Saturday, October 27, 2007

This Week in Peace & Social Justice (10-27-2007)

Clinton Receiving Unprecedented Support from U.S. Weapons Industry

The U.S. defense industry has joined big Wall Street businesses in their robust support for Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. This reverses the defense industry’s traditional partiality towards Republicans. "The contributions clearly suggest the arms industry has reached the conclusion that Democratic prospects for 2008 are very good indeed," said Thomas Edsall, an academic at Columbia University in New York.

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/10/19/4672/


World War III

Bush, in the same week that he signed a new round of unilateral sanctions on Iran into existence and labeled part of Iran’s military a terrorist organization, also began using the term “WWIII” in reference to the situation with Iran. This scary escalation of rhetoric is reminiscent of the sharp escalation in administration rhetoric in the weeks and months before the Iraq War. (Please see the next article below for a better idea on what the real facts are).

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/18/washington/18prexy.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin


Commentary: Stalin, Mao And … Ahmadinejad? (Fareed Zakaria)

“The American discussion about Iran has lost all connection to reality…Here is the reality. Iran has an economy the size of Finland's and an annual defense budget of around $4.8 billion. It has not invaded a country since the late 18th century. The United States has a GDP that is 68 times larger and defense expenditures that are 110 times greater. Israel and every Arab country (except Syria and Iraq) are quietly or actively allied against Iran. And yet we are to believe that Tehran is about to overturn the international system and replace it with an Islamo-fascist order? What planet are we on?”

http://www.newsweek.com/id/57346


Billionaires Up, Average Americans Down

This quote says it all: "The 25th anniversary of the Forbes 400 isn't party time for America. We have a record 482 billionaires - and record foreclosures. We have a record 482 billionaires - and a record 47 million people without any health insurance. Since 2000, we have added 184 billionaires - and 5 million more people living below the poverty line."

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/102507M.shtml


Guatemalan Labor Unions’ Leaders Killed

Marco Tulio Ramirez was the fifth Guatemalan labor union leader killed this year. "Masked gunmen dumped a Guatemalan banana picker's bullet-ridden corpse yards from fields of fruit bound for the United States, a grim reminder of the risks of organizing labor in the Central American country." Pay attention to the U.S. companies mentioned at the end of the article and make sure you select your fruit carefully next time you are at the grocery store.

http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/101907LA.shtml


Quote of the Week: At a Stanford University discussion, Gen. John Abizaid (Ret.), the former CENTCOM Commander, said, when asked about the Iraq campaign: "Of course it's about oil, we can't really deny that…We've treated the Arab world as a collection of big gas stations. Our message to them is: Guys, keep your pumps open, prices low, be nice to the Israelis and you can do whatever you want out back. Osama and 9/11 is the distilled essence that represents everything going on out back."

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/65323/

2 comments:

Myf said...

how do people write new entries?

Matthew Thomas Miller said...

send them to me for now mtmiller@wustl.edu