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Lorna Mills and Sally McKay
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Common Dreams has an excellent, cheering (in a hell-in-a-handbasket kind of way) essay by 81-year-old Kurt Vonnegut.
"By saying that our leaders are power-drunk chimpanzees, am I in danger of wrecking the morale of our soldiers fighting and dying in the Middle East? Their morale, like so many bodies, is already shot to pieces. They are being treated, as I never was, like toys a rich kid got for Christmas."
My neighbourhood has Nighthawks. In the summer I sleep with my head next to a window, and I can hear them going peent peent* as they dart around up above the rowhouses, conducting their nocturnal flycatching activities.
*according to Roger Tory Peterson (actually the cry really does sound like that, which is part of the reason I like them)
* Krazy Kat was supposedly genderless, but I guess the guy is entitled to his opinion.
Excerpts from Naomi Klein at rabble.ca, Mutiny Is The Only Way Out
"The last month of U.S. aggression in Iraq has inspired what can only be described as a mutiny: waves of soldiers, workers and politicians under the command of the U.S. occupation authority suddenly refusing to follow orders and abandoning their posts. First Spain announced that it would withdraw its troops, then Honduras, Dominican Republic, Nicaragua and Kazakhstan. South Korean and Bulgarian troops were pulled back to their bases, while New Zealand is withdrawing its engineers. El Salvador, Norway, the Netherlands and Thailand will likely be next."
"And then there's the U.S.-controlled Iraqi army. Since the latest wave of fighting, its soldiers have been donating their weapons to resistance fighters in the south and refusing to fight in Falluja. By late April, Major General Martin Dempsey, commander of the 1st Armoured Division, was reporting that “about 40 per cent walked off the job because of intimidation. And about 10 per cent actually worked against us.”
"And it's not just Iraq's soldiers who have been deserting the occupation. Four ministers of the Iraqi governing council have resigned in protest; and half the Iraqis with jobs in the secured “green zone” — as translators, drivers, cleaners — are not showing up for work. Minor mutinous signs are emerging even within the ranks of the U.S. military: privates Jeremy Hinzman and Brandon Hughey have applied for refugee status in Canada as conscientious objectors, and Staff Sergeant Camilo Mejia is facing court martial after he refused to return to Iraq on the grounds that he no longer knew what the war was about."
[...]
"There is a way that the UN can redeem itself in Iraq: it could choose to join the mutiny, further isolating the United States. This would help to force Washington to hand over real power — ultimately to Iraqis, but first to a multilateral coalition that did not participate in the invasion and occupation and would have the credibility to oversee direct elections. This could work, but only through a process that fiercely protects Iraq's sovereignty." [details follow: ditch the interim constitution, put the money in trust, de-Chalabify Iraq, demand the withdrawal of US troops]
rabble.ca is a new kind of publication, one built on the efforts of progressive journalists, writers, artists and activists across the country. We launched rabble on April 18, 2001, just before the protests against the Summit of the Americas in Quebec City, and leapt onto the Net with the kind of coverage you could only get from the point of view of the rabble. We have covered events and issues in ways you'd be hard pressed to find anywhere else ever since. rabble.ca fuses the hot energy of activism with the cool eye of journalism. We feature some of the best progressive writers in Canada. Some will be known to you; others are the new and emerging voices you've been straining to hear.
Common Dreams is an eclectic mix of politics, issues and breaking news with an emphasis on progressive perspectives that are increasingly hard to find with our corporate-dominated media.
Democracy Now! has launched an expanded, two-hour War and Peace Report in order to meet a growing demand for trustworthy, independent news and information in this time of war. The War and Peace Report provides our audience with access to people and perspectives rarely heard in the U.S. corporate-sponsored media, including independent and international journalists, ordinary people from around the world who are directly affected by U.S. foreign policy, grassroots leaders and peace activists, artists, academics and independent analysts. In addition, the War and Peace Report hosts real debates – debates between people who substantially disagree, such as between the White House or the Pentagon spokespeople on the one hand, and grassroots activists on the other.
TalkLeft is not a neutral site. Our mission is to intelligently and thoroughly examine issues, candidates and legislative initiatives as they pertain to constitutional rights, particularly those of persons accused of crime.
cyborg notes:
I recently saw Logan's Run again for the first time since I was a teenager. It's a curious film. I remembered it as a tight little dystopic narrative, a neat, discrete vision of the future to stack up with Andromeda Strain and Planet of the Apes. The first third fits this model, but as the protagonists approach and breach the boundaries of the city, the story becomes more and more surreal. Eventually Peter Ustinov shows up, talking in cryptic verse. There are serveral highly choreographed modern dance type scenes, such as the carousel, where costumed folks in tights are hauled upward on not-so-invisible wires.There is also a truly strange A.I. moment in which the computer at a security checkpoint grills Michael York about consorting with lefties (Runners) while at the same time re-assigning him to a top secret mission, and changing the colour of his palm crystal (or life clock), thereby significantly shortening his life. The computer, passive/aggressive and omniscient, says very little while Logan stumbles and staggers through a series of "questions" that seems far too evocative for effective communication with a machine. I've excerpted this discussion below. The entire transcript has been made available online by Joe Rauner. There is a pretty thorough synopsis of the film (with images) here, at transparencynow.com.
C: Logan 5, approach and identify. (APPROACH AND IDENTIFY) Sit facing the screen, Logan 5. (IDENTIFY) Identify. (IDENTITY AFFIRMED: PROCEDURE: 033-03). Logan 5, do you identify this object?
L: Negative. Question, what is it?
C: That is the name of the object, "ankh". (ANKH, SANCTUARY) Do you identify this word, "Sanctuary"?
L: Negative.
C: “Sanctuary” is a pre-catastrophe code word used for a place of immunity.
L: I don’t understand.
C: The object “ankh” has been identified with the code word “Sanctuary”. The object and the word both relate to runners who have not been accounted for.
L: Question.
C: Hold. (UNACCOUNTED RUNNERS: 1056) Unaccounted runners 1056. You may state your question.
L: 1056 unaccounted for?
C: The number is correct.
L: That’s impossible. Question, maybe they weren’t all runners. Maybe most of them reached life renewal on Carousel. (UNACCOUNTED RUNNERS: 1056) Question, nobody reached renewal? But, everybody believes that, that some ...
C: The question has been answered, Logan 5. (PROCEDURE: 03303)
L: You mean, nobody’s ever been renewed?
C: The question has been answered. You are authorized to penetrate City seals and search outside the Dome. (PROCEDURE: 033-03)
L: Umm, seals? Question, what seals? Outside? Well, there’s, there’s nothing outside.
C: You will find Sanctuary, and destroy. (PROCEDURE: 033-03)
L: Question, what if I need help from another Sandman?
C: Negative. You will begin assignment by becoming a runner seeking Sanctuary.
L: Question. I’m only a Red 6 now. How can I pretend that I’m approaching Lastday?
C: Identify. (PROCEDURE: RETROGRAM) [Red crystal below Logan glows. He is age-progressed. His life clock now blinks]
L: My life clock. Question. My life clock!
C: (RETROGRAM COMPLETE) Retrogram complete. Proceed 033 03.
L: But am I still Red 6? But I had 4 more years! I will get them back, won't I?
C: You will take the object "ankh" with you for identification.
L: Question. Do I get my 4 years back? [computer falls silent]