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…is among the creators of copyright-free, print-out-yourself badge and banner designs at Another Poster for Peace.
…of the battles and their aftermaths can be seen at This Is Gulf War 2. Warning: They’re not pretty.
…”The war is getting messy, but the peace will be much worse:”
” The Bush administration’s plan to keep several hundred thousand U.S. and British troops for years in a divided, heavily armed Muslim country will make all Americans “targets of opportunity” for terrorists and become a rallying point for fundamentalist revolutionaries throughout the world.”
CAT POWER AND EUGENE CHADBOURNE are among the artists with lively tunes of dissent available for downloadin’ at Protest Records.
…would like y’all to visit his own site Where’s the War?, full of linx to not-necessarily-White-House-spun war news items from across the Web.
TODAY, SOME IMAGES from the past five days of local protests. As in the 1991 war, these were centered at the Federal Building. And as in the 1991 war, they tactically differed from the prewar protests.
The prewar protests included broad coalitions of groups, including labor unions and churches. They were devised to bring as many people as possible to one place at one time.
Last week’s protests were largely coordinated by the Radical Women/Freedom Socialist Party. They were devised as long vigils with a couple of extra highlighted gathering times (particularly Thursday evening). This diffused the number of potential participants, and emphasized the role of those for whom protesting is a year-round way of life.
That meant the speakers’ podium was dominated by dudes (almost all of whom were bearded) and dudettes who wanted to tie in the Iraq war with darned near everything else they didn’t like, from McDonald’s and health-care budget cuts to the capitalist system in general.
Even if we’re not doing this primarily for how it will look in the media, it’d still be to our advantage if it didn’t look like only the lifestyle-leftists still wanted peace. We need the experienced dedicated protestors; but we need to keep the rest of the populace in this as well. And that means bigger coalitions creating bigger events, which also recruit people from all walks-O-life into ongoing works in the more boring parts of the task (organizing, letter-writing, etc.)
IN OTHER NEWS, J.C. Penney had a commercial during the Oscars with average suburban young-women’s clothes modeled on screen while an off-screen singer proclaimed “I’m a One-Girl Revolution.” What if we had a 200-million-girl-and-boy revolution that was about something other than wearing different clothes?
What would an actual revolution be like today? What would be replaced, and what would it be replaced with? Any ideas? Lemme know.
…may still have a long-term effect on US policy, by raising popular support about the country’s directions.
WE DON’T KNOW WHO MADE IT, but here’s a hilariously intoxicating Gulf War 2 Drinking Game:
drink when: bush is called a crusader x2 if its by saddam saddam is called evil x2 if its by bush iraq troops surrender to the media x2 if to a unmanned vehicle or inanimate object a member of the media gets shot at a toast to the shooter if its ashleigh banfield (msnbc), geraldo riviera (fox) or arron brown (cnn) the united states terrorist threat level changes the united states government tries to link iraq to 9-11 someone implies tony blair is bush’s bitch someone implies scott ritter is Saddam’s bitch anybody ‘warns’ anybody the word “escalation” is used the media compares the war to blackhawk down x2 if its because a blackhawk really goes down a puppet government is installed in iraq x2 if its by the puppet government installed in the US
drink when:
…here’s The Nation’s listing of national antiwar resource links and Mother Jones’s daily updates of un-spun news.
…another elequent warning speech on the Senate floor:
“…Today I weep for my country. I have watched the events of recent months with a heavy, heavy heart. No more is the image of America one of strong, yet benevolent peacekeeper. The image of America has changed. Around the globe, our friends mistrust us, our word is disputed, our intentions are questioned. Instead of reasoning with those with whom we disagree, we demand obedience or threaten recrimination. Instead of isolating Saddam Hussein, we seem to have isolated ourselves. We proclaim a new doctrine of preemption which is understood by few and feared by many. We say that the United States has the right to turn its firepower on any corner of the globe which might be suspect in the war on terrorism. We assert that right without the sanction of any international body. As a result, the world has become a much more dangerous place. We flaunt our superpower status with arrogance. We treat UN Security Council members like ingrates who offend our princely dignity by lifting their heads from the carpet. Valuable alliances are split. After war has ended, the United States will have to rebuild much more than the country of Iraq. We will have to rebuild America’s image around the globe…. A pall has fallen over the Senate Chamber. We avoid our solemn duty to debate the one topic on the minds of all Americans, even while scores of thousands of our sons and daughters faithfully do their duty in Iraq. What is happening to this country? When did we become a nation which ignores and berates our friends? When did we decide to risk undermining international order by adopting a radical and doctrinaire approach to using our awesome military might? How can we abandon diplomatic efforts when the turmoil in the world cries out for diplomacy? Why can this President not seem to see that America’s true power lies not in its will to intimidate, but in its ability to inspire?… I along with millions of Americans will pray for the safety of our troops, for the innocent civilians in Iraq, and for the security of our homeland. May God continue to bless the United States of America in the troubled days ahead, and may we somehow recapture the vision which for the present eludes us.”
“…Today I weep for my country. I have watched the events of recent months with a heavy, heavy heart. No more is the image of America one of strong, yet benevolent peacekeeper. The image of America has changed. Around the globe, our friends mistrust us, our word is disputed, our intentions are questioned.
Instead of reasoning with those with whom we disagree, we demand obedience or threaten recrimination. Instead of isolating Saddam Hussein, we seem to have isolated ourselves. We proclaim a new doctrine of preemption which is understood by few and feared by many. We say that the United States has the right to turn its firepower on any corner of the globe which might be suspect in the war on terrorism. We assert that right without the sanction of any international body. As a result, the world has become a much more dangerous place.
We flaunt our superpower status with arrogance. We treat UN Security Council members like ingrates who offend our princely dignity by lifting their heads from the carpet. Valuable alliances are split.
After war has ended, the United States will have to rebuild much more than the country of Iraq. We will have to rebuild America’s image around the globe….
A pall has fallen over the Senate Chamber. We avoid our solemn duty to debate the one topic on the minds of all Americans, even while scores of thousands of our sons and daughters faithfully do their duty in Iraq.
What is happening to this country? When did we become a nation which ignores and berates our friends? When did we decide to risk undermining international order by adopting a radical and doctrinaire approach to using our awesome military might? How can we abandon diplomatic efforts when the turmoil in the world cries out for diplomacy?
Why can this President not seem to see that America’s true power lies not in its will to intimidate, but in its ability to inspire?…
I along with millions of Americans will pray for the safety of our troops, for the innocent civilians in Iraq, and for the security of our homeland. May God continue to bless the United States of America in the troubled days ahead, and may we somehow recapture the vision which for the present eludes us.”
NEWSWEEK’S EXCELLENT COVER STORY by Fareed Zakaria, “The Arrogant Empire,” is chock-full-O-lucid-observations. Among them:
“A war with Iraq, even if successful, might solve the Iraq problem. It doesn’t solve the America problem. What worries people around the world above all else is living in a world shaped and dominated by one country–the United States. And they have come to be deeply suspicious and fearful of us….”The Bush administration’s swagger has generated international opposition and active measures to thwart its will. Though countries like France and Russia cannot become great-power competitors simply because they want to–they need economic and military strength–they can use what influence they have to disrupt American policy, as they are doing over Iraq. In fact, the less responsibility we give them, the more freedom smaller powers have to make American goals difficult to achieve…. “America’s special role in the world–its ability to buck history–is based not simply on its great strength, but on a global faith that this power is legitimate. If America squanders that, the loss will outweigh any gains in domestic security. And this next American century could prove to be lonely, brutish and short.”
“A war with Iraq, even if successful, might solve the Iraq problem. It doesn’t solve the America problem. What worries people around the world above all else is living in a world shaped and dominated by one country–the United States. And they have come to be deeply suspicious and fearful of us….”The Bush administration’s swagger has generated international opposition and active measures to thwart its will. Though countries like France and Russia cannot become great-power competitors simply because they want to–they need economic and military strength–they can use what influence they have to disrupt American policy, as they are doing over Iraq. In fact, the less responsibility we give them, the more freedom smaller powers have to make American goals difficult to achieve….
“America’s special role in the world–its ability to buck history–is based not simply on its great strength, but on a global faith that this power is legitimate. If America squanders that, the loss will outweigh any gains in domestic security. And this next American century could prove to be lonely, brutish and short.”
DANNY SCHECHTER offers up a handy list of media war-coverage cliches to watch out for.
FOR MAINSTREAM MEDIA WAR COVERAGE ONLINE, here’s a list from CyberJournalist.Net.
…also passes along the following anonymous email she received from “a political consultant I know in Boston”:
“All right, let me see if I understand the logic of this correctly. We are going to ignore the United Nations in order to make clear to Saddam Hussein that the United Nations cannot be ignored. We’re going to wage war to preserve the UN’s ability to avert war. The paramount principle is that the UN’s word must be taken seriously, and if we have to subvert its word to guarantee that it is, then by gum, we will. Peace is too important not to take up arms to defend. Am I getting this right?”Further, if the only way to bring democracy to Iraq is to vitiate the democracy of the Security Council, then we are honor-bound to do that too, because democracy, as we define it, is too important to be stopped by a little thing like democracy as they define it. “Also, in dealing with a man who brooks no dissension at home, we cannot afford dissension among ourselves. We must speak with one voice against Saddam Hussein’s failure to allow opposing voices to be heard. We are sending our gathered might to the Persian Gulf to make the point that might does not make right, as Saddam Hussein seems to think it does. “And we are twisting the arms of the opposition until it agrees to let us oust a regime that twists the arms of the opposition. We cannot leave in power a dictator who ignores his own people. And if our people, and people elsewhere in the world, fail to understand that, then we have no choice but to ignore them. “Listen. Don’t misunderstand. I think it is a good thing that the members of the Bush administration seem to have been reading Lewis Carroll. I only wish someone had pointed out that “Alice in Wonderland” and “Through the Looking Glass” are meditations on paradox and puzzle and illogic and on the strangeness of things, not templates for foreign policy. It is amusing for the Mad Hatter to say something like, `We must make war on him because he is a threat to peace,’ but not amusing for someone who actually commands an army to say that. “As a collector of laughable arguments, I’d be enjoying all this were it not for the fact that I know–we all know–that lives are going to be lost in what amounts to a freak, circular reasoning accident.”
“All right, let me see if I understand the logic of this correctly. We are
going to ignore the United Nations in order to make clear to Saddam
Hussein that the United Nations cannot be ignored. We’re going to wage war
to preserve the UN’s ability to avert war. The paramount principle is that
the UN’s word must be taken seriously, and if we have to subvert its word
to guarantee that it is, then by gum, we will. Peace is too important not
to take up arms to defend. Am I getting this right?”Further, if the only way to bring democracy to Iraq is to vitiate the
democracy of the Security Council, then we are honor-bound to do that too,
because democracy, as we define it, is too important to be stopped by a
little thing like democracy as they define it.
“Also, in dealing with a man who brooks no dissension at home, we cannot
afford dissension among ourselves. We must speak with one voice against
Saddam Hussein’s failure to allow opposing voices to be heard. We are
sending our gathered might to the Persian Gulf to make the point that
might does not make right, as Saddam Hussein seems to think it does.
“And we are twisting the arms of the opposition until it agrees to let us
oust a regime that twists the arms of the opposition. We cannot leave in
power a dictator who ignores his own people. And if our people, and people
elsewhere in the world, fail to understand that, then we have no choice
but to ignore them.
“Listen. Don’t misunderstand. I think it is a good thing that the members
of the Bush administration seem to have been reading Lewis Carroll. I only
wish someone had pointed out that “Alice in Wonderland” and “Through the
Looking Glass” are meditations on paradox and puzzle and illogic and on
the strangeness of things, not templates for foreign policy. It is amusing
for the Mad Hatter to say something like, `We must make war on him because
he is a threat to peace,’ but not amusing for someone who actually
commands an army to say that.
“As a collector of laughable arguments, I’d be enjoying all this were it
not for the fact that I know–we all know–that lives are going to be lost
in what amounts to a freak, circular reasoning accident.”
KARLA HAILER-FIDELMAN explains why dissenters are the true patriots:
“Personally, I don’t need to hide behind a flying flag to be proud of being an American and I know that so long as I can speak out, my brand of patriotism will survive over the sheepish bleating of those who believe you have to go along because someone said so.”
They’d promised to do it for months now. They never wanted anything else but this, and made sure there would be no other scenario but “we’re gonna go to war anyway, anyhow, period.” The Republican sleaze machine wanted war. It always wanted war. Not war-unless-you-capitulate. Not war-unless-you-disarm. Just war, period. And now it’s got one.
Now it’s up to us, to all of us worldwide, to take their war away from them.
