Sunday, June 11, 2006
Frank Rich Nails It
June 11, 2006
Op-Ed Columnist
How Hispanics Became the New Gays
By FRANK RICH
HE never promised them the Rose Garden. But that's where America's self-appointed defenders of family values had expected President Bush to take his latest stand against same-sex marriage last week. In the end, without explanation, the event was shunted off to a nondescript auditorium in the Executive Office Building, where the president spoke for a scant 10 minutes at the non-prime-time hour of 1:45 p.m. The subtext was clear: he was embarrassed to be there, a constitutional amendment "protecting" marriage was a loser, and he feared being branded a bigot. "As this debate goes forward, every American deserves to be treated with tolerance and respect and dignity," Mr. Bush said.
That debate died on the floor of the Senate less than 48 hours later, when the amendment went down to an even worse defeat than expected. Washington instantly codified the moral: a desperate president at rock bottom in the polls went through the motions of a cynical and transparent charade to rally his base in an election year. Nothing was gained — even the president of the Family Policy Network branded Mr. Bush's pandering a ruse — and no harm was done.
Except to gay people. That's why the president went out of his way to talk about "tolerance" at this rally, bizarrely held on the widely marked 25th anniversary of the first mention of an AIDS diagnosis in a federal report. Mr. Bush knew very well that his participation in this tired political stunt, while certain to have no effect on the Constitution, could harm innocent Americans.
When young people hear repeatedly that gay couples aspiring to marital commitment are "undermining the moral fabric of the country, that stuff doesn't wash off," says Matt Foreman of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. Most concretely, the Washington ruckus trickles down into sweeping assaults on gay partners' employee benefits and parental rights at the state level, as exemplified by a broadly worded referendum on the Virginia ballot this fall outlawing any kind of civil union. Had Mr. Bush really believed that his words had no consequences, he would have spoken in broad daylight at the White House and without any defensive touchy-feely bromides about "tolerance."
Mr. Bush prides himself on being tolerant — and has hundreds of photos of himself posing with black schoolkids to prove it. But his latest marriage maneuver is yet another example of how his presidency has been an enabler of bigots, and not just those of the "pro-family" breed.
The stars are in alignment for a new national orgy of rancor because Americans are angry. The government has failed to alleviate gas prices, the economic anxieties of globalization or turmoil in Iraq. Two-thirds of Americans believe their country is on the wrong track. The historical response to that plight is a witch hunt for scapegoats on whom we can project our rage and impotence. Gay people, though traditionally handy for that role, aren't the surefire scapegoats they once were; support for a constitutional marriage amendment, ABC News found, fell to 42 percent just before the Senate vote. Hence the rise of a juicier target: Hispanics. They are the new gays, the foremost political piñata in the election year of 2006.
As has not been the case with gay civil rights, Mr. Bush has taken a humane view of immigration reform throughout his political career. Some of this is self-interest; he wants to cater to his business backers' hunger for cheap labor and Karl Rove's hunger for Hispanic voters. But Mr. Bush has always celebrated and promoted immigrants and never demonized them — at least in Texas. In the White House, he sidelined immigration after 9/11, then backed away from a "guest worker" proposal when his party balked in 2004. After bragging about his political capital upon re-election, he squandered it on Iraq and a quixotic campaign to privatize Social Security. Now Congress has acted without him, turning immigration reform into a deadlocked culture war not unlike the marriage amendment. A draconian federal law is unlikely, but the damage has been done: the ugly debate has in itself generated a backlash against a vulnerable minority.
Most Americans who are in favor of stricter border enforcement are not bigots. Far from it. But some politicians and other public figures see an opportunity to foment hate and hysteria for their own profit. They are embracing a nativism and xenophobia that recall the 1920's, when a State Department warning about an influx of "filthy" and "unassimilable" Jews from Eastern Europe led to the first immigration quotas, or the 1950's heyday of Operation Wetback, when illegal Mexican workers were hunted down and deported.
"What a repellent spectacle," the Fox News anchor Brit Hume said when surveying masses of immigrant demonstrators, some of them waving Mexican flags, in April. Hearing of a Spanish version of "The Star-Spangled Banner," Lamar Alexander, a Republican from Tennessee, introduced a Senate resolution calling for the national anthem to be sung only in English. There was no more point to that gratuitous bit of grandstanding than there was to the D.O.A. marriage amendment. Or more accurately, both had the same point: stirring up animosity against a group that can be branded an enemy of civilization as we know it.
The most pernicious demagogues on immigration often invoke national security as their rationale, but no terrorist has been known to enter the United States from Mexico. Even the arguments about immigrants' economic impact are sometimes a smokescreen for a baser animus. As John B. Judis of The New Republic documented in his account of Arizona's combustible immigration politics, the dominant fear in that border state has less to do with immigrants stealing jobs (which are going begging in construction and agriculture) than with their contaminating the culture through "Mexicanization." It's the same complaint that's been leveled against every immigrant group when the country's in this foul a mood.
That mood was ratcheted up last week by the success of Brian Bilbray's strategy in winning the suburban San Diego House seat vacated by the jailed Duke Cunningham. Mr. Bilbray, a card-carrying lobbyist, was thought to be potentially vulnerable even in a normally safe Republican district. But by his own account, his campaign took off once he started hitting the single issue of immigration, taking a hard line far to the right of the president who endorsed him. Mr. Bilbray goes so far as to call for the refusal of automatic citizenship to the children of illegal immigrants — a repudiation of the 14th Amendment, enacted after the Civil War to ensure citizenship to everyone born in the United States.
His victorious campaign set a tone likely to be embraced by other Republicans fearful of a rout in 2006. The election year is still young, and we haven't seen the half of this vitriol yet. Some politicians, like Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma, are equal-opportunity bigots: when he isn't calling for the Senate to declare English the national language and demanding that immigrants be quizzed on the Federalist Papers (could he pass?), he is defending marriage by proclaiming that in his family's "recorded history" there has never been "any kind of homosexual relationship." (Any bets on how long before someone unearths the Inhofes' unrecorded history?) Vernon Robinson, a Republican Congressional candidate challenging the Democratic incumbent Brad Miller in North Carolina, has run an ad warning that "if Miller had his way, America would be nothing but one big fiesta for illegal aliens and homosexuals."
The practitioners of such scare politics know what they're up to. That's why they so often share the strange psychological tic of framing their arguments in civil-rights speak. The Minuteman Project, the vigilante brigade stoking fears of an immigration Armageddon, quotes Gandhi on its Web site; its founder, Jim Gilchrist, has referred to his group as "predominantly white Martin Luther Kings." On a Focus on the Family radio show, James Dobson and the White House press secretary, Tony Snow, positioned the campaign to deny gay civil rights as the moral equivalent of L.B.J.'s campaign to extend civil rights. James Sensenbrenner, the leading House Republican voice on immigration policy, likened those who employ illegal immigrants to "the 19th-century slave masters" that "we had to fight a civil war to get rid of." For that historical analogy to add up, you'd have to believe that Africans voluntarily sought to immigrate to America to be slaves. Whether Mr. Sensenbrenner is out to insult African-Americans or is merely a fool is a distinction without a difference in this volatile political climate.
Mr. Bush is a lame duck, but he still has a bully pulpit. Here is a cause he has professed to believe in since he first ran for office in Texas, and it's threatening to boil over in an election year. Imagine if he exercised leadership and called out those who trash immigrants rather than merely mouthing homilies about tolerance and dignity.
Tolerance and dignity are already on life-support in this debate. If the president doesn't lead, he will have helped relegate Hispanics to the same second-class status he has encouraged for gay Americans. Compassionate conservatism, R.I.P.
Op-Ed Columnist
How Hispanics Became the New Gays
By FRANK RICH
HE never promised them the Rose Garden. But that's where America's self-appointed defenders of family values had expected President Bush to take his latest stand against same-sex marriage last week. In the end, without explanation, the event was shunted off to a nondescript auditorium in the Executive Office Building, where the president spoke for a scant 10 minutes at the non-prime-time hour of 1:45 p.m. The subtext was clear: he was embarrassed to be there, a constitutional amendment "protecting" marriage was a loser, and he feared being branded a bigot. "As this debate goes forward, every American deserves to be treated with tolerance and respect and dignity," Mr. Bush said.
That debate died on the floor of the Senate less than 48 hours later, when the amendment went down to an even worse defeat than expected. Washington instantly codified the moral: a desperate president at rock bottom in the polls went through the motions of a cynical and transparent charade to rally his base in an election year. Nothing was gained — even the president of the Family Policy Network branded Mr. Bush's pandering a ruse — and no harm was done.
Except to gay people. That's why the president went out of his way to talk about "tolerance" at this rally, bizarrely held on the widely marked 25th anniversary of the first mention of an AIDS diagnosis in a federal report. Mr. Bush knew very well that his participation in this tired political stunt, while certain to have no effect on the Constitution, could harm innocent Americans.
When young people hear repeatedly that gay couples aspiring to marital commitment are "undermining the moral fabric of the country, that stuff doesn't wash off," says Matt Foreman of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. Most concretely, the Washington ruckus trickles down into sweeping assaults on gay partners' employee benefits and parental rights at the state level, as exemplified by a broadly worded referendum on the Virginia ballot this fall outlawing any kind of civil union. Had Mr. Bush really believed that his words had no consequences, he would have spoken in broad daylight at the White House and without any defensive touchy-feely bromides about "tolerance."
Mr. Bush prides himself on being tolerant — and has hundreds of photos of himself posing with black schoolkids to prove it. But his latest marriage maneuver is yet another example of how his presidency has been an enabler of bigots, and not just those of the "pro-family" breed.
The stars are in alignment for a new national orgy of rancor because Americans are angry. The government has failed to alleviate gas prices, the economic anxieties of globalization or turmoil in Iraq. Two-thirds of Americans believe their country is on the wrong track. The historical response to that plight is a witch hunt for scapegoats on whom we can project our rage and impotence. Gay people, though traditionally handy for that role, aren't the surefire scapegoats they once were; support for a constitutional marriage amendment, ABC News found, fell to 42 percent just before the Senate vote. Hence the rise of a juicier target: Hispanics. They are the new gays, the foremost political piñata in the election year of 2006.
As has not been the case with gay civil rights, Mr. Bush has taken a humane view of immigration reform throughout his political career. Some of this is self-interest; he wants to cater to his business backers' hunger for cheap labor and Karl Rove's hunger for Hispanic voters. But Mr. Bush has always celebrated and promoted immigrants and never demonized them — at least in Texas. In the White House, he sidelined immigration after 9/11, then backed away from a "guest worker" proposal when his party balked in 2004. After bragging about his political capital upon re-election, he squandered it on Iraq and a quixotic campaign to privatize Social Security. Now Congress has acted without him, turning immigration reform into a deadlocked culture war not unlike the marriage amendment. A draconian federal law is unlikely, but the damage has been done: the ugly debate has in itself generated a backlash against a vulnerable minority.
Most Americans who are in favor of stricter border enforcement are not bigots. Far from it. But some politicians and other public figures see an opportunity to foment hate and hysteria for their own profit. They are embracing a nativism and xenophobia that recall the 1920's, when a State Department warning about an influx of "filthy" and "unassimilable" Jews from Eastern Europe led to the first immigration quotas, or the 1950's heyday of Operation Wetback, when illegal Mexican workers were hunted down and deported.
"What a repellent spectacle," the Fox News anchor Brit Hume said when surveying masses of immigrant demonstrators, some of them waving Mexican flags, in April. Hearing of a Spanish version of "The Star-Spangled Banner," Lamar Alexander, a Republican from Tennessee, introduced a Senate resolution calling for the national anthem to be sung only in English. There was no more point to that gratuitous bit of grandstanding than there was to the D.O.A. marriage amendment. Or more accurately, both had the same point: stirring up animosity against a group that can be branded an enemy of civilization as we know it.
The most pernicious demagogues on immigration often invoke national security as their rationale, but no terrorist has been known to enter the United States from Mexico. Even the arguments about immigrants' economic impact are sometimes a smokescreen for a baser animus. As John B. Judis of The New Republic documented in his account of Arizona's combustible immigration politics, the dominant fear in that border state has less to do with immigrants stealing jobs (which are going begging in construction and agriculture) than with their contaminating the culture through "Mexicanization." It's the same complaint that's been leveled against every immigrant group when the country's in this foul a mood.
That mood was ratcheted up last week by the success of Brian Bilbray's strategy in winning the suburban San Diego House seat vacated by the jailed Duke Cunningham. Mr. Bilbray, a card-carrying lobbyist, was thought to be potentially vulnerable even in a normally safe Republican district. But by his own account, his campaign took off once he started hitting the single issue of immigration, taking a hard line far to the right of the president who endorsed him. Mr. Bilbray goes so far as to call for the refusal of automatic citizenship to the children of illegal immigrants — a repudiation of the 14th Amendment, enacted after the Civil War to ensure citizenship to everyone born in the United States.
His victorious campaign set a tone likely to be embraced by other Republicans fearful of a rout in 2006. The election year is still young, and we haven't seen the half of this vitriol yet. Some politicians, like Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma, are equal-opportunity bigots: when he isn't calling for the Senate to declare English the national language and demanding that immigrants be quizzed on the Federalist Papers (could he pass?), he is defending marriage by proclaiming that in his family's "recorded history" there has never been "any kind of homosexual relationship." (Any bets on how long before someone unearths the Inhofes' unrecorded history?) Vernon Robinson, a Republican Congressional candidate challenging the Democratic incumbent Brad Miller in North Carolina, has run an ad warning that "if Miller had his way, America would be nothing but one big fiesta for illegal aliens and homosexuals."
The practitioners of such scare politics know what they're up to. That's why they so often share the strange psychological tic of framing their arguments in civil-rights speak. The Minuteman Project, the vigilante brigade stoking fears of an immigration Armageddon, quotes Gandhi on its Web site; its founder, Jim Gilchrist, has referred to his group as "predominantly white Martin Luther Kings." On a Focus on the Family radio show, James Dobson and the White House press secretary, Tony Snow, positioned the campaign to deny gay civil rights as the moral equivalent of L.B.J.'s campaign to extend civil rights. James Sensenbrenner, the leading House Republican voice on immigration policy, likened those who employ illegal immigrants to "the 19th-century slave masters" that "we had to fight a civil war to get rid of." For that historical analogy to add up, you'd have to believe that Africans voluntarily sought to immigrate to America to be slaves. Whether Mr. Sensenbrenner is out to insult African-Americans or is merely a fool is a distinction without a difference in this volatile political climate.
Mr. Bush is a lame duck, but he still has a bully pulpit. Here is a cause he has professed to believe in since he first ran for office in Texas, and it's threatening to boil over in an election year. Imagine if he exercised leadership and called out those who trash immigrants rather than merely mouthing homilies about tolerance and dignity.
Tolerance and dignity are already on life-support in this debate. If the president doesn't lead, he will have helped relegate Hispanics to the same second-class status he has encouraged for gay Americans. Compassionate conservatism, R.I.P.
Saturday, June 10, 2006
Mike Berg for Congress
Nothing but admiration for this man.
Al-Zarqawi's Death is No Cause for Rejoicing
by Michael Berg
CNN anchor Soledad O'Brien spoke Thursday with Michael Berg, whose son, Nicholas Berg, was beheaded two years ago in Iraq, likely at the hands of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. This is adapted from their conversation.
Q Mr. Berg, thank you for talking with us again. It's nice to have an opportunity to talk to you. Of course, I'm curious to know your reaction, as it is now confirmed that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the man who is widely credited and blamed for killing your son, Nicholas, is dead.
A Well, my reaction is I'm sorry whenever any human being dies. Zarqawi is a human being. He has a family who are reacting just as my family reacted when Nick was killed, and I feel bad for that. I feel doubly bad, though, because Zarqawi is also a political figure, and his death will reignite yet another wave of revenge, and revenge is something that I do not follow, that I do not ask for, that I do not wish for against anybody. And it can't end the cycle. As long as people use violence to combat violence, we will always have violence.
Q I have to say, sir, I'm surprised. I know how devastated you and your family were, frankly, when Nick was killed in such a horrible, and brutal and public way.
A Well, you shouldn't be surprised, because I have never indicated anything but forgiveness and peace in any interview on the air.
Q No, no. And we have spoken before, and I'm well aware of that. But at some point, one would think, is there a moment when you say, 'I'm glad he's dead, the man who killed my son'?
A No. How can a human being be glad that another human being is dead?
Q You know, you talked about the fact that he's become a political figure. Are you concerned that he becomes a martyr and a hero and, in fact, invigorates the insurgency in Iraq?
A Of course. When Nick was killed, I felt that I had nothing left to lose. I'm a pacifist, so I wasn't going out murdering people. But I am -- was not a risk-taking person, and yet now I've done things that have endangered me tremendously. ...
Now, take someone who in 1991, who maybe had their family killed by an American bomb, their support system whisked away from them, someone who, instead of being 59, as I was when Nick died, was 5 years old or 10 years old. And then if I were that person, might I not learn how to fly a plane into a building or strap a bag of bombs to my back?
That's what is happening every time we kill an Iraqi, every time we kill anyone, we are creating a large number of people who are going to want vengeance. And, you know, when are we ever going to learn that that doesn't work?
Al-Zarqawi's Death is No Cause for Rejoicing
by Michael Berg
CNN anchor Soledad O'Brien spoke Thursday with Michael Berg, whose son, Nicholas Berg, was beheaded two years ago in Iraq, likely at the hands of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. This is adapted from their conversation.
Q Mr. Berg, thank you for talking with us again. It's nice to have an opportunity to talk to you. Of course, I'm curious to know your reaction, as it is now confirmed that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the man who is widely credited and blamed for killing your son, Nicholas, is dead.
A Well, my reaction is I'm sorry whenever any human being dies. Zarqawi is a human being. He has a family who are reacting just as my family reacted when Nick was killed, and I feel bad for that. I feel doubly bad, though, because Zarqawi is also a political figure, and his death will reignite yet another wave of revenge, and revenge is something that I do not follow, that I do not ask for, that I do not wish for against anybody. And it can't end the cycle. As long as people use violence to combat violence, we will always have violence.
Q I have to say, sir, I'm surprised. I know how devastated you and your family were, frankly, when Nick was killed in such a horrible, and brutal and public way.
A Well, you shouldn't be surprised, because I have never indicated anything but forgiveness and peace in any interview on the air.
Q No, no. And we have spoken before, and I'm well aware of that. But at some point, one would think, is there a moment when you say, 'I'm glad he's dead, the man who killed my son'?
A No. How can a human being be glad that another human being is dead?
Q You know, you talked about the fact that he's become a political figure. Are you concerned that he becomes a martyr and a hero and, in fact, invigorates the insurgency in Iraq?
A Of course. When Nick was killed, I felt that I had nothing left to lose. I'm a pacifist, so I wasn't going out murdering people. But I am -- was not a risk-taking person, and yet now I've done things that have endangered me tremendously. ...
Now, take someone who in 1991, who maybe had their family killed by an American bomb, their support system whisked away from them, someone who, instead of being 59, as I was when Nick died, was 5 years old or 10 years old. And then if I were that person, might I not learn how to fly a plane into a building or strap a bag of bombs to my back?
That's what is happening every time we kill an Iraqi, every time we kill anyone, we are creating a large number of people who are going to want vengeance. And, you know, when are we ever going to learn that that doesn't work?
Tuesday, May 30, 2006
Anonymous Says
So Feingold is for gay marriage, however he voted someone onto the supreme court who is against it?
Uh, yes. What's your point? I'm for gay marriage and I've cast my vote for people who don't favor it; John Kerry and Bill Clinton immediately come to mind.
Uh, yes. What's your point? I'm for gay marriage and I've cast my vote for people who don't favor it; John Kerry and Bill Clinton immediately come to mind.
Sunday, May 21, 2006
More Discussion
Wesley just because 65% of Americans do not think Bush is doing a good job doesn't mean that the do because of the same reasons as you.There are many people on the right who disagree with Bush, but that doesn't mean they agree with your views.
I'm not suggesting that they do. In fact there was a really interesting opinion piece in the paper by staunch conservative Richard Viguerie. His policy views and mine are polar opposite, but the objective fact upon which we agree completely is that Bush has not been an effective President. Incidentally, another point upon which we agree--as members of the "far" wings of our persuasion (Right and Left) is that loyalty to party and winning elections isn't always a good thing.
Bush's Base Betrayal
By Richard A. ViguerieSunday, May 21, 2006; B01
As a candidate in 2000, George W. Bush was a Rorschach test. Country Club Republicans saw him as another George H.W. Bush; some conservatives, thinking wishfully, saw him as another Ronald Reagan. He called himself a "compassionate conservative," which meant whatever one wanted it to mean. Experts from across the party's spectrum were flown to Austin to brief Bush and reported back: "He's one of us."
Republicans were desperate to retake the White House, conservatives were desperate to get the Clinton liberals out and there was no direct heir to Reagan running for president. So most conservatives supported Bush as the strongest candidate -- some enthusiastically and some, like me, reluctantly. After the disastrous presidency of his father, our support for the son was a triumph of hope over experience.
Once he took office, conservatives were willing to grant this Bush a honeymoon. We were happy when he proposed tax cuts (small, but tax cuts nonetheless) and when he pushed for a missile defense system. Then came the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and conservatives came to see support for the president as an act of patriotism.
Conservatives tolerated the No Child Left Behind Act, an extensive intrusion into state and local education, and the budget-busting Medicare prescription drug benefit. They tolerated the greatest increase in spending since Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society. They tolerated Bush's failure to veto a single bill, and his refusal to enforce immigration laws. They even tolerated his signing of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance overhaul, even though Bush's opposition to that measure was a key reason they backed him over Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) in the 2000 primaries.
In 2004, Republican leaders pleaded with conservatives -- particularly religious conservatives -- to register people to vote and help them turn out on Election Day. Those efforts strengthened Republicans in Congress and probably saved the Bush presidency. We were told: Just wait till the second term. Then, the president, freed of concern over reelection and backed by a Republican Congress, would take off the gloves and fight for the conservative agenda. Just wait.
We're still waiting.
Sixty-five months into Bush's presidency, conservatives feel betrayed. After the "Bridge to Nowhere" transportation bill, the Harriet Miers Supreme Court nomination and the Dubai Ports World deal, the immigration crisis was the tipping point for us. Indeed, a Washington Post-ABC News poll found last week that Republican disapproval of Bush's presidency had increased from 16 percent to 30 percent in one month. It is largely the defection of conservatives that is driving the president's poll numbers to new lows.
Emboldened and interconnected as never before by alternative media, such as talk radio and Internet blogs, many conservatives have concluded that the benefits of unwavering support for the GOP simply do not, and will not, outweigh the costs.
The main cause of conservatives' anger with Bush is this: He talked like a conservative to win our votes but never governed like a conservative.
For all of conservatives' patience, we've been rewarded with the botched Hurricane Katrina response, headed by an unqualified director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which proved that the government isn't ready for the next disaster. We've been rewarded with an amnesty plan for illegal immigrants. We've been rewarded with a war in Iraq that drags on because of the failure to provide adequate resources at the beginning, and with exactly the sort of "nation-building" that Candidate Bush said he opposed.
Republicans in Congress and at the White House seem oblivious to the rising threat of communist China and of Vladimir Putin's Russia. Despite the temporary appointment of conservative John R. Bolton as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, the current GOP leadership keeps shoveling money to the world body despite its refusal to change.
As for the Supreme Court, Bush's failed nomination of Miers, his personal lawyer, represented the breaking of what we took as an explicit promise to appoint more Antonin Scalias and Clarence Thomases, and it was an inexcusable act of cronyism.
Conservatives hope that John G. Roberts and Samuel A. Alito will turn out to be conservatives, as we were promised, but we are aware that six of nine previous Republican appointees to the Supreme Court turned out to be liberals or swing voters. And none of Bush's Supreme Court nominees had a significant paper trail as a conservative legal scholar. That sends a message to conservative lawyers and judges: If you want to be on the Supreme Court someday, hide your conservatism.
But conservatives don't blame the current mess just on Bush. They recognize the problem today is also at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue.
For years, congressional Republicans have sold themselves to conservatives as the continuation of the Reagan revolution. We were told that they would take on the Washington special interests -- that they would, in essence, tear down K Street and sow the earth with salt to make sure nothing ever grew there again.
But over time, most of them turned into the sort of unprincipled power brokers they had ousted in 1994. They lost interest in furthering conservative ideas, and they turned their attention to getting their share of the pork. Conservatives did not spend decades going door to door, staffing phone banks and compiling lists of like-minded voters so Republican congressmen could have highways named after them and so there could be an affirmative-action program for Republican lobbyists.
White House and congressional Republicans seem to have adopted a one-word strategy: bribery. Buy off seniors with a prescription drug benefit. Buy off the steel industry with tariffs. Buy off agribusiness with subsidies. The cost of illegal bribery (see the case of former congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham) pales next to that of legal bribery such as congressional earmarks.
In today's Washington, where are the serious efforts by Republicans to protect unborn children from abortion? Where is the campaign for a constitutional amendment to prevent liberal judges from allowing same-sex marriage?
Instead of conservative action on social issues, the Republican-controlled House has approved more taxpayers' money for an embryo-killing type of stem cell research. And it passed a "hate crimes" measure that could lead to the classification as "hate" of criticism of homosexual activity. And in the Senate, Republicans have let key judicial nominees languish, even when Bush has nominated conservatives for lower courts. Would a strong Senate leader such as LBJ have let his party's nominees fail for lack of a floor vote?
As long as Democrats controlled Congress or the White House, Republicans could tell conservatives they deserved support because of what they would do, someday. Now we know what they do when they have control. Their agenda comes from Big Business, not from grass-roots conservatives.
But unhappy conservatives should be taken seriously. When conservatives are unhappy, bad things happen to the Republican Party.
In 1948, conservatives were unhappy with Thomas E. Dewey's liberal Republican "me too" campaign, and enough of them stayed home to give the election to Harry S. Truman. In 1960, conservatives were unhappy with Richard M. Nixon's negotiations with Nelson A. Rockefeller to divide the spoils of victory before victory was even achieved, and John F. Kennedy won.
In 1974, conservatives were unhappy with the corruption and Big Government policies of Nixon's White House and with President Gerald R. Ford's selection of Rockefeller as his vice president, and this led to major Republican losses in the congressional races that year. By 1976, conservatives were fed up with Ford's adoption of Rockefeller's agenda, and Jimmy Carter was elected with the backing of Christian conservatives.
In 1992, conservatives were so unhappy with President George H.W. Bush's open disdain for them that they staged an open rebellion, first with the candidacy of Patrick J. Buchanan and then with Ross Perot. The result was an incumbent president receiving a paltry 37 percent of the vote. In 1998, conservatives were demoralized by congressional Republicans' wild spending and their backing away from conservative ideas. The result was an unexpected loss of seats in the House and the resignation of Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.).
The current record of Washington Republicans is so bad that, without a drastic change in direction, millions of conservatives will again stay home this November.
And maybe they should. Conservatives are beginning to realize that nothing will change until there's a change in the GOP leadership. If congressional Republicans win this fall, they will see themselves as vindicated, and nothing will get better.
If conservatives accept the idea that we must support Republicans no matter what they do, we give up our bargaining position and any chance at getting things done. We're like a union that agrees never to strike, no matter how badly its members are treated. Sometimes it is better to stand on principle and suffer a temporary defeat. If Ford had won in 1976, it's unlikely Reagan ever would have been president. If the elder Bush had won in 1992, it's unlikely the Republicans would have taken control of Congress in 1994.
At the very least, conservatives must stop funding the Republican National Committee and other party groups. (Let Big Business take care of that!) Instead, conservatives should dedicate their money and volunteer efforts toward conservative groups and conservative candidates. They should redirect their anger into building a third force -- not a third party, but a movement independent of any party. They should lay the groundwork for a rebirth of the conservative movement and for the 2008 campaign, when, perhaps, a new generation of conservative leaders will step forward.
I've never seen conservatives so downright fed up as they are today. The current relationship between Washington Republicans and the nation's conservatives makes me think of a cheating husband whose wife catches him, and forgives him, time and time again. Then one day he comes home to discover that she has packed her bags and called a cab -- and a divorce lawyer.
As the philanderer learns: Hell hath no fury. . . .
I'm not suggesting that they do. In fact there was a really interesting opinion piece in the paper by staunch conservative Richard Viguerie. His policy views and mine are polar opposite, but the objective fact upon which we agree completely is that Bush has not been an effective President. Incidentally, another point upon which we agree--as members of the "far" wings of our persuasion (Right and Left) is that loyalty to party and winning elections isn't always a good thing.
Bush's Base Betrayal
By Richard A. ViguerieSunday, May 21, 2006; B01
As a candidate in 2000, George W. Bush was a Rorschach test. Country Club Republicans saw him as another George H.W. Bush; some conservatives, thinking wishfully, saw him as another Ronald Reagan. He called himself a "compassionate conservative," which meant whatever one wanted it to mean. Experts from across the party's spectrum were flown to Austin to brief Bush and reported back: "He's one of us."
Republicans were desperate to retake the White House, conservatives were desperate to get the Clinton liberals out and there was no direct heir to Reagan running for president. So most conservatives supported Bush as the strongest candidate -- some enthusiastically and some, like me, reluctantly. After the disastrous presidency of his father, our support for the son was a triumph of hope over experience.
Once he took office, conservatives were willing to grant this Bush a honeymoon. We were happy when he proposed tax cuts (small, but tax cuts nonetheless) and when he pushed for a missile defense system. Then came the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and conservatives came to see support for the president as an act of patriotism.
Conservatives tolerated the No Child Left Behind Act, an extensive intrusion into state and local education, and the budget-busting Medicare prescription drug benefit. They tolerated the greatest increase in spending since Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society. They tolerated Bush's failure to veto a single bill, and his refusal to enforce immigration laws. They even tolerated his signing of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance overhaul, even though Bush's opposition to that measure was a key reason they backed him over Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) in the 2000 primaries.
In 2004, Republican leaders pleaded with conservatives -- particularly religious conservatives -- to register people to vote and help them turn out on Election Day. Those efforts strengthened Republicans in Congress and probably saved the Bush presidency. We were told: Just wait till the second term. Then, the president, freed of concern over reelection and backed by a Republican Congress, would take off the gloves and fight for the conservative agenda. Just wait.
We're still waiting.
Sixty-five months into Bush's presidency, conservatives feel betrayed. After the "Bridge to Nowhere" transportation bill, the Harriet Miers Supreme Court nomination and the Dubai Ports World deal, the immigration crisis was the tipping point for us. Indeed, a Washington Post-ABC News poll found last week that Republican disapproval of Bush's presidency had increased from 16 percent to 30 percent in one month. It is largely the defection of conservatives that is driving the president's poll numbers to new lows.
Emboldened and interconnected as never before by alternative media, such as talk radio and Internet blogs, many conservatives have concluded that the benefits of unwavering support for the GOP simply do not, and will not, outweigh the costs.
The main cause of conservatives' anger with Bush is this: He talked like a conservative to win our votes but never governed like a conservative.
For all of conservatives' patience, we've been rewarded with the botched Hurricane Katrina response, headed by an unqualified director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which proved that the government isn't ready for the next disaster. We've been rewarded with an amnesty plan for illegal immigrants. We've been rewarded with a war in Iraq that drags on because of the failure to provide adequate resources at the beginning, and with exactly the sort of "nation-building" that Candidate Bush said he opposed.
Republicans in Congress and at the White House seem oblivious to the rising threat of communist China and of Vladimir Putin's Russia. Despite the temporary appointment of conservative John R. Bolton as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, the current GOP leadership keeps shoveling money to the world body despite its refusal to change.
As for the Supreme Court, Bush's failed nomination of Miers, his personal lawyer, represented the breaking of what we took as an explicit promise to appoint more Antonin Scalias and Clarence Thomases, and it was an inexcusable act of cronyism.
Conservatives hope that John G. Roberts and Samuel A. Alito will turn out to be conservatives, as we were promised, but we are aware that six of nine previous Republican appointees to the Supreme Court turned out to be liberals or swing voters. And none of Bush's Supreme Court nominees had a significant paper trail as a conservative legal scholar. That sends a message to conservative lawyers and judges: If you want to be on the Supreme Court someday, hide your conservatism.
But conservatives don't blame the current mess just on Bush. They recognize the problem today is also at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue.
For years, congressional Republicans have sold themselves to conservatives as the continuation of the Reagan revolution. We were told that they would take on the Washington special interests -- that they would, in essence, tear down K Street and sow the earth with salt to make sure nothing ever grew there again.
But over time, most of them turned into the sort of unprincipled power brokers they had ousted in 1994. They lost interest in furthering conservative ideas, and they turned their attention to getting their share of the pork. Conservatives did not spend decades going door to door, staffing phone banks and compiling lists of like-minded voters so Republican congressmen could have highways named after them and so there could be an affirmative-action program for Republican lobbyists.
White House and congressional Republicans seem to have adopted a one-word strategy: bribery. Buy off seniors with a prescription drug benefit. Buy off the steel industry with tariffs. Buy off agribusiness with subsidies. The cost of illegal bribery (see the case of former congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham) pales next to that of legal bribery such as congressional earmarks.
In today's Washington, where are the serious efforts by Republicans to protect unborn children from abortion? Where is the campaign for a constitutional amendment to prevent liberal judges from allowing same-sex marriage?
Instead of conservative action on social issues, the Republican-controlled House has approved more taxpayers' money for an embryo-killing type of stem cell research. And it passed a "hate crimes" measure that could lead to the classification as "hate" of criticism of homosexual activity. And in the Senate, Republicans have let key judicial nominees languish, even when Bush has nominated conservatives for lower courts. Would a strong Senate leader such as LBJ have let his party's nominees fail for lack of a floor vote?
As long as Democrats controlled Congress or the White House, Republicans could tell conservatives they deserved support because of what they would do, someday. Now we know what they do when they have control. Their agenda comes from Big Business, not from grass-roots conservatives.
But unhappy conservatives should be taken seriously. When conservatives are unhappy, bad things happen to the Republican Party.
In 1948, conservatives were unhappy with Thomas E. Dewey's liberal Republican "me too" campaign, and enough of them stayed home to give the election to Harry S. Truman. In 1960, conservatives were unhappy with Richard M. Nixon's negotiations with Nelson A. Rockefeller to divide the spoils of victory before victory was even achieved, and John F. Kennedy won.
In 1974, conservatives were unhappy with the corruption and Big Government policies of Nixon's White House and with President Gerald R. Ford's selection of Rockefeller as his vice president, and this led to major Republican losses in the congressional races that year. By 1976, conservatives were fed up with Ford's adoption of Rockefeller's agenda, and Jimmy Carter was elected with the backing of Christian conservatives.
In 1992, conservatives were so unhappy with President George H.W. Bush's open disdain for them that they staged an open rebellion, first with the candidacy of Patrick J. Buchanan and then with Ross Perot. The result was an incumbent president receiving a paltry 37 percent of the vote. In 1998, conservatives were demoralized by congressional Republicans' wild spending and their backing away from conservative ideas. The result was an unexpected loss of seats in the House and the resignation of Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.).
The current record of Washington Republicans is so bad that, without a drastic change in direction, millions of conservatives will again stay home this November.
And maybe they should. Conservatives are beginning to realize that nothing will change until there's a change in the GOP leadership. If congressional Republicans win this fall, they will see themselves as vindicated, and nothing will get better.
If conservatives accept the idea that we must support Republicans no matter what they do, we give up our bargaining position and any chance at getting things done. We're like a union that agrees never to strike, no matter how badly its members are treated. Sometimes it is better to stand on principle and suffer a temporary defeat. If Ford had won in 1976, it's unlikely Reagan ever would have been president. If the elder Bush had won in 1992, it's unlikely the Republicans would have taken control of Congress in 1994.
At the very least, conservatives must stop funding the Republican National Committee and other party groups. (Let Big Business take care of that!) Instead, conservatives should dedicate their money and volunteer efforts toward conservative groups and conservative candidates. They should redirect their anger into building a third force -- not a third party, but a movement independent of any party. They should lay the groundwork for a rebirth of the conservative movement and for the 2008 campaign, when, perhaps, a new generation of conservative leaders will step forward.
I've never seen conservatives so downright fed up as they are today. The current relationship between Washington Republicans and the nation's conservatives makes me think of a cheating husband whose wife catches him, and forgives him, time and time again. Then one day he comes home to discover that she has packed her bags and called a cab -- and a divorce lawyer.
As the philanderer learns: Hell hath no fury. . . .
Marriage
"What about a man who wants to marry his DOG! What about his civil rights!", asks Anonymous.
Consenting adults is what we're talking about here.
Consenting adults is what we're talking about here.
More
You guys are a joke. Are you capable of saying anything substantive?
Oh my God! Bush is responsible for all that! He was also able to get the majority of Americans to vote for him in the last election despite the evidence of his machiavellian schemes!What a brilliant man! No wait, he's just an unintelligent Texas boob. I got it ,he's the ANTI-CHRIST!
Winning elections absolutely = good president, silly me.
Oh my God! Bush is responsible for all that! He was also able to get the majority of Americans to vote for him in the last election despite the evidence of his machiavellian schemes!What a brilliant man! No wait, he's just an unintelligent Texas boob. I got it ,he's the ANTI-CHRIST!
Winning elections absolutely = good president, silly me.
More Anonymous
Anonymous replies: "moreover, the answer to mass killings surely can't be an invasion that results in more mass killings"Then whats your solution! You didn't answer the question!
The answer to Saddam's mass killings would not have been to have sided with him and armed him in a way that allowed him to do it. As horrific as those acts were in the 80's, I don't think they screamed for redress in 2003. Do you?
The Right is great at calling things crises and then chastising opponents for not offering solutions, e.g., Social Security and Immigration.
So you are saying that we invaded Iraq in 2003 to address the killings that occurred on the Reagan-Bush and the Bush I watches? That's bullshit and you know it.
The answer to Saddam's mass killings would not have been to have sided with him and armed him in a way that allowed him to do it. As horrific as those acts were in the 80's, I don't think they screamed for redress in 2003. Do you?
The Right is great at calling things crises and then chastising opponents for not offering solutions, e.g., Social Security and Immigration.
So you are saying that we invaded Iraq in 2003 to address the killings that occurred on the Reagan-Bush and the Bush I watches? That's bullshit and you know it.
Immigration Red Herring
This is a long piece for the blog, but it's well worth reading. If read with an open mind, it can help an understanding about just what the immigration debate is really about.
Where did this issue come from? Why is it resonating? What are its real parameters both as a problem and in terms of solutions.
The Framing of Immigration
by George Lakoff and Sam Ferguson
On May 15th, in an address from the Oval Office, President Bush presented his proposal for “comprehensive immigration reform."
The term “immigration reform” evokes an issue-defining conceptual frame — The Immigration Problem Frame — a frame that imposes a structure on the current situation, defines a set of “problems” with that situation, and circumscribes the possibility for “solutions.”
“Reform,” when used in politics, indicates there is a pressing issue that needs to be addressed — take “medicare reform,” “lobbying reform,” “social security reform.” The noun that's attached to reform — “immigration” — points to where the problem lies. Whatever noun is attached to “reform” becomes the locus of the problem and constrains what counts as a solution.
To illustrate, take “lobbying reform.” In the wake of the Jack Abramoff scandal, “lobbying reform” was all the talk in the media and on Capitol Hill. The problem defined by this frame has to do with lobbyists. As a “lobbyist” problem, the solutions focused on Congressional rules regarding lobbyists. The debate centered around compensated meals, compensated trips, access by former Congressmen (who inevitably become lobbyists) to the floor of the Senate and House of representatives, lobbying disclosure, lobbyists' access to Congressional staff and the period of time between leaving the Congress and becoming a registered lobbyists. Indeed, if the reform needed is “lobbying reform,” these are reasonable solutions. But, the term “Congressional ethics reform” would have framed a problem of a much different nature, a problem with Congressmen. And it would allow very different reforms to count as solutions. After all, lobbyists are powerless if there's nobody to accept a free meal, fly on a private plane, play a round of golf in the Bahamas and, most importantly, accept the political contributions lobbyists raise on their behalf from special-interests with billions of dollars in business before the federal Government. A solution could, for example, have been Full Public Financing of Elections and free airtime for political candidates as part of the licensing of the public's airwaves to private corporations. The “lobbying reform” framing of the issue precluded such considerations from discussion, because they don't count as solutions to the “lobbying” problem. Issue-defining frames are powerful.
“Immigration reform” also evokes an issue-defining frame. Bush, in his speech, pointed out the problems that this frame defines. First, the Government has “not been in complete control of its borders.” Second, millions are able to “sneak across our border” seeking to make money. Finally, once here, illegal immigrants sometimes forge documents to get work, skirting labor laws, and deceiving employers who attempt to follow the law. They may take jobs away from legal immigrants and ordinary Americans, bear children who will be American citizens even in they are not, and use local services like schools and hospitals, which may cost a local government a great deal. This is his definition of the problem in the Immigration Reform frame.
This definition of the problem focuses entirely on the immigrants and the administrative agencies charged with overseeing immigration law. The reason is that these are the only roles present in the Immigration Problem Frame.
Bush's “comprehensive solution” entirely concerns the immigrants, citizenship laws, and the border patrol. And, from the narrow problem identified by framing it as an “immigration problem,” Bush's solution is comprehensive. He has at least addressed everything that counts as a problem in the immigration frame.
But the real problem with the current situation runs broader and deeper. Consider the issue of Foreign Policy Reform, which focuses on two sub-issues:
How has US foreign policy placed, or kept, in power oppressive governments which people are forced to flee?'
What role have international trade agreements had in creating or exacerbating people's urge to flee their homelands? If capital is going to freely cross borders, should people and labor be able to do so as well, going where globalization takes the jobs?
Such a framing of the problem would lead to a solution involving the Secretary of State, conversations with Mexico and other Central American countries, and a close examination of the promises of NAFTA, CAFTA, the WTO, the IMF and the World Bank to raise standards of living around the globe. It would inject into the globalization debate a concern for the migration and displacement of people, not simply globalization's promise for profits. This is not addressed when the issue is defined as the “immigration problem.” Bush's “comprehensive solution” does not address any of these concerns. The immigration problem, in this light, is actually a globalization problem.
Perhaps the problem might be better understood as a humanitarian crisis. Can the mass migration and displacement of people from their homelands at a rate of 800,000 people a year be understood as anything else? Unknown numbers of people have died trekking through the extreme conditions of the Arizona and New Mexico desert. Towns are being depopulated and ways of life lost in rural Mexico. Fathers feel forced to leave their families in their best attempt to provide for their kids. Everyday, boatloads of people arrive on our shores after miserable journeys at sea in deplorable conditions.
As a humanitarian crisis, the solution could involve The UN or the Organization of American States. But these bodies do not have roles in the immigration frame, so they have no place in an “immigration debate.” Framing this as just an “immigration problem” prevents us from penetrating deeper into the issue.
The current situation can also be seen as a civil rights problem. The millions of people living here who crossed illegally are for most intents and purposes Americans. They work here. They pay taxes here. Their kids are in school here. They plan to raise their families here. For the most part, they are assimilated into the American system, but are forced to live underground and in the shadows because of their legal status. They are denied ordinary civil rights. The “immigration problem” framing overlooks their basic human dignity.
Perhaps most pointedly, the “immigration problem” frame blocks an understanding of this issue as a cheap labor issue. The undocumented immigrants allow employers to pay low wages, which in turn provide the cheap consumer goods we find at WalMart and McDonalds. They are part of a move towards the cheap lifestyle, where employers and consumers find any way they can to save a dollar, regardless of the human cost. Most of us partake in this cheap lifestyle, and as a consequence, we are all complicit in the current problematic situation. Business, Consumers and Government have turned a blind eye to the problem for so long because our entire economy is structured around subsistence wages. Americans won't do the work immigrants do not because they don't want to, but because they won't do it for such low pay. Since Bush was elected, corporate profits have doubled but there has been no increase in wages. This is really a wage problem. The workers who are being more productive are not getting paid for their increased productivity.
A solution to the “immigration problem” will not address these concerns because they are absent from the “immigration frame.” Framing matters. The notion of this as “an immigration problem” needing “immigration reform” is not neutral.
Surface Framing
We now turn from conceptual framing of the current situation to the words used and surface frames those words evoke.
The Illegal Frame The Illegal Frame is perhaps the most commonly used frame within the immigration debate. Journalists frequently refer to “illegal immigrants” as if it were a neutral term. But the illegal frame is highly structured. It frames the problem as one about the illegal act of crossing the border without papers. As a consequence, it fundamentally frames the problem as a legal one.
Think for a moment of a criminal. Chances are you thought about a robber, a murderer or a
rapist. These are prototypical criminals, people who do harm to a person or their property.
And prototypical criminals are assumed to be bad people.
“Illegal,” used as an adjective in “illegal immigrants” and “illegal aliens,” or simply as a noun in “illegals” defines the immigrants as criminals, as if they were inherently bad people. In conservative doctrine, those who break laws must be punished — or all law and order will break down. Failure to punish is immoral.
“Illegal alien” not only stresses criminality, but stresses otherness. As we are a nation of immigrants, we can at least empathize with immigrants, illegal or not. “Aliens,” in popular culture suggests nonhuman beings invading from outer space — completely foreign, not one of us, intent on taking over our land and our way of life by gradually insinuating themselves among us. Along these lines, the word “invasion” is used by the Minutemen and right-wing bloggers to discuss the wave of people crossing the border. Right-wing language experts intent on keep them out suggest using the world “aliens” whenever possible.
These are NOT neutral terms. Imagine calling businessmen who once cheated on their taxes “illegal businessmen.” Imagine calling people who have driven over the speed limit “illegal drivers.” Is Tom Delay an “illegal Republican?”
By defining them as criminal, it overlooks the immense contributions these immigrants
subsequently make by working hard for low wages. This is work that should more than make up for crossing the border. Indeed, we should be expressing our gratitude.
Immigrants who cross outside of legal channels, though, are committing offenses of a much different nature than the prototypical criminal. Their intent is not to cause harm or to steal. More accurately, they are committing victimless technical offenses, which we normally consider “violations.” By invoking the illegal frame, the severity of their offense is inflated.
The illegal frame — particularly “illegal alien” — dehumanizes. It blocks the questions of: why are people coming to the US, often times at great personal risk? What service do they provide when they are here? Why do they feel it necessary to avoid legal channels? It boils the entire debate down to questions of legality.
And it also ignores the illegal acts of employers. The problem is not being called the Illegal Employer Problem, and employers are not called “illegals.The Security Frame
The logical response to the “wave” of “illegal immigration” becomes “border security.” The Government has a responsibility to provide security for its citizens from criminals and invaders. President Bush has asked to place the National Guard on the border to provide security. Indeed, he referred to “security” six times in his immigration speech.
Additionally, Congress recently appropriated money from the so-called “war on terror” for border security with Mexico. This should outrage the American public. How could Congress conflate the war on terror with illegal immigration? Terrorists come to destroy the American dream, immigrants — both documented and undocumented — come to live the American dream. But the conceptual move from illegal immigrant (criminal, evil), to border security to a front of the war on terror, an ever expanding war against evil in all places and all times wherever it is, is not far.
It is this understanding of the issue that also prompted the House to pass the punitive HR 4437, which includes a provision to make assisting illegal immigrants while they are here a felony. It is seen as aiding and abetting a criminal.
But how could this be a “security” issue? Security implies that there is a threat, and a threatened, and that the threatened needs protection. These immigrants are not a physical threat, they are a vital part of our economy and help America function. They don't want to shoot us or kill us or blow us up. They only want to weed our gardens, clean our houses, and cook our meals in search of the American Dream. They must be recognized as Americans making a vital impact and contribution. And when they are, we will cease to tolerate the substandard conditions in which they are forced to work and live. No American — indeed, no person — should be treated so brashly.Amnesty
“Amnesty” also fits the Illegal Frame. Amnesty is a pardoning of an illegal action — a show of either benevolence or mercy by a supreme power. It implies that the fault lies with the immigrants, and it is a righteous act for the US Government to pardon them. This again blocks the reality that Government looks the other way, and Business has gone much further — it has been a full partner in creating the current situation. If amnesty is to be granted, it seems that amnesty should be given to the businesses who knowingly or unknowingly hired the immigrants and to the Government for turning a blind eye. But amnesty to these parties is not considered, because it's an “immigration problem.” Business has no role in this frame, and Government can't be given amnesty for not enforcing its own laws.The Undocumented
Worker Frame
By comparison, the term “undocumented worker” activates a conceptual frame that seems less accusatory and more compassionate than the “illegal” frame. But a closer look reveals fundamental problems with this framing.
First, the negative “undocumented” suggests that they should be documented - that there is something wrong with them if they are not. Second, “worker” suggests that their function in America is only to work, not to be educated, have families, form communities, have lives — and vote! This term was suggested by supporters of the immigrants as less noxious than illegal aliens, and it is, but it has serious limitations. It accepts the framing of immigrants as being here only to work. Temporary Workers
“Undocumented workers” opened the door to Bush's new proposal for “temporary workers,” who come to America for a short time, work for low wages, do not vote, have few rights and services, and then go home so that a new wave of workers without rights, or the possibility of citizenship and voting, can come in. This is thoroughly undemocratic and serves the financial and electoral interests of conservatives.
This term replaced “guest worker,” which was ridiculed. Imagine inviting some to dinner as a guest and then asking him to pick the vegetables, cook the dinner, and wash the dishes!
Frames Not Taken
Most of the framing initiative has been taken by conservatives. Progressives have so far abstained. Progressives could well frame the situation as the Cheap Labor Issue or the Cheap Lifestyle Issue. Most corporations use the common economic metaphor of labor as a resource. There are two kinds of employees — the Assets (creative people and managers) and Resources (who are relatively unskilled, fungible, interchangeable). The American economy is structured to drive down the cost of resources - that is, the wages of low-skilled, replaceable workers.
Immigration increases the supply of such workers and helps to drive down wages. Cheap labor increases “productivity” and profits for employers, and it permits a cheap lifestyle for consumers who get low prices because of cheap labor. But these are not seen as “problems.” They are benefits. And people take these benefits for granted. They are not grateful to the immigrants who make them possible. Gratitude. The word is hardly ever spoken in the discourse over immigration.
Now consider the frame defined by the term “economic refugee.” A refugee is a person who has fled their homeland, due to political or social strife, and seeks asylum in another country. An economic refugee would extend this category (metaphorically, not legally, though it might be shifted legally in the future) to include people fleeing their homeland as a result of economic insecurity.
Refugees are worthy of compassion. We should accept them into our nation. All people are entitled to a stable political community where they have reasonable life prospects to lead a fulfilling life — this is the essence of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
To frame the debate this way is to advance a progressive understanding. While immigrants are here, they should be integrated into society either temporarily, if conditions improve in their home country, or permanently, if they can integrate and become productive members of our nation. It will focus solutions on US foreign policy to be about people, not profits. The only way the migration of people from the South to the North will stop is when conditions are improved there. As long as there is a pull to the North and a push from the South, people will find their way over, no matter how big, how long or how guarded a border fence is. (As an aside, who will build that fence if all the undocumented immigrants leave?) Increased security will force people to find ever more dangerous crossings, as has already happened, without slowing the flow of immigrants. More people will die unnecessarily.
Even if we could “protect” ourselves by sealing the border and preventing businesses from hiring undocumented immigrants by imposing hefty fines or prison sentences for violations, progressives should not be satisfied. This still leaves those yearning to flee their own countries in search of a better life in deplorable situations. The problem is not dealt with by making the
United States a gated community.
While these refugees are here, they must be treated with dignity and respect. Indeed, if they cannot return home, we have a responsibility to welcome them into ours. And we must treat them as Americans, not as second-class citizens, as they are currently. If they are here, they work hard and contribute to society, they are worthy of a path to citizenship and the basic rights we are entitled to (a minimum wage, education, healthcare, a social safety net).
Currently, the undocumented immigrants living amongst us are un-enfranchised workers. They perform all the work, pay all the duties, and receive many fewer of the benefits — especially voting rights. They must be given an opportunity to come out of the shadows and lead normal lives as Americans.
The answer to this problem isn't an “open-border.” The United States cannot take on the world's problems on its own. Other affluent countries need to extend a humanitarian arm to peoples fleeing oppressive economic circumstances as well. How many immigrants the United States should be willing to accept will ultimately be up to Congress.
In presenting these alternative frames, we want to inject humanitarian concerns based in compassion and empathy into the debate. The problem is dealing adequately with a humanitarian crisis that extends well beyond the southern border. The focus must shift from the immigrants themselves and domestic policy to a broader view of why so many people flee, and how we can help alleviate conditions in Mexico and Central America to prevent the flow in the first place. Only by reframing of the debate can we incorporate more global considerations. Immigration crises only arise from global disparity.Why It's Not a Single Issue
The wealth of frames in this debate has made it confusing. The frames within the debate have been divisive. But the absence of frames to counter the idea of the “immigration problem” has also been divisive. Since each frame presents a different component of the problem, it's worth noting who stresses which frames, and which problems that frame define. Conservatives
The conservative views:
Law and Order: The “illegal immigrants” are criminals, felons, and must be punished - rounded up and sent home. There should be no amnesty. Otherwise all law will break down.
The Nativists: The immigrants are diluting our culture, our language, and our values.
The Profiteers: We need cheap labor to keep our profits up and our cheap lifestyle in place.
The Bean Counters: We can't afford to have illegal immigrants using our tax dollars on health, education, and other services.
The Security Hounds: We need more border guards and a hi-tech wall to guarantee our security.
Progressives
Progressivism Begins at Home: The immigrants are taking the jobs of American works and we have to protect our workers.
African-American Protectionists: Hispanic immigrants are threatening African-American jobs.
Provide a path to citizenship: The immigrants have earned citizenship with their hard work, their devotion to American values, and their contribution to our society.
Foreign Policy Reformers: We need to pay attention to the causes that drive others from their homelands.
Wage supports: Institute a serious earned income tax credit for Americans doing otherwise low-paying jobs, so that more Americans will want to do them and fewer immigrants will be drawn here.
Illegal Employers: The way to protect American workers and slow immigration of unskilled workers is to prosecute employers of unskilled workers.
We can see why this is such a complex problem and why there are so splits within both the conservative and progressive ranks.
Summing Up The “immigration issue” is anything but. It is a complex melange of social, economic, cultural and security concerns — with conservatives and progressives split in different ways with different positions.
Framing the recent problem as an “immigration problem” pre-empts many of these considerations from entering the debate. As a consequence, any reform that “solves” the immigration problem is bound to be a patchwork solution addressing bits and pieces of much larger concerns. Bush's comprehensive reform is comprehensive, but only for the narrow set of problems defined in the “immigration debate.” It does not address many of the questions with which progressives should be primarily concerned, issues of basic experiential well-being and political rights. Ultimately, the way the current immigration debate is going — focusing narrowly on domestic policy, executive agencies and the immigrants — we will be faced with the same problems 10 years from now. The same long lines of immigrants waiting for legal status will persist. Temporary workers will not return home after their visas have expired, and millions of undocumented people will live amongst us. Only by broadening the understanding of the situation will the problem, or, rather, the multiple problems, be addressed and adequately solved. The immigration problem does not sit in isolation from other problems, but is symptomatic of broader social and economic concerns. The framing of the “immigration problem” must not pre-empt us from debating and beginning to address these broader concerns.
Where did this issue come from? Why is it resonating? What are its real parameters both as a problem and in terms of solutions.
The Framing of Immigration
by George Lakoff and Sam Ferguson
On May 15th, in an address from the Oval Office, President Bush presented his proposal for “comprehensive immigration reform."
The term “immigration reform” evokes an issue-defining conceptual frame — The Immigration Problem Frame — a frame that imposes a structure on the current situation, defines a set of “problems” with that situation, and circumscribes the possibility for “solutions.”
“Reform,” when used in politics, indicates there is a pressing issue that needs to be addressed — take “medicare reform,” “lobbying reform,” “social security reform.” The noun that's attached to reform — “immigration” — points to where the problem lies. Whatever noun is attached to “reform” becomes the locus of the problem and constrains what counts as a solution.
To illustrate, take “lobbying reform.” In the wake of the Jack Abramoff scandal, “lobbying reform” was all the talk in the media and on Capitol Hill. The problem defined by this frame has to do with lobbyists. As a “lobbyist” problem, the solutions focused on Congressional rules regarding lobbyists. The debate centered around compensated meals, compensated trips, access by former Congressmen (who inevitably become lobbyists) to the floor of the Senate and House of representatives, lobbying disclosure, lobbyists' access to Congressional staff and the period of time between leaving the Congress and becoming a registered lobbyists. Indeed, if the reform needed is “lobbying reform,” these are reasonable solutions. But, the term “Congressional ethics reform” would have framed a problem of a much different nature, a problem with Congressmen. And it would allow very different reforms to count as solutions. After all, lobbyists are powerless if there's nobody to accept a free meal, fly on a private plane, play a round of golf in the Bahamas and, most importantly, accept the political contributions lobbyists raise on their behalf from special-interests with billions of dollars in business before the federal Government. A solution could, for example, have been Full Public Financing of Elections and free airtime for political candidates as part of the licensing of the public's airwaves to private corporations. The “lobbying reform” framing of the issue precluded such considerations from discussion, because they don't count as solutions to the “lobbying” problem. Issue-defining frames are powerful.
“Immigration reform” also evokes an issue-defining frame. Bush, in his speech, pointed out the problems that this frame defines. First, the Government has “not been in complete control of its borders.” Second, millions are able to “sneak across our border” seeking to make money. Finally, once here, illegal immigrants sometimes forge documents to get work, skirting labor laws, and deceiving employers who attempt to follow the law. They may take jobs away from legal immigrants and ordinary Americans, bear children who will be American citizens even in they are not, and use local services like schools and hospitals, which may cost a local government a great deal. This is his definition of the problem in the Immigration Reform frame.
This definition of the problem focuses entirely on the immigrants and the administrative agencies charged with overseeing immigration law. The reason is that these are the only roles present in the Immigration Problem Frame.
Bush's “comprehensive solution” entirely concerns the immigrants, citizenship laws, and the border patrol. And, from the narrow problem identified by framing it as an “immigration problem,” Bush's solution is comprehensive. He has at least addressed everything that counts as a problem in the immigration frame.
But the real problem with the current situation runs broader and deeper. Consider the issue of Foreign Policy Reform, which focuses on two sub-issues:
How has US foreign policy placed, or kept, in power oppressive governments which people are forced to flee?'
What role have international trade agreements had in creating or exacerbating people's urge to flee their homelands? If capital is going to freely cross borders, should people and labor be able to do so as well, going where globalization takes the jobs?
Such a framing of the problem would lead to a solution involving the Secretary of State, conversations with Mexico and other Central American countries, and a close examination of the promises of NAFTA, CAFTA, the WTO, the IMF and the World Bank to raise standards of living around the globe. It would inject into the globalization debate a concern for the migration and displacement of people, not simply globalization's promise for profits. This is not addressed when the issue is defined as the “immigration problem.” Bush's “comprehensive solution” does not address any of these concerns. The immigration problem, in this light, is actually a globalization problem.
Perhaps the problem might be better understood as a humanitarian crisis. Can the mass migration and displacement of people from their homelands at a rate of 800,000 people a year be understood as anything else? Unknown numbers of people have died trekking through the extreme conditions of the Arizona and New Mexico desert. Towns are being depopulated and ways of life lost in rural Mexico. Fathers feel forced to leave their families in their best attempt to provide for their kids. Everyday, boatloads of people arrive on our shores after miserable journeys at sea in deplorable conditions.
As a humanitarian crisis, the solution could involve The UN or the Organization of American States. But these bodies do not have roles in the immigration frame, so they have no place in an “immigration debate.” Framing this as just an “immigration problem” prevents us from penetrating deeper into the issue.
The current situation can also be seen as a civil rights problem. The millions of people living here who crossed illegally are for most intents and purposes Americans. They work here. They pay taxes here. Their kids are in school here. They plan to raise their families here. For the most part, they are assimilated into the American system, but are forced to live underground and in the shadows because of their legal status. They are denied ordinary civil rights. The “immigration problem” framing overlooks their basic human dignity.
Perhaps most pointedly, the “immigration problem” frame blocks an understanding of this issue as a cheap labor issue. The undocumented immigrants allow employers to pay low wages, which in turn provide the cheap consumer goods we find at WalMart and McDonalds. They are part of a move towards the cheap lifestyle, where employers and consumers find any way they can to save a dollar, regardless of the human cost. Most of us partake in this cheap lifestyle, and as a consequence, we are all complicit in the current problematic situation. Business, Consumers and Government have turned a blind eye to the problem for so long because our entire economy is structured around subsistence wages. Americans won't do the work immigrants do not because they don't want to, but because they won't do it for such low pay. Since Bush was elected, corporate profits have doubled but there has been no increase in wages. This is really a wage problem. The workers who are being more productive are not getting paid for their increased productivity.
A solution to the “immigration problem” will not address these concerns because they are absent from the “immigration frame.” Framing matters. The notion of this as “an immigration problem” needing “immigration reform” is not neutral.
Surface Framing
We now turn from conceptual framing of the current situation to the words used and surface frames those words evoke.
The Illegal Frame The Illegal Frame is perhaps the most commonly used frame within the immigration debate. Journalists frequently refer to “illegal immigrants” as if it were a neutral term. But the illegal frame is highly structured. It frames the problem as one about the illegal act of crossing the border without papers. As a consequence, it fundamentally frames the problem as a legal one.
Think for a moment of a criminal. Chances are you thought about a robber, a murderer or a
rapist. These are prototypical criminals, people who do harm to a person or their property.
And prototypical criminals are assumed to be bad people.
“Illegal,” used as an adjective in “illegal immigrants” and “illegal aliens,” or simply as a noun in “illegals” defines the immigrants as criminals, as if they were inherently bad people. In conservative doctrine, those who break laws must be punished — or all law and order will break down. Failure to punish is immoral.
“Illegal alien” not only stresses criminality, but stresses otherness. As we are a nation of immigrants, we can at least empathize with immigrants, illegal or not. “Aliens,” in popular culture suggests nonhuman beings invading from outer space — completely foreign, not one of us, intent on taking over our land and our way of life by gradually insinuating themselves among us. Along these lines, the word “invasion” is used by the Minutemen and right-wing bloggers to discuss the wave of people crossing the border. Right-wing language experts intent on keep them out suggest using the world “aliens” whenever possible.
These are NOT neutral terms. Imagine calling businessmen who once cheated on their taxes “illegal businessmen.” Imagine calling people who have driven over the speed limit “illegal drivers.” Is Tom Delay an “illegal Republican?”
By defining them as criminal, it overlooks the immense contributions these immigrants
subsequently make by working hard for low wages. This is work that should more than make up for crossing the border. Indeed, we should be expressing our gratitude.
Immigrants who cross outside of legal channels, though, are committing offenses of a much different nature than the prototypical criminal. Their intent is not to cause harm or to steal. More accurately, they are committing victimless technical offenses, which we normally consider “violations.” By invoking the illegal frame, the severity of their offense is inflated.
The illegal frame — particularly “illegal alien” — dehumanizes. It blocks the questions of: why are people coming to the US, often times at great personal risk? What service do they provide when they are here? Why do they feel it necessary to avoid legal channels? It boils the entire debate down to questions of legality.
And it also ignores the illegal acts of employers. The problem is not being called the Illegal Employer Problem, and employers are not called “illegals.The Security Frame
The logical response to the “wave” of “illegal immigration” becomes “border security.” The Government has a responsibility to provide security for its citizens from criminals and invaders. President Bush has asked to place the National Guard on the border to provide security. Indeed, he referred to “security” six times in his immigration speech.
Additionally, Congress recently appropriated money from the so-called “war on terror” for border security with Mexico. This should outrage the American public. How could Congress conflate the war on terror with illegal immigration? Terrorists come to destroy the American dream, immigrants — both documented and undocumented — come to live the American dream. But the conceptual move from illegal immigrant (criminal, evil), to border security to a front of the war on terror, an ever expanding war against evil in all places and all times wherever it is, is not far.
It is this understanding of the issue that also prompted the House to pass the punitive HR 4437, which includes a provision to make assisting illegal immigrants while they are here a felony. It is seen as aiding and abetting a criminal.
But how could this be a “security” issue? Security implies that there is a threat, and a threatened, and that the threatened needs protection. These immigrants are not a physical threat, they are a vital part of our economy and help America function. They don't want to shoot us or kill us or blow us up. They only want to weed our gardens, clean our houses, and cook our meals in search of the American Dream. They must be recognized as Americans making a vital impact and contribution. And when they are, we will cease to tolerate the substandard conditions in which they are forced to work and live. No American — indeed, no person — should be treated so brashly.Amnesty
“Amnesty” also fits the Illegal Frame. Amnesty is a pardoning of an illegal action — a show of either benevolence or mercy by a supreme power. It implies that the fault lies with the immigrants, and it is a righteous act for the US Government to pardon them. This again blocks the reality that Government looks the other way, and Business has gone much further — it has been a full partner in creating the current situation. If amnesty is to be granted, it seems that amnesty should be given to the businesses who knowingly or unknowingly hired the immigrants and to the Government for turning a blind eye. But amnesty to these parties is not considered, because it's an “immigration problem.” Business has no role in this frame, and Government can't be given amnesty for not enforcing its own laws.The Undocumented
Worker Frame
By comparison, the term “undocumented worker” activates a conceptual frame that seems less accusatory and more compassionate than the “illegal” frame. But a closer look reveals fundamental problems with this framing.
First, the negative “undocumented” suggests that they should be documented - that there is something wrong with them if they are not. Second, “worker” suggests that their function in America is only to work, not to be educated, have families, form communities, have lives — and vote! This term was suggested by supporters of the immigrants as less noxious than illegal aliens, and it is, but it has serious limitations. It accepts the framing of immigrants as being here only to work. Temporary Workers
“Undocumented workers” opened the door to Bush's new proposal for “temporary workers,” who come to America for a short time, work for low wages, do not vote, have few rights and services, and then go home so that a new wave of workers without rights, or the possibility of citizenship and voting, can come in. This is thoroughly undemocratic and serves the financial and electoral interests of conservatives.
This term replaced “guest worker,” which was ridiculed. Imagine inviting some to dinner as a guest and then asking him to pick the vegetables, cook the dinner, and wash the dishes!
Frames Not Taken
Most of the framing initiative has been taken by conservatives. Progressives have so far abstained. Progressives could well frame the situation as the Cheap Labor Issue or the Cheap Lifestyle Issue. Most corporations use the common economic metaphor of labor as a resource. There are two kinds of employees — the Assets (creative people and managers) and Resources (who are relatively unskilled, fungible, interchangeable). The American economy is structured to drive down the cost of resources - that is, the wages of low-skilled, replaceable workers.
Immigration increases the supply of such workers and helps to drive down wages. Cheap labor increases “productivity” and profits for employers, and it permits a cheap lifestyle for consumers who get low prices because of cheap labor. But these are not seen as “problems.” They are benefits. And people take these benefits for granted. They are not grateful to the immigrants who make them possible. Gratitude. The word is hardly ever spoken in the discourse over immigration.
Now consider the frame defined by the term “economic refugee.” A refugee is a person who has fled their homeland, due to political or social strife, and seeks asylum in another country. An economic refugee would extend this category (metaphorically, not legally, though it might be shifted legally in the future) to include people fleeing their homeland as a result of economic insecurity.
Refugees are worthy of compassion. We should accept them into our nation. All people are entitled to a stable political community where they have reasonable life prospects to lead a fulfilling life — this is the essence of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
To frame the debate this way is to advance a progressive understanding. While immigrants are here, they should be integrated into society either temporarily, if conditions improve in their home country, or permanently, if they can integrate and become productive members of our nation. It will focus solutions on US foreign policy to be about people, not profits. The only way the migration of people from the South to the North will stop is when conditions are improved there. As long as there is a pull to the North and a push from the South, people will find their way over, no matter how big, how long or how guarded a border fence is. (As an aside, who will build that fence if all the undocumented immigrants leave?) Increased security will force people to find ever more dangerous crossings, as has already happened, without slowing the flow of immigrants. More people will die unnecessarily.
Even if we could “protect” ourselves by sealing the border and preventing businesses from hiring undocumented immigrants by imposing hefty fines or prison sentences for violations, progressives should not be satisfied. This still leaves those yearning to flee their own countries in search of a better life in deplorable situations. The problem is not dealt with by making the
United States a gated community.
While these refugees are here, they must be treated with dignity and respect. Indeed, if they cannot return home, we have a responsibility to welcome them into ours. And we must treat them as Americans, not as second-class citizens, as they are currently. If they are here, they work hard and contribute to society, they are worthy of a path to citizenship and the basic rights we are entitled to (a minimum wage, education, healthcare, a social safety net).
Currently, the undocumented immigrants living amongst us are un-enfranchised workers. They perform all the work, pay all the duties, and receive many fewer of the benefits — especially voting rights. They must be given an opportunity to come out of the shadows and lead normal lives as Americans.
The answer to this problem isn't an “open-border.” The United States cannot take on the world's problems on its own. Other affluent countries need to extend a humanitarian arm to peoples fleeing oppressive economic circumstances as well. How many immigrants the United States should be willing to accept will ultimately be up to Congress.
In presenting these alternative frames, we want to inject humanitarian concerns based in compassion and empathy into the debate. The problem is dealing adequately with a humanitarian crisis that extends well beyond the southern border. The focus must shift from the immigrants themselves and domestic policy to a broader view of why so many people flee, and how we can help alleviate conditions in Mexico and Central America to prevent the flow in the first place. Only by reframing of the debate can we incorporate more global considerations. Immigration crises only arise from global disparity.Why It's Not a Single Issue
The wealth of frames in this debate has made it confusing. The frames within the debate have been divisive. But the absence of frames to counter the idea of the “immigration problem” has also been divisive. Since each frame presents a different component of the problem, it's worth noting who stresses which frames, and which problems that frame define. Conservatives
The conservative views:
Law and Order: The “illegal immigrants” are criminals, felons, and must be punished - rounded up and sent home. There should be no amnesty. Otherwise all law will break down.
The Nativists: The immigrants are diluting our culture, our language, and our values.
The Profiteers: We need cheap labor to keep our profits up and our cheap lifestyle in place.
The Bean Counters: We can't afford to have illegal immigrants using our tax dollars on health, education, and other services.
The Security Hounds: We need more border guards and a hi-tech wall to guarantee our security.
Progressives
Progressivism Begins at Home: The immigrants are taking the jobs of American works and we have to protect our workers.
African-American Protectionists: Hispanic immigrants are threatening African-American jobs.
Provide a path to citizenship: The immigrants have earned citizenship with their hard work, their devotion to American values, and their contribution to our society.
Foreign Policy Reformers: We need to pay attention to the causes that drive others from their homelands.
Wage supports: Institute a serious earned income tax credit for Americans doing otherwise low-paying jobs, so that more Americans will want to do them and fewer immigrants will be drawn here.
Illegal Employers: The way to protect American workers and slow immigration of unskilled workers is to prosecute employers of unskilled workers.
We can see why this is such a complex problem and why there are so splits within both the conservative and progressive ranks.
Summing Up The “immigration issue” is anything but. It is a complex melange of social, economic, cultural and security concerns — with conservatives and progressives split in different ways with different positions.
Framing the recent problem as an “immigration problem” pre-empts many of these considerations from entering the debate. As a consequence, any reform that “solves” the immigration problem is bound to be a patchwork solution addressing bits and pieces of much larger concerns. Bush's comprehensive reform is comprehensive, but only for the narrow set of problems defined in the “immigration debate.” It does not address many of the questions with which progressives should be primarily concerned, issues of basic experiential well-being and political rights. Ultimately, the way the current immigration debate is going — focusing narrowly on domestic policy, executive agencies and the immigrants — we will be faced with the same problems 10 years from now. The same long lines of immigrants waiting for legal status will persist. Temporary workers will not return home after their visas have expired, and millions of undocumented people will live amongst us. Only by broadening the understanding of the situation will the problem, or, rather, the multiple problems, be addressed and adequately solved. The immigration problem does not sit in isolation from other problems, but is symptomatic of broader social and economic concerns. The framing of the “immigration problem” must not pre-empt us from debating and beginning to address these broader concerns.
Blah, blah blah
I agree with the previous post! Relativism is destroying the left!Read the book "Without Roots: The West, Relativism, Christianity, Islam " it speaks truth to power!
Very happy to hear that you read. I'd even be wiling to pick up a copy of the book you recommend. Before doing so, however, why don't you discuss what it is you mean, rather than just sign onto some really convenient platitude.
Very happy to hear that you read. I'd even be wiling to pick up a copy of the book you recommend. Before doing so, however, why don't you discuss what it is you mean, rather than just sign onto some really convenient platitude.
Marriage
Anonymous writes: “the state of being united to a person, either of the same or the opposite sex, in a consensual and contractual relationship recognized by law.”Doesn't your definition exclude polygamists.What about their civil rights!
Good point. That definition would exclude polygamists. A case could be made for their civil rights as well. You asked me for a definition that wasn't specific to man and woman. Polygamy doesn't scare me. Does it scare you?
Good point. That definition would exclude polygamists. A case could be made for their civil rights as well. You asked me for a definition that wasn't specific to man and woman. Polygamy doesn't scare me. Does it scare you?
Iraq
Ok, Wesley IRAQ. If you believe that the US should not have invaded IRAQ what is your solution to Saddam's regime that was killing thousands of there own people.I have never heard a pacifist give an honest answer to this question.
Do you realize that when Saddam was murdering his own people he was doing so with our government's tacit approval, and often with arms that we sold him? Are you aware that those mass murders took place years ago under a different, Republican, administration?
Don't conflate the issues here. The American people were not asked to support an invasion of Iraq to stop or to atone for mass murders. We were told that Saddam possessed stockpiles of WMD and was developing nuclear weapons. We were also assured that there were links between Saddam and al-Qaeda and that post 9/11 we had to act preemptively to address those "threats."
Moreover, the answer to mass killings surely can't be an invasion that results in more mass killings. Does that make any sense to you?
Were you aware of or concerned about mass kilings in Iraq before the summer of 2002 when the hype began about Iraq's WMD/links to terror?
What do you think we should do in Darfur?
Do you realize that when Saddam was murdering his own people he was doing so with our government's tacit approval, and often with arms that we sold him? Are you aware that those mass murders took place years ago under a different, Republican, administration?
Don't conflate the issues here. The American people were not asked to support an invasion of Iraq to stop or to atone for mass murders. We were told that Saddam possessed stockpiles of WMD and was developing nuclear weapons. We were also assured that there were links between Saddam and al-Qaeda and that post 9/11 we had to act preemptively to address those "threats."
Moreover, the answer to mass killings surely can't be an invasion that results in more mass killings. Does that make any sense to you?
Were you aware of or concerned about mass kilings in Iraq before the summer of 2002 when the hype began about Iraq's WMD/links to terror?
What do you think we should do in Darfur?
Feingold's Vote for Roberts
Anonymous continues: Russ Feingold voted for Roberts "Draw your own conclusions."!!
Obviously, I've drawn my conclusion. I don't agree with every single vote Feingold has made. He also voted for Ashcroft's nomination for AG. What's your point? Lockstep isn't required here.
Obviously, I've drawn my conclusion. I don't agree with every single vote Feingold has made. He also voted for Ashcroft's nomination for AG. What's your point? Lockstep isn't required here.
Please Make Sense
Anonymous, what on earth are you talking about? We've heard nothing but "other views" for the past 6 years and sadly have seen the consequences of those views put into policy. Your comment makes no sense whatsoever.
“Liberals claim to want to give a hearing to other views, but then are shocked and offended to discover that there are other views.”
“Liberals claim to want to give a hearing to other views, but then are shocked and offended to discover that there are other views.”
Doesn't the left realize that the reason why none of thier pet issues,impeachment etc. are not going forward is because people are tired of thier "guilty until proven innocent" attitudes. Maybe if they were a little more objective they would be taken seriously.
Actually silly, what we realize is that the Republicans control both houses of Congress and aren't allowing any investigations that would actually determine guilt or innocence. Do you think the administration told the truth in the run up to the War in Iraq? Do you think the President was truthful in his public statements about the Plamegate inquiry? Do you think the President alone has the authority to order surveillance programs of questionable legality? Do you think the American people ought to know more about how a national energy policy was developed behind closed doors (with Veep meeting with oil execs)?
You must think everything is going along swimmingly and that everything Bush & Co. tells you is true. That's really the only way one could possibly NOT feel the need to have serious Congressional oversight on the past 6 years of this administration.
What the hell are you talking about?
Actually silly, what we realize is that the Republicans control both houses of Congress and aren't allowing any investigations that would actually determine guilt or innocence. Do you think the administration told the truth in the run up to the War in Iraq? Do you think the President was truthful in his public statements about the Plamegate inquiry? Do you think the President alone has the authority to order surveillance programs of questionable legality? Do you think the American people ought to know more about how a national energy policy was developed behind closed doors (with Veep meeting with oil execs)?
You must think everything is going along swimmingly and that everything Bush & Co. tells you is true. That's really the only way one could possibly NOT feel the need to have serious Congressional oversight on the past 6 years of this administration.
What the hell are you talking about?
Bush Derangement Syndrome
Tom Engelhardt,another writer with Bush derangement syndrome,Wesley you live in a very narrow unenlightened non progressive world!
Anonymous, let me clue you in on something. The less than 30% of Americans who aren't dissatisfied with Bush are among the only people on the PLANET who don't suffer from the malady you diagnosed for Tom Engelhardt.
I don't get you guys. What are your view? What is your persepctive? Are you simply angry at people who aren't satisfied, and express their dissatisfaction, with W? Or do you think he really has done a good job?
Anonymous, let me clue you in on something. The less than 30% of Americans who aren't dissatisfied with Bush are among the only people on the PLANET who don't suffer from the malady you diagnosed for Tom Engelhardt.
I don't get you guys. What are your view? What is your persepctive? Are you simply angry at people who aren't satisfied, and express their dissatisfaction, with W? Or do you think he really has done a good job?
More Anonymous Blather
He/she writes with disgust:
"putting ourselves in the shoes of those people all around the world who are impacted by our action. "Only someone from the left can put themselves in the shoes of a Islamofacist jew hating Holocaust denyer. I wonder why that is? The left has gone so far off the rails that they no longer know the difference between right and wrong.Relativism has destroyed the left wing liberal legacy of the 60's .What a shame!
I think we agree on one thing. Sadly, it seems, only those of us on the Left appear to be capable of putting ourselves in the shoes of others. The inability to do so by you (presumably) and others, is one of the reasons why we are where we are today. No shame here baby!
Too bad people can't evaluate right and wrong and be able to understand another's perspective. The world ain't black and white, right or wrong, us or them. That works for you guys because it's easy to remember and it appeals to our basest instincts. The far Right proudly shuns intellectual subtelty and detail. But as we've seen over these past six years, it's a recipe for disaster at home and abroad.
"putting ourselves in the shoes of those people all around the world who are impacted by our action. "Only someone from the left can put themselves in the shoes of a Islamofacist jew hating Holocaust denyer. I wonder why that is? The left has gone so far off the rails that they no longer know the difference between right and wrong.Relativism has destroyed the left wing liberal legacy of the 60's .What a shame!
I think we agree on one thing. Sadly, it seems, only those of us on the Left appear to be capable of putting ourselves in the shoes of others. The inability to do so by you (presumably) and others, is one of the reasons why we are where we are today. No shame here baby!
Too bad people can't evaluate right and wrong and be able to understand another's perspective. The world ain't black and white, right or wrong, us or them. That works for you guys because it's easy to remember and it appeals to our basest instincts. The far Right proudly shuns intellectual subtelty and detail. But as we've seen over these past six years, it's a recipe for disaster at home and abroad.
Prejudiced Against W?
Anonymous writes:
Another prejudiced writer who is obsessed with GW Bush. Progressive means favouring new ideas, all I see is the same old stale left rhetoric and tactics that they accuse the right of using!
Let's get something straight here. G.W Bush has been President since the January 2001. His party also controls both houses of Congress and the President has been quite effective at stacking the federal courts with like-minded judges. If one cares about what happens in the world, beginning with what's going on in and on behalf of our country, how is it possible not to be focused "obsessed" with the person who's been in charge and is responsible for the current state of affairs.
Do you know what "prejudiced" means? Surely, after six years of direct observation, my views are not based on ay prejudgment. With just this cursory list of blunders (to put it mildly) to his credit, what more does a reasonably intelligent person with a different set of basic values need to form an opinion?
The wars in Iraq & Afghanistan
Astronomical deficits (built from record surpluses)
Tax cuts for the very richest among us
Katrina
Plamegate
Aversion to science
Disdain for the Constitution and subversion of federal law
Warrantless domestic spying/data mining
Global warming cop-out
Pre-9/11 intelligence failures
Torture, rendention and illegal detentions
Possibly vote fraud
You guys have got to do better than this with these comments. What the hell are you talking about? The overwhelming majority of Americans are realizing just how bad things are. Are you among the 29% that still thinks W is doing a good job?
Another prejudiced writer who is obsessed with GW Bush. Progressive means favouring new ideas, all I see is the same old stale left rhetoric and tactics that they accuse the right of using!
Let's get something straight here. G.W Bush has been President since the January 2001. His party also controls both houses of Congress and the President has been quite effective at stacking the federal courts with like-minded judges. If one cares about what happens in the world, beginning with what's going on in and on behalf of our country, how is it possible not to be focused "obsessed" with the person who's been in charge and is responsible for the current state of affairs.
Do you know what "prejudiced" means? Surely, after six years of direct observation, my views are not based on ay prejudgment. With just this cursory list of blunders (to put it mildly) to his credit, what more does a reasonably intelligent person with a different set of basic values need to form an opinion?
The wars in Iraq & Afghanistan
Astronomical deficits (built from record surpluses)
Tax cuts for the very richest among us
Katrina
Plamegate
Aversion to science
Disdain for the Constitution and subversion of federal law
Warrantless domestic spying/data mining
Global warming cop-out
Pre-9/11 intelligence failures
Torture, rendention and illegal detentions
Possibly vote fraud
You guys have got to do better than this with these comments. What the hell are you talking about? The overwhelming majority of Americans are realizing just how bad things are. Are you among the 29% that still thinks W is doing a good job?
Wednesday, May 03, 2006
Come on Now
To the 36% of Americans who still support this President, and the even lower number of Americans who back the Veep, exactly what is it that still keeps you in their thrall? Is being anti-abortion and anti-gay marriage the end all be all for you? Such that a botched war based on cooked intelligence, domestic spying and sky high gas prices (to name just a few problems) is all ok if you're "right" on these two critical social issues? How is it that two corrupt, deceptive and incompetent multimillionaire oil guys can pass themselves off as regular guys?
So the Iraq war had nothing to do with oil? Hmmmm......would you think differently about it if it did?
Investigate Big Dick
By Stephen Pizzo
If the US Senate really wants to earn our respect, I have a suggestion for them: Hold bipartisan hearings into Dick Cheney's 2001 Energy Task Force.
If not now, when?
Low-wage working Americans can't afford to drive to their jobs? Already some folks have been forced to pawn personal items just to fill their tank for another week. How bad does it have to get before you guys up there start asking the questions you should have asked years ago -- and this time, demanding real answers.
So, Bill Frist, Harry Reid, pull together a bipartisan panel made up of your toughest, most skeptical prosecutional-minded members, hire a couple of junkyard dog lawyers to act as GOP and Dem counsels, and let the long overdue hearings begin.
Subpoena everyone who had anything to do with those meetings, including secretaries who transcribed the original minutes. Oh, and when you call oil industry execs back, put them under oath this time. Because they lied last time when they said they had no idea...
(Washington Post, May 2005) A White House document shows that executives from big oil companies met with Vice President Cheney's energy task force in 2001 -- something long suspected by environmentalists but denied as recently as last week by industry officials testifying before Congress ...The document, obtained this week by The Washington Post, shows that officials from Exxon Mobil Corp., Conoco (before its merger with Phillips), Shell Oil Co. and BP America Inc. met in the White House complex with the Cheney aides who were developing a national energy policy, parts of which became law and parts of which are still being debated.
I mean really guys -- if not now, when?
Almost everyone else except Congress has tried to get this information out of the administration. The non-partisan Government Accountability Office (GAO) filed suit in April 2002 seeking access to the records of Cheney's energy task force. But one of those "liberal activist federal judges" dismissed the suit. The Sierra Club carried its fight for those records all the way to the US Supreme Court, which in 2004 voted 7-2 to uphold "a paramount necessity of protecting the executive branch from vexatious litigation."
But just to make sure no one got lucky in court, the administration built a wide moat around all things it feels are none of our damn business; including whatever deals Cheney made in 2001 with energy company CEOs.
"WASHINGTON - As the Bush administration has dramatically accelerated the classification of information as 'top secret' or 'confidential,' one office is refusing to report on its annual activity in classifying documents: the office of Vice President Dick Cheney ... A standing executive order, strengthened by President Bush in 2003, requires all agencies and 'any other entity within the executive branch' to provide an annual accounting of their classification of documents. More than 80 agencies have collectively reported to the National Archives that they made 15.6 million decisions in 2004 to classify information, nearly double the number in 2001, but Cheney continues to insist he is exempt. (Full Story)
It's not as though we don't have good reason to suspect skullduggery was afoot at those meeting -- skullduggery that has now been allowed to manifest itself in the form of war, economic hardship for average Americans and record profits for the Big Energy folk who attended the meetings. Over the past four years we have learned little about what happened at those meetings, but what little we have learned startles even those of us who thought we had seen it all:
"Documents turned over in the summer of 2003 by the Commerce Department as a result of the Sierra Club's and Judicial Watch's Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, concerning the activities of the Cheney Energy Task Force, contain a map of Iraqi oilfields, pipelines, refineries and terminals, as well as two charts detailing Iraqi oil and gas projects, and 'Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield Contracts.' The documents, dated March 2001, also feature maps of Saudi Arabian and United Arab Emirates oilfields, pipelines, refineries and tanker terminals. There are supporting charts with details of the major oil and gas development projects in each country that provide information on the project's costs, capacity, oil company and status or completion date." (Full Text)
So, did Cheney and oil company executives lick their chops over Iraqi oil less than two years before we attacked over non-existent WMD? When the administration brushed off questions about Cheney's meetings by telling us they concerned "securing America's energy future," was this the plan they cooked up? To overthrow Saddam, set up a puppet government and pump, pump, pump? If so, that plan has gone terribly wrong.
So, shouldn't Congress find out? If not now, when?
Well, let me correct myself. Not everything went wrong for everyone; just 2,800 American kids who died and tens of thousands of Iraqis who died. Now American motorists are getting the shaft. But look who came out smelling like a rose. By disrupting oil supplies from Iraq, the world's third largest producer, and destabilizing the entire oil producing region, and now by threatening Iran, oil companies with oil assets in the Gulf, Alaska and other regions, have seen the price of their oil skyrocket. Clearly a seat at those energy task force meetings was a seat worth having -- worth billions.
"Last week, Exxon Mobil (the majority owner of Imperial Oil (AKA 'Esso') announced its first-quarter profits had risen 14 per cent to $8.4 billion over the same period last year. That followed similar announcements by Conoco/Phillips and Chevron, the next two largest U.S. integrated oil companies. Chevron's profits jumped 50 per cent to $4 billion while Conoco/Phillips saw its profits climb 13 per cent to $3.3 billion."
A citizen would think that such obscene profits, at the very time real wages of working Americans are falling, the cost of heating and cooling their homes rises every month and transportation costs soar, would provide Congress with some backbone.
Senators, this is where the proverbial rubber hits the road. Investigate. Not just Big Oil, but Big Dick as well. Inquiring minds want to know. We are waiting and we are watching. If not now, when?
So the Iraq war had nothing to do with oil? Hmmmm......would you think differently about it if it did?
Investigate Big Dick
By Stephen Pizzo
If the US Senate really wants to earn our respect, I have a suggestion for them: Hold bipartisan hearings into Dick Cheney's 2001 Energy Task Force.
If not now, when?
Low-wage working Americans can't afford to drive to their jobs? Already some folks have been forced to pawn personal items just to fill their tank for another week. How bad does it have to get before you guys up there start asking the questions you should have asked years ago -- and this time, demanding real answers.
So, Bill Frist, Harry Reid, pull together a bipartisan panel made up of your toughest, most skeptical prosecutional-minded members, hire a couple of junkyard dog lawyers to act as GOP and Dem counsels, and let the long overdue hearings begin.
Subpoena everyone who had anything to do with those meetings, including secretaries who transcribed the original minutes. Oh, and when you call oil industry execs back, put them under oath this time. Because they lied last time when they said they had no idea...
(Washington Post, May 2005) A White House document shows that executives from big oil companies met with Vice President Cheney's energy task force in 2001 -- something long suspected by environmentalists but denied as recently as last week by industry officials testifying before Congress ...The document, obtained this week by The Washington Post, shows that officials from Exxon Mobil Corp., Conoco (before its merger with Phillips), Shell Oil Co. and BP America Inc. met in the White House complex with the Cheney aides who were developing a national energy policy, parts of which became law and parts of which are still being debated.
I mean really guys -- if not now, when?
Almost everyone else except Congress has tried to get this information out of the administration. The non-partisan Government Accountability Office (GAO) filed suit in April 2002 seeking access to the records of Cheney's energy task force. But one of those "liberal activist federal judges" dismissed the suit. The Sierra Club carried its fight for those records all the way to the US Supreme Court, which in 2004 voted 7-2 to uphold "a paramount necessity of protecting the executive branch from vexatious litigation."
But just to make sure no one got lucky in court, the administration built a wide moat around all things it feels are none of our damn business; including whatever deals Cheney made in 2001 with energy company CEOs.
"WASHINGTON - As the Bush administration has dramatically accelerated the classification of information as 'top secret' or 'confidential,' one office is refusing to report on its annual activity in classifying documents: the office of Vice President Dick Cheney ... A standing executive order, strengthened by President Bush in 2003, requires all agencies and 'any other entity within the executive branch' to provide an annual accounting of their classification of documents. More than 80 agencies have collectively reported to the National Archives that they made 15.6 million decisions in 2004 to classify information, nearly double the number in 2001, but Cheney continues to insist he is exempt. (Full Story)
It's not as though we don't have good reason to suspect skullduggery was afoot at those meeting -- skullduggery that has now been allowed to manifest itself in the form of war, economic hardship for average Americans and record profits for the Big Energy folk who attended the meetings. Over the past four years we have learned little about what happened at those meetings, but what little we have learned startles even those of us who thought we had seen it all:
"Documents turned over in the summer of 2003 by the Commerce Department as a result of the Sierra Club's and Judicial Watch's Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, concerning the activities of the Cheney Energy Task Force, contain a map of Iraqi oilfields, pipelines, refineries and terminals, as well as two charts detailing Iraqi oil and gas projects, and 'Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield Contracts.' The documents, dated March 2001, also feature maps of Saudi Arabian and United Arab Emirates oilfields, pipelines, refineries and tanker terminals. There are supporting charts with details of the major oil and gas development projects in each country that provide information on the project's costs, capacity, oil company and status or completion date." (Full Text)
So, did Cheney and oil company executives lick their chops over Iraqi oil less than two years before we attacked over non-existent WMD? When the administration brushed off questions about Cheney's meetings by telling us they concerned "securing America's energy future," was this the plan they cooked up? To overthrow Saddam, set up a puppet government and pump, pump, pump? If so, that plan has gone terribly wrong.
So, shouldn't Congress find out? If not now, when?
Well, let me correct myself. Not everything went wrong for everyone; just 2,800 American kids who died and tens of thousands of Iraqis who died. Now American motorists are getting the shaft. But look who came out smelling like a rose. By disrupting oil supplies from Iraq, the world's third largest producer, and destabilizing the entire oil producing region, and now by threatening Iran, oil companies with oil assets in the Gulf, Alaska and other regions, have seen the price of their oil skyrocket. Clearly a seat at those energy task force meetings was a seat worth having -- worth billions.
"Last week, Exxon Mobil (the majority owner of Imperial Oil (AKA 'Esso') announced its first-quarter profits had risen 14 per cent to $8.4 billion over the same period last year. That followed similar announcements by Conoco/Phillips and Chevron, the next two largest U.S. integrated oil companies. Chevron's profits jumped 50 per cent to $4 billion while Conoco/Phillips saw its profits climb 13 per cent to $3.3 billion."
A citizen would think that such obscene profits, at the very time real wages of working Americans are falling, the cost of heating and cooling their homes rises every month and transportation costs soar, would provide Congress with some backbone.
Senators, this is where the proverbial rubber hits the road. Investigate. Not just Big Oil, but Big Dick as well. Inquiring minds want to know. We are waiting and we are watching. If not now, when?
Tuesday, May 02, 2006
Is Impeachment Necessary?
I'm out of the country this week and feeling the need to post more. I loved this piece. I know a lot of folks on the Right see any discussion of impeachment as frivilous or vengeful and a lot of Democrats see it as a distraction from the '06 elections. I see it as neither. I agree with the author that the wrongs that have been committed in our names as Americans won't be addressed by a change in Congress or patiently waiting out the remaining 1000 or so days of this administration. If you believe, as I do, that the President has violated the law and betrayed the public trust, we must take action.
Why Impeachment is Essential
by Bill C. Davis
Say it and you’re told it won’t happen.
There’s a conscious rage and an unconscious self-defeating deference to the absoluteness of the power that caused the rage. Whether we know it or not we are devastated by that realization.
Impeachment: Impossible – stop thinking about it. Translated: We don’t matter. They know it and we know it. The “leaders” that perhaps, and in not a few minds, most likely, rigged two national elections, quite possibly allowed 9/11, definitely invaded Iraq and lied to do so, depleted the US treasury – or more specifically, redistributed the treasury to internal, private and corporate allies, sanctioned torture and domestic spying – those people can never be impeached or even investigated.
If we felt we owned the house, we’d say get out. But we don’t feel we own the house. We are reduced to squatters, who will grumble and pay fees for the plot of land allowed us, but we know now the land isn’t ours. We know the government and its treasury isn’t ours. So when someone says impeach – ie. evict – the response, even from the people who say it, is - not gonna happen.
But impeachment is essential. It is the remedy for, if one believes in it, the national soul. I think there is such a thing and it has material and physical manifestations. When it’s sick it demonstrates symptoms – when it’s healthy it yields harvests.
A legal and constitutional purge will return the sense of citizen ownership and spiritual health that was robbed along with election 2000. With that first theft all other thefts flowed. No - the clock can’t be turned back – dead soldiers can’t be brought back to life – flesh and blood limbs won’t grow back – the money to war profiteers most likely won’t be returned to the treasury – but the national soul, spirit, libido – whatever name we give the invisible American essence – that can be resuscitated and revived. And for that to begin to happen – impeachment is essential.
We are being surrounded by a world that doesn’t trust us anymore. They aren’t all hostile to us – they’ve lost faith in the power of the American people – and right to the point, as evidenced by comments such as “he should be impeached but it’s not going to happen” - we have lost faith in our own power.
It’s not personal. It’s not about how much we are embarrassed by or don’t like Bush. It has nothing to do with individual animosity and everything to do with collective power. When exit polls don’t match the official tally it doesn’t automatically mean that the time honored system of exit polls is suddenly unreliable, or that, as we were told, spouses were afraid to admit in front of each other who they voted for. It means something darker and more challenging. The American people did not take the challenge – we did what the coup expected we would do and we have been doing it ever since – until now.
We are at the “until now” moment. Democratic party leaders are uncomfortable talking about it. They think strategy. Impeachment is not a strategy. It’s a citizen action – a national correction – a collective redemption – an honest recall. It may happen city by city – state by state – but the body politic has the right, need, obligation to impeach.
"It’ll be over soon," is not good enough. "We’re at war," is no excuse. The war, as is now apparent, does not need, does not have, the president’s attention or wisdom. His job on that front is done – he sent the troops in. That was his role as defined by the Constitution and commandeered by criminality. The war is no longer his to orchestrate or end so if he goes, the war won’t notice, except in one way.
Extremist forces may not change their agenda toward us but the angry disappointed moderate elements may reconsider. Proving to that section of the world population that America is of, by and for the people will encourage them to act as blockades against violent reactionary elements. Impeachment could well be the secret weapon in our national defense. Impeachment could be the ultimate bunker buster that will purge the leadership that the world wants to get at, through us. Impeachment could move us from being collateral targets to active citizens.
The well-protected architects of this government’s suicidal policies are indifferent to what makes us safe. Anyone who talks so much about keeping us safe reveals something quite opposite. What are they trying to convince us of? And why do we believe them?
At the protest at inauguration 2001 there were mink coats, Stetson hats and lots of parties with lots of beef – and in the streets a feeling of free fall. It was just gonna happen – all of it – whatever lurked behind the front called GW Bush was going to happen even after we knew the majority didn’t ask for it. The free fall is still going on but instead of waiting for the hard landing – we can take the land and instead of falling on our backs, we can stand. But to do that – impeachment is essential.
Bill C. Davis is a playwright - www.billcdavis.com
###
Why Impeachment is Essential
by Bill C. Davis
Say it and you’re told it won’t happen.
There’s a conscious rage and an unconscious self-defeating deference to the absoluteness of the power that caused the rage. Whether we know it or not we are devastated by that realization.
Impeachment: Impossible – stop thinking about it. Translated: We don’t matter. They know it and we know it. The “leaders” that perhaps, and in not a few minds, most likely, rigged two national elections, quite possibly allowed 9/11, definitely invaded Iraq and lied to do so, depleted the US treasury – or more specifically, redistributed the treasury to internal, private and corporate allies, sanctioned torture and domestic spying – those people can never be impeached or even investigated.
If we felt we owned the house, we’d say get out. But we don’t feel we own the house. We are reduced to squatters, who will grumble and pay fees for the plot of land allowed us, but we know now the land isn’t ours. We know the government and its treasury isn’t ours. So when someone says impeach – ie. evict – the response, even from the people who say it, is - not gonna happen.
But impeachment is essential. It is the remedy for, if one believes in it, the national soul. I think there is such a thing and it has material and physical manifestations. When it’s sick it demonstrates symptoms – when it’s healthy it yields harvests.
A legal and constitutional purge will return the sense of citizen ownership and spiritual health that was robbed along with election 2000. With that first theft all other thefts flowed. No - the clock can’t be turned back – dead soldiers can’t be brought back to life – flesh and blood limbs won’t grow back – the money to war profiteers most likely won’t be returned to the treasury – but the national soul, spirit, libido – whatever name we give the invisible American essence – that can be resuscitated and revived. And for that to begin to happen – impeachment is essential.
We are being surrounded by a world that doesn’t trust us anymore. They aren’t all hostile to us – they’ve lost faith in the power of the American people – and right to the point, as evidenced by comments such as “he should be impeached but it’s not going to happen” - we have lost faith in our own power.
It’s not personal. It’s not about how much we are embarrassed by or don’t like Bush. It has nothing to do with individual animosity and everything to do with collective power. When exit polls don’t match the official tally it doesn’t automatically mean that the time honored system of exit polls is suddenly unreliable, or that, as we were told, spouses were afraid to admit in front of each other who they voted for. It means something darker and more challenging. The American people did not take the challenge – we did what the coup expected we would do and we have been doing it ever since – until now.
We are at the “until now” moment. Democratic party leaders are uncomfortable talking about it. They think strategy. Impeachment is not a strategy. It’s a citizen action – a national correction – a collective redemption – an honest recall. It may happen city by city – state by state – but the body politic has the right, need, obligation to impeach.
"It’ll be over soon," is not good enough. "We’re at war," is no excuse. The war, as is now apparent, does not need, does not have, the president’s attention or wisdom. His job on that front is done – he sent the troops in. That was his role as defined by the Constitution and commandeered by criminality. The war is no longer his to orchestrate or end so if he goes, the war won’t notice, except in one way.
Extremist forces may not change their agenda toward us but the angry disappointed moderate elements may reconsider. Proving to that section of the world population that America is of, by and for the people will encourage them to act as blockades against violent reactionary elements. Impeachment could well be the secret weapon in our national defense. Impeachment could be the ultimate bunker buster that will purge the leadership that the world wants to get at, through us. Impeachment could move us from being collateral targets to active citizens.
The well-protected architects of this government’s suicidal policies are indifferent to what makes us safe. Anyone who talks so much about keeping us safe reveals something quite opposite. What are they trying to convince us of? And why do we believe them?
At the protest at inauguration 2001 there were mink coats, Stetson hats and lots of parties with lots of beef – and in the streets a feeling of free fall. It was just gonna happen – all of it – whatever lurked behind the front called GW Bush was going to happen even after we knew the majority didn’t ask for it. The free fall is still going on but instead of waiting for the hard landing – we can take the land and instead of falling on our backs, we can stand. But to do that – impeachment is essential.
Bill C. Davis is a playwright - www.billcdavis.com
###
Monday, May 01, 2006
A Very Good Question
This piece by James Moore poses what I consider a very legitimate question. That is, why shouldn't Iran have nukes? Now I am fully aware that my friendly opposition readers will fast forward to the conclusion that I think Iran should have nukes, or would I have thought it ok for Hitler to have nukes, and so forth. But the point here, I believe, is that we who are citizens of the world's only remaining superpower really must begin to look at ourselves and our governments' actions with a more studied and critical eye. Sometimes, most times, that means stepping outside of our own worldview--as limited and self-serving as government, media and our own fear/arrogance has allowed it to become--and putting ourselves in the shoes of those people all around the world who are impacted by our action.
Do we want a world free of the potential for nuclear disaster, or do we want to limit the ability to create that disaster only to those nations we, or the world community, believe can handle that capacity responsibly? If the one is a proponent of the former vision, then American foreign policy, and especially nuclear proliferation policy isn't for you.
If you prefer, or are comfortable with the latter. You're in the right place and probably are quite comfortable with George Bush as your man.
Guess which category I'm in.
Why Shouldn't Iran Have Nuclear Weapons? Israel Has American Warheads Ready to FireIranians see only hypocrisy from the world's nuclear powers
by James C. Moore
As international political powers seek Iran's capitulation on nuclear weapons development, little notice is given to what the Americans and the British have done to create this crisis nor what steps the Israelis might eventually take to make it profoundly more complicated.
Iran's antipathy toward the West did not spontaneously generate out of the crazed rhetoric of radical mullahs. It has been spurred by what Iranians see as hypocrisy on the part of members of the world's nuclear community, and the bumbled meddling of the US and UK in Iranian affairs for more than a half century.
Iran is dangerous, but the British and the Americans have helped to make it that way. And the situation is even more precarious than it appears.
Shortly after the Gulf War in 1991, Germany gave Israel two of its diesel-powered Dolphin-class submarines. The Israelis agreed to purchase a third at a greatly reduced price. In November 2005, Germany announced that it was selling two more subs to Israel for $1.2bn (£660m).
Defense analysts have suggested the Dolphin-class boats are a means for Israel to have a second-strike capability from the sea if any of its land-based defence systems are hit by enemy nuclear weapons. Unfortunately, the Bush doctrine of pre-emptive war is geopolitically afoot: Israel and the American president might not be willing to wait until after the first shot is fired.
Initially, Israel was expected to arm its submarine fleet with its own short-range Popeye missiles carrying conventional warheads. At least three mainstream publications in the US and Germany, however, have confirmed the vessels have been fitted with US-made Harpoon missiles with nuclear tips. Each Dolphin-class boat can carry 24 missiles.
Although Israel has not yet taken delivery of the two new submarines, the three presently in its fleet have the potential to launch 72 Harpoons. Stratfor, a Texas intelligence business, claims the Harpoons are designed to seek out ship-sized targets on the sea but could be retrofitted with a different guidance system.
According to independent military journalist Gordon Thomas, that has already happened. He has reported the Harpoons were equipped with "over the horizon" software from a US manufacturer to make them suitable for attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities. Because the shallow waters of the Persian Gulf make the Israeli subs easily detectable, two of them are reported to be patrolling the deeper reaches of the Gulf of Oman, well within range of Iranian targets.
If Israel has US nuclear weaponry pointed at Iran, the position of the country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, becomes more politically supportable by his people. Despite the fact that Israel has been developing nuclear material since 1958, the country has never formally acknowledged it has a nuclear arsenal. Analysts have estimated, however, that Israel is the fifth-largest nuclear power on the planet with much of its delivery systems technology funded by US taxpayers. To complicate current diplomatic efforts, Israel, like Pakistan and India, has refused to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty even as it insists in the international discourse that Iran be stopped from acquiring what Israel already has.
Before Ariel Sharon's health failed, Der Speigel reported that the then Israeli prime minister had ordered his country's Mossad intelligence service to go into Iran and identify nuclear facilities to be destroyed. Journalist Seymour Hersh has also written that the US military already has teams inside Iran picking targets and working to facilitate political unrest. It is precisely this same type of tactic by the US and the UK, used more than a half century ago, which has led us to the contemporary nuclear precipice.
In 1953, Kermit Roosevelt led the CIA overthrow of Mohamed Mossadeq, Iran's democratic- ally elected prime minister. Responding to a populace that had grown restive under imperialist British influence, Mossadeq had plans to nationalise the vast oil fields of his country.
At the prompting of British intelligence, the CIA executed strategic bombings and political harassments of religious leaders, which became the foundation of Mossadeq's overthrow. Shah Reza Pahlevi, whose strings were pulled from Downing Street and Washington, became a brutal dictator who gave the multinational oil companies access to Iranian reserves. Over a quarter of a century later, the Iranian masses revolted, tossed out the Shah, and empowered the radical Ayatollah Khomeini.
Iran has the strength needed to create its current stalemate with the West. Including reserves, the Iranian army has 850,000 troops - enough to deal with strained American forces in Iraq, even if US reserves were to be deployed. The Iranians also have North Korean surface-to-air missiles with a 1,550-mile range and able to carry a nuclear warhead.
America cannot invade and occupy. Iran's response would likely be an invasion of southern Iraq, populated, as is Iran, with Shias who could be enlisted to further destabilise Iraq. There are also reported to be thousands of underground nuclear facilities and uranium gas centrifuges in Iran, and it is impossible for all of them to be eliminated. But the Israelis might be willing to try. An Israeli attack on Iran would give Bush some political cover at home. The president could continue to argue that Israel has a right to protect itself.
But what if Israeli actions endanger America? Israel cannot attack without the US being complicit. Israeli jets would have to fly through Iraqi air space, which would require US permission. And America's Harpoon missiles would be delivering the warheads. These would blow up Iranian nuclear facilities and also launch an army of Iranian terrorists into the Western world.
But George Bush is still without a respectable presidential legacy. He might be willing to risk everything to mark his place in history as the man who stopped Iran from getting nukes. The greater fear, though, is that he becomes the first person to pull the nuclear trigger since Hiroshima and Nagasaki - and then his place in the history books will be assured.
James Moore is the author of three books about the Bush administration. His latest, 'The Architect', will be published in September by Random House of New York.
© 2006 The Independent
###
Do we want a world free of the potential for nuclear disaster, or do we want to limit the ability to create that disaster only to those nations we, or the world community, believe can handle that capacity responsibly? If the one is a proponent of the former vision, then American foreign policy, and especially nuclear proliferation policy isn't for you.
If you prefer, or are comfortable with the latter. You're in the right place and probably are quite comfortable with George Bush as your man.
Guess which category I'm in.
Why Shouldn't Iran Have Nuclear Weapons? Israel Has American Warheads Ready to FireIranians see only hypocrisy from the world's nuclear powers
by James C. Moore
As international political powers seek Iran's capitulation on nuclear weapons development, little notice is given to what the Americans and the British have done to create this crisis nor what steps the Israelis might eventually take to make it profoundly more complicated.
Iran's antipathy toward the West did not spontaneously generate out of the crazed rhetoric of radical mullahs. It has been spurred by what Iranians see as hypocrisy on the part of members of the world's nuclear community, and the bumbled meddling of the US and UK in Iranian affairs for more than a half century.
Iran is dangerous, but the British and the Americans have helped to make it that way. And the situation is even more precarious than it appears.
Shortly after the Gulf War in 1991, Germany gave Israel two of its diesel-powered Dolphin-class submarines. The Israelis agreed to purchase a third at a greatly reduced price. In November 2005, Germany announced that it was selling two more subs to Israel for $1.2bn (£660m).
Defense analysts have suggested the Dolphin-class boats are a means for Israel to have a second-strike capability from the sea if any of its land-based defence systems are hit by enemy nuclear weapons. Unfortunately, the Bush doctrine of pre-emptive war is geopolitically afoot: Israel and the American president might not be willing to wait until after the first shot is fired.
Initially, Israel was expected to arm its submarine fleet with its own short-range Popeye missiles carrying conventional warheads. At least three mainstream publications in the US and Germany, however, have confirmed the vessels have been fitted with US-made Harpoon missiles with nuclear tips. Each Dolphin-class boat can carry 24 missiles.
Although Israel has not yet taken delivery of the two new submarines, the three presently in its fleet have the potential to launch 72 Harpoons. Stratfor, a Texas intelligence business, claims the Harpoons are designed to seek out ship-sized targets on the sea but could be retrofitted with a different guidance system.
According to independent military journalist Gordon Thomas, that has already happened. He has reported the Harpoons were equipped with "over the horizon" software from a US manufacturer to make them suitable for attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities. Because the shallow waters of the Persian Gulf make the Israeli subs easily detectable, two of them are reported to be patrolling the deeper reaches of the Gulf of Oman, well within range of Iranian targets.
If Israel has US nuclear weaponry pointed at Iran, the position of the country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, becomes more politically supportable by his people. Despite the fact that Israel has been developing nuclear material since 1958, the country has never formally acknowledged it has a nuclear arsenal. Analysts have estimated, however, that Israel is the fifth-largest nuclear power on the planet with much of its delivery systems technology funded by US taxpayers. To complicate current diplomatic efforts, Israel, like Pakistan and India, has refused to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty even as it insists in the international discourse that Iran be stopped from acquiring what Israel already has.
Before Ariel Sharon's health failed, Der Speigel reported that the then Israeli prime minister had ordered his country's Mossad intelligence service to go into Iran and identify nuclear facilities to be destroyed. Journalist Seymour Hersh has also written that the US military already has teams inside Iran picking targets and working to facilitate political unrest. It is precisely this same type of tactic by the US and the UK, used more than a half century ago, which has led us to the contemporary nuclear precipice.
In 1953, Kermit Roosevelt led the CIA overthrow of Mohamed Mossadeq, Iran's democratic- ally elected prime minister. Responding to a populace that had grown restive under imperialist British influence, Mossadeq had plans to nationalise the vast oil fields of his country.
At the prompting of British intelligence, the CIA executed strategic bombings and political harassments of religious leaders, which became the foundation of Mossadeq's overthrow. Shah Reza Pahlevi, whose strings were pulled from Downing Street and Washington, became a brutal dictator who gave the multinational oil companies access to Iranian reserves. Over a quarter of a century later, the Iranian masses revolted, tossed out the Shah, and empowered the radical Ayatollah Khomeini.
Iran has the strength needed to create its current stalemate with the West. Including reserves, the Iranian army has 850,000 troops - enough to deal with strained American forces in Iraq, even if US reserves were to be deployed. The Iranians also have North Korean surface-to-air missiles with a 1,550-mile range and able to carry a nuclear warhead.
America cannot invade and occupy. Iran's response would likely be an invasion of southern Iraq, populated, as is Iran, with Shias who could be enlisted to further destabilise Iraq. There are also reported to be thousands of underground nuclear facilities and uranium gas centrifuges in Iran, and it is impossible for all of them to be eliminated. But the Israelis might be willing to try. An Israeli attack on Iran would give Bush some political cover at home. The president could continue to argue that Israel has a right to protect itself.
But what if Israeli actions endanger America? Israel cannot attack without the US being complicit. Israeli jets would have to fly through Iraqi air space, which would require US permission. And America's Harpoon missiles would be delivering the warheads. These would blow up Iranian nuclear facilities and also launch an army of Iranian terrorists into the Western world.
But George Bush is still without a respectable presidential legacy. He might be willing to risk everything to mark his place in history as the man who stopped Iran from getting nukes. The greater fear, though, is that he becomes the first person to pull the nuclear trigger since Hiroshima and Nagasaki - and then his place in the history books will be assured.
James Moore is the author of three books about the Bush administration. His latest, 'The Architect', will be published in September by Random House of New York.
© 2006 The Independent
###
Voices of Protest
Protesters Give Bush the Finger
By Tom Engelhardt, Tomdispatch.comPosted on May 1, 2006, Printed on May 1, 2006http://www.alternet.org/story/35663/
Tom Englelhardt, a wonderful writer and commenter I follow with great interest, interviewed a number of protesters at Saturday's anti war demonstration. Here is what they had to say:
The Soldier and the Machine
Demond Mullins is a 24-year-old student at Lehman College in New York. A handsome young man in wrap-around shades, he wears a desert camo jacket with Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) on it. He tells me he was an infantryman in the Baghdad area from September 2004 to September 2005, part of a National Guard unit attached to the First Cavalry. He will be among a relatively modest IVAW group of perhaps 20 to 30 young men who will lead this demonstration.
"What got me here? I had just returned home and was having a lot of trouble transitioning back into civilian life. Then one day, a professor of mine gave me an email for an IVAW event. I met the vets against the war and it was my first time talking about my experience there. I felt easy with them.
"I lost friends over there. Here's a bracelet." He briefly brings his wrist up so that, for a moment, I can see the black band, one of several bands. "Your unit makes these and the whole unit wears them. In my battalion, we lost twenty-five guys, but I wear this one because he was my closest friend there and he died six days before my birthday."
I ask him to let me have a closer look. On it, the band has rank, name ("I don't want you to use his name..."), and "December 1, 2004, KIA, Baghdad, Iraq" as well as the phrase, "Something to believe in."
"I ran all those missions and I don't know why. I don't know what their lives and the lives of Iraqi nationals were spent for. I thought they showed a blatant disregard for human life. I was just tired of being part of a machine destroying the Earth -- and I'm speaking of the military-industrial complex. I wanted to be part of a force saving the Earth."
"My Nephew Died for This?"
Like so many people on this brilliant day, she's wearing sunglasses. She stands behind the IVAW contingent, part of the startlingly large group of military families against the war that are leading off this demonstration. She's Missy Comley Beattie -- she spells it out carefully for me -- a member of Gold Star Families for Peace. "My nephew was killed on August 6, 2005 in al-Amariyah. He was a Marine."
She comes from red-state Kentucky, but now lives in New York. She's wearing a tiny gold peace sign around her neck and a Code Pink T-shirt. "I write like three articles a day. It's an obsession. I was told recently that I'm an embarrassment to my [Kentucky] community for my stance on the war. I won't tell you who said that. But I have my brother's support. It was his son who died. My mother's a former chair of the local Republican Party. Now, she's a screaming progressive. Actually, my mother tells me that things are beginning to change in Kentucky. She sees a lot more anti-Bush letters-to-the-editor in the papers than she used to.
"I think that people in the red states are increasingly opposed to Bush. But to be honest, I suspect it's the rising costs at the pump, not the human costs that are doing it. It's also that so many people just don't pay attention and the death rates are always submerged beneath the Ken- and Barbie-like TV anchors as they talk about the crime of the week. And keep in mind that Bush doesn't allow people to see the bodies come home.
"When my nephew was little we were close, but now I live here. I talked to him before he joined the Marines and urged him not to do so. Then I urged him to join something like the Coast Guard, but he was attracted to the bravado of the Marine Corps. He'd say to my father, 'Why settle for second best when you can be best?' I even tried to convince him to go AWOL.
"Cindy [Sheehan] and I were arrested on March 6, seven months to the day after my nephew died, and the reason I sat down with the others was this: My nephew actually went to Iraq because he thought he was fighting for our freedom. I never believed that, but I sat down because the police wouldn't even let us walk on the sidewalk to give our petition to the U.S. Mission to the UN. I thought: My nephew died for this? So I sat down, spent twenty-two hours in jail, and now here I am."
Released (and Still Raging) Granny
She's 78, has four grandchildren, and was once a preschool teacher. She's wearing a straw hat covered with flowers and dripping with buttons ("Granny Peace Brigade," "He lied, they died," "Weapons of Mass Deception," "Keep America Safe and Free"). She has on a "Make Levees, Not War" T-shirt and she's one of the 18 members of the Granny Peace Brigade, who protested at a military recruitment center in New York's Times Square, were arrested, brought to trial for "disorderly conduct," and just this week found not guilty by a judge. A hand-made sign she's carrying says, "Now we're all safe. The grannies were acquitted!"
The eighteen are awaiting their moment as part of the lead contingent in this antiwar march. She's standing as I approach her and agrees to talk, but says, "Let me sit down first," and lowers herself gently into the wheelchair I hadn't noticed right behind her. "I'm a member of the raging grannies," she begins and then has the urge to explain the wheelchair. "I had a hip replacement.
That's why I'm in a chair. I can walk a little ways, but not two miles!"
Her name, she tells me, is Corinne Willinger, and she wants the Iraq War over yesterday. "How do we do it? We get out. I don't see that we're doing any good there. We haven't prevented a civil war, we've fomented it!
"I think that the Bush administration is one big mistake and I hope the people will correct the error as soon as possible. Whatever this administration touches, they turn it into s-h-i-t. The Yiddish expression is drech. That includes the aftermath of Katrina, the push to go into Iran, the treatment of the Palestinians, the fact that the rich in this country are getting richer and the poor poorer."
She pauses a moment. "There's lots more, but I can't think of any of it right now." And she laughs in a warm, friendly way.
As for her recent trial, she says, "For me, it was nerve-wracking. Others took it better. I felt we were doing the right thing and I thought it important to get as much publicity as possible, but -- I'll be honest -- I got very nervous. We had heard the judge was fair, but a stickler for the law and you never know what a verdict is going to be."
I ask about her hopes for the future and she responds, simply enough, "I hope that we will not have to see any other wars like the ones we've conducted even before Vietnam -- and all in countries very different from us. Why do we have to travel to foreign countries to get involved in business that's not ours in the first place? There has to be a way for the American people to live without war. We're now so involved in this war in Iraq and the possibility of going into Iran that we can't solve our own problems."
Books Not Bombs
The Grannies are just behind us, singing "God Help America," their version of God Bless America, as we set off with nineteen year-old Aaron Cole, in a green shirt over blue jeans, carrying a sign that reads "Books Not Bombs" and another, "Join the Campus Antiwar Network," that he tells me is his friend's. ("I'm just holding it for her.") He's here, he says, "on behalf of the hip-hop caucus RYSE," and when I look bemused, he adds, "Basically, it's my friends over here," and he indicates two young men with him. "They started the organization at the University of Maryland. I go to City College, but I'm helping out on their caucus.
"Young people in many ways have the most power to change the country because, literally, we are its future. It's young people who are being killed in Iraq and locked up in large numbers in jails here. The fact that there's such a lack of awareness and radical activity is a sign that, as young people, we're not taking responsibility for the country we're inheriting, or shaping the destiny of our people."
Behind us, the Grannies have just launched another song with the lines, "We're the Raging Grannies, we're as mad as mad can be..."
"Activism on campus is too low," he continues.
I ask why he thinks this might be.
"Apathy," he says.
"Television," mutters one of his friends.
"To a large extent, it's pop culture, the images the media offers, bombarding people with values destructive to their well being."
Are his friends here?
"Some are, but a lot of young people won't come to something like this. There has to be more of an incentive to come down than just an antiwar protest. That's the truth of it. It can't just be a cause. For whatever reason, they're not going to come out and show their numbers unless there's a concert or some kind of entertainment. If it's just going to be standing around or walking in the street, they're not as likely to do it. Unfortunately, they'd rather stay home, get high, and watch TV."
Sleepless Nights
She's holding the end of a large banner: "Military Families Speak Out, Chicago, Illinois." The person at the other end of the banner has directed me to her. When I approach Ginger Williams and ask if she'd consider a brief interview, she replies with spirit, "Bring it on!" And then goes: "Whoops! Maybe that's the wrong thing to say..."
She's 54, wearing a black U.S. Army baseball cap, a Support-Our-Troops T-shirt and button, and a black backpack. When asked what she does, she replies, "I'm a nurse, homemaker, mother, protester, whatever you got."
Her son returned from his first tour of Iraq only three days earlier. "Sean was at Notre Dame and volunteered for Army ROTC after September 11th. He's been in two years, a first lieutenant with the 101st Airborne. He just served eleven months in Iraq where he commanded convoys that guarded trucks that are mainly owned by Halliburton. He wasn't wounded, thank God. We had a lot of sleepless nights.
"I was against the war from the start. My husband was an infantryman, a Vietnam Vet. He was strongly against it. But my son believes in the mission. He believes he's there to bring peace and stability to the region. We disagree but we get along. We raised him to think for himself -- and he did. He says he's going to volunteer to go back.
"I hope that my son's right, but I think the only chance that things will end in Iraq is if we get out. We're just inflaming matters by being there.
"I've been to Fayetteville, to Washington, to Camp Casey. Everywhere I go, I keep thinking this is going to be the turning point. That march on Washington in September, then when John Murtha came out against the war -- Marine, congressman, purple-heart winner. I thought that would be it. Now, I'm kind of pessimistic really. It doesn't seem to matter what we do. And you know what I'm really upset with -- all the Democratic leaders who won't take a stand!
"I confronted [Illinois Senator] Barack Obama at a town-hall meeting and asked him what he wants us to do. He buys into the idea that there'll be a slaughter if we get out. I think there's a slaughter now. So I'm disappointed in him."
I wonder whether anything gives her hope. "Let me think. That's a tough one." There's a long silence. "Yes, the fall elections. If the Democrats can win and make Nancy Pelosi speaker, maybe she'll put the war and withdrawal on the agenda."
Carrying the Flag
Andy Hadel, 47, is in a grey t-shirt, brown slacks, and sandals. He's carrying an American flag over his shoulder on a silver pole. He identifies himself as a designer and design teacher.
"There are two reasons I carry the flag. First, one of the principles our nation was founded on is to dissent when things aren't working. To speak out is a patriotic function, a high-level of citizenship. Second, re-appropriating this symbol for those who are antiwar is important. When you look at Fox News, when you see President Bush, you always see them wearing American flag lapel pendants. It's become a traditional image by now to think the flag means pro-war patriotism, so what I'm trying to do is take the symbol back. I pay taxes. I'm a citizen. In the act of dissention I believe I'm fulfilling my highest level of citizen's responsibility.
"I don't know where I got this flag. I've had it for years. I think I bought it at a flag store. Believe it or not, you don't need a card from the Republican Party to do that!"
Raising the Dead
The photos -- striking faces, each with a rank, a name, and a place -- are mounted on a cord that stretches for blocks. Almost 2,400 photos means many, many blocks, and so that cord is held up by scores of people strung out along its length, living faces to go with the dead ones. Hermon Darden, pastor of King's Highway United Methodist Church in Brooklyn, is among them. He's in clerical black and wearing his white collar. He introduces me to three other men. "He's from Maryland and they're from southern New England, also from the United Methodists."
Are the holders of this exhibit of the dead all Methodists, I ask, and the next holder down promptly clears his throat and shows the pin he's wearing: "Another Quaker for peace."
Darden speaks in the inspiring rhythms of a minister. He's got short, black hair, and a tiny black mustache flecked with grey. He was lost and now is found.
"I came looking for the clergy contingent but couldn't find it and these people welcomed me. They took me in and this is good enough for me, holding up these names. Probably there is no greater statement that can be made than to lift up the pictures of these children killed by an unjust war. Did you know that most of those who died were under twenty-five. They were the young. A generation is being decimated for a war that has no foundation or ethical justification. We're simply fighting to secure oil when we could secure alternative means of energy.
"What we need to do is ensure that our votes actually count. And our votes cannot count if we can't be sure the machinery used is validated. We deserve a paper trail and, it seems, neither the Democrats, nor the Republicans have taken a serious stance about voting machines.
"And then we have to have some honest folk running for office who will put an end to corporate hustling and exploitation. Halliburton and Bechtel have been doing this for generations. This is not new. And you know what else we need? We need more people to take to the streets.
"I also think the media, which is owned by just a few companies, has kept a lid on protest information. They have not adequately reported what people such as ourselves feel about the war.
"At my church in Brooklyn, we announced this demonstration for several Sundays and it was at our [United Methodist] conference website as well."
"You know," he concludes, "I participated in the Vietnam protests and unfortunately this is just déjà vu."
The Lieutenant from Okinawa
Ed Bloch ("And don't reverse the first and last names!") at 82 is undoubtedly not the oldest veteran to be in this demonstration, but he may be the oldest one walking its length. He wears his soft, khaki campaign cap and his old Marine officer's jacket, cinched at his waist with a belt. It has his battle stars and his first lieutenant's bars from World War II. ("I was a rifle platoon leader in the battle for Okinawa.")
When I ask whether this could possibly be his wartime jacket, he replies, "They made the damn uniform of such great material in those days. It's 61 years old."
It fits him amazingly, though he assures me that a friend "moved the buttons for me."
The executive director of the Interfaith Alliance of Albany (New York), he is accompanied by younger friends, but he walks as if alone in this vast crowd. His step, strangely enough, is both halting and steady. He progresses at an even pace. He stands ramrod straight, a bearing that could only be called military and, as it turns out, he carries a burden.
"After the war against Japan ended," he tells me, "the First Marine Division was sent into China, right into the middle of their civil war, to work with the Japanese and the Chinese puppets and hold down the territory for the arrival of Chiang [Kai-shek]'s troops. While I was there, I committed atrocities. I committed atrocities with the Japanese on a small Chinese town."
He walks on, his pace never breaking, while I consider this.
Then he says, in a segue that makes great sense if you think about it: "The reason that [Senator] Ted Kennedy is more honest than most of them down there is Chappaquiddick. It moved him in the direction of remorse. It made him understand."
On Iraq, he's clear as day. "Everything I believe screams out that there is no substitute for peace in a nuclear age. For certain, this continued war is bringing up the fundamentalists all around the world to do the suicide attacks and everything else. Our attacks just confirm what their leaders have told them."
I ask him what he might tell George Bush and his top officials if he had the chance.
"My immediate instinct is to say, "Drop dead," but I don't think that sounds very good. The fact is we just have to get out right now. We have to remove those young people like the ones with whom I served from harm's way in an imperialist war for oil."
And he walks on alone in the crowd.
Bring My Dad Home
He is eleven years old -- with a friend and the friend's mother. He stops shyly for just a moment at my request. He is carrying a sign he's made that says, "Bring My Dad Home. Stop the War."
He admits that this is his first demonstration. ("It feels pretty cool.") His father, he tells me, in as few words as possible, is somewhere outside of Baghdad and in the Army Reserves. When asked about the war his father is fighting, he says: "I think we need to stop the war because there's no need for it. Oil's not worth blood."
I wonder how his dad feels about this. "I never really asked him," he replies and heads off with his friend.
Hoosiers for Peace
The three university students have bused in from Indiana for this demonstration, their first big one. He's in a white T-shirt and a jean jacket. He carries a "Hoosiers for Peace" sign and a small American flag. The last thing he expects is to be interviewed and he's hesitant -- both with his name, "Dave," and with his words. His decision to come was "a moral stance against the war." No more need be said.
What does he think will happen in this country? "I think George Bush is going to ride out his term without any kind of consequences," he replies and stops. Then, after a moment's thought, he adds, "But it's good to be here to support democracy, to support the right to dissent."
An awkward silence descends as he and his friends fidget, unsure what to do next. Finally, he adds another thought: "My father's a Vietnam vet and I'm against war altogether. My father went to the original Gulf War protests [in 1990] and I'm here now because of the things he's taught me and for the guys my age who are out there."
Another silence with the hum of the crowd and distant drums behind us. Finally I ask whether he knows anyone who's actually gone to Iraq. "I know three guys who were in Iraq."
And what, I wonder, did they tell him about their experiences.
"I never asked them about it, but if it was anything like Vietnam, I'm sure they don't want to talk about it."
"We Remember Vietnam"
Behind the huge Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) banner, the large contingent of vets, with the signature somewhat disheveled look of their generation, are chanting, "Hey, hey, Uncle Sam, We remember Vietnam, We don't want your Iraq War, Bring our troops back to our shore." Bill Perry of Levittown, PA, who anchors one end of the enormous banner, is wearing a t-shirt and black vest with military unit patches all over it. He digs into a wallet and hands me his card, which indicates that he's the National Coordinator of the VVAW.
"I was a paratrooper with the 101st Airborne Division in 1967-68 during the Tet Offensive just as the mood of the country was beginning to swing big time. It became quite clear then that the Vietminh -- the Vietcong the Americans called them -- had the support of the people in the countryside. Leaving aside the strategic arguments, the economic arguments, the moral arguments, if the people don't want you and the people don't need you, there's no need to be there and we're approaching that moment in Iraq now."
He promptly offers me a micro-history and analysis of the various Shia, Sunni, and Kurdish groups in fragmenting Iraq. "The whole purpose of going over there was to break up the country into three countries -- leaving the middle part, where most of the people are, without oil and making sure the Iraqis more generally lose control over their oil."
What exactly would he do about Iraq, I ask.
"I would immediately withdraw and let the Arab League and the U.N. sort it out because there's much less animosity against them. Eighty percent of Iraqis dislike us. Eighty percent of Iraqis are Arabs. That's why the Arab League makes sense. The Kurds are the twenty percent that embrace globalism and capitalism. Condi and Rumsfeld want them to succeed.
"I think eventually things will play out, but the problem is the U.S. wants to retain those fourteen permanent bases of ours in Iraq to control everything from the Caspian oil that can be pumped to China and India to the Middle Eastern sources that supply Europe."
The Other Engelhard(t)
I approach the two mothers, each with children in strollers and ask the nearest if I can interview her. She agrees, but then the other leans closer, reads the press pass hanging around my neck ("Tom Engelhardt, Tomdispatch.com"), and says, "I'm an Engelhard too, just without the final T." So I interview the other Engelhard -- Margaret known as Meg -- at this rally. She's 42, from South Orange, New Jersey. She's with son Cory ("almost three" and on his father's shoulders) and Jasper, who rises from his stroller to tell me proudly, "I'm four and a half, almost five!"
I wonder whether this is Jasper's first demonstration. No, Meg tells me, she went out with him when we began bombing Afghanistan back in 2001 and that, she adds, was "his first demonstration -- externally."
She tells me she knew someone who died in Iraq. I ask whether she has hopes for the political future. "That's a tough question," she says. "I'm very worried about increased aggression toward Iran. I'm happy Bush's approval ratings have fallen so low. I feel like less of a minority than I did three years ago.
"What I hope for is that we would get Democrats elected in the mid-term elections and so, some sort of resolution from Congress to withdraw. I can't imagine more than that."
Pink Slipping Bush
She's at the front of the vigorous, dancing, chanting Code Pink contingent, all of whom wear something pink, including in some cases day-glo pink wigs. She's holding high a frilly, full-length pink slip on a pole topped by the sign, "Give Bush a Pink Slip." She herself wears a pink feathered hat and pink camo-style pants. ("We've done a lot of counter-recruiting actions.") She's Courtney Lee Adams, a 43 year-old musician and copyeditor, who first got involved with the group at the time of the Republican National Convention in New York.
"I was worried that this demonstration wasn't going to be well attended, so I'm relieved. I was at an event last night and a lot of people didn't even know this was happening, so I expected the worst.
"Maybe I'm crazy, but I feel encouraged. There's much more mainstream opposition out there than there was. I'm still immensely disappointed in the Democrats. I don't understand why they're not riding this momentum when it's so obviously out there. But to hell with them! Seriously, we're not waiting for them to act.
"In New York, Code Pink is very focused on pressuring Hillary Clinton. Bird-dogging her is what we call it. After all, she's our senator. We want to see the troops come home now, no permanent bases, true reconstruction, no invasion of Iran. And I'd like to see Bush impeached. There's another case where there isn't much support among Democrats in Congress, but there's lots of support for it out there. Isn't it strange, actually, that it seems like there's more opposition from old-fashioned conservative Republicans than liberal Democrats?
"The big thing is: No permanent bases in Iraq. This is going to be a tough one. I'm sure they're going to try to pull some troops out, do the old bait-and-switch, getting our position in Iraq off the PR screen and hanging on to those bases. I fear that's going to prove to be a long, hard fight."
Earphones
He's right at the end of the march, among the last demonstrators. He's wearing a grey, winter knit cap over his long hair, perhaps fitting for someone from the chilly state of Vermont. He's 15 years old with a sweet, open face. His name is Jacob. He's bused down with his older brother, part of the Central Vermont Peace and Justice contingent and, though everywhere around him noise wells up and instruments are being played, he has two large earphones clamped over his ears. When I stop him for an interview, he's initially unsure, but his friends encourage him.
It's his first large demonstration. "I came to protest against the war. I've participated in a bunch of small demonstrations [in Vermont] and I wanted to go to a major one. It's been fun, exhilarating.
"My second cousin has just gone into the Marines, but I want to get our troops out as quickly as possible after stabilizing the country first, because otherwise the lives there would have been lost fully in vain."
As for his thoughts on the Bush administration, "They need complete reform."
As he's ready to leave, I ask what he's been listening to. He shows me the CD and says, "It's Oriental Sunshine. I think it's a band from the seventies, kind of underground music. It has," he says with awe, "a sitar player."
Tom Engelhardt, editor of Tomdispatch.com, is co-founder of the American Empire Project and author of "The End of Victory Culture."
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/35663/
By Tom Engelhardt, Tomdispatch.comPosted on May 1, 2006, Printed on May 1, 2006http://www.alternet.org/story/35663/
Tom Englelhardt, a wonderful writer and commenter I follow with great interest, interviewed a number of protesters at Saturday's anti war demonstration. Here is what they had to say:
The Soldier and the Machine
Demond Mullins is a 24-year-old student at Lehman College in New York. A handsome young man in wrap-around shades, he wears a desert camo jacket with Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) on it. He tells me he was an infantryman in the Baghdad area from September 2004 to September 2005, part of a National Guard unit attached to the First Cavalry. He will be among a relatively modest IVAW group of perhaps 20 to 30 young men who will lead this demonstration.
"What got me here? I had just returned home and was having a lot of trouble transitioning back into civilian life. Then one day, a professor of mine gave me an email for an IVAW event. I met the vets against the war and it was my first time talking about my experience there. I felt easy with them.
"I lost friends over there. Here's a bracelet." He briefly brings his wrist up so that, for a moment, I can see the black band, one of several bands. "Your unit makes these and the whole unit wears them. In my battalion, we lost twenty-five guys, but I wear this one because he was my closest friend there and he died six days before my birthday."
I ask him to let me have a closer look. On it, the band has rank, name ("I don't want you to use his name..."), and "December 1, 2004, KIA, Baghdad, Iraq" as well as the phrase, "Something to believe in."
"I ran all those missions and I don't know why. I don't know what their lives and the lives of Iraqi nationals were spent for. I thought they showed a blatant disregard for human life. I was just tired of being part of a machine destroying the Earth -- and I'm speaking of the military-industrial complex. I wanted to be part of a force saving the Earth."
"My Nephew Died for This?"
Like so many people on this brilliant day, she's wearing sunglasses. She stands behind the IVAW contingent, part of the startlingly large group of military families against the war that are leading off this demonstration. She's Missy Comley Beattie -- she spells it out carefully for me -- a member of Gold Star Families for Peace. "My nephew was killed on August 6, 2005 in al-Amariyah. He was a Marine."
She comes from red-state Kentucky, but now lives in New York. She's wearing a tiny gold peace sign around her neck and a Code Pink T-shirt. "I write like three articles a day. It's an obsession. I was told recently that I'm an embarrassment to my [Kentucky] community for my stance on the war. I won't tell you who said that. But I have my brother's support. It was his son who died. My mother's a former chair of the local Republican Party. Now, she's a screaming progressive. Actually, my mother tells me that things are beginning to change in Kentucky. She sees a lot more anti-Bush letters-to-the-editor in the papers than she used to.
"I think that people in the red states are increasingly opposed to Bush. But to be honest, I suspect it's the rising costs at the pump, not the human costs that are doing it. It's also that so many people just don't pay attention and the death rates are always submerged beneath the Ken- and Barbie-like TV anchors as they talk about the crime of the week. And keep in mind that Bush doesn't allow people to see the bodies come home.
"When my nephew was little we were close, but now I live here. I talked to him before he joined the Marines and urged him not to do so. Then I urged him to join something like the Coast Guard, but he was attracted to the bravado of the Marine Corps. He'd say to my father, 'Why settle for second best when you can be best?' I even tried to convince him to go AWOL.
"Cindy [Sheehan] and I were arrested on March 6, seven months to the day after my nephew died, and the reason I sat down with the others was this: My nephew actually went to Iraq because he thought he was fighting for our freedom. I never believed that, but I sat down because the police wouldn't even let us walk on the sidewalk to give our petition to the U.S. Mission to the UN. I thought: My nephew died for this? So I sat down, spent twenty-two hours in jail, and now here I am."
Released (and Still Raging) Granny
She's 78, has four grandchildren, and was once a preschool teacher. She's wearing a straw hat covered with flowers and dripping with buttons ("Granny Peace Brigade," "He lied, they died," "Weapons of Mass Deception," "Keep America Safe and Free"). She has on a "Make Levees, Not War" T-shirt and she's one of the 18 members of the Granny Peace Brigade, who protested at a military recruitment center in New York's Times Square, were arrested, brought to trial for "disorderly conduct," and just this week found not guilty by a judge. A hand-made sign she's carrying says, "Now we're all safe. The grannies were acquitted!"
The eighteen are awaiting their moment as part of the lead contingent in this antiwar march. She's standing as I approach her and agrees to talk, but says, "Let me sit down first," and lowers herself gently into the wheelchair I hadn't noticed right behind her. "I'm a member of the raging grannies," she begins and then has the urge to explain the wheelchair. "I had a hip replacement.
That's why I'm in a chair. I can walk a little ways, but not two miles!"
Her name, she tells me, is Corinne Willinger, and she wants the Iraq War over yesterday. "How do we do it? We get out. I don't see that we're doing any good there. We haven't prevented a civil war, we've fomented it!
"I think that the Bush administration is one big mistake and I hope the people will correct the error as soon as possible. Whatever this administration touches, they turn it into s-h-i-t. The Yiddish expression is drech. That includes the aftermath of Katrina, the push to go into Iran, the treatment of the Palestinians, the fact that the rich in this country are getting richer and the poor poorer."
She pauses a moment. "There's lots more, but I can't think of any of it right now." And she laughs in a warm, friendly way.
As for her recent trial, she says, "For me, it was nerve-wracking. Others took it better. I felt we were doing the right thing and I thought it important to get as much publicity as possible, but -- I'll be honest -- I got very nervous. We had heard the judge was fair, but a stickler for the law and you never know what a verdict is going to be."
I ask about her hopes for the future and she responds, simply enough, "I hope that we will not have to see any other wars like the ones we've conducted even before Vietnam -- and all in countries very different from us. Why do we have to travel to foreign countries to get involved in business that's not ours in the first place? There has to be a way for the American people to live without war. We're now so involved in this war in Iraq and the possibility of going into Iran that we can't solve our own problems."
Books Not Bombs
The Grannies are just behind us, singing "God Help America," their version of God Bless America, as we set off with nineteen year-old Aaron Cole, in a green shirt over blue jeans, carrying a sign that reads "Books Not Bombs" and another, "Join the Campus Antiwar Network," that he tells me is his friend's. ("I'm just holding it for her.") He's here, he says, "on behalf of the hip-hop caucus RYSE," and when I look bemused, he adds, "Basically, it's my friends over here," and he indicates two young men with him. "They started the organization at the University of Maryland. I go to City College, but I'm helping out on their caucus.
"Young people in many ways have the most power to change the country because, literally, we are its future. It's young people who are being killed in Iraq and locked up in large numbers in jails here. The fact that there's such a lack of awareness and radical activity is a sign that, as young people, we're not taking responsibility for the country we're inheriting, or shaping the destiny of our people."
Behind us, the Grannies have just launched another song with the lines, "We're the Raging Grannies, we're as mad as mad can be..."
"Activism on campus is too low," he continues.
I ask why he thinks this might be.
"Apathy," he says.
"Television," mutters one of his friends.
"To a large extent, it's pop culture, the images the media offers, bombarding people with values destructive to their well being."
Are his friends here?
"Some are, but a lot of young people won't come to something like this. There has to be more of an incentive to come down than just an antiwar protest. That's the truth of it. It can't just be a cause. For whatever reason, they're not going to come out and show their numbers unless there's a concert or some kind of entertainment. If it's just going to be standing around or walking in the street, they're not as likely to do it. Unfortunately, they'd rather stay home, get high, and watch TV."
Sleepless Nights
She's holding the end of a large banner: "Military Families Speak Out, Chicago, Illinois." The person at the other end of the banner has directed me to her. When I approach Ginger Williams and ask if she'd consider a brief interview, she replies with spirit, "Bring it on!" And then goes: "Whoops! Maybe that's the wrong thing to say..."
She's 54, wearing a black U.S. Army baseball cap, a Support-Our-Troops T-shirt and button, and a black backpack. When asked what she does, she replies, "I'm a nurse, homemaker, mother, protester, whatever you got."
Her son returned from his first tour of Iraq only three days earlier. "Sean was at Notre Dame and volunteered for Army ROTC after September 11th. He's been in two years, a first lieutenant with the 101st Airborne. He just served eleven months in Iraq where he commanded convoys that guarded trucks that are mainly owned by Halliburton. He wasn't wounded, thank God. We had a lot of sleepless nights.
"I was against the war from the start. My husband was an infantryman, a Vietnam Vet. He was strongly against it. But my son believes in the mission. He believes he's there to bring peace and stability to the region. We disagree but we get along. We raised him to think for himself -- and he did. He says he's going to volunteer to go back.
"I hope that my son's right, but I think the only chance that things will end in Iraq is if we get out. We're just inflaming matters by being there.
"I've been to Fayetteville, to Washington, to Camp Casey. Everywhere I go, I keep thinking this is going to be the turning point. That march on Washington in September, then when John Murtha came out against the war -- Marine, congressman, purple-heart winner. I thought that would be it. Now, I'm kind of pessimistic really. It doesn't seem to matter what we do. And you know what I'm really upset with -- all the Democratic leaders who won't take a stand!
"I confronted [Illinois Senator] Barack Obama at a town-hall meeting and asked him what he wants us to do. He buys into the idea that there'll be a slaughter if we get out. I think there's a slaughter now. So I'm disappointed in him."
I wonder whether anything gives her hope. "Let me think. That's a tough one." There's a long silence. "Yes, the fall elections. If the Democrats can win and make Nancy Pelosi speaker, maybe she'll put the war and withdrawal on the agenda."
Carrying the Flag
Andy Hadel, 47, is in a grey t-shirt, brown slacks, and sandals. He's carrying an American flag over his shoulder on a silver pole. He identifies himself as a designer and design teacher.
"There are two reasons I carry the flag. First, one of the principles our nation was founded on is to dissent when things aren't working. To speak out is a patriotic function, a high-level of citizenship. Second, re-appropriating this symbol for those who are antiwar is important. When you look at Fox News, when you see President Bush, you always see them wearing American flag lapel pendants. It's become a traditional image by now to think the flag means pro-war patriotism, so what I'm trying to do is take the symbol back. I pay taxes. I'm a citizen. In the act of dissention I believe I'm fulfilling my highest level of citizen's responsibility.
"I don't know where I got this flag. I've had it for years. I think I bought it at a flag store. Believe it or not, you don't need a card from the Republican Party to do that!"
Raising the Dead
The photos -- striking faces, each with a rank, a name, and a place -- are mounted on a cord that stretches for blocks. Almost 2,400 photos means many, many blocks, and so that cord is held up by scores of people strung out along its length, living faces to go with the dead ones. Hermon Darden, pastor of King's Highway United Methodist Church in Brooklyn, is among them. He's in clerical black and wearing his white collar. He introduces me to three other men. "He's from Maryland and they're from southern New England, also from the United Methodists."
Are the holders of this exhibit of the dead all Methodists, I ask, and the next holder down promptly clears his throat and shows the pin he's wearing: "Another Quaker for peace."
Darden speaks in the inspiring rhythms of a minister. He's got short, black hair, and a tiny black mustache flecked with grey. He was lost and now is found.
"I came looking for the clergy contingent but couldn't find it and these people welcomed me. They took me in and this is good enough for me, holding up these names. Probably there is no greater statement that can be made than to lift up the pictures of these children killed by an unjust war. Did you know that most of those who died were under twenty-five. They were the young. A generation is being decimated for a war that has no foundation or ethical justification. We're simply fighting to secure oil when we could secure alternative means of energy.
"What we need to do is ensure that our votes actually count. And our votes cannot count if we can't be sure the machinery used is validated. We deserve a paper trail and, it seems, neither the Democrats, nor the Republicans have taken a serious stance about voting machines.
"And then we have to have some honest folk running for office who will put an end to corporate hustling and exploitation. Halliburton and Bechtel have been doing this for generations. This is not new. And you know what else we need? We need more people to take to the streets.
"I also think the media, which is owned by just a few companies, has kept a lid on protest information. They have not adequately reported what people such as ourselves feel about the war.
"At my church in Brooklyn, we announced this demonstration for several Sundays and it was at our [United Methodist] conference website as well."
"You know," he concludes, "I participated in the Vietnam protests and unfortunately this is just déjà vu."
The Lieutenant from Okinawa
Ed Bloch ("And don't reverse the first and last names!") at 82 is undoubtedly not the oldest veteran to be in this demonstration, but he may be the oldest one walking its length. He wears his soft, khaki campaign cap and his old Marine officer's jacket, cinched at his waist with a belt. It has his battle stars and his first lieutenant's bars from World War II. ("I was a rifle platoon leader in the battle for Okinawa.")
When I ask whether this could possibly be his wartime jacket, he replies, "They made the damn uniform of such great material in those days. It's 61 years old."
It fits him amazingly, though he assures me that a friend "moved the buttons for me."
The executive director of the Interfaith Alliance of Albany (New York), he is accompanied by younger friends, but he walks as if alone in this vast crowd. His step, strangely enough, is both halting and steady. He progresses at an even pace. He stands ramrod straight, a bearing that could only be called military and, as it turns out, he carries a burden.
"After the war against Japan ended," he tells me, "the First Marine Division was sent into China, right into the middle of their civil war, to work with the Japanese and the Chinese puppets and hold down the territory for the arrival of Chiang [Kai-shek]'s troops. While I was there, I committed atrocities. I committed atrocities with the Japanese on a small Chinese town."
He walks on, his pace never breaking, while I consider this.
Then he says, in a segue that makes great sense if you think about it: "The reason that [Senator] Ted Kennedy is more honest than most of them down there is Chappaquiddick. It moved him in the direction of remorse. It made him understand."
On Iraq, he's clear as day. "Everything I believe screams out that there is no substitute for peace in a nuclear age. For certain, this continued war is bringing up the fundamentalists all around the world to do the suicide attacks and everything else. Our attacks just confirm what their leaders have told them."
I ask him what he might tell George Bush and his top officials if he had the chance.
"My immediate instinct is to say, "Drop dead," but I don't think that sounds very good. The fact is we just have to get out right now. We have to remove those young people like the ones with whom I served from harm's way in an imperialist war for oil."
And he walks on alone in the crowd.
Bring My Dad Home
He is eleven years old -- with a friend and the friend's mother. He stops shyly for just a moment at my request. He is carrying a sign he's made that says, "Bring My Dad Home. Stop the War."
He admits that this is his first demonstration. ("It feels pretty cool.") His father, he tells me, in as few words as possible, is somewhere outside of Baghdad and in the Army Reserves. When asked about the war his father is fighting, he says: "I think we need to stop the war because there's no need for it. Oil's not worth blood."
I wonder how his dad feels about this. "I never really asked him," he replies and heads off with his friend.
Hoosiers for Peace
The three university students have bused in from Indiana for this demonstration, their first big one. He's in a white T-shirt and a jean jacket. He carries a "Hoosiers for Peace" sign and a small American flag. The last thing he expects is to be interviewed and he's hesitant -- both with his name, "Dave," and with his words. His decision to come was "a moral stance against the war." No more need be said.
What does he think will happen in this country? "I think George Bush is going to ride out his term without any kind of consequences," he replies and stops. Then, after a moment's thought, he adds, "But it's good to be here to support democracy, to support the right to dissent."
An awkward silence descends as he and his friends fidget, unsure what to do next. Finally, he adds another thought: "My father's a Vietnam vet and I'm against war altogether. My father went to the original Gulf War protests [in 1990] and I'm here now because of the things he's taught me and for the guys my age who are out there."
Another silence with the hum of the crowd and distant drums behind us. Finally I ask whether he knows anyone who's actually gone to Iraq. "I know three guys who were in Iraq."
And what, I wonder, did they tell him about their experiences.
"I never asked them about it, but if it was anything like Vietnam, I'm sure they don't want to talk about it."
"We Remember Vietnam"
Behind the huge Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) banner, the large contingent of vets, with the signature somewhat disheveled look of their generation, are chanting, "Hey, hey, Uncle Sam, We remember Vietnam, We don't want your Iraq War, Bring our troops back to our shore." Bill Perry of Levittown, PA, who anchors one end of the enormous banner, is wearing a t-shirt and black vest with military unit patches all over it. He digs into a wallet and hands me his card, which indicates that he's the National Coordinator of the VVAW.
"I was a paratrooper with the 101st Airborne Division in 1967-68 during the Tet Offensive just as the mood of the country was beginning to swing big time. It became quite clear then that the Vietminh -- the Vietcong the Americans called them -- had the support of the people in the countryside. Leaving aside the strategic arguments, the economic arguments, the moral arguments, if the people don't want you and the people don't need you, there's no need to be there and we're approaching that moment in Iraq now."
He promptly offers me a micro-history and analysis of the various Shia, Sunni, and Kurdish groups in fragmenting Iraq. "The whole purpose of going over there was to break up the country into three countries -- leaving the middle part, where most of the people are, without oil and making sure the Iraqis more generally lose control over their oil."
What exactly would he do about Iraq, I ask.
"I would immediately withdraw and let the Arab League and the U.N. sort it out because there's much less animosity against them. Eighty percent of Iraqis dislike us. Eighty percent of Iraqis are Arabs. That's why the Arab League makes sense. The Kurds are the twenty percent that embrace globalism and capitalism. Condi and Rumsfeld want them to succeed.
"I think eventually things will play out, but the problem is the U.S. wants to retain those fourteen permanent bases of ours in Iraq to control everything from the Caspian oil that can be pumped to China and India to the Middle Eastern sources that supply Europe."
The Other Engelhard(t)
I approach the two mothers, each with children in strollers and ask the nearest if I can interview her. She agrees, but then the other leans closer, reads the press pass hanging around my neck ("Tom Engelhardt, Tomdispatch.com"), and says, "I'm an Engelhard too, just without the final T." So I interview the other Engelhard -- Margaret known as Meg -- at this rally. She's 42, from South Orange, New Jersey. She's with son Cory ("almost three" and on his father's shoulders) and Jasper, who rises from his stroller to tell me proudly, "I'm four and a half, almost five!"
I wonder whether this is Jasper's first demonstration. No, Meg tells me, she went out with him when we began bombing Afghanistan back in 2001 and that, she adds, was "his first demonstration -- externally."
She tells me she knew someone who died in Iraq. I ask whether she has hopes for the political future. "That's a tough question," she says. "I'm very worried about increased aggression toward Iran. I'm happy Bush's approval ratings have fallen so low. I feel like less of a minority than I did three years ago.
"What I hope for is that we would get Democrats elected in the mid-term elections and so, some sort of resolution from Congress to withdraw. I can't imagine more than that."
Pink Slipping Bush
She's at the front of the vigorous, dancing, chanting Code Pink contingent, all of whom wear something pink, including in some cases day-glo pink wigs. She's holding high a frilly, full-length pink slip on a pole topped by the sign, "Give Bush a Pink Slip." She herself wears a pink feathered hat and pink camo-style pants. ("We've done a lot of counter-recruiting actions.") She's Courtney Lee Adams, a 43 year-old musician and copyeditor, who first got involved with the group at the time of the Republican National Convention in New York.
"I was worried that this demonstration wasn't going to be well attended, so I'm relieved. I was at an event last night and a lot of people didn't even know this was happening, so I expected the worst.
"Maybe I'm crazy, but I feel encouraged. There's much more mainstream opposition out there than there was. I'm still immensely disappointed in the Democrats. I don't understand why they're not riding this momentum when it's so obviously out there. But to hell with them! Seriously, we're not waiting for them to act.
"In New York, Code Pink is very focused on pressuring Hillary Clinton. Bird-dogging her is what we call it. After all, she's our senator. We want to see the troops come home now, no permanent bases, true reconstruction, no invasion of Iran. And I'd like to see Bush impeached. There's another case where there isn't much support among Democrats in Congress, but there's lots of support for it out there. Isn't it strange, actually, that it seems like there's more opposition from old-fashioned conservative Republicans than liberal Democrats?
"The big thing is: No permanent bases in Iraq. This is going to be a tough one. I'm sure they're going to try to pull some troops out, do the old bait-and-switch, getting our position in Iraq off the PR screen and hanging on to those bases. I fear that's going to prove to be a long, hard fight."
Earphones
He's right at the end of the march, among the last demonstrators. He's wearing a grey, winter knit cap over his long hair, perhaps fitting for someone from the chilly state of Vermont. He's 15 years old with a sweet, open face. His name is Jacob. He's bused down with his older brother, part of the Central Vermont Peace and Justice contingent and, though everywhere around him noise wells up and instruments are being played, he has two large earphones clamped over his ears. When I stop him for an interview, he's initially unsure, but his friends encourage him.
It's his first large demonstration. "I came to protest against the war. I've participated in a bunch of small demonstrations [in Vermont] and I wanted to go to a major one. It's been fun, exhilarating.
"My second cousin has just gone into the Marines, but I want to get our troops out as quickly as possible after stabilizing the country first, because otherwise the lives there would have been lost fully in vain."
As for his thoughts on the Bush administration, "They need complete reform."
As he's ready to leave, I ask what he's been listening to. He shows me the CD and says, "It's Oriental Sunshine. I think it's a band from the seventies, kind of underground music. It has," he says with awe, "a sitar player."
Tom Engelhardt, editor of Tomdispatch.com, is co-founder of the American Empire Project and author of "The End of Victory Culture."
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/35663/
