NI

[peteryoung]

An especially good New Internationalist arrived this morning, with an extra supplement on The Unreported Year. Amid assorted reports from each continent is a large and particularly moving picture of a US Marine holding a young and bloodstained Iraqi child caught in crossfire on March 2003. It doesn't relate to any other 'unreported' news article (other than an accompanying list of depressing statistics for the Iraq war), but I suspect the NI couldn't resist publishing it. I wish there was a link somewhere to this picture because it helps to capture what the true cost of war is.

The theme of this issue of NI is 'Equality' and inside are four postcards, each containing little-known but particularly good quotes which I've reproduced

"The Airforce pinned a medal on me for killing a man and discharged me for making love to one."
- Leonard Matlovich, USAF sargeant dismissed after coming out as gay, under the US's current 'Dont Ask, Don't Tell' policy on lesbians and gays in the armed forces, under which hundreds have been harassed or lost their jobs.

"Years ago I recognised my kinship with living things, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on the earth. I say then and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it; while there is a criminal element, I am of it; while there is a soul in prison, I am not free."
- Eugene Debs, a hero of US socialism who founded the American Railway Union, was imprisoned repeatedly for his political and anti-war activities, and in 1920 ran for US President from a prison in Atlanta.

"The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to beg in the streets, steal bread, or sleep under a bridge."
- Anatole France, French writer and wit.

"When we talk about equal pay for equal work, women in the workplace are beginning to catch up. If we keep going at this current rate, we will achieve full equality in about 475 years. I don't know about you, but I can't wait that long."
- Lya Sorano, US women's rights activist. Although women are now the majority of the world's labour force, in no country is the average female wage more than 71 percent of the average male wage.

Comments

[headgardener.livejournal.com]

We subscribed to NI for many years: it's an excellent magazine, but after long enough, you find it is going around the same topics again... Good quotes: I particularly like the Anatole France one 'poor man has the same right as rich man to sleep under bridges'

It ranks with Gandhi's reply to the question: "what is your opinion of Western civilisation?" "I think it would be a very good idea," replied the Mahatma.