Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Let the record reflect . . .

According to Iraq Body Count, there have been 202 civilian casualties in the first 18 days of this month.
Long after the western camera crews have left, the conflict grinds on, week after week, year upon year.
It would be interesting to know if those who backed the US-led invasion in 2003 would still have supported it if they knew how long and how bloody the conflict was going to be.

That's from Barry Gibson's "Iraq War Is Still Fought Each Day" (Huddersfield Daily Examiner) and, see, there are a few honest voices.  The Iraq War hasn't ended.  Even if you want to pretend that US troops are all out of Iraq, what was started hasn't ended.  Libertarian Nick Gillespie (Reason) was among a group of right-wingers who did not endorse the Iraq War and don't have to issue mea culpas today.   Reason has a Libertarian forum on the Iraq War featuring several voices and we'll note this from Gillespie:

 A decade after the Iraq war started, the one positive sign on the foreign policy front comes not from the Nobel Peace Prize winner in the White House but from a senator who has been attacked by members of his party as a “wacko bird” flying high on “isolationism.” Rand Paul’s February 6 speech at the hawkish Heritage Foundation (of all places) is the most promising step forward on a national conversation that should have been started even before George H.W. Bush put together the first Gulf War in 1991. Whether you agree with Paul’s ideas of containing U.S. enemies through a mix of economic, cultural, and military engagement, he is at least starting the sort of discussion that might avoid another decade of dumb war and tens of thousands of dead people in an elective war. We should have been ready to have that conversation without ever having invaded Iraq and it’s a point of national shame that only now do most of us seem ready to start talking.

Antiwar.com is a Libertarian site as well and today Justin Raimondo reflects in "A Generation of War:"

 The youthful Left was once the most active antiwar current on campus: recall the days of the Vietnam era antiwar movement, when "Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?" was heard on college campuses from Berkeley to NYU and all points in between. It was Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) that captured the attention and imagination of a generation of youthful activists – and their adult cheerleaders – brought the issue of the Vietnam war to the center of the political stage, and, together with others on the left, forced a sitting Democratic President to retire rather than seek another term.
Those days are long gone. Today, the campus left is a ghost of its former self: there is currently no student organization of what can reasonably be called the "left" with anything close to a nationwide organization. The last gasp of the student left was the Progressive Student Network, founded in 1980, a motley collection of social democrats and former Maoists, which faded out of existence in the mid-1990s. There is today a group calling itself "Students for a Democratic Society" which seems to have a few local activists but no real national presence, as well as a few clots of outright socialist groups such as the Spartacus Youth League (whose unforgettable slogan "Hail Red Army in Afghanistan!" encapsulates its wacky politics) and various other "youth organizations" of aging 1960s Marxist sects, existing on the fringes of campus life.


I made the mistake last night of listening to a radio program where the host and the callers all talked about how right the left was and how wrong the right was on the Iraq War.  That's not reality.  There were lefties and Democrats (which aren't always the same thing) who supported the illegal war and there were some on the right who opposed the war.  That includes the above and probably the most vocal talking head on TV against the war -- before it started and after -- was the right-wing Pat Buchanan.

One reason to note that is because it refuses the rush to put everyone in boxes.  It wasn't that simple, with all right-wingers on one side and all left-wingers on the other.  I


It's also important in terms of refusing to allow for revisionary tactics but it's also important because those who really spoke out suffered consequences.  Among the most visible of those who were verbally attacked?  The Dixie Chicks.

Even coming out in 2006, after the country had turned on the war, the Dixie Chicks' Taking The Long Way couldn't get airplay on country music.  The album did well on the country charts.  But the same radio stations that banned them ensured that the highest charting single from the album would be "Not Ready To Make Nice" which only made it to 36.  (The song would make it to number four on the pop charts, becoming their highest charter on the Hot 100.)  And that was it.  Today Natalie Maines is preparing an album that's not country and Martie Erwin Maguire and Emily Erwin Robison record as the Court Yard Hounds.


They paid a price.   They were on a huge winning streak on the country charts and that all went away.   Their cover of Stevie Nicks' "Landslide" was at number ten on the country charts one week and the next had dropped out of the top forty.  They were demonized in an attempt to make them untouchables, called "Saddam's Angels" and other crap.  Because heaven forbid anyone follow their lead.  That's what the demonization is about.

Give Bruce Springsteen credit for immediately speaking out in support of the Dixie Chicks.  Others did as well -- including many female artists but they didn't have the 'standing' with journalists (i.e. penis worshipers) that Bruce did. 

Hopefully, Martie, Natalie and Emily meant what the lyrics say in the song they wrote with Dan Wilson: "It turned my whole world around, and I kind of like it.".







 I'm not ready to make nice 
I'm not ready to back down 
I'm still mad as hell and I don't have time 
To go round and round and round 
It's too late to make it right
 I probably wouldn't if I could 
Cause I'm mad as hell, can't bring myself 
To do what it is you think I should 
I know you said  "Can't you just get over it?"
 It turned my whole world around 
And I kinda like it 


And for the record, that mentality of kill-kill-kill doesn't just belong to right-wing War Hawks.  Hank Williams III?  I'm going to word this as nicely as I can but does anyone really think the III makes it through a day sober?  So why would anyone get bent out of shape by what he has to say? He doesn't like Barack?  Not really a surprise.  He shares that and it's time to drop his song from whatever night football.  (I'm not a sporty gal.  The only reason I love the Superbowl is I can go anywhere while it's on and not be bothered. I can shop, go to the movies, whatever.  It's like a ghost town.)  Or Bob Woodward gets threatened -- and that was a threat -- and so instead of expressing outrage, it's attack Bob Woodward.  The demonization is just as bad from the left as it is from the right.   And that's the gift of the last four years, the last of the illusions falling away.


Bob Somerby is not a person I enjoy for a number of reasons including his sexism and he also missed the boat regarding Bob Woodward.  But he is someone who did oppose the Iraq War.  Yesterday, he noted the efforts of John Judis and David Corn to re-write history and present themselves as outspoken voices against the war before it started.  On Corn, it's worth noting -- because Somerby missed it -- Corn was far move vocal when it came to attacking protesters against the war then he was when it came to speaking out against the war.

If, like Somerby, you missed Corn's attacks on the movement to stop the war, you can refer to 2002's  "Behind the Placards: The Odd and Troubling Origins of Today's Anti-War Movement."  

Here he is from the Corn post:

 That said, the boys recalled the terrible trouble caused by Powell’s U.N. address. But how strange! Just one hour earlier, Rachel Maddow interviewed the man who assembled that U.N. address—and the topic was never mentioned! Instead, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson was allowed to name-call other major Republicans, giving us rubes the sense that we were being exposed to The Real Dope.

Wilkerson has been Rachel’s best friend for four years now. She has never asked him to explain how he managed to assemble the ridiculous bulls**t Powell presented to the U.N. But then, when she interviewed Powell himself, she even forgot to ask him!


We'll close with this from the Green Party of Michigan:

Ecological Wisdom      *   Social Justice
Grassroots Democracy   *   Non-Violence
Green Party of Michigan
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
www.MIGreenParty.org
**  News Release  **
**  ------------  **
   March 18, 2013
For More Information, Contact:
-----------------------------
Friends of Bobby Jones
    gobobbygogreen@yahoo.com
John Anthony La Pietra, Elections Co-ordinator/GPMI
    jalp@triton.net
    (269) 781-9478
Greens Nominate Bobby Jones for 27th District State Senator
===========================================================
Citizen Activist Joins Race to Fill Flint Area Vacancy,
Offers Principled Alternative to Political Musical Chairs
The Green Party of Michigan (GPMI) has nominated Bobby Jones
to be the Green candidate on the ballot for the May 7 special
election for 27th District State Senator.
The vacancy in the Flint area seat arose after incumbent John
Gleason was elected Genesee County Clerk and Register of Deeds
last November.
Jones has long been an active member of Flint Area Greens, and
was a strong supporter of last year's special-election campaign
by fellow Green Cary Justice in the 51st State House District.
He is very concerned about school bullying, and has served on
both the Flint Task Force on Hate Crimes and the Genesee County
Safe Schools Coalition.  He is also active in the area chapter
of PFLAG.
He has been a member of the Flint Eagles Lodge, and is a retired
member of UAW Local 599.
GPMI decided to nominate Jones on the March 12 special primary
date.  The special Green online caucus was held after the party
protested about the lack of notice given alternative parties for
the initial election timeline.  This led to a revised schedule
with a narrow but possible window for caucusing.
GPMI Elections Co-ordinator John Anthony La Pietra, who raised
the protest with the state, notes that -- if Democrat Jim Ananich
is elected to replace Gleason -- Ananich will have to vacate the
49th District State House seat he currently holds.
"Flint area voters will once again lack full representation in
state government, and will have to pay for the privilege of yet
another special election to minimize the vacancy," says La Pietra.
"Bobby Jones offers the voters of the 27th State Senate District
a principled alternative to the ongoing game of partisan political
musical chairs."
Bobby Jones's campaign for 27th District State Senator can be
contacted by mail at
    Friends of Bobby Jones
    PO Box 7404
    Flint, MI  48507
or via e-mail at
For more information about the Green Party of Michigan,
its values, and its candidates, visit:
Also check out the Green Party/Partido Verde of Michigan
group on Facebook, and GPMI's Twitter feed @MIGreenParty.
#    #    #
            created/distributed using donated labor
Green Party of Michigan
548 South Main Street
Ann Arbor, MI  48104
    http://www.MIGreenParty.org
    734-663-3555
    GPMI was formed in 1987 to address environmental
issues in Michigan politics.  Greens are organized
in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.  Each
state Green Party sets its own goals and creates its
own structure, but US Greens agree on Ten Key Values:
  Ecological Wisdom
  Grassroots Democracy
  Social Justice
  Non-Violence
  Community Economics
  Decentralization
  Feminism
  Respect for Diversity
  Personal/Global Responsibility
  Future Focus/Sustainability
Check out the Green Party/Partido Verde of Michigan group
on Facebook – and follow us at Twitter:  @MIGreenParty



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