May 20, 2009 at 2:57 pm
· Filed under Blogroll ·Tagged direct action, nonviolence, Roles
Yesterday I wrote (and thought a bunch) about what the proper way is to go about bringing change. I still have not come to a conclusion as to which is more productive- working within the system to change it for the better, tearing down the structure we have in place with more controversial (yet still nonviolent) means, or building something new, thereby collapsing what we have in place now. I don’t think I’ll ever come to a conclusion; in fact, I don’t think there is an answer- all of these strategies are valid and people acting in either way are contributing to the betterment of humanity. I guess what my question has become is ‘where is my place’ or ‘how does one find their place?’ I have not been involved in activism for too long – five or six years total and only in the past couple have I been at it full time – but most of the actions I have taken have been working within the system. I have participated in marches, rallies, fund raisers, I have handed out fliers, held signs, and written letters to my representatives. There are times – when a law that I was trying to change actually gets changed or when I have a conversation with someone and leave them with new seeds in their brain – where I have felt that this is the way to bring about the revolution, but lately I have been having my doubts. As I said earlier, there definitely need to be people with a presence at large gatherings; handing out fliers and getting into conversations with the public, but more needs to be done. Our so-called leaders have lobbyists with billions of dollars telling them what they should be doing, why would a couple hundred phone calls telling them the opposite have much of an effect? Also, like I said yesterday, this is keeping the same corrupt system in place.
I read a number of different blogs every morning and it’s usually – usually (with one of the only exceptions being Arthur Silber) – the same thing: there are some bloggers who praised Bush while he was president and now criticize everything Obama does simply because he is Obama; there are some who used to spent all their energy ripping on Bush, but now defend Obama from some of the same accusations; and there are those who criticize anyone in power, but still think that our voices can make a difference. None of these blogs offer any real solutions- the conservatives think we need to oust Obama, the liberals think we should get an even higher majority in Congress and convince Obama to stop compromising, and the more ‘radical’ bloggers think we should keep putting pressure on whomever is president or in the majority in congress. Will any of this really end the military-industrial complex? Will they open the jails and end this sick form of modern day slavery? I really don’t think so. I wish I could offer a real solution (instead of just writing a couple paragraphs of complaints every few days), but I’m still trying to figure out what it is and how to implement it.
If I had ever done any sort of illegal direct action, I would not write about it in here, but I imagine it would be fun. However, is it really reaching more people? If low-income people were getting kicked out of their homes, in order for them to be demolished and replaced with tract housing, what would make things better? Working within the system to stop this from happening could work (and has worked), but doesn’t do much about the bigger picture. By getting petitions signed, knocking on doors, showing up at city council meetings, and passing out fliers, these hundred or so people’s houses can be saved and that’s great, but did it really accomplish anything in the long run? Are these people going to not be struggling anymore? Are they going to be able to quit the job that they probably hate (and get grossly underpaid for)? Are they going to be able to stop worrying about the bills each and every month? Or, are their lives going to continue more or less the same, while whatever developer planned on building the tract housing will simply move onto a less defended community and build there? What about direction action? The above situation is actually happening down the street from me: the owner of a trailer park is trying to force the residents (some of whom have lived there for up to 40 years) out, so he can sell to a developer, who will then build affordable housing that not one person currently in the park can afford. DA does not seem to be an action, as desperate as these people are: some are too old, some are undocumented, some just don’t care enough. So, what do I do? Do I grab a couple of friends and occupy the place for them? Do I confront the owner in their names? What if they one day did decide to occupy their park, would it actually accomplish anything? Or, would they just all get arrested, making the job of the landlord that much easier? Lately, I have been gravitating toward building my own community: something that resists/ignores the crazy system we have in place. The goal being to have more and more people resisting the system, until eventually what we have no collapses. While this is sort of an option for someone like me – a young, straight, white, (formerly) middle-class, man – can the people in the situation described above really afford to do this? I don’t know any more… if I ever did.
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May 19, 2009 at 7:21 am
· Filed under Blogroll ·Tagged Activism, direct action, taking down the system
The more I become immersed in activism and Peace Studies, the more I see the connection in all that ails us. We shouldn’t be working one way to end the war in Iraq while doing something completely different to stop foreclosures- they both exist because of the system we have in place. The question then becomes, do I work within the system to try and change it, do I focus my energy on destruction of the current way of life, do I ignore the system and try to build an alternative, hoping that causes the collapse of the current structure…or is there something I’m missing? I understand the value of focusing on one issue at a time, of standing on a corner and handing out fliers explaining why the war in Afghanistan is a bad thing. However, does this really accomplish anything? It was (in my opinion) nonviolent direct action – including the refusal of soldiers to fight anymore – that ended the war in Vietnam. It is good that people rose their voices and put their lives on the line in order to end an unjust war, but what happened after that? Has there been a day that has gone by since then that some innocent person somewhere on the earth wasn’t killed or maimed because of some US foreign or domestic policy? Are we not involved in multiple illegal wars all these years later? Is our Military-Industrial Complex not a hundred times stronger than it was when we “ended” our involvement in Vietnam?
I believe that the only way to take down the system we have in place or build something else is to change people’s minds, one at a time. We have to dedicate our individual lives to making this change within ourselves, all the while talking to as many people as possible and hoping that we rub off on them. Is this better accomplished by standing at the end of a Memorial Day foot race and handing out fliers concerning the Afghanistan war or by dropping a banner and illegally posting fliers explaining how everything ties in together? Is it better to convince ten people who have never been involved in making change, that the wars are wrong and they should do something about it, or would more be accomplished by showing one person that the whole system is a mess and needs to be changed? I don’t think that either one is more valid than the other, nor do I think people are working harder on one side.
Maybe the problem is not what we do, but how we do it; for example, what do we do about the problem of foreclosure that millions of families are facing? Do we talk to the banks, set up meetings with our local sheriffs and city councils, and demand that these people get new, affordable mortgages? Or, do we skip that step – since each and every human being has the right to food, shelter, clothing, education, and security – and realize that true freedom will not be accomplished through lobbying some politician? Or, maybe we do both…and more. I don’t know what any of the answers are; in fact, in the twenty minutes it took me to write this, a dozen new questions have come up. I also know that hardly anyone will read this, but if you are one of the few and you have any opinion on this, please let me know.
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February 17, 2009 at 8:04 am
· Filed under Blogroll ·Tagged bi-partisanship, Glenn Greenwald, Immunity, Joe Conason, torture, Truth and Reconciliation Committee, War Crimes
Today Glenn Greenwald talks again about what to do about the numerous laws and treaties that were broken by the Bush administration over their eight years in power. Greenwald (from what I can gather) wants full investigations, leading up to criminal prosecutions for everyone – from Bush all the way down to a lowly Army Private. While I dream of the day George Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Alberto Gonzalez and a lot of other people are behind bars, I’m not sure going after everyone is the way to go. We would spend hundreds of millions of dollars (that probably don’t even exist) of our tax money, but the better lawyers will be on the defense side. If we waste years trying to prosecute these people, and in the end the only people who go to jail are a few 25 year olds from Kansas who thought they were doing what is right, we will be in an even worse position than we are now. Greenwald makes a criticism of Joe Conason:
On Friday in Salon, Joe Conason argued that there should be no criminal investigations of any kind for Bush officials “who authorized torture or other outrages in the ‘war on terror’.” Instead, Conason suggests that there be a presidential commission created that is “purely investigative,” and Obama should “promis[e] a complete pardon to anyone who testifies fully, honestly and publicly.” So, under this proposal, not only would we adopt an absolute bar against prosecuting war criminals and other Bush administration felons, we would go in the other direction and pardon them from any criminal liability of any kind.
I don’t know if Greenwald is misunderstanding Conason or if Conason himself is confused and would be willing to pardon anyone – including Rumsfeld or Bush – who admits to what they did. I think both of these men are wrong- we should neither go after every single person involved nor pardon everyone who tells the truth. My opinion is that we should follow the Truth and Reconciliation Committee (or at least follow the TRC as I understand it; which isn’t very great). Under no circumstance should we even entertain the idea of pardoning the top tier people- Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Rice, etc. but the only way there is a chance in proving their guilt is if we offer immunity to lower-tier people who are willing to admit what they did and tell the truth. This means, if someone not on the highest level is willing to sit in a courtroom and spill everything (s)he did, while showing at least some remorse for his or her actions, then they get immunity. I would be willing to bet that there would be dozens – if not hundreds – of people coming forward to take advantage of this.
This is all a moot point however because the Obama administration (perhaps out of fear of what will happen to them in 4 or 8 years) has repeatedly said that they will not go after anyone for any kind of war crime charges (not only that, but they are actually sticking up for a number of people from the Bush administration). Why is Obama ignoring the law and his obligation as president? Because he is the bridge building, bipartisan, 21st century Abe Lincoln. I understand the need to work with the opposition, I understand that if we have a country of “us and them” we are doomed to fail, but there comes a certain point where you have to draw the line. When the Allied forces defeated the Nazi army, did they appoint a new government that would work with old Nazis? When the US took out the government of Saddam Hussein did they have a meeting with all the old Ba’ath members to see how bridges could be built? No, of course not. While it is necessary for Obama and the Democrats to work with Congressional Republicans in order to have a less divided country, it is not necessary to protect war criminals.
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February 14, 2009 at 9:10 am
· Filed under Blogroll ·Tagged Arthur Silber, Barrack Obama, George Bush, heart, obedience, Protests, wars
The concept of obedience is something that is constantly bouncing around in my tiny brain (in my strangely large head). I constantly wonder why the majority of human beings – especially USers – go along with the status quo. Even when I end up liking or agreeing with something that the majority of other people like or agree with, I begin to question myself. The politicians and corporations who run this country generally make decisions based on how much money they can make or how much power they can gain. The wars that we are in right now are not because we are trying to make the world safer, but because there is money to be made. We the people, even though most of us know this at some level, simply go along with things the way we are. We tell ourselves that, even if it’s not great, this is the system we have and we just have to deal with it until it somehow changes.
Arthur Silber has been writing lately of tribalism (I linked to part three, but I seriously recommend checking out parts one and two as well) and it makes things slightly clearer. I’ll start with a quote:
When the person in the inferior position obeys, he does so because of his certain knowledge that if he does not, he will be punished in some form: psychologically, legally, socially, or in some other way. Thus, the primary (although not the sole) motivation that ensures obedience is negative in nature: it is not the promise of a reward (even though certain rewards may be offered), but the assurance that he will not suffer consequences that are painful in varying degrees, i.e., that he will not be punished.
the fear of being punished; I don’t want to focus too much on the fear of being legally punished, but rather the psychological and – especially – social punishments are what interest me. When we first began occupying Iraq and Afghanistan (despite the protests that occurred right before the occupations) the great majority of USers supported what we were doing. Almost every place I went – with the exception of school – people were talking about getting revenge for 9/11 or finally killing Saddam. Anyone who dared speak out against what we were doing was un-American or, if they had brown or black skin, a terrorist. There were plenty of people (I’d say a much higher percentage than most people think) who were – somewhere in their mind or heart – against what was happening, but were too afraid to speak up. When you are part of the majority, life is good- you can sit in a big group and all laugh together, all get angry together, and all mock outsiders. However, when you have the courage to voice an opinion that goes against what the majority think, it is not a fun place to be. Try going into a bar sometime, listening to what a big group of people are talking about, and then disagreeing. Try going to a protest or rally somewhere where you are in the high minority; again, not fun. This is the reason why we have a two party system; we are trained so well to obey and go along with what the majority thinks that not many people can handle the isolation that comes with supporting a non-mainstream politician or going against a bi-partisan bill. While George W Bush was president, I heard many people calling his supporters sheeps; he was a monster, a war criminal, and a liar and yet these people mindlessly followed him. However, most of the people who were mocking the Bushites are now doing the exact same thing for Obama.
I don’t know how we can reverse this trend of obedience that is killing the once greatest country in the world. As hippie as this sounds; people need to get in touch with their hearts, their Truth, and then follow it. People need to take time to learn; don’t just read the headline that tells you whether the stimulus plan is good or bad- read the whole article, read articles with different opinions, study the past, and then make your own decision. If your decision is off the wall or different than the mainstream, who cares? If you hear arguments by friends, family, and pundits as to why torture is a necessary evil, yet you know in your heart that it just doesn’t feel right, then speak out against it. If you drive past a rally, or are having lunch at a restaurant and see a band of protestors walk by and you want to join them- JOIN THEM. Everything good that has happened in this country has started with a few people refusing to be obedient and, instead of following laws, following their hearts. We are in two never-ending wars, we are occupying dozens of other countries (some directly some not so much), our economy is falling apart, the majority of the things we buy are made by exploiting other people or entire cultures, we are destroying the earth for our offspring- now is the time to speak out. Do you see the wave coming? Do you feel the ground rumbling? Do you hear people starting to get angry? I do.
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February 13, 2009 at 7:52 am
· Filed under Blogroll ·Tagged Chris Floyd, Disappointment, europe, Glenn Greenwald, Obama, revolution, Socialist Worker, stimulus
I want to be quick today; I woke up this morning very excited that pitchers and catchers are reporting. I’m not as into baseball (or sports in general) as I was when I was younger, but to me this is the official homestretch of winter. I hadn’t read any articles in the past two days – although I had heard rumblings about the stimulus plan and the Israeli elections – so I haven’t been to cynical. Then I began reading again; there are some times when being right feels really good, and other times – like now – where being right is a bad thing. I have been saying for around a year now that people are going to be disappointed with Obama, that he is not as left-wing as the media is making him out to be, he is not going to save the world, and that in order to reach the level of even being considered for President of the United States, there has to be some kind of corruption and love of our broken, unfair system. Some people agreed with me, a couple even changed their minds, but the vast majority was blinded by hope. I was a huge fan of Glenn Greenwald leading up to the election, until he started fondling the balls of Mr. Obama. Now, even Greenwald has realized that Obama is nowhere near the person people were making him out to be. He may seem left-wing because of the beast we had in office for the past eight years, but in reality he is center/right. He goes to court to help Bush officials, he passes stimulus bills that – again – will only help the super rich, he is beginning to go back on his word about ending the war in 16 months, and he publicly threatened perhaps our biggest ally. Chris Floyd blames Obama while Greenwald (fairly I believe) points his finger at Obama’s supporters. Obama needs to be forced to act in our interests (as hundreds of people have said millions of times) and the people who need to force him are asleep at the wheel. There are the people who voted for him and are now blind to everything he is doing, there are the people who voted for him and then decided to go back to sleep (they are probably disappointed in what is happening, but they figure they’ll get the opportunity to make their voices hear in four years, at the next big election), and there are the people who see that Obama is doing things that go against their beliefs, but instead of working hard to make sure the president hears them, they are changing their beliefs to align more with their leader. I don’t know what it’s going to take for a few million people to take to the streets and demand real change, but I have a feeling that the time isn’t too far off.
Why do I have this feeling? Despite popular opinion, the US is not the only place on earth, and we certainly aren’t the only place on earth feeling an economic down crunch. Our friends across the Atlantic – from England to France to Poland to countries that I can’t pronounce or spell – are all suffering like us- and worse. The difference in how they respond is truly astonishing; while we complain to our friends over beer, have pointless rallies, and write letters- they take to the streets! Read the article I just linked to, send it to as many people as you can, and let’s get this goddamned revolution started!
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February 4, 2009 at 7:30 am
· Filed under Blogroll ·Tagged Afghanistan, alice miller, Arthur Silber, debt, education, Genocide, Iraq, Obama, obedience, palestine, war criminals
You know how sometimes you’ll go to school or work – just like a normal day – and be in the middle of doing whatever it is you do, when suddenly you realize that you have a very important meeting or that you left the stove on at home? A number of times in the past few months I have had that kind of moment- only it doesn’t involve the stove or a meeting. I’ll be reading an article about Palestinians or how great Obama is, or I’ll be walking to school thinking about what a beautiful world it is, when suddenly I remember that my country is involved in (at least) two illegal occupations. I begin to think about Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney, H Clinton, Obama, Biden, Gonzalez and I wonder if they’re getting nervous or they feel bad. I think about Rupert Murdock and all the other newspaper and TV station owners and wonder if they can sleep at night while knowingly depriving the USian public any facts as to what is happening in the Middle East (or the rest of the world, really). Our country, using our tax dollars and smearing our good names, has tens of thousands of our brothers and sisters thousands of miles away, killing hundreds of thousands of innocent people and destroying entire countries. All so a few (less than .1% of the world’s population) can make a few billion extra dollars. All so a small percentage of a country that makes up a small percentage of the world’s population can feel safe. Our economy is in the shitter, our education system is getting worse and worse, the middle class is quickly going the way of the dinosaur, and tens of millions of children don’t have healthcare. A great number of USers have convinced themselves that Barrack Obama is going to change all of this- he’s going to wave his little magic wand, or whatever it is he uses to make change, and end all these problems. We are spending a few hundred billion dollars on defense- and that doesn’t even include the money we spend in Iraq and Afghanistan or the money we give to puppet governments (and there are dozens and dozens of them). Where does this money go? The majority of it goes in the pockets of the CEO’s and stockholders at Lockheed-Martin, Halliburton, Bektel and all the other corporations making money off of genocide. Imagine we took just some of these trillions of dollars, combined it with the trillions of dollars we are constantly giving to the rich bankers and investors, and used it for something else. Imagine that, instead of having blind hope in the war criminal/ally of the rich/president, we forced him to give this money back to the people. End the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, stop giving billions of dollars to the Israeli Defense Force, stop giving trillions of dollars to Wall St, and instead give the money to the people. Pay teachers a fair salary, put more money into school in poor districts, pay off people’s debts, give sick people free health care, give poor people a free college education; the list of sensible, fair ways to spend our tax dollars can go on forever, but who is listening?
Something I’ve talked about in previous posts is human beings and their insane obedience- see the Holocaust, the Bush presidency, the bailout… We are brought up depending on our parents; we must listen to whatever they say and do whatever we can to maintain their love, because we rely on them for food, shelter, and the likes. Most parents abuse this power (since their parents abused it and so on) and so we are brought up blindly following their authority. This continues when we have teachers, when we deal with the police, when we vote for and then ignore our elected representatives, and so on. Read Alice Miller, click on the above link and read some of Arthur Silber’s recent posts on tribalism. Fuck it, here are some more links.
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January 30, 2009 at 7:58 am
· Filed under Blogroll ·Tagged experiences, Hamas, hezbollah, Israel, palestine, Women of Peace
I was watching a documentary in school yesterday, called something like Women of Peace. It was about war and making peace, but I’m not writing specifically about the movie, just one quote. There was a scene where they were discussing the Israel/Palestine situation (the movie was made in ’03-’04, so they weren’t talking about the latest flare-up, rather the situation in general.) While discussing specifically the Israeli settlements, she said something along the lines of “we have to look at how the Palestinians experienced the settling of their land. We have to understand that they experienced embarrassment and felt less human.” She did not place the blame on Israel for settling land, nor on Palestine for firing rockets or whatever else they do- she simply asked that we try to understand the way the Palestinians experienced it, putting aside for a moment who we think is right and who we think is wrong. If we could also look at the way the Israelis feel about the rocket fire or about someone getting up and saying, “the Holocaust never happened” or “death to Israel”, just think of the paths we could make towards peace. If each Israeli could put her or himself in the shoes of a Palestinian of the same age and gender and each Palestinian could do the same with their Israeli counter-part, it would be hard for the war to continue. Once we see someone as a human being, it is very hard to kill that person, or even to make their life as hard as the people in this conflict’s lives are.
The class I’m taking is called “Dialogue and the Art of Peacemaking”; it is an amazing class, but it is pretty pathetic. Have we always needed to take classes or have a specialty in order to know how to communicate with other human beings? A story we read in the class as well, took place during the Cuban Missile Crisis- the Russians had put missiles in Cuba with absolutely no camouflage. The USians took this as an insult and assumed the Russians were arrogantly taunting their plans to destroy the United States, and the crisis escalated. Thirty years later, the Russian general in charge of overseeing the placing of the missiles and some unspecified USian had a dialogue. The USian asked why the Russians would be so bold as to blatantly display their missiles, just 90 miles off the cost of the US. The Russian, taken aback, replied that up to that point the Russian army had only installed missiles in Russia, where there was no need to camouflage anything. When they got the orders to install missiles, they did it the way they always did, without even thinking about it. The world was a press of a button away from starting WWIII, which would probably have ended in the complete annihilation of human kind, all because people do not know how to talk to each other.
Let’s talk to the resistance movements in Iraq and Afghanistan, let’s talk to the Taliban, let’s talk to Al Qaeda, Let’s talk to Hezbollah, let’s talk to Hamas, and let’s try to understand the way all of these people are experiencing what is going on in the world. Let’s also try to explain to them the way we are experiencing things- who knows what would happen. I’m not saying that, by having a conversation with some dude from Hamas and the Israeli government, the Middle East would see peace, but I think it would be a much larger step in that direction than killing a third of their population.
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January 26, 2009 at 7:36 am
· Filed under Blogroll ·Tagged Afghanistan, Gaza, Genocide, hope, Iraq, Israel/Palestine, Obama, Pakistan, War Crimes
Recently there has been some anger directed at me (I guess I shouldn’t say recently, since it’s most of the time) because of my dislike for hope. I’ll say something about hope that I heard from Derrick Jensen- he said that hope is something you have when you are in a position where the end result is out of your control. For example, when you get on a plane, you hope that it reaches its destination, but when you’re hungry (and have food) you don’t hope that you’ll eat, you eat. I get aggravated by the fact that people hope Barrack Obama will save the world, and I get almost as aggravated by the fact that the good things he has done already (i.e. his order to “close” Guantanamo) has blinded people from other things.
I’m going to keep it short today- people are dying and living in misery all over the world. I’m not saying that any of it is Obama’s fault or that we need to pressure him to end all suffering, because that is just unrealistic. What I’m saying is that we should look at the death and suffering that is taking place because of the hegemonic policies of the United States- policies that are being continued under the Obama administration. As I said, it’s a great step to promise to close down Guantanamo within the next year, but what does that even mean? What will happen to the people who have been locked up for five or six years with no charges; the people who have been tortured day in and day out, but have done nothing wrong other than being born the wrong color in the wrong hemisphere? Will closing down Guantanamo give these people their lives back? Will it end the wars that are being waged in our names? Does anyone even remember that our country is involved in multiple wars anymore? Does anyone stop to think that each and every day people are dying in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Palestine, and dozens of other places, because of policies that are being carried out with our money?
Many people voted for Obama because he was the anti-war candidate, but this was based on nothing. This man constantly voted for funding the war in Iraq and never said he would even make an attempt to end the war in Afghanistan. Now, this anti-war fellow is officially the leader of the world- record amounts of people braved the freezing cold of Washington DC to watch him be inaugurated, while hundreds of millions (if not billions) of people throughout the world watched hopefully on TV. It has been less than a week, yet he has already committed war crimes. I’m not even talking about the fact that there is a US backed illegal occupation happening in Gaza (despite the ceasefire) or that genocide is still being waged in Iraq. Obama is sticking firm to his promise to increase the troop level in Afghanistan and officially killed his first civilians as leader of the world. Innocent people have officially died because of orders that were given by President Barrack Obama- enough said.
Although this is all upsetting, I’m obviously not surprised that Obama has criminalized himself already. I have already accepted the fact that politicians are corrupt and that Barrack Obama – while perhaps better than most mainstream politicians – is nonetheless a politician. In order to become president of one of the most corrupt empires of all time, one has to be somewhat criminal. What bothers me the most is the lack of people on the street; where have all the people gone who were so active in the year leading up to the election? I believe that now is the time for pressure and protest- instead of thinking we have a reasonable president and should therefore take a nap for four years, we have to think that since we have a reasonable president we should be doing everything we can to get his ear. Again, human beings are dying each and every day because of policies passed in our name, with weapons paid for by our tax dollars and it’s not gong to end through hope- it’s going to end when we the people end it.
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January 24, 2009 at 9:15 am
· Filed under Blogroll ·Tagged Bush, Cheney, Gaza, Gonzalez, Guantanamo, Israel, palestine, President Obama, Rice, Rumsfeld, torture, War Crimes
I sat at Harpo’s Bar and Grill on Tuesday mid-morning and watched Barrack Obama get sworn in as the first black(ish) President of the United States. Forty years ago – not too far back at all – black people were still fighting for equal rights and now one is president. I don’t think this means the US is not a racist country, but I do think it’s a huge step forward. I think Obama will do some great things and I know that we are a safer, stronger, better-off country with George W Bush not in the White House. I had cautious optimism leaving Harpo’s; I didn’t cry or think my activism work was done, but I was excited. When – the next day – President Obama acted to shut down Guantanamo and other secret prisons and end torture (along with some transparency orders that I’m not too familiar with) I almost got caught up in the blind hope. Then, yesterday I had a class with a guest speaker. The man speaking was intelligent; he has a radio show, has been involved in protests and activism since the Civil Rights movement, is very well spoken, and has a borderline obsessive love for Barrack Obama (who he – as well as others in the class – kept calling Barrack, which – in my opinion – is strange). After sitting in a room for three hours and listening to a dozen people go on and on about how Obama is the second coming, I was snapped out of my dreamland.
For the past eight years, the insane group that was in charge of our country destroyed the constitution, killed millions of people, practically took away all our civil rights, and ignored national and international law. If I did this, I would be facing massive amounts of charges right now, but for some reason these men and women are going to walk free, spending the next 5 (in the case of Cheney) to 50 (in the case of some of the younger psychopaths) years profiting off of what they have done. Obama has said that he will not make these obviously guilty people face charges- even though the majority of the rest of the world is demanding trials, or at least investigations into the almost uncountable amount of war crimes that have taken place. The Anonymous Liberal – who is a “litigator at a large national law firm” – says that the Bushies deserve to face charges, but shouldn’t. He claims that there is no way to convict them – because of their ability to amass a “dream team” of lawyers – so it’s better that we shouldn’t try. I agree that pressing charges against any of the major players – Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Gonzalez, Rice – would somewhat divide the country, and probably result in not-guilty verdicts, but these people committed internationally recognized war crimes! It was hard work to convict the Nazis, but that doesn’t mean we didn’t try. Even if years are spent trying to convict these men and women, and not one case results in a guilty verdict, they will still have to face the world and answer questions about what they have done. What’s to stop future presidents – or anyone else with power and money – from doing what these people have done? And worse, if they know they will never be held accountable then what’s the deterrent? This may be “looking backwards”, but if Obama has any sense of right and wrong, he will pursue it.
My main reason for being cynical about the next four years is that while Mr. Obama is acting to (probably) stop torture, with the other side of his face he is allowing the murder of more innocent people. I’m not even talking about the fact that he will keep permanent bases in Iraq, send more troops to Afghanistan, and possibly endanger more human lives in Pakistan, Iran, North Korea, and elsewhere. Our new President has kept silent for the past month and a half about the situation in Gaza because “we only have one president at a time”. Obama apologists everywhere were quick to agree, despite the fact that he spoke out about almost everything else that is affecting the United States. Now, Mr. Obama is president, and what did he do? He blames the Palestinians for the brutal attacks that have been visited on them, and thinks turning power to a corrupt government full of puppets will solve everything. Not once did he condemn Israel or mention the fact that we enable them to carry out war crimes. I won’t analyze his speech any further, but will instead direct you to read Chris Floyd. I’ll say one last thing though- Israel is using the oldest, most successful tool in the genocide book- divide and conquer. If the Palestinians were able to all agree that the fact that it is unacceptable that Israel is occupying their country, there would be no more need for weapons.
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January 18, 2009 at 9:03 am
· Filed under Blogroll ·Tagged Cease Fire, Gaza, Genocide, Israel, Olmert, palestine
I read yesterday that Israel has announced a “cease-fire” in Gaza (and then today that Gaza has agreed), whatever that means. I suppose it means that the denial of food, water, and medical supplies will continue. I’m pretty sure it means that Palestinians will still be harassed every time they want to cross the border into Israel, even if it’s to work or go to a hospital. I can almost guarantee that it doesn’t mean Palestine will get any land back. It is also the perfect excuse for the media to move on to the next exciting subject; as long as the Israeli Defense Force (what a great name) isn’t overtly killing dozens of children a day, the majority of people are willing to accept almost anything.
Just because we aren’t going to be seeing as much about what is happening does not mean that things are not going down. It does not mean that the genocide is not ongoing; dropping bombs and shooting schools is not the only way to kill people. The people of Palestine are still starving, the hospitals are still overwhelmed, and the schools in Gaza are all pretty much ruined. Yet, Ehud Olmert still has the audacity to go on television and say,
“we have reached all the goals of the war, and beyond.”
That is some sick shit, spoken like a true madman. That sounds like something Hitler would have said, after sending another train full of people into the chambers. I’m a little confused as to what happened? Is Hamas no longer in existence? Have their numbers decreased? Is Israel now living in complete safety? Does the entire world now love and sympathize with all Jews? The only thing I noticed for the 22 days of this shelling were lots and lots of dead people- including way too many women and children. If that is reaching one’s goals – and beyond – then something is seriously wrong here.
Israel has one week to leave the strip – this is something that both Israel and Hamas have agreed on – but will they really leave? Eventually, someone from Gaza is going to get so fed up by the way he and his brothers and sisters have to live, that they will fire a rocket into an abandoned field in Israel, and then it’s back on. I have heard so many people use the analogy of – “If Canada was shooting rockets into Maine” or “if Cuba was shooting rockets into Miami, the United States would do the same thing”, as if it’s that simple. As if Israeli’s just go through life minding their own business, not harming a fly and then those crazy brown people – due to their hatred of all things Jewish – start firing rockets at them. Now, poor Israel has no chance but to respond with the destruction of an entire people. Randal Kuhn has used his words better than I can use mine, so I suggest reading that.
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