Angry White Kid

ANSWER's big plan revealed

Confounded as to why anti-war sentiment in the US has been steadily increasing while attendance at their demonstrations (in monotony) has been decreasing, the ANSWER Coalition (who I've made clear I'm no fan of) released a proposal yesterday, asking What Should the Anti-War Movement Do Now?:

It is clear that the anti-war movement is not sufficiently strong at the moment to bring this criminal and despised war to an end. Every organization must ask why is this so and most importantly what can be done to change the situation immediately.

The first question to ask and answer is: Can a people's movement in the United States overcome the commitment of the White House, Congress and the Pentagon to authorize, extend and finance the war and occupation in Iraq?

If the answer to the question is yes...we must assess various factors and craft a strategy that will be fundamentally different from the current path of the anti-war movement. [Emphasis added]

So what's this great "new" strategy?  Unfortunately, it doesn't involve ANSWER dissolving and us rejoicing.  It involves...hold your breath...one big protest!  Taadaa!  Because that new/old strategy of organizing big protests has been working so well, ANSWER wants to get one million people to march on DC.  In six months to a year's time.  In the meantime, you can all take a nap.

Brilliant!  Why didn't anyone think of having a big protest in Washington, DC before? 

Oh wait, they have? 

Oh wait, and the war is still going on? 

Oh wait, no one pays attention to a "movement" that only involves showing your face once or twice a year at a boring, cop-coordinated rally?

Is this really the best that the "leaders of the vanguard" at ANSWER could come up with?  I guess adherence to Stalinism really does stifle creativity.

No wonder the US left is a worldwide laughingstock.  It's been co-opted (willingly) by the likes of ANSWER and their cult of banality and faux-dissent.

At this point, I think Bill Hicks and I are going to go watch American Gladiators.

SSA shut down at Port of Oakland

My crappy cell phone photo of the picket.

This (early) morning a community picket successfully shut down the war profiteer SSA (Stevedoring Services of America) at the Port of Oakland.  The International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) locals decided to honor and not cross the 100+ strong community picket. 

Therefore SSA, which was at full capacity with three ships waiting to be loaded and unloaded, wasn't able to do any business this morning.  The picket is continuing as the second shift of longshore workers arrives at 4:30PM, hopefully to meet with the same results.  I'm sure more photos and reports will go up at Indybay. May this only be the beginning.

UPDATE: SSA was indeed shut down all day by the picket. From a obnoxiously sectarian reportback:

When scores of picketers blocked the gates at the SSA terminal beginning at 7 a.m., the company eventually gave up and called off the shift. In the evening, an arbitrator ruled that this was not a bona fide “health and safety issue” and ordered the workers to go to work. However, the dock workers collectively refused.

Saturday: Picket to shut down the war profiteers

March 19: Die-in

For assembly points, to get involved or more information, visit dieinmarch19.org.

Support political prisoners, old and new

Check out this new short video on two longtime Puerto Rican political prisoners - Oscar Lopez Rivera and Carlos Alberto Torres. Visit the ProLibertad Freedom Campaign and National Boricua Human Rights Network for more info.

And check out these excerpts (in two parts) of a talk by Harold Taylor, one of the former Black Panthers arrested last week, given four days before he was arrested.  The video screening on Sunday in San Francisco went very well - so many people showed they had to screen the film twice.  Help support these political prisoners. Check out the Committee for the Defense of Human Rights and the Freedom Archives for more.

Part one:

Part two:

In other government repression news: Help defend journalist Sarah Olson (UPDATE 1: The army dropped the two charges against Lt. Watada that involved Sarah Olson, and therefore dropped the subpoena!). Activist Nadia Winstead beats a Grand Jury contempt rap.  And former professor Sami Al-Arian continues to be subject to abuse and harassment from this vindictive government and its Grand Juries.

Finally, this Friday, Feb. 2nd, at 6pm, there will be an event in solidarity with the political prisoners in Atenco and Oaxaca at Station 40.  Music, food, and talks on Atenco, Oaxaca, and the encuentro in Chiapas.  $5 - no one turned away - 3030B 16th St., near 16th/Mission BART in San Francisco.

UPDATE 2: In other great news, an immigration court ended the case of the LA 8 - two (not 8 anymore) Palestinians the government has been trying to deport for the past 20 years for distributing literature.

UPDATE 3: Three detainees being held indefinitely at "Guantanamo North" in Canada are facing serious health crises after being on hunger strike for two months due to a lack of medical supervision and the government's refusal to consider their just and reasonable demands. They are calling for support.

The aloneness

A Lebanese baby killed by Israel when it bombed a civilian convoy fleeing the violence. From the Angry Arab.

The baffling failure of humanity over the past few weeks is incredible.  Traveling and overwhelmed by events, I have little in the way of words.  Luckily, there are many (though never enough) doing all they can to dent the empire of killers and warmongers, led by Bush and Olmert, and cheered by the U.S. media. 

One of those is my dear friend Nora Barrows-Friedman, a producer for Flashpoints on KPFA radio, who writes from Dheisheh refugee camp in Bethlehem.  An earlier report can be read here.

------------

There will be no statistics in this journal entry. Because what difference does 10 shredded children in Gaza, or 15 sliced children in Lebanon, or 40 smashed children in Iraq make to the international community anyway? What difference does it make when the twisted and sick US corporate media doesn't even mention their names, or their ages, or their favorite color, something to put a human face on the mangled mess that the latest US-made Israeli-fired missile replaced as a nose, a mouth, two eyes, freckles, cheek, forehead?

Yes, there were "escalations" today in Gaza and Lebanon. There were "military strikes" and "retaliatory attacks" and "intensifications" and "deaths." There were "officials" and "spokespeople" and "leaders" joining in the finger-pointing and the name-calling. Meanwhile, Arab people are burning. Numbers and statistics become, therefore, irrelevant. Language loses its meaning on the tongue, becomes sludge and dribbles down one's chin. My dear friend Siham said today, "What does the term 'civilized society' mean when they are killing people like this?"

What becomes of a language that has lost its original meaning? Does it shrivel up and slink into an abyss to mingle with the ghosts of these headless, armless, forgotten brown-skinned kids? And as we watch the footage, as we hear on the phone from friends witnessing in their backyards, as we read the articles, how many times can we use the words "unbelievable," "disgusting," "horrific?" They have lost all meaning as well.

We need a new language to describe these nightmares. We need a new vehicle to convey the disbelief and the disgust and the horror as Gaza burns, as Lebanon smolders, as Iraq collapses.

As we rub our eyes tonight, bleary from thick cigarette smoke and too many hours of being glued to the television, my friend Mustafa says, "No one notices, no one cares. We are alone in this world." This is the aloneness. The isolation. Gazan and Lebanese and Iraqi children are huddled in their beds tonight, screaming out to the wall of silence in a sore-throated language, isolated in their terror.

Palestinians Try to Help Kidnapped Human Rights Workers

On Saturday, four members of the Christian Peacemaker Teams were kidnapped in Iraq.  Three of the four volunteers have spent time with the CPT in Hebron, in the West Bank, which is the scene of some of the most extreme brutality of the occupation and its accompanying settler violence.

As a result, along with Iraqi clerics urging their release, the "National and Islamic forces" in Hebron held a press conference and released a joint statement calling for the release of the CPTers.

We appeal to our brothers in the resistance and all those with alert consciences in Iraq, with whom we consider ourselves to be in the same trench confronting American aggression and occupation, to instantly and quickly release the four kidnapped persons (two Canadians, one Briton and one American) from CPT, in appreciation for their role in standing beside and supporting our Palestinian people and all the Arab and Islamic peoples.

Hopefully it helps.

UPDATE: Add your name to the petition calling for their freedom.  It has been signed by such notables as Chomsky, Roy, Klein, Nader, Ali, Khalidi, and more.

Ramsey Clark: Justifier of Massacres

Many in the anti-war movement already disapprove of Ramsey Clark, Lyndon Johnson's attorney-general-turned-Stalinist.  This is largely because of his role in the Worker's World Party and its front groups, the International Action Center, ANSWER, and the Troops Out Now Coalition.  Not only are their politics messed up, but they have successfully driven the anti-war movement into the ground. 

Another reason to dislike headline-hungry Clark was after he announced he would defend Saddam Hussein.  Not that Hussein doesn't deserve a fair trial, but why is Clark - a "notable" anti-war figure - defending a war criminal?  What message does that send about the stance of the "anti-war movement"?

But yesterday's New York Times story on Hussein's trial was too much to bear.  At the end of it, Clark is quoted justifying the massacre of 148 members of a village after an attempt on Hussein's life occurred there in 1982.

"[Hussein] had this huge war going on, and you have to act firmly when you have an assassination attempt," [Clark] said.

Wow, Ramsey, that's a pretty damn audacious thing to say. You sound an apologist for a tyrannical leader.  Maybe indicted Bush administration members can hire you after you're done in Iraq. 

Regardless, it's time for you to pack it in.  We already didn't like you, but now you've crossed the line and in my book you're never welcome at an anti-war event again.  (Thanks to Jeff Blankfort for info on this.)

Cindy Sheehan and White Supremacy

The catapulting of Cindy Sheehan, the white, middle-class soccer mom, to the head of the anti-war movement never did feel right.  In the article below, Tamara Nopper does a great job taking on the issues involved.

"Cindy Sheehan & White Supremacy"
By Tamara K. Nopper
November 23, 2005

The anti war movement has been acting like crouching tiger, hidden white movement waiting for a white light to help them get through what they perceive as a movement growing too fixated with race.  They found their heroine in Cindy Sheehan: a white mother who lost her son Casey in the Iraq War and who is now willing to take on big, bad Bush. 

Now with Sheehan, the white sect of the anti-war movement can finally say fuck you to the race people: no more having to hear complaining minorities claim that war is connected to racism and no more talk about the large numbers of disenfranchised non-whites who must struggle with the enormous choice of either going into the military or surviving.  If this is the case, how do you explain Cindy, poor Cindy, whose poor white son died in Iraq? 

Protest Daniel Pipes in SF

Daniel Pipes is coming to town tomorrow to give a talk on the "war" in Israel/Palestine.  We're going to come to town tomorrow to let him know he's not welcome to speak here.  The announcement is below. 

Today, Pipes had this to say about a mosque in Pennsylvania where apparently a few people in the recent election didn't like voting at.

"It’s a political thing, not a religious one. If the mosque is a radical one, then I’ve got a real problem with it, and chances are it is."

As CAIR pointed out, the Lehigh Valley mosque was actually a co-sponsor of the fatwa against terrorism and religious extremism.  Yet again, Pipes has his anti-Muslim head planted firmly up his anti-Muslim ass.

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