MID-EAST REALITIES - www.MiddleEast.Org

"News, Information, & Analysis That Governments, Interest Groups,
and the Corporate Media Don't Want You To Know!"

15 August 2003 Email: MER@MiddleEast.Org www.MiddleEast.Org

We are sharing with you a few more of the many extraordinary messages we have received from concerned people around the world. We are in the process of trying to reorganize MER and so we want to sincerely thank those of you who have gotten in touch with your support and encouragement at this critical time. Those of you who wish to contribute financially - urgently needed particularly at this time if we are to be successful in continuing MER - should make your checks to MER and send now to:

MER

POBox 4918

Washington DC 20008

As an interim step at this time we are now showing past MERTV programs at MERTV.Org. The very first program made at Chicago Access in 1994 and dealing with the history of the Middle East and the Arab-Israeli conflict is showing now, and the follow-up Program #2 will show soon. Each program is just 28 minutes and we encourage you to watch them.

Subject: Re: MER has been Suspended

My name is Shelby Grimm, employed in the Los Angeles area, and a recently
awakened and committed activist in the struggle for finally attaining a
democratic government in this country. I was referred to your outstandingly honest,
truly patriotic, and extremely informative emails by my brother, who...
really has inspired me to become informed, to read, to attend, to participate
in the democratic process of taking back control of this government, and your
emails have been indispensable to that task. I have forwarded, copied and
mailed your commentaries to friends and foes as far away as Australia.
When I stopped receiving them, I called your number... I responded that I would
be willing to subscribe to your emails, as I thought they were the finest and most
insightful source of information available.... Since then I have made a depressingly
uneventful search on the web for a source of accurate, timely, and honest information,
and haven't found anything to match yours.What needs to be done to maintain your
presence, to keep you on the air?
Shelby Grimm

Subject: A thank you letter

Dear Mark Bruzonsky and the MER staff-

I am deeply saddened to hear that possibly, MER will discontinue it's coverage of the main headlines regarding the Middle East. I have truly enjoyed your broadcasts, articles and notifications of all sorts of information relating to the situation in the Middle East, especially the coverage on the Israeli, Palestinian conflict and the war in Afghanistan and Iraq. I feel that MER has traveled with me, whether it be in America or the Middle East, as I have always been well informed along the way. I have used your articles in my college classes, with research and now as a piece of vital information for personal purposes. Even though I am located near the occupied territories and living within this mess, I truly recognize the significance of your information as a vital understanding of what is happening around me. If you do decide to discontinue your services to the more informed public, thanks to you, please know that you have done a wonderful job in doing so. If you do decide to continue MER, please know that you have supporters here, in East Jerusalem, whom highly appreciate your support and services to the public.

Thank you all.
Laura Schau

Subject: RE:MER has been Suspended

I feel that it is viatally important that this program continues. this is the only way that we are receiving reliable news at the moment.

Noel Phillips
New Zealand (ZA)

Subject: Re suspension of MER

Hi Mark.

Just got around to checking my mailbox and discovered your message
about suspending MER.
I think this would be a tremendous shame, and wonder what could have
caused such a decision.
It seems to me that at a time such as now its more important than ever
to have voices such as MER.
Whatever the difficulties are I hope there may be some way that you
are enabled to continue.

Regards and good wishes,
Mike Langridge
Britons for Peace

Subject: encouragement

Dear Mr Bruzonsky, dear all,

I hope very much that you will find ways of keeping MER going on. To me,
as a foreign editor for a daily newspaper in Switzerland, it is a very
important source of information, comment and debate. I would not want to miss it.

Kind regards,
Andreas Tunger-Zanetti

Subject: SUSPENSION???

Would very much like to see you back in business as the American Press no longer
expresses the views of mainstream America.
Our politicians should read the history of our Constitution and founding fathers of
this great Republic.

GOOD LUCK!

Reinhard Uhe

Subject: Re: MER suspended

Mark, I haven't been receiving any of your updates for quite awhile now. I do
find them very interesting, and I think this interest can only increase in the
coming months - or maybe weeks. It's very difficult to read through the maze
of disinfo and outright lies we are fed on all issues, and probably most of all
Israel and the Middle East.

I do sincerely hope you are able to continue in some form. At this stage,
money's not abundant for me, but I will await what you decide to do.

Many thanks for all the previous issues and emails.

Regards
Daphne O'Brien

Subject: Re: MER has been Suspended

As I receive you bulletins at work, I didn't know about your suspension of the
service until this morning. I am curious what the situation is that might
require MER to fold.

In solidarity,
Harry Feldman
Australia

Subject: RE: MER has been Suspended

For whatever it's worth I wish to say that I support MER and its attempts to disseminate factual information about Middle-east (or, from an Indian perspective where I lived for many years, "West Asian") realities.

One of the most disturbing things about the present situation is the absolute absence of any dissent among major media in North America - Canada is just as bad as the US. I listened (briefly) two nights ago to one of our local talk show ravers (he's very popular) going on about "right and wrong" in response to the Hamas announcement that they would now attack civilians. His response was vitriolic. His support for Isreal is absolute and absolutely uncritical.

I am old enough to (vaguely) remember the second world war - my father was in the British army - and I remember the many films and stories that came out about how the German people were complicit in the extermination of European Jewery. It recorded how little protest there was - how people went along with the kristallnacht events. Later I remember a British unit commander (I think it was a Brit because the Brits, as I remember it, were the first to reach the Bergen-Belsen camp) bringing local German people to come and look at the camp. They insisted that all the people from a local town come and see the camp. At the time I believed they were getting their "just desserts."

But of course it's a much more complicated issue. The Pianist reminds us that the rhetoric of protest is easier than its practice. When the fascisti are on the ascendence it's "Bang! Your dead!" and who can protest? I think we're almost there now: I thought twice before I responded to your email - would somebody write me down in some big database as "untrustworthy"?

The American superpower, as far as I can tell, has abandoned whatever democratic ideals it ever had. With reduced opportunity for the poor, especially the African American poor, ridiculous and impractical drug laws, the world's largest prison population, punitive sanctions for dissenters , vicious retribution against Moslems found in the wrong place or anyone who backs the wrong side, a commitment to lie and cheat and prevaricate as a justification for doing what you want (Iraq), a society where "justice" means revenge, "law" means my rules, while international law is rejected, a rhetoric of free speech while the practice is viciously stamped out by the American blackshirts - the situation seems hopeless.

Sometimes I am astonished at myself. I consider Donald Rumsfeld one of the most evil men that ever walked the face of the earth - well up there with Sadam Hussein - a pathelogical liar. I consider Colin Powell a dissembler; John Ashcrot an ingenious rationalizer; Richard Cheney an opportunistic liar. Like all fascisti they use proxies to do their dirty work.

This criminal gang is trying to take over the world and I join with the people who resist them. They have the power to crush pretty well any legitimate resistance which more or less leaves martyrdom... as the only alternatives...

John Brown
Organization: Brown & Leowinata Ltd.

Subject: Re: MER has been Suspended

I am really sorry to hear that the only true news, MER, will no broadcast the truth. Since living in the USA, MER is the only reliable and truth telling news around. What a shame that we have to lose that too on top of the many other freedoms here in the country that prides itself on the so called"Freedom." Thank you for all of your hard work and dedication.

Salma Igram

To: MER@MiddleEast.Org

please continue the newsletter service for it is quiet informative and carrys a comprehensive
update of the state of affairs in the middle east.....
Hasan John

Subject: MER

I had only been getting the MER emails for a few weeks when it stopped. I
had been enjoying (if you can be in these times) the intelligent commentary
on just what was going on. In Australia we don't get much info about the
Middle East in our papers usually, and since the war started it's been
doses ofgung ho hype.
I hope you can keep going in some form.
Best wishes,

-Simon Kneebone
Cartoonist and Illustrator
Australia

To: MER@MiddleEast.Org

Honestly speaking MER is virtually only site which speaks truth and informs facts to the people in this world of propaganda of war.

Certainly, I would like to see that the site is pursuing its true original aims.

Thank you,

Yours truly,
Rauf Soomro

Subject: RE: MER has been Suspended

MER and Mark Bruzonsky - keep up the good work. We cannot afford sane voice
to be silenced.

shuaib manjra
cape town
south africa

Subject: MER SUSPENSION-NO!!!

Dear Mark Bruzonsky:
I am a true fan of MER! At the critical juncture of mis-information and attitude rampant in the USA today, I think that MER is an indispensable tool for obtaining accurate info as to what is actually going on and how it interrelates in the political scene today. I have written to you before in support of your valiant efforts and I will repeat now that you are not only valuable, I think your spin on the Middle East is indispensible in the morass of downright lies and twists and half-truths much of the US media puts forth daily.

Since I got MER, Truthout, BBC, and other publications online I have ceased looking at news on TV or local newspapers. I find a huge 'gap' in what I find online directly from MER and the news services and what we are supposed to believe from our censored media. Please, we need you now MORE THAN EVER BEFORE IF WE ARE TO BE TRULY INFORMED ABOUT WHAT IS GOING ON IN THE MIDDLE EAST!

It must be a daily grinding challenge to keep MER going and up to par. Whatever your decision in this matter, I think you have done a superb job of informing and influencing people. Really, MER needs to be expanded, not stopped... If I can help you in any way, please LET ME KNOW!

By keeping the print copies of so many articles, many of MER's amongst them, I have been able to look back and plot the future very accurately. I find that most Americans have very short memory-spans. This may be due to believing what they see on TV news, brainwashing repetitive commercials, etc. But, whatever the reason I do not believe that the political I.Q. in this country is high enough to make an informed decision in the 2004 election since Mr. Bush, who should definitely be impeached, still holds such a high percentile in the "popularity polls". Without the clear-mindedness of people like you, little by little the true voice of freedom and rationality will fade away into a New World Order that is not going to be pleasant at all for the majority of people on this planet.

PLEASE keep up the good work! ...I hate to see the many voices for freedom disappear from the I-net due to lack of funds and manpower to keep them going. Again, if I can help you, please let me know.

Love and Light...Kira Pitre, Owner - InfoMagic

Subject: MER suspended? how bad

I've very sorry to hear about the problems with the MER mailing list.
At a time when the media all over the world is so prone to the
political and economical establishment (at times so close to each
other) it is very sad to see an independent voice disappear.

Best regards,
Marco

Subject: Please continue MER

Please continue to provide MER in some form if possible. The information you provided throughout the invasion of IRAQ was invaluable and unparallelled in comparison the media reports elsewhere.

Regards
L&L Nemeth
Australia

Subject: RE: MER has been Suspended

I would like to know if I can help keep MER alive.
I do think that you are an excellent source of information and one I feel
more inclined to trust than the press or TV.

Please let me know how I can help.

Regards,
Naveen.

Subject: Re: MER has been Suspended

Fintan Dooley from Milwaukee, I have a few bucks and a ton of gratude for your work.
I'll send a check.

Fintan Dooley
Milwaukee

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