Didn't know they had a name for it...

Overall Shot of San Francisco Protest
Originally uploaded by mattmills

More brilliant reporting from the Chronicle:

The rhetoric Wednesday was not as heated. Direct Action coordinated this year's protest but seemed aware of what has been called the "Code Pink conundrum," in which the activists are so shrill and unpleasant that even those who agree with them are turned off by their tactics.

Update: From the ANSWER Coalition flyer--

BRING ALL THE TROOPS HOME NOW
END COLONIAL OCCUPATION
IRAQ, AFGHANISTAN, PALESTINE, HAITI
MONEY FOR JOBS, HOUSING, HEALTHCARE & SCHOOLS, NOT WAR
STOP U.S. INTERVENTION IN IRAN, VENEZUELA, CUBA, PHILIPPINES...
NOT TO RACISM & ANTI-IMMIGRANT ATTACKS,
DEFEND CIVIL LIBERTIES

I've heard of casting a wide net, but wow...that covers just about everything.

Objective reporting*

Writing on today's town hall meeting in Oakland, the Chronicle toes the Republican party line--"Dems don't have an alternate plan for Iraq":

Neither Penn nor Rep. Barbara Lee, the Oakland Democrat who has opposed the war since before it began four years ago, offered much in the way of specifics for ending the conflict, and they were largely preaching to the choir.

How easily these reporters turn a blind eye on comprehensive legislation provided by Lee, Boxer, and Waters in the Out of Iraq Caucus' Bring Our Troops Home & Sovereignty of Iraq Restoration Act.


*Not applicable to protest coverage

American Jews to AIPAC: Not in our name.

Salon looks at how the 2nd most powerful lobby in Washington's strongest potential opponents are the people it purportedly represents:

The Bush administration's neoconservative Mideast policy is essentially indistinguishable from AIPAC's. And so it is no longer possible to ignore it -- even though it is a notoriously touchy and divisive subject. The touchiest aspect of all is the role played by pro-Israel neoconservatives in laying the groundwork for the Iraq war. Much of the media has been loath to go near this, for obvious and in some ways honorable reasons: It feels a little like "blame the Jews." But that taboo has faded as it has become clearer that "the Jews" are not the ones being blamed for helping pave the way to war, but a group of powerful neoconservatives, some but not all of them Jewish, who subscribe to the hard-right views of Israel's Likud Party. This group no more represents "the Jews" than the Shining Path represents "the Peruvians."
...
As a group, American Jews continue to be staunchly liberal. A new poll shows that 77 percent of American Jews now think that the Iraq war was a mistake, compared with 52 percent of all Americans. (Jewish support for the war has collapsed: A poll taken a month before the war showed that 56 percent of Jews supported it, somewhat below the national average at that time.) Eighty-seven percent of Jews voted Democratic in 2006. And although data here is murkier, polls also show that most American Jews hold views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that are to the left of AIPAC's.
...
The fact that AIPAC has anointed itself as the de facto spokesmen for American Jews is becoming more and more unacceptable. And increasing numbers of them are beginning to speak out.

Jews Against the War is a coalition of Jewish leaders doing just that.

Anti-war strategies from NPR

From All Things Considered--"Anti-War Groups Seek Breakthrough Moment"

Peter Overby's advice to peace activists:

"So if activists want to woo lawmakers, maybe occupying their offices isn’t the best way to do it. Maybe they should work inside the system and, say, offer to hold a fundraiser." --Peter Overby

Please tell me this is tongue in cheek.

Today the Senate rejected a timetable for withdrawal--after weeks of debating whether to have a debate--and the House is moving to pass its own bill (after striking a provision that would have given Congress more veto power in the event of an attack on Iran). I see little opportunity to work within that framework. The political will to goad lawmakers into action must come from outside the cautious Beltway.

For an NPR story that does less to marginalize anti-war activists, see Allison Keyes' "An Anti-War Movement in Search of Crowds." At least she incorporated more voices than just MoveOn.

Our "wasted treasure"

McCain "stumbles out of the gate," perhaps unintentionally delivering one of the most candid and meaningful comments to come out of the "Straight Talk Express."

"Americans are very frustrated, and they have every right to be," McCain said. "We've wasted a lot of our most precious treasure, which is American lives."

Obama, as a Democrat, was raked over the coals for a similar remark:

“[The Iraq war] should have never been authorized, and should have never been waged, and on which we've now spent $400 billion, and have seen over 3,000 lives of the bravest young Americans wasted.''

If McCain were a principled candidate (and he's not), and truly disapproved of Bush's handling of the war (he voted for it, before he...didn't show up to vote against it), he should have stuck by the remark. That goes for Obama, too--especially running on an ostensibly antiwar platform (minus his suggestion to increase defense spending post-withdrawal).

One simply cannot simultaneously advocate withdrawal on the grounds that the invasion was illegal, the "mission" ill-defined, and the occupation a bloody disaster and still defend the notion that such a debacle somehow warranted the loss of thousands of lives. If you believe the war is unjustified, a cause not worthy of death, then the sacrifices made in prolonging it are also tragically unjust.

Those demanding apologies from Obama and McCain lambast their remarks as callous and unsympathetic of the grieving families and friends of soldiers killed. But it's Gold Star family members, in the tradition of Cindy Sheehan, that make the most compelling arguments for calling it like it is--no matter how heart-renching that realization may be--if it will prevent the senseless loss of one more life :

Two painful questions remain for all of us. Are the lives of Americans being killed in Iraq wasted? Are they dying in vain? President Bush says those who criticize staying the course are not honoring the dead. That is twisted logic: honor the fallen by killing another 2,000 troops in a broken policy?

I choose to honor our fallen hero by remembering who he was in life, not how he died. A picture of a smiling Augie in Iraq, sunglasses turned upside down, shows his essence -- a joyous kid who could use any prop to make others feel the same way.

Though it hurts, I believe that his death -- and that of the other Americans who have died in Iraq -- was a waste. They were wasted in a belief that democracy would grow simply by removing a dictator -- a careless misunderstanding of what democracy requires. They were wasted by not sending enough troops to do the job needed in the resulting occupation -- a careless disregard for professional military counsel.

But their deaths will not be in vain if Americans stop hiding behind flag-draped hero masks and stop whispering their opposition to this war. Until then, the lives of other sons, daughters, husbands, wives, fathers and mothers may be wasted as well.

This is very painful to acknowledge, and I have to live with it. So does President Bush.

And so do we. It ends once America owns up to it.

Be cool, stay in school--Army of One.

The Ad Council has teamed up with the United Negro College Fund, United Way, Adopt Us Kids, and the U.S. Army. One of these things is not like the others.

Boostup.org is the offspring of an Ad Council/Army partnership to develop "a public service advertising campaign to motivate kids and demonstrate the importance of staying in school and obtaining a high school diploma."

You're saying the Army suddenly has humanitarian goals? It wants teens to graduate and not enlist? And they have no ulterior motive behind donating 100,000 branded tissue packets to at risk teens in 50 NYC high schools?

Seems suspicious, to say the least, given active recruitment on campuses across the country and the Pentagon's database on potential recruits ages 16-18.

This is totally unrelated, I'm sure:
Army tops recruit goal by lowering standards -
Lower test scores allowed, but high school diploma still required

Also, found this in the Ad Council's "About" section, under U.S. Army:

Today, more than 270,000 soldiers stand guard in defense of freedom in over 120 countries.

This is nothing new or shocking, but for some reason seeing U.S. military presence represented numerically this way--120/193 countries in the world--evokes the vast reach of empire decried by Chalmers Johnson. The Army advertises to sustain that presence (See "Why We Fight").

Side note--don't forget the folks at the Ad Council brought you this gem--

Message--if you smoke marijuana, your girlfriend will leave you for an alien.

As Cooper pointed out--the person that made this HAD to be high. Just like you'd have to be totally out of touch with reality to believe that the U.S. Army would be so altruistic as to spend money on a campaign to ensure teens have options after high school beyond joining their ranks.

Friedman at his finest

O.K., boys, party’s over: we’re leaving by Dec. 1. From now on, everyone pays retail for their politics. We will no longer play host to a war where we’re everyone’s protector and target. If you Sunnis want to go on resisting, we’ll leave you to the tender mercies of the Shiites, who vastly outnumber you. You Shiites, if you want to run Iraq without compromising with Sunnis, fine, but you’ll have to fight them alone and then risk having to live under the thumb of Iran.

You Saudis and other Arabs, if you don’t use your influence to delegitimize Sunni suicide bombers and press Iraq’s Sunnis to cut a deal, we won’t protect you from the consequences. And Iran, you win — yes, if we leave, you win the right to try to manage Iraq’s Shiites. Have a nice day.

Mature foreign policy strategy--play vindictive martyr, blame the victim, collectively address all Arabs as children. He's right about a timetable and withdrawl--as a means for diplomatically leveraging support from regional powers. Unilateralism failed. By no means should withdrawal be used as a punitive measure against an already broken country.

No business as usual.

On the anniversary of the largest anti-war protest in history, UC Santa Barbara joined thousands of students across the country in striking against the war in Iraq.

by frozenquack

From Democracy Now!

College and high school students across the nation walked out class Thursday in a national student strike against the Iraq war. In California, an estimated 1,000 students at UC-Santa Barbara blocked traffic on a freeway. Up to 3,000 students turned out for an anti-war rally at UC - Berkeley. And at least four hundred rallied at Columbia University here in New York. More than a dozen other schools took part around the country.

by Matt Simpson

KSBY Channel 6 News reported on it, with KEYT, and KTVU has video.

Jake definitely had the best, most impassioned reporting on the demonstration--his diary was recommended on DKos yesterday, assuring half a million viewers that the student anti-war movement is alive and kicking.

One very legit complaint many of the SB Antiwar organizers have is how some media coverage of the protest has given far too much weight to the Revolutionary Communist Party affiliate World Can't Wait for organizing what was in reality an entirely student initiated demonstration. Papers blindly followed a misleading WCW press release that claimed credit for being "instrumental" in spreading UCSB's message and "putting out a call for national action." The Chronicle reported (almost verbatim) that "The rallies were in a response to a call by the protest group World Can't Wait to Drive Out the Bush Regime for a national student strike Feb. 15." Organizer (and friend) Darwin BondGraham called them out for trying to appropriate the protests--

You all were very helpful in making yesterday bigger than it would have been and I have to thank you for your brilliant energy, but the RCP seems intent on claiming this student led movement as their own. You people are great organizers, but I don't want the RCP taking credit for my political actions. And I definitely don't want RCP
trying to speak for me. I am not a communist and I have zero interest in Bob Avakian's political program. I am a student, a feminist, an antiracist and a little d democrat, and when I organize an action I want to speak about it and I want to represent it.

It wouldn't be the first time WCW has pulled that move. RCP and WCW are very effective at turn-out, but their ideology leaves them and the folks whose protests they try to horn in on open to marginalization.

The difficult part will always be creating that initial spark--convincing people to participate, explaining why the strike is an effective means of protest (if last May 1st wasn't proof enough). Darwin responded to skeptics:

Ask yourself this; if the entire nation went on strike tomorrow – didn’t go to work or school and didn’t buy anything – how much longer do you think Bush’s war could last? I’d give it 24 hours or less. Striking alone here at UCSB might not mean much, but the world is watching. News of our strike is spreading across other campuses and cities. We will not be acting alone on the 15th. And if the 15th is empowering, perhaps there can be a real movement beyond this, a shift toward a larger national peace movement that joins us in withdrawing consent and shaking the foundations of power. The more of us that act together, the more hope there is that we can end the war.

It began with a handful of people. Then a university. Then 5. Then 27. But before there's that kind of momentum, it's challenging to rise above the apathy and convince cynics and natural allies that it's worth their time. But once it starts snowballing, there's no stopping it. If people felt empowered by yesterday's action (and even the most seasoned activists I've talked to felt it was a truly remarkable day), then maybe they'll be motivated to stay involved.

It goes on one at a time,
it starts when you care
to act, it starts when you do
it again after they said no,
it starts when you say We
and know who you mean,
and each day
you mean one more.

by Tanya

Scientist at UC managed Los Alamos speaks out against new nukes

Joseph Martz, leader of a team designing a new generation of warheads at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, said in a series of interviews last week that he is troubled by how the debate on nuclear weapons policy in Washington is focused narrowly on the number of weapons needed for the future, and how they would be built, rather than on how to eradicate them entirely.

***

Two widely-read opinion pieces published in the Wall Street Journal last month argued for total disarmament.

The essays -- the first by former Secretary of State George Shultz, former Defense Secretary William Perry, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and former Sen. Sam Nunn of Georgia, and the second by the former Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev -- urged aggressive steps toward this long ignored goal.

"Reassertion of the vision of a world free of nuclear weapons and practical measures toward achieving that goal would be, and would be perceived as, a bold initiative consistent with America's moral heritage," the former U.S. officials wrote in their essay.

Some of the most effective champions for disarmament are the scientists themselves.

In 1944, Einstein wrote to physicist Niels Bohr:

“When the war is over, then there will be in all countries a pursuit of secret war preparations with technological means which will lead inevitably to preventative wars and to destruction even more terrible than the present destruction of life.”

"Iran nuke work seems slow, puzzling West"

Iran's uranium enrichment program appears stalled despite tough talk from the Tehran leadership, leaving intelligence services guessing about why it has not made good on plans to press ahead with activities that the West fears could be used to make nuclear arms, diplomats said Thursday.

Of course there's tough talk--Bush's speech last night deliberately excluded diplomatic language, likely provoking Iran to go on the offensive, rather than seek deterence as defense against preemptive strikes from Isreal and the U.S. I'm always reminded of the catch-22 posed by the original premise for invading Iraq--if WMD had really existed in the first place, a U.S. attack would have never happened, for fear of nuclear retaliation.

Fmr. weapons inspector Scott Ritter describes how Israeli leadership have ignored the facts and jumped to conclusions just as the Bush White House did in 2003:

All of this intelligence that’s being done has uncovered a nuclear enrichment program, not a nuclear weapons program. But the Israelis have already concluded, thanks to Amos Gilad and his konseptsia, that a nuclear weapons program exists. Therefore, if you’re not finding evidence of it, it means you’re not looking in the right places. So then you begin to speculate. How many people here remember underground facilities in Iraq, Saddam’s tunnels, everything buried? Well, there weren’t, were there?

More from the AP article:

IAEA inspectors arrived at Natanz on Wednesday for a routine round of monitoring. But one of the diplomats said they were unlikely to find anything but the status quo — two small pilot plants assembled in 164-centrifuge "cascades" but working only sporadically to produce small quantities of non-weapons grade enriched uranium and other individual centrifuges undergoing mechanical testing. That has essentially been the situation at Natanz since late November, he said.

Add that to a 2005 U.S. intelligence report that put Iran 10 years away from the bomb, and the manufactured hype becomes more obvious.

Howard Zinn described how far off Iran is from fully enriched uranium:

The International Atomic Energy group of the UN flatly contradicts a congressional report which talks about the danger of Iran’s nuclear weapons, and the international group, which has conducted many, many inspections in Iran, says, well, you know, you need to -- and they give the American people a kind of half-education. That is, they say, they use the phrase, “They’re enriching uranium.” Well, that scares me. You know, they’re enriching uranium. I don’t really know what it means, you see, but it’s scary. And then you read the report of the International Atomic Energy group, and you see, well, yes, they are. They’ve enriched uranium to the point of 3.5%. In order to have one nuclear weapon, they have to enrich it to 90%. They’re very, very far from even developing one nuclear weapon, but the phrase “enriched uranium” is repeated again and again.

If everyone were aware of how hollow the threat of Iran's uranium enrichment is, there'd be no basis for Bush's increasingly aggressive rhetoric justifying escalation already in motion.

The height of Rumsfeldian condescension

From his departing memo:

Begin modest withdrawals of U.S. and Coalition forces (start "taking our hand off the bicycle seat"), so Iraqis know they have to pull up their socks, step up and take responsibility for their country.

...and if they don't have socks?

Rumsfeld urging responsibility--beyond hypocrisy.

Nir Rosen on Democracy Now!

There's been a shift lately since the Americans realized that Iraq is a failure, of blaming the Iraqi’s. The Iraqi’s need to step up, the Iraqi’s have to choose democracy, the Iraqi’s have to choose freedom. It is very popular for us to blame the Iraqi’s for the chaos that we’ve brought upon them. And, I think this will perhaps be something for the cameras in the US’s intent by Bush to show that he’s going to make Maliki, you know, seize the reigns of his country, or something absurd like that, because Maliki has no power of his own. The Iraqis actually did chose democracy, we just never gave them that democracy that they were demanding.

...

There was no civil war in Iraq until we got there. And there was no civil war in Iraq, until we took certain steps to pit Sunnis against Shias. And now it is just too late. But, we need to know we are responsible for what’s happening in Iraq today. I don't think Americans are aware of this.

--Nir Rosen, freelance writer and fellow at the New America Foundation. His latest article is called "Anatomy of a Civil War: Iraq's Descent into Chaos."

This is why it's so frustrating to hear Washington play the blame game. Democrats at least have expressed that deescalation is now beyond the scope of U.S. military influence, and nothing will be accomplished through protracted occupation. But this in no way absolves the U.S. of responsibilty for the chaos its brought on Iraqi civilians and on the region. The only way to stem the violence and save face would be to acknowledge mistakes and appeal to regional powers for help building stability. I doubt we'll see that anytime soon, given the hubris of our leadership.

Self-hating neocon

Hawkish AEI fellow Joshua Muravchik is getting far too much press. I first picked up his radical militant agenda when Democracy Now! had him on as token wing-nut to debate Kucinich and McGovern last week. He had a temper tantrum during the interview, berating his opponents and Amy Goodman (or as he called her, "Miss Moderator").

Today he resurrected the "smoking gun mushroom cloud" in an LA Times opinion column featuring the screeching lede "WE MUST bomb Iran."

Wouldn't such a U.S. air attack on Iran inflame global anti-Americanism? Wouldn't Iran retaliate in Iraq or by terrorism? Yes, probably. That is the price we would pay. But the alternative is worse.

With Foreign Ministry in Tehran signaling its openness to negotiations, it seems the alternative is not nuclear holocaust, but diplomacy. Not if hard-liners like Muravchik have their way though--they'll dismiss diplomatic overtures because they'd rather exacerbate global instability and security, squandering any semblance of good-will the U.S. has left from the international community all in the name of regime change and regional dominance.

All this under the noble guise of "spreading democracy," the topic of a CSPAN Hudson Institute discussion aired tonight. Democracy is something Muravchik assumes is "good for everyone," though only if you vote for his guy, of course, so the Palestinian vote for "war and terror" (not a vote of no confidence for leadership hobbled by Israel's stranglehold) was illegit. Ariel Cohen of Heritage criticized Muravchik's "one-size-fits-all democratization policies." You know someone's out in right field when a Heritage fellow seems moderate in comparison. However Lee Smith, another panelist from the Hudson Institute also had his moments, remarking condescendingly, "Arabs need to fight it out themselves," and dismissing ramifications of anti-American sentiment in the region.

Muravchik's a pretty artless revisionist, using the end of Pinochet's regime in Chile as an example of democratic victory (of course he was "our bastard") and touting the U.S. as the infallible beacon of democracy. He says "power is gained or held by the use or threat of force" in the Middle East. And how does this differ from U.S. foreign policy under neoconservative rule?

I wondered how he got to be such an ideologue. Turns out he's a radical turn-coat like David Horowitz (swung from New Left to NewsMax)--he's the former leader of the Young People's Socialist League. I think it's telling that he characterizes socialism as the "faith" he was raised by. Fundamentalists are fundamentalists. The difference is that these two demagogues are legitimated by mainstream attention.

GOP just got a lot sexier...sorta

Marin county couple behind the Global Orgasm for Peace seek to reclaim the republican acronym, along with Dec 22nd for a day of uh, "direct action."

Concerned about escalations against Iran, Donna Sheehan (no relation to Cindy) and her partner Paul Reffel devised their strategy in hopes that a combined effort would have the power to disarm tensions and direct the movement of U.S. battleships in the Persian Gulf (?!). They say it's all in the motion of the ocean.

Carol Queen, the staff sexologist at San Francisco's Good Vibrations store says "it's natural to link pleasure and peace. If you're experiencing pleasure, you're not engaging in aggressive, destructive behavior. "

Do these folks remind anyone else of the "love-ahs" from SNL?



See also: Masturbate for Peace, F*** for Forest

The Shape of Water on DVD

Prof. Kum-Kum Bhavnani's powerful film follows women initiated peace and social justice movements in Brazil, Senegal, Jerusalem, and India.


Watch the trailer.

Listen to her talk about her first film.

She's an inspiration--without a doubt the professor that had the single greatest impact on me as a student at UCSB.

"We cannot save the Iraqis from themselves."

This from Carl Levin, newly anointed Senate Armed Services Committee Chair, the congressman in control of legislative oversight of the military. Levin, like other Dems, wants to demonstrate that conditions in Iraq are beyond the scope of an armed solution, and the sooner the military draws down, the better.

I agree. But he could've said it differently--maybe something along the lines of "we cannot mend the chaos caused by negligent Bush administration policy." But instead his statement comes off as patronizing, imperialist, and irresponsible. We are to believe that Iraqi civilians--a sovereign people stripped of their rights by dictators and democracies alike--are little more than petty children, the U.S. playing the "father knows best" figure, though he'd abandoned his own flesh and blood when he was needed most, and now he'd really do well to let his kids be.

Alright, that's a pretty bad extended metaphor.

The point is that I'm pretty fed-up with the bipartisan buck-passing on Iraq. So few in Congress can claim total innocence on Iraq that I guess it's understandable why it'd be a touchy subject.

Don't get me wrong, I trust we'll see a true foreign policy shift with the Dems' move towards a timetable for phased redeployment. The final nail's been driven into the coffin for "stay the course," which roughly translated to a pig-headed, faith-based refusal to admit they could've misjudged.

Unfortunately an inability to accept responsibility for failed policy seems to be more than just an isolated republican pathology, and leaves Dem leadership vulnerable to charges of "republican lite." Rather than placing blame where blame is due--squarely with a deceptive White House and PNACers--and owning up to wrongly backing their invasion, they externalize the problem. It's far more convenient for politicians to blame the victim, hanging their own puppets for failing to bring stability to a country hobbled by bloody occupation. Reminds me of the way Israel blames the Palestinian Authority for failing to truly represent the Palestinian people though it does everything in its power to deter sovereign governance.

The only way Democrats will prove they're different to a public hungry for new leadership (though skeptical of its competence) is if they disengage from the blame-game rhetoric. Even hawkish Republicans like White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten start to sound empathetic when even they suggest easing off Iraqi leadership by refusing timetables, pretending like it's always been a humanitarian mission. It's an ugly game of good-cop-bad-cop, and Dems scrambling to sound "tough on terrorism" stand to lose by sounding callous and delinquent.

Dems have some measure of moral high ground on this one, and it would do them well to talk about Iraq as our mess, not just Iraqis'. This would convince the international community that our new leadership is unlike the old--it's willing to seek diplomatic solutions, compromise, and will reassure apprehensive Iraqi civilians and government officials that the U.S. won't unilaterally disengage. A timetable will also bring regional players into the fold--it's in neighboring countries' best interests to secure a stabilized Iraq.

And all this talk of victory? Democrats need to bring that into question, too. If victory is not achievable (and it isn't) and foreign presence is only instigating more violence (after all, a fundamentalist's wet dream is extended occupation--a justification for battle), then swift redeployment is the optimal answer.

The pendulum's shifted. The dialogue and policy need to catch up to prove that we've truly witnessed what's been touted as a revolution channeled through the electoral process.

Walking the earth

At home for a week between continents, recovering from a wee parasite (I'll spare the details), and reflecting on 2 weeks of intense trekking through Morocco and Andalucia.

The sights and sounds and smells were absolutely mind-blowing on their own, but the people I spent time with have stuck with me even more--hugely insightful, impassioned, and beyond generous locals and travellers from around the world. Together they comprised a tiny sample of the brightest and most open-minded people out there, people I feel so privileged to have met and bonded with so quickly in our short time together. There were so many times when I felt surrounded by such warmth and mutual understanding...when I would be talking to someone, and we'd be trying to express something complex and so much greater than ourselves in a foreign tongue, and despite every artificial barrier that's been built between us, we got one another. No problem. It was so simple we'd be in tears--if only it were always so easy.

This quote articulated that emotion, that feeling that our interactions, and just being there, especially now--watching Beirut on TV in the old medina in Fes--that was impactful in a much larger way:

"If I were 21, I would walk the Earth. I would go barefoot longer; I'd learn how to throw a frisbee, I'd go braless if I were a woman and I would wear no underwear if I were a man. I'd play cards and wear the same pair of jeans until they were so stiff they could get up and strut around the room by themselves...So don't take the short road. Fool around. Have fun...You're not going to get this time back. Don't panic and go to graduate school and law school. This nation has enough frightened, dissatisfied yuppies living in gated communities, driving SUV's and wondering where their youth went. We need you to walk the earth, so that other nations can see the beauty of American youth, rather than seeing our young in combat fatigues behind the barrel of an M-16." --James McBride, Pratt University commencement address class of 2005

Thanks to Allie for this--and for the Morocco suggestions. She's my travel mentor :)

Faiza Al-Araji brings the realities of Iraq to Isla Vista

I had the chance to interview Iraqi blogger and civil engineer Faiza Al-Araji after facilitating a workshop on corporate media at the rained out IV Peace Fest today. Al-Araji was on Democracy Now! last week with part of a delegation of Iraqi women on a speaking tour through CodePink and Global Exchange. Two of the women scheduled to speak were denied travel visas--their families had been killed, and they were told they couldn't prove they had any incentive to return home after their tour. How's that for twisted logic.

More on Al-Araji's argument that sectarian differences have been exploited as a "divide and conquer" strategy soon. Iraqi authors and bloggers have been among what seems like only a handful of critical voices challenging the "imminent civil war" assumption. It's worth investigating--the whole justification for "staying the course" falls apart if it's true the Iraqi peoples' national identity is stronger than any sectarian affiliation and that disorder is perpetuated mostly by occupying forces.

Make levees, not war...

Pictures from my weekend in DC...courtesy of Tizzie P.

Pink line, Metro

Audio of an interview with Medea Benjamin and more photos on SBIndyMedia

A sea of people...only knew about it cause I saw it with my own eyes, sincenaturally big media was MIA. You'd think I would've learned, or at least quit complaining by now.

In a headline that summed up the absurdity of this type of coverage, the Washington Post reported (9/25/05): "Smaller but Spirited Crowd Protests Antiwar March; More Than 200 Say They Represent Majority." Perhaps this "crowd" felt that way because they've grown accustomed to a media system that so frequently echoes their views, while keeping antiwar voices--representing the actual majority opinion--off the radar.

And as much as I hate to admit it, what really gets me is when the campus paper dismisses us by cherry-picking stories from the wires and printing them under headlines like "U.S. Soldiers Receive Praise in Pro-War Demonstration." Sent them an angry letter, but no dice. Guess I'll stick to broadcast journalism.