Axis of Logic Statement on the Presidential Candidacy of John Kerry
Let there be no misunderstanding. We are of course, in full agreement with many people around the world regarding the criminal behavior of the George Walker Bush regime committed both, here in the United States and internationally. If justice were served he and Vice President Dick Cheney would be tried for high crimes and imprisoned. Likewise, some members of his family and the neoconconservatives behind him would be tried under the RICO Act (America’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) and imprisoned. Evidence of that simple assessment is so rich and such common knowledge that it barely needs to be repeated. I am at a loss to understand how anyone who can condone the cowardly bludgeoning of children, women and men in other countries and turn away from the needs of the citizens of this country.
Demonstrators Steer Clear of Their Designated Space
Escorted by city and
state police officers, demonstrators marched through Boston
Common on Sunday afternoon.
Jim
Wilson/The New York Ti
Warplanes are watching the skies and coastguards are patrolling the harbour as tens of thousands arrive in Boston for the Democratic Party convention.
PLEASE NOTE
Each one
of these pages about the Boston convention, mainly focusing on the
protesters, includes graphics, links, and information for about fifteen
more stories, analysis, news, and opinion piece. They are mainly
the "hub" pages for a total of over 40 articles.PAGE
TWO OF THE DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION COVERAGE "HUB PAGES"
The "Demonstration Zone" at the Democratic National
Convention:An "Irretrievably Sad" Affront to the First Amendment
Demonstrators who want to be within sight and sound of the delegates entering and leaving the Democratic National Convention at the Fleet Center in Boston this coming week will be forced to protest in a special "demonstration zone" adjacent to the terminal where buses carrying the delegates will arrive. The zone is large enough only for 1000 persons to safely congregate and is bounded by two chain link fences separated by concrete highway barriers. The outermost fence is covered with black mesh that is designed to repel liquids. Much of the area is under an abandoned elevated train line. The zone is covered by another black net which is topped by razor wire. There will be no sanitary facilities in the zone and tables and chairs will not be permitted. There is no way for the demonstrators to pass written materials to the convention delegates.
The Anti-War Movement
Faces Off With the DNC
Faces Off With the DNC
By Les Blough & Beth Henry
Aug 2, 2004, 20:00
To view the Axis of Logic Audio-visual and Photographic Journal of the July 25, 2004 demonstration against war and occupation at the Democratic National Convention go to ANSWER Mobilization.
Since 9/11/01, we have
participated in
about 30 protests against the latest wars of the ruling class.
Yesterday’s demonstration against war on Boston Common and our march to
the Fleet Center was nothing less than a unparalleled success. It began
with long-range strategic planning by Boston ANSWER. The city and
federal governments and corporate media set the stage with
fear-mongering about the possibility of a "terrorist" strike during the
Democratic National Convention being held this week at the Fleet Center
in Boston. Using that platform of fear, they exposed their new police
state as never before – drawn from all over Massachusetts, neighboring
states and Federal Agencies under the pretext of the "war on terrorism".
Police
Prepare for Rowdy DNC Protests
Thursday July 29, 2004
4:31 PM
By KEN MAGUIRE
BOSTON (AP) - Protesters on bicycles snaked through the city Thursday as police braced for a surge in street demonstrations for the windup of the Democratic National Convention.
By KEN MAGUIRE
BOSTON (AP) - Protesters on bicycles snaked through the city Thursday as police braced for a surge in street demonstrations for the windup of the Democratic National Convention.
Protest Pit is a Dark, Shadowy Place
07/27/2004
@ 12:30am
PAGE HUB
THREE
Many Americans oppose the war in Iraq, and they want to vote for a party that will bring the troops home. The Democratic Party has not promised to do that, which is why antiwar protesters have gathered in Boston.
They had hoped to stage a series of peaceful protests, to show
the
Democrats, who are holding their convention in Boston this week, how
strongly they feel. The problem is that organizers of the convention
have said protesters can gather only in a large wire cage that has been
built under Boston's elevated train tracks. It has one entrance and one
exit, and is topped by razor wire. As AP reporter Mark Jewell wrote,
[see below]
"The maze of overhead netting, chain link fencing and razor wire couldn't be further in comfort from the high-tech confines of the arena stage where John Kerry is to accept the Democratic nomination for president."
Read a report on the DNC Protest Pit by Caroline Overington
from the Sydney Morning Herald (shown below, from UFPJ web) and
check below for the headlines to Amy Goodman's Democracy Now!,
which is broadcasting live reports on what's happening on the streets
of Boston.
The Nation.
FBI's
queries rattle activist
Agents seek info on possible violence at political convention
By Karen Abbott, Rocky Mountain News
July 27, 2004
The FBI questioned a Fort Collins resident about potential plots to disrupt the nation's political conventions, a day after some Denver residents were quizzed.
The 45-year-old software engineer in Fort Collins said he was questioned Friday
by the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force.
By Renana Brooks
Clinical Psychologist
07/13/03
George
W. Bush
is generally regarded as a mangler of the English language.
What is overlooked is his mastery of emotional language
--
especially negatively charged emotional language -- as a political
tool. Take a closer look at his speeches and public utterances and his
political success turns out to be no surprise. It is the predictable
result of the intentional use of language to dominate others. Bush,
like many dominant personality types, uses dependency-creating
language. He employs language of contempt and intimidation to shame
others into submission and desperate admiration.It's
only fiction, but is it legal?
An author's dramatization of a fact-based argument about killing President Bush
makes Michael Moore's diatribe in 'Fahrenheit 9/11' look tame by comparison
- and may push the boundaries of free speech.
An author's dramatization of a fact-based argument about killing President Bush
makes Michael Moore's diatribe in 'Fahrenheit 9/11' look tame by comparison
- and may push the boundaries of free speech.
Why Americans Believe Only American Deaths Count in Iraq
By Robert R. Goldberg
07/27/04 -- Nationalism can be a vicious disease, and an infectious one, too. It can take all sorts of forms, and its most destructive strains can surely sneak up on any country. Just think of the tens of thousands of German Jews--German nationals--who refused to believe what was happening, even after Kristallnacht and the ghettos, until the trains arrived at Dachau. We know well from this past century what sentiments intense nationalist fervor can ignite among a country's people, but we have yet to learn deeply those lessons after two "great" wars, hundreds of so-called conflicts and countless millions of young men, women, and children dead. It's striking how rarely we talk about the most recent abuses of nationalism as well as the genocides--attempted eliminations of groups considered impure or unwelcome in a society--they engendered, in Bosnia or Rwanda, for example. Shouldn't the ones we read about firsthand logically instill the most compassion, the most closeness? We say never again while it happens under our knowing gaze. And yet Americans are not fully immune. Think of the violent attacks on, and illegal detainment of, thousands of Arabs and Muslims after September 11, 2001. Never again?
Kill the scapegoat
Karen Armstrong
On Yom Kippur in ancient Jerusalem, two goats were selected and brought to the front of the Temple.
One, chosen by lot, was consecrated to God and sacrificed. The other was dedicated to a mysterious figure, Azazel. The high priest laid his hands on the head of this second goat, confessed the sins of Israel, and drove it out into the desert, the haunt of demons. The community was purified by symbolically projecting its misdeeds onto a substitute, which was then expelled from the city to the "other side".
It was, perhaps, a primitive way of dealing with communal guilt, but this ritual gave us the word "scapegoat", to describe somebody who is punished for the sins of others. We needed this term, because when something goes wrong human beings have a deep-rooted compulsion to find somebody - preferably somebody else - to blame. There was widespread disappointment, for example, that the 9/11 commission apportioned responsibility for the catastrophe so widely and did not name and shame an individual It would have been very satisfying to offload our fear and rage on to a single culprit, make him bear the burden of our pain, vilify him publicly and drive him into the political wilderness.
‘Terror’
Against the Press
The curious saga of the Boston FBI's 'unconfirmed reports'
of a right-wing threat to the media
July 29th,2004The curious saga of the Boston FBI's 'unconfirmed reports'
of a right-wing threat to the media
BOSTON—It looks like the FBI's Boston field office faked a threat of domestic terrorism just before the start of the Democratic National Convention by leaking "unconfirmed" reports of white supremacist groups readying an attack against media vehicles in Boston. Fox News, for one, reportedly was wildly trying to disguise its trucks by covering up its logos.
在中國, 編輯勝利, 和失敗奮鬥在新建新聞自由之間, 共產黨顯然由拘留
In China,
an Editor Triumphs, and Fails
Struggle Between New Press Freedoms, Communist Party Evident by Jailing
Struggle Between New Press Freedoms, Communist Party Evident by Jailing
GUANGZHOU, China – It was past
9:30 p.m. when the reporters finished
writing. The presses were scheduled to begin printing the next day's
issue of the Southern Metropolis Daily in a few hours, and
space for a large headline had been reserved on the front page.
南部的大
都會每日 (The Southern
Metropolis Daily)But when the night editor read
their story – an investigative report
about a young college graduate who had been detained by local police
and beaten to death in custody – he hesitated. Then he picked up a
phone and called Cheng Yizhong, the paper's star editor.
 |
|||||
| Drake Larry,
16, of
Dallas touches engraved names on the Civil Rights
Memorial at the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Ala., during
a stop June 17. HARAZ GHANBARI / AP
|
TUSKEGEE, Ala. The Greyhound bus lumbers to a stop at a row of tiny brick homes, and a bespectacled, bowlegged man rises. He turns around and speaks into a microphone, addressing his young volunteers. His name is Ben Chaney.
He is 51 years old and visibly discouraged. His lifelong dream has been — and remains — a tough sell.
In 1964, hundreds of volunteers, most of them white, came south to help blacks register to vote and give them a sense of hope. Some had their heads cracked with billy clubs. Others were knocked down by fire hoses. Still others went to jail on trumped-up charges.
Freedom Summer was a climactic episode of the civil-rights movement. In Neshoba County, Miss., three of the volunteers were murdered by the Ku Klux Klan on a lonely dirt road — two white men from New York and a black man from Mississippi.
Though their deaths made international headlines. no one was ever convicted of murdering them. The white men were named Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman. The black man was named James Chaney — Ben Chaney's older brother.
Forty years later, Ben Chaney still wanted justice. He wanted the death of his brother to be relevant to a generation that never knew the indignity of drinking from a dirty water fountain with a sign above it that said "COLORED."
He saw a need: fewer black people voting, progress slowing, less passion. In 2000, just 53.3 percent of the nation's black, voting-age population went to the polls.
"I saw a T-shirt in a national clothing chain and it said, 'Voting is for old people,' " Chaney said. "And it ticked me off."
August 1, 2004
Thomas Kean, Chairman
National Committee on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States
301 7th Street, SW, Room 5125
Washington, DC 20407
Dear Chairman Kean:
It has been almost three years since the terrorist attacks on September 11; during which time we, the people, have been placed under a constant threat of terror and asked to exercise vigilance in our daily lives. Your commission, the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States, was created by law to investigate "facts and circumstances related to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001" and to "provide recommendations to safeguard against future acts of terrorism", and has now issued its "9/11 Commission Report". You are now asking us to pledge our support for this report, its recommendations, and implementation of these recommendations, with our trust and backing, our tax money, our security, and our lives. Unfortunately, I find your report seriously flawed in its failure to address serious intelligence issues that I am aware of, which have been confirmed, and which as a witness to the commission, I made you aware of.
Thus, I must assume that other serious issues that I am not aware of were in the same manner omitted from your report. These omissions cast doubt on the validity of your report and therefore on its conclusions and recommendations. Considering what is at stake, our national security, we are entitled to demand answers to unanswered questions, and to ask for clarification of issues that were ignored and/or omitted from the report. I, Sibel Edmonds, a concerned American Citizen, a former FBI translator, a whistleblower, a witness for a United States Congressional investigation, a witness and a plaintiff for the Department of Justice Inspector General investigation, and a witness for your own 9/11 Commission investigation, request your answers to, and your public acknowledgement of, the following questions and issues:
A LETTER TO THE MAN
WHO WILL REPLACE ME ON MY PRISON BUNK
EDITOR'S NOTE: Jessie Cuevas served two terms in both Northern and Southern California prisons. Prison life can break you down, he writes, unless you find some kind of inner peace -- for him it's reading and writing. He wrote this essay in a form of a letter to the next person who will take his place in his old prison cell. Cuevas (mailto:JCuevas72@aol.com) is a Los Angeles-based freelance writer.To Whom It May Concern,
A few weeks ago I completed my second term in the California Department of Corrections, and now I'm writing to you, the man who will replace me on the bunk where I just spent the past 15 months.
You will have to learn how to reach very deeply into yourself in order to get past the noise. The constant racket brought me closest to the breaking point. The blaring television, the arguments on the card/domino tables, the cackling loudspeaker overhead, the flushing toilets, the never-ending weeping, raps, screams, and whispers, and the meaningless conversation full of lies. I would keep the headphones of my walkman on at all times, even if it wasn't playing, in hopes that I wouldn't get dragged into yet another war story or dope deal.....
1,000
soldiers dead since
9/11
Jimmy BreslinAugust 3, 2004
A rocket-propelled grenade came out of the hot afternoon in Iraq on July 7 and made Pfc. Samuel Bowen of Cleveland the 1,000th member of the U.S. military to die in battle since the World Trade Center attack.
The number of dead is carefully compiled by the Army Times newspaper, which carries the most news about the war. The others who know he is the 1,000th are those who fought where he died.
Bowen died at 38 in the afternoon of July 7 when his Ohio National Guard engineer convoy stopped because one of the trucks broke down. Bowen and a dozen Guardsmen protected the convoy while a mechanic tried to repair the truck. Iraqis fired a rocket-propelled grenade that killed Bowen and wounded two others.
Three Thousand Antoinettes
By CAPT.
WILLIAN J. TOTIIn the month since this agonizing atrocity began, there has been only one moment when I found myself unable to retain my composure. The event which made manifest all my grief was hearing that Antoinette had died.
The Cat in Iraq
By RYAN ALEXANDER
She came to me skittish, wild.
The way you’re meant to be,
Surrounded by cruelty.
I did not blame her.
I would do the same.
A pregnant cat, a happy distraction
Some sort of normal thing
Calico and innocent.
The kittens in her belly said feed me.
And I did ......
By SGT. MICHAEL THOMAS
After months of extending our stay in Iraq, our unit was finally going home. The year had felt long enough. We had missed birthdays, births, anniversaries, Thanksgiving and Christmas, and when our final plane was hit by a de-icing truck in Germany, we were left feeling as though we’d never get back to our families.
The Secret File of Abu Ghraib
New classified documents implicate U.S. forces in rape and sodomy of Iraqi prisoners
By OSHA GRAY DAVIDSON
It has been months since the now-infamous photographs from Abu Ghraib revealed that American soldiers tortured Iraqi prisoners -- yet the Bush administration has failed to get to the bottom of the abuses."There are some serious unanswered questions," says Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican on the Armed Services Committee. The Pentagon is stalling on several investigations, and congressional inquiries have ground to a halt. The foot-dragging is astonishing, given that Congress has access to classified documents detailing the abuses outlined by Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba in his report on Abu Ghraib. Rolling Stone obtained those files in June and offers this report on their contents. -The Editors
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|
Prisoners
were placed n "stress positions" designed to "soften them up" |
The new classified military documents offer a chilling picture of what happened at Abu Ghraib -- including detailed reports that U.S. troops and translators sodomized and raped Iraqi prisoners. The secret files -- 106 "annexes" that the Defense Department withheld from the Taguba report last spring -- include nearly 6,000 pages of internal Army memos and e-mails, reports on prison riots and escapes, and sworn statements by soldiers, officers, private contractors and detainees. The files depict a prison in complete chaos. Prisoners were fed bug-infested food and forced to live in squalid conditions; detainees and U.S. soldiers alike were killed and wounded in nightly mortar attacks; and loyalists of Saddam Hussein served as guards in the facility, apparently smuggling weapons to prisoners inside.
I
Love You, Madame Librarian
By Kurt Vonnegut
August 6, 2004
I, like probably most of you, have seen Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11. Its title is a parody of the title of Ray Bradbury’s great science fiction novel, Fahrenheit 451. This temperature 451° Fahrenheit, is the combustion point, incidentally, of paper, of which books are composed. The hero of Bradbury’s novel is a municipal worker whose job is burning books.
And on the subject of burning books: I want to congratulate librarians, not famous for their physical strength or their powerful political connections or their great wealth, who, all over this country, have staunchly resisted anti-democratic bullies who have tried to remove certain books from their shelves, and have refused to reveal to thought police the names of persons who have checked out those titles.
 |
| Nguyen Van Quy,
left, was a
Vietnamese soldier. He has cancer and his two children have birth
defects. "We have to endure,'' said his wife, Vu Thi Loan,
center.
photo © New York Times |
Agent
Orange, the Next Generation
August 8, 2004By WILLIAM GLABERSON
In 1984, after years of battles over science and damage tabulations, seven American chemical companies settled a huge class-action suit by Vietnam veterans who claimed that the defoliant Agent Orange caused cancer, birth defects and a nightmarish brew of other health problems.
The companies paid out $180 million. By 1997, after the last payments had been made, 291,000 people had received benefits. The settlement was reached after a federal judge persuaded the companies to buy themselves out of protracted litigation. It was called a landmark legal peace on a brutally contentious issue, and it was supposed to be the final word from the courts on Agent Orange, a defoliant containing the deadly substance dioxin.
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