Isaiah (along with Ruth and Kat) was given the week off so a repost of an earlier The World Today Just Nuts will go up shortly.
The Times is skimpy today (it is the Sunday edition which, despite the bulk, never delivers a great deal of news) so we all went over to BuzzFlash for some stories worth noting. (All via BuzzFlash.)
From Norman Solomon, "The Iraq War and MoveOn:"
Many groups were important to the success of the Aug. 17 vigils, but the online powerhouse MoveOn was the largest and most prominent. After a long stretch of virtual absence from Iraq war issues, the organization deserves credit for getting re-involved in recent months. But the disconnects between MoveOn and much of the grassroots antiwar movement are disturbing.
Part of the problem is MoveOn's routine fuzziness about the war -- and the way that the group is inclined to water down the messages of antiwar activism, much of which is not connected to the organization.
Consider how the MoveOn website summarized the vigils: "Last night, tens of thousands of supporters gathered at 1,625 vigils to acknowledge the sacrifices made by Cindy Sheehan, her son Casey and the more than 1,800 brave American men and women who have given their lives in Iraq -- and their moms and families." Such a gloss excludes a key reason why many people participated in the vigils: They wanted to express clear opposition to any further U.S. involvement in the war.
Despite its high-profile role in the vigils this week, MoveOn is still not giving a high priority to addressing the Iraq war in its ongoing work.
Norman Solomon's new book War Made Easy is the topic of "1 Book, 10 Minutes" over at The Third Estate Sunday Review today.
From Editor & Publisher's "Political Columnist Witcover Ends 24-Year Run at 'Sun' With Blast at War:"
NEW YORK Noted mainstream political writer Jules Witcover wrote his final column for The Sun of Baltimore, ending a 24-year run. He exited with a strong anti-Iraq war message, going so far as to lament that he did not come out earlier for the impeachment of President Bush. Witcover's column in the Sun, long written with Jack Germond, dates back to 1981. Germond retired four years ago. A syndicated version of Witcover's column will continue to appear elsewhere. He observed today that while he was a strong supporter of the U.S. war in Afghanistan, "when President Bush began to shift his strategy to Iraq on the grounds that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction that were a major threat to the United States, and he linked him to 9/11, I began to question that strategy and the motives, information and logic behind it....
"At the outset, I received much e-mail accusing me of disloyalty and even treason, but as the situation in Iraq festered and Mr. Bush's rationales for the invasion crumbled, the mail began to turn around. In time I was criticized by some readers for not calling for Mr. Bush's impeachment for misleading the nation into war.
[. . .]
["]In retrospect, I lament not having advocated impeachment, even as achieving it was unlikely."
By the e-mails, I know a number of you saw "The Third Estate Sunday Review News Review" when it went up before midnight last night. Jim & Dona say that will be the pattern. When it's done, it will go up and then after other items are posted, it will move to the front (by changing the time and date). If you missed it, you're missing Ava breaking down alleged police violence at a peace protest in this country and addressing the developments of the London police, Kat running down music news, and a lot more.
The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.
