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Anyone remember four years ago today? No? Well, something happened–the US invaded Iraq, and since then (or so say all the tally marks posted around Low Steps this sunny afternoon), 658,441 people have died. The Dems are collecting your change to send to UNICEF earmarked for Iraqi children on the Plaza until 3:00 PM, and you won’t get away without signing a postcard to send to your congressional representatives. They’ll also ask you to put in a call to the Senate asking them to endorse the Feingold plan for withdrawal.
Kind of a different approach from the Lucha folks, who took a busload down to DC on Saturday to march on the Pentagon. The Dems didn’t even cosponsor that busride, like they did a few months ago, because this one was mixed up with a few other messages.
– LBD
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@Mixed Message ANSWER’s ‘mixed message’ is better symbolized by these links: http://answer.pephost.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=8341
http://answer.pephost.org/site/PageServer?pagename=ANS_M17flyers
The mixed message is that Saturday’s rally wasn’t just anti-war. It was also explicitly anti-Israel, and pro-impeachment, unlike the UFPJ march in Washington that the Dems’ cosponsored earlier this semester. The Dems also announced and publicized UFPJ’s march in NYC this past Sunday, which focused on only on Iraq.
The dems likely refused to cosponsor because of these ‘mixed messages’, the same sort of mixed messages that led them to pull out of the anti-war coalition’s walk out, who refused to leave out issues of Israel and divestment from military contractors. My guess is the dems weren’t the only people who refused to participate in saturday’s march because of these issues. January’s march had hundreds of thousands of people – Saturday’s had 15 thousand. By bringing up more (and divisive) issues, the march’s organizers alienate people who agree with them on some points but not on others.
@pragmatism EXACTLY! The anti-war movement must stop its issue-oriented case of attention deficit disorder if it wants mainstream organizations to participate in its events.
@Anonymous For the record: Feb 15 organizers agreed to drop Israel/Palestine. They also toned the divestment language down to simply encouraging the study of divestment for the duration of the Iraq War.
I don’t think ANSWER is so much mixing messages to confuse people as much as its of the opinion that the Iraq problem, the Israel problem, as well as the immigration problem and the poverty problem are of a common thread, ilk and root. It’s a controversial stance, certainly not one mainstream Dems dare touch (but my homeboy Kucinich does in passing; Edwards touched on the sentiment once http://johnedwards.com/media/video/mlk-day-riverside-church/). Bottom-line: Organizers don’t take these positions to be divisive; they take them because they feel them necessary conditions for any material, effectual solution.
@Poster #21 Sorry, I don’t actually think that ANSWER is sending off mixed messages, I just used that phrase because thats what you had used earlier in this thread. The problem isn’t ‘mixed’ or confusing messages, but rather messages that in many peoples eyes include too many unconnected issues.
I agree that most people don’t take positions in order to be divisive, but that doesn’t change the result of their taking certain positions. ANSWER’s leaders may beleive those issues to be inextricably linked to one another, but they must also realize that this will prevent many people who agree with them on some issues from attending their rallies and voicing support for ANSWER.
@Dems are whack Democrats are always wondering what it is that keeps us ‘left’ from organizing w/ the power and ferocity of the right wing of America….shit like not co-sponsoring a march against the war (and pulling out of the strike on campus) b/c of petty ideological issues and misguided uber-pragmatism is what keeps us from achieving our potential political unity…and it’s a damn shame.
I’m not a member of ANSWER, ISO, Lucha, or any of the groups that get bad mouthed by the Dems and the like every time they try to organize, but I understand the importance of coalition building and standing up for important issues…i wish the Dems did too. Maybe I would still be a Democrat if they did.
@co-sponsorships The Dems didn’t co-sponsor, but the Black Students Organization, the United Students of Color Council, Students Promoting Empowerment & Knowledge, The Columbia College Student Council, Chicano Caucus, Asian American Alliance, and the International Socialist Organization did.
I’m sure not all of them are necessarily down with A.N.S.W.E.R….interesting that many organizations of color were on board, but the mostly White Dems have a problem with it.
@the dems dont like ANSWER. they have some reasons, but its not clear why that’s sufficient to, you know, not protest the war. oh, wait, that’s right, they sent postcards… a really tough gesture.
@Anonymous Why didn’t the Dems cosponsor the busride?
@Anonymous Glad to see the college Dems doing some anti-war activism. I do wish, though, that I had read that postcard before signing my name to it. Anyone know what it said?
@It was an endorsement of the Feingold withdrawal bill.
@Anonymous Makes sense.
@.... what other messages? that was a link to the march on the pentagon website.
@i'll sign up for the war against your FACE.
BURN.
@Anonymous Hillary ’08?
“No, I don’t regret giving the president authority because at the time it was in the context of weapons of mass destruction, grave threats to the United States, and clearly, Saddam Hussein had been a real problem for the international community for more than a decade.” 4/21/04
@Anonymous Bwog: was there supposed to be evidence of mixed messages on that link, because I only saw Pentagon march stuff there. Unless of course ANSWER is an inherently mixed message…
If 650,000 is off by a factor does that mean that 6.5 Million have died? Carpet bombings are a real bitch.
If you want to really attack the study, first read the methodology:
data from 1849 households that contained 12 801 individuals in 47 clusters was gathered. 1474 births and 629 deaths were reported during the observation period. Pre-invasion mortality rates were 5·5 per 1000 people per year (95% CI 4·3–7·1), compared with 13·3 per 1000 people per year (10·9–16·1) in the 40 months post-invasion. We estimate that as of July, 2006, there have been 654 965 (392 979–942 636) excess Iraqi deaths as a consequence of the war, which corresponds to 2·5% of the population in the study area. Of post-invasion deaths, 601 027 (426 369–793 663) were due to violence, the most common cause being gunfire.
http://www.thelancet.com/webfiles/images/journals/lancet/s0140673606694919.pdf
Now, the real hypocrisy, Dems are all up-in-arms over 650k dead Iraqis when the blood is on Republican hands. Yet no lament over the 500k-1.5M Iraqis who died due to sanctions imposed by the Clinton administration. (Lancet 1995) When Madeline Albright, the Dem’s version of Condi, was asked about the reported 500k child deaths, she quite coldly quipped, “We [the Clinton administration] think the price is worth it.” (60 Minutes, 5/12/96)
@wupp The dems are useless anyway.
@I'm pretty sure Kulawik’s too busy “fighting the war of ideas” to play America’s Army.
@650,000! Isn’t that the politically-hued ‘estimate’ from the Lancet? I’ve heard their number is off by a factor of 10.
@"you heard" it’s funny how standards for denying mass death vary depending on the politics. if “you heard” that death figures for pretty much any other event in the 20th century that had killed more than half a million people were off by a factor of ten, and “you heard” from some political pundit attacking a peer-reviewed scientific study on the grounds that its results contradicted the numbers given by the government held responsible for the deaths, i imagine you wouldnt just believe it. or, maybe i’m wrong, in which case perhaps you might be interested in what a man named Ernst Zundel has to say…
@4 years of War And yet Kulawik still hasn’t signed up for military service.
@DHI I’ll bet Kulawik hasn’t even played America’s Army.
Aside from the fact that it takes up an enormous amount of memory and often lags, it’s a pretty cool game.
@et tu? I highly doubt the E-Board of the college dems would sign up for service if the US were to engage in some humanitarian war, say Rwanda or Darfur. Honestly, don’t be such a hypocrite.
@Ken Larrson I am a 2 tour Vietnam Veteran who recently retired after 36 years of working in the Defense Industrial Complex on many of the weapons systems being used by our forces as we speak.
Politicians make no difference.
We have bought into the Military Industrial Complex (MIC). If you would like to read how this happens please see:
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2007/03/spyagency200703
Through a combination of public apathy and threats by the MIC we have let the SYSTEM get too large. It is now a SYSTEMIC problem and the SYSTEM is out of control. Government and industry are merging and that is very dangerous.
There is no conspiracy. The SYSTEM has gotten so big that those who make it up and run it day to day in industry and government simply are perpetuating their existance.
The politicians rely on them for details and recommendations because they cannot possibly grasp the nuances of the environment and the BIG SYSTEM.
So, the system has to go bust and then be re-scaled, fixed and re-designed to run efficiently and prudently, just like any other big machine that runs poorly or becomes obsolete or dangerous.
This situation will right itself through trauma. I see a government ENRON on the horizon, with an associated house cleaning.
The next president will come and go along with his appointees and politicos. The event to watch is the collapse of the MIC.
For more details see:
http://www.rosecoveredglasses.blogspot.com
@ugh I really can’t believe that people post these kind of statements & people think they are perfectly fine.