go hungry. The water and power to provide the sinews of a city snap. Children die.
"There will be a long-term legacy of hatred for the West if the Iraqi people continue to suffer from the effects of the war we started.
“Shortly before I resigned, a Cabinet colleague told me not to worry about the political fallout the war would be finished long before polling day for the May local elections. I just hope those who expected a quick victory are proved right."
He commended the decision to bring back the bodies of slain troops for burial in Britain, but added: "I can't help asking myself if there was not a better way to show consideration for their families. A better way could have been not to start a war that was never necessary and is turning out to be badly planned."
Mr Cook's call for an immediate end to the war was echoed by Doug Henderson, who worked with him in the Foreign Office as Minister for Europe. He told BBC Radio 4 that the only alternative was an escalation of the conflict, dragging in Syria and possibly Iran. "I think a ceasefire and withdrawal is by far the better way forward," he added.
UP!
UP! DON’T AIM FOR A BALANCED PICTURE (that’s your job!) UP! COMES TO BALANCE THE PICTURE U MIGHT HAVE WITHOUT IT
fook the ApologyToTheArabs!!!!!FREEZY FRAZER (AGE 60),
1STLY LOVE TO U AND REST OF URE SPECIES AND BIO-SPHERE.
2NDLY SHAME ON WESTERN PATRIARCHAL HEGEMONY.
3RDLY MASSIVE SHAME ON ALL MONOTHEISM PARTICULARLY ISLAM AND CATHOLOCISM THE ARABS ARE NOT BLAMELESS, TIMES SPENT IN YEMEN AND SAUDI CONVINCED ME OF THAT. THEY’RE JUST AS VULNERABLE to sadism particularly bent to the hierarchy as we in the 'west,' and are as deserving of the karmic 'bombardment' heading their way as we are of the backlash that will surely come.
Islam degrades freedom when taught by sick sick little wizzened men, just like christianity when fausted by pederast 'chaste' bishops.
This is the age of destruction fraser. STOP STOP STOP laying the blame entirely on the west and wake up to the hideous torture of the young (born free) by the (un)ignorant churches of mecca, vatican and yerusalem.
Third Eye states will begin to flourish when these siiiiick institutions crumble. To end War: End Religious Control. Occupy the Cathedral One Heart of Love Frazzeled frazer.
My Unarmed Army Will March Soon, with Flowers in their Hair, and not Just to San Fran Cisco. The Angels shall not pass over any one tribe this time. I have seen.
Oberon, King of the faeries. U better believe it.
>>> if u c any arab armies messing about with scottish oil while on your travels round these ancient isles, lemme know immediately, ok Oberon?!
UP!
“We must make clear to the Germans that the wrong for which their fallen leaders are on trial is not that they lost the war, but that they started it.
And we must not allow ourselves to be drawn into a trial of the causes of the war, for our position is that no grievances or policies will justify resort to aggressive war. It is utterly renounced and condemned as an instrument of policy.” AUGUST 12, 1945 SUPREME COURT JUSTICE ROBERT JACKSON, U.S. REPRESENTATIVE TO THE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON MILITARY TRIALS:
UP!
A PLACE IN THE HISTORY OF IRAQI RESISTANCE
Sergeant Ali Jaffar Moussa Hamadi al-Nomani is the first Iraqi combatant to stage a suicide attack ever. Not even during the uprising against British rule did an Iraqi kill himself to destroy his enemies.
He was also a Shia Muslim a member of the very sect the Americans believed would be their secret allies in their invasion of Iraq.
Even the Iraqi government initially wondered how to deal with his extraordinary action, caught between its desire to dissociate themselves from an event that might remind the world of Osama bin Laden and its determination to threaten the Americans with more such attacks.
He was a soldier in the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war and volunteered to fight in the 1991 Gulf War, called the "Mother of All Battles" by President Saddam Hussein, who believes he was the victor.
Then, though he was overage for further fighting, Nomani volunteered
to fight the Anglo-American invasion. And so it was, without telling
his commander and in his own car, he drove into the US Marine
checkpoint outside Najaf.
President Saddam awarded him the Military Medal (1st Class) and
the "Mother of All Battles" medal. The dead man left five children, a
widow, and a place in the 2,000-year history of Iraqi resistance to
invasions.
UP!
Did you know as Nazism rose to take over the government, Hitler used various pretexts to build public support for his invasions of Austria, Czechoslovakia and Poland. Once the invasions began, everyone was exhorted to "support our troops" in the current conflict.
It became very unfashionable, then downright unpatriotic, and eventually treasonable to not "support our troops" by questioning their mission. What sort of ungrateful beast wouldn't support our dedicated young warriors out there in a hostile and foreign land "protecting our freedom" and "keeping our homeland safe" from the evil bad guys?
Worrying about the right or wrong of what our government was requiring of our troops was just making excuses for traitorous behaviour. Listening to one's conscience became something to avoid, and, as more and more people stopped listening to that small inner voice, life became nastier and nastier for everyone, as we all know, looking back. Ah, the cycles of life.
When Democracy Failed - The Warnings Of History By Thom Hartmann, March 17. 2003
UP!
COOL HEROISM: 3 STEPS FOR DEALING WITH FEELINGS OF ANGER, FEAR AND FRUSTRATION...
1.
2.
3.
Through these three steps 1. FINDING ONE'S RELATION TO ALL BEINGS, 2. ACKNOWLEDGING THE EVIL POTENTIAL IN ONE-SELF, 3. FEELING SYMPATHY FOR THE EVIL PERSON - one gets the strength and energy to be an activist and to try to stop the harm being caused by others.
COOL HEROISM = DEVELOPING A TOLERANT, DELIBERATE, AND WISE ENERGY TO MAKE A REAL CHANGE!.
Robert Thurman
prophets-list@greatmystery.org
UP!
As predicted in the UP! and elsewhere, UK & US forces are now using DEPLETED URANIUM (DU) shells which the UN has classified as illegal weapons of mass destruction.
Professor Doug Rokke, ex-director of the Pentagon's depleted uranium project, said use of DU was a 'war crime'.
'There is a moral point to be made here. This war was about Iraq possessing illegal weapons of mass destruction - yet we are using illegal weapons of mass destruction ourselves. Such double-standards are repellent.'
The latest use of DU in the current conflict came on Friday when an American A10 tankbuster plane fired a DU shell, killing one British soldier and injuring three others.
According to a August 2002 report by the UN sub commission, laws which are breached by the use of DU shells include: the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; the Charter of the United Nations; the Genocide Convention; the Convention Against Torture; the four 1949 Geneva Conventions; the Conventional Weapons Convention 1980; and the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907, which expressly forbid employing 'poison or poisoned weapons' and 'arms, projectiles or materials calculated to cause unnecessary suffering'.
DEPLETED URANIUM contaminates land, causes ill-health and cancers among the soldiers using the weapons, the armies they target and civilians, leading to birth defects in children.
DEPLETED URANIUM has been blamed for the effects of Gulf War Syndrome among 200,000 US soldiers after Gulf War 1.
DEPLETED URANIUM is also cited as the most likely cause of the 'increased number of birth deformities and cancer in Iraq' following the first Gulf war. 'Cancer appears to have increased between seven and 10 times and deformities between four and six times,' according to the UN sub commission.
320 METRIC TONS OF DEPLETED URANIUM were left on the battlefield after Gulf War 1 according to the Pentagon, but Russian military experts say 1000 METRIC TONS is more like it.
- ·
- ·
UP!
Optimists suggest that the US Third Infantry Division will soon engage and destroy the Iraqi Medina division and the road to Baghdad will lie open. A less sanguine assessment is that the two divisions will bog down in a First World War-style confrontation, with the US disadvantaged by those stretched communications. The third scenario is that the Medina division outflanks the Third ID, take it in the rear and overwhelm it. Then the exultant Arab street will erupt in the humiliation of the Great Satan. [counterpunch]
.....................
We have the truly extraordinary situation that the Iraqi spokesman in Baghdad is being given more credibility than the far wilder military flacks who have seriously damaged their credibility with numerous baseless claims about the capture of Iraqi towns, and preposterous British allegations that it is necessary to destroy Basra in order to bring it vital humanitarian supplies. [counterpunch]
UP!
HEARTS & MINDS 1
They said Iraqi fighters had often mixed in with civilians from nearby villages, jumping out of houses and cars to shoot at them, and then often running away. The marines said they had little trouble dispatching their foes, most of whom they characterized as ill trained and cowardly.
"We had a great day," Sergeant Schrumpf said. "We killed a lot of people."
....
But more than once, Sergeant Schrumpf said, he faced a different choice: one Iraqi soldier standing among two or three civilians. In one such incident, he and other men in his unit had opened fire, and one of the women standing near the Iraqi soldier had go down.
"I'm sorry," the sergeant said. "But the chick was in the way."
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/29/international/worldspecial/29HALT.html
UP!
HEARTS & MINDS 2
"I can command my vehicle. I can keep it from being attacked. What I have not been trained to do is look over my shoulder to see whether an American is shooting at me." Lance Corporal Steven Gerrard, speaking from his bed on the RFA Argus.
"There was a boy of about 12 years old. He was no more than 20 metres away when the Yank opened up. He had absolutely no regard for human life. I believe he was a cowboy. There were four or five that I noticed earlier and this one had broken off and was on his own when he attacked us. He'd just gone out on a jolly... I'm curious about what's going to happen to the pilot. He's killed one of my friends and he's killed him on the second run."
"All the wagons have markings to say they are Coalition. I don't know why he shot a second time, he was that close. To be honest, I think they are just ignorant. I don't know if they haven't been trained or are just trigger happy." Trooper Chris Finney, 18.
"It was the most irresponsible thing in the world. They didn't know what was going on. We were just getting on with our mission and they were messing around in the skies and saw us and said 'let's get ourselves a couple of wagons, that'll be one to tell the lads when we get back to the base'. Trooper Joe Woodgate, 19, the driver.
“Some soldiers were calling for the pilot to be prosecuted for manslaughter. “ Reporter.
UP!
HEARTS & MINDS 3 DETH TO ALL INDIANS
The American people just don't quite get it. It's not that they don't know; they just can't put it all in historical, or moral, or political context. An that, in the end, regardless of their firepower and technological superiority, is likely to be their undoing.
Right there on the ABC World News the American public was given the factual information; but, as usual with the American media, rarely either the context or perspective needed to really understand.
'The Rules of Engagement" have been changed the nation was told by an 'embedded' 'journalist'. Now if anyone approaches and doesn't stop (remember of course they don't speak English, especially with a southern or redneck drawl!) they can be shot, no questions asked. 'Even Women and Children' the reporter calmly noted.
The American 'Red' Indians, and in more modern times the Vietnamese, Laotians, and Cambodians - not to mention today's Palestinians - know very well what it is like to be 'liberated' by the Americans.
How super historically ironic that the Iraqis are being decimated by ‘Apaches' and 'Tomahawks'.
[MiddleEast.org]
UP!
DISOBEY ORDERS!
In an interview for Abu Dhabi TV, UK Labour MP George Galloway has branded Tony Blair and George Bush as “wolves” for committing the “crime” of military action against Iraq.
He also questioned why Arab countries were selling oil to the coalition forces, and accused Mr Blair and Mr Bush of lying to the army about the likely length of the war.
Mr Galloway argued that the war was illegal and urged British soldiers to refuse to obey “illegal orders.... Even if it is not realistic to ask a non-Iraqi army to come to defend Iraq, we see Arab regimes pumping oil for the countries who are attacking it. We wonder when the Arab leaders will wake up. When are they going to stand by the Iraqi people?
”Mr Blair and President Bush have lied to the British Air Force and Navy when they said the battle of Iraq would be very quick and easy. They attacked Iraq like wolves. They attacked civilians....
”It is better for Blair and Bush to stop this crime and this catastrophe. It is time for them to return to the UN Security Council and give diplomacy a chance.”“The wolves are Bush and Blair, not the soldiers. The soldiers are lions led by donkeys, sent to kill and be killed.”
“As for being a traitor, the people who have betrayed this country are those who have sold it to a foreign power and who have been the miserable surrogates of a bigger power for reasons very few people in Britain can understand.
“Given that I believe this invasion is illegal, it follows that the only people fighting legally are the Iraqis, who are defending their country.”
“The best thing British troops can do is to refuse to obey illegal orders.”
UP!
US MARINES TURN FIRE ON CIVILIANS AT BRIDGE OF DEATH
Mark Franchetti, Nasiriya
The silence felt almost eerie after a night of shooting so intense it hurt the eardrums and shattered the nerves. My footsteps felt heavy on the hot, dusty asphalt as I walked slowly towards the bridge at Nasiriya. A horrific scene lay ahead.
Some 15 vehicles, including a minivan and a couple of trucks, blocked the road. They were riddled with bullet holes. Some had caught fire and turned into piles of black twisted metal. Others were still burning.
Amid the wreckage I counted 12 dead civilians, lying in the road or in nearby ditches. All had been trying to leave this southern town overnight, probably for fear of being killed by US helicopter attacks and heavy artillery.
Their mistake had been to flee over a bridge that is crucial to the coalition's supply lines and to run into a group of shell-shocked young American marines with orders to shoot anything that moved.
One man's body was still in flames. It gave out a hissing sound. Tucked away in his breast pocket, thick wads of banknotes were turning to ashes. His savings, perhaps.
Down the road, a little girl, no older than five and dressed in a pretty orange and gold dress, lay dead in a ditch next to the body of a man who may have been her father. Half his head was missing.
Nearby, in a battered old Volga, peppered with ammunition holes, an Iraqi woman - perhaps the girl's mother - was dead, slumped in the back seat. A US Abrams tank nicknamed Ghetto Fabulous drove past the bodies.
This was not the only family who had taken what they thought was a last chance for safety. A father, baby girl and boy lay in a shallow grave. On the bridge itself a dead Iraqi civilian lay next to the carcass of a donkey.
As I walked away, Lieutenant Matt Martin, whose third child, Isabella, was born while he was on board ship en route to the Gulf, appeared beside me.
"Did you see all that?" he asked, his eyes filled with tears. "Did you see that little baby girl? I carried her body and buried it as best I could but I had no time. It really gets to me to see children being killed like this, but we had no choice."
Martin's distress was in contrast to the bitter satisfaction of some of his fellow marines as they surveyed the scene. "The Iraqis are sick people and we are the chemotherapy," said Corporal Ryan Dupre. "I am starting to hate this country. Wait till I get hold of a friggin' Iraqi. No, I won't get hold of one. I'll just kill him."
.... This was the start of day that claimed many civilian casualties. After the lorry a truck came down the road. Again the marines fired. Inside, four men were killed. They had been travelling with some 10 other civilians, mainly women and children who were evacuated, crying, their clothes splattered in blood. Hours later a dog belonging to the dead driver was still by his side.
.... Though civilians on foot passed by safely, the policy was to shoot anything that moved on wheels. Inevitably, terrified civilians drove at speed to escape: marines took that speed to be a threat and hit out.
During the night, our teeth on edge, we listened a dozen times as the AVVs' machineguns opened fire, cutting through cars and trucks like paper.
Next morning I saw the result of this order - the dead civilians, the little girl in the orange and gold dress.
Suddenly, some of the young men who had crossed into Iraq with me reminded me now of their fathers' generation, the trigger-happy grunts of Vietnam. Covered in the mud from the violent storms, they were drained and dangerously aggressive.
In the days afterwards, the marines consolidated their position and put a barrier of trucks across the bridge to stop anyone from driving across, so there were no more civilian deaths.
Jemima Khan:
"Angry and ashamed to be British"
As a dual national of Pakistan and Britain, it is the loss of British credibility I find hardest to stomach
Even the moderates here in Pakistan are outraged. Across the board, young and old, poor and rich, fundamentalist and secularist are united in their hatred of the US and their contempt for Britain. Such unprecedented unanimity in a country renowned for its ethnic and sectarian divides is a huge achievement.
Qazi Hussein Ahmed, the leader of the combined religious party Majlis Muttahida Amal (MMA), announced triumphantly: "The pro-West liberals have lost all conviction. Islamic movements have come alive."
This new-found unity, which includes for the first time the pro-West élites, the liberal middle classes and the mullahs, has been boosted by a fear that Pakistan may be on the US target list. We may not be seeing burning effigies of Bush and Blair daily (although there has been some of that), but many of those with Western connections are considering severing those links. Angry and fearful, expatriate Pakistanis are returning home, and property prices are soaring despite recession. The boycott against British and US goods is growing.
The same is happening throughout the Muslim world. A previously fractured ummah is finally uniting against a perceived common foe, leaving the fundamentalists jubilant and their pro-West leaders, despite their dependence on the US, with no choice but to join the anti-war chorus.
Despite their disingenuous talk of freedom and democracy, Bush and Blair must know that bringing true democracies to the Middle East, and the Muslim world in general, will have the opposite effect to the one they claim to hope for, and will go against their own interests. It is unlikely that any democratic Muslim country today will ever elect a pro-Western government.
http://argument.independent.co.uk/commentators/story.jsp?story=393075
UP!
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Doing Good and Doing Well
Part 4 in a Series
By Phil Inje Chang
Nestled in the foothills of the Alps in northern Italy, one of the most exemplary spiritual communities in the world has pioneered an artistically enriched approach to life. Called Damanhur, this community of some 800 people has created a sustainable approach to pursuing spiritual, artistic and technological values.+=£$ GO FROM BROKE! %£$-
A BUSINESS FORUM hosted by Phil Inje Chang
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Doing Good and Doing Well
Part 4 in a Series
By Phil Inje Chang
While I’d hardly call myself an expert on Damanhur, a brief visit there recently convinced me there’s a lot of substance to their story. They first became known to the world about 10 years ago when local Italian authorities raided them for having created a purportedly “illegal” underground structure. That structure is a massive temple, The Temple of Humankind, that they carved into the hillside, a focal point for their progressive and yet ancient beliefs. The community put out an international call for aid and began to establish ties with sympathetic souls in Europe and northern California. Ultimately, after many battles, the community survived and has begun to foster like-minded communities in other parts of the world.
While it’s impossible to describe the intricacies of the community’s structure and beliefs here, let me make a few key points. First, the belief system is sufficiently broad and open as to avoid cultish tendencies. In fact, it is an eclectic composite of ancient and modern beliefs supported by ongoing scholarly study and technical research. Different members of the community can embrace different aspects of the beliefs, and add to them. The founder has shied away from guru status and has always encouraged the influx of new ideas and perspectives.
Second, the community has fully incorporated economic reality into its structure, which represents a return to a community-based social/work/craftsman paradigm. There are actually several small sub-communities, accommodating stylistic preferences among their respective members, and the most basic social unit is the nucleo, which can consist of families and friends across generations, often living together in large houses. Perhaps most notable in the context of this column are the various artisan businesses, ranging from manufacture of fine cashmere fabrics on refurbished ancient looms, to handmade stained glass and elaborate mosaics. The products of these businesses are used within the community and sold to specialised markets in Europe.
Third, the community takes seriously its role in advancing the technological and scientific progress of humanity. While this may be the most controversial aspect of the community’s diverse nature, it is also quite intriguing and exemplary. A holistic vision of the universe involves scientific reality, and this community strives to make science part of their overall picture of life. In fact, it goes farther than conventional science by seeking value in ancient wisdom, across cultures. Some of that wisdom may not be entirely proven, but neither is it disproved. For instance, they have refined the concept of ley lines into a more comprehensive global grid of energy lines, based in part on ancient Chinese beliefs. And then they have a unique version of physics called esoteric physics, which incorporates beliefs around the evolution of souls as well as manipulation of time. Researchers in the community actively add to this body of knowledge and explore its practical applications.
Not surprisingly, members of the community often refer to their endeavour as a new renaissance, and perhaps there is some resemblance to the holistic flowering that originated just a bit further south. If you would like to find out more, visit the Damanhur website at www.damanhur.org.
Comments to pic@humanbe-in.com.
© Phil Inje Chang, 2003.
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Let it stand for 2 hours before icing.