agitprop version 2.0

Thoughts On The Los Angeles Peace March

Saturday's peace march in Los Angeles was a great experience. The aftermath, however, left me with several questions. What happens next? Will the marches make a difference for the peace movement? How many more marches will need to occur for our "leaders" to actually represent the will of the people and end this illegal war? If we are to look back at the Vietnam War, I would assume that the peace movement has a long way to go.

Pictures

For a visual companion to my story, check out my pictures of the event. Freeloosedirt has some great pics of the actual march through downtown LA. It looks like his son even got a picture with President Bartlett. Matt has some good pictures of the huge event in D.C. if you're interested. Also, check out the social change group in Flickr for protest pictures from around the county.

Arrival

I went to the event with my two uncles. For both of them it was a pure case of deja vu considering 35 years ago they were attending Vietnam War protests. They were also very active in Alliance For Survival--an anti-nuclear organization--back in the late 1970s.

We parked by the entrance of Chinatown and walked a few blocks over the US-101 towards the intersection of Los Angeles and Temple. We didn't participate in the actual march (a 1.5 mile jaunt through Downtown LA) but rather congregated at the march destination in front of the stage. We surveyed the booths for about an hour before the marchers arrived in droves. Between 25,000 and 50,000 people turned out for the LA event.

Fringe Booths

I got into a discussion with representatives at the Socialist Worker booth. They advocate revolution, pure and simple--as if that would ever happen here! The United States is probably one of the last places in which a socialist or communist revolution could ever take place. We spoke in agreement about several issues but when they tried to recruit me into their organization I casually strayed away from their booth. Then there were the "9/11 Truth" people who argue that 9/11 was an inside job. I've watched the film Loose Change and I still have trouble accepting that 9/11 was carried out by our own government. I know our government is bad, but could they be that bad?

There were also folks from World Can't Wait which is organizing mass movements on November 2, 2005 to "drive out the Bush regime". Upon further inspection this group turns out to be a front group for Bob Avakian's Maoist Revolutionary Communist Party. Who knew there were still people who proudly call themselves Maoists? Needless to say there were some interesting and bizarre far-left characters on the scene. It's for this reason that Roxanne doesn't like attending protests, although she attended the D.C. protest and was glad she did.

The Marchers Arrive

When the marchers arrived on Temple Street with their large banners it was truly an amazing site. They were led by a cadre of LAPD on bikes and in squad cars. We quickly moved close to the stage as thousands of marchers fell in behind us.  The speakers all stressed that our work has only just begun--that we must continue making our voices louder if we wish to create change in the political system. The most powerful speaker in my opinion was Vicki Castro. She lost her only son Jonathan in the December 21, 2004 suicide bombing of an army mess hall in Mosul, Iraq. She argued that it is not the anti-war protesters who are hurting soldiers' morale. Rather, what hurts morale is when Generals in charge of base security refuse to protect their soldiers by spot checking everyone who enters the base because it would be too "inefficient". State Senator Gloria Romero noted that our state has incurred the highest casualties in the nation. Currently California has lost 202 soldiers in Iraq.

What Now?

The march left me feeling empowered knowing that there are thousands of others who share my disgust with this current regime and their endless imperial wars. It also left me with a sense of bewilderment as in how to proceed. Upon leaving I said to my uncles, "That was great, but I don't see how that's going to change anything right now--our elected officials don't care." In response to my youthful cynicism they explained how the marches were more like pep rallies for our side. It's a time and place for like-minded individuals to congregate, vent their shared feelings and then re-invigorate the movement.

The cries and rallies of the peace movement have mostly fallen on deaf ears in Congress, but not the American people. Americans are rejecting this phony war--59% think the war was a mistake and 63% believe that the U.S. should either "withdraw some" or "withdraw all" troops. So, where the hell are our elected officials? Democrats? Hello? Now's the time to step up to the plate and fill the leadership void. My new personal litmus test for voting will be a candidate's stance on the Iraq War.

We're in for the long haul, and I'm ready.

Related Writing: Juan Cole explains why we should withdraw U.S. troops immediately. The Washington Post has some good coverage of the D.C. event.

Los Angeles Peace March

I just got back from the march in Los Angeles. The speakers included Martin Sheen, Jim Lafferty of the National Lawyers Guild, Ron Kovic of "Born on the Fourth of July" fame, radio show host Stephanie Miller, CA State Senator Gloria Romero and Gold Star mother Vicki Castro among others.

Check out more pictures here.

The Day After Tomorrow

         

In what could only be described as an Emporer Nero moment, Chimperor Dubya casually strummed a guitar yesterday while the Gulf Coast states continued to drown. As an American I would expect our leader to do everything in his power to help those in need. As a guitarist I am deeply troubled at the sight of Bush touching my favorite instrument.   

Here the bloggers weigh in on Hurricane Katrina:

• The Heretik:  George W. Bush as the Invisible Caesar American.
• RJ Eskow:  A rudderless ship adrift in the gulf.
• Tattered Coat:  Matt has excellent coverage of Atlantis and ways to help.
• Broken Windows:  Kate has been keeping track of the damage.
• Liberal Revolt:  Please remember our blogger friend Vaughn this week. He is, or was, a resident of New Orleans. He and his wife are now refugees and their home most likely destroyed.
• BoingBoing: A Tale of Two Photos (Bush + Geetar)

Please help. There are a variety of ways to do so.

Network for Good:  Hurricane Katrina has blazed a trail of devastation throughout Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. Across the Gulf Coast, Katrina engulfed thousands of homes and decimated the landscape in what could become the most destructive storm in U.S. history. Victims are stranded and in need of immediate medical care, food and water, and tens of thousands of people will need temporary housing for months. Help people affected by this storm by making a donation today.

hurricane katrina

Le Circle Orange

Last night I joined the lovely ladies from Code Pink at their weekly protest in Orange, CA. They had about 300 people show up for the Cindy Sheehan vigil last week, however, this week the crowd was down to about 30 faithful peaceniks.

I was surprised at the positive response from the cars driving by—they flashed peace signs and honked their horns enthusiastically. Of course we got some angry shouts of “Go home fuckers” or "Losers" accompanied by the middle finger. But that is to be expected here. After all, we were protesting in the heart of Orange County wingnutopia.

Afterward I met up with a fellow OC lefty blogger named El Serracho. Check out his blog. He is proud of his self-described lackluster photoshop skills. I’ve never actually met a person in the flesh from blogging before, and it was great. He informed me that according to a new study Orange County is the #10 most conservative county in the nation!

El S and I have decided to organize future meet-ups around the OC. So if any of you reside in or around the OC and would like to join us please drop me an email. Hey, it’s an excuse to go drinking, right?

P.S. El S, if you read this please send me the link to that study. Thanks.

UPDATE/CORRECTION: The study I mentioned above was in fact a study about cities, not counties. According to the study, three Orange County cities ranked in the "Top 25 Most Conservative Cities" in the nation. Orange #10, Garden Grove #17 and Huntington Beach #25.

Known Chickenhawk Hiding Out In Crawford

Why won't the president meet with Cindy Sheehan, a mother whose son Casey was killed in Iraq last year? Sheehan, now an anti-war activist, has been patiently waiting outside Bush's Crawford Ranch for the past few days. She wants to meet face-to-face with the president to ask him why he sent her son to die in Iraq. So far, this has been Bush's response:

                  

Isn't Bush the compassionate president who meets privately to comfort families who've lost sons and daughters in Iraq? Well, he only does this as long as the families don't question his eternal wisdom and divinely-inspired motives.

Sheehan actually met with Bush in June 2004 but the meeting didn't go so well:

The White House has released few details of such sessions, which Mr. Bush holds regularly as he travels the country, but generally portrays them as emotional and an opportunity for the president to share the grief of the families. In Ms. Sheehan's telling, though, Mr. Bush did not know her son's name when she and her family met with him in June 2004 at Fort Lewis. Mr. Bush, she said, acted as if he were at a party and behaved disrespectfully toward her by referring to her as "Mom" throughout the meeting.

By Ms. Sheehan's account, Mr. Bush said to her that he could not imagine losing a loved one like an aunt or uncle or cousin. Ms. Sheehan said she broke in and told Mr. Bush that Casey was her son, and that she thought he could imagine what it would be like since he has two daughters and that he should think about what it would be like sending them off to war.

"I said, 'Trust me, you don't want to go there'," Ms. Sheehan said, recounting her exchange with the president. "He said, 'You're right, I don't.' I said, 'Well, thanks for putting me there.' "

Sheehan's vigil outside Bush's ranch is probably one of the most visible anti-war protests yet. The brave actions of this woman have attracted considerable media attention to the anti-war cause. The longer Bush avoids her, the more this story will snowball. David Swanson notes that the authorities are planning to arrest Sheehan if she does not leave the ranch by this Thursday. That is sure to get a snazzy headline or two.

MORE INFO:  MeetWithCindy

technorati: iraq cindy sheehan politics war

The Downing Street Minutes, Three Years Later

"I'm a war president.  I make decisions here in the Oval Office in foreign-policy matters with war on my mind.  Again, I wish it wasn't true, but it is true.  And the American people need to know they got a president who sees the world the way it is.  And I see dangers that exist, and it's important for us to deal with them." -- George W. Bush, Feb. 2004.

Sieg Heil to the War President!

As of today, there are at least 1,744 reasons why you should keep the Downing Street Memo story alive and demand for a resolution of inquiry . . .

Downing Street Denial

The media is slowly embracing the Downing Street Memo story. However, most of the media's old guard have either downplayed the importance of the memo or dismissed it altogether. There was Dana Milbank of the Washington Post who mocked last week's hearings led by Rep. John Conyers' by saying "House Democrats took a trip to the land of make-believe."

I find it odd that the media was so interested in Monica Lewinsky's blowjob technique but is ambivalent about whether or not the Bush administration lied in order to start a war which has killed 1,700 U.S. soldiers and over 50,000 Iraqis. Maybe if Bush was being orally serviced by an intern and his semen happened to land on the Iraq war plans, then maybe the media would care?

Conservatives have argued that the allegations contained in the memo are nothing new. It doesn't matter if the Bush administration lied to go to war because containment of Saddam wasn't working, so there was no other option. So, lying was justified according to the defenders of Empire. The conservatives are right about one thing though. The Downing Street Memo, while intriguing, does NOT contain anything new.

Anyone who read Bob Woodward's Plan of Attack knows that the Iraq War was on the agenda since day one of the Bush administration. Woodward describes pretty clearly the inner workings of the Bush war machine--how Cheney badgered the CIA into producing the intelligence he wanted, the Cheney-Rumsfeld tag team which overruled Colin Powell's moderate diplomacy, and General Tommy Frank's fondness for the F-word. Here are two clear examples from Plan of Attack which are summarized nicely by Brian Curtis of Slate:

Page 9: The first sign of the Bush administration's desire to attack Iraq comes days before Bush's 2001 inauguration. Dick Cheney asks outgoing Defense Secretary Bill Cohen to brief the president "about Iraq and different options." During the briefing, Cheney falls asleep.

Page 25: Hours after the Sept. 11 attacks, Donald Rumsfeld asks Pentagon colleagues about the possibility of striking Saddam Hussein. An aide records in his notes: "hit S.H. @ same time—not only UBL [Usama Bin Laden]."

The evil plans of the Gang of Four were hatched long ago. The basis of these plans were disclosed to the British and recorded in the Downing Street minutes in July 2002. I believe it is time to re-examine the lies and misinformation spewed by the Bush administration to sell the Iraq War to the American people. 

Dubya the Salesman: Utilizing his Harvard MBA and his questionable business experience, he became the chief salesman for the Iraq War. Bush was so determined to sell this war that he would have sold water to a school of fish.

Cheney the Doomsday Executive: Drawing on his fierce corporate boardroom mentality, he successfully scared the bejebus out of the American people with talk of unmanned aerial vehicles which could spray poisonous biological agents as well as nuclear missiles that could reach the U.S. in 45 minutes. His effective linking of Saddam and Al Qaeda helped confuse people into thinking that Saddam had committed the 9/11 attacks.

Rummy the Philosophical Warrior: Mr. "I Don't Do Diplomacy" took a military role by strengthening the power of the Department of Defense and limiting the diplomatic ambitions of the State Department. His insistence that Iraq could be easily defeated, secured and transformed into a blossoming democracy made Americans think Operation Iraqi Freedom would be cakewalk in the park.

Condi the Defender: She valiantly defended her husband's the president's administration both before and after the war. She did such a good job that she was promoted to Secretary of State. Her talks of nukes and mushroom clouds on the Sunday morning political talk show circuit helped cement the administration's lies as truth.

The Gang of Four's Sales Support Team deserves an honorable mention. This support team consisted of Colin Powell, Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle as well as various pro-war, pro-empire conservative pundits who infiltrated the media.

Well, the thugs got their wish and we've been in Iraq for two years, three months. Quagmire accomplished. Thanks Gang of Four!

UPDATE/MORE INFO: John at Blogenlust compares the Bush administration's rhetoric then and now. Sounds like flip-flopping hypocrisy to me. The Heretik looks at some of the destructive results of the Bush administration lies--the fact that the United States has used WMD in Iraq, most notably the MK 77 firebomb (a.k.a. Napalm). Navy submarine blogger Rob Schumacher asks:

Where is the shining example of freedom and justice that was our great nation, in light of things like Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, the USA PATRIOT Act, and this unjust war?

Connect The Dots, La La La-La

Raw Story has compiled a Path of War Timeline which outlines the entire Iraq war planning beginning with PNAC in the late 1990's up through 2003.

Also, check out Greg Palast's written testimony for today's Congressional Hearings up at Blondesense (courtesy of Peter of Lone Tree).

more info: After Downing Street   The Downing Street Memo   Watch the hearings on CSPAN 3

tags: downingstreetmemo bba

The War President

            

What is that glow?
'Tis the blood of the Dead.
Forever stained is the War President.
He is marked by those who have fallen
From his choosing to sacrifice the Young.

While feasting upon the blood of the living,
High atop his white castle He dines
Sheltered by his own walls of ignorance and cruelty,
Glowing with the blood of the Dead.

He marches on, to new lands
To an oasis of sand and treasure.
Do not question the actions of Most High. 
He is anointed--the Chosen One,
To lead us to freedom--our godly salvation.

"The War President" by Agitprop

Is there such a thing as Presidential accountability?   

ac·counta·bili·ty

n : responsibility to someone or for some activity

George W. Bush is the man who promised to bring integrity, accountability and personal responsibility back to the White House in 2000. Is he not answerable to the American people of whom he was elected to serve?

Today, a group of Congressional Democrats led by Rep. John Conyers are holding hearings on the Downing Street Memo in the nation's Capitol. I don't know where this will take our fair cause, but I have faith that this is only the beginning. If Agitprop ruled the world, then Bush, Cheney, and the other lying war criminals would be put behind bars in straightjackets and forced to eat plastic turkey.

What's at stake in the Downing Street Memo hearings today? Just a few minor things like the Truth, the ultimate sacrifices of over 1,700 American soldiers, and the very heart and soul of our democracy.

tags: downingstreetmemo bba

NBC, Brace Yourself!

NBC News has just verified the recently released seven British memos from Spring 2002. Get ready for Scottie, Dick and Rummy to go after NBC with the same vengeance they unleashed on Newsweek and Amnesty International. These memos demonstrate how British officials questioned the Bush administration's lack of post-war planning:

“The memos are startlingly clear that the British saw that there was inadequate planning, little planning for the aftermath,” says Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., who serves on the Senate Armed Services Committee.

And there's more. To prepare Blair for a meeting at the president's ranch in April 2002, a year before the war, four other British memos raised more questions.

After a dinner with President Bush’s then-national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, Blair's former national security adviser David Manning wondered, “What happens on the morning after” the war?

In yet another 2002 memo, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw asked, “What will this action achieve? Can (there) be any certainty that the replacement regime will be better? Iraq has had no history of democracy.”

What happens on the morning after the war? Who cares! As long as the oil ministry is protected we won't give a shit about the rest of the country. If only those silly Americans listened to the advice of the wise former-colonialists who tried to "spread democracy" in Iraq eighty years ago, then maybe things wouldn't have been so catastrophically successful.

The Downing Street Memo states that "Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy." Terrorism. Oh, you mean that Bin Laden guy?

Asked if Pakistan has an idea where bin Laden currently is hiding, Musharraf said: “No we don’t at the moment. We don’t have a clear idea.” Musharraf also defended his strong support for the U.S.-led war on terror, which has drawn criticism from political opponents.

“What we are doing mainly is for Pakistan’s sake. Fighting extremism, fighting terrorism is in our own interest,” he said. “The vast majority of the people understand that this is a right policy,” he added.

Bin Laden is most likely hiding out in the western mountains of Pakistan, our brave ally in the War on Terror Tara. If Pakistani officials actually captured Bin Laden, Musharraf would be overthrown in an instant coup by Islamic militants who worship Bin Laden. I guess we might as well forget about Osama. That's what Bush would want us to do anyways . . .

The mainstream media would rather have you think about this and this and this. But We must keep the Downing Street Story alive. Please visit The Heretik and CNTodd for their dedicated work in cataloging the daily Downing Street blog-roundup.

Tags: downingstreetmemo bba