The First and Worst Form of Violence is the Occupation

Never in my life have I seen such a disregard for human life as I have seen towards the Palestinians by Israel. Having just returned from the West Bank and Gaza Strip on a month long trip, I have a heavy heart. I traveled to the illegally occupied territories of Palestine with four fellow members of the Colorado Campaign for Middle East Peace. Our group joined with 320 other internationals to collectively form the International Solidarity Movement. The purpose of ISM is to stand in solidarity with the Palestinians in actively nonviolently resisting the illegal occupation by Israel, to serve as international monitors, and to become human shields when needed to protect the Palestinians from Israeli brutality.

There are no words to sufficiently explain the depth of suffering inflicted on the Palestinians by Israel. Sadly, this suffering rarely, if ever, gets accurately portrayed by the media. Americans by nature are compassionate and generous towards those who are oppressed and are struggling for their basic human rights. Something rises up in us in outrage when we hear of a people suffering unfairly at the hands of another. Americans are being cheated out of the truth concerning what is truly happening to the Palestinians at the hands of Israel. We are being cheated out of understanding the horribly unjust suffering of a people. This lack of knowledge prevents most of us from reaching out in compassion to a people who so desperately need it, the Palestinians.

Each and every Palestinian lives under a constant state of punishment and oppression. Israel controls every aspect of a Palestinians life. Their beloved homeland is a prison controlled by Israeli checkpoints and roadblocks. The Palestinians are virtually helpless to protect themselves against Israels brutality. Much of their police force now operates out of tents. Their so-called "navy" consisting of 10 rubber boats donated by Greece, has been reduced to 5 rubber boats with the headquarters completely destroyed. Except for 3 miles out off the shores of Gaza strip, Palestinians are not allowed on the Mediterranean Sea. While Israeli settlers are allowed to walk down the street with M-16's, a Palestinian will be killed for having a gun. Israelis attacking Palestinians are rarely punished, while Palestinians will be jailed, tortured or killed for attacking an Israeli. Under International Law, an occupied people have the right to arm themselves to resist occupation. The media portrays any resistance by the Palestinians as terrorism, when the first and worst form of violence is the illegal occupation of Palestine by Israel.

Every step a Palestinian takes to try to better the terrible circumstances he lives in, becomes undermined or destroyed by Israel. Europe donated 10 million dollars to build the only Palestinian seaport in the Gaza Strip. This would have allowed the Palestinians to buy goods from other countries instead of paying inflated Israeli prices, and to export goods bringing much needed money into their economy. Israel destroyed this seaport before it was even finished. Europe demanded compensation, but of course Israel refused. The runways of the airport in Gaza Strip have been destroyed. Palestinian land and water have been poisoned by the raw sewage coming from the illegal Israeli settlements. Wells and water pipelines have been intentionally damaged and destroyed. The headquarters of organizations which teach Palestinians how to grow fruits and vegetables to feed their families have been destroyed over and over again. I could go on and on. These acts of destruction by Israel are not the acts of a nation that wants peace, they are acts of a nation who simply wants the Palestinians to disappear at any cost.

Beth Daoud (Denver)

Bush and Enron

Did Cheney or Bush own Enron stock, and if so, when did they sell?

Jim Loughborough

When Bush became Texas governor in 1995, his investment portfolio was placed in a blind trust. He cashed out almost all of the stocks in 1998 and bought U.S. Treasury notes as he began laying groundwork for a presidential campaign. Cheney's stocks were also placed in a blind trust, although not until a few weeks before the election. In their Y2000 tax returns, the Bush family declared an income of about $900 thousand and the Cheneys reported $36 million.

Many high-level members of the Bush Administration had large investments in Enron, most famously Bush campaign mastermind and now senior advisor, Karl Rove, who sold his stock for about $75 thousand in June, after several weeks of media criticism. The big winner in the Administration was Thomas White, who resigned as an Enron VP in order to serve as Secretary of the Army. White is believed to have had about $50 million worth of Enron stock when he divested it early last year. The biggest loser was Charlotte Beers, Undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs. One of the wealthiest members of the Administration, she had an Enron investment between $100,000-250,000 when the stock crashed in December. More background on Enron and Bush can be found through searching Monitor archives.   - Editor

The Accomplices Of Andrea Yates

Andrea Yates needed help, but no one was there for her. Her husband is just as guilty in the murders of those children. My heart truly goes out to Andrea. I know what she did was wrong, but she was not in the right frame of mind to take on all the responsibilities.

I am a stay at home mother myself, and I know how overwhelming taking care of the kids and trying to keep the house clean can be. Not to mention the fact that she was also homeschooling all the kids. That's an awful lot for someone to handle at once. I do know that other women do handle those situations like that really well, but we're talking about a woman that was not 100% tiptop in her brain.

I'm finding it very hard to have any sympathy for Rusty Yates, though. Usually, I would persecute the mother who kills her children and let my heart overflow for the father (such as in the Susan Smith case). But, I find the opposite happening here.

Cynthia R Kraemer

Mrs. Yates is an admitted child murderer. I never cease to be amazed at how women activists such as yourself are always clamoring for "equal" status until it becomes convenient to be a helpless victim again. No, I really don't expect an answer to this because I am using reason and logic in my argument. If one uses reason and logic, accountability must also follow. Mrs. Yates is probably going to escape much of the punishment she deserves. Mr. Yates will likely be held up as yet another example of male insensitivity. If women are ever to gain respect from men as equals, they must begin to accept accountability for their actions. Sorry honey -- you can't have it both ways.

"Ben"

Andrea Yates killed her children. Not Rusty. Not the doctors, Not the neighbors. She killed them slowly and methodically, one at a time, by drowning them. It took her a very long time. She chased the last child all over the house and then dragged him to the bathtub. He fought and fought hard to live, but she was determined to kill him. And she did.

I'm sorry she had health problems. I'm sorry she needed to take powerful drugs to live one day at a time. That she didn't take her medicine is no one's fault but her own. That she didn't call someone before she killed the first child is her fault, not her husband's.

Paul A. Laird

Congress Kills Restrictions On Pesticide Use In Schools

While I do not have children, I still found a sense of ethical outrage evoked by this excellent and informative piece. Frankly speaking, the murdering of the School Environment Protection Act (SEPA) does not come as a surprise, nor does the implication of censoring information from those who might benefit the most from being apprised of when their children's bodies will be sentenced to future experiments by fate.

Who benefits the most by suppressing this information in order to avoid having to suppress injurious action? In a chapter titled "Fables about Toxic Substances" in their book Betrayal of Science and Reason, Stanford University biologists Paul and Anne Ehrlich note that "the financial stakes are huge for some powerful industries," further remarking, "Not coincidentally, toxic chemicals and regulations to control them are frequently targets of campaigns of misinformation." Missing information, as well, seems to be part of these campaigns perpetuating the poisoning of the population most victimized by the lack of prohibition in this context.

In "Silent Spring," Rachel Carson makes the pertinent point that "insecticides are not selective poisons; they do not single out the one species of which we desire to be rid." She also asserts, "The question is whether any civilization can wage relentless war on life without destroying life itself, and without losing the right to be called civilized." Evidently, in the pesticide producers' enthusiasm to ensure (or perhaps the word should be insure) profits, waging war on insect life doesn't seem to be enough; is their war now waged against our children?

Yvette A. Schnoeker-Shorb

How Can We Change It?

I am very excited to have subscribed to your paper!

I just saw the documentary The Panama Deception and I couldn't help but be very disturbed. If you haven't seen this documentary in a while, I would highly recommend it. it bears absolute relevance to today's atrocities, and it is so well done... and yet so fearfully horrible. How can we educate the (American) people? How can we truly make a difference? I know that me, including everyone I talk to, truly want to make a difference... make a change for the better. But we are all so disorganized, it's our greatest enemy, and "they" know it.

I would love to see an article that ties together American past policy [Israel deception, Iraq-Kuwait deception, Panama deception, Afghanistan deception [have you heard of the oil line that the US wants to run through Afghanistan?] -- and a plan to induce true communication.

We need to unite. Create true free media, not corporate media.

Sebastian Chedal

Let'em Rip

If a million trees have to be cut down to keep one man employed and one family supported, then let the chainsaws rip.

"Arabcopper"

True Motives Revealed, At Last

In the 60's Barbara Lee was a known supporter of the Black Panther party. The Taliban are radical Muslim extremists. And so are the Black Panthers! So where do her loyalties lie? Of course she's opposed to military action. Present the facts when you publish crap like this. People should know her real agenda. Courage of Barbara Lee my ass! What a dumb ass comment.

Brian Dee

Love Him Or Leave Him Alone

Quit trying to smear the President of the United States you damn commies.

Mark Kinney

Fearing A Dim Future

I have lost all hope for this country. Dark forces have infiltrated our great nation and will eventually bring it down. Rome burns while the yahoos wave the American flag, not realizing that our Constitutionally mandated rights are under seige. I fear we will wake up too late and our children will be relegated to a life of serfdom and extreme hardship. This Democracy was the great dream of enlightened men but will be destroyed by the very same forces they battled to see it realized. God help us all.

"zagtista"

The Enemy Within

In this unhappy time, self-professed patriots have already shown you the bloody shirt and warned you against "the enemy within." So exactly who IS America's Enemy Within? In a democracy like ours, it is anyone who warns of the Enemy Within, everyone who cries "Witch!" or "commie" or smears those with whom he or she disagrees with the equivalent dire label of his own era.

The Enemy Within is the man or woman who wants all of us to speak with one voice, have one opinion, march in lockstep toward what he or she refuses to believe is the abyss. The Enemy Within always extravagantly admires the emperor's new clothes. The Enemy Within is the implacable foe of all of hotheads, dissenters and non-conformists, and refuses to believe that they actually provide the feedback necessary to adjust the course of the ship of state and avoid the icebergs dead ahead.

The Enemy Within is the demagogue who tries to squelch the very feedback that is the vital lifeblood of any political system that hopes to survive. The Enemy Within never understands that without reform the old systems founder, that critics and dissenters are the very best friends of a democracy, that they provide the critical information that is needed to adapt to the new times and new conditions.

The Enemy Within is the one who always declares that a few of us may now have to wear the scarlet letter or the six-pointed star so that the rest of us can be "pure." The Enemy Within urges all of us to give up our cherished freedoms to foreclose the past criminality of a few. The Enemy Within thinks suspicion is enough to send some classes of citizens and most immigrants to detention camps.

The Enemy Within is also the shyster who wants more guns and more laws, more cops and soldiers in our streets. He does not understand that the 2 million already in prisons and 4.5 million already on probation and parole, as well as the more than 35 million names on our national data base of those ever arrested have already taken our country a long way toward becoming the largest prison camp in the world.

The Enemy Within refuses to hear any of this. The Enemy Within rules with fear, and fears the disorder of personal choice far more than the abuses of great, centralized power. The Enemy Within is leader of a mob, but secretly small, and terrified himself. And even in his boastful jackboots he is so very afraid that you and I will actually see him, finally fully understand what he is really all about.

Chuck Elliott (Whittier, CA)