The following is an update from Suzanne
Taylor and TheConversation.org Making Sense of These Times [http://www.theconversation.org] Website. Thank you for
your interest. If you wish to be removed from this list at any time, just let us
know.
________________________________________
June 19,
2002
CROP CIRCLE DIARY ENTRY:
Swirled News
Review of Matthew William's Lecture, Mary Bennett
[http://www.swirlednews.com/article.asp?artID=431]
The scourge of the crop circle world is
hoaxers. This is a very cogent, excoriating review of a lecture by the most
vocal of this bunch. He has been an in-your-face as well as in the fields major
annoyance to the research community, and it was very satisfying to read such an
intelligent appraisal of what he has done -- just what we all in the croppie
community would like to have said. Here's a quote from Mary Bennett's
review:
"The results of biological research
undertaken on crop circles informs us that something other than
hoaxing/diddling/planking is going on in some formations. If the plankers of
this world stood back, we would get a clearer picture. But that is precisely the
point. They are not doing this for any artistic reasons or for any ‘paranormal
jolly’ (which they could aspire to in an authentic circle). They are doing it to
confuse and to slow down our ability to understand what is going on here, and
they are attempting to create division and stress within the local communities
in which these authentic events occur and to which they gravitate for their
plank. Those farmers who do have an authentic event on their land have enough to
cope with; they do not need irresponsible plankers adding to their workload."
________________________________________
NEW MONTHLY REPORT
A new Monthly Report is
up on TheConversation.org. Those of you who got on this list during the
last month can read about what list members have been told about all month
long. The rest of you might like to read it for the sense of how the month
went, all put together in one place. Here's one paragraph I'd like
everyone to read: "Through all of this is my call for doing more than being
irate. It is chilling to me how acceptable everything is for all of us. We shake
our heads at the genuineness of the threat to humanity's survival, but how can
we be more than impotent about creating change? The only thing I know to do is
to toss that question around -- the power of the collective is exponentially
greater than the sum of many individuals. For however this little effort could
serve to connect us and to galvanize us, I am your passionate servant."
________________________________________
COLUMN FROM GEOV PARRISH: Threat Assessment: The War that Isn't and the
Constitution that is No Longer -- June 12, 2002
Suzanne's comments:
Nothing very new here, but this is a well written sorrowful dirge about the
state of our world that makes me itch to do something about it. I feel so
blessed to be able to share Geov Parrish with everyone. I wish he'd ask me to
sign up for the Mad As Hell And Not Going To Take It Anymore Club. "The Bush
Administration has, in effect, announced that they are giving us a new American
constitution to replace the old one — by executive order. Presumably, as with
the ABM Treaty the U.S. officially withdraws from today (since nuclear weapons
are no longer a threat, right?), it's just a relic of a bygone era. All that
freedom-and-stuff is no longer relevant to America's 21st century needs."
Other quotes drawn from the
column:
John Ashcroft and his
minions have covered themselves already, by giving themselves the legal
authority to investigate anyone, at any time, for any reason, for generations to
come.
At some point, the fact that this sort of threat to public safety
exists can no longer be called an emergency; it will have to be viewed as the
way the world is in the 21st century. This country will have to decide that the
proper balance between public safety and such once-popular ideas as individual
freedom and innocence until guilt is proved.
Most of us, these odd 6,600
hours after 9-11, are back to watching sporting events, shopping at the mall or
engaging in other variations on adult thumb-sucking. Meanwhile, our highest
levels of decision-makers — in the White House especially, but also in Congress
and the courts — are stuffed with people inclined, when not being watched, to
use their power mostly to get more power and to enrich themselves and their
friends.
________________________________________
The Reverend Jerry Vines, senior pastor of
the Jacksonville, FL First Baptist Church, spoke to thousands of the faithful at
the Southern Baptist pastors conference in St. Louis this past Monday. In his
remarks, Vines stated that, "Islam is not just as good as Christianity." Vines
went on to decry Mohammed, the founder of Islam, as, "A demon-possessed
pedophile who had twelve wives - and his last one was a nine-year-old
girl."...
George W. Bush graced the pastors with his
presence via satellite link...Bush's appearance in a place where intolerance and
hatred are preached by Christian spiritual leaders underscores the central
crisis facing America today...
Americans are no longer sure which way is
up. We have lost our sense of moral clarity. Our freedom to ask questions
without fear of reprisal has been cast into a well of doubt that is made all the
more darker by homespun threats and intimidation...
Americans are now
subject to a government that will terrorize them in order to further whatever
agenda happens to present itself at the moment. More often than not, that agenda
is about protecting the Bush administration from criticism about the catastrophe
that was their preparedness for 9/11...There is no moral clarity here, but only
a base instinct for self preservation that shames us all.
In Search of Moral
Clarity
William Rivers Pitt
http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/09.17A.pitt.clarity.htm
________________________________________
NOTEWORTHY
NEWS: A New Horizon for the Democratic Party, Representative Dennis J.
Kucinich to the Democratic National Committee -- May 25,
2002
Suzanne's comments:
Passed to us by Rick Ingrasci, with this subject line: "Deninis
Kucinich: A New Horizon (Presidential stump speech?)" We should be so
lucky. The speech ends this
way: "Senator Robert Kennedy, addressing students in South Africa who suffered
under the yoke of apartheid, understood the potency of the human heart as
surmounting all obstacles. He said: 'Each time a man (or a woman) stands up for
an ideal, acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice,
he (or she) sends forth a tiny ripple of hope. And crossing each other from a
million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples can create a
current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.'
This is my commitment. I am sure it is yours, too."
NOTEWORTHY NEWS: We Won't Deny our Consciences: Prominent
Americans Have Issued this Statement on the War on Terror -- June 14,
2002
Suzanne's comments: This declaration -- "to resist the war and repression that has
been loosed on the world by the Bush administration" -- is the best call
I've seen to rally progressives. (One line bothered me: "We understand
that such rights and values are always contested and must be fought for."
) I'd like it to go the next step, to what we advocate -- that we should
be a world committed to bring the greatest possible benefit to all
people. We had the New Deal; maybe next it could be the Good Deal, which
is a sea change from being guided by the bottom line. I heard Stephen
Spielberg, on TV yesterday, say it's a time of national emergency. We need
rallying calls to link up our energies so we can rise to the seriousness of the
occasion -- maybe this could serve.
Let it not be said that
people in the United States did nothing when their government declared a war
without limit and instituted stark new measures of repression. The signers of
this statement call on the people of the US to resist the policies and overall
political direction that have emerged since September 11 and which pose grave
dangers to the people of the world.
We believe that peoples and nations
have the right to determine their own destiny, free from military coercion by
great powers. We believe that all persons detained or prosecuted by the US
government should have the same rights of due process. We believe that
questioning, criticism, and dissent must be valued and protected. We understand
that such rights and values are always contested and must be fought for.
We believe that people of conscience must take responsibility for what
their own governments do - we must first of all oppose the injustice that is
done in our own name. Thus we call on all Americans to resist the war and
repression that has been loosed on the world by the Bush administration. It is
unjust, immoral and illegitimate. We choose to make common cause with the people
of the world.
We too watched with shock the horrific events of September
11. We too mourned the thousands of innocent dead and shook our heads at the
terrible scenes of carnage - even as we recalled similar scenes in Baghdad,
Panama City and, a generation ago, Vietnam. We too joined the anguished
questioning of millions of Americans who asked why such a thing could happen.
But the mourning had barely begun, when the highest leaders of the land
unleashed a spirit of revenge. They put out a simplistic script of "good v evil"
that was taken up by a pliant and intimidated media. They told us that asking
why these terrible events had happened verged on treason. There was to be no
debate. There were by definition no valid political or moral questions. The only
possible answer was to be war abroad and repression at home.
In our
name, the Bush administration, with near unanimity from Congress, not only
attacked Afghanistan but arrogated to itself and its allies the right to rain
down military force anywhere and anytime. The brutal repercussions have been
felt from the Philippines to Palestine. The government now openly prepares to
wage all-out war on Iraq - a country which has no connection to the horror of
September 11. What kind of world will this become if the US government has a
blank cheque to drop commandos, assassins, and bombs wherever it wants?
In our name the government has created two classes of people within the
US: those to whom the basic rights of the US legal system are at least promised,
and those who now seem to have no rights at all. The government rounded up more
than 1,000 immigrants and detained them in secret and indefinitely. Hundreds
have been deported and hundreds of others still languish today in prison. For
the first time in decades, immigration procedures single out certain
nationalities for unequal treatment.
In our name, the government has
brought down a pall of repression over society. The president's spokesperson
warns people to "watch what they say". Dissident artists, intellectuals, and
professors find their views distorted, attacked, and suppressed. The so-called
Patriot Act - along with a host of similar measures on the state level - gives
police sweeping new powers of search and seizure, supervised, if at all, by
secret proceedings before secret courts.
In our name, the executive has
steadily usurped the roles and functions of the other branches of government.
Military tribunals with lax rules of evidence and no right to appeal to the
regular courts are put in place by executive order. Groups are declared
"terrorist" at the stroke of a presidential pen.
We must take the
highest officers of the land seriously when they talk of a war that will last a
generation and when they speak of a new domestic order. We are confronting a new
openly imperial policy towards the world and a domestic policy that manufactures
and manipulates fear to curtail rights.
There is a deadly trajectory to
the events of the past months that must be seen for what it is and resisted. Too
many times in history people have waited until it was too late to resist.
President Bush has declared: "You're either with us or against us." Here is our
answer: We refuse to allow you to speak for all the American people. We will not
give up our right to question. We will not hand over our consciences in return
for a hollow promise of safety. We say not in our name. We refuse to be party to
these wars and we repudiate any inference that they are being waged in our name
or for our welfare. We extend a hand to those around the world suffering from
these policies; we will show our solidarity in word and deed.
We who
sign this statement call on all Americans to join together to rise to this
challenge. We applaud and support the questioning and protest now going on, even
as we recognise the need for much, much more to actually stop this juggernaut.
We draw inspiration from the Israeli reservists who, at great personal risk,
declare "there is a limit" and refuse to serve in the occupation of the West
Bank and Gaza.
We draw on the many examples of resistance and conscience
from the past of the US: from those who fought slavery with rebellions and the
underground railroad, to those who defied the Vietnam war by refusing orders,
resisting the draft, and standing in solidarity with resisters. Let us not allow
the watching world to despair of our silence and our failure to act. Instead,
let the world hear our pledge: we will resist the machinery of war and
repression and rally others to do everything possible to stop it.
From:
Michael Albert
Laurie Anderson
Edward Asner, actor
Russell Banks,
writer
Rosalyn Baxandall, historian
Jessica Blank,
actor/playwright
Medea Benjamin, Global Exchange
William Blum,
author
Theresa Bonpane, executive director, Office of the Americas
Blase
Bonpane, director, Office of the Americas
Fr Bob Bossie, SCJ
Leslie
Cagan
Henry Chalfant,author/filmmaker
Bell Chevigny, writer
Paul
Chevigny, professor of law, NYU
Noam Chomsky
Stephanie Coontz, historian,
Evergreen State College
Kia Corthron, playwright
Kevin Danaher, Global
Exchange
Ossie Davis
Mos Def
Carol Downer, board of directors, Chico
(CA) Feminist Women's Health Centre
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, professor,
California State University, Hayward
Eve Ensler
Leo Estrada, UCLA
professor, Urban Planning
John Gillis, writer, professor of history,
Rutgers
Jeremy Matthew Glick, editor of Another World Is Possible
Suheir
Hammad, writer
David Harvey, distinguished professor of anthropology, CUNY
Graduate Centre
Rakaa Iriscience, hip hop artist
Erik Jensen,
actor/playwright
Casey Kasem
Robin DG Kelly
Martin Luther King III,
president, Southern Christian Leadership Conference
Barbara Kingsolver
C
Clark Kissinger, Refuse & Resist!
Jodie Kliman, psychologist
Yuri
Kochiyama, activist
Annisette & Thomas Koppel, singers/composers
Tony
Kushner
James Lafferty, executive director, National Lawyers Guild/LA
Ray
Laforest, Haiti Support Network
Rabbi Michael Lerner, editor, Tikkun
magazine
Barbara Lubin, Middle East Childrens Alliance
Staughton
Lynd
Anuradha Mittal, co-director, Institute for Food and Development
Policy/FoodFirst
Malaquias Montoya, visual artist
Robert Nichols,
writer
Rev E Randall Osburn, executive vice president, Southern Christian
Leadership Conference
Grace Paley
Jeremy Pikser, screenwriter
Jerry
Quickley, poet
Juan Gumez Quiones, historian, UCLA
Michael Ratner,
president, Centre for Constitutional Rights
David Riker, filmmaker
Boots
Riley, hip hop artist, The Coup
Edward Said
John J Simon, writer, editor
Starhawk
Michael Steven Smith, National Lawyers Guild/NY
Bob Stein,
publisher
Gloria Steinem
Alice Walker
Naomi Wallace, playwright
Rev
George Webber, president emeritus, NY Theological Seminary
Leonard Weinglass,
attorney
John Edgar Wideman
Saul Williams, spoken word artist
Howard
Zinn, historian
Contact
the Not In Our Name statement at nionstatement@hotmail.com
Initially published by Guardian Unlimited © Guardian
Newspapers Limited 2002
________________________________________
COMMENT FROM ONE OF OUR
LISTMEMBERS:
Elihu
Edelson writes:
I know pretty
much how Suzanne feels when taking flack in the Israel/Palestine debate. I tried
to make points similar to hers on a "Progressive Zionist" site and for my
troubles got called "traitor" and "pro-Palestinian." Why didn't I spend equal
time chastising the Palestinians? It does no good to assert that one is
fundamentally nonviolent and oppose all wars and violence. (I'm a WW II vet with
a Purple Heart to show for it.) These folks hate Bush but have a Bushite
mindset: you're either for us or against us. To them the Palestinians are
non-persons. They have no right to their own land but there are no positive
solutions to their human dilemma. The undercurrent would suggest expulsion or
herding Palestinians onto reservations, like the abomination which befell the
Native Americans. "Well, you can't give the country back to the Indians." Right;
and look at the situation of the Indians today. Do we Jews want to repeat the
American shame? William Irwin Thompson wrote an op ed called "You Become What
You Hate" for the N.Y. Times years ago. It's worth looking up. The
Israelis are looking too much like Nazis for comfort in their mistreatment of
Palestinians. All Jews should be concerned about what Israel is becoming in the
hands of extreme hard-liners. Not all Jews are believers, but it is a law of
nature that we reap what we sow. Likely many who read this site are aware of the
law of karma. There is too much denial about the overkill and ecocide Israel has
indulged in under the policies of Sharon and his supporters. But God is not
mocked, and those of us who care about Israel's future are really concerned
about the consequences of its current actions. Now it's the illusion of a
security fence, making Israel a self-imposed ghetto. Oy!
Suzanne responds:
I love your
call to higher ground. We've got to make the climb. It is painful
that this is such a hard sell. I very much appreciate your clarity.
And pray for it to prevail...
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