It's The System Stupid
I've stepped on a few toes with my opinions on Cindy Sheehan. Part of my sentiment with the Camp Casey situation is based on gut instinct, and instinct has served me well more than once. Partly what bothers me is the Left hyping the PR, as surely as the Right does so often so skillfully. No surprise and more rational than the Right, but it doesn't make the hype any more palatable or worthy.
I don't doubt Sheehan's grief, anger, or her search for justification of her loss. But the Left has jumped (if not instigated) on a PR event, a person, and added lots of slogans to further an agenda, as we head toward mid term elections. The event serves to reiterate the Shrub's numerous, lengthy, vacations to many working folks who have never had 5 weeks off, unless it was spent looking for work and living in fear of ruin before finding the next low wage job.
The Camp Casey event serves to point out the lack of war support BushCo has (which also brings out the pro-war shills to show the war support he does have). The situation gives the blogosphere a bigger hamster wheel to run on while government conducts business as usual (looting us). And for all the hoopla the truth is the troops are not coming home anytime soon. The Left will politely dump Sheehan once the sound bytes are pointing to the next event under the bigtop.
It's also bothersome how little her handlers know about Black history, otherwise they would not have opted to tag Cindy Sheehan the Rosa Parks of the 21st century. (Possibly just the lack of knowledge in Moveon, PDA, Fenton PR firm, whatever groups involved.) The comparison is catchy but not accurate, and borders on disrespect.
Rosa lived a childhood of hearing the Ku Klux Klan ride at night, listening to lynchings, and being afraid the house would burn down around them. She was arrested, tried, and convicted for violating segregation law, which sparked the 381 day bus boycott. She had had prior run-ins with bus drivers and was evicted from buses. She was active in the NAACP and the Mother of the Civil Rights Movement. The resulting boycott's length shocked everyone, well everyone white. Black supporters had been busy city wide arranging long-term taxi services, church buses, car pooling, etc. so the boycott could continue as long as it would take. Rosa was an experienced activist with strong beliefs and backing. When she refused to surrender her seat she knew clearly what the goal was with that refusal. She stood against centuries of humiliation, violence, and injustice.
Some in the Black community would feel more comfortable if the pundits on the left had chosen an icon more appropriately similar in cause to Sheehan's showdown at Crawford. I can think of a couple of other female peace activist heroes. There's Jane Fonda but we know the Dems don't really want to go there. However, Jeanette Rankin, was a peace activist, suffragette, and first woman elected to the U.S. Congress. Four days after taking office, she voted against U.S. entry into World War I. She said "I want to stand by my country, but I cannot vote for war." In January of 1968 a women's group named after her, the Jeanette Rankin Brigade, protested in Washington to pressure Congress to end the Vietnam War. But, how many sloganeers have heard of Rankin?
Cindy represents a segment of America, a segment which includes many who believe Democrats will do it differently and better, when the obvious truth is they will not. Kerry would not be bringing troops home had he been installed. Would there have been a camp at the Kerry-Heinz residence? Where were the congressional Democrats during pre-invasion anti-war protests? The Democrats have went along with BushCo; they are as guilty as BushCo, they are as big as crooks and liars as BushCo.
A large anti-war movement could be a spark to others, but unless the Democratic politicians collectively have peace epiphanies and get onboard there will be no movement. I want the troops home too, NOW; two of my sons in a few months will again be in Iraq. But too few Americans have a personal investment (or believe they don't) in the war to rally. And others such as myself see the dead-end sign ahead.
Much more than an anti-war movement, we need a movement against the system that feeds on war and death. The mess the US is in is one we've been in many times before. It's not about a personality, a memo, a leak, a liar, or a political party. It's this global pseudo-capitalism, corporate fascism, funded by the labor of the poor and the blood of millions around the world that must end. Genuine hope and change are what people want. A movement that says none of us has to surrender our seat to those who own the bus, which they purchased with our blood, our lives, our labor. None of us has to support a system that can only thrive on worldwide humiliation, violence, and injustice. But it's gonna take a fight. Sound bytes for the political hero or headliner of the week, or month, won't do it. If Americans will do it, the world will follow.
15 comments:
"Much more than an anti-war movement, we need a movement against the system that feeds on war and death."
Well, yes, but you could have said that during Nam and still been fighting that war today.
Your "for all the hoopla the truth is the troops are not coming home anytime soon." argument can all to easily be retuned to 'for all the rhetoric, plutocratic capitalism will not be toppled shortly either'
so who is winning the "unrealistic endevours cup" here?
Bush is vulnerable over Iraq. He is not vulnerable for being a militarist capitalist because most Americans still buy the bigger lie big time. Your attitutude reminds of the man who says there is no reason to chase a fox out of the hen house because what is really needed is
a new fox-proof hen house. Sheehan is articulate and speaks the truths the Democrat political lawn ornaments never will eg. "And the other thing I want him to tell me is 'just what was the noble cause Casey died for?' Was it freedom and democracy? Bullshit! He died for oil. He died to make your friends richer. He died to expand American imperialism in the Middle East. We're not freer here, thanks to your PATRIOT Act. Iraq is not free. You get America out of Iraq and Israel out of Palestine and you'll stop the terrorism. There, I used the 'I' word - imperialism. And now I'm going to use another 'I' word - impeachment - because we cannot have these people pardoned. They need to be tried on war crimes and go to jail." If a PR circus is needed
to propell such heresies into the mainstream then Roll Up and Roll On.
The problem for me is this is the 3rd anti-war movement I've lived through and the previous ones never led to any real change, other than a new anti-war movement every other decade.
Wars end when the elite want them to end. That's part of the imperialist system.
Sure this bunch should be impeached and jailed. But we impeached Nixon, and that didn't help the country much as we soon had 12 years of Reagan/Bush, Clinton Lite, and now more Bush.
The ruling elite always give us PR circuses, but it never really rolls up or rolls on anything other than the SOS.
Sorry for the OT but this seems kind of important.
It slipped under the radar for US power grabs.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/0...5210/ 545823.stm
Why the US wants to end link between time and sun
Friday, July 29, 2005
By Keith J. Winstein, The Wall Street Journal
What time is it when the clock strikes half past 62?
Time to change the way we measure time, according to a U.S. government proposal that businesses favor, astronomers abominate and Britain sees as a threat to its venerable standard, Greenwich Mean Time.
Word of the U.S. proposal, made secretly to a United Nations body, began leaking to scientists earlier this month. The plan would simplify the world's timekeeping by making each day last exactly 24 hours. Right now, that's not always the case.
Because the moon's gravity has been slowing down the Earth, it takes slightly longer than 24 hours for the world to rotate completely on its axis. The difference is tiny, but every few years a group that helps regulate global timekeeping, the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service, tells governments, telecom companies, satellite operators and others to add in an extra second to all clocks to keep them in sync. The adjustment is made on New Year's Eve or the last day of June.
But adding these ad hoc "leap seconds" -- the last one was tacked on in 1998 -- can be a big hassle for computers operating with software programs that never allowed for a 61-second minute, leading to glitches when the extra second passes. "It's a huge deal," said John Yuzdepski, an executive at Symmetricom Inc., of San Jose, Calif., which makes ultraprecise clocks for telecommunications, space and military use.
On Jan. 1, 1996, the addition of a leap second made computers at Associated Press Radio crash and start broadcasting the wrong taped programs. In 1997, the Russian global positioning system, known as Glonass, was broken for 20 hours after a transmission to the country's satellites to add a leap second went awry. And in 2003, a leap-second bug made GPS receivers from Motorola Inc. briefly show customers the time as half past 62 o'clock.
"A lot of people encounter problems with their software going over a leap second," said Dennis D. McCarthy, who drafted the U.S. leap-second proposal while serving as the Navy's "Director of Time." Because of these problems, the U.S. government last year quietly proposed abolishing leap seconds to the International Telecommunications Union, the U.N. body that tells the Earth Rotation Service how to keep time.
"Safety of life is an issue," said William Klepczynski, a senior analyst at the State Department in favor of the U.S. proposal, who asserts that programmers who ignore the need to add leap seconds present a "risk to air travel in the future" because a glitch might shut down traffic-control systems.
Eliminating leap seconds will make sextants and sundials slowly become inaccurate, but supporters say that's OK now that the satellite-supported GPS can give exact longitude and
Anon...
Maybe you could expound on why this is important as unfortunately it swooshed right over my head.
It would seem to rely on US GPS at a time when Europe wants to create the EU GPS standard which is more effecient.
http://www.mngislis.org/newsletter/issue36/EU,%20U.S.%20Say%20Most%20Objections%20to%20GPS%20Rival%20Resolved.htm
"EU, U.S. Say Most Objections to GPS Rival Resolved
from the Associated Press wire reports
BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) - The European Union and United States said Wednesday they had resolved most of Washington's objections to Europe's plan to build a rival version of the U.S. global satellite navigation system.
In a joint statement following two days of talks in Brussels, the delegations said they reached agreement on "most of the overall principles" of cooperation between the U.S. Global Positioning System and the EU's planned competitor, dubbed Galileo. "The few remaining outstanding issues ... concern primarily some legal and procedural aspects," the statement said, adding that work would continue "diligently" to resolve them.
The EU hopes to have the 3.6 billion euro ($4.5 billion) satellite system operational in 2008. But it has come close to crashing several times because of costs and clashes with the United States, which feared it could interfere with GPS signals.
Wednesday's statement said areas where agreement was reached include confirmation of interoperability and commitment to preserve national security capabilities.
Several EU countries originally balked at Galileo's cost and questioned the economic viability of setting up a commercial competitor to the freely available GPS, the de facto global standard now widely used for navigation by everyone from hikers to ship captains and increasingly used in aviation.
But the project survived several near-brushes with death, boosted by claims that it would create 100,000 new jobs and - unintentionally - by U.S. lobbying against it.
After the White House and the Pentagon, which controls the 24-satellite GPS system, called Galileo unnecessary, European leaders warned that Europe risked "vassal" status to U.S. technology in space."
Interesting timing on this. It comes just after Bolton gets appointed. It looks as if this is a way to circumvent the EU system and create a US dominated GPS.
That has implications for everything that uses GPS including automobiles and cell phones. At present anyone can be tracked by the GPS in a cell phone and on many new automobiles.
Who controls the maps and time controls the world. So long Grenwich Mean Time hello US time of choice.
Interesting. I'll have to delve into the subject as this is the first I've heard of it.
Thanks.
Not sure how abolishing leap-seconds comes into this (why not change pi back to 3.0 while we are at it?) but with regard to anti-war vs anti-wars, Nixon was impeached but pardoned. Bush and Blair belong at least in the dock even if they don't ultimately do time having conned congress and parliament into ratifying their warcrimes.
The Iraq war is an example even prolefed American Dream mainliners can follow of the whole system stinking, but if you denounce the whole system from the get go you'll alienate the timourous masses and give all manner of brickbats to the right to beat you with.
Without a better educational system the prolefed serfs will always rely on political PR to define their agenda. Although the internet may eventually spread "radical" options to the masses, likely not in my lifetime.
The Texas "post turtle" will hopefully get what he deserves, but at the moment I wouldn't bet on it.
Lol. I'm sure most of the democrats/left would use the same bricks to beat anyone who seriously suggested tampering with the system.
From the GPS articles sundials and sextants will LOSE TIME! This is one more power grab by Bushco. The problem is it is so subtle that people will not know they are effected until much later on. Like the recruiting provision in No Child Left Behind.
Kate A. Please do not confuse modern Democrats with the left. There are some real liberals left out there who do NOT feel the need to hide behind the newspeak name "progressive".
Oddly enough today the REAL liberals and Real conservatives have more in common than they think.
Can anyone list the Democratic politicians who have actually visited Sheehan? Not the ones who did lipservice via letter writing but were physically present where she is now.
Even Kucinich has not made that leap yet.
What is sad is Galloway would have been out front with a big old sign if this were England.
anonymous
Agree. I thought Kucinich would make a better showing than he has for Sheehan. He obviously knows which side his government bread is buttered on, or is awaiting orders from the puppeteers who control both parties.
I know a few leftists, and they would never call themselves Democrats. :)
Kate,
Your point about Rosa Parks is well taken. It never resonated with me. What we have in Cindy Sheehan is a genius politician who has made George Bush look like a wilted violet. The only comparable I am aware of is the Joan D'Arc: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_of_Arc
I think it is of interest to those who follow history that the Reich Wing attack on Cindy Sheehan is following the exact pattern of the duplicitous and malevlolent attack perpetrated againd Joan D'Arc by the Establishment of the 15th Century.
Make no mistake. Cindy will not be allowed to be a heroine by Karl Rove. Rove will do everything in his evil, Machavellian power to destroy her as an enemy of the privilege that is the sole right of those who have stolen our country from us.
Watch the fascists in this contest. They will stop at nothing to destroy the will of the People, and truth will not be well served in the coming contest.
Fortunately, we live in interesting times, and Cindy probably won't be burned at the stake, as Karl, George and Oil Slick Dick would prefer.
Ray,
I too thought of Joan but Joan was a little nutty, which I don't think Sheehan is. The grief she lives every day is horrendous.
As for the will of the People, sometimes I think that was broken long ago but hope not. This is the most loathsome bunch of pols in power that I've seen in my lifetime. Their tactics are evil. For Sheehan to confront them is indeed courageous. It also shows the cowardice of the Democrats in congress. They should be in Crawford.
I don't think the Democrats should be in Crawford. They should be saying what Sheehan is saying in Crawford in Washington. The problem with totemising Cindy as the "face" of the antiwar movement is that if the Beast can buy or bully or discredit or charm or drug or radiolabotomise or lonegunman her off her platform, the whole "accountability moment" momentum could implode
Ian
I think the democrats should be everywhere and in their face. But who am I to think. ;)
FF
There definitely needs to be a housecleaning. Unfortunately, it cannot take place w/o a fight. The elite, however incompetent, have subsidized a sufficient amount of the US masses, with just enough existence that the couch potatos will pop another Zoloft, channel surf, and remain passive. The elite have only the power the people give them, which seems always to be too much and/or total. Like earthworms, most sheeple prefer to take the path of least resistance.
I definitely think the decline of the US has been intentional and in the making for decades. Next up is China and/or India. It's more or less the same parasites finding new hosts.
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