No movement is without it's hypocricy. I had a conversation with my mum this morning and she told me that she thinks the protesters would not be so passionate if they didn't have Bush to hate. She said, "I don't trust the protesters! Their aims are more about political preferences than about ending a war. They are so passionate because they don't like Bush, and if someone they liked was doing the same thing that Bush is doing, they probably would not be protesting." I didn't know what to say. I objected and disagreed, but then I remembered another conversation I had a week ago with a girl in one of my classes. She said exactly what my mom might predict that she would say. She said that if Clinton was the president, she would not be against the war. It made me really angry when she said that. A cause is a cause! If something is wrong, it is wrong, and it doesn't matter who is doing it, or how they justify it. Right?
I came to the conclusion today that movements are good, but movements are dangerous. The goodness comes from the fact that there is motion. People are taking action and thinking about issues. The danger comes from the fact that it is easy to be swept up in a movement. It is easy to let yourself get swung into a certain way of thinking, without thinking very much. I think it is true that Bush being the president has mobilized people to action and polarized the country. It is always useful to have an antagonist.
I think the bottom line is that you can never stop thinking. Even when you get tired of thinking, you can't stop. If you do, bad things will happen.
Let's see if I can find it...as I recall, the folks up North announced their intention to 'deal with' Syria and Iran when they were done with Iraq
Ah, not quite: in a conversation between Sharon and Undersecretary of State John Bolton Bolton said they would 'deal with' not only Iran and Syria, but North Korea.
Pro-war and tired anti-war folks argue that protests aren't going to do any good, but I think that's rather liberating. Modern protests are not aimed at ending the war, in fact, I think most peace people would be upset at this (we're in it now, we might as well finish). These protests have a few agendas:
1) Register this as an unpopular war - this is prolly the reason most protestors are doing it. It's too late to stop the war, but we might as well make it go down in history as one that had heavy resistence. Also, later, Democrats can say Bush ignores the people, show one of the more benign protests, cut to Bush saying he doesn't care about the protests, etc.
2) As a radicalizing force - almost every peace group has commie links. From our own CCPJ, which is tied to the ISO, to international ANSWER, which is flat out run by the Workers' World Party, to Not in Our Name (Revoultionary Communist Party), to Code Pink, which is a more libertarian communist group. The bulk of the people in these protests aren't radicals, yes, but then you start listening to the speeches, every one of them bashes socialism, they actually get you chanting 'Impeach Bush', etc. To tell you the truth, I rather suspect this is the function of the Green Party, too, though not so much commies as anarchists (in particular, moving middle-class liberals to support groups like the ELF/ALF or the Black Bloc).
3) Fuck shit up - or the more politically correct term, 'No Business as Usual'. Aforementioned radicals pretty much figure that they can make the economic and social costs of the war outweigh the economic/social benefits for the government/corporations, not just for this war but for any war. This was popular right after it started (hell, even here we blocked a few streets), now is sort of dying out (New York just had a dismal showout), and will prolly be popular again by May, assuming the war is still going on. The war will have to go on for at least a year, and preferably stay in the focus that long before this one has any chance of making an effect, let alone garnering popular support.
Anyway, that's how I see the protests. Now I'm gonna go read.
"That might be the weblog of an Iraqi living in Baghdad. I would have said it was someone who claims to be an Iraqi living in Baghdad."
I see no reason to doubt him-he's been spot on so far, for instance, when the BBC said that the TV had been taken over he pointed out it hadn't, which was right, it turns out. So he's either in Iraq or has such great contacts in Iraq that he's basically in Iraq. Also, besides the various people who back him up, Google/Blogger, the only folks who have his ip, have been dramatically updating resources for him. I suspect they would have been less willing to help him were he not actually Iraqi. Of course, corporations never cease to amaze me, so I could be wrong.
I rather like that bit, though it's a sort of simplistic view of the world. Like,
'Abandoning IMF/World Bank economic policies that bring mass misery to people in large parts of the world. Initiating a major foreign aid program directed at popular rather than corporate needs.'
Who exactly is the foreign aid program going to give money to? One of the reasons the IMF/World Bank do foreign aid through investing in corporations is because corporations are often better (certainly in the short term) at redistributing money than states are. Don't get me wrong, I think the corporate way is an extremely poorly thought out system that doesn't, in the end, help anyone but the corporations doing it, but you can't just say "and then let's magically get rid of the corporations!"
If I was President Alex, I think my foreign aid program would sponser NGOs and citizen groups that aim to instill-a cliche here but nonetheless-'a culture of democracy'. Of course, this is needed here too (I think we're averaging around 50% voting rates). And I don't mean democracy in the MTV 'Rock the Vote!' sort of thing, I mean people taking control of their lives directly. For instance, in Argentina, after the IMF/World Bank they've been talking about trashed their economies and the state helped, the people have responded by whole heartidly rejecting both: in the last election (voting is mandatory) scribbled ballots won, and there are lots of squats in every urban centre, both legal and illegal. I'm not sure how this relates to foreign aid anymore, but there we are.
Anyway, to get back to the subject at hand, though I agree with that thing it's also rather silly at parts. Withdraw US troops from the Middle East and support the right of national self-determination for all peoples in the MIddle East! Well, the first folks mentioned, the Kurds, sure aren't about to get their own state without our help (interesting random fact: Saddam gave most of his terrorist money to the Kurdistan Workers' Party, a seperatist Kurdish movement in Turkey). Same with the Palestinians. Then it calls for us to support both the Jews and the Palestinians equally. How exactly is that going to happen? That is a debate far too polarized not to take sides. And it's also far too extreme not to use troops.
It seems like we already knew this. I admit that in the first few days of the war with the media talking about quick success, I almost believed it.
Also, I'm not sure if anyone posted the link here, but this is the weblog of an Iraqi living in Baghdad. And this is the diary of an American journalist who went to Iraq to report on the war.
Check out the website for The Campaign for Peace and Democracy.
I found this there, and I like it very much:
The U.S. military may have the ability to destroy Saddam Hussein, but the United States cannot promote democracy in the Muslim world and peace in the Middle East, nor can it deal with the threat posed to all of us by terrorist networks such as Al Qaeda, and by weapons of mass destruction, by pursuing its current policies. Indeed, the U.S. could address these problems only by doing the opposite of what it is doing today -- that is, by:
-Renouncing the use of military intervention to extend and consolidate U.S. imperial power, and withdrawing U.S. troops from the Middle East.
-Ending its support for corrupt and authoritarian regimes, e.g. Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states and Egypt.
-Opposing, and ending U.S. complicity in, all forms of terrorism worldwide -- not just by Al Qaeda, Palestinian suicide bombers and Chechen hostage takers, but also by -Colombian paramilitaries, the Israeli military in the Occupied Territories and Russian counterinsurgency forces in Chechnya.
-Supporting the right of national self-determination for all peoples in the Middle East, including the Kurds, Palestinians and Israeli Jews. Ending one-sided support for Israel in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
-Taking unilateral steps toward renouncing weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons, and vigorously promoting international disarmament treaties.
-Abandoning IMF/World Bank economic policies that bring mass misery to people in large parts of the world. Initiating a major foreign aid program directed at popular rather than corporate needs.
I just read this article in the Daily Texan, and I think it is wonderful. It contains many good reasons for being against the war.
-----------------
By Mark Whipple (Daily Texan Columnist)
March 27, 2003
I am just one United States citizen, but I feel the need to say that I support our troops no more than I support the lives of innocent Iraqi citizens. Which is to say that I desperately support both, but I reject the unnatural distinction between humans based on some arbitrary line drawn between countries. To Daily Texan columnist Christian Hurt and many others, however, I am "anti-American." It is a charge I'm willing to live with, for I am not willing to engage in the kind of activity that would make me properly and fully "pro-American." In this time of misguided hyper-patriotism, that would mean accepting that a war pushed by right-wing corporate and military men with the ultimate goal of securing a more advantageous geopolitical position in the Middle East is somehow morally right simply because it is done in the name of the country in which I reside.
In his column Monday, Hurt wrote, "As sorrowing as the thought of dead Iraqi civilians is, more so is the possibility of our brothers and sisters dying in the desert or drowning in the Gulf." This statement cannot be refuted with logic. Hurt is simply stating the way he personally feels: In no remotely objective sense is it true that American deaths are more "sorrowing" than Iraqi deaths. To many, they are equally sorrowful. Then again, for many Iraqi citizens, Iraqi deaths are more sorrowful.
But Hurt and others put forth this type of thinking as almost unquestionable and self-evidently true. Coming not even 60 years on the heels of discredited Nazi Germany, why is this American form of nationalism legitimated, even celebrated?
Clearly one reason is the media propaganda campaign that is currently taking place right before our eyes. While the "Shock and Awe" bombing campaign against Iraq has been in full force about a week now, this does not mean that America is "united" behind this war. Quite the contrary: Efforts by protesters have led to a still-expanding number of U.S. citizens who emphatically oppose this war.
Immediately, the U.S. news media have responded by unleashing a campaign intended to manufacture "unity" - that is, stigmatize protesters by presenting them as "unpatriotic" and somehow hostile to the troops invading Baghdad. This stigmatization can only work if there is some sort of assumption that "true" patriotism puts American lives above Iraqi lives.
While this media campaign no doubt plays a role, I suspect something even greater is at work. Hurt's column, and similar rhetorical strategies put forth by others, smacks of a disturbed, I'm-stronger-than-you worldview in which the most powerful are the most deserved. They do not celebrate human life, but domination. This indifferent view of human life and utter worship of power comes from the top - powerful elites looking to impress this worldview upon folks vulnerable to manipulation from above.
According to a Washington Post report, current U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld traveled to Baghdad in 1983 to visit Saddam Hussein. At the time of their meeting, Saddam had already used chemical weapons against Iran "on an 'almost daily' basis in defiance of international conventions." That's right, the same type of chemical weapons the Bush Team uses to justify this war. Funny, the weapons weren't such a problem in 1983. That's because, until the 1991 Gulf War, the United States had a working relationship with Saddam Hussein - despite his repeated gassing of Kurds in 1988 and massacre of Shiites in early 1991. Before 1991, the United States looked the other way while Saddam Hussein carried out his brutal dictatorship.
That they supported Saddam in the past only means the U.S. has a moral responsibility to act now, right? Not quite. Rumsfeld's meeting with Iraq in 1983 - while Iraq posed the same threat as they do now- reveals factors motivating the Bush Team to depose Saddam.
This war is not about weapons of mass destruction. This war is not about liberating Iraqi citizens, protecting peace, or promoting democracy. The motivations are strongly anti-democratic: the U.S. goal is to militarily implement a puppet-regime in Baghdad in order to have both a stronger presence in the Middle East and access to cheap oil - "disarmament" and democracy are merely pretenses for their imperial visions.
Excuse me Mr. Hurt and others, for not "unifying" behind this war. No amount of media propaganda or attempts to demonize the protesters by making them appear in opposition to the American troops can mask what history will one day reveal:
The global protest movement is truly righteous - it opposes both Saddam Hussein and the global power struggle currently dominated by the United States. The Campaign for Peace and Democracy has written a broad statement summed up by the following: "We Oppose Both Saddam Hussein and the U.S. War on Iraq." Its Web site, cpdweb.org, contains the rest of the statement and shows how you can reject brutal dictatorships, imperial superpowers, and the new global fascists who have manipulated people like Christian Hurt into thinking American lives are more important than all others.
Monsters exist, but they are too few in number to be truly dangerous. More
dangerous are the common men, the functionaries ready to believe and to act
without asking questions.
-Primo Levi
I've been thinking about this quote and I think it is true. At first it didn't sit well with me because I thought that it was dismissing the power of tyrants, but then I realized that tyrants cannot have power unless the "common men" let them have it. So it is not the tyrant that is dangerous, but it is the process by which people allow the tyrant to become powerful that is the real danger. I don't know if you can blame the people though. It seems wrong to blame the regular people for something that happens without their direct action ensuring that it happens. The people of Iraq did not intend for such a terrible man to rule them - it happened slowly. My Sunday school teacher for 10 years was a woman from Iraq. She told us that at first Saddam Hussain was very much loved. He did alot for women and their rights to higher education. He was progressive and secular. But he slowly became worse. I think the dangerous thing about power is that if it is acquired slowly, it is easy to ignore. This is why when people such as Michael Moore, and others like him, cry out in fear at what the United States is doing in the Middle East (and at home with civil liberties) people can mostly ignore him. If someone says "The United States is fascist!" or "Our government is chipping away at our civil liberties!" It is very easy to tone it out. Our everyday life is not at all reflective of these enormous (and frightening) changes. We wake up, eat breakfast, go to work, walk the dog, watch the news, talk to our friends, go to the movies, play games, give birth, go to funerals and live - and nothing much seems different! It is terrifying to think of how easy it is to be subdued. Nobody knows what the long term effects of this war will be, but the "left" is frightened. The "right" seems to be so very gung-ho, without thinking very much. YES, there are reasons for this war - some of them are about power and oil and "securing our foreign interests" and some of them are about human rights and getting rid of a dictator that should never have come to power. But is war the solution? Is war ever a solution? In light of the history of the world: no. No!!!! War is a red herring too. Things happen and we don't pay attention to them because we are all looking at the war. We are all thinking about the war, but is all of our thinking accomplishing anything? I am proud of the fact that in the United States we have the right to protest. The police are generally friendly, and the media at least will always report that "there was a protest" even if it falls on deaf ears. But I am somewhat dissillusioned by protests because it seems to bring to surface the fact that we are not being heard. We do not have a voice, really. Our government will go on with it's plans regardless of what the people say, and in time, most of the people will sit down and be quiet, or be converted. A few weeks ago, a guy wrote in to the The Daily Texan the following.
----"I would like to share the quotation from Hermann Goering, the president of the Reichstag during Nazi Germany and the commander-in-chief of the Luftwaffe. It reads as follows:
'Naturally the common people don't want war. Neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a facist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the biddings of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.' "
Another difficult thing: not being an alarmist, not becoming blinded by agenda and rhetoric, not being swept up in a movement, not turning off your brain. How do we know who the monsters are? How do we know when enough is enough? How do we tell the difference between wrong and right? When do we act? How do we act? It takes so much thought, research, time, and effort to answer these questions. I think that is the reason most people never ask the questions. And if you ask the question is it any better? If I don't know the answer, I put the question away. I set it in a drawer, and lock the drawer, and worry about it. But thats no good. How do we recognize and channel legitimate fear? When do you know if you are irrational? What is the right kind of action to take? Lynette chose to sit in the road because in her world view, that was the best she could do with what she had, at that time. How can we condemn her! How is it that we have become so obsessed with appearance and public opinion. Public opinion is a mythical beast that we all believe in. It's an old beast too.
And though this page is rapidly becoming little more than a collection of links to Salon.com articles, here's another good one.
As the Arab League demands our withdrawal, Bush squabbles with Russia then asks for $75 billion for his war. This war is not going well. And we haven't even hit Baghdad yet, where I think the worst is going to happen. Still, I could be wrong, the resistence could dissolve away, the other arab nations will go along with everything, protests will die down, etc.
Just as an interesting note. I came across this on the National Review yesterday, the National Review being the biggest conservative journal. The editor proposes we invade and conquer Africa. Bizarre. I used to think conservatives were reasonable people, but then I read NR and even more Frontpage and one realises they must all be completely wacko. Especially the comments on Frontpage.
Michael Hoffman wrote this in responce to the argument between Lynette and Lance. (see Lynette's thoughts about civil disobedience).
"I have never seen the country so polarized and it scares the hell out of me. There doesn't seem to be a whole lot of constructive discourse going on, and I'm not just talking about here. It's just really hard to find common ground these days."
Here is his latest post in his kuro5hin diary. Click here to read the discussion that follows.
"I misunderestimated the Bushies"
"I used to think that the incredibly bad diplomacy carried on by the Bush team, and especially Donald Rumsfeld was sheer stupidity. I thought that they could have gone after the same objectives in a way that did not alienate US friends and allies, in a way that did not tear the fabric of the Atlantic alliance, in a way that did not undermine the idea of collective security through the United Nations.
I am starting to realize that I was wrong.
I realize now that Rumsfeld and the Bush team could not have achieved all their objectives with more competent diplomacy. This is because they had some objectives that I did not realize. They wanted to piss off our former friends. They wanted to destroy the credibility of the UN, because to them it already had no credibility. They wanted nothing to stand in the way of their vision of a hyperpower extending its might and ideology across the globe, and they would think that all these alliances just entangled us. "
Lynette wrote down some of her thoughts about civil disobedience in her livejournal. I think she makes some very good points, but so did the people who commented. It's a good conversation.
It is good to see that so far there have been few casualties on both sides, and it will be very interesting to see what happens after the fighting is over, Saddam is dead, and the real work begins. I truely hope that the United States is committed to rebuilding what we're destroying. Even though I think Saddam is evil, and I will be happy if this is a short, decisive war with few casualties, I will still be against the war. I think there are better ways to solve the problem! If we are to move forward, war has to be an absolute last resort. I think that military force should be used very carefully because it is dangerous, expensive and the outcomes are haphazard and unpredictable. It seems that the Bush administration agrees. Whe else would we be so nervous about another country (albeit one that is lead by a power-hungry tyrant) amassing weapons of mass destruction? We have weapons of mass destruction! And who's to say that we are not a power hungry country. I don't know how a leader could make the decision to go to war right now. I certainly couldn't. It is such an enormous responsibility, and the lives of countless people will be effected, now and into the future.
Nearly 200,000 anti-war demonstrators took to the streets of Manhattan on Saturday, protesting the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq even as bombs rained down on Baghdad again.
Smaller demonstrations took place in dozens of cities nationwide, from thousands marching in San Francisco to several hundred protesters snaking through downtown Washington, chanting, ``No blood for oil!''
In New York, the turnout for a march that was 20 abreast and 40 blocks long surprised some parade organizers. They had worried that the round-the-clock bombing and videotape of U.S. tanks racing across the Iraqi desert might cause some anti-war Americans to despair. Instead, unofficial police estimates of the crowd size grew steadily through the day, and marchers spoke of their determination to be heard a final time.
``It's too late to stop the war, but it's important to register that this is an unpopular war,'' said Joe Fitzgerald, 45, a musician who marched past Manhattan's tree-lined Union Square with his child and his wife, Deane Beebe. ``Our government's reasoning is so nakedly cynical -- one day it's because of Al-Qaida, then weapons of mass destruction, then to establish a military presence.
``The pretext for this invasion changes ever day.''
Some celebrities joined in, including actors Roy Scheider, Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee, and singer Patti Smith.
``We support the troops, but we do not support the president,'' said Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., a Korean War veteran.
About 2,000 police officers were assigned to the rally, including undercover officers with beeper-sized radiation detectors and other counterterrorism measures.
Police, protesters scuffle
After the permit for the march expired at 4 p.m., several hundred protesters refused officers' orders to clear the area, and some scuffled with police. Hundreds of officers in riot gear and officers on horseback pulled one protester after another out of the crowd and placed them in a police truck.
Police said 74 people were arrested. Protesters said police used pepper spray, and police said 14 officers were getting medical treatment after being sprayed with an unknown substance.
D.C. demonstrators defy police
In Washington, demonstrators descended on the White House and Northwest Washington neighborhoods in an improvised day of protests marked by sometimes-tense standoffs with police at Lafayette Square and near Logan Circle.
Unlike anti-war marches in Washington in recent weeks, in which organizers have largely worked with authorities to map out routes, Saturday's demonstrations at times took place in defiance of a heavy federal and local police presence.
Shortly after noon at 15th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, marchers brushed aside barricades to enter Lafayette Square across from the White House, which was closed to demonstrations larger than 25 after the Sept. 11 terror attacks. Later, as hundreds of marchers left the square to head up 14th Street, the chanting protesters circled back and ducked into alleys near Logan Circle to escape a police escort.
March down Sunset Boulevard
In Hollywood, war protesters marched down Sunset Boulevard, complaining that news coverage is slanted. One sign showed a photo of an Iraqi mother with a wounded child and said, ``Collateral damage has a face.''
In Chicopee, Mass., 53 of about 1,500 protesters were arrested when they blocked a road to Westover Air Reserve Base during an anti-war rally.
Sixteen protesters were arrested on trespassing charges when they refused to leave Iowa's National Guard headquarters in Johnston. One of them, Carolyn Uhlenhake Walker, an elementary-school teacher, declared, ``I'm a patriot, and I'm offended by people that say we don't love our country.''
In El Prado, N.M., anti-war activists lay down in front of the part-time home of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who wasn't there.
