War on Iraq

Anti-war Demonstration Repressed in Oakland

This is crazy: Police firing any kind of weapons at unarmed, peaceful protestors. According to reports you'll read in the article or articles it references, the projectiles were

• bags of beans
• wooden beads
• rubber bullets

The protesters said that they were on the dock to blockade American President Lines, a corporation that profits from the war. Because of the overreaction of the police, the ILWU have shut down the Oakland docks.

One of the articles recommends docummenting your injuries if you're assaulted during a demonstration.

I think the police reacted out of fear.

Democracy Domino Theory 'Not Credible'

As reported in the L. A. Times and on Democracy Now! today, March 21, 2003. I'll post a copy of the report when I can find it.

"Free" registration required to read the Times article. If you don't want to give up your personally identifying information, you can use the cypherpunks trick. On the Times site, the userid and password cypherpunks01 will get you in.

Bridge to Baghdad

Real audio story from Democracy Now! on March 20, 2003. It's in the transcript of hour 1.

I don't think that Bridge to Baghdad is being shown in the Washington, DC area.

San Francisco Antiwar Protests

An article on Boing Boing: A Directory of Wonderful Things. has a link to these pictures.

I found Boing Boing while looking for dead media on Bruce Stirling's Mirrorshades Postmodern Archive.

Slashdot Reader Asks for Unbiased War News

I'd like to know that, too. Where can I find unbiased coverage of the War on Iraq?

Slashdot readers suggest balancing the reports you get from various sources: google , BBCi, CBC , the Sydney Morning Herald , the Pakistani newspaper DAWN , Radio Netherlands , and Guardian and its World News Guide .

The Alien and Sedition Acts

Texts from the Yale Law School.

These acts are part of John Adams' legacy. I though that Abraham Lincoln used them in the Civil War to suspend the writ of habeascorpus ( summary on www.civil-liberties.com ) , but after a brief and superficial search, I haven't found evidence to support that claim.

For more on habeas corpus, see lectlaw.com , nolo.com , and Article I, Section 9, Clause 2 of the US Constitution .

PBS: Civil Liberties after 9/11: Timeline

A history of attempts to curb civil liberties in the US.

As I post this, the link is slow, as if the site has been slashdotted .

Sedition

From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) [web1913]:

Sedition \Se*di"tion\, n. [OE. sedicioun, OF. sedition, F. s['e]dition, fr. L. seditio, originally, a going aside; hence, an insurrectionary separation; pref. se-, sed-, aside + itio a going, fr. ire, itum, to go. Cf. {Issue}.]

1. The raising of commotion in a state, not amounting to insurrection; conduct tending to treason, but without an overt act; excitement of discontent against the government, or of resistance to lawful authority.
   • In soothing them, we nourish 'gainst our senate The cockle of rebellion, insolence, sedition. --Shak.
   • Noisy demagogues who had been accused of sedition. --Macaulay.
2. Dissension; division; schism. [Obs.]
   • Now the works of the flesh are manifest, . . . emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies. --Gal. v. 19, 20.

Syn: Insurrection; tumult; uproar; riot; rebellion; revolt. See {Insurrection}.

From WordNet (r) 1.6 [wn]:

sedition n : an illegal action inciting resistance to lawful authority and tending to cause the disruption or overthrow of the government