David Oaks, Director
MindFreedom International
454 Willamette, Suite216
Eugene, OR 97440-3484
ph: 541-345-9106 E-mail: oaks@mindfreedom.org

3 March 2005

Billy Tauzin, President
PhRMA
1100 Fifteenth Street, NW
Washington, DC 20005-1707

Dear Billy and PhRMA (Pharmaceutical Research & Manufacturing Assoc):

MindFreedom Support Coalition International is a grassroots non-profit uniting over 100 sponsor groups in 15 countries working for human rights and alternatives in mental health. The United Nations has accredited our organization as a Non Governmental Organization.

"In 2004, a study commissioned by US bishops would conclude that 4 percent of US priests were sexual abusers....While the Vatican turned an even more blind eye to clergy sex-abuse than even the US bishops did, Ratzinger had his eyes out for priests and theologians who strayed over the party line. In the mid 1980s, he cracked down on 'liberation theology' among the poor in Latin America, saying it was too much allied with Marxists. He led the Vatican in revoking the authorization of the Rev. Charles Curran of Catholic University for his challenge to the ban on contraception. Ratzinger disciplined several other priests and nuns for their liberal views."

"Just days after Arar arrived at a Syrian military prison, Pillarella's memos back to Ottawa say his Syrian contact has told him that Arar was being interrogated and had confessed to links with terrorist organizations, alluding to groups based in Pakistan.

While Pillarella says the Syrians will allow Arar to have consular visits, nowhere does he note having asked about Arar's treatment or how the confessions were obtained."

"The goal of logging companies like MacMillan-Bloedel and Weyerhaeuser is to make a profit at any cost. These big corporations are extremely important for West Coast capitalism-and protecting business-as-usual is important to the government and the FBI. In this regard, the environmental movement is a thorn in the side of the multinational corporations and the US state. So the FBI has deployed a tried-and-true tactic, the tactic of divide and conquer. The FBI calls one half of the environmentalist movement 'ecoterrorist' and other half 'pacifist' and then steps back and watches us fight amongst ourselves, effectively diverting our attention from the main cause, namely saving the environment."

"The cult of Joseph Stalin, once worshipped as a near deity but later reviled as one of history's worst monsters, is enjoying a revival across Russia and beyond.

To the dismay of many, proposals to erect new monuments to the tyrant for what apologists see as his 'outstanding' war leadership have won support from figures close to President Vladimir Putin's Kremlin."

The Sunday Times - World - April 17, 2005

"Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, whose strong defence of Catholic orthodoxy has earned him a variety of sobriquets -- including 'the enforcer', 'the panzer cardinal' and 'God's rottweiler' -- is expected to poll around 40 votes in the first ballot as conservatives rally behind him.

Unknown to many members of the church, however, Ratzinger's past includes brief membership of the Hitler Youth movement and wartime service with a German army anti- aircraft unit."

"With Ratzinger the Catholic revolutionaries of today will find no ally. There is still millions of oppressed all over the world and the election of another authoritarian, fundamentalist Pope will only harm the true liberation of Mankind from the tyranny of government and politics."

Wilmington, Delaware, US: "The Coca-Cola company is misleading its
shareholders by not reporting serious liabilities the company has incurred
in India.

Coca-Cola is holding its Annual General Meeting in Wilmington on April 19,
2005, and over a hundred protesters will be speaking, both inside and
outside the meeting, to bring attention to Coca-Cola's shortcomings."

Shoes. We all have some. We rarely think about them. But shoes are political. Charities buy poor kids shoes in every city. The type of shoes you have, and how many, are a sign of social status. (Remember Marcos' 1500 pairs of shoes?!) Women have endured foot binding and high heels. Some people wear wooden shoes, some wear sandals, some wear fur and skin boots. There are clown shoes, snow shoes, tap dancing shoes, Earth Shoes, and there are also shoe museums all over the world, including Seattle. Shoes have changed over the years due to new materials, such as rubber, becoming available, and due to design changes, such as the left and right shoes having different patterns. Studies of one Ice Age mummy suggested he did not travel further than 40 miles from home, and his shoes reflected that, both in utility and materials used. Even the ways we attach our shoes are changing. Learning how to tie shoelaces has been superceded by velcro shoe closures for younger kids.

"TORONTO - The United States, Britain, the Netherlands and Canada rely on 'flimsy' diplomacy in attempts to send foreign terror suspects back to countries that routinely use torture against their prisoners, Human Rights Watch said in a report released Friday.

The 91-page report by the New York-based group said there was a growing practice among Western nations to seek reassurances of humane treatment of terror suspects while attempting to boot them back to countries with 'well-established' records of torture, such as Egypt, Syria, Uzbekistan or Yemen."

This is to alert you to a new film - "Capitalism and other Kids' Stuff" - that has recently been uploaded to the www and can be seen at http://www.socialist-tv.com , and which argues the anti-capitalist case in simple language.

The film, made by 4 members of The Socialist Party in the UK, is 49 minutes in duration and, beginning with a look at how we treat our children, explains in non-jargonised terms, the insanity of a system that places profit before human need. Please note, this is not some leftie Party political broadcast, just a sane look at an insane world that is very much crying out for real change, change that can only be brought about by a majority, acting in their own interests and without leaders.

The Road to Rendition

Torture Air, Incorporated

By JEFFREY ST. CLAIR - Counterpunch Weekend Edition; April 9 / 10, 2005

Oregon City, Oregon

A sleek Gulfstream V jet with the tail number N379P has racked up more international miles than most passenger jets. Since October 2001, this plane has been spotted in some of the world's most exotic and forbidding airports: Tashkent, Uzbekistan; Karachi, Pakistan, Baku, Azerbaijan, Baghdad, Iraq, and Rabat, Morocco.

It has also frequently landed at Dulles International, outside Washington, DC and enjoys clearance to land at US military air bases in Scotland, Cyprus and Frankfurt, Germany. Observers around the world have noticed men in hoods and chains being taken on and off the jet.

"Over the next 100 years or so as many as half of the Earth's
species, representing a quarter of the planet's genetic stock, will
either completely or functionally disappear. The land and the oceans
will continue to teem with life, but it will be a peculiarly
homogenized assemblage of organisms naturally and unnaturally
selected for their compatibility with one fundamental force: us.
Nothing--not national or international laws, global bioreserves,
local sustainability schemes, nor even 'wildlands' fantasies--can
change the current course. The path for biological evolution is now
set for the next million years. And in this sense "the extinction
crisis"--the race to save the composition, structure, and
organization of biodiversity as it exists today--is over, and we
have lost."

"The first point that has to be grasped is that proposals for system-wide, top-down change - getting the Federal government to do something constructive about the situation, for instance - are a waste of time. That sort of change isn't going to happen. It's not simply a matter of who's currently in power, although admittedly that doesn't help. The core of the problem is that even proposing changes on a scale that would do any good would be political suicide."

The primitive and dogmatic policies of John Paul II and the Catholic Church in relation to contraception, women, HIV/AIDS prevention, the Holocaust, socialism and liberation theology have massively contributed to horrendous global avoidable mortality.