smCOLUMN NINETY, MAY 1, 2003
(Copyright © 2003 The Blacklisted Journalist)
SECTION
EIGHTEEN
EMAIL PAGE EIGHT
sm
COLUMN
NINETY, MAY
1, 2003
(Copyright © 2003 The Blacklisted Journalist)
FROM PORTSIDE
Portside
(the left side in nautical parlance) is a
news, discussion and debate service of the Committees
of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism. It
says it aims to provide varied material of interest to people
on the Left.
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BRIEFS
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PRAY FOR OUR PRESIDENT
www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s819685.htm
Thousands of marines have been given a pamphlet called "A Christian's Duty," a mini prayer book which
includes a tear-out section to be mailed to the White House pledging the soldier who sends it in has been praying
for Bush.
"I have committed to pray for you, your family, your staff and our troops during this time of uncertainty and
tumult. May God's peace be your guide," says the pledge, according to a journalist embedded with coalition
forces.
The pamphlet, produced by a group called In Touch Ministries, offers a daily prayer to be made for the US
president, a born-again Christian who likes to invoke his God in speeches.
Sunday's is "Pray that the President and his advisers will seek God and his wisdom daily and not rely on their
own understanding."
Monday's reads "Pray that the President and his advisers will be strong and courageous to do what is right
regardless of critics." ##
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GETTING EVEN FOR 9/11
Subject: Arundhati Roy on the War
Date: Fri, 04 Apr 2003 03:30:14 -0500
From: portsideMod@netscape.net
To: portside@yahoogroups.com
Arundhati Roy
Wednesday April 2, 2003
The Guardian (UK)
On the steel torsos of their missiles, adolescent American soldiers scrawl colourful messages in childish
handwriting: For Saddam, from the Fat Boy Posse. A building goes down. A marketplace. A home. A girl who
loves a boy. A child who only ever wanted to play with his older brother's marbles.
On March 21, the day after American and British troops began their illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq, an
"embedded" CNN correspondent interviewed an American soldier. "I wanna get in there and get my nose dirty,"
Private AJ said. "I wanna take revenge for 9/11."
To be fair to the correspondent, even though he was "embedded" he did sort of weakly suggest that so far
there was no real evidence that linked the Iraqi government to the September 11 attacks. Private AJ
stuck his teenage tongue out all the way down to the end of his chin. "Yeah, well that stuff's way over my
head," he said.
According to a New York Times/CBS News survey, 42 per cent of the American public believes that Saddam
Hussein is directly responsible for the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon. And
an ABC news poll says that 55 per cent of Americans believe that Saddam Hussein directly supports
al-Qaida. What percentage of America's armed forces believe these fabrications is anybody's guess.
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BUSH'S ANSWER TO OUR ECONOMIC WOES? REWARD THE RICH!
Subject: United For a Fair Economy - On the Tax Cuts
Date: Mon, 07 Apr 2003 20:20:52 -0400
From: portsideMod@netscape.net
To: portside@yahoogroups.com
Why Bush's Tax Cut Won't Help the Economy
David Martin and Chris Hartman and Ben Robinson, United for a Fair Economy
April 3, 2003 Viewed on April 7, 2003
http://www.alternet.org/print.html'storyID=15558
George W. Bush's tax cut plan is unfair and ineffective. Its centerpiece, the elimination of the tax on stock
dividends, is targeted almost exclusively to the well-off. This tax cut will generate lots of tax breaks for the top 1 percent and lots
of fees for Wall Street, but it won't help anyone get a job. The only thing this
plan "stimulates" is more economic inequality in the U.S.
A tiny bit of good news, maybe. There was a tiny bit of good news recently. On March 25,
the Senate voted 51-48 to limit tax cuts to $350 billion over the next 10 years, rather than the $725 billion package that
President Bush wanted and which was passed by the House. The vote makes it possible that the
crown jewel of the tax cut, the elimination of the tax on dividends, will be scaled back when the House and Senate meet in
conference committee to craft a compromise.
We ought to be raising, not lowering, taxes on the wealthy, just as we've done during every previous U.S. war to limit cuts
in social spending. But that's not a certainty. As the New York Times observed, "With
the Senate and House controlled by Republicans, the conference committee is sure to be dominated by lawmakers loyal to
Bush. So the measure that comes out of the conference committee will probably be
much more favorable to the president's position than what the Senate approved Tuesday and may include all or nearly all of the
president's tax proposals."
Moreover, we have to ask: why are we even talking about tax cuts for the wealthy right now? The federal deficit is spiraling into the sky, state governments are broke, and there's a war on. We ought to be raising, not lowering, taxes on the wealthy. ##
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SCHOLAR HERBERT APTHEKER DIES
Subject:
Herbert Aptheker, 1915-2003
Date: Fri, 21 Mar 2003 03:24:03 -0500
From: portsideMod@netscape.net
To: portside@yahoogroups.com
Scholar
Herbert Aptheker dies at 88
Jack
Fischer
San Jose Mercury News
3/19/2003
Herbert
Aptheker, a seminal scholar of African-American
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