[Peace] FW: 10 Good Things About a Bad Year

[Matt Reichel]

From: scott lynch <lynch_scott at yahoo.com>

>
>10 Good Things About a Bad Year
>      By Medea Benjamin
>      AlterNet
>
>      Wednesday 31 December 2003
>      No two ways about it, 2003 was a demoralizing year for those of us 
>working for peace and justice. With George Bush in the White House, Arnold 
>Schwarzenegger in the California State House, and Paul Bremer ruling Iraq, 
>it was a chore just to get out of bed each morning. But get out of bed we 
>did, and we spent our days educating, strategizing, organizing and 
>mobilizing. As we greet the new year, let's remember and celebrate some of 
>our hard-fought victories in a time of adversity.
>      1. We organized the most massive, global protests against war the 
>world has ever seen. On February 15 alone, over 12 million people came out 
>on the streets in over 700 cities in 60 countries and on every continent. 
>So impressive was this outpouring of anti-war sentiment that the New York 
>Times, not known for hyperbole, claimed there were now two superpowers: the 
>US and global public opinion.
>      2. Over the last few months, mainstream Americans have been buying 
>progressive books by the millions. Authors such as Michael Moore, Al 
>Franken, Molly Ivins, Paul Krugman and David Corn have seen their books 
>soar to the New York Times bestsellers list. With humor and biting exposes 
>of the Bush administration, these authors helped our movement gain legions 
>of new converts. No more preaching to the choir this year!
>      3. When the World Trade Organization met in Cancun in September to 
>promote global rules that give even greater power to transnational 
>corporations, they were met by well coordinated opposition from countries 
>in the global south, hundreds of non-governmental organizations and 
>thousands of activists. When our movement's sophisticated inside-outside 
>strategy forced the talks to collapse, there was "gloom in the suites and 
>dancing in the streets." And as a counter to these corporate-dominated 
>global institutions, the fair trade movement had a stellar year.
>      4. The poorest country in South America, Bolivia, proved that people 
>power is alive and well. Sparked by the Bolivian president's plan to 
>privatize and export the nation's natural gas, an astounding grassroots 
>movement of peasants, miners, workers, and indigenous people poured into 
>the streets to demand his resignation. After five weeks of intense protests 
>and a government crackdown that left 70 dead, Sanchez de Lozada was forced 
>to resign. Now that's regime change!
>      5. The silver lining in the budget crisis affecting the states 
>throughout this nation is that from Louisiana to Texas to Michigan -- and 
>even in Arnold Schwarzenegger's California -- state governments are cutting 
>prison budgets by releasing non-violent drug offenders. The year has been 
>marked by a steady move toward treatment instead of incarceration and a 
>greater understanding that drug abuse should be handled in the doctors' 
>office, not the prison cell.
>      6. For so long, celebrities have put their careers above their 
>beliefs. This year witnessed a "coming out" of all types of celebrities on 
>all manner of progressive issues. Jay-Z and Mariah Carey railed against the 
>racist Rockefeller drug laws, Bono and Beyonce Knowles called for the world 
>to fight AIDS, and a host of celebs such as Sean Penn, Susan Saradon and 
>Laurence Fishbourne courageously took a stand against the invasion of Iraq.
>      7. Progressives now have a powerful new tool for organizing: the 
>Internet. E-activism through venues such as MoveOn, Working Assets and 
>Meetup.com have allowed ordinary people to challenge big money and powerful 
>institutions. We raised millions of dollars to run ads, we've confronted 
>corporate-dominated institutions like the Federal Communications 
>Commission, and e-activism has allowed an anti-war candidate, Howard Dean, 
>to become a frontrunner in the 2004 elections.
>      8. In an unprecedented outpouring of local opposition to the assault 
>on our civil liberties, over 200 cities, towns, counties and states across 
>the country have passed resolutions against the Patriot Act. In fact, the 
>outcry has been so profound that plans for a successor act, dubbed Patriot 
>Act II, that would further broaden federal investigatory powers, have been 
>scuttled.
>      9. While eclipsed by the war in Iraq, the corporate scandals that 
>topped the headlines in 2002 continued in 2003, with indefatigable New York 
>State Attorney-General Eliot Spitzer exposing the trading abuses in the 
>mutual funds industry. The Enron, WorldCom and accounting scandals produced 
>some positive legislation against corporate crime and forced institutional 
>investors like pension funds to become more active. And anti-corporate 
>crusaders joined with peace activists to expose the obscene war 
>profiteering of Halliburton and Bechtel, with more exposes to come in 2004!
>      10. Despite the conservative takeover of the courts, this year 
>produced several landmark rulings we can be proud of. The Supreme Court 
>upheld affirmative action, giving a sweeping victory to the University of 
>Michigan and colleges all over the country. It struck down sodomy laws 
>criminalizing gay sex, affirming the constitutional right to privacy. The 
>Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled that gays should be able to marry. The 
>Appeals Court ruled that the US military could not detain American citizen 
>Jose Padilla as an "enemy combatant", and in an even more significant 
>decision, found that all 600 detainees at Guantanamo Bay should be granted 
>access to lawyers.
>      There are many more -- the immigrants' freedom march that 
>crisscrossed the nation to counter the anti-immigrant backlash, the amazing 
>youth movement that is bringing new culture and vibrancy to organizing, the 
>renewed women's activism through groups like Code Pink, the awarding of the 
>Nobel Peace Prize to an Iranian woman, Shirin Ebadi. And each one of us 
>could add to the list.
>      So while we lament the present state of the world and the present 
>occupant in the White House, just remember that even in the gloomiest days 
>of 2003, we kept slugging away-and sometimes even winning. Now let's move 
>on to score the big victory in 2004 by sending George Bush back to 
>Crawford.
>
>
>
>---------------------------------
>Do you Yahoo!?
>Find out what made the Top Yahoo! Searches of 2003

_________________________________________________________________
Get reliable dial-up Internet access now with our limited-time introductory 
offer.  http://join.msn.com/?page=dept/dialup