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NEWS & LETTERS, March 2003
Readers’ Views
'NO WAR!' IS THE OUTCRY--AROUND THE WORLD... We have done this many times before, in moments of
crisis when the need for a mass protest was evident. Jews and Arabs together
with slogans chanted alternately in both languages and occasionally in English.
But this time it was different, because never before had Israeli peace activists
found themselves such an integral part of a worldwide movement. Never before did
our particular concerns in this miserable torn country, mesh so closely with the
anxiety and alarm and anger of so many people in so many countries around the
world. Somebody produced an Israeli version of the "No
War" sticker familiar from CNN reports of protests in Europe and the U.S.,
taken up and put on clothes with Gush Shalom's Two Flags or the competing
emblems of the Hadash and Balad parties. "Bush, Blair and Sharon are the
true axis of evil" was an improvised new slogan, chanted as the banner
"Israelis and Palestinians oppose the war" was unfurled. --Adam Keller, Tel Aviv I have maintained from the beginning that there will be
no Iraq war (at least no invasion). I think the tide has turned and that Bush
will be forced to back down, mostly by the defection of his rival imperialists,
the French, Russians and Chinese, who have the Iranian oil contracts the
British/U.S. oil interests want to grab, but also by the world and especially
U.S. demonstrations. If Feb. 15 is big it will seem that we demonstrators made
Bush back down. And since the Democrats have made NO protests, this amazing
victory will give our movements a huge prestige. The problem then will be "what happens after?" The Dems can't capitalize on Bush's isolation from the U.S. mainstream, since they went along with him. But Bush will lose the 2004 elections to them, by default. How can the Other America of labor, minorities, youth, women, the poor project its desire for real change? That is the challenge and huge opportunity of our times. --Richard Greeman, France At the moment we are preparing for the anti-war actions
on Feb. 15. Our task is not only to condemn war preparations from the side of
U.S./NATO, but also to repulse the attempts, not only from the side of the
Stalinists but also the majority of Trotskyists, to support Saddam, as well as
to use great-Russian chauvinism in the present political rhetoric. --Ukrainian Marxist-Humanist, Kiev The most important question at the moment is the Iraq
war Bush is planning. The resistance to it is growing more and more. In Europe,
Schroeder was the first to say "no" and later on France and Belgium,
too. There are big differences within NATO because of the inter-imperialistic
rivalries. But what is most important is the resistance to the war by the
people. Germany is the strongest case. Nearly every day and everywhere there are
demonstrations in Germany. The churches (both Catholic and Protestant) have
declared themselves against the war. It will without a doubt have a big
influence on the Christian-Democratic Party. What develops on Feb. 15 will be
critical. --Marxist, Amsterdam The more the buildup for war increases, so does the move to counter it. I may notice it more than others because the military port of Marchwood is close by. This week saw rainbow warriors attempting to obstruct the sailing of a military supply ship. A number of peace people locked themselves in some of the tanks. There is likely to be an appeal to the courts by Greenpeace and others. Whether this will turn out a waste of time and money, we should be permitted to challenge the decision to take others' lives. The war can't be described as American aggression because so many ordinary Americans are opposed. --Activist, England ...AND ACROSS THE NATION In the Hollywood anti-war march demonstrators were
calling for Bush's impeachment and carried a sign "To Protest is
Patriotic." The discontent is not only about Bush's war but about his
ideology of "you are either for us or against us." Among the thousands
of people of different colors and nationalities and different groups of the
political spectrum, were many newcomers to any demonstration. They had their own
messages that voiced expressions not heard in previous demonstrations in Los
Angeles, and all rejecting the notion that the "war is inevitable."
Masses of people are marching to stop the war from starting. --Marchers, Los Angeles At the San Francisco demonstration, one of the best
signs was made by the California Nurses Association. Along with a picture of the
war weapons was this sign: "I asked for healthcare and all I got was this
lousy stealth bomber." --Marcher, San Francisco "Everybody has to pull their weight," says National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice commenting on the U.S. demand for Japan, Russia and China to negotiate with North Korea. Oh, so everyone has to pull their weight on that, but when it comes to Iraq, countries "pulling their weight" by not agreeing with the U.S. line are seen as trying to block the U.S.'s right to do as it pleases. Marx was right. Smash the state. --Revolutionary youth, Memphis I have a sister in her 80s who has seldom taken much interest in politics, but with the war atmosphere created by Bush's determination to launch an attack against Iraq, she is terrified. I have never heard her speak against anything so passionately. She wanted to know if it was possible to impeach Bush before he plunges the world into a senseless war. "Nothing like this has happened in my lifetime," she said. "I can't believe this is happening in America." --Old subscriber, Michigan I bought a copy of your paper at the Peace rally in Portland on Jan. 18 and want to subscribe. I don't consider myself a Marxist or a Humanist but the dialectic idea of looking at the world is what I have been looking for. --New subscriber, Oregon You hear nothing in the media about the "other Iraq." We need some specific information. The Iraqi National Congress held a conference in London in December. The Kurds were left out because the U.S. doesn't want to offend Turkey. We need to see how the Kurds are getting in the way of the U.S. and Hussein. Much of this is not mentioned in the official anti-war movement either. --Lawyer, Flint We watch a lot of TV in this place. It's our window to the outside world. Mostly, I've been watching George Bush and Colin Powell rampaging about Iraq. Bush has sent tens of thousands of soldiers over there already and thousands of tons of military hardware. I can't imagine how much that all costs but I know that if we took that same amount of money and sent food and medicine to the people they claim they want to help there, it would be a lot better. I've fought wars in three different countries, and in every place I've found that the olive branch is more beneficial than the M-16. --Prisoner, New Mexico While the streets are being filled with people who want
it known they are not part of Bush's drive for war, the silence in Congress,
especially from the Democrats, is deafening. It is just "business as
usual" with no debate or discussion about the war Bush is about to unleash,
much less what the aftermath will be. We are reaping what was sown when Bush was
allowed to steal the White House two years ago without even the pretense of a
fight from the Democrats. --Outraged, Illinois I can remember how terrified Americans were of Goldwater
when he ran for president and was referred to as the
"shoot-from-the-hip" candidate linked to the danger of nuclear
warfare. More recently we had Oliver North, described as a "loose
cannon" whose reckless and criminal behavior in the Iran-Contra scandal
reflected the fascistic totalitarian mentality. But compared with Bush's rabid
war obsession, he makes Goldwater and North look like pacifists. --Old Radical, Detroit I just read what the freedom-loving musician Beethoven
wrote in 1804, when Napoleon proclaimed himself Emperor: "Now he, too, will
trample on all the rights of man and indulge only his ambition...he will exalt
himself above all others and become a tyrant!" It seems we have our own
would-be emperor, George W. Bush, whose ambitions are far beyond those of
Napoleon. --Supporter, Wisconsin I'm glad there has been so much protest against the
banning of Rabbi Michael Lerner from speaking at the anti-war rally in San
Francisco by one of the rally organizers, ANSWER, which he has criticized. It is
outrageous not only that he was banned for his particular views, despite the
fact that he has been an outspoken critic of Israeli policy in the occupied
territories and is widely known to be among the most progressive of American
rabbis. It is also outrageous that such a group as ANSWER could be vested with
the power to ban him. There are plenty of reasons to criticize ANSWER, from
their uncritical embrace of the genocidal beast Milosevic, to their incredible
embrace of regimes like Kim Jong Il's as well as Saddam Hussein's. Are all those
who criticised ANSWER now to be banned as well? The real issue in all this is
that some prefer to argue about "Zionism" in order to murder
revolutionary democracy. --Gerard Emmett, Chicago ... THEREFORE, I AM Out of the malaise Emergence was through sit-ins, We struggle, --Sam Friedman, New York WARY OF MEDIATION The community and worldwide support for the workers at
Azteca Foods has finally forced the company to accept federal mediation in
negotiations for their first contract. The workers have been walking a picket
line since September in a strike over unjustified takeaways and the company's
use of threats against them. But UE Local 1159 wants all their supporters to
know that forcing the company to accept mediation doesn't guarantee them a fair
contract. The national boycott of Azteca products is going to continue until
they get one. --Supporter, Chicago REMEMBERING KING I recently saw a tape of Martin Luther King's 1967 speech at Stanford. He talked of the need for a mass movement to unify a divided America. He said to have a mass movement you have to address some erroneous issues. That way of thinking doesn't exist in today's movements. King said time is neutral and won't solve the problem by itself. The reason he was so profound was because of the dimension of mind as mediation, and not an external party. He was out to rid us of erroneous notions of what constitutes freedom. --Freedom activist, California I saw a letter written by Kathleen Desautels, one of the
women serving a prison sentence for the protest against the "School of
Assassins" this year. Her fellow inmates at the prison put up a display to
celebrate Black History Month. It included a large poster of Martin Luther King
Jr. which she said prompted her to recall King's "Declaration of
Independence from the War in Vietnam" made at Riverside Church on April 4,
1967. He said: "When marches and computers, profits and property rights are
considered more important than people, the giant triplet of racism, materialism
and militarism are incapable of being conquered". "No wonder he was
assassinated," she said. Like many of us she saw the recent protests
revealing people beginning to act together to do what we cannot do alone. --Long time activist, Illinois Nightclub tragedy in Chicago I can't see how the police can say they didn't know the E2 nightclub, where 21 people died in a stampede in February, was still operating. There's a police station six blocks away. You mean the police never noticed hundreds of people crowding into the club every weekend night? Also, everyone knows that off duty cops work as bouncers there. They had to know the place was operating. --Furious, Chicago The Black business class is a very small and tight-knit group in this city. It's seen in how Jesse Jackson is a close friend of the owner of E2. I was once in E2 and saw the staircase where those people died. It was so high and narrow, I couldn't see how you could walk down it safely after having a few drinks. But though the club changed names four times in the last 20 years, the owners did nothing but give it a new paint job. --Black feminist, Chicago It's no secret why the disaster happened. The owners get $25 a head on the weekend. They crowded in as many as they could to make as much money as they could. I was in the club once and it was so crowded I swore I wouldn't go back again. I'm glad I didn't. --Black youth, South Side Chicago ISRAEL AND PALESTINE After the last vote was counted in the election at the end of January, two more Knesset seats were gained by right-wing parties: Likud is now 38, and the National Religious Party, now 6. The two lost seats came from the Arab-Jewish Hadash party and the labor-oriented One Nation. And Labor retained a measly 18 seats in the Knesset. As if we needed an illustration of the terrible tidings this bodes, it was soon followed by the razing of the Palestinian food market in Hebron. This completes the work of the settlers in that city, whose teenagers would regularly overturn Palestinian stalls and laugh, a grotesque Israeli version of Hitler Youth as soldiers look on. The army's explanation for the razing was that 22 Israelis had been killed by Palestinians in the Hebron area in the three months before. What they did not mention is that 155 Palestinians were killed by Israelis during the same period. Yes, we do feel discouraged, which makes it all the more
surprising that the next day we had a particularly large vigil of Women in Black
and a full house at a meeting of Coalition of Women for Peace where we made
plans for the coming 6 months. In a grand gesture of defiance to the election
returns, we decided to hold a major international event in June, the anniversary
of the occupation, to take place simultaneously in Israel, Palestine, and
internationally, to declare that "we refuse to be enemies." --Gila Svirsky, Jerusalem U.S. Representative David Bonior recently returned from
Iraq and spoke at our church on Martin Luther King Day. We also learned that
funds are being raised to support Palestinians whose homes have been bulldozed
by the Israeli government. To rebuild, a $25,000 permit is required. If the
owner builds without it, the house is torn down again. At the same time, in some
areas there are duplex houses in which Palestinian and Jewish families live side
by side. There is a long waiting list for them. --Ray and Carol, Detroit PHILOSOPHIC FOUNDATIONS Every article in the December issue of N&L was excellent, but the one that intrigued me was a letter written on Oct. 20, 1960 called "Philosophic foundations of the struggles for freedom." I have never studied philosophy. However, I have for many years used logic to solve problems. Raya Dunayevskaya's statement that "the self-development of mind is so close to the self-development of freedom as destiny of man that the future begins to pull on the present so strongly that it propels it forward" is what I call sound reasoning. That is the exact nucleus which develops true revolutionaries and freedom fighters. For there is no other logical explanation for their development. Of course, one can argue that revolutionaries and freedom fighters emerge from their oppression/conditions, but that doesn't explain those who fight for the liberation of all people regardless of their color, gender, race or sexual preference. --Prisoner, California PATRIOT ACT II The news we are finally learning about a new Patriot Act II that has been secretly drafted by the Department of Justice is chilling. It is reported to include one provision that would empower the government to strip Americans of their citizenship if they participate in the lawful activities of any group that the attorney general labels "terrorist." It's important to know that the legal definition of domestic terrorism is now so broad it could include traditional forms of political protest like non-violent civil disobedience. Although it has not yet been officially released by the DOJ, a full copy of the draft was published by the Center for Public Integrity on Feb. 7 and can be read on <A HREF=”http://www.public-i.org”> www.public-i.org</a>. According to them, Ashcroft's staff prepared a draft on Jan. 9. Can there be any doubt that it is a response to the ever-growing protests that have just seen millions marching to stop the war the Bush administration seems determined to wage, no matter what? --Chilled to the bone, New York THE BUSH RECORD I thought Bush was just taking a cheap shot to appeal to
Black Americans when he gave his State of the Union address with all that drama
about fighting AIDS in Africa. There's no doubt about AIDS being a crisis in
Africa. But he didn't say a word about the equally serious crisis of famine
there. The truth is that the Farm Bill that Congress recently passed is
absolutely devastating to the whole economy of Africa, subsidizing American
farmers to the point where African farmers cannot sell their grain. --Observer, Detroit Someone sent me this quote and asked me if it reminded
me of someone we know: "It is enough that the people know there was an
election. Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes
decide everything." The quote was from Josef Stalin, although it sure
sounded like it could have been President George W. Bush. Except Bush added a
new twist. He made sure the votes were not counted, didn't he? --Correspondent, Illinois MICHIGAN POOR VICTORY The Michigan Welfare Rights Organization has succeeded in reversing winter utility shut-offs in Detroit. You printed our letter in the January-February issue of N&L, describing the way we picketed DTE Energy and the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department. Of the 28,000 homes where gas or electricity were shut off, DTE Energy has restored 24,000 to date. We made little progress with the Water Department until we threatened to picket the Board of Water Commissioners and department executives at their homes. It takes acts to get results. --MWRO Activist, Detroit DEE BROWN Dee Brown, who just died at the age of 94, was the author of the 1970 BURY MT HEART AT WOUNDED KNEE: AN INDIAN HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN WEST. He told a story of U.S. history far different from what the movies told. His story told of the ruthless displacement of Native Americans by their white conquerors from 1860-90. As a review in THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS put it when it was first published, "The Indian wars were shown to be the dirty murders they were." The book had a powerful impact on Indians. The title refers to the slaughter of 300 Sioux men, women and children at Wounded Knee in 1890. In 1973, a group of Sioux chose Wounded Knee to hold a protest against federal policies which resulted in a 71-day standoff with police and the death of two more Indians. The history Dee Brown wrote of is still an unfinished story. --Reader, Illinois A FIGHT FOR JUSTICE THAT STILL KEEPS GOING As I write this, 680 days have passed with no justice
for Timia Williams who was beaten by police for no reason. It will soon be two
years since three attack dogs of the Chicago police in the person of three white
male officers, brought injustice to her family. Even an adult gorilla has been
seen to show more humanity than the Police Board, the OPS, and the
superintendent Terry Hillard. If the law allowed Timia to treat them like she
was treated, they would all be screaming bloody murder. But Timia would never
lower herself to the level of those officers. --George W. Smith Jr., Chicago |
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