As we have progressed over the course of the past several months much of our own ideas about politics and their practical application in our day-to-day lives have altered a great deal. While many of us were radicals coming into the organization, the over-all political climate of the group has shifted significantly to the left since November. In response to this leftward shift, new points of unity are being considered. While the original goal of creating an open and independent radical political organization will be maintained, the new points are much more percise than the earlier draft.
The new points are as follows:
1. The two party system is broken, and a radical political alternative is needed.
2. More than electoral politics, real change comes from mass action from below.
3. Food, housing, healthcare, education, the right to organize, and a living wage are basic human rights.
4. Real political equality is not possible without economic eqaulity.
5. Democracy means popular rule from below.
6. The right of all nations to self-determination must be the basis of any just and democratic global order.
7. Terrorism is morally reprehensible and must always be condemned without reservation.
8. War is the highest, most well-organized form of terrorism.
9. As humanity is faced with extinction, immediate international action is necessary to address global climate change and work towards a sustainable environment.
10. Solidarity with and active support for the liberation of all those oppressed based on their race, nationality, religion, gender, or sexuality must be the cornerstone of any movement fighting for social justice.
-SSD
Sunday, February 25, 2007
The Coming Attack on Iran
The spring of 2007 is increasingly feeling like the fall of 2002. The steady drum beat of charges against Iran bares a striking resemblence to the bipartisan fear mongering in the lead up to the Iraq war. While the case against Iraq was transparently false from the start, the fact that the charges levied in the drive to war were false is now a matter of record. That, barely four years later, the same type of strategy could be used against Iran should be generating uncomfortable laughter at the audacity of our elected leaders. The widening bipartisan consensus behind another war of agression is troubling, but, given US policy in the region, not surprising. Like Iraq, the US stance against Iran has more to do with its oil resources and sucessful defiance of the US than with an imagined military threat that it poses. While Republicans and Democrats may differ on tactics, concern over the control of the major oil producing region of the world is an issue that transcends party lines.
While the question of nuclear power has maintained a center piece of the case against Iran, more recently charges that it is funding and arming the Iraqi resistance have dominated coverage. The urgency implicit in much of the pro-intervention rhetoric is consistently undercut by assertions by the International Atomic Energy Agency and various American intelligence agencies that, even under the most favorable conditions, Iran is several years away from developing a nuclear weapon. The fact that little to no evidence that it is seeking such a weapon combined with its religious leaders condemning nuclear weapons as a crime against Islam futher undermines the case. The fact that it is supporting elements of the Iraqi resistance somewhat plausible, but, again, there is no evidence that demonstrates official support. Members of the Bush Administraiton have even had to concede this point. It also must mentioned that full-scale support for the resistance would, from the Iranian perspective, be completely counter-productive because the resistance is engaged in battle with an Iraqi government dominated by pro-Iranian Shiite parties.
Debunking the charges that Iran is seeking nuclear weapons or intervening in Iraqi political affairs should not, however, be taken to mean that intervention is justified if the charges are true. Iran is bordered by nuclear-armed Pakistan and US-occupied Afghanistan and Iraq with Israel and the US, both nuclear powers, openly threatening an attack. While nuclear weapons should not be tolerated anywhere, Iranian efforts at a nuclear deterent would make sense. As if it needs to be pointed out: wars, occupations, and open threats are not condusive to peaceful, non-nulcear coexistance. Like much of the case against Iran, the fact that American politicians can complain about Iranian interference in the internal affairs of Iraq with a straight face is astonishing. The US, not Iran, has nearly two hundred thousand troops occupying the country right now.
The charge that Iran represents a threat to Israel is also plausible, but not in the way that it is presented in the American media. The fact that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a beligerant racist has been repeatedly confirmed. Sadly, much of his rhetoric does not represent a distinct break from past Iranian leaders. In the early years of the Islamic Republic, anti-Israeli rhetoric, much of it quite racist, dominated the official discourse on the Palestinian issue. At the same time Iranian leaders publicly blasted Israel, they were buying weapons from them to help in their war against Iraq. While Ahmadinejad is making his comments, the Iranian government has also made it quite clear that they would be willing to recognize Israel and even end support for Palestinian militants. These proposals were found in a 2003 Iranian offer for talks that was rejected by the Bush Administration. Iran is a threat to Israel in the same way that it is a threat to the US. It is able to undermine US hegemony in the region both by being able to sucessfully buck US power via Israel and by the fact that it exists outside the US sphere of influence. Last summer, Iranian support for Hezbollah in its defeat of the Israeli assault on Lebanon undermined the notion of Israeli invincibility. In doing this, it was able to undercut the coersive power of Washington’s number one enforcer in the region.
Like Iraq in 2003, the arguments made against Iran in 2007 are baseless. Also like Iraq, the primary reason for American beligerence is its oil resources. Many of the members of the Bush Administration, before coming to power, laid out a detailed strategy for maintaining and extending the American Empire. The paper, written under the auspices of The Project for the New American Century, was signed by such men as former United Nations Ambassador John Bolton, Vice President Dick Cheney, and former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Building on ideas and arguments made over the course of the previous decade, the men argued that the only way that the US could secure its place as the world’s only superpower was to reassert control over the Middle East, by any means necessary, and use the region’s oil reserves to force other nations to submit to American leadership. This overall strategy was made official policy in 2002, and has since come to be known as the Bush Doctrine. The basic tenents of this strategy have sense become more or less internalized by the political elite in Washington, shaping their world view and the parameters of official debate. Speaking of the nature of US-Iran policy the dissident academic Noam Chomsky commented, “Dick Cheney declared in Kazakhstan or somewhere that control over pipeline is a ‘tool of intimidation and blackmail.’ When we have control over the pipelines it's a tool of benevolence. If other countries have control over the sources of energy and the distribution of energy then it is a tool of intimidation and blackmail exactly as Cheney said. And that's been understood as far back as George Kennan and the early post-war days when he pointed out that if the United States controls Middle East resources it'll have veto power over its industrial rivals. He was speaking particularly of Japan but the point generalizes.”
RP
While the question of nuclear power has maintained a center piece of the case against Iran, more recently charges that it is funding and arming the Iraqi resistance have dominated coverage. The urgency implicit in much of the pro-intervention rhetoric is consistently undercut by assertions by the International Atomic Energy Agency and various American intelligence agencies that, even under the most favorable conditions, Iran is several years away from developing a nuclear weapon. The fact that little to no evidence that it is seeking such a weapon combined with its religious leaders condemning nuclear weapons as a crime against Islam futher undermines the case. The fact that it is supporting elements of the Iraqi resistance somewhat plausible, but, again, there is no evidence that demonstrates official support. Members of the Bush Administraiton have even had to concede this point. It also must mentioned that full-scale support for the resistance would, from the Iranian perspective, be completely counter-productive because the resistance is engaged in battle with an Iraqi government dominated by pro-Iranian Shiite parties.
Debunking the charges that Iran is seeking nuclear weapons or intervening in Iraqi political affairs should not, however, be taken to mean that intervention is justified if the charges are true. Iran is bordered by nuclear-armed Pakistan and US-occupied Afghanistan and Iraq with Israel and the US, both nuclear powers, openly threatening an attack. While nuclear weapons should not be tolerated anywhere, Iranian efforts at a nuclear deterent would make sense. As if it needs to be pointed out: wars, occupations, and open threats are not condusive to peaceful, non-nulcear coexistance. Like much of the case against Iran, the fact that American politicians can complain about Iranian interference in the internal affairs of Iraq with a straight face is astonishing. The US, not Iran, has nearly two hundred thousand troops occupying the country right now.
The charge that Iran represents a threat to Israel is also plausible, but not in the way that it is presented in the American media. The fact that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a beligerant racist has been repeatedly confirmed. Sadly, much of his rhetoric does not represent a distinct break from past Iranian leaders. In the early years of the Islamic Republic, anti-Israeli rhetoric, much of it quite racist, dominated the official discourse on the Palestinian issue. At the same time Iranian leaders publicly blasted Israel, they were buying weapons from them to help in their war against Iraq. While Ahmadinejad is making his comments, the Iranian government has also made it quite clear that they would be willing to recognize Israel and even end support for Palestinian militants. These proposals were found in a 2003 Iranian offer for talks that was rejected by the Bush Administration. Iran is a threat to Israel in the same way that it is a threat to the US. It is able to undermine US hegemony in the region both by being able to sucessfully buck US power via Israel and by the fact that it exists outside the US sphere of influence. Last summer, Iranian support for Hezbollah in its defeat of the Israeli assault on Lebanon undermined the notion of Israeli invincibility. In doing this, it was able to undercut the coersive power of Washington’s number one enforcer in the region.
Like Iraq in 2003, the arguments made against Iran in 2007 are baseless. Also like Iraq, the primary reason for American beligerence is its oil resources. Many of the members of the Bush Administration, before coming to power, laid out a detailed strategy for maintaining and extending the American Empire. The paper, written under the auspices of The Project for the New American Century, was signed by such men as former United Nations Ambassador John Bolton, Vice President Dick Cheney, and former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Building on ideas and arguments made over the course of the previous decade, the men argued that the only way that the US could secure its place as the world’s only superpower was to reassert control over the Middle East, by any means necessary, and use the region’s oil reserves to force other nations to submit to American leadership. This overall strategy was made official policy in 2002, and has since come to be known as the Bush Doctrine. The basic tenents of this strategy have sense become more or less internalized by the political elite in Washington, shaping their world view and the parameters of official debate. Speaking of the nature of US-Iran policy the dissident academic Noam Chomsky commented, “Dick Cheney declared in Kazakhstan or somewhere that control over pipeline is a ‘tool of intimidation and blackmail.’ When we have control over the pipelines it's a tool of benevolence. If other countries have control over the sources of energy and the distribution of energy then it is a tool of intimidation and blackmail exactly as Cheney said. And that's been understood as far back as George Kennan and the early post-war days when he pointed out that if the United States controls Middle East resources it'll have veto power over its industrial rivals. He was speaking particularly of Japan but the point generalizes.”
RP
Thursday, February 22, 2007
VFP Tour Coming to Columbus
Veterans for Peace, working with Military Families Speak Out, Iraq Veterans Against the War, and other similar antiwar groups, have organized a tour of Southeastern military towns next month. SSD, working with the newly formed Columbus Peace and Justice Coalition, will be holding an intersection vigil that afternoon and hosting a formal event on campus that evening. The exact details of the event are, as of now, unclear, but will be posted as they become available.
As of right now, SSD will be engaged in fundraising efforts for the event. We hope to raise at least a couple hundred dollars to donate to the VFP-lead tour to help with gas and other expenses.
-RP
As of right now, SSD will be engaged in fundraising efforts for the event. We hope to raise at least a couple hundred dollars to donate to the VFP-lead tour to help with gas and other expenses.
-RP
Sunday, February 18, 2007
Iraq in Slow Motion: Resources on the coming war with Iran
After the vigil last night several of us from the Columbus Peace and Justice Coalition met up at Dennys to talk about our next step. One of the issues that was raised was local actions in the event of an invasion or bombing of Iran. I think that it would be useful to discuss the issue in light of both much of the mainline Democratic Party politicians openly calling for such a campaign and several of the speakers last night mentioning their support for the war on Afghanistan. While the Iranian government is a charter member of the Bush Administration's "axis of evil," recent months have seen a dramatic escalation of beligerent rhetoric from Washington and a concentration of US forces in the gulf seemingly poised to launch some sort of assault. The experience of the Israeli siege of Lebanon was seen in many circles as a trial run for an Iranian campaign. The US fought a proxy war against Iran via Iraq from 1980 until 1988, so using Israel in 2007 should not be simply dismissed.
In the links below I have listed several articles that, I think, captures the current situation.
I hope that this can, more than it has been in the past, become a forum for the discussion of politics and history as well as strategy and tactics.
Iran: a Chronology of Disinformation, Gary Leupp
http://counterpunch.org/leupp02172007.html
IED Lies, Milan Rai
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=67&ItemID=12139
Blaiming Iran, Salah Hemeid
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2007/832/re73.htm
The Iran Plans, Seymour Hersh
http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/060417fa_fact
Targeting Iran, Saman Sepehri
http://www.isreview.org/issues/50/targetiran.shtml
-RP
In the links below I have listed several articles that, I think, captures the current situation.
I hope that this can, more than it has been in the past, become a forum for the discussion of politics and history as well as strategy and tactics.
Iran: a Chronology of Disinformation, Gary Leupp
http://counterpunch.org/leupp02172007.html
IED Lies, Milan Rai
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=67&ItemID=12139
Blaiming Iran, Salah Hemeid
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2007/832/re73.htm
The Iran Plans, Seymour Hersh
http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/060417fa_fact
Targeting Iran, Saman Sepehri
http://www.isreview.org/issues/50/targetiran.shtml
-RP
Saturday, February 17, 2007
WRBL Article on Peace in the Park
Peace in the Park Rallies Anti-War Support
Heather Jensen
WRBL News 3
February 18, 2007
While senators were making their voices heard in Washington, so were people in the community.
Saturday night, a group known as the Columbus Peace and Justice Coalition met at Lakebottom Park.
The Peace in the Park event was to remember those lost on both sides of the war, and to speak out about current action being taken on the war in Iraq.
The gathering was one of many going on across the country Saturday.
“I think the time has come for the fence-sitters and the people who have otherwise just sort of stood by the sidelines to get out and have their voices heard as well,” says Brett Johnson.
The group plans to take their message to Washington.
A march on the Pentagon is planned for the fourth anniversary of the war.
The caravan will leave Columbus Friday, March 16th, hop aboard a Washington-bound bus on the 17th, and return to Columbus on the 18th.
For more information, contact the Columbus Peace and Justice Coalition at cpjc.ga@gmail.com
**The article is available at:
http://www.wrbl.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=WRBL/MGArticle/RBL_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1149193263931&path=%21frontpage
Heather Jensen
WRBL News 3
February 18, 2007
While senators were making their voices heard in Washington, so were people in the community.
Saturday night, a group known as the Columbus Peace and Justice Coalition met at Lakebottom Park.
The Peace in the Park event was to remember those lost on both sides of the war, and to speak out about current action being taken on the war in Iraq.
The gathering was one of many going on across the country Saturday.
“I think the time has come for the fence-sitters and the people who have otherwise just sort of stood by the sidelines to get out and have their voices heard as well,” says Brett Johnson.
The group plans to take their message to Washington.
A march on the Pentagon is planned for the fourth anniversary of the war.
The caravan will leave Columbus Friday, March 16th, hop aboard a Washington-bound bus on the 17th, and return to Columbus on the 18th.
For more information, contact the Columbus Peace and Justice Coalition at cpjc.ga@gmail.com
**The article is available at:
http://www.wrbl.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=WRBL/MGArticle/RBL_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1149193263931&path=%21frontpage
Friday, February 16, 2007
Soldiers' Resistance
“General, man is very useful,” wrote the great German playwright Bertolt Brecht. “He can fly and he can kill. But he has one defect: He can think.” People are not machines and this “defect” has made itself apparent throughout the history of warfare. The case of America is no exception. There is evidence of signifcant resistance from rank-and-file soldiers in the virtually every major American war with the exception of World War II and Korea. While there are instances of major, open soldiers’ resistance, as in the Filippino-American or Vietnam Wars, there are far more instances of quiet protest and insubordination. In the current war, a growing American soldiers, both active duty and veterans, are engaged in active resistance against US policies in Iraq. More and more soldiers are going public with their resistance, joining organizaitons like Iraq Veterans Against the War, or signing petitions calling for an end to occupation. While public resistance may be limited at this point, a Zogby poll in early 2005 found that the vast majority, 72 percent, of American troops in Iraq wanted a complete withdrawal by the end of 2006.
The issue of soldiers’ resistance is a story generally left out of conventional history books. Like the victims of a particular war, most of the attention given to the role of soldiers in a conflict is a list of numbers. They are treated like passive objects, not historical actors capable of rational thought. Objects do not raise questions, but people do. Antiwar Iraq veteran Kelly Dougherty observed, “The way that the military are portrayed in the media is that we’re just faceless, patriotic drones who go along and do whatever we’re ordered to do… The fact is that the men and women in the military are real human beings. They have families, they have children, a lot of us are going to school and have careers, and we’re not just blindly patriotic.”
A recent USA Today report found that at least 8,000 soldiers have refused deployment to Iraq. That same report found that 400 have fled to Canada seeking refugee status. While the numbers in the current war do not, by any means, rival that of earlier wars, it must be taken into acount that US forces are, more or less, an all-volunteer military. These numbers must also be viewed in light of the declinng number of new recruits, the relaxation of recruitment standards, and the increasing use of the Individual Ready Reserves (IRR). Last year military recruitment was even suspended for a day for a period of retraining after several public revelations of widespread recruiter misconduct. The actual numbers of war resisters is almost impossible to know because, other than simply discharging them, the military has not done much to persue soldiers resisting deployment in the IRR.
While most of the soldiers resisting the war have done so quietly, an increasing number have gone public with their opposition. Sgt. Camilo Mejia, the first US soldier to publicly resist deployment, had been in the miltary for seven years and spent eight months in Iraq before he made his decision. He was court-martialed and served nine months in prison. Speaking after his release, Mejia argued, “When I turned myself in … I did it not only for myself. I did it for the people of Iraq, even for those who fired upon me – they were just on the other side of a battleground where war itself was the only enemy. I did it for the Iraqi children, who are victims of mines and depleted uranium. I did it for the thousands of unknown civilians killed in war… those who called me a coward, without knowing it, are also right. I was a coward not for leaving the war, but for having been a part of it in the first place. Refusing and resisting this war was my moral duty, a moral duty that called me to take a principled action. I failed to fulfill my moral duty as a human being and instead I chose to fulfill my duty as a soldier.”
After Mejia, dozens of other soldiers have followed their conscience and refused to fight. Darrell Anderson, a Purple Heart recipient speaking from exile in Canada, told journalist and author Peter Laufer that he became a war resister after his experiences convinced him to refuse redeployment. After seeing his friend die after an insurgent attack, he said that he became disheartened by the feelings that came over him. Recalling his thoughts, Anderson said, “When I first got there, I was disgusted with my fellow soldiers. But now I'm just the same. I will kill innocent people, because I'm not the person I was when I got there.” Another war resister, Joshua Key told Laufer that he holds the Bush Amdinistration responsible for the war. “I blame them because they made me do it. You can lie to the world; you can't lie to a person who's seen it. They made me have to do things that a man should never have to do, for the purpose of their gain – not the people's – their financial gain.” Steven Casey said that while he was still in the Individual Ready Reserve, he would never return to Iraq. “You'll see me on the news,” he said. “I won't be back.” He said that he was going to use the money that was promised to him for school, but that “there are a lot of things that came with this that are irreparable and I'm going to have the rest of my life.” Looking back on his decision to join, he lamented, “I should have worked at McDonalds and found a way to pay for my tuition.”
As indicated by the Zogby poll mentioned in the beginning of this column, the depths of the antiwar sentiment in the ranks cannot necessarily be measured by the number of those engaged in active resistance. The nature of the soldiers’ revolt is complex to say the least. Kelly Dougherty, discussing the dynamics of the reistance, explained, “I think most of the people in Iraq right now in the U.S. military are there fighting for the people to their left and their right. They’re fighting for their brothers and sisters, who are really like their second family. That’s why they go over there, and that’s why they go back again and again. We have members in Iraq Veterans Against the War who are very opposed to the war, and they’re thinking of reenlisting – because they feel like their friends are going back, and they can’t let them go by themselves.”
As long as people fight in wars, the war machine will always have one “defect.” Throughout the modern age wars have been sold to domestic populations on defensive or humanitarian grounds. Leaders do not simply tell people to send their sons and daughters to fight and die for money or territory or resources. If they did, no one would fight. Even when they do fight, the enemy has to be dehumanized, transformed into subhumans who do not even value their own lives. The “enemy” can’t be a person. As soon as the “enemy” becomes a person with feelings and parents, an act of war becomes an act of murder. The “defect” in the war machine is the very thing that wars seek to destroy: humanity. Speaking at an antiwar rally on Jan 27 in San Franscisco, Lt. Ehren Watada, the first commissioned officer to refuse deployment, said, “To stop an illegal and unjust war, the soldiers can choose to stop fighting it.... If soldiers realized this war is contrary to what the Constitution extols – if they stood up and threw their weapons down – no President could ever initiate a war of choice again.”
-RP
The issue of soldiers’ resistance is a story generally left out of conventional history books. Like the victims of a particular war, most of the attention given to the role of soldiers in a conflict is a list of numbers. They are treated like passive objects, not historical actors capable of rational thought. Objects do not raise questions, but people do. Antiwar Iraq veteran Kelly Dougherty observed, “The way that the military are portrayed in the media is that we’re just faceless, patriotic drones who go along and do whatever we’re ordered to do… The fact is that the men and women in the military are real human beings. They have families, they have children, a lot of us are going to school and have careers, and we’re not just blindly patriotic.”
A recent USA Today report found that at least 8,000 soldiers have refused deployment to Iraq. That same report found that 400 have fled to Canada seeking refugee status. While the numbers in the current war do not, by any means, rival that of earlier wars, it must be taken into acount that US forces are, more or less, an all-volunteer military. These numbers must also be viewed in light of the declinng number of new recruits, the relaxation of recruitment standards, and the increasing use of the Individual Ready Reserves (IRR). Last year military recruitment was even suspended for a day for a period of retraining after several public revelations of widespread recruiter misconduct. The actual numbers of war resisters is almost impossible to know because, other than simply discharging them, the military has not done much to persue soldiers resisting deployment in the IRR.
While most of the soldiers resisting the war have done so quietly, an increasing number have gone public with their opposition. Sgt. Camilo Mejia, the first US soldier to publicly resist deployment, had been in the miltary for seven years and spent eight months in Iraq before he made his decision. He was court-martialed and served nine months in prison. Speaking after his release, Mejia argued, “When I turned myself in … I did it not only for myself. I did it for the people of Iraq, even for those who fired upon me – they were just on the other side of a battleground where war itself was the only enemy. I did it for the Iraqi children, who are victims of mines and depleted uranium. I did it for the thousands of unknown civilians killed in war… those who called me a coward, without knowing it, are also right. I was a coward not for leaving the war, but for having been a part of it in the first place. Refusing and resisting this war was my moral duty, a moral duty that called me to take a principled action. I failed to fulfill my moral duty as a human being and instead I chose to fulfill my duty as a soldier.”
After Mejia, dozens of other soldiers have followed their conscience and refused to fight. Darrell Anderson, a Purple Heart recipient speaking from exile in Canada, told journalist and author Peter Laufer that he became a war resister after his experiences convinced him to refuse redeployment. After seeing his friend die after an insurgent attack, he said that he became disheartened by the feelings that came over him. Recalling his thoughts, Anderson said, “When I first got there, I was disgusted with my fellow soldiers. But now I'm just the same. I will kill innocent people, because I'm not the person I was when I got there.” Another war resister, Joshua Key told Laufer that he holds the Bush Amdinistration responsible for the war. “I blame them because they made me do it. You can lie to the world; you can't lie to a person who's seen it. They made me have to do things that a man should never have to do, for the purpose of their gain – not the people's – their financial gain.” Steven Casey said that while he was still in the Individual Ready Reserve, he would never return to Iraq. “You'll see me on the news,” he said. “I won't be back.” He said that he was going to use the money that was promised to him for school, but that “there are a lot of things that came with this that are irreparable and I'm going to have the rest of my life.” Looking back on his decision to join, he lamented, “I should have worked at McDonalds and found a way to pay for my tuition.”
As indicated by the Zogby poll mentioned in the beginning of this column, the depths of the antiwar sentiment in the ranks cannot necessarily be measured by the number of those engaged in active resistance. The nature of the soldiers’ revolt is complex to say the least. Kelly Dougherty, discussing the dynamics of the reistance, explained, “I think most of the people in Iraq right now in the U.S. military are there fighting for the people to their left and their right. They’re fighting for their brothers and sisters, who are really like their second family. That’s why they go over there, and that’s why they go back again and again. We have members in Iraq Veterans Against the War who are very opposed to the war, and they’re thinking of reenlisting – because they feel like their friends are going back, and they can’t let them go by themselves.”
As long as people fight in wars, the war machine will always have one “defect.” Throughout the modern age wars have been sold to domestic populations on defensive or humanitarian grounds. Leaders do not simply tell people to send their sons and daughters to fight and die for money or territory or resources. If they did, no one would fight. Even when they do fight, the enemy has to be dehumanized, transformed into subhumans who do not even value their own lives. The “enemy” can’t be a person. As soon as the “enemy” becomes a person with feelings and parents, an act of war becomes an act of murder. The “defect” in the war machine is the very thing that wars seek to destroy: humanity. Speaking at an antiwar rally on Jan 27 in San Franscisco, Lt. Ehren Watada, the first commissioned officer to refuse deployment, said, “To stop an illegal and unjust war, the soldiers can choose to stop fighting it.... If soldiers realized this war is contrary to what the Constitution extols – if they stood up and threw their weapons down – no President could ever initiate a war of choice again.”
-RP
Thursday, February 15, 2007
"From A German War Primer"
AMONGST THE HIGHLY PLACED
It is considered low to talk about food.
The fact is: they have
Already eaten.
The lowly must leave this earth
Without having tasted
Any good meat.
For wondering where they come from and
Where they are going
The fine evenings find them
Too exhausted.
They have not yet seen
The mountains and the great sea
When their time is already up.
If the lowly do not
Think about what's low
They will never rise.
THE BREAD OF THE HUNGRY HAS
ALL BEEN EATEN
Meat has become unknown. Useless
The pouring out of the people's sweat.
The laurel groves have been
Lopped down.
From the chimneys of the arms factories
Rises smoke.
THE HOUSE-PAINTER SPEAKS OF
GREAT TIMES TO COME
The forests still grow.
The fields still bear
The cities still stand.
The people still breathe.
ON THE CALENDAR THE DAY IS NOT
YET SHOWN
Every month, every day
Lies open still. One of those days
Is going to be marked with a cross.
THE WORKERS CRY OUT FOR BREAD
The merchants cry out for markets.
The unemployed were hungry. The employed
Are hungry now.
The hands that lay folded are busy again.
They are making shells.
THOSE WHO TAKE THE MEAT FROM THE TABLE
Teach contentment.
Those for whom the contribution is destined
Demand sacrifice.
Those who eat their fill speak to the hungry
Of wonderful times to come.
Those who lead the country into the abyss
Call ruling too difficult
For ordinary men.
WHEN THE LEADERS SPEAK OF PEACE
The common folk know
That war is coming.
When the leaders curse war
The mobilization order is already written out.
THOSE AT THE TOP SAY: PEACE
AND WAR
Are of different substance.
But their peace and their war
Are like wind and storm.
War grows from their peace
Like son from his mother
He bears
Her frightful features.
Their war kills
Whatever their peace
Has left over.
ON THE WALL WAS CHALKED:
They want war.
The man who wrote it
Has already fallen.
THOSE AT THE TOP SAY:
This way to glory.
Those down below say:
This way to the grave.
THE WAR WHICH IS COMING
Is not the first one. There were
Other wars before it.
When the last one came to an end
There were conquerors and conquered.
Among the conquered the common people
Starved. Among the conquerors
The common people starved too.
THOSE AT THE TOP SAY COMRADESHIP
Reigns in the army.
The truth of this is seen
In the cookhouse.
In their hearts should be
The selfsame courage. But
On their plates
Are two kinds of rations.
WHEN IT COMES TO MARCHING MANY DO NOT
KNOW
That their enemy is marching at their head.
The voice which gives them their orders
Is their enemy's voice and
The man who speaks of the enemy
Is the enemy himself.
IT IS NIGHT
The married couples
Lie in their beds. The young women
Will bear orphans.
GENERAL, YOUR TANK IS A POWERFUL VEHICLE
It smashes down forests and crushes a hundred men.
But it has one defect:
It needs a driver.
General, your bomber is powerful.
It flies faster than a storm and carries more than an elephant.
But it has one defect:
It needs a mechanic.
General, man is very useful.
He can fly and he can kill.
But he has one defect:
He can think.
-Bertolt Brecht
It is considered low to talk about food.
The fact is: they have
Already eaten.
The lowly must leave this earth
Without having tasted
Any good meat.
For wondering where they come from and
Where they are going
The fine evenings find them
Too exhausted.
They have not yet seen
The mountains and the great sea
When their time is already up.
If the lowly do not
Think about what's low
They will never rise.
THE BREAD OF THE HUNGRY HAS
ALL BEEN EATEN
Meat has become unknown. Useless
The pouring out of the people's sweat.
The laurel groves have been
Lopped down.
From the chimneys of the arms factories
Rises smoke.
THE HOUSE-PAINTER SPEAKS OF
GREAT TIMES TO COME
The forests still grow.
The fields still bear
The cities still stand.
The people still breathe.
ON THE CALENDAR THE DAY IS NOT
YET SHOWN
Every month, every day
Lies open still. One of those days
Is going to be marked with a cross.
THE WORKERS CRY OUT FOR BREAD
The merchants cry out for markets.
The unemployed were hungry. The employed
Are hungry now.
The hands that lay folded are busy again.
They are making shells.
THOSE WHO TAKE THE MEAT FROM THE TABLE
Teach contentment.
Those for whom the contribution is destined
Demand sacrifice.
Those who eat their fill speak to the hungry
Of wonderful times to come.
Those who lead the country into the abyss
Call ruling too difficult
For ordinary men.
WHEN THE LEADERS SPEAK OF PEACE
The common folk know
That war is coming.
When the leaders curse war
The mobilization order is already written out.
THOSE AT THE TOP SAY: PEACE
AND WAR
Are of different substance.
But their peace and their war
Are like wind and storm.
War grows from their peace
Like son from his mother
He bears
Her frightful features.
Their war kills
Whatever their peace
Has left over.
ON THE WALL WAS CHALKED:
They want war.
The man who wrote it
Has already fallen.
THOSE AT THE TOP SAY:
This way to glory.
Those down below say:
This way to the grave.
THE WAR WHICH IS COMING
Is not the first one. There were
Other wars before it.
When the last one came to an end
There were conquerors and conquered.
Among the conquered the common people
Starved. Among the conquerors
The common people starved too.
THOSE AT THE TOP SAY COMRADESHIP
Reigns in the army.
The truth of this is seen
In the cookhouse.
In their hearts should be
The selfsame courage. But
On their plates
Are two kinds of rations.
WHEN IT COMES TO MARCHING MANY DO NOT
KNOW
That their enemy is marching at their head.
The voice which gives them their orders
Is their enemy's voice and
The man who speaks of the enemy
Is the enemy himself.
IT IS NIGHT
The married couples
Lie in their beds. The young women
Will bear orphans.
GENERAL, YOUR TANK IS A POWERFUL VEHICLE
It smashes down forests and crushes a hundred men.
But it has one defect:
It needs a driver.
General, your bomber is powerful.
It flies faster than a storm and carries more than an elephant.
But it has one defect:
It needs a mechanic.
General, man is very useful.
He can fly and he can kill.
But he has one defect:
He can think.
-Bertolt Brecht
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