[Peace-discuss] Re: [Peace] "News of the week" meeting format

[C. G. Estabrook]

Barbara et al.--

Two or three discussions of this matter are at least two or three too many.

Of course it's worthwhile, in fact necessary, for people committed to opposing 
war and racism to work to correct the programmatic misrepresentation of these 
matters that we receive.  In the absence of an accurate analysis of the 
situation, the best will in the world can do something helpful only by accident.

To get an accurate analysis, we have to use the critical faculties contained in 
the group, and obviously the way to do that is by discussion, both written and 
viva voce. (And it surely has not escaped the attention of our rulers in general 
that people who work long hours and are anxious about their circumstances can 
spend less time doing such things.  The anti-war movement of the 1960s arose in 
part from the greater prosperity and relative economic equality of that decade 
in comparison with this one. Americans had the leisure to do politics. The 
regime is trying not to make that mistake again.)

Thank you for the kind word about the summaries I've done for past meetings, but 
I'm afraid some minor health issues (and not just the 'Skins-'Boys game this 
afternoon at 3pm) will prevent me from attending this evening's meeting. 
(Metaphorically enough, I've having some vision problems.)

If I were to do a summary today, I'd stress

[1] The continuation the US war in the Middle East, under all the persiflage 
about the bailout -- particularly in AfPak, where US helicopters and the 
Pakistani military exchanged fire again this week.  In regard to the war that 
the USG clearly intends to carry on into the next year and beyond, the 
presidential election is almost entirely irrelevant (except as a distraction for 
the public -- note the disappearance of war news from the "news hole"). If we're 
going to oppose that war, we should try to understand what it is and why it 
continues.  The confusion about the matter is so great that even many in the 
anti-war movement are saying, "Well, we can't just withdraw from Afghanistan, 
and we have to protect out troops there" -- by attacking Pakistan...

[2] The American Psychiatric Association's assertion that the Pentagon has 
reneged on an agreement not to use psychiatrists in "interrogations" at 
Guantanamo and its other secret prisons.  The Pentagon gave them the back of 
their hand (better than "detainees" get) as SOS Rice casually admitted that the 
Bush administration had approved the use of torture in 2002 and 2003. "According 
to a written statement provided to the Senate Armed Services Committee earlier 
this month and released on Wednesday by committee chairman Sen. Carl Levin 
(D-MI), officials were told that waterboarding and other 'harsh interrogation 
measures' ... would not cause 'significant' harm if used on prisoners. Rice's 
statement is the first acknowledgment of those meetings by any of the officials 
involved. Rice did not name the other officials who were present, but reports 
last spring ... mentioned Cheney, Rumsfeld,  Powell, and Ashcroft."  Rep. Tammy 
Baldwin (D-WI) has introduced the Executive Branch Accountability Act of 2008, 
which calls on the next president to prosecute the Bush administration 
torturers.  But you had to look hard for any report of it.

[3] The possibility that what's going on in the "bailout" is a capital strike -- 
i.e., that just as the major US social issue of the early 20th century was the 
demand by labor for better wages and conditions (a demand that was scotched in 
part by the Wilson's administration's scheming to get the US involved in the 
European war), so the major US social issue of the early 21st century is the 
demand by capital for greater returns (a demand that was catered to by the 
neoliberal policies of the last several administrations). Capital won't play 
anymore unless the concentration of wealth is continued and increased -- even 
after a generation of increasing and accelerating inequality in the US.

[4] The curious fact that, while the bankers' demand for $700B from the Treasury 
was immediately agreed to by the Democrats and the Republicans in the Senate and 
the Democrats in the House of Representatives, the holdouts -- who broke up the 
deal last Thursday  -- were the House Republicans, representing the expressed 
opinions of their constituents, rather than the peremptory demands of the 
economic elite.

I'm not quite sure of the sense in which the current situation constitutes a 
"new reality," but you're  certainly right that "we need to start the longer 
process of figuring out how we incorporate it into our anti-war(s) work."

(Those four points constitute probably a bit less than 50% of a summary of the 
sort that I was in the habit of doing and will perhaps serve as my contribution 
to this evening's discussion.)

Regards, CGE


Barbara kessel wrote:
> Carl, et al, I have missed two of the three (?) discussions on this subject,
>  but I know that the matter is not settled yet. As it is not settled - and a
> general "clarification of thought session" was not an option that I had heard
> of, I am hoping that for this week at the very least, you, Carl,  will
> prepare and come with a ten-minute summary of all the many items that you
> have put forward for reading on the subject of the Bailout. I have, or will
> have read them all by 5 tonight, but a couple of people have said that as
> people who work, they do not have time to do that and rely on your summary of
> the news. This is a critical moment in our history, this bailout being a 
> watershed similar to 9/11, and we need to have a common grounding in What
> Happened....impossible to get from NPR and CNN...even if there is a range of
> opinion on what it means (not that they are completely separable). We need to
> start the longer process of figuring out how we incorporate this new reality
> into our anti-war(s) work.
> 
> We are a consensus organization and there is a consensus proposal still on
> the table. I hope you will be guided by it. Even if we come out with the
> status quo, we will have a deeper understanding of what we do and why we do
> it that way. Please don't withdraw that option. With deep respect for all who
> march under the AWARE banner, Barbara Kessel
> 
> 
> On Tue, Sep 23, 2008 at 5:17 PM, C. G. Estabrook <galliher at uiuc.edu 
> <mailto:galliher at uiuc.edu>> wrote:
> 
> Randall Cotton wrote:
> 
> Minutes of 9/21/08 AWARE meeting...  Old Business ********** "News of the 
> week" meeting format. Discussion of proposal for changes to format of "News 
> of the Week" section that kicks off each AWARE meeting. Some agreement with 
> proposal to change 10-minute reservation for Carl's news summary to a 15 
> minute reservation for anyone to contribute (with a maximum of 10 minutes for
>  any one individual). But also some sentiment that a change may not be really
> needed. More discussion next week...
> 
> 
> I don't think this matter requires any more discussion.  I won't write a
> commentary as I have in the past but rather come to the meeting prepared to
> participate in a general (15-minute) "clarification of thought" discussion of
> the week's news.  --CGE