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OVERTIME--May 2003 issue
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Dedicated to reflecting the collective wisdom of enlightened workers.

Linda Featheringill
4651 West 41st Street, Down
Cleveland, OH 44109
(216) 661-0794

lfeatheringill@hotmail.com

May 2003
Volume 3, Number 11

Greetings!

The life lesson for this month is that just because we can see something coming doesn’t mean we can stop it. Examples include war, the results of war, environmental damage, and the repercussions of that damage. But sticking our heads in the sand won’t help either. With that in mind, let us take another look at the world around us.--Linda Featheringill

War

War eventually broke out in Iraq.

In war, truth is the first casualty. The propaganda of war calls on humans to sacrifice that which is at the center of our humanity - our ability to think critically and intelligently, to cooperate, to be social.

The biggest fraction of armed forces is drawn from the poorest families. These soldiers have no profits to look forward to if they come home with a missing limb.
The outbreak of any war is a complete disaster for the common person. It’s the common person who is hired or forced to do the fighting, the destroying, the killing, and the dying. And it’s the peasants and their families who suffer from the bombings, destruction, restrictions, famines, and epidemics that accompany war. War brings nothing but suffering misery.

There is another, larger war to be fought - a war that begins in mental realization and develops into mass democratic organization. It’s a war between profits and need, in which the only victory can be for the freedom of mankind to live in peace and dignity.

The first casualty in this larger war must be the lies that make weak men strong and the many weak.

[J. K. Weijagye, Uganda.]

In order to stop the government from sending our children off to fight wars, we should have a law that anytime the government wants to go to war, the President, Vice President, Joint Chiefs of Staff, Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, every member of the of the Council on Foreign Relations, Trilateral Commission, Bilderberg, and every member of Congress and Senate be in the front line. Then put 10,000 Marines right behind them to make sure that they don’t change their minds and run away.

There would be no more wars and we could cut the Pentagon budget in half.

[Name withheld upon request, Letter to the Editor, American Free Press, March 31, 2003. Contributed by A.J., Alabama, USA.]

As I sit here in the departure lounge of life, waiting for my one-way flight number to be called, I have time to think, ponder, and observe. Many questions are being answered.

I often wondered how a civilized, education, and technologically advanced people such as the Germans in the 1930s could have so blindly followed an egotist and megalomaniac who was obsessed with world domination.

How was it possible that such a relatively small clique could eventually be allowed to terrorise the whole world by setting up and running such places as Belsen, Dachau, Buchenwald, Auschwitz, etc.?

I no long wonder, having seen the mass war frenzy of the American media. Despite growing opposition by USD workers to war, such is the "democracy" of the US of A, they will be completely ignored. The armaments manufacturers, and their major share holders, and government politicians will again become involved in the lucrative pastime of mass killing and destruction.

The verbal comments coming from members of the military of all ranks indicate a "gung-ho" attitude and a keenness to "get the job done and do our duty." So repetitive and standardized are these comments, it would seem all uniformed personnel have sacrificed any ability to think for themselves, as it imposes such a strain on their solitary brain cell.

People should be under no illusion. Here in West Australia, American warships docked at Fremantle and the naval personnel mingled with the Australian population while on R&R leave. Apparently, they spent 3 times the amount of the average tourist. It seems difficult for many people to understand that these same "pleasant and friendly" Americans would not hesitate or give one moment’s thought if they were ordered to wipe Perth or Fremantle off the face of the earth by their paranoid President. They would see it purely as "their job and their duty," despite having met the "lovely Aussies who made them so welcome." Such is their training, indoctrination and every-ready trigger fingers!

[Gogglesworth, West Australia, Australia.]

Gogglesworth might be surprised to learn that I agree with him. I have spent a good deal of time in trying to figure out how the basically nice and likeable people of the US can be part of such a destructive force. I am aware of Germany’s history and watch with amazement and horror as this country drifts ever further to the right. I haven’t figured it out yet. When I do, I’ll let you know. -- L.F.

Is America itself ready for an imperial role?

Not in the traditional sense of that concept. Imperialism implies staying power, the ability to project not just military might but the diplomatic savvy and the civil-affairs expertise to remake conquered countries.

It also implies the willingness of the home country to fund and staff this expensive enterprise of imperial reach, and to make it worthwhile by marrying commercial interests with the aspirations of the empire. Finally, it requires avoiding imperial overreach - the failing that helped bring down the empires of Rome and Genghis Khan.

So Iraq is not just about Iraq. It’s also about how America is ordering its relationship with the world and its future security. And most fundamentally, it’s about whether Americans are ready or willing to pay for a neo-imperialist agenda that casts aside the old order based on commonality of interests, mutual agreements and shared institutions of power. In the end, the idea that unchallenged American might is sustainable in the long run may prove a chimera.

[From an article by Elizabeth Sullivan, foreign affairs columnist for The Plain Dealer (Cleveland), April 24, 2003.]

The Environment
Water

A violent struggle over scarce water supplies has erupted between thirsty baboons and residents of eastern Kenya’s drought-ravaged Isiolo District. A young girl was left bleeding profusely after being attacked by baboons while she was walking back to her village of Badana with 3 friends. The apparently thirsty baboons wrestled containers from the girls and drank the water after chasing the children away. Isiolo County Council Chairman Ebrahim Halake Fayo said wild animals have also moved near water sources used by residents due to the acute drought plaguing much of East Africa.

[Earthweek: A Diary of the Planet, April 26, 2003.]

Australia and Ethiopia have similar degrees of climatic variability but Australia has 5,000 cub meters of water storage capacity per person, whereas Ethiopia has just 45 cubic meters.

90 percent of the rise in food production in the next 25 years has to come from existing agricultural land, so its productivity must double.

Hydropower provides 19 percent of the world’s electricity supply but there is the potential to double that - mostly in developing countries.

Developing countries spend about 44 billion pounds annually on water-related investments, 90 percent of which comes from domestic sources.

The World Bank invests about 1.9 billion pounds each year in water-related sectors.

By 2025, 4 billion people - half of the projected world population - will live under conditions of sever water stress.

[World Bank. In The Observer (London). Contributed by P.E.N., Colchester, England, UK.]

Gulf Stream

Scientists say they have found further evidence that the currents in the North Atlantic are changing. They say the amount of cold water flowing south from the Arctic has fallen significantly in the last 50 years. This could affect the Gulf Stream, which helps to give the UK and northwest Europe a temperate climate.

Scientists measured the flow of cold, dense Arctic water across the Faroe Bank channel, between the Faroes and Shetland, the island group north of the Scottish mainland. They estimated that the flow had fallen by 20% in the last half century, with most of the decrease in the last 30 years. And they say the rate of decline has accelerated within the last 5 years.

The cold water is dense because it is salty. It flows in the ocean depths and when it reaches tropical depths, it drives a convection process that carries warm water back towards the Arctic. The Gulf Stream is part of the process. But if there is a reduced flow of cold water driving the process, it would be reasonable to expect a smaller or slower Gulf Stream. The path of the Gulf Stream might also change.

When you add fresh water (from melting ice), you reduce the density of the water and the pumping efficiency. Scientists think that the shrinking of the Arctic ice sheet or melting along the Siberian coastline could be causing more fresh water to enter the Arctic Ocean and dilute the current.

The possibility that the Gulf Stream could be seriously affected has been regarded as remote. But some scientists say it could happen and that would provide an example of positive feedback - climate change inducing effects that intensify the rate of the change itself.

[Alex Kirby, BBC News Online, June 21, 2001.]

No Snow

[Note: Those of us who live in Cleveland do not wax so lyrical about the "seductive crunch" of frozen ground. - L.F.]

No child born in Northamptom since 1976 has seen snow at Christmas. Many children living in London have never seen snow at all, just an occasional gray power that soon becomes a black slurry.

It is almost 40 years since Britain saw snow lie on the ground from Christmas until February. The Observer was just 22 years old when its staff was last able to skate to work across a frozen Thames, in 1813. What on earth has happened to the days of seasonal - rather than daily - road chaos, perilously frozen pavements and children tobogganing to school, all the result of a real British winter setting in?

Meteorologists tell us that we can look forward to another 20 years of mild Decembers and balmy Januarys. Many of us might never again feel the seductive crunch of frozen turf underfoot while breathing morning air so bracing it cuts the lungs.

But we don’t want our winter holidays warm and damp. Would Irving Berlin ever have been inspired to write a song entitled "I’m Dreaming of a West Christmas?"

[Editorial, The Observer (London), December 29, 2002. Contributed by P.E.N., Colchester, England, UK.]

This and That

Debt in Japan

Japan is a nation where tough times are a major force driving 31,000 a year to take their own lives. The suicide rate is roughly twice that of the US. A recent surge in debt-linked suicides is alarming a nation that is battling a long slowdown that has sent unemployment, bankruptcies and bad debts soaring.

Economy Minister Helzo Takenaka has called for a change in the nation’s lending system that places corporate debt responsibility on the individual, forcing owners of small and medium-sized businesses to go personally broke when businesses fail.

He blamed the system for the number of debt-caused suicides in Japan, calling it unimaginable in the West, where businesses are allowed to fail and yet people make fresh starts.

With paychecks shrinking and the jobless rate a record high, individual bankruptcies in Japan have surged 5-fold in the last 5 years to more than 214,600 in 2002. The per capita individual bankruptcy in the US is 3 times the Japanese rate.

But the bad debt syndrome leads far more easily to individual tragedy in Japan, experts say, because of a culture of shame that makes bankruptcy a last resort for many.

It is made worse by a booming business of illegal lenders who charge outrageous interest rates - such as 1,800 percent a year, according to police. These lenders hound borrowers with threats. They call every few minutes, sometimes with menacing voices and threatening references about family. They come by homes and offices, too.

[Yuri Kageyama, Associated Press, April 20, 2003.]

Population

I am sick to death of the gay-lesbian versus heterosexual debate by self-righteous clergy and lay people. I am sure that God, if there is one, would, in hindsight, have created the majority of us as non-breeders because of the mess we have made of planet Earth in such a short space of time, at the expense of millions of other creatures we have managed to wipe out to make room for more of us.

There are 6 billion people on this fragile planet today, a teeming mass of humanity that procreates with frenetic speed and destroys everything in its path. It is a human time-bomb that eats, pollutes, and bulldozes its way through pristine wilderness areas, where once majestic wild animals roamed. Sparkling rivers and oceans are now dull and lifeless, tall forests are now deserts or grain fields, and once crystal-clear air filled with the sounds of millions of birds is now full of choking smoke and denuded of life.

The sanctimonious human race has done its best to ruin this world and has not managed to live in harmony with the rest of God’s creations. It abuses and exploits other animals and the environment in its greed and arrogance and is hell-bent on outbreeding every other species left on the planet.

For heaven’s sake, are there no responsible men of the cloth out there who condemn our insatiable appetite for over-populating the world and having total dominion over the plant and acting like there is no tomorrow? For how long will they encourage ecologically unsustainable population growth?

[A. H., Letter to the Editor, The West Australian.]

The deal Natasha was offered was simple: prove she was fertile, that her husband was not an alcoholic, and agree to have 3 children in 5 years. In exchange the council would buy her a house. Providing she fulfilled her childbearing obligations there would be no repayments, and after 5 years, nothing owing.

The babies -for-houses scheme was introduced this year in Ahtubinsk, a poverty-stricken region of Southern Russia. It is a desperate attempt to reverse he falling birthrate that, if it is not checked, will depopulate the area.

The problem is one shared by the whole of Russian since the collapse of the Soviet Union, as AIDS, alcoholism, and poverty have pushed the population into decline.

The biggest problem in Ahtubink is the lack of babies. Officials say 1300 people died last year and only 848 children were born.

So far, 10 homes have been financed. Of couples involved, 4 already have babies and several more women are pregnant.

Each couple signing up must have 3 babies in 5 years. If they have only 2, they have to pay half the cost of the house. For a single child, the figure is two-thirds.

[The Telegraph Group, London, January 6, 2003.]

Talibanization

There is a growing menace sweeping across the world. A rather loose confederation of "fundamentalist" religious demagogues, made up of Catholics, Baptists, Pentecostals, Mormons, Jews, and (to a lesser extent) Muslims is now working together as a behind-the-scenes collation, fully supported, indeed aided and abetted, by the ultra-extreme capitalists to enslave the world.

Many, many people over all the earth are justifiably alarmed by the encroaching fundamentalism but very few are aware that the power behind this force is a "Bilderberg" - a tightly knit group of multi-national financiers who use or manipulate religion to subdue the masses.

They keep religious wars brewing on the surface but at a deeper level, they are essentially united. And the ignorant, fearful, and superstitious masses refuse to offer any real resistance.

I have been ridiculed, scorned, castigated, and even threatened because of my assertion that second only to religion, chauvinistic nationalism is the single greatest contributor to hate, violence, and wars. But these two - along with racism, ethnicism, and tribalism, are essentially one and the same malady: the deep-seated "We’ns is better than they’ns" syndrome that permeates the psyche of so much of mankind.

This "syndrome" is the tool that demagogues use to enslave the masses.

Therefore, I must repeat as I so often have:

Until mankind becomes willing to lift itself out of the quagmire of the anachronistic superstitions of our primitive ancestors, there can never be real peace. Superstition stands as a dark and formidable barricade in the pathway to peace.

[C. Victor Gabriel, Nevada, USA.]

Drug Resistant Microbes

A drug used to fight one of Britain’s fastest growing and most infectious sexually transmitted diseases has been rendered powerless to treat thousands of patients, contributing the disease’s dramatic spread. The bacteria responsible for gonorrhoea, diagnosed in more than 20,000 people a year, are proving increasingly resistant to the antibiotic Ciprofloxacin [sold in the US as Cipro].

More

Official figures suggest the treatment is now failing to work properly for 1 in 10 patients in England and Wales. Known cases have doubled in 5 years.

Samples of bacteria taken from patients at 26 clinics and tested with antibiotics suggest that Ciprofloxacin resistance has risen from just over 2% of patients in 2000 to just under 10% in 2002.

[From an article by James Meikle, The Guardian (London), April 15, 2003.]

A drug-resistant "super-bug" that has swept through US hospitals for years has now been observed infecting healthy people.

MRSA [methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus] normally enters the wounds of patients weakened by disease or injury, often in hospitals. But a new strain that can be transmitted by skin contact and that poses a risk to health people has emerged.

Infections first occurred in the US, where thousands of people have already been affected. It is said to be "spreading like wildfire" in crowded prisons but there have also been small outbreaks among athletes and children in many communities across the country. Infections usually appear as sores that resemble insect bites. If not treated properly, abscesses and boils can develop, requiring repeated use of antibiotics or surgery.

[Earthweek: A Diary of the Planet, April 26, 2003.]

Lead Bullets

Hunters and others still use lead bullets in firearms. I would like to propose that manufacture and use of lead bullets be banned in the US because of the damage to our environment. All bullets can be made from zinc, aluminum, mild steel, or alloys of those metals. There is no need for the use of lead for bullets.

[S.F., Pennsylvania, USA.]

Internet Access in a Remote Area

Villagers in Ban Phon Kham, Laos have lived for years without electricity or telephones, relying on occasional visitors and a sluggish postal system for news of the outside world. But soon many of its residents will be jumping on stationary bikes to pedal their way onto the Information Superhighway.

The ingenious system - not much different for a school science project - is made of 5 computers build with discarded microchips. They connect to the Internet with a radio network and are powered by hulking batteries attached to stationary bicycles imported from India. One minute of pedaling yields 5 minutes of power. The computers will send data wirelessly to a central radio transmitter and antenna dish at the local school.

From there, microwave signals will be zapped to a treetop antenna on a nearby mountain ridge and routed to a dial-up Internet account at a nearby hospital, which has two of the region’s few phone lines. Although the bikes will power much of the system, the relay stations will have solar panels.

English Web sites will remain in English but villagers will be able to send and receive messages in their own language. Software will also feature menus translated into Lao. Students in the Phon Kham will be trained to use the system and will then teach older villagers. Central to the network is the Jhai PC, a plastic-encased computer smaller than a laptop computer and built to withstand the punishing heat and monsoon rains of the Lao countryside. The units were built by Lee Felsenstein, inventor of the world’s first portable computer.

[From an article by Daniel Lovering, Associated Press, February 19, 2003.]

In case your were wondering . . .

The US foreign-born population has reached a record high, although the rate at which people came to this country has slowed considerably. According to Census Bureau estimates, there were about 32.5 million foreign-born residents in March 2002, an increase of 2 percent from the previous March. In a population of 282.1 million, the foreign born amounted to 11.5 percent.

The percentage of foreign born is higher in states that are closer to the oceans.

Back in the 1950s (when the steel industry was going full blast), about 15 percent of Cleveland’s residents were foreign born but that figure came down to only 4.5 percent in April 2002.

[Information drawn from an article by Genaro Armas for the Associated press, March 11, 2003.]

Zimbabwe

The situation in my country is bad but at least not as bad as the Zimbabwean tragedy. I am always getting letters from friends I met there. I usually get at least one letter a month. The reason is simply because my friends cannot afford paper, stamps, and envelopes. It sounds funny but that is the case. At times, the letters are ready to go outside of Zimbabwe, but the fuel shortage brings everything to a halt.

The President of Zimbabwe is now as violent as ever. He is persecuting nearly everyone who opposes him. The state of affairs is near tragic. Like I said before, the soldiers are roaming the streets with tattered uniforms and at times with no shoes. Shoes are reserved for senior officers and so is the food.

[V.D., Swaziland, who also contributed the following articles from The Daily News.]

Note: Zanu PF is the ruling political party of Zimbabwe, led by President Robert Mugabe. The leading opposition party is the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), led by Morgan Tsvangirai.

Only people with Zanu PF cards were allowed to buy maize meal at the Sunningdale community centre in Harare yesterday [November 18, 2002]. This was despite government denials that food is being distributed or sold on partisan lines.

Baton- and whip-wielding police officers and "Green Bombers" manned the gates at the centre where hundreds of people crowded outside the perimeter fence.

Many of the people went away disappointed. This reporter was denied entry into the grounds of the community centre.

[Sam Munyavi, The Daily News (Swaziland), November 19, 2002.]

More

Morgan Tsvangirai, the MDC leader, said, "As a party whose victory was clearly stolen by Mugabe and Zanu PF, we have fought hard to restrain our people from taking the law into their own hands. We fought hard to calm down emotions and tempers after the majority realized that the struggle was still far from over."

"I wish to state that we cannot continue to play this role because of the pressure on us from a desperate people whose avenues to be heard are constantly being closed off by the regime."

Bemoaning the fact that Zimbabwe’s neighbours and the global community had abandoned the country, he said the majority of the people were saying they could no longer take the repression, despite the MDC’s appeals to them to remain calm.

[Lloyud Mudiwa, The Daily News (Swaziland), December 6, 2002.]

More

A coalition of civic and labour organizations and oppositions stage mock trials of president Mugabe at different centres of the country on allegations of human rights abuses, including murder and rape.

The groups include the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions, the MDC, the National Constitutional Assembly (NCA), the Zimbabwe National Students’ Union, the Democratic Party, and Crisis in Zimbabwe.

They said they had to do so because there was no chance of bringing Mugabe to justice using the country’s judiciary. Media would be advised about the venues of the mock trials as and when they take place.

Dr. Lovemore Madhuku of the NCA said, "We do not care about the Public Order and Security Act. If the police want to arrest us, they should do so. In any event, no one is safe under this regime. We are going to confront unjust laws." [Staff reporters, The Daily News (Swaziland), October 24, 2002.]

More

An unprecedented explosion of state-sponsored violence broke out amid charges of massive vote rigging before voting begins today in two crucial parliamentary elections.

Hundreds of tortured and severely injured supporters of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) flooded Harare’s hospitals this week. They told of vicious beatings, electric shocks and cigarette burns inflicted by uniformed army officers and other supporters of President Robert Mugabe.

Two women charged they were raped by army men using the barrels of their rifles. Doctors confirm serious injuries consistent with the accounts of torture.

At least one man has died and 500 others have been injured, according to the MDC. The government denies the charges.

"Two armoured trucks came at about 1a.m. and about 20 soldiers in uniforms broke into our house," said Margaret Kulinji, 32, an MDC official.

"They started beating my mother, an old woman who doesn’t know anything about politics. They beat me with the cord of my iron. They forced my mother’s legs open and sexually abused her with an AK-47 rifle. They burned me with cigarettes. It was terrible."

Mrs. Kulinji, her mother, and her brother are all recuperating in the hospital. Mrs. Kulinji said her mother, who was visibly distressed, was depressed and talked of suicide.

Doctors in casualty wards said they have never seen such severe injuries. One doctor said, "Victims show similar injuries: fractures, deep lacerations, and severe bruising. They give similar accounts of the soldiers inflicting the violence. They picked out local leaders of the MDC. This is a new human rights emergency." [Andrew Meldrum in Harare for The Guardian (London), March 29, 2003. Contributed by P.E.N., Colchester, England, UK.]

More

A hard-hitting report by the Commonwealth Secretariat stating conclusively that the Zimbabwe government has maintained state-sponsored human rights abuses is to be delivered to all member heads of government this week.

It could lead to moves to have Zimbabwe expelled from the Commonwealth.

The report comes as state violence against the opposition reached a new pitch after inflammatory speeches by President Robert Mugabe. Voting began yesterday in two key parliamentary by-elections in Harare amid charges of violence and massive rigging of the voters’ roll.

Drawing on eyewitness accounts from sources in Zimbabwe, the Common-wealth report asserts that Mugabe’s government has not taken any steps to stop state violence against civilians or to curb repression of the press and the judiciary. The report maintains that Zimbabwe’s year-old suspension from the Commonwealth Council of Ministers should not be lifted as long as the group’s democratic principles are so violated by the Mugabe Government.

[Andrew Meldrum, The Guardian (London), March 30, 2003.]

Next month: We’d love to know what you think. These are our usual classifications:

-- Open - questions, comments, tirades, etc.
-- RSVP. React to previous statements.
-- The ecology.
-- Clippings from newspapers, etc.

On the Web:

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Money.

Overtime is free, but there are expenses and any help with these would be appreciated. Please make checks payable to Linda Featheringill and mail to me at 4651 West 41st Street, Down, Cleveland, OH 44109.

Contributions will be acknowledged in the next issue, or you can remain anonymous if you wish.

Finances at the end of April 2003:

Balance---------------------6.32

Contributions--------------85.00

Supplies and stationary-----2.68

Copying--------------------30.14

Postage--------------------28.60

Total expenses-------------61.42

Balance--------------------23.58

Contributions: S. Frey, 10.00; Anonymous, 75.00.

And, to Everyone, thank you, thank you, thank you. Linda Featheringill.