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The Great Eddie Debate

Who is Eddie Tews, and why is he writing for ETS?

It seems Eddie breaks simple rule #2 of the ETS handy Geov wannabe cheatsheet: "Do not use rhetoric or political jargon." More importantly, he skewers a minor guideline, "On political issues, avoid abstract theory, utopian visions, and cliched rhetoric." His statements are right up there with RISE UP PROLETARIAT WORKERS!!! OVERTHROW THE OPPRESIVE SYSTEM OF THE RULING ELITIST ARISTOCRACY!!!

Pie in the Sky? Good Lord, Eddie, for the first time in human history, TENS OF MILLIONS of people united AROUND THE GLOBE to denounce this proposed war and demand peace, and WHAT'S YOUR RESPONSE? Lock up Shrub, his cabinet and every living former president? Pay reparations to over 22 different nations? Nothing less than a shopping list for the utopian socialist revolution! Are your suggestions valid and needed? Yes, of course. Would tens of millions of people rally for every item, or even a partial list? No way. Are they the ONLY "real solutions" to end the current political climate? Not by any means, yet for decades the left has been splintering into freaky, nerdy enclaves over exactly how to implement their own "revolution." Meanwhile, we all know what the other 99% of the population has been doing.

Instead of trying to distract this monumental movement--finally a unified force--with pesky, failed pie-n-the-sky cliches and remnants of the failed American socialist revolution, why not bring new breath and life, try to invigorate it with tangible actions and immediate goals? Socialist extremist factions did a good job (albeit with help from the FBI, CIA, et. al.) of pushing their ideas to the lunatic fringe. Guilt by association hauled "liberalism" to the same demise (such as universal health care). Finally, these ideas are coming to the mainstream. I hate to say, if you can't think of anything new, you need to stand behind and go along with those who are finally starting a REAL revolution.

I realize Eddie's enthusiasm for using 'nigger' so often. We, readers of ETS! are obviously too sheltered in our old volvos and tofu burgers and take easy offense at the use of racial slurs. Furthermore, we're all innate racists by nature of being white, a requirement for reading ETS! (look around, do you see any non-whites reading this rag?) and thus need to be reminded of this fact whenever possible. HOWEVER, will you please decipher the following sentence:

"We know why (in addition to the tautology that only niggers could ever pose a threat to world peace) the European leadership is happy to take the Bush Administration line..."

It took me a good 15 minutes of hard scrutiny to realize that it's mostly poorly-placed parenthesis. It seems more evident that you're stumbling over your words in your rush to use "nigger." Next time, I suggest a more appropriate sentence, such as: "When the white supremacist goons finally take over Seattle, before stringing up the brothers, they'll lynch all the white niggers..." (For clarification, please visit www.creator.org)

--Kaelk R., via e-mail

E.T. replies: The line, "Granting that the job of the moment is clearly to prevent a US-led war," was intended to be read as a nod to the fantastic organizing work being performed by MoveOn, True Majority, United For Peace, et al. I apologize for not having worded my admiration as explicitly as I should have done.

As far as the proposed demands are concerned, they're really just asking the United States to abide by International Law. To, in other words, hold itself to the standards that it purports to revere. You don't think that billions of people would rejoice at Henry Kissinger and George Bush being made to account for their crimes? I sure do. Or, to take just one more grisly example, approximately 30,000 people are killed, every single day, by IMF-mandated austerity programs. Is it really nothing more than meaningless socialistic jargoneering to ask the United States to cut it out?

But the point I was trying (poorly, as it turned out) to make is that for the Europeans, while their racist world view is always part of the picture, of paramount import here is that they've huge economic interests in Iraq, and that for this reason, economic self-determination in the Arab world would be as potentially damaging for their economies as it would be for America's. Thus their absurd and hypocritical bleating of the horseshit notions of an Iraqi "threat" to world peace.

Geov Parrish adds: Since my name has been invoked, let me address the (presumably) rhetorical question Eddie graciously ignored. Eddie is published by ETS! for several reasons, not the least of which is that over the last six years he's probably been the single volunteer most responsible for getting this newspaper into the hands of you, dear readers--an extraordinarily hard and dedicated worker who takes on all the unglamorous jobs while glory hogs like me put our names in lights. Eddie is worth considerably more than his weight in gold.

Why the rest of us among ETS!'s core volunteers are eager to see Eddie write more is another matter. He tends toward self-effacement, but he's good. His rigorously logical (and at times hilarious) deconstruction of a recent piece of Stranger/Christopher Hitchens pro-war bilge, for example, was a thing of beauty. Eddie captures the important detail or the big picture as well as any of us, probably better. In the above case, what he was providing is called context. Namely, a reminder that Bush and his cronies (and their Democratic enablers) specialize in a tactic whereby the edge is pushed by one seemingly plausible idea, then by another, then by another, and before you know it we're all agreeing that grass is orange, the sky is green, ignorance is freedom, and the Bill of Rights is a useless relic from an irrelevant era.

Somebody's got to say that the grass is, in fact, green (though rapidly browning), and the sky is, in fact, blue (though it's sure been hot in the summer lately). How we get back to where we once wanted to be--or, more properly, forward to where we should be--is a matter of goals and tactics, incremental change vs. quantum leap. But one look at what the US peace movement is calling for, its size, and how well it's organized, compared to our colleagues in the rest of the world, suggests that he is, as usual, right, and that an awful lot of us could do worse than aspiring to be Eddie wannabes.

Sorry, Rupert's Not Home Today

As you are aware, the premeditated murder of an American nonviolent protester, Ms. Rachel Corrie, occurred this past week in the occupied territories, formerly known as Palestine.

The State of Isreal and her Isreal Defense Forces (IDF) willfully crushed her while bulldozing the homes of Palestineans.

Why haven't any media outlets cared to investigate this senseless attack of an American citizen? Why haven't questions been asked by our astute professional journalists?

You have to report, before we can decide.

Sincerely,

Mujeeb Basha, Laurel MD