Marines Massacre Civilians at Nassiyra; Puke-in target Fox News

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Sign up for this weekly e-mail newsletter at
 
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Students Fight For Affirmative Action
 
http://www.tcgreens.org/gl/articles/20030407065142507.html
 

 
Rochester Activists not Deterred by Ice Storm
 
http://www.tcgreens.org/gl/articles/20030407064609226.html
 

 
Carfree Cities
 
http://www.tcgreens.org/gl/articles/20030407062112763.html
 

 
Peace Activist: End US Military Aid To Colombia!
 
http://www.tcgreens.org/gl/articles/20030404063139383.html
 

 
Puke-In targets Fox News, CNN
 
http://www.tcgreens.org/gl/articles/2003040406194395.html
 

 
Herbal Medicine Gets Taken Seriously
 
http://www.tcgreens.org/gl/articles/20030404060153207.html
 

 
US Media Applaud Bombing of Iraqi TV
 
http://www.tcgreens.org/gl/articles/20030403053400414.html
 

 
AP misreports pro-war rallies
 
http://www.tcgreens.org/gl/articles/20030403053113260.html
 

 
Four Greens Elected in Wisconsin
 
http://www.tcgreens.org/gl/articles/20030403052531877.html
 

 
US Greens: Bush Cronies Profit From War
 
http://www.tcgreens.org/gl/articles/20030402060533688.html
 

 
US Marines Massacre Civillians at Nasiriya Bridge
 
http://www.tcgreens.org/gl/articles/20030402055534704.html
 

 
War Effort Stumbles
 
http://www.tcgreens.org/gl/articles/20030402055108867.html
 

 
http://www.tcgreens.org/gl/articles/200303310620566.html
 

 
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Students Fight For Affirmative Action
 

 
Well over 50,000 people, including 10,000 from Michigan alone, rallied
 
in front of the US Supreme Court on Tuesday in favor of the University
 
of Michigan's affirmative action policies, now under review by the
 
Court. Students, union members, and other civil rights proponents
 
traveled from all over the country to show their support for the
 
University of Michigan, whose policies for promoting diversity within
 
their community are under fire from reactionaries. Ironically, Bush
 
himself, a benefactor of affirmative action, argued in court that the
 
policies were unconstitutional.
 

 
It was difficult to tell how many assembled in front of the Supreme
 
Court, but the crowd came from all areas of the United States. Student
 
activists working with Students Supporting Affirmative Action, and the
 
Michigan Student Assembly packed 11 buses, and the NAACP-Detroit loaded
 
135 buses out of Detroit. The rally was short, and most stayed in DC for
 
less than a full day, but although April 1st has passed, the issues will
 
not lose any of their importance or relevance.
 

 
While the University of Michigan has been vocal in its support of
 
diversity of campus, the diversity argument has been attacked by more
 
radical students who recognize that affirmative action was put in place
 
not to encourage diversity, but to be a minor step in the direction of
 
justice after hundreds of years of institutional and social
 
discrimination against people of color in the United States.
 

 
http://www.tcgreens.org/gl/articles/20030407065142507.html
 

 
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Rochester Activists not Deterred by Ice Storm
 

 
Despite cold winds and falling ice, more than 50 anti-war demonstrators
 
gathered at the Liberty pole downtown to continue to voice opposition to
 
the genocidal invasion into Iraq. Although the planned march to the War
 
Memorial and planned speakers, veterans against the war, were canceled
 
due to severe ice conditions, the presence of so many people under the
 
circumstances shows the strength of the opposition to this war.
 

 
One Demonstrator who drove out all the way from Honeoye falls said "if
 
our soldiers can be in 105 degree weather in a sand storm over there, I
 
can be out here." that was the theme of today’s rally "support our
 
troops" and "bring them home." The other concerns that people expressed
 
about our troops was the large numbers of poor black and Latino youth
 
that are often forced to join military ranks because of lack of
 
alternatives for education or employment. Many are concerned that the
 
troops return home to an inadequate healthcare system that does a poor
 
job serving their needs. One woman felt the troops are merely used as
 
"pawns" and "guinea Pigs" for experimental drugs that often destroy
 
their lives if they do survive a war.
 

 
http://www.tcgreens.org/gl/articles/20030407064609226.html
 

 
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Carfree Cities
 

 
Crawford's Carfree cities is a proposal to build a new kind of city
 
around rapid transit technology. By the 1950's it was realized that the
 
parking and traffic needs of the automobile were incompatible with urban
 
densities -- America demolished and abandoned it's downtowns and built
 
monstrosities such as Los Angeles in which 70% of the land area is
 
devoted to the automobile. Today Americans will tell you that "you'll
 
need to pry the wheel of my car from my cold dead hands", but in the
 
face of a looming world oil shortage, we may have no choice but to
 
rebuild our cities in the next fifty years.
 

 
Based on Christopher Alexanders' Pattern Language, Crawford offers a
 
radical proposal: thread dense districts of about 7,000 people along
 
light rail or metro lines like beads on a string. Similar to European
 
cities such as Amsterdam or Venice, districts would be dense enough that
 
anyone could walk to a transit stop in 5 to 10 minutes. Trucks would be
 
eliminated by use of a novel system combining rapid transit technology
 
and containerized shipping.
 

 
http://www.tcgreens.org/gl/articles/20030407062112763.html
 

 
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Peace Activist: End US Military Aid To Colombia!
 

 
MIDDLETOWN -- A leading Colombian peace activist urged a group of about
 
30 church members to help change U.S. policies on Colombia’s civil
 
war and help implement peace and justice initiatives in his country.
 

 
Ricardo Esquivia, director of Justapaz, the Christian Center for
 
Justice, Peace and Nonviolent Action of the Colombian Mennonite Church,
 
told a group of church activists and members of the First Church of
 
Christ Congregational Tuesday evening how they should take an active
 
role in lobbying Congress for a change in U.S. policies, including
 
pressuring the country to stop supplying such military equipment as
 
Black Hawk helicopters, manufactured by Sikorsky Aircraft of Stratford,
 
a subsidiary of Hartford-based United Technologies Corp.
 

 
"I want to tell members of Congress that if the United States wants to
 
bring an end to the conflict, then they need to change their politics
 
towards Colombia," said Esquivia in an interview prior to his talk. "Now
 
they are helping the government there and the military, but the money
 
that is sent only fuels the civil war."
 

 
http://www.tcgreens.org/gl/articles/20030404063139383.html
 

 
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Puke-In targets Fox News, CNN
 

 
(New York City) Humans Everywhere Against Violence Eternally (HEAVE)
 
unexpectedly struck at the New York Fox News headquarters and CNN on
 
Tuesday, April 1, 2003. A group of 12 snacked on homemade blueberry,
 
cherry and apple pies before they emptied their stomachs on the sidewalk
 
of Rupert Murdoch's Fox News Corp at 48th and 6th ave. and CNN at 49th.
 
Tuesday's campaign was entitled "Operation G.I. Tract Freedom".
 
Organizers claimed their action was a gut-response to the current war
 
reporting in mainstream media in general and Fox's heavily pro-war bias
 
specifically.
 

 
"We called this event 'Operation G.I. (Tract) Freedom' because we find
 
that John Ashcroft and the Patriot Act make us ill and limit our freedom
 
of expression," said organizer G.I Tract Jane. "We find the mainstream
 
media's reporters are in-bed-ed with the military. We find the
 
mainstream media's editors are in-bed-ed with their advertisers. We find
 
NBC to be in-bed-ed with General Electric, one of the few producers of
 
nuclear weapons in the country. These points make our G.I tracts want to
 
spontaneously liberate themselves all over mainstream media everywhere."
 
Co-organizer G.I Tract Joe agreed, "We feel we deserve the right to
 
express our gastro intestinal intuition in any way we please, and that
 
this is a right we'd like the Iraqi people to share if the Bush
 
Administration doesn't manage to kill them first. We find many people
 
feel similarly with our views when they experience our position first
 
hand and see it in action."
 

 
http://www.tcgreens.org/gl/articles/2003040406194395.html
 

 
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Herbal Medicine Gets Taken Seriously
 

 
The World Health Organisation estimates that 75-80% of the worlds’
 
population use plant medicines either in part or entirely for health
 
care. For many, plant medicines are a necessity, as costly
 
pharmaceutical drugs are unaffordable; and for others, the desire to
 
seek natural alternatives with few side effects is preferable to using
 
conventional drugs. This dichotomy has led to important medicinal plants
 
such as Goldenseal (Hydrastis canadensis), traditionally used for a
 
range of immune deficiency disorders becoming the fifth most endangered
 
species in the world. In Europe over 200 Medicinal and Aromatic Plants
 
(MAPS) are on the endangered list.
 

 
Despite the efforts of conservation groups such as World Wildlife Fund,
 
The World Conservation Union and Convention on Trade Endangered Species
 
(CTES), further support is desperately needed to save plant species from
 
becoming extinct.
 

 
David Bellamy, professor and celebrity naturalist, launched the
 
Herbalert campaign in February 2003 for the Natural Medicines Society at
 
Neal’s Yard in London.
 

 
"I am delighted to help spearhead a campaign to put herbal medicine back
 
where it deserves to be an important part of mainstream healing practice
 
in the 21st Century," Bellamy said.
 

 
Clearly enthusiastic about the subject, he made an entertaining and
 
impassioned plea to give herbal medicine its due accord. "Herbal
 
Medicine has been the mainstay of healing across the world for over
 
6,000 years, the heritage of its success is manifest on the contents
 
labels of many of today’s’ mainstream medicines," he said
 
(see Box 2).
 

 
http://www.tcgreens.org/gl/articles/20030404060153207.html
 

 
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US Media Applaud Bombing of Iraqi TV
 

 
When Iraqi TV offices in Baghdad were hit by a U.S missile strike on
 
March 25, the targeting of media was strongly criticized by press and
 
human rights groups. The general secretary of the International
 
Federation of Journalists, Aidan White, suggested that "there should be
 
a clear international investigation into whether or not this bombing
 
violates the Geneva Conventions." White told Reuters (3/26/03), "Once
 
again, we see military and political commanders from the democratic
 
world targeting a television network simply because they don't like the
 
message it gives out."
 

 
The Geneva Conventions forbid the targeting of civilian installations--
 
whether state-owned or not-- unless they are being used for military
 
purposes. Amnesty International warned (3/26/03) that the attack may
 
have been a "war crime" and emphasized that bombing a television station
 
"simply because it is being used for the purposes of propaganda" is
 
illegal under international humanitarian law. "The onus," said Amnesty,
 
is on "coalition forces" to prove "the military use of the TV station
 
and, if that is indeed the case, to show that the attack took into
 
account the risk to civilian lives."
 

 
Likewise, Human Rights Watch affirmed (3/26/03) that it would be illegal
 
to target Iraqi TV based on its propaganda value. "Although stopping
 
enemy propaganda may serve to demoralize the Iraqi population and to
 
undermine the government's political support," said HRW, "neither
 
purpose offers the 'concrete and direct' military advantage necessary
 
under international law to make civilian broadcast facilities a
 
legitimate military target."
 

 
http://www.tcgreens.org/gl/articles/20030403053400414.html
 

 
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AP misreports pro-war rallies
 

 
With citizens expressing their opinions on the war through marches and
 
rallies across the country, many news outlets rely on the Associated
 
Press news service to help them cover these important manifestations of
 
democracy. Unfortunately, AP has frequently used the terms "pro-war" and
 
"pro-troops" interchangeably-- a practice that distorts the views of
 
anti-war demonstrators and contributes to the media marginalization of
 
the peace movement.
 

 
It's likely that the overwhelming majority of participants at peace
 
events would describe themselves as "supporting the troops," in the
 
sense of being concerned for their well-being and hoping for their safe
 
return. "Support Our Troops: Bring Them Home" is a popular slogan at
 
peace marches, which tend to criticize George W. Bush and other
 
administration officials, not rank-and-file U.S. military personnel.
 

 
Nevertheless, AP and some other news outlets often use "supporting the
 
troops" as a synonym for "supporting the war"-- and use "pro-troops" as
 
a shorthand to describe rallies and demonstrations that are, in many
 
cases, explicitly pro-war events. "Pro-troops" is frequently used as the
 
opposite of "anti-war," as if the only way to be supportive of soldiers
 
is to advocate their involvement in war on Iraq.
 

 
http://www.tcgreens.org/gl/articles/20030403053113260.html
 

 
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Four Greens Elected in Wisconsin
 

 
MADISON, WISCONSIN -- Voters have chosen to elect 4 Green Party
 
candidates in races throughout Wisconsin, bringing the total of elected
 
Greens in Wisconsin to 17 and in the U.S. to 177.
 

 
Pete Karas, running for Common Council in Racine’s 9th District, won 73%
 
of the vote.
 

 
"I'm elated with our victory, and am looking forward to bringing a
 
progressive voice and Green values to the Racine City Council," said
 
Karas. "We ran an honest campaign, being very upfront with our Green
 
platform. I thank the many supporters who worked long hours so that we
 
could effectively deliver our message."
 

 
Karas was outspoken on numerous controversial issues, such as the Racine
 
"Rave" arrests, and the war in Iraq.
 

 
"We always communicated these issues in a very respectful manner," said
 
Karas. "I believe that the reason people accepted our controversial
 
issues is that we also stressed positive issues in the campaign. Our
 
message of citizen involvement and inclusive, responsive government was
 
well received, as was our call for Racine to convert all municipal
 
buildings to renewable energy power by adopting the Vote Solar
 
Initiative locally."
 

 
http://www.tcgreens.org/gl/articles/20030403052531877.html
 

 
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US Greens: Bush Cronies Profit From War
 

 
WASHINGTON, DC -- Funding for the war on Iraq, while requiring massive
 
cuts in social spending for health, education, services, and welfare and
 
reduction of veterans benefits, is becoming a huge windfall for favored
 
corporations, say members of the Green Party of the United States.
 

 
"This $100-billion war is proving a cash cow for corporations,
 
especially those with connections to the White House, Congress, and the
 
Pentagon, while U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians and soldiers face death
 
and injury," said Tom Bolema, Town Councilperson (Green) of Juniper
 
Hills, California. "European governments are furious that the
 
administration plans to award the major contracts, worth somewhere
 
between $20 billion and $100 billion, to U.S. corporations, without any
 
competitive bidding process."
 

 
"The Bush Administration has already awarded Halliburton subsidiary
 
Kellogg Brown & Root a Pentagon contract to rebuild Iraqi oil fields,"
 
said Jake Schneider, treasurer of the Green Party of the United States.
 
"USAID awarded a $4.8 million contract to Stevedoring Services of
 
America to manage the Umm Qasr port. Companies like the Bechtel Group,
 
Fluor Corporation, Parsons Group and defense contractors Carlyle Group
 
and Global Crossing are expected to make millions off the war.
 
Humanitarian relief, including assistance in Iraq's water shortage, is
 
proving a distant second in priority behind military deals and control
 
over Iraqi oil."
 

 
http://www.tcgreens.org/gl/articles/20030402060533688.html
 

 
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US Marines Massacre Civillians at Nasiriya Bridge
 

 
"The Iraqis are sick people and we are the chemotherapy," said Corporal
 
Ryan Dupre. "I am starting to hate this country. Wait till I get hold of
 
a friggin' Iraqi. No, I won't get hold of one. I'll just kill him."
 

 
The Times, London, March 31, 2003
 

 
Today in the online edition of the conservative daily, The Times , was
 
published a piece by the correspondent Mark Franchetti in Nasiriya. It
 
was headlined “US Marines turn fire on civilians at the bridge of death”
 
which graphically described a massacre of Iraqi civilians at the hands
 
of US Marines in the outskirts of the besieged town. And goes on to show
 
us generally how young Marines are made into the killers of civilians.
 

 
http://www.tcgreens.org/gl/articles/20030402055534704.html
 

 
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War Effort Stumbles
 

 
by Alexander Cockburn, Counterpunch Diary
 

 
Barely into its second week Operation Easy Sailing is in big trouble.
 
One simple way of measuring just how big is by adding up all the time
 
you hear the phrases “all according to Plan”, and the “Our strategy is
 
sound”.
 

 
That’s the captain of the Titanic speaking. At the military level the
 
US/UK force has been forced to suspend its advance on Baghdad. Every
 
single dire prediction of the critics is coming to pass. The stretched
 
lines of communication and supply running up west of the Euphrates past
 
Nasiriya and Najaf, or further east , west of the Tigris past Basra
 
towards Amarah are proving vulnerable to determined harassment by Iraqi
 
forces. The Apache helicopters have taken a fearful beating, as have the
 
Abrams tanks. The Shock and Awe overture saw around 400 cruise missiles,
 
running at half a million dollars a copy achieve less than significant
 
damage.
 

 
Already there’s fierce hand-to-hand infighting inside the Pentagon, as
 
Defense Secretary Rumsfeld’s numerous enemies in the military seek out
 
favored journalist to inflict punitive retaliation for what they
 
describe as his arrogance and folly. Those old lines from the Vietnam
 
era, such as “light at the end of the tunnel”, “credibility gap” and the
 
other scarred veterans are back in active service.
 

 
http://www.tcgreens.org/gl/articles/20030402055108867.html
 

 
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