[Peace-discuss] [sf-core] More dead children on Obama's watch

[C. G. Estabrook]

Mike,

What I have in mind is encouraging a movement against the president's policy - like the once constructed long ago against the war polices of Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon. 

That one took many forms - from demanding our Congressional representatives defund the war and impeach the war-makers, to physical impedance of war making - draft-refusals, sit-ins, and occupations. 

Even more important was American citizens' coming to realize what was being done in their name. 

By 1969 about 70% of the public had come to regard the war as "fundamentally wrong and immoral," not "a mistake," largely as a result of the impact of student protest on general consciousness. And that mass opposition compelled the business community and then the government to stop the escalation of the war.

Barack Obama shows evidence of having thought a lot about that antiwar movement - and about how to counter it. In his 2006 book The Audacity of Hope, he writes that "the biggest casualty of that war was the bond of trust between the American people and their government" (an interesting statement, given that the "casualties" also included the millions of people we killed). His eager willingness to violate the Constitution to prevent the public's learning about how the war is fought, and to destroy popular protest, shows how seriously he takes the tghreat. Wilson's Espionage Act, used to destroy the WWI antiwar movement (and imprison Debs) has been employed by Obama more than by all previous presidents combined.

Building a movement against Obama's vicious war policy - now involving world-wide assassination, by drone and Special Forces death squads - will be even more difficult than similar actions more than a gneration ago. It seems to me that we should preach this gospel in season and out of season. 

A forum run by socialists would seem to be a good place to speak up.

Regards, Carl

On Mar 27, 2013, at 5:01 PM, Mike Lehman <rebelmike at earthlink.net> wrote:


> Carl,
> I think you've mis-directed your mail again. I don't see where you've cc-ed the White House. 
> 
> Given we've all tried and found the powers that be to be remarkably unresponsive to such concerns, I can understand perhaps your overlooking that. However, AFAIK, no one here supports killing Afghan babies - or any other kind of babies.
> 
> There's the possibility that you may have wished to discuss this matter, but the place to do that would be at the sfdicuss list.
> 
> Here on this list, a proposal would be appropriate, if that was the intent.
> 
> What do YOU propose to do about this, given your concerns? 
> 
> If it's just that you'll keep sending intellectually artful, intended to be insulting, yet wholly unselfreflective emails like this, we have actually heard this before and are shocked and troubled as so many American are at our murderous government. There is that internet thing that helps us keep up with such troubling news, but since most of us are so hapless as human beings, we're still looking for the computer on button sometimes. I can assure you those of us so old and feeble we can no longer find it are sure to let our caretakers know we need to keep up with the world. 
> 
> In any case, you may not understand all our concerns, but I find fascinating your own ability to wash your hands of blood by sending organized electrons for the rest of us to ponder, as if it must be some new form of indulgence, to be repeated over and over again until salvation is achieved, because it surely wouldn't be hypocrisy, would it?
> 
> I hope your soul is purified soon, comrade, as everlasting life seems to have cost you some of your own humanity.
> Mike
> 
> On 3/27/2013 2:20 PM, C. G. Estabrook apparently spammed the wrong folks again with rather ironic preaching in another hideously ironic bout of lost self-reflectivity:
>> So when Pilate saw that he could do nothing, but rather that a riot was beginning, he took some water and washed his hands before the crowd, saying, ‘I am innocent of this man’s blood; see to it yourselves.’ [Matthew 27.24]
>> 
>> Four children killed in Afghan-coalition operation: police
>> Wed, 27 Mar 2013 13:28 GMT
> SNIP