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The Pro-War Lobby Speaks

u r all a bunch of fucking idiots

Anonymous, via e-mail

ETS!,

Dear Sir or Madam,

I am dismayed that you do not recognize that this War could have been avoided by Saddam's complying with the UN Resolutions.

AND...the organized "anti-American" protests here in America and around the world emboldened Saddam and his military are responsible for the deaths of American soldiers, the hugh numbers of innocent Iraqi "soldiers" deaths (with Saddam's guns to the back of their heads), and the innocent Iraqi civilians who are victims of America's bombs. These bombs should never have had to be dropped--had people like YOU not emboldened the futile resistance to UN resolutions.

If you hate America so much, do as the pilgrims who bravely left the comfort of their homes and struggled to find and make a new life, and go find a home in one of the many "friendly" places around the world that you seem to embrace.

--Joan, via e-mail

ETS!,

A co-worker sent me your URL in a misguided attempt to make me "see the light." I perused your website and could not stop laughing at the liberal hand wringing, slanted half truths and liberal propaganda (with regard to the war in Iraq), citations and references to pseudo-science (renewable energy, global warming and the oil industry), and psychological conjecture (Real Face of War).

The above mentioned article is so slanted and full of misinformation it is hardly readable. I might remind the author that some people are capable of doing their duty and do not spend the rest of their lives repenting it. Unlike your readers who probaly sit awake a night worrying about the living conditions of chickens at the local poultry plant. All munitions not just CBU's are subject to a percentage of duds. Rural areas ARE the area of choice for such weapons as they are an areal weapon.

The folks that read your page are undoubtedly the ones that scream loudest, worried the most and ran to their therapists for solace after 9/11. I really and truly hope that those protesting our intervention in Iraq have their lives touched in a tragic way by a terrorist act due to inaction on the part of our government. Then we will see how they feel about our activities abroad.

I fully expect you to give equal coverage to the plight of those freed from Saddam's torture chambers and hidden prisons. Or is human suffering not inflicted by the US Government not on your agenda?

PS The folks in your Photos in Iraq do not look to be the "average" citizen. No doubt they are Sunni or other members of Saddam's favored few.

--Keith Patton, Senior GeoScientist, via e-mail

G.P. replies: First letter: it must get boring, repeating third grade so much. Second letter: is Rush really saying such stupid things these days? Third letter: misinformation? Name one. One. That's all. Psychological conjecture? Read your own letter, asshole. And I wish the US government--the folks whose wars and sanctions killed anywhere from a half million to 1.5 million Iraqis--would show a fraction of the concern for Saddam's victims that the average war protester has. Thus far, it's shown zero interest at all. And neither have you. Enjoy your oil profits.

Freedom Fighters

"Hey, I fought for the rights and freedoms you enjoy!" Those of us who, may I say, dare to protest against military action, or in other words, sanctioned mass murder abroad have heard these word spewing from the orifices of former veterans or, more often it seems, would-be veterans or once ROTCies. In fact, I often find myself standing in solidarity with true veterans when such a statement is uttered.

It is time for us to reclaim this statement as our own, for the truth of the matter is that it has been the peoples of these United States of America, who have fought for those rights, liberties and what little equality we enjoy. When free speech was a privilege of the few, it was workers, in fact, Wobblies, who fought the tireless battles on the public podium for the right of free speech.

When freedom was a privilege based on the color of one's skin, it was the abolitionists and the underground railroad who took up the fight. And despite an internecine war, that freedom was only won many a decade later when freedom road fighters, the Southern Church and others fought on the ground and won black liberation. The armed forces were not there.

When suffrage was a right based on a person's worth and sex, it was a long battle by the people to win those rights for each and every citizen. The armed forces... (well, you know).

While native American Indians were being systematically slaughtered, corralled into reservations, forced into abject poverty, many stood up alongside their brothers and sisters. To this day the situation on many reservations is one that our nation should be so ashamed of. Nonetheless, it has been the people, black, red, white, and brown who have been the one doing the fighting for these rights, not the armed forces.

The eight-hour day, work standards, minimum wage, social security, the right to strike, all these and many other rights and liberties enjoyed by people today have been the fruit of a continual and tireless struggle on the part of the working people against the capitalists, the bosses, the owners. The latter have used the armed forces or hired thugs to prevent us from gaining these rights. These are the owners of the media and purveyors over educational institutions that are designed to instill in us a belief that it has been through their benevolence that these privileges have been granted to us and that the United States armed forces have done the fighting for us. The truth, however, is that it has always been the people who have been the soldiers and the casualties. It is the people who have proven themselves the bravest, the proudest. So, the next time someone soliloquizes to you and tells you were you can go, I would advise one of three approaches:

The sarcastic retort: "What? You were in the Union Army?"

The educated reply: see above.

Or just smile and know that you stand in a tradition of those who have truly bettered humankind.

Curtis Vaughan, Seattle

Thanking the Troops

As an American citizen, I'd like to thank the troops.

For making my life more dangerous.

I have to travel overseas. Do I have guns and ships and compounds and heavy equipment to protect me?

I do not. I have to travel all by myself, defenseless. The only thing that kept me safe is my country's good repute. And right now, that is in the trash can.

If somebody in a grief-rage or a fit of their own patriotism finds out I'm an American and decides to take me out, what can my relatives do? Sue the military machine and the government? Fat chance.

Does anybody know if an American can get a Canadian passport?

Donna Barr, Bremerton

Somebody, Not Anybody

While I fully understand the despair we get to feeling at moments such as these, the "Get out of jail free" card the administration is playing vis a vis the war was to be expected. There is no ongoing opposition from the American public, because the fascist strategy plays to the worst instincts in the people and it always will. Of course the fucks are getting away with the war. The war hasn't become painful enough for us here at home. Love him or hate him, Lenin was right on the mark when he said that what is necessary to create a viable revolutionary movement is not that the public just be educated, but ALSO that the creeps in power not be able to go on governing as before. It should be clear as day to those of us who are still in the fighting mass that the jerks have a ways to go before their "bolt is shot". In the meantime, we teach and organize and learn as always, and take our lumps, and choose our battles strategically. There's nothing we can do about the fact that we're all going to pay some heavy dues. Much of the American public is obsessed with piracy and delusional, as the Black Commentator tells us, at least for the time being.

One thing that might make our work easier, though, is not to get so caught up in despair that we fall into this "we must vote for whoever runs against Bush next year" business. It's arguable that this strategy is exactly what got us to a place where Bush could win to begin with. As a former longtime participant in Democratic party politics, I can assure you that electing Lieberman or any other shit from the DLC is going to land us right back where we are now. Lieberman is an unapologetic racist who will never stand accountable to a progressive force in the democratic party, and there's not much more that can be said for Gephardt, Kerry or the latest liberal darling Dean. We may have to vote for one of these losers, but we'd better make it clear to them that we aim to stay on their asses if they get elected. And we'd better be clear about that ourselves. At best, it's a strategy that breeds passivity, and hands things over to the authorities of capital one more time. It might be arguably neccesary, but at best, it's a cover your ass tactic. At best, nominating or pledging support to "anyone" will get us Lieberman. The opposition will pull in its horns because a democrat is in the White House. Witness how quiet things got during the Clinton years, when the democratic party coopted the best energies we had, and went right along with developments that led to the current crusade in the Near East. Nominating "anyone" will get us another Al Gore, a recipe for certain defeat. The democrats have waged no solid opposition for years, in fact, they've backpedaled consistently. It's time to get a LOT more class analysis under our belts. You say Kucinich, one of the best of a halfassed lot, is unelectable. Probably so. No Democrat is electable as long as we continue to allow the Democrats to pull candidates from white rice land. Mark my words. It's time for class struggle, shrewdly, effectively as we can. This may or may not include a vote for a democrat from time to time. But putting all our eggs in this "anybody but Bush" basket is just as disastrous a strategy as hanging out in a "left" sect. If you think people are despairing now, just you wait and see how difficult they'll be to move after we help elect a bloody democratic centrist under this "Beat Bush" rubrick, who then goes right on to pave the way for another Bush. Do we really have to go through all that again? I think we need to get better at teaching and leading. There is no evidence that suggests rearguardism is any less dogmatic then vanguardism can be. In the worst moments for the North during the Civil War, critics of Lincoln told him he needed to get rid of McClellan, one of the worst generals of the armies of the Potomac. He was told he should get "anybody." Lincoln agreed that McClellan was a disaster, but insisted that he could not just take "anybody," he had to have "somebody," And that's what the more persistent body of the democratic opposition in this country needs. Some body. Let's go out and continue build that body. If this involves at some point or another a vote for someone to defeat George Bush, cool. But let's make sure it's someone who is responsive to the body of democratic opposition we are constructing. Otherwise, it's just Clinton all over again, which would be a complete and total waste of time. One last thought, unrelated to the above. If we're going to seize symbols from our past in order to look patriotic, I think we need to get a lot more selective. Let the other side have the lastest version of the American flag. Let's revive one of the earlier version, the one with the snake that said "Don't tread on me." It will give us some all-American hoodoo swing, and seems far more appropriate to the moment than the stars and stripes by themselves.

--Michael Hureaux, via e-mail

G.P. replies: It's "Geov," not "Geof." I don't recall saying or writing--ever--that un-electing Bush, or any electoral strategy, is a solution, or that it's all we need to do. It's not. And you're right; Anybody But might get us Lieberman, or some other horrid choice. That's the Lesser- Evilism I acknowledged.

If folks can be convinced that their effort will make a difference, there are more than enough outraged people in this country to defeat George Bush. There aren't nearly enough people for "class struggle," "rearguardism," "vanguardism," "rightguardism," or whatever. The "dues" necessary to mobilize the sort of class solidarity, acted upon, that you're imagining are being paid everywhere else in the world, not here. The best we can do right now is build useful institutions, supportive communities, and global networks, minimize the damage internally--by beating Bush--and sign on to their revolutions. That's where American Empire must fall.