contributions

Associated Press
Fears Impacted U.S. Reporting on Iraq
By Mielikki Org - Associated Press Writer
BERKELEY, Ca.
Competitive pressures and a fear of appearing unpatriotic discouraged journalists from doing more critical reporting during the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, according to reporters and others at a conference on media coverage of the war.
The journalists on the panels at the University of California at Berkeley this week blamed the Bush administration for leaking faulty (…)

The Guardian (UK)
MIT professor, writer and activist
There’s a lot of focus on the American death toll but personally I think that’s partly propaganda exaggeration. Polls have demonstrated time and time again that Americans are willing to accept a high death toll - although they don’t like it, they’re willing to accept it - if they think it’s a just cause. There’s never been anything like the so-called Vietnam Syndrome: it’s mostly a fabrication. And in this case too if they (…)

The wealth of supermarkets is built on monopoly, exploitation and restriction of choice
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By George Monbiot
The Guardian (UK) March 16, 2004 Commentary
Every year the list is the same, but every year it still comes as a shock. Of the 10 richest people on Earth, five of them have the same surname. It’s not Gates, or Murdoch, or Rockefeller, but Walton. They are the heirs and trustees of the supermarket chain Wal- Mart. And between them they are (…)

Why Britain’s disappearing butterflies may be early victims of the sixth mass extinction
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By Steve Connor, Science Editor Independent (UK) 19 March 2004
A milestone study of British birds, butterflies and wild flowers has revealed the strongest evidence yet that we are on the verge of a mass extinction of global wildlife - the sixth mass extinction in the history of life on Earth.
Scientists have accumulated the most detailed data to date (…)

[Howard Clark is a member of the international council of War Resisters’ International, English. He lives in Madrid with his partner and two children.]
First, a thank you to those of you who have been thinking about us since last Thursday’s terrorist attack in Madrid.
It was indeed horrific, yet - occurring at a divisive time such as on the eve of a general election - it brought forth marvellous solidarity. From the fire brigades and hospital workers working overtime to ordinary people (…)

Message from the President of the Councils of State and Ministers of the Republic of Cuba to the distinguished Mr. José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero on the occasion of his election as President of the Spanish government
Granma International http://www.granma.cu/ingles/2004/marzo/mar16/mensaje.html
Distinguished Mr. José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero:
The Spanish people, decidedly opposed to the cruel and unjust war of conquest in Iraq, likewise opposed by yourself, and outraged by the crude (…)

What you need to know
*The plan for the NYC demonstration & how to get there
*Bus drop off and parking
*Map of the rally area and march
*Hundreds of volunteers are needed
*Up-to-date logistical information
*Buses to NYC & other regional demonstrations, 200+ protests nationally
*Funds urgently needed
Opposition to the Iraq war and occupation is deep and it is global. It stunned the war-makers that the people of Spain, having experienced a horrific (…)

Saddam may be gone but peace has not come. Robert Fisk was in Baghdad when the tyrant was in his pomp and when the first bombs fell on 19 March 2003. His acclaimed reports revealed the suffering of the Iraqi people. Now, as the anniversary of the war approaches, he returns to a land riven by chaos, where liberation is a myth.
The Independent (UK) March 14, 2004 http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/story.jsp?story=501026
The surviving Iraqi employees of the United Nations fearfully (…)

by Bill Fletcher, Jr.
David Bacon, The Children of NAFTA: Labor Wars on the U.S./Mexico Border (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004), 348 pages, cloth $27.50.
I once heard a discussion about the first sentences of books and those sentences that were among the most famous and most powerful. The opening of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude was among the most popular. David Bacon’s first sentence in chapter one of his book must now rank among the most (…)

http://monthlyreview.org/0304yates.htm
by Michael D. Yates
Radicals of every stripe believe that capitalist economies are incompatible with human liberation. That is, while human beings have enormous capacities to think and to do, capitalism prevents the vast majority of people from developing these capacities. Therefore if we want a society in which the full flowering of human competencies can become a reality, we will have to bring capitalism to an end and replace it with something (…)