[Peace-discuss] Creative protesting? It'll at least make you laugh!
Rachel Storm
rstorm2 at illinois.edu
Fri Dec 5 03:20:43 CST 2008
http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/c0cf508ff8/prop-8-the-musical-starring-jack-black-john-c-reilly-and-many-more-from-fod-team-jack-black-craig-robinson-john-c-reilly-and-rashida-jones
---- Original message ----
>Date: Thu, 4 Dec 2008 12:23:07 -0600
>From: "Brussel Morton K." <mkbrussel at comcast.net>
>Subject: [Peace-discuss] More from the estimable Bill Blum
>To: Peace Discuss <peace-discuss at anti-war.net>
>
> Carl used a snippet of what follows. The whole piece
> is estimable, if long.
> --mkb
>
> The Anti-Empire Report
>
> December 1st, 2008
> by William Blum
> www.killinghope.org
>
> Vote First. Ask Questions Later.
>
> Okay, let's get the obvious out of the way. It was
> historic. I choked up a number of times, tears came
> to my eyes, even though I didn't vote for him. I
> voted for Ralph Nader for the fourth time in a row.
>
> During the past eight years when I've listened to
> news programs on the radio each day I've made sure
> to be within a few feet of the radio so I could
> quickly change the station when that preposterous
> man or one of his disciples came on; I'm not a
> masochist, I suffer fools very poorly, and I get
> bored easily. Sad to say, I'm already turning the
> radio off sometimes when Obama comes on. He doesn't
> say anything, or not enough, or not often enough.
> Platitudes, clichés, promises without substance,
> "hope and change", almost everything without
> sufficient substance, "change and hope", without
> specifics, designed not to offend. What exactly are
> the man's principles? He never questions the
> premises of the empire. Never questions the premises
> of the "War on Terror". I'm glad he won for two
> reasons only: John McCain and Sarah Palin, and I
> deeply resent the fact that the American system
> forces me to squeeze out a drop of pleasure from
> something so far removed from my ideals. Obama's
> votes came at least as much from people desperate
> for relief from neo-conservative suffocation as from
> people who genuinely believed in him. It's a form of
> extortion – Vote for Obama or you get more of the
> same. Those are your only choices.
>
> Is there reason to be happy that the insufferably
> religious George W. is soon to be history? "I
> believe that Christ died for my sins and I am
> redeemed through him. That is a source of strength
> and sustenance on a daily basis." That was said by
> someone named Barack Obama.1 The United States turns
> out religious fanatics like the Japanese turn out
> cars. Let's pray for an end to this.
>
> As I've mentioned before, if you're one of those who
> would like to believe that Obama has to present
> center-right foreign policy views to be elected, but
> once he's in the White House we can forget that he
> misled us repeatedly and the true, progressive man
> of peace and international law and human rights will
> emerge ... keep in mind that as a US Senate
> candidate in 2004 he threatened missile strikes
> against Iran2, and winning that election apparently
> did not put him in touch with his inner peacenik.
> He's been threatening Iran ever since.
>
> The world is in terrible shape. I don't think I have
> to elucidate on that remark. How nice, how
> marvelously nice it would be to have an American
> president who was infused with progressive values
> and political courage. Just imagine what could be
> done. Like a quick and complete exit from Iraq. You
> can paint the picture as well as I can. With his
> popularity Obama could get away with almost
> anything, but he'll probably continue to play it
> safe. Or what may be more precise, he'll continue to
> be himself; which, apparently, is a committed
> centrist. He's not really against the war. Not like
> you and I are. During Obama's first four years in
> the White House, the United States will not leave
> Iraq. I doubt that he'd allow a complete withdrawal
> even in a second term. Has he ever unequivocally
> called the war illegal and immoral? A crime against
> humanity? Why is he so close to Colin Powell? Does
> he not know of Powell's despicable role in the war?
> And retaining George W. Bush's Defense Secretary,
> Robert Gates, a man against whom it would not be
> difficult to draw up charges of war crimes? Will he
> also find a place for Rumsfeld? And Arizona Governor
> Janet Napolitano, a supporter of the war, to run the
> Homeland Security department? And General James
> Jones, a former NATO commander (sic), who wants to
> "win" in Iraq and Afghanistan, and who backed John
> McCain, as his National Security Adviser? Jones is
> on the Board of Directors of the Boeing Corporation
> and Chevron Oil. Out of what dark corner of Obama's
> soul does all this come?
>
> As Noam Chomsky recently pointed out, the election
> of an indigenous person (Evo Morales) in Bolivia and
> a progressive person (Jean-Bertrand Aristide) in
> Haiti were more historic than the election of Barack
> Obama.
>
> He's not really against torture either. Not like you
> and I are. No one will be punished for using or
> ordering torture. No one will be impeached because
> of torture. Michael Ratner, president of the Center
> for Constitutional Rights, says that prosecuting
> Bush officials is necessary to set future
> anti-torture policy. "The only way to prevent this
> from happening again is to make sure that those who
> were responsible for the torture program pay the
> price for it. I don't see how we regain our moral
> stature by allowing those who were intimately
> involved in the torture programs to simply walk off
> the stage and lead lives where they are not held
> accountable."3
>
> As president, Obama cannot remain silent and do
> nothing; otherwise he will inherit the war crimes of
> Bush and Cheney and become a war criminal himself.
> Closing the Guantanamo hell-hole means nothing at
> all if the prisoners are simply moved to other
> torture dungeons. If Obama is truly against torture,
> why does he not declare that after closing
> Guantanamo the inmates will be tried in civilian
> courts in the US or resettled in countries where
> they clearly face no risk of torture? And simply
> affirm that his administration will faithfully abide
> by the 1984 Convention Against Torture and Other
> Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment, of which the
> United States is a signatory, and which states: "The
> term 'torture' means any act by which severe pain or
> suffering, whether physical or mental, is
> intentionally inflicted on a person for such
> purposes as obtaining information or a confession
> ... inflicted by or at the instigation of or with
> the consent or acquiescence of a public official or
> any other person acting in an official capacity."
>
> The convention affirms that: "No exceptional
> circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or
> a threat of war, internal political stability or any
> other public emergency, may be invoked as a
> justification of torture."
>
> Instead, Obama has appointed former CIA official
> John O. Brennan as an adviser on intelligence
> matters and co-leader of his intelligence transition
> team. Brennan has called "rendition" – the
> kidnap-and-torture program carried out under the
> Clinton and Bush administrations – a "vital tool",
> and praised the CIA's interrogation techniques for
> providing "lifesaving" intelligence.4
>
> Obama may prove to be as big a disappointment as
> Nelson Mandela, who did painfully little to improve
> the lot of the masses of South Africa while turning
> the country over to the international forces of
> globalization. I make this comparison not because
> both men are black, but because both produced such
> great expectations in their home country and
> throughout the world. Mandela was freed from prison
> on the assumption of the Apartheid leaders that he
> would become president and pacify the restless black
> population while ruling as a non-radical,
> free-market centrist without undue threat to white
> privilege. It's perhaps significant that in his
> autobiography he declines to blame the CIA for his
> capture in 1962 even though the evidence to support
> this is compelling.5 It appears that Barack Obama
> made a similar impression upon the American power
> elite who vetted him in many fundraising and other
> meetings and smoothed the way for his highly
> unlikely ascendancy from obscure state senator to
> the presidency in four years. The financial support
> from the corporate world to sell "Brand Obama" was
> extraordinary.
>
> Another comparison might be with Tony Blair. The
> Tories could never have brought in university fees
> or endless brutal wars, but New Labour did. The
> Republicans would have had a very difficult time
> bringing back the draft, but I can see Obama
> reinstating it, accompanied by a suitable slogan,
> some variation of "Yes, we can!".
>
> I do hope I'm wrong, about his past and about how
> he'll rule as president. I hope I'm very wrong.
>
> Many people are calling for progressives to
> intensely lobby the Obama administration, to exert
> pressure to bring out the "good Obama", force him to
> commit himself, hold him accountable. The bold
> reforms of Roosevelt's New Deal were spurred by
> widespread labor strikes and other militant actions
> soon after the honeymoon period was over. At the
> moment I have nothing better to offer than that. God
> help us.
>
> The future as we used to know it has ceased to
> exist. And other happy thoughts.
>
> Reading the accounts of the terrorist horror in
> Mumbai has left me as pessimistic as a dinosaur
> contemplating the future of his grandchildren. How
> could they do that? ... destroying all those lives,
> people they didn't even know, people enjoying
> themselves on vacation ... whatever could be their
> motivation? Well, they did sort of know some of
> their victims; they knew they were Indians, or
> Americans, or British, or Zionists, or some other
> kind of infidel; so it wasn't completely mindless,
> not totally random. Does that help to understand?
> Can it ease the weltschmerz? You can even make use
> of it. The next time you encounter a defender of
> American foreign policy, someone insisting that
> something like Mumbai justifies Washington's
> rhetorical and military attacks against Islam, you
> might want to point out that the United States does
> the same on a regular basis. For seven years in
> Afghanistan, almost six in Iraq, to give only the
> two most obvious examples ... breaking down doors
> and machine-gunning strangers, infidels,
> traumatizing children for life, firing missiles into
> occupied houses, exploding bombs all over the place,
> pausing to torture ... every few days dropping bombs
> on Pakistan or Afghanistan, and still Iraq, claiming
> they've killed members of al-Qaeda, just as bad as
> Zionists, bombing wedding parties, one after
> another, 20 or 30 or 70 killed, all terrorists of
> course, often including top al-Qaeda leaders, the
> number one or number two man, so we're told; so not
> completely mindless, not totally random; the
> survivors say it was a wedding party, their brother
> or their nephew or their friend, mostly women and
> children dead; the US military pays people to tell
> them where so-and-so number-one bad guy is going to
> be; and the US military believes what they're told,
> so Bombs Away! ... Does any of that depress you like
> Mumbai? Sometimes they bomb Syria instead, or kill
> people in Iran or Somalia, all bad guys ... "US
> helicopter-borne troops have carried out a raid
> inside Syria along the Iraqi border, killing eight
> people including a woman, Syrian authorities say"
> reports the BBC.6 ... "The United States military
> since 2004 has used broad, secret authority to carry
> out nearly a dozen previously undisclosed attacks
> against Al Qaeda and other militants in Syria,
> Pakistan and elsewhere, according to senior American
> officials. ... The secret order gave the military
> new authority to attack the Qaeda terrorist network
> anywhere in the world, and a more sweeping mandate
> to conduct operations in countries not at war with
> the United States," the New York Times informs us.7
> So it's all nice and legal, not an attack upon
> civilization by a bunch of escaped mental patients.
> Maybe the Mumbai terrorists also have a piece of
> paper, from some authority, saying that it's okay
> what they did. ... I'm feeling better already.
>
> The mythology of the War on Terrorism
>
> On November 8, three men were executed by the
> government of Indonesia for terrorist attacks on two
> night clubs in Bali in 2002 that took the lives of
> 202 people, more than half of whom were Australians,
> Britons and Americans. The Associated Press8
> reported that "the three men never expressed
> remorse, saying the suicide bombings were meant to
> punish the United States and its Western allies for
> alleged atrocities in Afghanistan and elsewhere."
>
> During the recent US election campaign, John McCain
> and his followers repeated a sentiment that has
> become a commonplace – that the War on Terrorism
> has been a success because there hasn't been a
> terrorist attack against the United States since
> September 11, 2001; as if terrorists killing
> Americans is acceptable if it's done abroad. Since
> the first American strike on Afghanistan in October
> 2001 there have been literally scores of terrorist
> attacks against American institutions in the Middle
> East, South Asia and the Pacific, more than a dozen
> in Pakistan alone: military, civilian, Christian,
> and other targets associated with the United States.
> The year following the Bali bombings saw the heavy
> bombing of the US-managed Marriott Hotel in Jakarta,
> Indonesia, the site of diplomatic receptions and 4th
> of July celebrations held by the American Embassy.
> The Marriott Hotel in Pakistan was the scene of a
> major terrorist bombing just two months ago. All of
> these attacks have been in addition to the thousands
> in Iraq and Afghanistan against US occupation, which
> Washington officially labels an integral part of the
> War on Terrorism. Yet American lovers of military
> force insist that the War on Terrorism has kept the
> United States safe.
>
> Even the claim that the War on Terrorism has kept
> Americans safe at home is questionable. There was no
> terrorist attack in the United States during the 6
> 1/2 years prior to the one in September 2001; not
> since the April 1995 bombing of the federal building
> in Oklahoma City. It would thus appear that the
> absence of terrorist attacks in the United States is
> the norm.
>
> An even more insidious myth of the War on Terrorism
> has been the notion that terrorist acts against the
> United States can be explained, largely, if not
> entirely, by irrational hatred or envy of American
> social, economic, or religious values, and not by
> what the United States does to the world; i.e., US
> foreign policy. Many Americans are mightily
> reluctant to abandon this idea. Without it the whole
> paradigm – that we are the innocent good guys and
> they are the crazy, fanatic, bloodthirsty bastards
> who cannot be talked to but only bombed, tortured
> and killed – falls apart. Statements like the one
> above from the Bali bombers blaming American
> policies for their actions are numerous, coming
> routinely from Osama bin Laden and those under him.9
>
> Terrorism is an act of political propaganda, a
> bloody form of making the world hear one's outrage
> against a perceived oppressor, graffiti written on
> the wall in some grim, desolate alley. It follows
> that if the perpetrators of a terrorist act declare
> what their motivation was, their statement should
> carry credibility, no matter what one thinks of
> their cause or the method used to achieve it.
>
> Just put down that stereotype and no one gets hurt.
>
> Sarah Palin and her American supporters resent what
> they see as the East Coast elite, the intellectuals,
> the cultural snobs, the politically correct, the
> pacifists and peaceniks, the agnostics and atheists,
> the environmentalists, the fanatic animal
> protectors, the food police, the health gestapo, the
> socialists, and other such leftist and liberal types
> who think of themselves as morally superior to Joe
> Sixpack, Joe the Plumber, National Rifle Association
> devotées, rednecks, and all the Bush supporters who
> have relished the idea of having a president no
> smarter than themselves. It's stereotyping gone
> wild. So in the interest of bringing some balance
> and historical perspective to the issue, allow me to
> remind you of some forgotten, or never known,
> factoids which confound the stereotypes.
>
> * Josef Stalin studied for the priesthood.
> * Adolf Hitler once hoped to become a Catholic
> priest or monk; he was a vegetarian and was
> anti-smoking.
> * Hermann Goering, while his Luftwaffe rained
> death upon Europe, kept a sign in his office
> that read: "He who tortures animals wounds the
> feelings of the German people."
> * Adolf Eichmann was cultured, read deeply, played
> the violin.
> * Benito Mussolini also played the violin.
> * Some Nazi concentration camp commanders listened
> to Mozart to drown out the cries of the inmates.
> * Charles Manson was a staunch
> anti-vivisectionist.
> * Radovan Karadzic, the Bosnian Serb leader,
> charged with war crimes, genocide, and crimes
> against humanity by the International Criminal
> Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, had been a
> psychiatrist specializing in depression; the
> author of a published book of poetry as well as
> children's books, often with themes of nature;
> and a practitioner of alternative medicine.
>
> I'm not really certain to what use you might put
> this information to advance toward our cherished
> national goal of becoming a civilized society, but I
> feel a need to disseminate it. If you know of any
> other examples of the same type, I'd appreciate your
> sending them to me.
>
> The examples above are all of "bad guys" doing
> "good" things. There are of course many more
> instances of "good guys" doing "bad" things.
>
> Notes
>
> 1. Washington Post, August 17, 2008↩
> 2. Chicago Tribune, September 25, 2004 ↩
> 3. Associated Press, November 17, 2008 ↩
> 4. New York Times, October 3, 2008 ↩
> 5. Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom (1994)
> p.278; William Blum, Rogue State, chapter 23,
> "How the CIA sent Nelson Mandela to prison for
> 28 years" ↩
> 6. BBC, October 26, 2008 ↩
> 7. New York Times, November 9, 2008 ↩
> 8. Associated Press, November 9, 2008 ↩
> 9. See my article at:
> http://www.killinghope.org/superogue/terintro.htm
> ↩
>
> –
>
> William Blum is the author of:
>
> * Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions
> Since World War 2
> * Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only
> Superpower
> * West-Bloc Dissident: A Cold War Memoir
> * Freeing the World to Death: Essays on the
> American Empire
>
> Portions of the books can be read, and signed copies
> purchased, at www.killinghope.org
>
> Previous Anti-Empire Reports can be read at this
> website.
>
> To add yourself to this mailing list simply send an
> email to bblum6 at aol.com with "add" in the subject
> line. I'd like your name and city in the message,
> but that's optional. I ask for your city only in
> case I'll be speaking in your area.
>________________
>_______________________________________________
>Peace-discuss mailing list
>Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
>http://lists.chambana.net/cgi-bin/listinfo/peace-discuss
International Studies/ Transnational Gender Studies
WIMSE Program Assistant
Forte International Exchange Local Rep.
(630) 677.7219
402 S. Race St, Apt. 2
Urbana, IL. 61801
More information about the Peace-discuss
mailing list