contributions

By Brian C. Mooney, Globe Staff
http://www.boston.com/news/politics/president/kerry/articles/2004/04/23/kerry_faces_battle_for_antiwar_blocs_vote/
Senator John F. Kerry may have won the contest for the Democratic presidential nomination, but he still faces a fight for the hearts and minds of the party\’s antiwar wing.
With violence surging in Iraq, voters who want a quick end to the US-led occupation are shaping up as a potentially critical constituency, and Independent (…)

By Norman Solomon / Creators Syndicate
Taking the stage at a community center in the small Northern California town of Bolinas, a group of four musicians quickly showed themselves to be returning as a vibrant creative force centered very much in the present.
Not that the music of Country Joe and the Fish ever really disappeared. Since the release of the band\’s first two albums in 1967 — \’Electric Music for the Mind and Body\’ along with \’I-Feel-Like-I\’m-Fixin\’-To-Die\’ — many of its (…)

By Hal Bernton and Ray Rivera Seattle Times staff reporters
The week before Kuwait cargo worker Tami Silicio lost her job for releasing a photograph of soldiers\’ coffins, the Air Force made its own release of several hundred photographs of flag-draped coffins to the operator of an Internet site.
The Air Force photos were shot by personnel at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware and released - reluctantly - in response to a Freedom of Information Act request submitted by a 34-year-old First (…)

DOVER, Del., April 22 - A Web site published dozens of photographs of American war dead arriving at the nation\’s largest military mortuary, prompting the Pentagon to order an information clampdown today.
The photographs were released last week to First Amendment activist Russ Kick, who had filed a Freedom of Information Act request to receive the images. Air Force officials initially denied the request but decided to release the photos after Kick appealed their decision. After Kick (…)

By Andrew Gumbel in Los Angeles
The United States may be on the way to another Florida- style presidential election fiasco this year because legislation passed to fix the system has either failed to address the problems or has broken down because of missed deadlines and unmet funding targets.
Such is the conclusion of a damning new report by the US Commission on Civil Rights, a bipartisan government body which previously looked into the Florida mess and found alarming evidence of voter (…)

Mary Carpenter April 20,2001
North Carolina General Assembly To Whom It May Concern,
To my understanding you are debating the passage of laws requiring trigger locks and mandatory storage of guns. I am a second generation resident of the State of California, a mother and a grieving grandmother. I wish to express to you how trigger locks and mandatory storage laws in the State of California affected my family. I hope my testimony may save someone in your state from sharing the pain we (…)

The Racist Roots of Gun Control Clayton E. Cramer
*17* The historical record provides compelling evidence that racism underlies gun control laws — and not in any subtle way. Throughout much of American history, governments openly stated that gun control laws were useful for keeping blacks and Hispanics "in their place" and for quieting the racial fears of whites.
Racist arms laws predate the establishment of the United States. This is not surprising. Blacks in the New World were often (…)

Venezuelanalysis.com writes: President Hugo Chavez Frias has announced that the cultivation of genetically modified crops will be prohibited on Venezuelan soil, possibly establishing the most sweeping restrictions on transgenic crops in the Western Hemisphere. Though full details of the administration’s policy on genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are still forthcoming, the statement by President Chavez will lead most immediately to the cancellation of a contract that Venezuela had (…)

Torture may be acceptable provided it is administered in small doses, says a
bill under discussion in the Italian parliament that has outraged human
rights organisations.
The Chamber of Deputies yesterday passed an amendment, tabled by the
far-right Northern League, to the bill which opposition MPs denounced as a
green light to "limited" torture but which government supporters said was
essential for police.
The amendment says violence and threats must be used repeatedly to qualify (…)

The real issue isn\’t why the U.S wasn\’t ready for the attack, but why the Administration used the tragedy to invade Iraq
A funny thing happened on my late-night cab ride in Manhattan a couple of weeks ago. I had been reading Against All Enemies, the controversial new book by former counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke, with its riveting account of the Bush Administration\’s extraordinary performance in the hours after the September 11 attacks. I had watched a somber Clarke on (…)