The Narco News Bulletin March 25, 2003 | Issue #29  

Reporting on the Drug War and Democracy from Latin America Remarks to the Mídia Tatica convention Text of speech by Al Giordano In Sao Paulo, Brazil March 24, 2003

Boa Noite, Sao Paulo, e obrigado às pessoas legais do Mídia Tática: Thank you very much for the opportunity to borrow this microphone and speak with so many creative artists and workers who share our passion at Narco News for Tactical Media.

The title of this talk, The Masses vs. The Media: From May 1968 in Paris… to April 2002 in Caracas… to the Immediate Present, implies that I am going to speak in an historic line that begins in 1968 in Paris through to the present. Some of you have been reading the new translation, in Português, of Raoul Vaneigem's The Revolution of Everyday Life, which is translated as A arte de viver para as novas gerações. It's a Situationist book, an important book by a revolutionary whose own use of the mídia tática called coherent writing was central to the mass actions in 1968 in France. This is a wonderfully dangerous book. I read that book, quit my job as a political reporter in Boston, and left the United States. It's a jailbreak book.

Read the complete speech and take your own conclusions

Read more... By Yoo Cheong-mo cmyoo@koreaherald.co.krStaff reporter 2003.03.25 A quick and decisive end to the war in Iraq may not lead to an immediate rebound of the Korean economy, local think tanks warned yesterday, guarding against budding post-war optimism.

The Korea Development Institute (KDI), the Samsung Economic Research Institute (SERI), the Korean Economic Research Institute (KERI) and two other leading think tanks said that despite a possibly early ending of the war, the North Korean nuclear standoff and domestic labor disputes sitll pose serious obstacles to the nation's economic recovery.

Further deterioration of North Korea's economy and additional local labor confrontations could scare away foreign investors and lower the nation's economic growth rate as low as 3 percent this year, said senior economists at the five institutes. In particular, they expressed fears that President Roh Moo-hyun government's labor-friendly policies will likely antagonize foreign investors, as well as local employers.

"North Korea's nuclear problem is the biggest concern for foreign investors interested in the South Korean market," said Shim Sang-dal, a senior fellow at the KDI, calling for more fundamental measures to ease market jitters. "In addition to the strengthening of an alliance with the United States, the Korean government is supposed to explain the North Korean issues to the global community through regular overseas roadshows," said Shim.

SERI also warned that an annual economic growth rate of 4 percent may not be attainable this year, as long as the specter of North Korean concerns loom over the Peninsula, and further dampen the possibility of a recovery in consumption and investment. "Due to the North Korea factor, the current economic situation is far worse than in the 1997 economic crisis," said a Samsung economist, calling for the government's stimulus measures.

Huh Chan-kook, a senior economist at the KERI, also warned about possible surge in oil prices, saying that a number of factors, including the Iraqi war and a walkout crisis in Venezuela, could prevent oil prices from falling below $20 a barrel.

Economists at the Hyundai Research Institute said that policy consistency by the Roh government would be vital to the continued inflow of foreign investments, while the LG Economic Research Institute cautioned that this year's economic growth would tumble to the 3 percent level.

"Even a short conflict in Iraq may fail to rescue the U.S. economy from a slump," said a SERI economist who called for governmental stimulus measures.

<a href=www.cnsnews.com>Read Source By Alan Caruba CNSNews.com Commentary from the National Anxiety Center March 24, 2003

It is not too soon to look toward the rebuilding of Iraq after the war. "Once Iraqis stabilize and liberate their own capabilities and infrastructure, they will turn outward. Then the modern standard-bearers of the world's oldest civilization will use their extraordinary talents as entrepreneurs and facilitators to shine light on knowledge and information gaps all over the Middle East and beyond." So says Joseph Braude in his book, The New Iraq: Rebuilding the Country for its People, the Middle East, and the World . A senior analyst for Pyramid Research, a Cambridge, Mass., consulting firm, Braude knows both the history and languages of the Middle East, and he offers an optimistic forecast.

<a href=www.cnsnews.com>Read here the complete source

Northwest Corner: Seahawks Stadium now a premium soccer venue

DON RUIZ; The News Tribune

Soccer fans are a patient lot.

The very nature of the sport demands that those who love it be able to understand how much is going on even when the casual observer might think nothing is happening.

Unfortunately, that very capacity has been severely tested on the larger stage of Puget Sound.

Seahawks Stadium opened eight months ago, and so far, exactly zero soccer games have been played here because of it.

It would be very easy to think nothing is happening.

Actually, quite a bit is playing out. And most of it looks good.

"For a new stadium on the West Coast in the Pacific Northwest where we've never handled these big games before, we're doing just great," said Fred Mendoza of the Public Stadium Authority. "I think First & Goal is doing a great job of trying to promote the venue as a state-of-the-art venue for soccer."

To date, the stadium has provided only a tantalizing taste.

In July, the Seattle Sounders opened the stadium and showed 25,515 spectators what a terrific soccer venue the place is.

Now, the stadium is about to show the world.

On Saturday, the U.S. men's team will make its Seahawks Stadium debut. Their opponent will be the national team of Venezuela, a short-notice substitute for the Japanese team, which backed out last week because of security concerns sparked by the war in Iraq.

Following this international friendly, the stage will be set for a July 29 visit from the highest level of club teams: Manchester United vs. Glasgow Celtic FC.

Tickets for that match sold out in about two hours.

That - along with First & Goal living up to its commitment to import a natural grass field for each match - is likely to move Seattle among the top North American soccer cities in the eyes of U.S. soccer and international promoters.

"I think we can count on it," Mendoza said. "There are other promoters who are asking about this venue and Seattle. Everyone is just waiting to see if this will work or will it not work. We know. We know it's going to work. I haven't heard this much buzz about a soccer game in 20 years in this town. We know it's going to work. And I think you're going to see in summers to come that there are going to be one or two or three games a summer. Wouldn't that be fun?"

It would be. Especially if those two or three club or national team games supplement the full regular season schedule of the A-League Sounders or eventually the MLS Whatevers.

Starting in May, the Sounders will become full-time tenants at Seahawks Stadium.

The 67,000-seat venue will be Sounders-sized by closing the end zones, upper decks and entire west side. Despite all that echoing empty acreage, the place should bring a huge upgrade from recent seasons at Memorial Stadium.

The seats are far more comfortable. The bathrooms are far less repellent. The playing surface will be the far more soccer-friendly FieldTurf, and will lack the graffiti circus of football striping.

And if you can't get to a game in person, you can listen in on radio station KKNW (1150-AM), with Tacoma's own Thom Beuning handling the play-by-play.

In other words, the Sounders are taking a huge step toward the major leagues.

So much so that you have to wonder if Major League Soccer can be far behind.

No one yet knows.

Sometime this year, MLS expects to announce two expansion cities, which would probably begin play in 2005, although 2004 isn't yet out of the question.

MLS acknowledges it will watch the Sounders' maiden voyage in Seahawks Stadium with added interest. A big spike in attendance couldn't hurt the city's chances. Just as the instant sellout of Manchester United tickets couldn't have hurt.

(In fact, the Sounders are in a unique position to benefit from that sellout. The Sounders are still making Manchester United-Celtic tickets available to those purchasing Sounders ticket packages.)

What does hurt - a bit - is that Seahawks Stadium is at least twice as large as the ideal MLS stadium.

And what also hurts - a lot - is the apparent lack of anyone willing to purchase the rights to operate a Seattle team in a league that bleeds dollar bills.

That, however, is an issue for another week.

This is a week to celebrate.

Starting on Saturday, big-time soccer comes to Seahawks Stadium.

It took its time getting here. But now there is every indication that it will become a regular visitor.

Notes - Ben Sauvage of Seattle won the Fort Steilacoom Running Club's Resolution Run Series 20-miler on March 15 in Steilacoom with a time of 1 hour, 52 minutes, 9 seconds. The top-finishing woman was Alysun Deckert, with a time of 2:03:48. Winning the 20k race was Mark Van Eycke of Tacoma, finishing in 1:08:05. The top-finishing woman was Shelley Smathers, who covered the distance in 1:18:57. Sauvage, Van Eycke and Smathers also won the 15-mile and 15k races the previous month. The top-finishing woman in the 15-mile race was Linda Huyck ... Kyle Nix of the Metro Tacoma Fencing Club competed last month in the Junior Olympics competition in Colorado Springs, Colo. Nix placed 159th out of 220 in the junior men's foil competition. Information: www.usfencing.org (Published 12:30AM, March 24th, 2003)

www.vheadline.com Posted: Monday, March 24, 2003 By: Hector Dauphin-Gloire

Date: Sun, 23 Mar 2003 21:45:40 -0500 From: Hector Dauphin-Gloire montonero22@hotmail.com To: editor@vheadline.com Subject: Venezuela, Cuba, and Fidel

Dear Editor: There has been a lot of mendacious propaganda recently concerning how President Chavez is allegedly trying to turn Venezuela into another Cuba.

Left unsaid in all this is the presumption that Cuba is some sort of totalitarian hellhole that any decent person would want to avoid like the plague. But it is false to claim that Cuba is some sort of totalitarian terror that must be avoided at all costs.

In point of fact, in spite of the many problems and criticisms I have of the Castro regime, it must be acknowledged that they have done a better job at securing stability, social solidarity, and a decent standard of living for their people than most countries in the region; and while there certainly has been political repression, the fact is that human rights have been better protected in Cuba than in most Latin American countries historically.

Those who conclude that, because Cuba calls itself a Communist country, it must therefore be a tropical clone of Stalin's Russia, cannot have paid close attention to the historical record.

As a non-Communist (I am in fact highly critical of most communist countries, of Marxism as a philosophy, and of the totally unprincipled record of most world communist parties) but one sympathetic to the Cuban experience, I feel I must comment.

Let us consider, for a moment, a few facts about the historical record of socialism in Cuba. Let's consider the specific claims that the Cuban regime has disrespected human rights. One must first ask, what are human rights, or to put it another way, what are the obligations that society has to the individual?

If one accepts the general definition given by Simone Weil that these obligations involve satisfying man's spiritual as well as material needs, then we must observe that the Cuban regime has in fact provided food, housing, health care and education to all its people, something that only a few Latin American countries have done -- and something that democracies like India, to say nothing of the US itself, are still light years away from achieving.

What sort of "human rights" are being respected in the standard model of a developing-world neoliberal democracy -- the right to starve, to be without housing or without an education?

At least up until the loss of its main trade partner, these rights were met at a high level in Cuba. Today, Cuba doesn't have a whole lot of wealth to go around, it is a very poor country -- but in spite of that, everyone has the basic necessities of life, which is the most fundamental human right there is.

But more than that, Cuba has carried out a transformation in people's consciousness. They have created a society where people strive to fulfill themselves through helping others and serving the greater good, and where something more than power and money are the drivers of human relations.

For this and this alone they deserve praise, for creating a society where greed and pride are actively de-emphasized, and where true equality has been approximated more than anywhere else in the world.

What about the political repression, the executions, the lack of competitive elections that we hear so much about in Cuba?

To begin with, remember that the 10,000 or so political executions that have taken place in Cuba were almost all following either the civil war of 1957-1958, or the Playa Giron invasion ... and were of people that, by any standard were guilty of terrible crimes -- torture, civilian bombing, murder, corruption, treasonous invasion of their own homeland.

Consider how the French Resistance dealt with the Vichy collaborators after the victory of 1945, and then ask yourself if by that standard the executions carried out by Castro and Guevara were more along the lines of Stalinist terror, or were they more along the lines of justice?

Lest I seem to imply that all of the people executed by the Castro regime were guilty of war crimes, it is certainly not true (certainly innocent people were put to death mistakenly in the regime's excessive zeal to punish the guilty) but I do believe that most of them were guilty of such crimes. I also believe that such abuses, while terrible when they occur, are characteristic of all societies going through periods of war and revolution, and do not fall into the pathological model of Stalinist totalitarianism, where anyone who was or might potentially be a threat to Stalin, or simply not supportive enough, was summarily executed.

Cuba has been authoritarian, I believe, but not totalitarian -- more along the lines of Hapsburg Austria, or France in 1945, than Stalinist Russia.

My family background stems from a developing country (not in Latin America) which is a textbook example of democracy -- yet in spite of that, political violence, corruption, arbitrary arrest and police torture are commonplace occurrences.

Say what you will about Cuba, they don't have extra-judicial executions, and torture is now a thing of the past.

Yes, you can lose your job or be arrested for speaking subversively about the government, and, while that is wrong, one must bear in mind that countries under siege from a foreign power (the US) ... which has tried to overthrow it by means ranging from propaganda to outright violence ... can often not afford to be liberal.

Where are human rights better respected -- in a country like India, where you can participate in competitive elections and freely speak your mind, but run the risk of arbitrary arrest, political assassination, and be stifled by daily corruption ... or in Cuba, where you are protected against these practices, even if you do lack the right of free speech?

And let's remember that while Cuba arrested its dissidents, it did not kill them in the way that regimes like Argentina, Chile, or Guatemala chose to do.

My closest friend has worked in Cuba, and he attests to the fact that he saw better relations between the police and the people in Cuba than in any other country he has seen including the USA. In much of the US, people actively fear the police; in Cuba, my friend says, he saw people relating to the police as equals, on a friendly basis. Cuba is called a 'police state' by its enemies ... but this account seems to question that assumption.

And I haven't even begun to touch Cuban foreign policy.

While Cuba (like every country) was in bed with a lot of unsavory characters (like the genocidal Ethiopian tyrant, Mengistu) they also did more than any other country to liberate Nicaragua from the Somoza tyranny, South Africa and Namibia from apartheid and countries like Angola from Portuguese colonialism.

This is but a brief attempt to counter some myths about Cuba, Venezuela's closest friend and ally at the current moment in time.

I am sure that there will be comments regarding this, and I hope to deal with some more issues that I expect will come up in the course of those responses.

Sincerely, Hector Dauphin-Gloire montonero22@hotmail.com Environmental Technician