[Peace-discuss] July 4 parade

[Ricky Baldwin]

I like this direction.  I'd suggest choosing just a few of these... and thinking about the illustrations.

 Ricky


"Speak your mind even if your voice shakes." - Maggie Kuhn




________________________________
From: C. G. Estabrook <galliher at illinois.edu>
To: Ricky Baldwin <baldwinricky at yahoo.com>
Cc: E. Wayne Johnson <ewj at pigs.ag>; Peace-discuss <peace-discuss at anti-war.net>; Karen Medina <kmedina67 at gmail.com>
Sent: Wednesday, May 20, 2009 5:51:18 PM
Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] July 4 parade

Ricky Baldwin wrote:
> ... Laurie is right, by the way, as Chomsky famously pointed out, and I might
> try to paraphrase: a lot of serious divergences from hegemony would have to
> be put in context, i.e. they don't bear paring down into bumper stickers very
> well.  Images are good, a picture reportedly being worth a lot.  But
> ambiguity is the big risk, especially given that our audience is essentially
> immersed in conditioning to misunderstand our message ...

I think that's right, and -- without being as, uh, subtle as Wayne -- I think we could illustrate the alternative Lincoln lines (properly pared) with pictures showing how these principles are related to present practice. Here are some quick examples -- off the top of my head, as they say in Mad Men -- I'm sure better ones are available.


    THE ANTI-WAR ANTI-RACISM EFFORT REMEMBERS
    LESSONS FROM LINCOLN ON WAR AND WORK

    ************************

    * Allow the President to invade a neighboring nation whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do so whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such purpose, and you allow him to make war at pleasure. Study to see if you can fix any limit to his power in this respect, after having given him so much as you propose.
    [LIST OF COUNTRIES & DATE WE INVADED THEM (RECENTLY): "AFGHANISTAN- HAITI- IRAQ- SOMALIA- PAKISTAN- "   THROW IN SERBIA, PANAMA, ETC., ETC.]

    * Such will be a great lesson of peace: teaching men that what they cannot take by election, neither can they take it by war; teaching all the folly of being the beginners of a war.
    [BUSH'S "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED" BANNER]    

    * Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves; and, under a just God, can not long retain it.
    [GITMO, ABU GHRAIB, BAGRAM, ETC. ETC.]

    * The severest justice may not always be the best policy.
    [I'M STUMPED, BECAUSE WE HAVEN'T DONE MUCH JUSTICE]

    * No man is good enough to govern another man without that other's consent.
    [ISRAELI CHECK-POINT ON W. BANK]

    * It was in the oath I took that I would, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. I could not take the office without taking the oath. Nor was it my view that I might take an oath to get power, and break the oath in using the power.
    [WIRETAPPING, MILITARY TRIBUNAL]

    * With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.
    [HOMELESS VETS]

    ************************

    * These capitalists generally act harmoniously and in concert to fleece the people, and now that they have got into a quarrel with themselves, we are called upon to appropriate the people's money to settle the quarrel.
     [PAULSON, BERNANKE, GEITHNER]

    * Labor is prior to and independent of capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.
    [COALITION OF IMMOKALEE WORKERS]

    * The world has never had a good definition of the word liberty, and the American people, just now, are much in want of one. We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing. With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor; while with others, the same word many mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other men's labor. Here are two, not only different, but incompatible things, called by the same name — liberty. And it follows that each of the things is, by the respective parties, called by two different and incompatible names — liberty and tyranny.
    [HUGO CHAVEZ]

    * We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best, hope of earth.
    [BARACK OBAMA]

    * We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and power, as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us!
    [REV. WRIGHT]

    * This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing Government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it.
    [ABBIE HOFFMAN]

    * Why should there not be a patient confidence in the ultimate justice of the people? Is there any better or equal hope in the world?
    [NOAM CHOMSKY & HOWARD ZINN]

    ###


      
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