Re: Peace by Pieces

In article <43337DED.3040507@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, clore@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
(Dan Clore) wrote:

> News & Views for Anarchists & Activists:
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo
>
> *****
>
> Peace by Pieces
> New -- and Old -- Antiwar Protesters Hope to Turn Momentum
> Into a Movement
> By David Montgomery
> Washington Post Staff Writer
> Thursday, September 22, 2005
> C01
>
> One after another their trails led them here -- from
> California, New York, Baltimore -- disparate members of the
> same movement, drawn by some strong instinct that told them:
> Now is the time. This is the place.
>
> Folded into a couch at one end of the restaurant is Tom
> Hayden, silver-goateed eminence of antiwars past, while
> huddled with colleagues at a long table is Leslie Cagan,
> doyenne of the peace movement's present. Looking wan and
> wrung out in yet another corner stands Tia Steele, whose
> stepson was shot in the throat and killed in Fallujah.
>
> It's not just the usual peacenik suspects. Washington Wizard
> Etan Thomas bounds up on the restaurant's stage to perform
> his updated Gil Scott-Heron-style poetry -- They knock down
> doors to start wars / With hands stained by the blood of
> foreign sands -- for a packed house that includes David
> Meggyesy, the former Cardinal who quit the National Football
> League in protest of the Vietnam War.
>
> Vietnam? The unquiet ghost, the untamed analogy, is loose in
> the air. There's that old nervy feeling that Something Is
> Happening. Here. Now. But you could be mistaken.
>
> Every movement needs a crossroads, a watering hole, an
> asylum. Busboys and Poets -- part restaurant, bookstore,
> theater -- opened a couple weeks ago, at 14th and V streets
> NW, just in time for the peace movement's headiest days in
> forever.
>
> Plump couches, radical books, free WiFi, $5 microbrews,
> killer sound system, a menu that runs from catfish and
> collard greens to peanut butter, banana and honey
> sandwiches: a cool, comfortable, slightly bourgy haven for a
> hot, bothered, slightly bourgy peace movement.
>
> Critics cannot easily dismiss this incarnation of antiwar
> enthusiasm as a fringe passion of anarchists, communists and
> freaks (though an author still tried to make that case last
> month at a Heritage Foundation forum). Recent polls say a
> majority of Americans -- as many as 59 percent -- think the
> war in Iraq is a "mistake" and the troops should be brought
> home. (Brought home when? That's another question.)
>
> The news is almost too much to handle. Demonstrators walk
> around saying, We are the majority, trying it on like
> unfamiliar clothes.
>
> It has been half a lifetime since the peaceniks felt so . .
> . mainstream. The last time a majority became disenchanted
> with a conflict as shots were still being fired -- including
> the Gulf War, Yugoslavia and Afghanistan -- was August 1968,
> when Gallup first detected that most Americans considered
> the Vietnam War a "mistake."
>
> Cindy Sheehan, the movement's own Mother Courage, commands
> the kind of obsessive cable coverage usually lavished on
> titillating crimes. Her caravan from Crawford, Tex., rolled
> into Washington yesterday and 17 television cameras
> documented her first step onto the soil of the nation's
> capital in her quest to ask President Bush in person: "What
> is the 'noble cause' for which you sent our country to war?"
>
> Seeking to capitalize on the momentum, Cagan's United for
> Peace and Justice and the ANSWER Coalition have organized a
> rally and encirclement of the White House on Saturday
> morning that they hope will draw 100,000. That will be
> followed by Operation Ceasefire, an 11-hour concert
> featuring Joan Baez, Steve Earle, Thievery Corporation and
> the Coup. United for Peace and Justice is planning more
> antiwar activities for Sunday and Monday. The overall
> message: Bring the troops home now.
>
> Until then, it has been long days of testifying on the Hill,
> haranguing in Lafayette Square, fundraising, phone-banking,
> pounding out e-mails at 2:37 a.m. -- Re: FW: FW: FLYERING!
>
> Then nights at Busboys and Poets, where members of the new
> not-so-silent majority are ushered to the restaurant's
> theater for "Fear Up," a play about the new American style
> of interrogation at Guantanamo Bay, or a screening of
> "Operation: Dreamland," a grunt's-eye documentary about the
> occupation of Fallujah.
>
> "I think the depression and malaise that followed not being
> able to stop the war and not being able to do anything after
> the election has shifted," Steele says, "and people who felt
> deflated and defeated are now coming together in recognition
> that we can do something and we are doing something."
>
> "I've opened many restaurants," says Andy Shallal, an Iraqi
> American who owns Busboys and Poets. "This is the most
> bull's-eye I've ever shot. This one people came in and got
> it right away. I think it's about timing."
>
> The Roots of Protest
>
> They converge, then disperse to "organize."
>
> Whether Something really is Happening is difficult to
> measure. The polls offer clues, but also caveats.
>
> Americans were much quicker to decide that Iraq was a
> mistake than Vietnam, says Frank Newport, editor in chief of
> the Gallup Poll. It took three years in the case of Vietnam,
> just 15 months for Iraq.
>
> However, Newport says, the peace movement's claims to rising
> momentum are more tenuous. Since a majority first called
> Iraq a mistake more than a year ago, the number has
> fluctuated rather than increased steadily. Polls in the last
> week have suggested an uptick.
>
> Hurricane Katrina and now Rita may be sucking publicity from
> peace. On the other hand, the movement has struck a chord
> with some people by using Katrina to further question Bush's
> competence and priorities.
>
> If this weekend's demonstrations do draw 100,000, they will
> rival a prewar peace march in Washington that police
> suggested involved more than 100,000 and was considered the
> largest antiwar rally since Vietnam. Organizers claimed
> 500,000 attended that march.
>
> So if you want to learn about the movement, you need to
> track the characters back up the solitary trails of tears
> that brought them here. The journeys involve the main
> questions facing the peace movement:
>
> If the troops come home now, won't there be even more chaos
> and deaths of innocents in Iraq?
>
> How can you support the troops and not the war?
>
> If we don't fight the Enemy in Iraq, will we someday fight
> him here?
>
> Isn't it a good thing that Saddam Hussein is toppled and
> facing trial?
>
> If we "cut and run" and do not "stay the course," will the
> fallen have died in vain?
>
> Empty Boots on the Ground
>
> On a recent Saturday, Tia Steele is contemplating a field of
> black boots in Baltimore. The pairs are arranged in neat
> ranks like a negative image of the white crosses in
> Arlington Cemetery. One pair for each of 1,895 dead soldiers
> and Marines by this point in the war.
>
> It's the "Eyes Wide Open" exhibit arranged by the American
> Friends Service Committee at Johns Hopkins University. The
> exhibit has toured 65 cities since January 2004, when there
> were only 504 pairs of boots, and has been seen by more than
> 500,000 people, organizers say. About 6,000 people attended
> in Baltimore.
>
> The boots are symbolic, purchased from surplus, not worn by
> the honored dead, but on a table is a special display of
> boots donated by families.
>
> Next to a pair worn by Pvt. Robert Frantz are two
> photographs. One shows him and his smiling recruiter, the
> other shows his tombstone.
>
> Thick-soled and toe-scuffed are the boots of Spec. Casey
> Sheehan, posthumously famous son of Mother Cindy. The
> leather is stamped "Made in the U.S.A."
>
> And there are the boots of Lance Cpl. David Branning, Tia
> Steele's stepson.
>
> A woman approaches shyly. In her hand is an official paper:
> "Report of Casualty." It's what Yvonne Green has now instead
> of her daughter. It says Spec. Toccara Green, 23, of
> Rosedale, Md., was killed in action in the "War on
> Terrorism/Operation Iraqi Freedom." The death is so recent
> that boots for her are being added only today.
>
> Steele embraces Green. Two mothers with wet eyes.
>
> This is the feeling side of the peace movement. Steele, 56,
> a Baltimore research psychologist, believes minds are
> changed not by information as much as by experience. It's
> what happened to her.
>
> She was stunned when David signed up for the Marines, but
> she didn't try to talk him out of it. He was a thoughtful
> young man, figuring out his own path. He took "War and
> Peace" to the battlefield.
>
> He was killed kicking down a door in Fallujah. He was 21.
>
> To her, none of the administration's evolving justifications
> for the war withstood scrutiny -- 9/11, weapons of mass
> destruction, global war on terrorism, building democracy.
> But she did not openly dissent until she got her own Report
> of Casualty. She quit her job to coordinate "Eyes Wide Open"
> and now hopes to find work in the movement.
>
> "David can't have died in vain," she says. "I have an
> obligation to his honor and to the David that I loved to do
> something about this craziness. . . . This war is a lie. To
> keep perpetuating it is to cause more damage."
> The View From Here
>
> A huge collage covers one wall of Busboys and Poets, a
> scrapbook of a century's worth of struggle for peace and
> justice. Portraits of Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela,
> Joseph McCarthy. Demonstrators being beaten. The naked
> napalmed Vietnamese girl running down the road.
>
> Painted across the top are the simple words of Langston Hughes:
>
> Let America be America again
>
> Let it be the dream it used to be
>
> This is the fundamental yearning of protesters who consider
> themselves patriots.
>
> Shallal, 50, painted the mural himself. His family came to
> Washington in the mid-1960s, when his father was ambassador
> of the Arab League. After Saddam Hussein seized power, they
> could not return.
>
> Shallal became a researcher in medical immunology at the
> National Institutes of Health, then switched to the
> restaurant business -- he also owns Mimi's American Bistro
> and the Luna Grill near Dupont Circle -- and became active
> in peace issues. He camped in Crawford, Tex., with Cindy
> Sheehan.
>
> He expects a lot of the land where now he is a citizen.
>
> "I don't want it to be another country with better
> plumbing," he says.
>
> Before the invasion, members of his family, some of whom
> still live in Iraq, were divided on the prospect of war.
> Some thought removal of Hussein was worth the price of
> invasion. Others questioned the legitimacy.
>
> Shallal thinks toppling the dictator could have been
> achieved peacefully with more time. The violence, he says,
> undermines U.S. claims to be doing anything good for Iraq.
> Life in Baghdad for his cousins is more primitive and
> dangerous than under Hussein, he says.
>
> The presence of American troops is breeding more terrorists,
> making America less safe, he says, so bring the troops home now.
>
> "The U.S. is only creating more conditions for civil war,"
> he says. "The Iraqis need to figure this out for themselves."
>
> From War to Peace
>
> Tia Steele's path leads to Charlie Anderson, who came home
> in one piece, physically. He has donated his own boots to
> the exhibit.
>
> "These boots were worn during the invasion of Iraq and the
> occupation of Crawford, Texas," he says.
>
> Navy Petty Officer Anderson, 28, was a hospital corpsman
> assigned to a Marine tank battalion. He says five men he
> felt close to were killed. He stands in the field of boots
> with his head bowed and wipes his eyes. He flinches at the
> bang of nearby construction equipment.
>
> He had a job stocking shelves in Ohio when he enlisted a
> decade ago hoping for a better future. He kept reenlisting:
> He felt he didn't have a choice with a wife and daughter and
> no immediate prospects outside the service.
>
> When the war came, he supported it without much thought. He
> couldn't believe his country would launch it without good
> reason and hard evidence. Turning against the war was a slow
> process.
>
> "To admit that everything we gave up in order to do this was
> for nothing, that's a hard sell," he says.
>
> Seeing the country for himself, he became dubious of the
> supposed terror threat to the U.S. homeland, "as if Hassan
> with a bookstore on Haifa Street is going to wreak havoc on
> Sylvania, Ohio." The alternative justification of planting
> democracy seemed futile to him. "Then I was pinned down to
> weapons of mass destruction," he says.
>
> Ha.
>
> He joined Iraq Veterans Against the War before his discharge
> in March. The group claims about 300 members and is growing
> quickly after public exposure this summer alongside Cindy
> Sheehan. In comparison, Vietnam Veterans Against the War
> took about two years to form and another couple years to
> gain traction, Anderson says.
>
> Anderson has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress
> disorder. Now he is a student in Virginia Beach and an activist.
>
> He sees yellow ribbon magnets on cars, he hears talk about
> how you have to "support the troops." He wants to ask the
> ribbon people if they ever wrote a soldier to tell him? He
> wants to ask, How much support was there to send the troops
> with proper armor? As some come home battered, how much
> support is there for the budget of the Veterans Administration?
>
> Anderson says American troops are "phenomenal people who are
> willing to sacrifice everything" to complete a mission, but
> in Iraq "the mission keeps morphing."
>
> "What is the mission? Tell me what the mission is."
>
> A Distant Echo
>
> A bare stage with nine actors. The theater is the room with
> the mural and the hovering prayer to let America be America.
> An audience of about 70 fills nearly every seat.
>
> An actor playing a troubled FBI interrogator says:
>
> "Some of these techniques, I don't want to see, or be a part
> of. I took an oath to the Constitution to uphold the laws
> against enemies both inside the U.S. and out. . . . The
> [Pentagon] guy got really upset. He said he took the oath,
> too. I told him that we must have different interpretations,
> then."
>
> "Fear Up" is set in Baghdad and Guantanamo Bay. It's
> nonfiction, drawn from testimony, memoirs and journalistic
> sources, like that quote from a recent New Yorker article.
>
> A few days before opening night, the two assemblers -- not
> playwrights, exactly -- meet in a Capitol Hill coffee shop
> over a laptop and do final tinkering. One -- Karen Bradley,
> 54, director of graduate studies in dance at the University
> of Maryland -- had demonstrated against the Vietnam War as a
> college student, and she recalls the possibility and power
> in the movement then. She detects something similar in the
> air now.
>
> "People are angry, but they're focused," she says. "It's not
> blind rage. People are sober, and very determined."
>
> Part of Bradley's evidence that Something Is Happening is
> that she knows so many people who have never demonstrated
> before who are on their way to Washington for this weekend.
> People like Michael Kahn, 46, an oncologist from outside
> Chicago. ("This is a critical point for our country," he
> says.) And Susan Krueger, 44, a mother who home-schooled her
> children in small-town Michigan. ("We have to make a big
> noise and a continuous noise," Krueger says.)
>
> The other creator of "Fear Up" -- Marietta Hedges, 44,
> assistant professor of acting at Catholic University --
> reaches back to the same point of reference.
>
> "The September 24 demonstrations could be a pivotal turning
> point like you remember from the Vietnam War," she says.
>
> But knowing when Something Is Really Happening has always
> been tricky. Hedges was in London when hundreds of thousands
> marched for peace shortly before the invasion, in an effort
> to forestall war. It was a stirring experience. Hedges
> remembers what a woman marching beside her said: "I think
> we're going to stop this war. I think we're going to prevent
> it from happening."
>
> *****
>
> The Australian
> Anti-war mum heads to White House
> From correspondents in Washington
> 22sep05
>
> CINDY Sheehan, whose son was killed fighting in Iraq and who
> camped for weeks outside US President George W. Bush's Texas
> ranch to protest against the war, took her message to
> Washington today with rallies and lobbying ahead of a larger
> demonstration this weekend.
>
> Mrs Sheehan was joined by about 30 supporters in her march
> down Pennsylvania Avenue to deliver a letter to Bush urging
> him to pull the troops out of Iraq.
>
> "We want to hold this administration accountable. Nobody's
> asking them the hard questions but you know what, we're
> willing to come here," said Mrs Sheehan, the California
> mother whose son Casey was killed in combat in Iraq.
>
> "We're willing to spend weeks out of our lives and ask them
> the hard questions," she said after handing a poster-sized
> petition through the iron gates of the White House to a
> staff member who promised to deliver it.
>
> Mrs Sheehan's rallies in August while Bush was holidaying in
> Crawford, Texas, drew crowds that sometimes numbered in the
> hundreds.
>
> Mr Bush, who met her in 2004 after her son was killed,
> refused to meet her for a second time.
>
> Organisers predict tens of thousands of people will attend
> Sunday's rally against the Iraq war on the Ellipse behind
> the White House.
>
> The fledgling movement appeared to stall after the
> protesters left Mr Bush's ranch, largely overshadowed by the
> Hurricane Katrina catastrophe. Though a second powerful
> hurricane now threatens the Gulf coast, the protesters said
> the fighting in Iraq didn't stop because of hurricanes or
> other bad news.
>
> "There's still a war on," Mrs Sheehan said on Capitol Hill.
> "Nine Americans were killed yesterday in Iraq. We will end
> this war. We will bring the troops home."
>
> *****
>
> Soldiers Back From Iraq Support Cindy Sheehan's Antiwar
> Stance on Video.Google.Com
>
> Antiwar statements from U.S. Soldiers who have served in the
> Iraq War (OIF) appear online now at Video.Google.Com.
> Metropole Filmworx LLC choose Video.Google.Com as a
> distribution method for clips of soldier antiwar videos in
> order to insure they would be available on demand in time
> for the September 23, 2005 protest in Washington DC led by
> Cindy Sheehan.
>
> (PRWEB) September 22, 2005 -- Antiwar statements from US
> Soldiers who have served in the Iraq War (OIF) appear online
> now at Video.Google.Com. Metropole Filmworx LLC choose
> Video.Google.Com as a distribution method for clips of
> soldier videos in order to insure they would be available on
> demand in time for the September 23, 2005 protest in
> Washington DC led by Cindy Sheehan.
>
> Metropole Filmworx LLC has been recording interviews with
> soldiers who have returned from Iraq since March. The
> footage collected will be used in their documentary "BACK
> FROM IRAQ: The Citizen Soldier Speaks". They have posted
> clips from several interviews online at Video.Google.Com
> (video.google.com/videosearch?q=metropole&pl=1 ) in order to
> make sure that congressional representatives and the general
> public are aware that Cindy Sheehan speaks for many, many
> soldiers when she says the War in Iraq must be brought to a
> swift conclusion.
>
> Nancy Fulton, co-producer of the documentary, reflects on
> why she chooses Video.Google.Com as a distribution method
> for these clips. "There's no doubt that we could have posted
> this content on our own site. But Video.Google.Com is an
> exceptional distribution choice for content which may draw
> hundreds or thousands of simultaneous viewers. Furthermore,
> clips posted on Video.Google.Com display inside the web
> browser rather than in a Real Media or Quick Time window.
> Our experience is that in order to make sure other viewers
> can play a clip; we often have to post several versions of
> the file in multiple file formats and resolutions. We like
> being able to post a single version of the file with the
> absolute confidence that anyone who installs the Google
> Video Viewer will be able to watch it with a single click."
>
> In one clip, Marine Staff Sergeant Jimmy Massey (ret'd)
> describes the killing of more than twenty unarmed protesters
> in the first days after the initial assault on Iraq, and the
> subsequent killing of many more unarmed Iraqi's at a
> military check point. Jimmy Massey, previously a Parris
> Island Trainer and Recruiter for the US Marine Corp.
> describes how, when he told his commanding officer "Today's
> been a bad day sir, we've killed a lot of civilians," his
> commanding officer responded "No, today is a good day."
> Massey adds, "When he said that I realized I was in the
> wrong place. Maybe I wasn't cut out for the Marine Corp."
>
> In another clip, Patrick Resta, a Pennsylvania National
> Guardsman serving as US Army Medic, describes how he and
> fellow medics were prevented from providing medical care to
> desperate Iraqi civilians who approached them for help
> because their own hospitals had been devastated by the war.
> He also describes how, in violation of the Geneva
> Conventions regarding medics, he was required to carry a
> rifle. "I walked an oil pipeline for two days in a hundred
> and forty degree heat to keep it from being sabotaged and
> blown up . . . How dare you tell me this war isn't about oil."
>
> What these clips make clear is that there are soldiers
> fulfilling their obligation to the US Military who do not
> support the war in Iraq. They feel their service in Iraq is
> in direct conflict with their commitment to "protect and
> defend" the United States.
>
> Jeff Key, Lance Corporal in the US Marine Corp, is currently
> serving as Cindy Sheehan's body guard. In his clip he makes
> it clear that he is not a pacifist. He became a Marine to
> protect and defend defenseless people. "I'm sick to death of
> being told how much better the Iraqi's lives are." He
> suggests that if the people of the United States were
> offered a solution to all the nation's troubles, ranging
> from health care to education, at the price the Iraqi's have
> been asked to pay they wouldn't accept the offer. "What if
> someone came to us and said 'We're gonna fix all of these
> problems . . . The only thing is, we're going to kill tens
> of thousands of you . . .' "
>
> Nancy Fulton says, "James Metropole, Susie Shannon and I are
> just everyday citizens. We started making this documentary,
> a first for all of us, because we wanted to know the truth
> of what was going on in Iraq. We were tired of hearing
> generals and politicians talk about conditions in Iraq when
> their visits were little more than four hour touch downs. We
> were disgusted by the images we saw coming out of Abu Ghraib
> and the images of dead soldiers and civilians flooding our
> TV screens. So, we turned to our soldiers for answers. James
> Metropole was a soldier, my family has a tradition of
> military service . . . We knew US Soldiers are the only US
> citizens who know exactly how the United States is waging
> war in Iraq. We knew US Soldiers would tell us the
> unvarnished truth. Did they have the right training and
> equipment? What did they see? What did they do? We had no
> idea their responses would be so explosive or so compelling.
> Soldiers really are American heroes facing the kind of moral
> and ethical dilemmas the rest of us can only imagine. We
> came to understand the terrible price soldiers pay for the
> innocent deaths they cause and the lives they aren't allowed
> to save."
>
> Metropole Filmworx will be putting DVD's containing soldier
> statements in the hands of elected representatives during
> the anti-war protest led by Cindy Sheehan. Anyone looking
> for the truth of what's happening on the ground in Iraq has
> to start with the soldiers who have spent months or years there.
>
> Metropole Filmworx will be posting additional clips of
> soldiers talking about their service in Iraq in the weeks to
> come.
>
> Information on how soldiers can arrange to be interviewed
> for the documentary, and links to soldier antiwar statements
> on http://video.google.com , can be found on
> http://www.metropolefilmworx.com
>
> For more information about antiwar soldiers visit
> http://www.ivaw.net and http://www.optruth.com and
> http://www.militaryproject.org .
>
> *****
>
> --
> Dan Clore
>
> Now available: _The Unspeakable and Others_
> http://www.wildsidepress.com/index2.htm
> http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1587154838/thedanclorenecro
> Lord Wedgliffe & Necronomicon Page:
> http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/9879/
> News & Views for Anarchists & Activists:
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo
>
> As the Government of the United States of America is not, in
> any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in
> itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or
> tranquillity, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never
> entered into any war, or act of hostility against any
> Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no
> pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce
> an interruption of the harmony existing between the two
> countries.
> -- The Treaty of Tripoli, entered into by the USA under
> George Washington


http://www.mrgallowaygoestowashington.com/

http://www.isreview.org/gallowaytour.shtml

Over 1,000 people filled the Wisconsin Union Theatre on Sunday night and more
600 came to Northwestern Law School?s Thorne Auditorium to hear George Galloway
on Monday night, making it one of the largest left-wing political meetings in
years in Chicago.

We were greeted in Madison by a motley crew of 25 College Republicans, which Mr.
Galloway referred to as a ?mass demonstration of neo-cons.? At least they were
good for a laugh.

"We're out here with the College Republicans, making sure that people know this
campus supports the troops," UW- Madison senior Robert Thelen to Elizabeth
Wachowski from the Wisconsin State Journal. "We will support the troops whether
they come home tomorrow, in a year or in 10 years."

I?m sure the troops will be happy to hear that their non-enlisted friends will
?support? them in Iraq for the next decade. As Mr. Galloway said of Hitchens,
?people like that are willing to fight to the last drop of other people?s
blood.?

In Chicago, the expert technicians at Thorne hooked Mr. Galloway up to a
wireless microphone, giving him the freedom to roam around the stage, inspiring
a stand-up comic streak. The audience was in stitches half the time as Mr.
Galloway put his collection of one-liners and witty stories, honed through
thirty years of parliamentary duels, to good use.

Here?s my favorite,

"I don?t believe that Mr. Bush is a Christian. Christians believe in the
prophets, peace be upon them. Bush believes in profits and how to get a piece of
them."

That brought the house down.

But as funny as it was, the comedy was only a means to an end for Mr. Galloway.
Both the Madison and Chicago speeches aimed at the serious business of
convincing his American audience that our government?s policies have caused
unimaginable pain in the real lives of tens of millions of Muslims and Arabs all
around the world.

Even most anti-war activists underestimate this. Mr. Galloway illustrated this
by pointing out that Prime Minister of Israel, Ariel Sharon, had recently been
welcomed to New York City, only days after the anniversary of the massacre of
Palestinian refugees at the Sabra and Shatila camps in Southern Lebanon more
than two decades earlier. He asked the audience in both Madison and Chicago how
many of them marked the massacre?s anniversary, and while many people were very
much aware of it once it was mentioned, only a very few had recalled it before
hand. Mr. Galloway acknowledged this and then explained that, in the Arab and
Muslim world, most people remember the day every year and remain in a permanent
state of shock that Bush could call Sharon, the Israeli general who oversaw the
massacre, a ?man of peace.? Sharon himself, Galloway noted, does not consider
himself a man of peace.

This gap between the fuzzy consciousness on the part of the American anti-war
movement of the crimes inflicted on the Arab and Muslim world by the US and the
UK and the acute knowledge on the part of the victims of those crimes must be
overcome.

Of course, Bill O?Reilly doesn?t see it that way. But he was gracious enough to
invite Mr. Galloway on his show. O?Reilly, the loudest barking dog at Fox News,
played possum, eschewing his normal ?shut up? routine, perhaps because he was
afraid he?d more than meet his match in a real mano-a-mano. Instead, he said, ?I
have seven questions for you.? Of course the first one was, ?why are you such an
ardent supporter of Saddam Hussein?? Not exactly original, but at least it shows
that someone is reading Greg Palast?s blog. Mr. Galloway had no difficulty at
all in knocking O?Reilly shabby pitching performance out of the park. So,
despite everything he?s done to the contrary, we should all thank O?Reilly for
giving several million people the chance to hear a few actually ?fair and
balanced? ideas, at least for seven minutes.

Now, we?re on to walk the streets where the ?Battle of Seattle? took place six
years ago (I can still recall the distinctive odor of the tear gas mixing with
the fresh Seattle air). Although the global justice movement is much stronger
around the world today than in the city that popularized it, the fight
continues. Thousands of Boeing workers have been on strike for weeks,
desperately trying to defend thousands of jobs from the corporate axes. Mr.
Galloway will be joined on the podium by one of them. You should join him in the
audience. Come on down to the University of Washington-Seattle?s Kane Auditorium
tonight at 7pm. Tickets will be available at the door, but they?re going fast.

Hey Mr Galloway "Bring it on!" :-)

http://www.respectcoalition.org/



Alan, son of Nemesis.

Anyone who doubts that I am the son of Nemesis is obviously an infidel
lacking in faith whose soul is in peril of everlasting damnation.

"We love your adherence to democratic principles."

-- Vice President George Bush to Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos

http://www.veloceraptor.free-online.co.uk/protector.html

http://www.stpatricksfour.org/

http://theoriginalfirebird.blogspot.com/

http://www.planetarybillofrights.org/

Nemesis, winged balancer of life,
dark-faced Goddess, daughter of Justice,
You who restrain with adamantine bridles
the frivolous insolences of mortals,
and spurning the destructive violence of mankind
drive out black envy!

Beneath Your unceasing, traceless orbit
is spun the grey fortune of man
and unnoticed You walk in his tracks,
you bend the neck that is proud.
Beneath Your arm You ever measure out life
and ever do You lower Your eye to Your bosom
as You control the scales in Your hand.

Be gracious, blessed dealer of justice,
Nemesis, winged balancer of life.
Nemesis the deathless Goddess we sing,
Victory with slender wings, all-powerful
infallible, and the assistant to Justice,
You who in displeasure at the pride of men
carry it down into Tartarus.
.