- "The White House and the Pentagon look so innocuous,
yet behind their innocent facades lurk sinister forces which have unleashed
much misery and suffering upon the world," I thought as I scrutinized
each of them armed with an insight gleaned from many hours of study.
-
- I arrived home on Sunday from the peace and social justice
rally in Washington DC and began reflecting. As my mind sifted through
the barrage of information which came at me over the course of the weekend,
and the information I absorbed while reading on the plane, I began to reach
some conclusions and to connect some dots.
-
- Your Master is Calling...
-
- My first conclusion was that their weak coverage of an
event of this magnitude deepened my belief that the mainstream media is
merely an instrument of its corporate masters and of the obscenely corrupt
US government. The Washington Post under-estimated the number of people
at the demonstration and provided relatively limited coverage. The Washington
Times relegated their coverage to the bottom of the front page and grossly
exaggerated the impact of the pro-Bush counter-demonstrators. And this
was an event that happened in their city! I felt even more disgusted by
The Kansas City Star article which awaited me when I returned home. It
consisted of about ten short paragraphs on paged two of the front page
section. They included one small photograph. Beyond the print media, I
struggled to find minor mention of the event on television news.
-
- Obviously, these "sacred purveyors of the truth"
and members of the Fourth Estate determined that the best way to frame
this political issue was to minimize the fact that hundreds of thousands
of people descended upon Washington DC to protest the illegal US occupation
of Iraq and to demand social justice. The mainstream press could not summon
the courage to provide a realistic amount of coverage to a significant
challenge to their corporate masters and the Bush regime.
-
- Perspective of a Participant
-
- I was there for the march on 9/24. Based on what I observed
and experienced, the Washington DC police chief's estimate of 150,000 people
was extremely low. My wife and I marched at the end of the procession,
which followed a 1.4 mile course, including a pass in front of the White
House. We carried our mock coffin draped with an American flag. (Ours was
one of about 150 other mock coffins which enabled the American public to
finally see at least see a representation of the Americans who have died
in Iraq). It took us six hours to complete the march. We moved quite slowly
due the number of people joining the procession along the way. The people
leading the march actually got to the White House before we even started
to move. Along the route, I saw throngs of thousands of supporters lining
the streets. The Ellipse, the area surrounding the Washington Monument,
and several adjacent parks were filled with demonstrators, before, during
and after the march. ANSWER, one of the demonstration's organizers, estimated
that there were 300,000 participants. Truthout.org put the number closer
to 500,000. Based on what I witnessed, I estimate the number fell somewhere
between the two.
-
- As for counter-protestors, I saw a mere handful. To state
there were over two hundred would be a very generous estimate. Yet ironically,
their signs (and shouted rhetoric) indicated that they were "the majority".
I struggled to determine how they arrived at that conclusion. On 9/25,
the pro-Bush, pro-war faction staged their own demonstration in DC, which
involved about 400 people. It boggles the mind contemplating how they could
truly believe themselves to be in the majority.
-
- A diverse crowd, which included the elderly, the disabled,
minorities, military veterans, families of military personnel in Iraq,
social activists, Methodists, Quakers, Buddhists, people of Middle Eastern
descent, and many other groups comprised the multitude on Saturday. Joan
Baez, Cindy Sheehan, Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, and two Congresswomen
spoke and marched. On the flight home, I met Congressman Emanuel Cleaver,
who represents a district in Kansas City. He told me that he had not participated
in the demonstration, but that he was part of an anti-war coalition in
Congress. A broad spectrum of Americans want peace and social justice,
and are eager to see Bush and the corrupt who dominate the US government
out of office.
-
- One of the articles I read in the mainstream media stated
that there were no police wearing riot gear at the demonstration. I beg
to differ. I counted at least seven men wearing black pants, white, generic-looking
shirts with what appeared to be cloth gold badges stitched to them, and
military boots. They each had riot helmets with visors, riot shields which
were marked "Police" (yet their uniforms bore virtually no resemblance
to those of the DC police), and they were equipped with truncheons. As
I marched by them, I wondered if they were some of the Blackwater security
people, hired mercenaries whom the Bush administration has used in Iraq
and now in New Orleans.
-
- Despite his absence, Bush's fortress was heavily defended
by police on the street and by snipers on the roof of the White House and
surrounding buildings. Bush exhibited his usual spinelessness. He spent
part of the day in Colorado, where he would not have to face the hundreds
of thousands of his constituency who were calling for peace, social justice
and his impeachment. He was also well out of potential harm from Hurricane
Rita. Later in the day he did find the nerve to travel to San Antonio,
but even there he was still well out of harm's way.
-
- Before the march began, I spoke with a woman with the
Friends Committee on National Legislation and signed a petition to lobby
members of Congress to pass a resolution for the US military to withdraw
from Iraq. This group is not asking for a specific time-table. The Friends
Committee simply wants a commitment that our multi-trillion dollar war
machine will leave Iraq once the situation there has stabilized. I agree
with those who have stated that it would be irresponsible for the US to
pull out of Iraq immediately and leave the country in a chaos that our
military industrial complex created. However, Iraq is a sovereign nation,
and at some point in the not too distant future, the US needs to withdraw.
I gladly carried a sign on behalf of this Quaker organization as I bore
my half of the mock coffin adorned with the American flag.
-
- As we passed the US Treasury a man riding a bicycle was
using a portable PA system. What was his message?
-
- "Pay no attention to this building. It is the treasury.
It is empty. It has been looted.
-
- With the volume of money flowing into the coffers of
corporations with incestuous ties to the Bush regime and a $7.5 trillion
deficit, it would be difficult to dispute his contention.
-
- Saturday's march for peace and social justice and against
corporate dominance, imperialism and tyranny was powerful for several reasons.
The sheer number of 300,000 who participated in the demonstration reveals
that many in the United States have made al wathbah, or "the leap".
In Bush in Babylon'tariq Ali wrote about "the leap of mass consciousness
the Iraqi people made in 1948 as they realized that their puppet leaders
sold out their interests to British imperialists. Slowly, many Americans
are overcoming the lies they have been "programmed" to believe
since they were able to fashion conscious, coherent thoughts. While the
300,000 demonstrators represent a small minority of the US population,
Bush's abysmal approval rating provides evidence that the 300,000 were
but a fraction of those in the US ready to dissent against the perverse
regime "leading" the nation. Ali called the British proxies who
ruled Iraq during the early and mid Twentieth Century "An Oligarchy
of Racketeers". America's lackeys in the newly formed Iraqi government
are more than capable of assuming that "glorious" mantle.
-
- Speakers at the rally called for increased rights for
blacks, women, gays, Hispanics, and other minorities. They decried the
US military's use of torture and indefinite imprisonment of suspected "terrorists"
with no legitimate trial. They decried the excessive power of US corporations
here and abroad, and called for renewed government restraints to squelch
their excesses and abuses. Several made strident demands to end the blatant
racism and US government neglect of the poor highlighted by events in Katrina.
They called for support of Hugo Chavez and Castro. Bush may not have been
listening, but his constituents were talking to him in large numbers, and
will continue to do so. If he and the US aristocracy continue to ignore
the will of We the People, things will not end well for them. In the non-violent
tradition of Martin Luther King and Gandhi, We the People will take our
government back from the plutocracy. The wealthiest nation in the world
has moral obligations to be a world leader (rather than a bully) and to
care for its poor, and if the incumbent administration is not willing to
fulfill these obligations, it needs to be replaced.
-
- Frequently throughout the march, I heard and read the
slogan "power of the people". The unfortunate reality is that
for now, the ultimate power in the US rests in the hands of a select few
aristocrats, and has in varying degrees since our nation's founding. I
saw ample evidence of that fact as my wife and I toured the Smithsonian's
American History Museum the day before the march. The decadence in which
many of the presidents and first ladies engaged was truly disgusting to
see. I saw the outrageously expensive clothing, china, jewelry, art, and
White House furnishings and realized that I was witnessing evidence that
the US is as much an aristocracy as the monarchy from which our founding
fathers severed themselves. Further fueling my nausea, I saw that Barbara
and Laura Bush were enshrined in the section of First Ladies who have made
significant contributions to social justice in the United States. The Bush
wives honored alongside Eleanor Roosevelt, a giant in the pantheon of those
who have advanced social justice? The Smithsonian curators have a very
sick sense of humor.
-
- Mr. Bush, good luck selling your fairy tale of democracy
and equality to the victims of Katrina, to many others in America, and
to the rest of the world. Your criminal neglect of New Orleans and the
poor in general, your lies, your theft of the 2000 election, your numerous
violations of the public trust, your cronyism leading to incompetents like
Michael Brown causing thousands to suffer or die, and your war profiteering
combine to make you the biggest felon to serve as President of the United
States (Note to Bush: as an "elected" official, you are merely
a public servant, not a monarch. You belong in one of the many penitentiaries
which are a part of the prison industrial complex).
-
- So What?
-
- In skimming my 120 emails I received while I was away
for the weekend, I discovered that ANSWER, one of the demonstration's organizers,
has apparently been accused of being Maoist Communists who are virulently
anti-US and who advocate supporting any group which opposes the US government
(i.e. Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Khmer Rouge). My response to that is that
I do not care. United for Peace also sponsored the event, and to my knowledge,
they have not been targeted as "anti-American. I am not a member of
either group and regardless of how extreme their positions may be, this
event served a valuable purpose. It demonstrated the strength of the movement
in the United States for peace and social justice, and the depth of the
desire amongst Americans to remove the avaricious, tyrannical, and criminal
Bush regime from power.
-
- "Terrorism Cuts Both Ways and Imperialist Acts Have
Consequences
-
- Going out on a limb (as I usually do), I am going to
state that while I do not condone terrorism (which I am defining as the
act of killing innocent civilians to achieve a political purpose), I understand
the viewpoint of some of the groups whom the US mainstream media and the
Bush regime have labeled as terrorists. Bush and his ilk, and many of their
predecessors (including Clinton via Kosovo, Bush I via Iraq, Reagan via
Central America, and Nixon and Johnson via Vietnam.) have engaged in the
most lethal state terrorism imaginable, killing millions they label (and
labeled) as "collateral damage". The US government also has a
nasty habit of supporting ruthless dictators (when they support US corporate
interests) who kill tens of thousands of their own people. I do not support
violent acts committed by either side, but the US government is no nobler
than those they have labeled as "terrorists because they have dared
to resist US supremacy by fighting back.
-
- On the plane trip home from DC, I started reading Tariq
Ali's Bush in Babylon: the Recolonization of Iraq, and started to see the
Arab point of view more clearly. I discovered that Iraq is a nation/region
which has been subservient to foreign powers in some fashion since the
13th Century. Coupling the predatory intentions of the US government with
Iraq's history, I can fully appreciate the front cover picture on Ali's
book which shows an Iraqi child urinating on one of his US occupiers. To
the Iraqis, the US is another in a long line of tyrants, no better than
the British, Turks, or their predecessors.
-
- The US is attempting to implement "democracy-at
gun-point in a nation embroiled with ethnic and religious tensions. The
Iraqi people know why the US government is killing their people and destroying
their cities, which makes their resistance quite logical. They realize
that a cruel and greedy imperialist government needed to assert its military
might on what they anticipated would be a weak target so it could begin
implementing the Bush Doctrine and the Project for the New American Century.
Halliburton, Bechtel, Lockheed Martin, and many other cogs in the military
industrial complex were itching to see their profits skyrocket, and Iraq
appeared to be a ripe plum for the picking. Most importantly, oil was too
valuable of a commodity for a self-respecting Twenty-First Century world
power bent on global domination to leave in the hands of "mere Arabs".
Why wouldn't the Iraqis feel enraged and resist invaders, plunderers, and
thieves?
-
- US troops in Iraq number over 140,000. The occupation
started in March, 2003. The Bush tyranny continues to refuse to commit
to an eventual withdrawal of US forces. Bush and his minions lied to Congress
to launch the invasion, defied the UN and international law, and, according
to John Pike of GlobalSecurities.org, are establishing 12 of what the Pentagon
propagandists call "enduring bases" in Iraq. To translate from
"Pentagonese to English, an "enduring base is a permanent base.
Despite the hollow propaganda of spreading freedom and liberty, the US
government's actions smack of those of a tyrant intent on colonizing the
sovereign nation of Iraq.
-
- Your True Colors are Showing
-
- The disguise is slipping as the US government has slaughtered
tens of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians. Hurricane Katrina revealed
the hypocrisy behind their "noble cause of spreading freedom and liberty.
Those abstract concepts exist in the US on a very limited basis. The US
government has been, and is increasingly dominated by a select few plutocrats
and aristocrats who are groomed for public office from birth. The elites
of America place their carefully prepared candidates before an American
voting public rendered apathetic by the mainstream media and years of government
corruption. The Democratic/Republican Duopoly ensures that only two candidates
have a real chance of winning public office in virtually every election,
and each candidate is beholden to corporations and the US aristocracy.
Sometimes decent people sneak into Congress and the Judiciary, but there
are few real choices for middle and working class Americans, particularly
when one factors in the stolen Presidential election of 2000. Jimmy Carter,
one of the few former Presidents known for his honesty, recently publicly
stated his certainty that Gore won the 2000 election.
-
- For more, click on:
-
-
- http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Carter_says_Gore_won_2000_el_0922.html
-
- The flood-waters of Katrina unmasked the depraved engineers
of the runaway train called the United States. Bush, Rove, Rumsfeld and
Cheney have been exposed to the world as malevolent profit seekers who
regard humanity simply as a means to enhance their wealth and power. I
need only look at the T-shirt I bought at the march on Saturday as a reminder.
My shirt is emblazoned with a picture of a suffering, elderly Black American
woman in New Orleans who has bundled herself in the American flag for warmth.
Bush and his war-mongers have perverted the meaning of a once sacred symbol
of the ideals of a true republic to one of hatred, criminality, brutality,
and imperialism. I hope it served her well as a blanket. Some members of
Congress want a Constitutional amendment to prevent flag desecration. Too
late! The criminal acts of the Bush administration have already grossly
defiled the American flag.
-
- Resisting the Path of Violence
-
- Many readers have emailed me with their opinions that
non-violent movements are ineffective. I disagree. While non-violent movements
generally involve significantly more time and will-power than violent revolutions,
they can be effective. I cite the examples of Martin Luther King, whose
peaceful movement significantly advanced civil rights in the US and of
Gandhi's non-violent revolution, which led to India's freedom from its
imperial oppressor, Great Britain.
-
- For more evidence on the efficacy of non-violent movements
or Velvet Revolutions, see Timothy Garton Ash's article about the bloodless
rebellions which brought Communist tyranny to an end in Eastern Europe.
He makes a very convincing argument against armed rebellion:
-
- http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,5673,1560394,00.html
-
- What Are Some Potential Aspects of a Velvet Revolution
in the US?
-
- 1. If enough Americans become conscious to the inhumanity
of our leaders and join a non-violent movement comprised of the poor, the
working class, the middle class, minorities, intellectuals, those in the
government who are not a part of the corruption, and artists, sheer numbers
of people demanding change could overwhelm the ruling plutocracy, who are
clearly a numerical minority.
-
- 2. We the People need to form a third political party
of the people which will have the support of enough Americans that it can
rival the corporate-controlled Democrats and Republicans. This party will
need to base its principles on the needs and desires of the common people
rather than on those of corporations and the elite.
-
- 3. Unions need to fight to regain the strength they enjoyed
during the Twentieth Century. This will unite workers and restore their
power in negotiating with giant corporations. Despite what they would have
America's citizens believe, corporations are not "kinder and gentler"
entities with the interests of their workers and customers at heart. They
are merely wolves who have donned sheep's clothing to make it appear so.
They are motivated by profit and the fear of lawsuits. The will of the
people imposed through organized labor needs to motivate corporations to
take a deeper interest in the welfare of employees and customers.
-
- 4. We the People need to push for passage of the ERA
and an equal rights amendment for gays.
-
- 5. We need to work for permanent implementation of the
Voting Rights Act.
-
- 6. Writers with a social conscience need to continue
to publish books and essays advocating social justice, spreading truth,
and dissenting against our corrupt oligarchy by any means we can find.
-
- 7. Christian Churches need to spend less time and money
squabbling over seemingly eternal and irresolvable issues like abortion
and focus their efforts on demanding the social justice Jesus Christ would
have insisted upon.
-
- 8. Educators need to stop teaching the white-washed history
of the United States, which virtually ignores the genocide of Native Americans,
barely scratches the surface of the depth of the cruelty and immorality
of slavery, maintains silence on the topic of the American apartheid system
which Katrina brought into the spot-light, and which glorifies an imperialistic,
war-mongering government. It is incumbent upon educators to teach their
students the truth about America, past and present.
-
- 9. We the People need to boycott major corporations like
Wal-mart and McDonalds as frequently as possible by shopping at local businesses
owned by individual entrepreneurs. Hit the insatiably greedy corporatacracy
where it hurts them the most: in their wallets. My wife and I have not
spent a penny at Wal-Mart or McDonald's for over a year.
-
- 10. Progressive taxes on the rich and on corporations
need to be increased while regressive taxes on the poor and working class
need to be decreased to move the US toward a society with a more equitable
distribution of wealth.
-
- 11. The US government spends $600 billion per year on
defense, including funding for the Iraqi Occupation and money for ancillary
functions. It is time to truly bring the troops home from Iraq (over a
period of time to allow stabilization to occur) and from the 700 military
bases in over 56 countries around the world. We will save $64 billion over
twenty years by closing 33 domestic bases under Donald Rumsfeld's plan.
Imagine the money we would save (besides the $5 billion per month from
ending the occupation of Iraq) in closing 700 bases. To my knowledge, there
are no foreign military bases on US soil. If We the People are intent upon
retooling the US into a nation focused on the needs of its people with
enough military simply to defend our nation rather than enough to dominate
the world, it is time to remove the US military from foreign soil. Removing
US military bases from their nations is one of the legitimate demands of
those the US government has labeled as "terrorists.
-
- 12. The US needs to relegate the notion of repealing
the estate taxed to the dustbin of history, where it belongs. Eliminating
the estate tax would further ensure the perpetuation of the American Aristocracy
and virtually eradicate the already extremely slim chance that a poor American
can realize the Horatio Alger dream.
-
- 13. We "Commoners" need to demand a system
of national health care (or implement it once our third political party
has become a power capable of rivaling the existing Duopoly). The US holds
the shameful distinction of being the only industrialized nation without
a guarantee of healthcare to each of its citizens. What a dubious distinction
for the wealthiest nation in the world! With money derived from cuts in
defense spending and increased taxes on the wealthy and corporations, the
US could readily implement a national health care system comprised of a
synthesis of the best features of the systems of other nations. To make
the system affordable, those Americans whose income exceeded a particular
thresh-hold would pay premiums based on a percentage of their income.
-
- 14. We need to demand that the US government cut Israel's
umbilical cord. Israelis have received more than enough money and weapons
from the US to stand on their own. US support of Israel, which, like its
benefactor, often engages in state terrorism and has committed acts of
genocide against the Palestinians, continues to infuriate Arabs throughout
the Middle East. The US has a moral obligation to let Israel fend for itself
and to see to the establishment of a legitimate homeland for the Palestinians.
There is also the pragmatic consideration that as long as the US supports
Israel's abuse of the Palestinians, it will continue to feed the rage of
many Arabs.
-
- 15. We the People need to find and elect a populist leader
like Hugo Chavez, who will place the needs of the poor over the desires
of the wealthy elite.
-
- 16. The US government needs to respect international
law, treaties, human rights, and the autonomy of sovereign nations, and
to participate fairly in the UN.
-
- 17. The public education system needs to be restructured
in such a way that students across the nation attend schools with comparable
facilities, teachers, and textbooks.
-
- 18. Americans with a social conscience need to insist
the US pass and enforce restrictions on corporations to protect the environment.
Ending the charade that global warming is a hoax and signing the Kyoto
Treaty would be a tremendous start.
-
- 19. Besides the creation of a powerful political party,
boycotts, labor strikes, marches, providing better education to all American
children, dissident writing, staying informed, demanding accountability
of public officials through the avenues which are still available, joining
groups advocating civil rights and humanity, We the People have another
non-violent weapon at our disposal. When it is warranted, civil disobedience
is a powerful tool to evoke change. For example, while conscription is
not yet a reality, if I am confronted with a call from the US government
to participate in one of their imperialist conquests, I will follow the
fine example of Kevin Benderman and refuse, even if it means prison. If
enough people engage in civil disobedience, the plutocracy will not have
the capacity to punish all of us, and will lack the manpower to grease
the wheels of their money-making machines.
-
- The rally and protest on 9/24 was simply a high water
mark for a movement which has steadily been gaining momentum over the last
few years. As one of the participants shouted to the group:
-
- "Don't let this end today. This is only a beginning.
When you leave here, continue what we started today!"
-
- While my brief outline of a velvet revolution is not
comprehensive and represents a simple sketch which would require a great
deal more study and development, it presents a framework of viable alternatives
with which to counter the agenda of the elitist and hegemonist regime which
some Americans still believe is a democracy. With the will, commitment,
and wide participation of We the People in a non-violent, velvet revolution,
the US can become a nation with a soul rather than the hollow, inhumane,
gluttonous, and bellicose entity it is now. The ugly face of America represents
a minority of its populace. It is time for the majority to impose their
will and show the world that the US is a nation capable of engaging in
truly noble causes.
-
- _____
-
- Jason Miller is a 38 year old activist writer with a
degree in liberal arts. He works in the transportation industry, and is
a husband and a father to three boys. His affiliations include Amnesty
International, the ACLU and the Americans United for Separation of Church
and State. He welcomes responses at <>willpowerful@hotmail.com or
comments on his weblog at http://civillibertarian.blogspot.com/.
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