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Breaking the Silence * Sabotage * SoulMan


05 February 2004

"Only a free and unrestrained press
can effectively expose deception in government.
And paramount among the responsibilities of a free press
is the duty to prevent any part of the government
from deceiving the people."

– Hugo L. Black


1) Breaking the Silence: Truth and Lies in the War on Terror
- - Intelligence chief's bombshell
- - British officers knew on eve of war that Iraq had no WMDs :
- - Bush Sabotages WMD Commission Before It Starts
2) Soul Man by Corinne McLaughlin
- - Dennis Kucinich Update on the Campaign Trail
3) Leonard Peltier Nominated for 2004 Nobel Peace Prize
- - Unfinished business in Indian country
4) Defense of Oil Exploitation by the Sarayaku – State of Emergency
- - Dennis Kucinich Pledges Protection of Western Shoshone Lands

Editor's Notes:

Barely recovering from Flyby's last issue? Well, ready or not, here's another packed issue with critical news and resources. Election 2004 is quickly descending and the ABB theory of many Democrats (ABB = Anything But Bush), is the same old – same old – compromising politics and control from the corporate elite, which has given us GWB, Star Wars, communication monopolies, death and destruction. The old manipulation of worse and worse is continuing unless we make an impact. Besides the campaign of Dennis Kucinich, who is trying to give power back to the people, another resource is a powerful film by John Pilger and his team of investigative reporters and news producers. They are way ahead of the curve of destruction, and we need an audience to see the facts as they lay down in cold unethical brutality. Norman Solomon, Executive Director, Institute for Public Accuracy described John Pilger's film, "Breaking the Silence: Truth and Lies in the War on Terror" that "in 52 minutes, John Pilger succeeds brilliantly where the U.S. mass media have failed miserably -- to examine the "war on terror" with tough-minded humanism and uncompromising journalism. . . Breaking the Silence shatters some key myths that often prevent us from developing news media and political priorities to protect human life instead of destroying it." This issue begins with information on this film and updated reports on the lies of terror from the highest office of the US government.

Item 2 is a special article by my old friend, Corinne McLaughlin, which gives us an alternative look into the soul and experience of Dennis Kucinich. Following that is an update from Dennis himself on the campaign trail.

For items 3 and 4 see: Peltier Peace Prize * Sarayaku Emergency



1) Breaking the Silence: Truth and Lies in the War on Terror

- - Intelligence chief's bombshell
- - British officers knew on eve of war that Iraq had no WMDs :
- - Bush Sabotages WMD Commission Before It Starts

Breaking the Silence: Truth and Lies in the War on Terror
A Special Report by John Pilger

John Pilger dissects the truth and lies in the 'war on terror'.
52 minutes
Color / Stereo VHS
Grade Level10-12, College, Adult
US Release Date2003

Directed by Steve Connelly and John Pilger
Produced by Christopher Martin
Executive Producer: Richard Clemmow
Written and Presented by John Pilger

Award-winning journalist John Pilger investigates the discrepancies between American and British claims for the 'war on terror' and the facts on the ground as he finds them in Afghanistan and Washington, DC.

In 2001, as the bombs began to drop, George W. Bush promised Afghanistan "the generosity of America and its allies". Now, the familiar old warlords are regaining power, religious fundamentalism is renewing its grip and military skirmishes continue routinely. In "liberated" Afghanistan, America has its military base and pipeline access, while the people have the warlords who are, says one woman, "in many ways worse than the Taliban".

In Washington, Pilger conducts a series of remarkable interviews with William Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard, and leading Administration officials such as Douglas Feith, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, and John Bolton, Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security. These people, and the other architects of the Project for the New American Century, were dismissed as 'the crazies' by the first Bush Administration in the early 90s when they first presented their ideas for pre-emptive strikes and world domination.

Pilger also interviews presidential candidate General Wesley Clark, and former intelligence officers, all the while raising searching questions about the real motives for the 'war on terror'.

While President Bush refers to the US attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq as two 'great victories', Pilger asks the question - victories over whom, and for what purpose? Pilger describes Afghanistan as a country "more devastated than anything I have seen since Pol Pot's Cambodia". He finds that Al-Qaida has not been defeated and that the Taliban is re-emerging. And of the "victory" in Iraq, he asks"Is this Bush's Vietnam?"

Reviews

"In 52 minutes, John Pilger succeeds brilliantly where the U.S. mass media have failed miserably -- to examine the "war on terror" with tough-minded humanism and uncompromising journalism. The result of Pilger's efforts is a powerful expose that demolishes the pretensions of George W. Bush and Tony Blair. In 2004, we need Pilger's documentary "Breaking the Silence" more than ever. From Afghanistan and Iraq to New York City and the insulated bastions of power in Washington, this film jolts us to consider the real human costs of flagrant lies still being told in high places. Whether you live in the United States, Britain or anywhere else on the planet, Breaking the Silence shatters some key myths that often prevent us from developing news media and political priorities to protect human life instead of destroying it."

– Norman Solomon, Executive Director, Institute for Public Accuracy

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For more information, see:
http://www.bullfrogfilms.com/catalog/break.html

or contact:

Bullfrog Films
P.O. Box 149
Oley, PA 19547
Tel. 610/779-8226
Fax.610/370-1978
Email: info@bullfrogfilms.com

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Click for a review by Mark Turner "Breaking The Silence:
Truth and Lies in the War on Terror -- A Special Report by John Pilger"



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Flyby News will be presenting "Breaking the Silence:
Truth and Lies in the War on Terror
A Special Report by John Pilger" with discussions
and Dennis Kucinich's 18-minute powerhouse freedom speech
"A Prayer for America"
at the Bangs Community Center, Amherst, MA
Thursday, February 26, 2004 @ 7:00 pm
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The following is a recent update news digest from Information Clearinghouse

- - Intelligence chief's bombshell

'We were overruled on dossier': The intelligence official whose revelations stunned the Hutton inquiry has suggested that not a single defence intelligence expert backed Tony Blair's most contentious claims on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=487557

===

- - British officers knew on eve of war that Iraq had no WMDs :

UK intelligence learned just before war that Iraq had not assembled chemical weapons. Mossad "knew 45-minute claim was an old wives' tale" - but did not tell UK or US. US Secretary of State "does not know" if he would have recommended invasion if he had been told Iraq had no WMDs
http://news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=136082004

===

Brian Jones: 'There was a lack of substantive evidence...:
We were told there was intelligence we ‘could not see'
http://argument.independent.co.uk/commentators/story.jsp?story=487515

===

How did we get it so wrong? :

Yes, the spies got it wrong, admits former CIA analyst Kenneth Pollack, but the politicians also moulded the evidence to fit the case for war
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1140548,00.html

===

To sign up for Information Clearinghouse's email digest, visit:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/emaildigest.htm

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THE DAILY MIS-LEAD

- - Bush Sabotages WMD Commission Before It Starts
http://daily.misleader.org/ctt.asp?u=1835241&l=16923



2) Soul Man by Corinne McLaughlin

- - Dennis Kucinich Update on the Campaign Trail

Soul Man
By Corinne McLaughlin

Published in the Evergreen Monthly
formerly The New Times

I first met Congressman Dennis Kucinich four years ago when I was looking for a Democrat in Congress who was willing to speak about spirituality at our conference, "Re-Igniting the Spirit of America." His courage, vision and integrity inspired me.

Kucinich told me he loved the book I co-authored," Spiritual Politics: Changing the World from the Inside Out." After living in Washington, D.C. for 12 years, and working for the Clinton Administration, I found it quite refreshing a politician would appreciate this approach. He asked me to be his press secretary, and though I couldn't at the time, I later helped him write and promote a bill proposing a federal Department of Peace.

When Kucinich introduced his Peace bill, several of his speeches (with titles like "Prayer for America" and "Spirit and Stardust") spread around the Internet like wildfire. Thousands of Americans woke up and felt a new sense that a politician with a solid progressive record—and most significantly—a new consciousness was finally running for President. Winner of the Gandhi Peace Award, Kucinich fearlessly voted against sending troops to Iraq when it wasn't popular to do so, and he introduced legislation to repeal the Homeland Security Act, ban weapons in space, ban genetic engineering, protect the environment and prevent the manipulation of voting machines.

Kucinich has spiritual depth, which is remarkable in politics today, and he talks openly about spirituality (rare for a Democrat.) His presidential campaign is unusual, in that it reflects the thinking of many internationally respected authors who have sold millions of books on spiritual themes. Among his supporters are Ram Dass, John Robbins, Jack Kornfield, Hazel Henderson, Barbara Marx Hubbard, Marianne Williamson, Sam Keen, Riane Eisler and Vicki Robin.

This past fall, I organized two advisory circle meetings for Kucinich with more than a dozen best-selling authors. The Democratic presidential candidate either attended or phoned from the campaign trail. Here are highlight excerpts from those rich, provocative sessions:

Dennis Kucinich: When I walked into this room and sat down, I immediately felt a unified field. The only other time I experienced something with this power was in a meeting with a group that came into my office in Washington. I felt a tangible, physical field that's created by you all here. In a sense we didn't even need to have this discussion! I walked in and within two seconds I'm thinking, "I got it…"

I'm very grateful for your help and your guidance and for the truth you've communicated, as it makes it possible for the themes of this campaign to have the kind of depth that it does. My work in many ways is an extension of the work of so many of you.

Corinne McLaughlin: What surprised you most in running for President?

Kucinich: That there are 26 hours in a day.

Avon Mattison (author, "We the Peoples' Initiative" and founder, Pathways to Peace): If you could start your campaign over again, knowing what you know now, what would you do differently?

Kucinich: I'd buy a newspaper, and maybe a television network.

Paul Ray (Co-author, "The Cultural Creatives"): I have some research for you on the "new political compass." There is a new political constituency emerging which I call New Progressives, representing 45 percent of likely voters. The easiest way to describe them is that they are at right angles to the dimension of Liberal Left and Social Conservative Right and they are directly opposed to Big Business Conservatism. These New Progressives are at the intersection of all the movement constituencies, and the marginal cost of mobilizing them should be small. If they are mobilized under a single banner, as a big political tent, they could wind up replacing one of the political parties.

What we should be doing is building in networks that can persist over time because that's the way people power actually works—it's very dense networks.

Dennis Kucinich: One thing I can tell you—as someone who, for several Congresses sat in at all the leadership meetings—the leadership of the Democratic Party is totally poll driven. No principle, no direction, just the moment, so it's a very limited, egocentric, unthoughtful approach to governance and public policy…

Some Democrats voted for the war because the polls told them it would be the thing to do. It's sick… They use the polls to raise money. There are no viable policies because there are no core beliefs.

Carolyn Shaffer (co-author, "Creating Community Anywhere"): I want to help you with long-term, community building that can inform politics, through the movement I'm connected with. We create village councils and other formats that can be put into practice to get more media coverage.

Kucinich: But as the poet said 30 years ago, "The revolution will not be televised."

Duane Elgin ("Voluntary Simplicity", "The Promise Ahead") As a non-partisan media activist, I've seen that power in a democracy is the power to communicate, and we don't have the power to communicate our vision and values to the public at large.… The vehicle of that communication is essentially broadcast television. It uses the public airwaves that we, the public, own.

No one running in the [Democratic] primaries is holding the media accountable in the court of public opinion. You could powerfully distinguish yourself if you say that the unspoken elephant in this room is the mass media and what they're not telling us—about climate change, species extinction, the roots of terrorism in poverty, etc.

Kucinich: The FCC Act of 1934 says the electronic media must be responsible to the people or it can't operate. Now the media monopolies have created a situation where there is less of a democratic discussion than ever before.

I experience this as a candidate because the themes I raise challenge the status quo. I don't get the coverage the other candidates do.

The other day I talked about the media role in taking us into Iraq, and about their accountability. But the problem is we can't put a face on the media, personify it. It's amorphous. So for that reason, it's more vulnerable, but it's also more difficult to pin it down. It's a paradox. Your point is well taken, about demanding accountability.

The media is responsible in large part for the situation in Iraq. If the media had done its homework, Bush wouldn't have had the confidence to proceed. The media helped to build the Cold War. The media was a spear-carrier for the government.

Eisenhower talked about the military-industrial complex, but now its military-industrial-media complex, and their airwaves become marketing tools for war.

Anodea Judith (author, "Wheels of Life"): From a systems perspective, a system has four basic parts: input, transformation, output and feedback. Feedback is responsible for the evolution of the system. And in our culture, the media is actually the feedback mechanism.

But the feedback we're getting is actually a distorted funhouse mirror. We're not getting accurate information, and it's preventing evolution. People make the right decisions if they get the right information. Fortunately, we have the Internet or we'd be in worse shape.

Kucinich: That's very perceptive. When you go into a funhouse, you see your distorted image. If you didn't know what you really look like, you'd look at that image and think it is you.

Randy Hayes (Co-author, "Alternatives to Economic Globalization"; Founder of Rainforest Action Network): If you look systematically at the social and ecological crisis in this country and world-wide, big business is shredding the fabric of nature itself, usurping public governance and replacing what we used to call the free press with mass media.

As a society we know the functionality of the separation of church and state, but what would be the functionality of the separation of business and state? Can we talk about that in a way that is pro-commerce and unifying and can win elections?

Kucinich: The way we do it is to talk about a question of scale. As business grows and becomes larger, it inevitably crushes the aspiration of smaller businesses.

Laissez-faire capitalism is not analogous to a democratic society, as a democratic society has checks and balances. A laissez-faire economy says pursue economic freedom at any price. In a democracy there's a certain regulation of freedom.

The challenge that we face is the importance of protecting small business, of looking at issues of concentration of wealth that makes it much more difficult to uphold the principle of democracy. I think we have to create connections between democracy and commerce on a smaller scale that is more sustainable and creates more jobs.

Gordon Davidson (co-author, "Spiritual Politics"; co-founder, The Center for Visionary Leadership): The problem of takeover of government by big business is now deeply rooted in the legal system by giving corporations all the rights and few of the responsibilities of individuals. This is a fundamental distortion of our democracy, as originally all the rights resided only in the individual.

And because corporations are immortal and can amass immense wealth, their power quickly surpasses any individual or group of individuals. There are movements now to require regular renewal of corporate charters by studying their corporate performance to see if they satisfy social goals. If not, they should not have their charter renewed.

Kucinich: I favor that. We have to insist that the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Trade Commission do their job.

Joe Kresse (Foundation for Global Community): We need to move from managers' capitalism to owners' capitalism. People who own corporate America have abdicated their responsibility, their boards have abdicated their responsibility. Even as Adam Smith said, watch out, if corporations are left to their own devices, people will rob, break and steal.

Kucinich: That's very useful. I have talked about this, but I'd like to explore this more as a theme in this campaign. It's also a way to connect with the constituency of people who've been cheated out of their investments.

Shakti Gawain (author, "Creative Visualization," "The Path of Transformation"): What's happening in the world is a reflection of what's going on individually within each of us. One way to do the healing externally is to do the healing internally, within us.

Kucinich: I read "Creative Visualization" 30 years ago, it was great. In the visualization you lead last night [during an advisory circle meeting], I saw a horse race, and at the last minute, I saw a horse break through across the finish line. I saw it clearly!

Sam Keen (author, "Faces of the Enemy," "Fire in the Belly"): You're the only Democratic candidate for President who seems to understand the radical changes we need to make to preserve the environment and move us away from a militarized future that will cost all of us
our social and political security.

Kucinich: We're at a point in the campaign, without mass media coverage of any kind, where we've grown the campaign to a 50-state campaign, we've built an organization around the country. We're at a critical point where we have to keep sustaining it.

If you have networks that you can tap, put in a favorable word about what we're doing. Let people know, to go to our website and make a contribution. It's critical to sustain the organization.

People need to be aware this is a real campaign, it's not just a message trip that I'm on. I believe this election and this campaign is wide open and gives us a shot at structural change…. I chose a life in public life and I've been doing this my whole life. This is about whether we have the confidence in the authenticity of our own dreams and our own worldview—or whether we'll settle for half measures and wishful thinking.


For more information or to order Kucinich's new book, "A Prayer for America," contact the Kucinich Campaign toll-free at 866-413-3664 or visit http://www. kucinich .us.

Corinne McLaughlin can be reached at corinnemc@visonarylead .org.

For original posting of this article, see:
http://www.newtimes.org/issue/0402/kucinich.html

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- - Dennis Kucinich Update on the Campaign Trail

Here is Dennis' latest report from the campaign trail in both audio and text.
This report is also available at http://kucinich.us/dennis-campaigntrail-2.php

Audio Postcard:
Turn up your speakers, and click on this link, or paste this link into your web browser:
http://members.audiogenerator.com/postcards/?2392367

Transcript of Audio Postcard:
Evening of 2/3/04

Hi Everyone, this is Dennis.

Well, we finally popped our nose above the sidewalk today and came up with 2% in Arizona, 3% in North Dakota, and at last count (they're still counting) we're between 5 and 6% in New Mexico.

This clearly starts to show that our campaign has a heartbeat, and we're going to create some racing pulses across the country as we start to challenge the front runners on their position on Iraq, on health care, and on trade.

Your participation is urgent now. We need your help on the phones and in any other way possible for the contests ahead in Washington state, in Maine, and in Michigan. We need to you to help with the phones, we need some of you close by to help with canvassing, and to continue our efforts with fundraising.

With all the attention on the horse race, no one has paid any attention as to what's in the saddlebags of the front runners. And as we begin to focus attention on this war in Iraq, we're going to make it very clear that this campaign stands as the real alternative to President Bush, the only alternative which will bring our troops home. And so your participation is going to help change the debate in this election, on Iraq, and move this party in a direction to bring our troops home.

As we move towards the Super Tuesday, your participation is going to be essential because we're not just going to change the debate, but we're going to start moving up to causing Democrats everywhere to understand that the only way to be successful in defeating President Bush is to challenge him on the very issue that he expects to win the election on, and that's on Iraq. So I'm fully prepared to do that, but I need your help in making that happen.

With respect to health care, over and over again I've stood in those presidential forums and pointed out that we present the only alternative with a not-for-profit, universal, single-payer system. As I go around the country more and more people are desperate on health care issues. And here again, we're going to start to score not just points but more support from across the country.

On the issue of trade, with your help we've made the issue of trade one of the major issues in this campaign. But we still have more to do. Because if we cause others to focus on trade they see that we're the only ones talking about saving American jobs, and on challenging this corporate trade structure which is going for cheap labor and then bringing those goods back into this country and wiping out American manufacturing industry while lowering the standards of American families all over this country.

So there it is, Iraq, trade, and health care. That's the ticket, not just to the nomination but to a new America.

So help us organize, help us get ready for the upcoming primaries and caucuses, and let's get ready for the next step. We're finally starting to show that we've got some ability to gather votes, and we'll be showing it more and more with your help.

So thank you, let's keep things organized, let's keep it together, and let's keep it on.

Thanks everyone, bye now.
Dennis Kucinich

To get involved or for information on Dennis Kucinich
for US President 2004, see: http://www.kucinich.us



"Justice is not a flexible tool.
Unless we all do our part to ensure that justice is applied equally
to all human beings, we are a party to its abuse.
We must stand together to protect the rights of others."

– Leonard Peltier


For part 2 see Peltier Peace Prize * Sarayaku Emergency




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