[Peace-discuss] Response to Criticism of AWARE?

[C. G. Estabrook]

Thanks for the Neptune plug, but that's not the only reason I
think it's a good letter.  --CGE


---- Original message ----
>Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2005 07:40:03 -0700 (PDT)
>From: Ricky Baldwin <baldwinricky at yahoo.com>  
>Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] Response to Criticism of AWARE?  
>To: "C. G. Estabrook" <galliher at uiuc.edu>, Peace Discuss
<peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>
>
>Well, here's mine, for better or worse.  I sent it
>right away on Friday.  I'm sorry that I won't be there
>tonight for the discussion, which I think is
>important.
>
>-Ricky
>
>Dear Editor:
>
>John Bambenek’s column (8-26-05) manages to get just
>about everything backwards.  But space requirements
>limit response to a couple of his slurs.
>
>First, Obama invited AWARE inside after building
>security blocked our entry.  We did not barge in.  And
>if it’s rude to tell the truth, so be it.  
>
>Our intention was certainly never to disrupt, but
>merely to inform his audience (and constituents) about
>his position on this illegal, immoral and stupid war. 
>That is, he wants it to continue.  Any disruption was
>of the senator’s own making: he became irritated
>because we were quietly handing out information on his
>record.
>
>Obama’s aide told me, “Iraq is not a civilized
>country.”  That’s apparently why US troops have to
>stay, attracting terrorists like ants to sugar,
>whether the Iraqis want us or not.  Obama told us his
>focus was “getting elected,” not principles.
>
>Not that many in Congress are any better.  Congressman
>Tim Johnson has prevaricated from the beginning on the
>war, which he supported but has been too chicken to
>own up.  Now he refuses to say what “secret evidence”
>he supposedly saw that supposedly decided his vote for
>mass murder.
>
>And Senator Durbin, if the facts matter, never called
>US troops “Nazis” as Bambenek says.  What he said was,
>echoing Amnesty International and other human rights
>monitors, an FBI report on the US-run Guantanamo
>prison resembled reports on Nazi camps.  The FBI
>report described gruesome “torture techniques” at
>Guantanamo, which Amnesty calls “the gulag of our
>times.”  The shame is that Durbin apologized for
>telling the truth.
>
>Readers who want to learn more can listen to
>“Democracy Now!” weekdays at 4pm on WEFT 90.1 FM,
>“News from Neptune” Saturdays at 10am on WEFT, or
>visit AWARE on the web at www.anti-war.net.
>
>Sincerely,
>Ricky Baldwin
>Urbana resident
>328-3037
>
>
>--- "C. G. Estabrook" <galliher at uiuc.edu> wrote:
>
>> [My response to the column in today's DI that David
>> brought to
>> our attention.  Comments welcome. --CGE]
>> 
>> 
>> Editor, Daily Illini:
>> 
>> Several things are wrong with an August 26 column's
>> account of
>> Sen. Barack Obama's recent "town meeting" (in fact,
>> a PR
>> exercise).  I'll mention two:
>> 
>> First, I don't see how the writer can find the
>> actions of the
>> local group AWARE ("Anti-War Anti-Racism Effort")
>> "disruptive
>> and rude" -- unless he believes, with the national
>> commander
>> of the American Legion, that all "public protests"
>> should end.
>> For those who do believe in the First Amendment,
>> AWARE's
>> experience at the rally was unsettling.  Serious
>> efforts were
>> made to prevent their access to public space with
>> anti-war
>> signs and flyers, until the senator, displaying
>> public
>> magnanimity, invited them into his meeting.  But the
>> authors
>> of the Bill of Rights did not think First Amendment
>> rights
>> should depend on the permission of even a senator.
>> 
>> The second error is more serious -- the column omits
>> any
>> discussion of the war.  But then, so did the
>> senator, for the
>> most part: he took just one (gentle) question on the
>> matter,
>> and never mentioned torture, Iran, the Downing
>> Street minutes,
>> Israel, impeachment, imprisonment without trial by
>> the US
>> government, etc.  Even more surprising was what he
>> did say: 
>> he “hopes US troops could begin to leave Iraq next
>> year, [but]
>> ... Iraq would simply collapse if we left now." 
>> That's the
>> administration's position, and it ignores the fact
>> that a
>> majority of the Iraqis want us to leave now,
>> understandably
>> enough. 
>> 
>> Sen. Obama revealed himself as a liberal enabler of
>> the death
>> and destruction the US has brought to Iraq -- like
>> most of the
>> Democratic party.  His position contrasts sharply
>> with that
>> expressed by Cindy Sheehan, who points out that one
>> is either
>> for the ending of the war and the withdrawal of the
>> US from
>> Iraq, or for its continuance.  
>> 
>> C. G. ESTABROOK
>> Visiting Scholar, UIUC
>> 109 Observatory [MC-190]
>> 901 South Mathews Avenue
>> Urbana IL 61801
>> 244.4105; 359.9466
>> > _______________________________________________
>> Peace-discuss mailing list
>> Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
>>
>http://lists.chambana.net/cgi-bin/listinfo/peace-discuss
>> 
>
>
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