Linda Greene interviews Cindy Sheehan for the Bloomington Alternative ahead of Cindy's visit to speak, October 5th, 7 p.m., at the First United Church in Bloomington. The entire interview's worth reading but I want to note this section:
BA: What were your politics like before you got involved in peace and justice activities?
CS: If you had asked me this before my son was killed, I would have said that I was very liberal, very left-wing, but that’s just because of the community I live in, where being a Democrat is thought of as liberal and left-wing. I always voted Democrat because I believed that was the right thing to do. After my son was killed and after these Democratic politicians in Congress betrayed the antiwar movement, betrayed the working people over and over and over again, and even though I was uninformed and undereducated about these things before Casey was killed, I realized the two-party system really is just a fraud, and people invest all their time, energy and money where we the people have the least amount of effects. It’s the corporations, it’s the lobbyists, it’s the robber class that really control politics in this country, and we can actually have a political system in this country that’s responsible to the people. We have to start from the bottom up, not the top down.
There will be an "And the war drags on . . ." tonight. But we're still working on Third. I think we have all the illustrations down. We have the TV piece, the editorial, and other things. (Including truest of the week, already picked out before that interview was posted so it's not a truest for this week.) Ava, Ann and I still need to do at least one piece on The Diane Rehm Show. There are two other pieces that the three of us aren't working on that need to be done as well.
Let me grab a second more to address an issue in the e-mails to the public account.
Apple served in the Bush administration as did Orange.
Apple's new book is I'm a Pig and a War Criminal. Orange's new book is Killing Is Fun Especially When It's Murder.
Why won't I mention the authors and the titles!!!!
Last week I noted this site is not used to promote books by War Hawks and some people took issue with the idea that mentioning them was promoting the books.
To get the officials to write these books, big money is paid. Why?
Historically, with each administration, 99% of these books are crap (poorly written and of no value) and they don't sell.
But publishing houses get to rub shoulders with the once powerful. And they get publicity for publishing the books. From time to time, the books even sell. (Most end up as cut-outs, listed for much less than half-price and they don't sell even then.)
Giving the books or the authors publicity encourages the publishing houses to keep publishing these bad books which don't sell.
Now Apple (or was it Orange?) got into a little back and forth with the widow of a service member recently.
Shouldn't we be covering that!!!! Everyone is!!!! We must do the same!!!!
No.
That is how the books sell whatever they sell. The woman would have been much smarter to have avoided the scene she did. I understand why she did it but all it did was call attention to the fact that Apple has published a book and that 'those damn peace nics' are out to get him again!
That's 'controversy.' That's what gets these books talked about. And what sells them.
The confrontation we ignored reaches two types of potential customers.
1) The devoted Bushies -- still out there, still ready to lay down their dollars (if not their lives) for an illegal war. Attacking Apple or Orange attacks them because they share the beliefs of the Bush administration. So attacks encourage them to go out and buy the books.
2) The casual news consumer. Something happened at a book signing? What was the book? Hmm. That must be a provocative book. I better go out and buy it.
These are the two ways you sell books by administration officials and/or War Criminals (and sometimes the two categories are one and the same).
I will not be a party to creating 'buzz' for these books and I wish others wouldn't as well.
It's equally true that it's a lot easier to go after Bush officials and pretend that the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars have ended. They have not, they have continued and pretending otherwise is as bad as those who offered excuses for Bush when he occupied the White House.
The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.
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