[Peace-discuss] [Peace] come and share your reasons for being against this war with Dr. Gill / Tuesday, 5pm-6pm / UPTV 400 South Vine Street, Urbana, IL

Wed Oct 27 12:56:03 CDT 2010

Mort--

Naturally I appreciate your tender concern for my absence from AOTA's interview 
with David Gill.  In fact at the time I was literally up in the air, flying 
Missoula-Denver-Dallas-CU and arriving home just in time to see the program.  In 
fact, I would love to have asked Gill some questions about the war - and to 
quote back to  him his evasions from the past.

Linda got Gill to agree to be on the show - and asked me not to be 
"confrontational." But Gill said he couldn't make the regular recording time. So 
I asked the accommodating people at UPTV to provide us with other possible 
times: Gill eventually chose 5-6pm on 10/26.  As it happened, I was out of town 
Friday-Tuesday.

I've been corresponding with Gill since he announced for the seat in the fall of 
2009 - trying to get him to come clean on his stance on the war. (From the 
News-Gazette, October, 2009:  "Gill said he would not support a total withdrawal 
of U.S. forces from Afghanistan...")

Gill's statement read at the top of program managed to evade any mention of (a) 
the administration's motive for the AfPak war and its lies ("stopping 
terrorism") about those motives; (b) any principled - as opposed to "pragmatic" 
("we might not be winning") - reason to oppose the war (as found, e.g., among
Ron Paulists, Libertarians and paleo-conservatives); and/or (c) a pledge like 
Tim Johnson's to vote against any more money for war. (And Johnson is in fact 
voting that way.) What the statement does contain are self-serving errors in 
fact about the history of the AfPak war.

As for the no-hope comment, did you note that the NYT gave Gill a 0.2% (that's 
two-tenths of one percent) chance of winning?

And I'm sorry you don't see the difference between Gill's campaign and the 
"presumed futile" Green party campaign for the same seat in 2002.  The Greens 
took advantage of a quirk in the repressive election laws to run a campaign - 
which they knew  they would loose - in order to raise issues that would not be 
raised by the Republicans or Democrats. Gill evaded issues - especially the war 
- in order to try to be elected.

It's not a smear to point out those evasions.  --CGE

On 10/26/10 11:45 PM, Morton K. Brussel wrote:
>  Most telling of all is the absence of Carl Estabrook on the panel. If
>  he were able to participate (Did he require an invitation [for a
>  program he initiated]? Did Gill object to his possible presence on
>  the panel with him?), his absence indicates rank cowardice. Evidently
>  Estabrook feels he can mouth off accusations better if there is no
>  face-to face rebuttal.
>
>  As for the sly "no-hope" comment, Estabrook should know what it means
>  to run a campaign presumed futile. His attempt to smear the program
>  is appalling.
>
>  I thought Gill expressed himself admirably, and Karen, Ron and Linda
>  deserve our thanks for carrying on and preparing well.
>
>  --mkb
>
>  On Oct 26, 2010, at 11:06 PM, C. G. Estabrook wrote:
>
> > The program tonight as broadcast showed a remarkable development to
> > David Gill's views on the US war in the Middle East. (Gill is the
> > no-hope Democratic candidate running against the Republican
> > incumbent, Tim Johnson, for the local congressional seat.) He even
> > struggled to modify the statement - his statement - read by a
> > member of the panel at the beginning of the program!
> >
> > One can see why - that statement is a tissue of lies. What he said
> > tonight - together with that statement - is a painful exercise in
> > misrepresentation - both of his own views and those of his
> > opponent. That has of course been the practice of the Democrats
> > since the beginning of this phase of the Long War.
> >
> > See the statement here:
> > <http://www.gill2010.com/issues/foreign-policy/afghanistan/>.
> >
> > We might actually get a debate on the war if people have a chance
> > to see how disingenuous Gill's statement is - even with his
> > "evolutions" on tonight's program.
> >
> > Gill's major charge against Johnson is that he "doesn't support the
> > troops" - a made-up Bushism. But Gill's prevarications and
> > misrepresentations have deprived the local voters of a real debate
> > on the war - which looked liked happening, when Johnson said he
> > was wrong to vote for the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, and
> > pledged to vote against any more money for war in the Mideast - and
> > he is voting that way. Gill still won't make that pledge, as a
> > close examination of his statement shows.
> >
> > Both parties have worked hard to make sure that next week's
> > election is meaningless - and have largely succeeded. It will not,
> > most importantly, be a vote on the war. We should therefore be
> > working to stir up people across the political spectrum on the
> > military and economic betrayals of the current president and
> > Congress.
> >
> > The question is, Whom are we going to allow Barack Obama to kill
> > going forward, and why?
> >
> > Some people are talking about what Obama and the Democratas are
> > actually doing. Contrast Chris Floyd's remarks, as follows, with
> > Gill's evasions, above:
> >
> > "...Friends, it's very simple: if you support Barack Obama and the
> > Democrats -- even if reluctantly, even if you're just being all
> > sophisticatedly super-savvy and blogospherically strategic about
> > it, playing the "long game" or eleven-dimensional chess or what
> > have you -- you are supporting the outright murder of innocent
> > people who have never done anything against you or yours. You have
> > walked into a house, battered down the bedroom door, put the barrel
> > of a gun against the temple of a sleeping child, and pulled the
> > trigger. That is what you are supporting, that is what you are
> > complicit in, that is what you yourself are doing."
> >
> > Full article at
> > 
<http://chris-floyd.com/articles/1-latest-news/2035-obamas-finest-hour-killing-innocent-people-for-qmade-up-crapq.html>.
> >
> >
> >
On 10/25/10 12:05 PM, Karen Medina wrote:
> >> Dr. Gill is coming to talk with
> > AWARE (the local anti-war,
> >
> >> anti-racism effort of Champaign-Urbana). Would you like to
> > come and
> >
> >> share your reasons for being against this war with Dr. Gill?
> > We would
> >
> >> greatly appreciate it.
> >
> >>
> >
> >> Tuesday, October 26, 2010 5pm-6pm UPTV (in the Urbana City
> > Council
> >
> >> Chambers) 400 South Vine Street, Urbana, IL A taping of AWARE
> > on the
> >
> >> Air for Channel 6 that will air at 10pm Tuesday evening.

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