Anonymous Comrade writes

"Interested Persons Memo: Section-by-Section Analysis of Justice Department draft “Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003,” also known as “PATRIOT Act II”

The Department of Justice (DOJ) has been drafting comprehensive anti-terrorism legislation for the past several months. The draft legislation, dated January 9, 2003, grants sweeping powers to the government, eliminating or weakening many of the checks and balances that remained on government surveillance, wiretapping, detention and criminal prosecution even after passage of the USA PATRIOT Act, Pub. L. No. 107-56, in 2001.

http://www.aclu.org/SafeandFree/SafeandFree.cfm?ID =11835&c=206"

Anonymous Comrade writes:

Historian Christopher Hill dies at 91

Martin Kettle, Tuesday February 25, 2003, The Guardian

Christopher Hill, the Oxford historian whose Marxist interpretations of the 17th century helped to revolutionise the way in which generations of scholars and students saw the English civil war and the era of Oliver Cromwell, has died.

Anonymous Comrade writes

Terry Jones, of Monty Python, offers an insightful reason why we all should support Bush's plan to bomb Iraq:

"For some time now I've been really pissed off with Mr Johnson, who lives a couple of doors down the street. Well, him and Mr Patel, who runs the health food shop. They both give me queer looks, and I'm sure Mr Johnson is planning something nasty for me, but so far I haven't been able to discover what. I've been round to his place a few times to see what he's up to, but he's got everything well hidden. That's how devious he is.

As for Mr Patel, don't ask me how I know, I just know - from very good sources - that he is, in reality, a Mass Murderer. I have leafleted the street telling them that if we don't act first, he'll pick us off one by one."

http://www.observer.co.uk/comment/story/0,6903,882 459,00.html"

atty writes "Currently the population of the planet is waiting for the launch of a deadly attack by one set of countries on another. the >wartime< project is a collective group effort by digital and network artists across all the continents to focus its visitors and audience on the horror and destructiveness of war.

http://offline.area3.net/wartime

Anonymous comrade writes

"A Monument to Hypocrisy"

Edward Said, 16/02/2003

It has finally become intolerable to listen to or look
at news in this country. I've told myself over and over
again that one ought to leaf through the daily papers
and turn on the TV for the national news every evening,
just to find out what "the country" is thinking and
planning, but patience and masochism have their limits.
Colin Powell's UN speech, designed obviously to outrage
the American people and bludgeon the UN into going to
war, seems to me to have been a new low point in moral
hypocrisy and political manipulation. But Donald
Rumsfeld's lectures in Munich this past weekend went
one step further than the bumbling Powell in unctuous
sermonising and bullying derision.
=

Anonymous Comrade writes:

"Take a look at this fine little Flash animaton about Iraqi war!"

http://www.idleworm.com/nws/2002/11/iraq2.shtml

Mobilize NY writes "(a bit of Feb 14 theatrics, with the much coveted Mobilize NY seal of approval)

This Valentine's Day, Bring Them Home: Bring Them Home Now is a network of concerned Americans who wish to protect our men and women in uniform. We believe that the proposed war on Iraq is unnecessary and immoral. Under such circumstances the only way to be pro-soldier is to be anti-war.

The atrocity of September 11 should have changed the way we think about national security forever. It did, but we appear to have learned the wrong lesson. War will not make us safer. It will do just the opposite. (Take it from the CIA.) This Valentine's Day, come out and show your love for our troops whose lives are now at risk.

WHAT: Gathering to call for the immediate return of U.S. troops now stationed near Iraq.

WHERE: Times Square Military Recruiting Station (43rd where Broadway and 7th meet)

WHEN: Friday, 14 February, 7 p.m.

WHAT TO BRING: Yellow flowers. We'll decorate the recruiting station and hand out yellow ribbons to passers-by.

http://www.BringThemHomeNow.com
"

Mobilize NY writes "

Federal Judge Barbara Jones ruled this
morning that the City of New York can deny United for Peace and Justice a
permit to march on February 15. Citing "heightened security concerns," she
ruled that protesters may only hold a stationary rally, for which we have been
granted a permit for First Avenue stretching north from 49th Street.

"Oil and Iraqi War"

Ralph Nader


Despite well-known ties to Big Oil, Bush Administration officials have managed to keep a straight face as they insist that the drive to war against Iraq is motivated only by an effort to eliminate weapons of mass destruction and establish democracy. Tomorrow we'll see what evidence Secretary of State Powell presents to the United Nations. It is not credible that there would be such a strong push for war if there were no oil in Iraq. Oil is power and this is in significant measure a struggle over that power.

"The Ba'athists"

Tariq Ali

Given that different factions of the Ba'ath Party have ruled Syria and Iraq for almost half a century, a study of its origins is not a purely academic exercise.