Flyby News
"News Fit to Transmit in the Post Cassini Flyby Era"
7-NukesLooted * Trouble in Bush's America * BudgetGlut
13 May 2003
1) Seven Nuclear Sites Looted
2) Trouble in Bush's America- - Bush Plan Would Wreck an Already Ailing Economy
- - Take Action - Stop Budget Disaster
3) Greg Palast: "The Lies Are Brilliantly Crafted" - - "The Greatest Sedition is Silence" by William Rivers Pitt
4) June 2nd - FCC Close to Easing Media Caps - - Take Action! - - Stop the FCC
5) Kucinich's 'Medicare for All' Offers No Role for Private Insurers - - Create your purposeful self, just like Rep. Dennis Kucinich
6) An Empty Energy Bill and Imperial Ambition/Destruction
Editor's Notes:The US invaded Iraq due to concern of weapons of mass destruction. Instead, the US suffered no harm from such weapons in an unprovoked invasion. Yet the US allowed the looting of 7 nuclear sites! It has no idea what happened to these dangerous materials and information. The neoconservative warlords want to spread the chaos, but that their facade of being a protector still seems to have control over most people in the US. Meanwhile, the Bush budget plan could kill the American middle class, placing everyone else in peril. Item 3 is a Truthout interview with Greg Palast, showing how some of the lies are crafted. In this item, too, is a link to William Rivers Pitt newest book, "The Greatest Sedition is Silence." Item 4 is more on the death of any diversification in the broad band media, and an action you can take to get past: ‘resistance is futile.' Item 5 is a common sense approach to a nationalized health care system (not for profit) health care system for all US citizens. Today, too, Howard Dean was scheduled to unveil his plan. The Dean campaign stated that he would try to repeal some of the Bush tax cuts to pay for his plan. "This costs almost a half of the Bush tax cuts," Dean said Sunday. "If you give most people in America the choice between the Bush tax cuts and making sure they always have health insurance, they're going to pick health insurance." This again sounds like Dr. Dean is staying in the middle of the road (that in today's world looks liberal), but actually is maintaining a profit-based health care system, not people-based. Didn't the Clinton administration prove that half-way to nowhere leads to a Bush-regime coup d'etat. Item 6 is on the Energy Bill going to the US Senate. Please take Robert F. Kennedy's suggestion and start waking people up to what is happening to our world. Please forward this information and keep lobbying organizations to go all the way for change.. but not just by lobbying Congress, but a vegan-whopper of a regime-change in 2004.
The following is from Goodsister, posted on the kucinich4president list serve:
[Kucinich4President] Each One Teach One: Challenge to the members
On one of the many forums I frequent, I had posted about Kucinich, and received the following response. This poster displays an attitude one runs into a lot - that both parties are corrupt, there's no point in voting, let's all eat worms. At least, I can't imagine what they think our options are, if not within the tattered remains of what's left of the political process. Are they imagining armed revolution? Because that's not going to happen.
So I offer this guy's POV, which seems vague and negative, and then my answer to him below it. Obviously, if he thinks the Democrats are "socialist", he hasn't got too good of a grip on reality, let alone what "socialism" means. But he knows we're in trouble, and that's as good a starting place as any.
I hope that everyone on this list will Go Forth and Multiply our supporters. If you belong to other groups, tell them about Dennis.
In fact, I would challenge all of us to try to bring in ONE new member a week. Let them know they can set their email preferences so as not to be inundated with mail, if they're not online activists already, accustomed to too much mail.
But when you see folks talking about this issue, make sure to respond to them. Tell them there IS a way out. Tell them about Kucinich. Then bring them here if you can. If we follow the old "Each One, Teach One" idea, we can raise awareness - and make our hope as contagious as they'd like us to believe SARS is. Get out there, rub elbows, and cough those Hope and Kucinich cooties into the air. Infect someone today with love and courage!
Together, brothers and sisters, we can do this. We have nothing else to do, really. Top of our To-Do List: Save the country, save the world. Get the nomination for Kucinich, and elect him to the Presidency. Check.
Goodsister
****************
Here is the post:
"US Patriot" wrote: Hello all,
What is the consensus here about political parties?
Many (but not all) of the posts I've seen on several 'patriot' forums do not segregate their own political views from one of the dominant party lines. A recent post to this list (admittedly, I know absolutely nothing about Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D, OH) - but would rather not support either the Socialist "Democrats" or the Fascist "Republicans" - I want to belong to a party that understands that either form of "major party" assimilation can only play into their hands.
If Congressman Kucinich is only running for the Democratic appointment in order to get a foothold of the majority standing - I can understand - but I don't agree with it. Doing so jeopardizes the content of the message by inuring it with the inherent flaws of either major political party.
Am I the only one that feels that way?
******
(And here is my response - GS)
This is the way I look at it.
After the horrifying theft of the 2000 election, I knew the Democratic Party was not for me. My views are much more in line with the Green platform, and like many people, I am disgusted at the complicity of many of the Dems with the worst of the Republicans.
But subsequent events have caused me to think deeply about what I realistically think our options are, if we want to resist the complete takeover by the PNAC crew and the rigid, fascist control they've already begun to implement, and wish to confirm, in the United States. The way our system is set up, of course, alternatives to the two main parties only weaken the party they most resemble; plus, we have a bigger problem with the rigged vote-counting machines, like those made by Diebold Corp., owned by Republican Senator Chuck Hagel. We need to make sure our votes are counted, or no candidate will matter.
Plus they now control the media, and a portion of the population is brainwashed and blindly supportive of the Thief in Residence. TV is critically important to Americans, and right now the TV is lying to them, and even tighter controls are being pushed in the halls of Washington. So we have plenty of obstacles in our way of getting our country back. But we want it back - or what are we all doing here? I think Kucinich may be the way to reclaim our country, our lives, our future.
If I understand you correctly, you're saying you have no wish to vote for a Republicrat or a Bush Lite, right? You're saying what I have said, what every politically literate person I know has said: "They're all crooks. They're all corrupt. They have to be, in order to win elections and stay in power." That's a healthy and legitimate skepticism, but not true across the board.
The late Senator Paul Wellstone was one proof that wasn't true; there are exceptions to our cynical dismissal of the entire Legislative branch of government, men who are good and honest and fighting to represent us, to stay true to the democratic ideals this country is supposed to be about. And Rep. Dennis Kucinich is another. Don't just take my word for it - check it out - www.kucinich.us - He's a 4-term Congressman who's never missed a vote in the House. He started out a boy wonder in politics, as Cleveland's Mayor. He lost that gig after refusing to sell the city's energy to an energy company; "It's not mine to sell", he said. "It belongs to the people of Cleveland." A few years later, he was welcomed back as a hero. He stood up to the Enron of his day, did what was best for his constituents and not his political career.
He's not dirty; he's not corrupt, and he's spent his whole life in political service. After he made a speech called A Prayer for America that circulated widely on the Net, the buzz began to draft him as President. You've got to read that speech. And check out where he stands on the issues; see if he speaks for you or not. Look at his record.
Since he announced his candidacy for President, the media has done an almost complete blackout on Kucinich. But his support is growing anyway - more people are finding out every day, but his is a truly democratic, populist movement, without any corporate backing.
His idea is simple: We take BACK the Democratic Party. Everyone who is not a Bush Republican, at this point, belongs in the Democratic party. We need to unite together, against this menacing group of PNAC neofascists. Greens, Libertarians, and many disaffected Republicans who are as horrified as we are at this nightmare of a Bush regime can join together to RECLAIM the party. Why should we be forced out of the party, into smaller splinter groups that can never win? We know we're not represented by a Lieberman, a Kerry, a Gephardt. We need someone completely different.
Dennis Kucinich is different. What do you want to see in this country? Do you believe we must evolve beyond war? Want to see an end to nuclear weapons? Kucinich proposes a Dept. of Peace. Do you think workers should have rights? Do you believe in our sacred documents, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights? So does he, and he would restore them.
I could go on, because I really believe in this guy, but I hope you'll check him out for yourself. If I hadn't discovered Kucinich, I would be wallowing in despair, like millions of Americans now spiking the level of antidepressant prescriptions. He gives me hope - and without that hope I couldn't deal with what I hear and read as an online activist, day after day.
The mainstream Democratic machine is not supporting Dennis Kucinich, precisely because he is not their boy. It will be up to us. He is NOT beholden to them or in their club. He speaks for us, he is telling the truth, and it will only be through a massive, grassroots movement that he could be elected. Not huge corporations handing his campaign thousands or millions of dollars, but regular citizens sending in $25 each.
So what we're talking about is basically, taking the Democratic Party - which, don't forget, WON the election in 2000 - taking it BACK, and making it serve us. As Democrats, we can decide what the party is about, and kick the corrupt bureaucrats out.
Goodsister
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/kucinich4president
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =This was a rather lengthy insertion, but truly fit to transmit in the post Cassini flyby era. Thank You Goodsister.
Please accept the Goodsister challenge -- unite with the best choice we can collectively make and do something about it. Thanks for all efforts and involvement with campaigns.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
A Time To Remember - June 26 - for Leonard Peltier, Justice, and Human Rights. You are invited to a benefit for Leonard Peltier at the Common Ground Restaurant -- 25 Elliot Street, Brattleboro, Vermont, Thursday, June 26, 2003 beginning at 5:00pm. Planned is the showing of the film of a Peltier-Congressional briefing in May 2000, which was sponsored by Congressman Porter. Dinner will be served at the Common Ground, which is a collective-owner-worker earth-friendly vegetarian food place. Also, expect some good music and speakers in respect and honor of this 28th anniversary of the Ogala-US Federal Agent Shoot-out that lead to Leonard's long term incarceration. Please join us and consider making a pledge of some nonviolent action on behalf of Leonard's freedom from prison, and on his birthday, September 12, we will gather again at the Common Ground to share stories and celebrate, and plan for actions for February 6, the day of Leonard's arrest, which has become the international day to protest the continued unfair incarceration of Leonard Peltier. For the Common Ground June 26 event,
Marsia Shuron Harris will be one of the music performers. Also an event for Reconciliation, Restorative Justice, and Healing, will be held at Oglala on June 26. For more on this and information on Leonard Peltier, visit:
www.freeleonardpeltier.org and
www.flybynews.com Being Human
Attunement opens the doorway to enter the fiery ball
As love opens wide while the material sky may begin to fall.
And from the droppings of mass confusion a new essence may arise,
a scenario of democracy without spirituality's demise.
How sweet the voyage even through the stern shores
of choppy judgmental eyes,
as waves of antiquity have reached the skies
where, as before in the fiery ball,
the heavens open wide and the truth of being human is realized.
1) Seven Nuclear Sites Looted Seven Nuclear Sites Looted
By Barton Gellman
Washington Post
Saturday 10 May 2003
Iraqi Scientific Files, Some Containers Missing
BAGHDAD -- Seven nuclear facilities in Iraq have been damaged or effectively destroyed by the looting that began in the first days of April, when U.S. ground forces thrust into Baghdad, according to U.S. investigators and others with detailed knowledge of their work. The Bush administration fears that technical documents, sensitive equipment and possibly radiation sources have been scattered.
If so, there are potentially significant consequences for public health and the spread of materials to build a nuclear or radiological bomb. President Bush had said the war was fought to prevent the spread of "the world's most dangerous weapons."
It is still not clear what has been lost in the sacking of Iraq's nuclear establishment. But it is well documented that looters roamed unrestrained among stores of chemical elements and scientific files that would speed development, in the wrong hands, of a nuclear or radiological bomb. Many of the files, and some of the containers that held radioactive sources, are missing.
Previous reports have described damage at two of the facilities, the Tuwaitha Yellowcake Storage Facility and the adjacent Baghdad Nuclear Research Center. Now, the identity of three more damaged sites has been learned: the Ash Shaykhili Nuclear Facility, the Baghdad New Nuclear Design Center and the Tahadi Nuclear Establishment. All of them have attracted close scrutiny from the International Atomic Energy Agency and from U.S. analysts who suspected that Iraq, despite IAEA inspections, was working to develop a bomb.
The identities of two other sites, also said to have been looted, could not be learned.
Army Lt. Col. Charles Allison, who led the U.S. survey team at Ash Shaykhili, said in an interview that its "warehouses were completely destroyed" by ransacking and fire. A Special Forces soldier, part of another team that reached Ash Shaykhili before Allison, said "they were supposed to store all their enrichment processing machinery there, but it was all gone or badly burned."
Alarmed by similar reports about the two Tuwaitha-area sites, IAEA's director general, Mohamed ElBaradei, sent a letter Monday pressing earlier demands that the United States grant the agency access to Iraq's nuclear sites. He has previously asserted that the IAEA has sole legal authority over the sites under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and U.N. resolutions. But an adviser to ElBaradei said late Thursday that "we have got no official reply" from the United States.
Ash Shaykhili, 10 miles southeast of Baghdad, was the legally designated repository of heavy equipment used in Iraq's former nuclear weapons program. Some of the equipment was destroyed when Israel bombed the Osirak reactor in 1981 and when the United States bombed a Russian research reactor there 10 years later. Other gear had been seized and rendered useless by IAEA inspectors between 1991 and 1998.
Subject to regular inspection by the nuclear watchdog agency, Ash Shaykhili held destroyed centrifuges once used to enrich uranium, disks and machinery used in an alternate enrichment process called electromagnetic isotope separation, key components of the bomb-damaged reactors, vacuum pumps and valves. Experts said it may have held small radiation sources, but not in significant quantities.
Allison's U.S. survey team sought evidence that the site concealed other, forbidden activities, particularly in an underground space that U.S. intelligence thought suspicious. But when Allison arrived on April 24, he found it "so looted that it was just basically warehouses with all kinds of crap all over the floor," he said. "If there was something there it's long since gone."
Another site known to have been damaged is the Baghdad New Nuclear Design Center. A prominent yellow building, the center housed the key personnel responsible for the crash program that nearly succeeded in building a nuclear bomb in 1991.
That program, known by the code name Petrochemical Three, or PC-3, demonstrated Iraqi mastery of three different nuclear enrichment technologies: fabrication of finely milled uranium or plutonium spheres for the core of a fission bomb and the makings of a sophisticated implosion device to detonate the weapon.
Many of the principal scientists and technicians of PC-3 moved to jobs at the new nuclear design center. They formed an umbrella organization for electrical, mechanical and chemical engineering research, all potentially useful for a nuclear weapon. But IAEA inspectors watched the work carefully, and an expert with detailed knowledge of the results said the agency "didn't find anything that indicated ongoing prohibited activities regarding nuclear weapons."
Last month U.S. Central Command sent the Pentagon's Direct Support Team to survey the site. Sources said they found it looted and collected little that would help resolve U.S. suspicions about what was being done there. They declined to detail the damage.
The third site that was badly damaged is the Tahadi Nuclear Establishment.
Jacques Baute, who heads the IAEA's Iraq Action Team, made that site his first stop when IAEA inspections resumed Nov. 27, according to press accounts. Tahadi was thought to be a potential location of renewed weapons activity because, like the Baghdad center, it employed some of Iraq's leading weapons scientists. Unlike the Baghdad center, it housed substantial dual-use equipment, capable of both permitted and prohibited work.
Tahadi hosted magnetic research and development of high-voltage power supplies. Those can be used as components of a program to enrich uranium to weapons grade. An expert on Iraq's weapons program with close ties to the IAEA said in an interview that the site was "at the top of the list" of sites that might be involved in prohibited centrifuge work. The Bush administration accused Iraq of attempting to import specialized aluminum tubes for such a centrifuge cascade, but the IAEA said they were not suitable.
The administration sought evidence at Tahadi, but the Direct Support Team found little left.
At the Baghdad site and Tahadi, experts said there might have been small radiation sources to calibrate instruments, but nothing in quantity. At two other looted sites, Tuwaitha's Location C and the Baghdad Nuclear Research Center nearby, there were significant quantities of partially enriched uranium, cesium, strontium and cobalt. U.S. survey teams have been unable to say whether any of those radiation sources were stolen.
According to witnesses, Allison's survey team reached both of these sites on April 10, the same day that ElBaradei cited them as the two most important for U.S. forces to protect. But because of continuing debate within the Bush administration over whether to enter without IAEA inspectors present, Allison received a hasty order to withdraw. When Allison was told to evacuate all U.S. personnel, including troops providing security at the perimeter, he grew agitated, witnesses said.
"Whoever gave that order better check his retirement plan, because if we leave this place open somebody is going to lose their job," he told an officer at the ground forces operations center of Central Command, according to two witnesses. Allison confirmed the gist of the conversation.
Eventually Central Command relented and ordered a company of the 3rd Infantry Division to guard both Tuwaitha-area sites. But the twin complexes, about a square mile each and half a mile apart, were far too big for the force left in place. Soldiers posted there permitted Iraqi civilians who said they were employees to enter freely. Looting at both places continued last Saturday, when a Washington Post reporter spent four hours at the site.
Daoud Awad, who ran the electrical design department at Tuwaitha, said in a brief interview that he "saw with my own eyes people carrying the containers we used to put radioactive materials in." The containers slightly resemble jugs commonly used for milk, he said, "and they didn't know what was inside."
"I saw some papers on an experiment, and the people threw the papers on the floor and took the table," he said. "If they knew how valuable the papers were, they would have kept the papers, not the table."
"How could they leave a place like this without protection?" he asked. "It's not an ordinary place. It's too dangerous."
Staff researcher Robert Thomason in Washington contributed to this report.
© 2003 The Washington Post Company
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A36985-2003May9.html
2) Trouble in Bush's America- - Bush Plan Would Wreck an Already Ailing Economy
- - Take Action - Stop Budget Disaster
Trouble in Bush's America
By Bob Herbert
New York Times
[Excerpt]
While our "What, me worry?" president is having a great time with his high approval ratings and his "Top Gun" fantasies, the economy remains in the tank. And the finances of state and local governments are sinking tragically into ever deeper and ever more unforgiving waters.
The high unemployment and sharply reduced social services are having devastating consequences. In some cases people are being driven to destitution.
Nearly a quarter of a million jobs have been lost in New York City in the past two and a half years. Taxes are going up and services are going down — and still that is not enough. Similar scenarios are being played out in city and state governments throughout the country.
California is trying to borrow its way out of a nightmarish crisis. Texas, already near the bottom nationally in social services, is heading further south.
Two forms of help from the federal government are needed. One is direct assistance to local governments to help alleviate the disastrous budget shortfalls. The other is an economic stimulus program that really works, that boosts the economy and creates jobs through investments in some of the nation's real needs, rather than simply transferring trainloads of money to the wealthy in the form of tax cuts.
Mr. Bush has no interest in such remedies. Easing the economic struggles of poor and working families in America is not part of his agenda.
For the complete article, see:
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/08/opinion/08HERB.html= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
- - Bush Plan Would Wreck an Already Ailing EconomyBush Plan Would Wreck an Already Ailing Economy
By Harry K. Schwartz
The Hill
Wednesday 07 May 2003
Even if Americans could afford President Bush's original proposal to make all corporate dividends tax-free, it would be a profoundly bad idea. Congress is right to worry about the cost. But the most far-reaching impacts, and the most troublesome ones, have nothing to do with the federal deficit.
For the complete article, see:
http://www.thehill.com/op_ed/050603.aspx= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
- - Take Action - Stop Budget DisasterStop Budget Disaster – From MoveOn.org
Today begins the peak week in our campaign to stop President Bush's disastrous tax and budget cuts. The campaign has developed terrific momentum. Our TV ad, telling the story of Oregon parents who soldtheir blood to raise money for their kids' school, has been covered by CNN, CNBC, MSNBC, FOX, and the Associated Press.*
Today, Americans everywhere are flooding their Senators' offices with MoveOn-sponsored faxes, urging the Senators to stop Bush's tax and budget cuts, which if enacted will cause terrible pain in our schools, health systems, fire departments, and economy. Click here to send FREE faxes to your Senators:
http://www.stopbudgetdisaster.com/fax.asp?ms=on Please send your faxes right away. The debate in Congress over these cuts is really heating up. On Friday, the House approved a tax & budget cut of $550 billion. This number, a lot less than the $726 billion Bush asked for, is an attempt to placate moderate Senators who have refused to approve such enormous cuts. Thousands of our members have called these Senators in support of their courageous stand.
But any tax cut for the rich is still too much, when deficits everywhere are already forcing massive cutbacks in essential programs. We've got to stop these tax cuts. Please fax your Senators today.
And get ready to call them on Wednesday, when our campaign culminates in a massive phone blitz. We've got to make sure our Senators understand the depth of public opposition to new tax & budget cuts.
Thanks for all you're doing.
Sincerely,
- Carrie, Eli, Joan, Peter, Wes, and Zack
The MoveOn Team
May 12th, 2003
* You can see the ad for yourself on our homepage:
http://www.moveon.org/P.S.: Here's one of the recent articles about the TV ad. It appeared
on KATU.com (ABC affiliate) in Oregon:
Parents donate blood plasma to pay teacher's salary
May 9, 2003
http://www.katu.com/news/story.asp?ID=57349 EUGENE - A group of parents who decided to sell blood plasma to pay a school teacher's salary are now featured on a national political ad skewering President Bush's proposed tax cuts.
On Thursday, the first 30-second television ad aired on CNN. It was based on a re-enactment of the April 13 blood plasma drive, where 50 parents and teachers went to Aventis Bio-Services in west Eugene to raise money for the Family School.
"It's absolutely fabulous," said Family School parent Beth Meyer, who will fly to Washington, D.C., next week to be part of the week-long attack on Bush's tax-cut plan, which the ad says favors the rich.
Take Action =>
http://www.stopbudgetdisaster.com/fax.asp?ms=on
For Part 2 - Items:
3) Greg Palast: "The Lies Are Brilliantly Crafted"
- - "The Greatest Sedition is Silence" by William Rivers Pitt
4) June 2nd - FCC Close to Easing Media Caps
- - Take Action! - Stop the FCC
5) Kucinich's 'Medicare for All' Offers No Role for Private Insurers
- - Create your purposeful self, just like Rep. Dennis Kucinich
6) An Empty Energy Bill and Imperial Ambition/Destruction
See:
GregPalast--Truthout * MediaMonopoly * K-Health * Energy
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