Don K Dyck
Devilish Don Downunder
- Joined
- Jun 29, 2002
- Posts
- 8,255
Good evening. Here is the news.
Australian school children are to rally against the U$-Iraq Imperialist war for Control of Undeveloped Middle East Oil Reserves next Wednesday. School Principals have said that any students at the anti-war rally without a note from their parents giving permission will be truanting.
Students could not be contacted for their comment in reply because they were down the beach enjoying the storm surf during school hours.
From the Sydney Morning Herald.
Truants or not, many school students to rally against invasion
By Gerard Noonan and Linda Doherty
February 28 2003
Students in NSW schools are being encouraged to express their feelings about war but those taking part in an anti-war demonstration next Wednesday without parental permission will be regarded as truants, school authorities say.
The Department of Education is telling principals that students will not be given permission to attend an anti-war lunchtime rally organised by students from the University of Technology, Sydney. Catholic students face the same curbs.
"Students who decide to attend a rally do so as individuals, guided by their own conscience; they will also need parental permission," said the head of Sydney's Catholic Education Office, Brother Kelvin Canavan.
Principals interviewed by the Herald reported growing levels of stress among students, with anti-war petitions, passionate speeches at school assemblies and discussions in classes.
At St Ignatius College, Riverview, the three school captains have written a strongly worded letter to the Prime Minister, calling for a withdrawal of Australian troops from the Persian Gulf and for a non-military solution. Tom van Beek, Sean Williams and Justin Fleming told Mr Howard a poll of 574 students at the Catholic high school showed 75 per cent were against Australian military participation in Iraq, regardless of the United Nations' position.
The Riverside Girls High School captain, Nadya Marokakis, and its vice-captain, Elizabeth Garlan, led 25 fellow students in their school uniforms to the peace rally in Hyde Park on February 16.
The 17-year-olds have addressed their school assembly and made banners arguing for peace.
This is the first war these students have faced but many have studied the Vietnam and Gulf wars and feel "frustrated, more than anything else", Miss Garlan said. "Learning about the experience of war and the mistakes made, to see history repeating itself is frustrating for us. We're the next generation and they're messing with our future."
Riverside's principal, Judy King, wondered whether educational authorities realised quite how deeply feelings were running and how aware most students were.
The principal of St Raphael's primary in South Hurstville, Felicity Giles, said the pupils there had a heightened awareness and sense of unease.
"At midday each day we down tools right across the school and say a prayer for peace - it might be a Muslim prayer or a Bahai or Hindu or Jewish prayer, not only a prayer from the Christian Catholic tradition.
"They need to feel that it's the world that seeks peace."
Meanwhile, more details have become available from our breaking story yesterday about a Labor backbench revolt in Tony Blah's government.
From the Australian.
UK Labour rebels against Blair
By Peter Wilson, Europe correspondent
February 28, 2003
T
ONY Blair's hawkish stance on Iraq yesterday sparked the biggest backbench revolt seen in Britain in more than a century, making a second United Nations resolution in support of military action more important than ever for the British Prime Minister.
The revolt by Labour backbenchers was much greater than expected, with 122 of the 415 Labour MPs, or about a third of Mr Blair's own backbenchers, voting for a parliamentary amendment declaring war was still not justified.
The dissent within Mr Blair's party over Iraq has tripled in recent weeks, at least partly because of the huge anti-war rallies two weeks ago.
Mr Blair's tough stance on Iraq was comfortably endorsed by the House of Commons because of the support of the Conservative Opposition, which was much more solidly behind the Prime Minister than his own party.
Mr Blair has long insisted he was prepared to take military action without a UN mandate if necessary to disarm Saddam Hussein, but his cabinet colleagues are now likely to press him to stay within the UN process.
Yesterday's vote came after a passionate debate in which Mr Blair and his senior ministers carefully pleaded their case and promised there would be more opportunities to debate and vote on military action.
But the Labour dissidents have been emboldened by opinion polls showing that a growing majority of Britons oppose any war without a second UN resolution, and even some of the Labour MPs who stood by Mr Blair yesterday said they would not do so if he took military action without a UN mandate.
Opinion polls and Britain's largest ever protests against war have spooked many Labour MPs, coming just before local Labour branches are due to reselect their parliamentary candidates.
The Government asked parliament to endorse the UN's attempts to disarm Hussein but was challenged by an amendment declaring that the case for war was still unproven. The amendment was defeated by 393 votes to 199, the minority including the 122 Labour rebels, almost all of the 57 Liberal Democrats and even 13 Conservatives.
Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said nobody wanted war, conceding that the issue was the hardest he had ever had to deal with. "Delay would give Saddam the clearest possible signal that his strategy is succeeding," he said.
Former Blair cabinet minister Chris Smith was one of several dumped ministers among the dissidents.
"There may well be a time for military action," Mr Smith said. "But at the moment the timetable appears to be determined by the decisions of the President of the US and not by the logic of events."
Charles Kennedy, the Liberal Democrat leader and the British parliament's most prominent opponent of war, called the vote "a very significant parliamentary occasion".
"Despite investing masses of political and parliamentary capital, the Government has still failed to persuade a third of the House of Commons," he said. "At this crucial stage that sends a potent signal to the Government of both Britain and the United States."
As Opposition Leader Iain Duncan Smith spoke in support of Mr Blair yesterday, former chancellor Kenneth Clarke told the Commons Mr Blair's tough stand could end up promoting Arab terrorism.
French President Jacques Chirac was strongly backed by France's National Assembly yesterday over his opposition to war.
Famed American writer and columnist, Norman Mailer, has defended the use of American Fascists to protect world democracy from Fascism.
From the Sydney Morning Herald.
There's one way to protect democracy - send in the fascists
February 28 2003
Conservative America is at risk, and this war is a way to enforce the values the Bush camp clings to, writes Norman Mailer.
There is a subtext to what the "Bushites" are doing as they prepare for war in Iraq. My hypothesis is that George Bush and many conservatives have come to the conclusion that the only way they can save the United States and get it off its down slope is to become a regime with a greater military presence and drive toward empire. My fear is that we might lose our democracy in the process.
By down slope I'm referring not only to the corporate scandals, the church scandals and the FBI scandals. The country has gone kind of crazy in the Bushites' eyes. Also, kids can't read any more. Especially for conservatives, the culture has become too sexual.
Iraq is the excuse for moving in this direction. War with Iraq, as they originally conceived it, would be a quick, dramatic step that would enable them to control the Near East as a powerful base - not least because of the oil there as well as the water supplies from the Tigris and Euphrates rivers - to build a world empire.
They also expect to bring democracy to the region and believe that in itself will help to diminish terrorism. I expect the opposite will happen: terrorists are not impressed by democracy. They loathe it. They are fundamentalists of the most basic kind. The more successful democracy is in the Near East (not likely in my view), the more terrorism it will generate. It will only make the terrorists more desperate to defeat it.
The only outstanding obstacle to the drive toward empire in the Bushite minds is China. Indeed, one of the great fears in the Bush Administration about America's down slope is that the "stem studies" such as science, technology and engineering are all faring poorly in our universities. The number of US PhDs is going down, but the number of Asians obtaining doctorates in those same stem studies is increasing at a great rate.
Looking 20 years ahead, the Administration perceives that there will come a time when China will have technology superior to ours. When that time comes, the US might well say to China that "we can work together", we will be as the Romans to you Greeks. You will be our extraordinary, well-cultivated slaves. But don't try to dominate us. That would be your disaster. This is the scenario that some of the brightest neo-conservatives are thinking about. (I use Rome as a metaphor, because metaphors are usually much closer to the truth than facts.)
What has happened, of course, is that the Bushites have run into much more opposition than they thought they would from other countries and among the home population. It may end up that we won't have a war, but a new strategy to contain Iraq and wear Saddam down. If that occurs, Bush is in terrible trouble.
My guess, though, is that, like it or not or want it or not, we are going to go to war because that is the only solution Bush and his people can see. The dire prospect that opens, therefore, is that America is going to become a mega-banana republic where the army will have more and more importance in our lives. It will be an ever greater and greater overlay on the American system. And before it is all over democracy, noble and delicate as it is, may give way. My long experience with human nature - I'm 80 years old now - suggests that it is possible that fascism, not democracy, is the natural state.
Indeed, democracy is the special condition - a condition we will be called upon to defend in the coming years. That will be enormously difficult because the combination of the corporation, the military and the complete investiture of the flag with mass spectator sports has set up a pre-fascist atmosphere in America already.
Norman Mailer, the American novelist and essayist, has just published his latest book, The Spooky Art: Some Thoughts on Writing.
That ends the news.
Australian school children are to rally against the U$-Iraq Imperialist war for Control of Undeveloped Middle East Oil Reserves next Wednesday. School Principals have said that any students at the anti-war rally without a note from their parents giving permission will be truanting.
Students could not be contacted for their comment in reply because they were down the beach enjoying the storm surf during school hours.
From the Sydney Morning Herald.
Truants or not, many school students to rally against invasion
By Gerard Noonan and Linda Doherty
February 28 2003
Students in NSW schools are being encouraged to express their feelings about war but those taking part in an anti-war demonstration next Wednesday without parental permission will be regarded as truants, school authorities say.
The Department of Education is telling principals that students will not be given permission to attend an anti-war lunchtime rally organised by students from the University of Technology, Sydney. Catholic students face the same curbs.
"Students who decide to attend a rally do so as individuals, guided by their own conscience; they will also need parental permission," said the head of Sydney's Catholic Education Office, Brother Kelvin Canavan.
Principals interviewed by the Herald reported growing levels of stress among students, with anti-war petitions, passionate speeches at school assemblies and discussions in classes.
At St Ignatius College, Riverview, the three school captains have written a strongly worded letter to the Prime Minister, calling for a withdrawal of Australian troops from the Persian Gulf and for a non-military solution. Tom van Beek, Sean Williams and Justin Fleming told Mr Howard a poll of 574 students at the Catholic high school showed 75 per cent were against Australian military participation in Iraq, regardless of the United Nations' position.
The Riverside Girls High School captain, Nadya Marokakis, and its vice-captain, Elizabeth Garlan, led 25 fellow students in their school uniforms to the peace rally in Hyde Park on February 16.
The 17-year-olds have addressed their school assembly and made banners arguing for peace.
This is the first war these students have faced but many have studied the Vietnam and Gulf wars and feel "frustrated, more than anything else", Miss Garlan said. "Learning about the experience of war and the mistakes made, to see history repeating itself is frustrating for us. We're the next generation and they're messing with our future."
Riverside's principal, Judy King, wondered whether educational authorities realised quite how deeply feelings were running and how aware most students were.
The principal of St Raphael's primary in South Hurstville, Felicity Giles, said the pupils there had a heightened awareness and sense of unease.
"At midday each day we down tools right across the school and say a prayer for peace - it might be a Muslim prayer or a Bahai or Hindu or Jewish prayer, not only a prayer from the Christian Catholic tradition.
"They need to feel that it's the world that seeks peace."
Meanwhile, more details have become available from our breaking story yesterday about a Labor backbench revolt in Tony Blah's government.
From the Australian.
UK Labour rebels against Blair
By Peter Wilson, Europe correspondent
February 28, 2003
T
ONY Blair's hawkish stance on Iraq yesterday sparked the biggest backbench revolt seen in Britain in more than a century, making a second United Nations resolution in support of military action more important than ever for the British Prime Minister.
The revolt by Labour backbenchers was much greater than expected, with 122 of the 415 Labour MPs, or about a third of Mr Blair's own backbenchers, voting for a parliamentary amendment declaring war was still not justified.
The dissent within Mr Blair's party over Iraq has tripled in recent weeks, at least partly because of the huge anti-war rallies two weeks ago.
Mr Blair's tough stance on Iraq was comfortably endorsed by the House of Commons because of the support of the Conservative Opposition, which was much more solidly behind the Prime Minister than his own party.
Mr Blair has long insisted he was prepared to take military action without a UN mandate if necessary to disarm Saddam Hussein, but his cabinet colleagues are now likely to press him to stay within the UN process.
Yesterday's vote came after a passionate debate in which Mr Blair and his senior ministers carefully pleaded their case and promised there would be more opportunities to debate and vote on military action.
But the Labour dissidents have been emboldened by opinion polls showing that a growing majority of Britons oppose any war without a second UN resolution, and even some of the Labour MPs who stood by Mr Blair yesterday said they would not do so if he took military action without a UN mandate.
Opinion polls and Britain's largest ever protests against war have spooked many Labour MPs, coming just before local Labour branches are due to reselect their parliamentary candidates.
The Government asked parliament to endorse the UN's attempts to disarm Hussein but was challenged by an amendment declaring that the case for war was still unproven. The amendment was defeated by 393 votes to 199, the minority including the 122 Labour rebels, almost all of the 57 Liberal Democrats and even 13 Conservatives.
Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said nobody wanted war, conceding that the issue was the hardest he had ever had to deal with. "Delay would give Saddam the clearest possible signal that his strategy is succeeding," he said.
Former Blair cabinet minister Chris Smith was one of several dumped ministers among the dissidents.
"There may well be a time for military action," Mr Smith said. "But at the moment the timetable appears to be determined by the decisions of the President of the US and not by the logic of events."
Charles Kennedy, the Liberal Democrat leader and the British parliament's most prominent opponent of war, called the vote "a very significant parliamentary occasion".
"Despite investing masses of political and parliamentary capital, the Government has still failed to persuade a third of the House of Commons," he said. "At this crucial stage that sends a potent signal to the Government of both Britain and the United States."
As Opposition Leader Iain Duncan Smith spoke in support of Mr Blair yesterday, former chancellor Kenneth Clarke told the Commons Mr Blair's tough stand could end up promoting Arab terrorism.
French President Jacques Chirac was strongly backed by France's National Assembly yesterday over his opposition to war.
Famed American writer and columnist, Norman Mailer, has defended the use of American Fascists to protect world democracy from Fascism.
From the Sydney Morning Herald.
There's one way to protect democracy - send in the fascists
February 28 2003
Conservative America is at risk, and this war is a way to enforce the values the Bush camp clings to, writes Norman Mailer.
There is a subtext to what the "Bushites" are doing as they prepare for war in Iraq. My hypothesis is that George Bush and many conservatives have come to the conclusion that the only way they can save the United States and get it off its down slope is to become a regime with a greater military presence and drive toward empire. My fear is that we might lose our democracy in the process.
By down slope I'm referring not only to the corporate scandals, the church scandals and the FBI scandals. The country has gone kind of crazy in the Bushites' eyes. Also, kids can't read any more. Especially for conservatives, the culture has become too sexual.
Iraq is the excuse for moving in this direction. War with Iraq, as they originally conceived it, would be a quick, dramatic step that would enable them to control the Near East as a powerful base - not least because of the oil there as well as the water supplies from the Tigris and Euphrates rivers - to build a world empire.
They also expect to bring democracy to the region and believe that in itself will help to diminish terrorism. I expect the opposite will happen: terrorists are not impressed by democracy. They loathe it. They are fundamentalists of the most basic kind. The more successful democracy is in the Near East (not likely in my view), the more terrorism it will generate. It will only make the terrorists more desperate to defeat it.
The only outstanding obstacle to the drive toward empire in the Bushite minds is China. Indeed, one of the great fears in the Bush Administration about America's down slope is that the "stem studies" such as science, technology and engineering are all faring poorly in our universities. The number of US PhDs is going down, but the number of Asians obtaining doctorates in those same stem studies is increasing at a great rate.
Looking 20 years ahead, the Administration perceives that there will come a time when China will have technology superior to ours. When that time comes, the US might well say to China that "we can work together", we will be as the Romans to you Greeks. You will be our extraordinary, well-cultivated slaves. But don't try to dominate us. That would be your disaster. This is the scenario that some of the brightest neo-conservatives are thinking about. (I use Rome as a metaphor, because metaphors are usually much closer to the truth than facts.)
What has happened, of course, is that the Bushites have run into much more opposition than they thought they would from other countries and among the home population. It may end up that we won't have a war, but a new strategy to contain Iraq and wear Saddam down. If that occurs, Bush is in terrible trouble.
My guess, though, is that, like it or not or want it or not, we are going to go to war because that is the only solution Bush and his people can see. The dire prospect that opens, therefore, is that America is going to become a mega-banana republic where the army will have more and more importance in our lives. It will be an ever greater and greater overlay on the American system. And before it is all over democracy, noble and delicate as it is, may give way. My long experience with human nature - I'm 80 years old now - suggests that it is possible that fascism, not democracy, is the natural state.
Indeed, democracy is the special condition - a condition we will be called upon to defend in the coming years. That will be enormously difficult because the combination of the corporation, the military and the complete investiture of the flag with mass spectator sports has set up a pre-fascist atmosphere in America already.
Norman Mailer, the American novelist and essayist, has just published his latest book, The Spooky Art: Some Thoughts on Writing.
That ends the news.
