[Peace-discuss] Remarks for Thursday protest, noon on campus

[Karen Medina]

Carl,

I like it. 

I think I might include several of the other presidential candidates as well as Obama -- while he is worth picking on, so is Hilary Clinton. 

Or maybe I would emphasize the positive by naming the very few good anti-war people on both sides of the isle-- some ARE worth watching and asking our reps to support. 

But then, part of the reason I am not speaking is because I can never make up my mind what is the most important thing to say or how to say it.

-karen medina

---- Original message ----
>Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2007 11:44:11 -0500
>From: "C. G. Estabrook" <galliher at uiuc.edu>  
>Subject: [Peace-discuss] Remarks for Thursday protest, noon on campus  
>To: Peace Discuss <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>
>
>[Apparently Bob Naiman and I are to divide AWARE's five minutes at 
>tomorrow's demo.  Here's my 2.5 minutes (delivered at the usual rate of 
>the news notes at the meeting).  Suggestions welcome.  --CGE]
>
>
>[1] AWARE is a local anti-war group formed just after the 9-11 attacks, 
>by people around here who realized that the "Global War on Terrorism" 
>was a fraud -- a cover for American imperialism.  The name stands for 
>"Anti-War Anti-Racism Effort," and it includes people from 
>Champaign-Urbana from their mid-teens to their mid-eighties, university 
>and non-university.
>
>[2] Among other things, AWARE holds monthly demonstrations against the 
>administration's wars -- past, present and future; we also arranged for 
>the local referendums in last fall's elections, when people in 
>Champaign-Urbana voted FOR withdrawal from Iraq and FOR the impeachment 
>of Bush and Chaney.
>
>[3] Across the country Americans voted against the war last fall, so 
>some politicians, particularly Democrats, had to begin to say that they 
>were against the war.  But we should realize that there are two ways to 
>be anti-war now, one real and one fake.
>
>[4] The first way is to recognize that the US government has 
>consistently misrepresented the situation in the Middle East -- from the 
>9/11 attacks through the Iraqi "weapons of mass destruction" to the 
>attack on Lebanon -- to justify murderous and criminal policies, up to 
>and including launching aggressive war -- which the Nuremberg Trials 
>called "the supreme international crime" (that is, worse than 
>terrorism).  The US should therefore withdraw completely from Iraq (and 
>Afghanistan), as a large majority of Iraqis wish; pay reparations; and 
>hold accountable those guilty of prosecuting this war, beginning with 
>impeachment.
>
>[5] But the second way to call yourself anti-war is to call for a 
>"re-deployment" of US forces in the Middle East, so that the central 
>point of the long-term US policy in the region -- control of the 
>region's energy resources, a decisive advantage for the US over Europe 
>and Asia -- can be maintained, while the US washes its hands of any 
>responsibility for the countries it has invaded and devastated.  That is 
>the way of most of our anti-war Democrats, including Mr. Obama, and it 
>is a cynical pretense.
>
>[6] AWARE wants to help build a real anti-war movement.  We meet every 
>Sunday night at 5pm at the Old Post Office in Urbana.  Come join us.  We 
>have a war to end.
>
>	###
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