 Summer 2001 American Friends Service Committee Peacework Magazine Patrica Watson, Editor Sara Burke, Assistant Editor Pat Farren, Founding Editor 2161 Massachusetts Ave. Telephone number: Fax number:
pwork@igc.org Peacework has been published monthly since 1972, intended to serve as a source of dependable information to those who strive for peace and justice and are committed to furthering the nonviolent social change necessary to achieve them. Rooted in Quaker values and informed by AFSC experience and initiatives, Peacework offers a forum for organizers, fostering coalition-building and teaching the methods and strategies that work in the global and local community. Peacework seeks to serve as an incubator for social transformation, introducing a younger generation to a deeper analysis of problems and issues, reminding and re-inspiring long-term activists, encouraging the generations to listen to each other, and creating space for the voices of the disenfranchised. Views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of the AFSC. |
The War With the Newts Karel Capek, Evanston, IL, Notheastern University Press, 1937
This is the beginning of Capek's last work, but it is by no means the whole story. Using the conceit of salamander-human relations, Capek launches ruthless and unerring attacks on everything from capitalism to communism, racist bigotry to progressive education, human nature to salamander nature. Most of the book is made up of newspaper articles and scientific reports, which Capek masterfully imitates in style only to mock their content. In the United States, Capek is more famous for his play, R.U.R., which gave us the word 'robot.' In many ways, The War with the Newts is a more developed version of those same themes, and in Europe Newts is his more famous work. It was, among other things, the inspiration for Orwell's Animal Farm. Writing in Czechoslovakia in 1937, Capek undoubtedly saw the impending apocalypse of Nazism, and in fact he presents a macabre parody of the Nazis at many points. But this is not a simple political allegory, and thus it is not dated. If The War with the Newts is a prophetic critique of Nazi Germany, it can also be seen as a prophetic critique of the cold war, of decolonization, of neoliberalism. This is a book for our time, and for all times, and it is great fun.
--Ethan Mitchell is author of Free Market
Syndicalism: The Lengthy Tortoise. Resources on US Arms Sales Arming Repression: US Arms Sales to Turkey During the Clinton Administration by William D. Hartung, Tamar Gabelnick and Jennifer Washburn. As Turkey's #1 arms supplier, the US plays a role in the state's repression and human rights violations, and has a responsibility to reexamine US arms export policy. Corporate Welfare for Weapons Makers: The Hidden Costs of Spending on Defense and Foreign Aid by William D. Hartung. The latest in our Welfare for Weapons Dealers series, this report documents tens of billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies for Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon and other military contractors, and recommends phasing out existing US government subsidies for arms exports. The Military Industrial Complex Revisited: How Weapons Makers are Shaping US Foreign and Military Policies by William D. Hartung. With an analysis of current Pentagon spending and the corporate interests that shape those priorities, this report argues that what is good for defense corporations is not necessarily good for the US.
These reports and others are available for $5 each from the World
Policy Institute. To order or receive a complete list of our recent
publications, contact Frida Berrigan, 212/229-5808 x112; Arms
Trade Resource Center, 65 Fifth Ave. #413, New York NY 10003;
berrigaf@newschool.edu 
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