Letter Never Sent

I wonder what’s behind the FBI’s attempts to prevent the dissemination of the Pearl execution video. Does it have anything to do with the NMRPS (National Movement for the Restoration of Pakistan Sovereignity) demands at the end of the video? Are they just carrying out orders from the corporate paymasters at Dow Jones, the owners of the Wall Street Journal where Pearl was employed? Or, are they worried that viewing this video will muddy the waters of this issue? Why should we fear information? The public can only be expected to make the best decisions once it has all the information. Like I said previously, if anything this video holds the potential to galvanize people around the world against terrorism.

NMRPS demands stated in the video:

• The immediate release of all U.S. held prisoners in Guantinamo Bay, Cuba
• The return of Pakistani prisoners to Pakistan.
• The immediate end of U.S. presence in Pakistan.
• The delivery of F-16 planes that Pakistan had paid for and never received.

At the end the video states that “We asure Americans that they shall never be safe on the Muslim Land of Pakistan. And if our demands are not met this scene shall be repeated again and again…” Mind you, this is all displayed with the backdrop of Daniel Pearl’s severed head. It’s pure insanity and awful and disgusting, but it is part of history and not even the FBI has the power or the authority or right to stop it. Download it here.

Some staggering statistics from the Anti-WTO site www.gatt.org:

Studies such as those from which the following facts are culled demonstrate that current trade liberalisation rules and policies have led to increased poverty and inequality, and have eroded democratic principles, with a disporportionately large negative effect on the poorest countries.

The poorest 49 countries make up 10% of the world?s population, but account for only 0.4% of world trade. This disparity has been growing.

70% of world trade is controlled by large multinational corporations; this percentage has steadily increased over the past twenty years.

The richest fifth have 80% of the world?s income and the poorest fifth have 1%; this gap has doubled between 1960 and 2000. (Human Development Report, UNDP 1999)

In almost all countries that have undertaken rapid trade liberalisation, wage inequality has increased?20-30% fall in wages in some Latin American countries. (UNCTAD 1997)

Even in the First World, the gap between upper executive and worker salaries has never bigger. The gap is enormously huger, and is defended in theoretical terms.

Top 100 transnational corporations increased assets 697% between 1980 and 1995. At the same time employment in these corporations went down.

Nearly every single environmental or public health law challenged at the WTO has been ruled illegal. While it is likely that many should legitimately have been ruled illegal as they were, the fact that so few have gotten through has led us to question the validity of our processes.

A matter of perspective helps. On September 11, 3000 people died in the towers as a result of terrorism. On the same day, 24,000 people died of hunger, 6,020 children were killed by diarrhoea, and 2,700 children were killed by measles on that day.

I haven’t read Mad Magazine since I was in my early teens and at that point it was an obsession. I still have a large box of them stuffed in my closet. Dave Berg produced ‘The Lighter Side of…’ almost through the entire history of Mad Magazine. He missed the first four years as Mad started in 1952 and he joined in 1956. One of the best things about the “The Lighter Side” was that Berg would often draw Mad celebrities in his drawings and it was a good opportunity for a fan like me to get an impression of how the ‘Usual Gang of Idiots’ were in real life. Thanks for the memories!

• Dave Berg, created Mad’s ‘Lighter Side,’ dead
• How MAD’s Dave Berg and Roger Kaputnik Introduced Me To Post-Modernity from BoingBoing
• Purchase Dave Berg originals
• Some Dave Berg book covers
• Mark Evanier (of Sergio Aragones’ Groo) does up a good obit of Dave Berg

If you want a music format that is more flexible and lacks watermarks and can be copied repeatedly then you should really encourage record labels and artists to sell their music in mp3 format by buying the Meshell mp3 from Maverick Records. My guess is depending on how well the sale goes they may make more of their records available for sale in this manner. I paid the .99$. Of course, I don’t like Meshell, but some of my friends might and it’s a good use for .99$. I think if more companies sold mp3s everyone would benefit.