Issues No.5-6 February-March 2003

Cry Freedom
After 20 years of Freedom of Information are Australians freer and better informed? MATTHEW RICKETSON

John Howard and Luke Skywalker
Snugglepot and Cuddle Pie ... and the Banksia Men. NATASHA CICA

Today, I am wearing black ...
A cry from the heart from BRONWEN MEREDITH, 84 year-old Tasmanian peace activist...

Letters: THREE pleas
1. For Peace, a petition. 2. The Sarwaris need even more help. 3. Tasmania Together.

With God on their side...
War necessitates the personification of evil. It makes killing easier. It deifies the killer and dehumanises the killed. It enobles bloodshed as necessary. HILARY McPHEE watches Prime Minister John Howard duck and weave between the goal posts of morality and muscularity.

B1, B2 and Johnny...
HARRY QUICK's passionate resistance to war on Iraq ... as 15,000-20,000 march in protest - in Tasmania on Saturday, February 15, 2003 - against Prime Minister John Howard's quick-step with US President George W. Bush.

An Unholy Alliance
Get out of this war, Mr Howard. Tell Mr Bush that for the sake of the world’s children, Australia says no to this war. LYN ALLISON'S Hobart plea.

Mr Bush is ... right ...
I'm really excited by George Bush's latest reason for bombing Iraq, says TERRY JONES ... of Monty Python ...

What makes a war lawful?
Can a people authorise by popular consent a war that is unlawful? And what would make a war "unlawful"? Political scientist and security expert RICHARD HERR, raises an awkward question...

IRAQ: The hard questions
We do not hold that the most powerful nation rules the world. Tasmanian church leader BISHOP JOHN HARROWER raises the difficult questions about the Bush-led, Blair/Howard-backed headlong rush to war...

A Just War?
DAVID PAULIN and BRUCE FELMINGHAM ask a simple, perhaps forgotten, question ...

The Unquiet American
The drums of war - amplified in Australia by a bellicose pro-Bush Prime Minister Howard and a large, compliant monoculture section of the media - are drowning out the voices of dissent. But, why is Bush so intent on waging war on Saddam's Iraq? Distinguished journalist PHILLIP KNIGHTLEY has an answer...

Reality bites
Like diving head-first into a tub of bioactive yoghurt after a diet of sick-making vanilla goo. NATASHA CICA's offbeat take on American values, war etc, etc ...

How to scapegoat
... This is perhaps the least meritorious among Tolkien's many worthy legacies... an unfortunately fascist morality with the idea of a self-proclaimed Good committing genocide on races they define as Bad ... PHILIP HUNT writes.

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