WW News Service Digest #352
1) 'Patriot Act' boils down to racist repression against immigrants
by WW
2) 100,000 march in London
by WW
3) Scripting the Big Lie: Pro-war propaganda proliferates
by WW
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Nov. 29, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
'Patroit Act" boils down to
RACIST REPRESSION AGAINST IMMIGRANTS
By John Catalinotto
It didn't take long for the repressive atmosphere fostered
by the "Patriot Act" to impact on daily life in the U.S. It
has been especially intimidating for immigrants in general,
and those from the Middle East in particular.
Early stories that over 1,000 immigrants were rounded up and
held for investigation after Sept. 11, many then held weeks
or even months for alleged immigration violations, have made
the threats serious. That the government has released little
or no information about the outcome of these
"investigations" has increased the tension.
Accompanying the government repression has been
discrimination against Middle Eastern people and Muslims.
A few of the more extraordinary stories have made it into
the big-business media. According to Arab-American
organizations, many more cases are unreported.
Thanos Tzounopoulos' experience was more likely to make the
papers. Tzounopoulos, a Greek citizen and permanent resident
of the U.S., is an accomplished neuroscientist and assistant
professor at Oregon Health and Science University.
On Nov. 9, he was on his way from Portland to the Society of
Neuroscience's annual meeting in San Diego. There he was to
present his study of "enhanced synaptic plasticity and
learning in mice lacking the afterhyperolization."
To someone on the Alaska Airlines plane, Tzounopoulos
appeared too "strange" and "uncomfortable" as he sat
reviewing his notes in seat 19C.
The next thing he knew, the 32-year-old Tzounopoulos was
being ordered by an Alaska Airlines employee to grab his
stuff and get off the plane, according to The Oregonian of
Nov. 14.
Tzounopoulos flies Alaska Airlines about 50 times a year.
He'll probably find a way to keep flying. But it's a bigger
question as to whether Mohammad Rahat will get his job back
at the University of Miami's Jackson Memorial Hospital.
Rahat turned 22 last Sept. 11. Despite the gloom that day,
his co-workers held a little party for the Iranian-born
medical technician.
Rahat spoke out against U.S. policy toward the Middle East.
He said that day, "Some birthday gift from Osama bin Laden!"
According to Rahat this was in a sarcastic tone. He
continued to criticize the U.S. war on Afghanistan.
Rahat was fired, reported the Miami Herald of Nov. 16. He
blames it not as much on his remarks as on his origins, and
is fighting the university authorities legally to win his
job back. Whether the discrimination is against his origin,
his opinions, or both, it is an attack on his right to earn
a living.
PLAN TO INTERROGATE 5,000
Attorney General John Ashcroft, who the Senate approved
despite his racist and anti-abortion record, has had his
department compile a list of 5,000 foreign men living in the
United States. Most of these men are from Middle Eastern
countries. The FBI is preparing to interrogate all of them,
seeking them out for "voluntary interviews."
This news has already sent a shudder through the Arab-
American communities in the U.S. It's a shudder of fear that
authorities provoke, but also of anger at being singled out
for persecution.
That the government is profiling Middle Eastern and other
Muslim people opens up the door to the kind of
discrimination faced by Rahat in Miami and the abuse
Tzounopolous had to put up with from Alaska Airlines.
The anti-immigrant discrimination also flies in the face of
the needs of the U.S. economy for specialized skills that
immigrants have been bringing in for decades, also called
the brain drain. Almost 550,000 foreign students attended
U.S. colleges and universities in the academic year ending
June 2001. They contribute greatly to both research programs
and to tuition, paying more than their proportionate share.
When California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, joining the
chauvinist chorus, proposed a moratorium on issuing visas to
foreign students, she was surprised to find it aroused
strong opposition from university officials. Feinstein
dropped her proposal but is now promoting a bill to
investigate the students and track them overseas.
The Bush administration's move to expand its police powers
has aroused opposition from what has lately been an
extraordinarily docile Congress and media. Bush's
announcement that he would convoke military courts drew an
angry response from a range of bourgeois commentators, from
William Safire on the right to the editorial boards of the
Washington Post and Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
So far, however, there is no sign that Bush is pulling back
on this question. A military court would allow the U.S. to
try whoever they deemed a suspected foreign terrorist,
without observing the rules of evidence of a civilian U.S.
court, with extensive secrecy, and needing only a two-thirds
majority of officer-judges to convict.
Even Safire called this a "kangaroo court." But don't expect
any progressive alternative from that quarter. His preferred
solution was to have the U.S. military execute suspected
terrorists on the ground in Afghanistan, allegedly in
battle.
- END -
(Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to
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From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> (WW)
Date: sunnuntai 25. marraskuu 2001 19:48
Subject: [WW] 100,000 march in London
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Nov. 29, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
100,000 march in London
PROTESTS DENOUNCE U.S./UK WAR
By John Catalinotto
The Act Now to Stop War & End Racism coalition
(International ANSWER) held a series of informational
actions on the eve of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
These ranged from rallies and picket lines to mass
leafleting to teach-in-type discussions. Two dozen cities
and campuses across the United States participated, with
solidarity actions in Spain, Italy and Germany, mostly on
Nov. 14.
Following the Sept. 11 events, ANSWER organized the first
actions against U.S. military threats, drawing 20,000
protesters to both Washington, D.C., and San Francisco on
Sept. 29. The group again held protests in 75 cities across
the U.S. on Oct. 27, after the Pentagon began bombing
Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, in some parts of the world, protests have
accelerated in the face of the U.S.-British reports of
victory in Afghanistan over the Taliban. The largest
demonstration was held in London on Nov. 18. There the Stop
the War Coalition gathered what was called the largest anti-
war march since the Vietnam War.
"Some 100,000 anti-war protesters marched in London today,
doubling last month's turnout of 50,000, indicating the full
depth of opposition to the war in the UK," said the
organizers' report. "Trade unionists, Muslim organizations,
community groups, anti-racists, human rights activists, anti-
globalization activists, students and Members of Parliament
heard a wide range of speakers condemn the U.S.-led military
action in Afghanistan."
"After today's demonstration, no one can doubt both the
scale and the diversity of anti-war feeling in this
country," said Suresh Grover of the National Civil Rights
Movement and Stop the War steering committee. "This is a
ground-breaking event which has coalesced into a massive
operation against the military action.
"This protest is also against the attack on human rights in
Britain. The government is slipping in the suspension of
habeas corpus and the introduction of internment and
detention without trial. We are also seeing a proliferation
of racist assaults."
Veteran anti-war activist and former minister Tony Benn told
the rally that "We are witnessing the birth of a world-wide
peace movement." He denounced the U.S.-UK war as terrorism.
Important trade unionists were present, including
delegations from the local government union UNISON, the
Transport and General Workers Union, the National Union of
Teachers, the rail unions RMT and ASLEF, and the Fire
Brigades Union. Hospital workers from various parts of the
country also took part.
In Ottawa, Canada, an anti-globalization protest at the G-20
meeting grew to over 2,000 people on Nov. 17. The
demonstrators also raised slogans against the war on
Afghanistan.
ANSWER ACTIONS NOV. 14
Among the actions sponsored by ANSWER in the United States
were rallies of hundreds of people near Union Square Park in
New York and at Powell and Market Street in San Francisco.
The San Francisco action focused on protesting the U.S.
bombing of the offices of Al-Jazeera television in Kabul,
the most brutal way to censor news from the Afghan capital.
In San Diego, ANSWER supporters gathered with signs and
flyers at the corner of Broadway and Front streets,
distributing hundreds of leaflets to passers-by.
In Washington, D.C., a large group of ANSWER volunteers went
to a dozen Metro stations and neighborhoods and distributed
close to 20,000 leaflets and fact sheets about the U.S.-
British aggression on Afghanistan. Many of those who passed
by signed the "Pledge for Peace" ANSWER has been using to
petition.
In Philadelphia, an open forum and speakout at the Unitarian
Church heard Berta Joubert of the International Action
Center on the struggle in Vieques, Puerto Rico, to stop U.S.
Navy testing, and laid-off flight attendant and labor
organizer Rodney Ward.
Earlier in the week, on Nov. 10, a broad spectrum of
Detroit's political activists gathered at New Bethel Baptist
Church to denounce the war in Afghanistan. Speakers linked
it to the war against the poor and people of color in the
U.S.
Speakers told the 200 people at the rally it was time to
build a grassroots movement to include youth of color, who
are disproportionately represented in the U.S. military.
Debbie Johnson of the Detroit chapter of the International
Action Center said these youths' "lives are most threatened
by the imperialist war drive. When we leave here today,
let's go home to our sons and daughters, our nieces and
nephews, and get them involved."
Among the speakers were Maureen Taylor, chair of the
Michigan Welfare Rights Organization, Ron Scott of the
Detroit Coalition Against Police Brutality, Tamara French of
the National Lawyers Guild, an immigration rights attorney,
and Julie Hurwitz and Mark Fancher of the Sugar Law Center.
The attorneys described provisions of the "Patriot Act" and
state legislation in Michigan that eliminate many
constitutional rights for detainees.
Hassan Nawash, a community activist, and Intessar Alkafji of
the National Association of Arab and Chaldean Businesswomen
told the audience about Israeli repression of Palestinians
and the murderous impact of U.S. sanctions on Iraq.
ANSWER co-director Larry Holmes called on people across the
country to come to New York from Jan. 31 to Feb. 4 to join
in protests against the World Economic Forum gathering.
Anti-war organizations in Madrid, Spain, held protests Nov.
14 at Puerta del Sol. Also in Venice, Italy, about 100
activists from Porderone, Bassano, Padova, Venica and
Chioggia demonstrated against the imperialist war,
denouncing its political and economic causes, including the
grasp for petrodollars, the control of Central Asia and the
world, and the new division of power.
They placed a dozen white crosses on the Rialto Bridge,
transforming it into a cemetery. They also held performances
on the bridge, in the market place and in the streets,
ending at the railway station in Venice.
There were also demonstrations throughout Germany Nov. 14
and through the week to protest the Bundestag's (parliament)
approval of Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's plans to send
German troops into battle to support the U.S.-British
offensive.
- END -
(Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to
copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but
changing it is not allowed. For more information contact
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail:
[EMAIL PROTECTED] For subscription info send message to:
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From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> (WW)
Date: sunnuntai 25. marraskuu 2001 19:50
Subject: [WW] Scripting the Big Lie: Pro-war propaganda proliferates
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Nov. 29, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
Scripting the Big Lie
PRO-WAR PROPAGANDA PROLIFERATES
By Heather Cottin
The titans of the military-industrial-media complex are
working around the clock trying to annihilate the truth so
people in the United States won't care what happens to the
people of Afghanistan. Using every propaganda vehicle, the
Bush administration is driving hard to control the minds and
hearts of the public here and, if possible, around the
world. Those who would oppose them are run over.
In a briefing, Bush spokesperson Ari Fleischer warned
reporters that, in times like these, "people have to watch
what they say and watch what they do." CNN and other major
commercial news organizations are obeying Fleischer's
admonition.
During the bombing of Afghanistan, network news outlets
endlessly repeated, "Taliban claims are nearly impossible to
verify." CNN has ordered reporters to frame reports of
civilian deaths with reminders that "the Pentagon has
repeatedly stressed that it is trying to minimize" such
casualties, and that "the Taliban regime continues to harbor
terrorists who are connected to the Sept. 11 attacks that
claimed thousands of innocent lives in the U.S."
In a special report Nov. 5 that took other media to task for
letting the world know about the slaughter of innocents in
Afghanistan, Fox News anchor Brit Hume said, "Civilian
casualties are historically, by definition, a part of war,
really. Should they be as big news as they've been?"
Mara Liasson from National Public Radio agreed, "Look, war
is about killing people. Civilian casualties are
unavoidable."
U.S. News & World Report columnist Michael Barone added, "I
think the real problem here is that this is poor news
judgment on the part of some of these news organizations.
Civilian casualties are not, as Mara says, news. The fact is
that they accompany wars."
A memo circulated to editors at the Panama City, Fla., News
Herald and leaked to Jim Romenesko's Media News warned: "DO
NOT USE photos on Page 1A showing civilian casualties from
the U.S. war on Afghanistan. DO NOT USE wire stories which
lead with civilian casualties from the U.S. war on
Afghanistan ... play down the civilian casualties, DO IT."
PROPAGANDA EXTRAVAGANZA
A New York Times article on Nov. 11 delineating the "Battle
to Shape Public Opinion" explained in detail how the Bush
administration was setting up "a round-the-clock war news
bureau" in Washington, London and Islamabad to help develop
a "message of the day."
The Times called the effort a "21st-century version of the
muscular propaganda war that the United States waged in the
1940s."
The State Department brought in former advertising executive
Charlotte Beers to sell the U.S. line. This message
"dovetails with the domestic news management" under the
supervision of Karen P. Hughes, the White House
communications director. Beers holds meetings with foreign
correspondents "closed to American journalists."
"We can't give out our propaganda to our own people," said
Price Floyd, deputy director of media outreach at the State
Department. Heavens, no.
According to the Times, the State Department and Defense
Department aren't allowing any real information out about
military operations. "Clark Hoyt, the Washington editor for
the Knight Ridder newspaper chain, said 'American forces are
engaged in combat overseas, and we are basically shut out.'"
The Frankfurter Rundschau wrote, "Substantial amounts of
information about current military actions and their
consequences is subject to censorship by parties to the
conflict."
MOVIEGOERS, BEWARE!
This is total war, even if incredibly one-sided, and the
administration has drafted Hollywood.
The heads of the Warner Brothers television studio and of
the CBS and Fox broadcasting networks are actively
collaborating in a scheme to spread the U.S. government's
message through the movies.
The New York Times reported on Nov. 11 that several dozen
top Hollywood executives met with Karl Rove, President
Bush's senior adviser, to find "common ground on how the
entertainment industry can contribute to the war effort,
replicating in spirit if not in scope the partnership formed
between filmmakers and war planners in the 1940s."
The Sunday Herald of Scotland noted, "Hollywood stars and
scriptwriters are rushing to bolster the new message of
patriotism, conferring with the CIA and brainstorming with
the military about possible real-life terrorist attacks."
Many of the "stars" are thrilled. Actor Tom Cruise,
concerned about his upcoming role as a CIA operative in his
next movie, wants to show the "CIA in as positive a light as
possible." Sylvester Stallone is working on the script for a
fourth Rambo film in which he parachutes into Afghanistan to
battle leaders of the Taliban (New York Post, Nov. 13).
You can't make this stuff up.
Michael Macedonia of the army's Simulation, Training and
Instrumentation Command was enraptured with the prospect of
using Hollywood as a propaganda tool. "You' re talking about
screenwriters and producers. These are very brilliant,
creative people. They can come up with fascinating insights
very quickly," he told the Sunday Herald.
Actually, Hollywood has always been a willing tool for war
propaganda. Many people know nothing about the world except
what they see in war films. These are carefully planned and
funded. For example, a little-known think tank, the
Institute for Creative Studies at the University of Southern
California, received funding of $45 million from the U.S.
Army in 1999, writes the Sunday Herald.
The New York Times noted, "Efforts to create public service
spots for TV and movie theaters, documentaries on terrorism
and home security, live shows for American troops featuring
Hollywood performers and perhaps some involvement in helping
spread the American message abroad, provides an opportunity
for the studios to reassert their patriotism" while being
"good business."
Hollywood, as big business, is in tune with the
sensibilities of the oil companies. The owners of the major
studios are the same capitalists who own the defense and oil
industries, which are the major beneficiaries of the war for
the Middle East and Central Asia. There is no contradiction
between Hollywood's goals here and Pentagon strategy. They
are all profiting from this war. This is just war by other
means, war on people's hearts and minds.
ATTACK ON ACADEMIA AND CULTURE
The Bush administration's minions are meanwhile on the
attack against students and professors who oppose the war in
Afghanistan.
The Boston Globe reported on Nov. 13 that a "conservative
academic group founded by Lynne Cheney, the wife of Vice
President Dick Cheney, fired a new salvo in the culture wars
by blasting 40 college professors as well as the president
of Wesleyan University and others for not showing enough
patriotism in the aftermath of Sept. 11."
"College and university faculty have been the weak link in
America's response to the attack,'' says a report by
Cheney's newly created American Council of Trustees and
Alumni. The report names names and criticizes professors for
making statements "short on patriotism."
Not content with creating what one professor called tactics
"reminiscent of McCarthyism" against university professors,
the administration has called in the intelligence agencies
to beef up the attack on culture and the free expression of
ideas.
On Nov. 7, FBI and Secret Service agents visited the "Secret
Wars" exhibit at the Art Car Museum in Houston, Texas.
Secret Wars is an exhibition investigating artistic dissent
to covert operations and government secrets.
Donna Huanca, a worker at the museum, said, "It was a very
scary experience. ... They were interested in where we got
our funding, how many people come in in a day, what the
traffic was like, how did we advertise. They let us know
that they are watching us now."
Tex Kerschen, the museum's curator, said to Independent
Media, "The FBI are going to move in as quickly as they can
to investigate any kind of dissent."
BOMBING TELEVISION STATIONS--AGAIN
With television, movies, the print media, academia and
cultural outlets on the run, the U.S. government found it
still had one formidable opponent in its war on public
opinion. One news service has been able to present a
different view of the war in Afghanistan. Called by some
"the CNN of the Middle East," Al-Jazeera is a 24-hour
television station based in Qatar that reaches more than 35
million Arabs around the world, including 150,000 in the
United States. The station provided the only television
transmission from Afghanistan until the BBC arrived just
before the fall of Kabul.
The Associated Press on Nov. 13 reported that a missile
destroyed the Al-Jazeera office in Kabul. While the Defense
Department claimed it was targeting the building because
there was supposedly an Al-Qaeda meeting going on, critics
noted that it was unlikely that Al-Qaeda would have hung
around Kabul after the Taliban had fled. One Al-Jazeera
spokesperson said, "They know where we are located and they
know what we have in our office and we also did not get any
warning."
Nearby offices of the AP and the BBC in Kabul were damaged
in the same attack. Pictures of correspondent William Reeve
diving under his desk to avoid fall-out from the blast have
been shown on BBC television. There were no military
installations nearby, and the bombing in the civilian
neighborhood came after Taliban forces had pulled out of the
city.
Following the attack, the BBC reported Nov. 16 that
Washington had "asked Qatar to rein in the influential and
editorially independent Arab Al-Jazeera television station,
which gives airtime to anti-American opinions." In a sharp
response, Al-Jazeera said its Kabul office had been
deliberately targeted by U.S. bombers, according to the
British newspaper on Nov. 17. On the defensive, Air Force
Director of Public Affairs Col. Brian Hoey replied, "We
would not, as a policy, target news media organizations--it
would not even begin to make sense."
The bombing of a Yugoslav television station in the spring
of 1999 was a "different issue," Hoey said.
But it is not a different issue. It is war. The Bush
administration has declared war on the truth and
consciousness. It needs to generate public support for
ongoing military intervention in the Middle East and Central
Asia. And disinformation just isn't enough. So the military
is bombing renegade media outlets while the capitalist media
bombard the people with lies and disinformation.
But no amount of movies or propaganda will make U.S. youths
willing recruits for a new land war in Asia. They are not
going to buy it. Patriotic fervor tends to wane. Washington
will lose this propaganda campaign. In a shrinking economy,
working people can't afford a war that in the end helps only
the oil companies, the military industries and the
corporations.
- END -
(Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to
copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but
changing it is not allowed. For more information contact
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail:
[EMAIL PROTECTED] For subscription info send message to:
[EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.workers.org)
