Fw: WAR TIMES Launch in San Jose Mercury News

here is some information about a new anti-war publication which is being
published for the first time. free copies are available for distribution.
see the article below for further information. GS> Newspaper works against
war effort
>
> NEW PUBLICATION HOPES TO SEND WORD
> NATIONWIDE
>
> By Marilee Enge
> Mercury News
>
> http://www.bayarea.com/mld/bayarea/news/local/2690886.htm
>
> A new anti-war newspaper has begun publication in the East Bay, hoping to
> promote what it bills as a more humane, less jingoistic alternative to the
> gung-ho militarism of President Bush.Bob Wing, managing editor of War
Times,
> said he was disturbed by the U.S. government's response to the Sept. 11
> terrorist attacks. Instead of conducting what Wing believed to be a just
war
> to avenge the loss of American lives, he said the Bush administration was
> killing innocent Afghans and trampling on civil liberties at home.While
> other
> Americans were mounting flags on their cars, Wing began talking to
everyone
> he knew about a project that could counter what he saw as a warmongering
> atmosphere taking hold of the nation.The result is War Times, launched by
> Wing and a small group of writers and activists, which made its debut in a
> West Oakland warehouse Saturday. After publishing a prospectus of War
Times
> online, Wing said the public response was overwhelming. A first run of
> 75,000
> copies is 10 times the number originally planned by the group.``The thing
> blew up on us,'' he said. Requests for copies came from every corner of
the
> country, and the idea of starting small and targeting only active peace
> groups ended.The newspaper contains articles in both English and
Spanish.The
> first issue of War Times features an interview with Danny Glover, an actor
> and activist who shares the view that bombing Afghanistan was wrong. Other
> articles criticize U.S. military deployment in the Philippines, stepped-up
> attacks on Palestinians and the cost of the war on terrorism.The lead
> article, by Jung Hee Choi, a War Times editor, profiles a New Yorker who
> lost
> her brother in the World Trade Center and an Afghan-American woman who
lost
> a
> large number of family members in U.S. airstrikes on Kandahar. The two
women
> met recently, and have used their personal tragedies as a platform for
> opposing the U.S. war.``The loss is the same,'' said Hee Choi. ``There is
a
> common humanity that people share.''While the stories touch on a variety
of
> left-wing causes, Wing said the only political agenda of War Times is
> shining
> a spotlight on the injustice of war. ``Our viewpoint will be, in general,
> war
> hurts a lot of people,'' from Afghan villagers who lost their homes to
> non-citizen airport employees who are losing their jobs.Wing is a writer
and
> editor who honed his activism during the student strikes at University of
> California-Berkeley in the 1960s. More recently, he edited a magazine
> published by Applied Research Center, an East Bay-based think tank that
> focuses on issues of race and education.Launching a newspaper to protest
> government policy is a venerable American tradition, and one with strong
> roots in the Bay Area. But Wing points out that the landscape for
publishing
> has changed since the '60s. Now there are free alternative weeklies in
every
> coffee shop, and a small anti-war publication has to carve out its own
> niche.
> Wing wants to emulate the muckraking work of journalist I.F. Stone and the
> social commentary of African-American writer W.E.B. du Bois.``We need
> thousands of people like you to share War Times with other people who
> question war, racial profiling and the curtailment of civil liberties,''
the
> editors write in their first editorial.For now, the staff is all volunteer
> and there are no permanent offices. The paper is free, and interested
> readers
> are being asked to help distribute it.Distribution will be national, and
the
> editors hope in particular to reach readers in the middle of the country,
> where anti-war viewpoints are not as accepted as in the Bay Area.
> IF YOU'RE INTERESTED For more information, contact War Times at
> wartimes@attbi.comContact Marilee Enge at menge@sjmercury.com or (415)
> 394-6895.
>
> The full article will be available
> on the Web for a limited time:
>
> http://www.bayarea.com/mld/bayarea/news/local/2690886.htm
>
> (c) 2001 bayarea and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved.
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