The same way in any country

We got around to the subject of war again and I said that, contrary to his attitude, I did not think that the common people are very thankful for leaders who bring them war and destruction.

“Why, of course, the people don’t want war,” Goering shrugged. “Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don’t want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship.”

“There is one difference,” I pointed out. “In a democracy the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars.”

“Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.”

— from Nuremberg Diary by Gustave Gilbert, found in this essay, via Doc Searls

Where do we go from here?

Something to think about, courtesy of Daily Kos:

When the Democrats take the White House in 2004, they will face a daunting task — a government in DEEP red, starved of tax revenues by the irresponsible borrow and spend Republicans. They will face a hostile word, uniting in opposition to US interests, regardless of their legitimacy. They will need to deal with joblessness, a double-dip recession, and corporate scandals.

But most daunting of all, they will need a solution to the Iraq mess.

For purposes of this thought experiment lets assume the most probably outcome — a relatively quick takeover of Baghdad and Basra, 2-6 weeks from now. A restive population, suicide attacks against our forces, a massive army of occupation, unrest in the Arab street, and skyrocketing costs to hold and rebuild Iraq.

So pretend you are a presidential candidate. It is November of this year. Iowa is a few short months away and Iraq is the issue dominating the news. You are asked: “What’s your plan for Iraq”?

How do you answer?

I’m sure I’m woefully unqualified to give this a truly decent stab, but hey. That never stopped me before, right?

  • Apologize to the U.N., and to the world at large. More precisely, don’t be afraid to do a little ass-kissing. We used to have many allies all over the world. We could again, if a new administration could admit that the previous administration made mistakes, and was willing to work with the U.N. and other nations, rather than playing the role of the schoolyard bully and running roughshod over them.
  • Launch/allow a non-partisian (possibly U.N.-led) investigation into the buildup to the Iraqi invasion. There is a lot of evidence that our invasion of Iraq has been discussed and planned in certain circles for at least the past decade, and that September 11th is being used as (poor) justification through blatantly propagandistic (er…is that a word?) means. If we truly believe that Bush is not just egotistical, self-centered, and stupid in his approach, and is actually breaking both U.S. and international law, then we should have the guts to look into that, and face the possibility of consequences if it is found that the U.S. acted unjustly in invading Iraq.
  • Work as quickly as possible to decrease U.S. military presence in Iraq. This alone needs several smaller steps, of course.
    • Establish a new Iraqi government. This new governing body would most likely need to involve as few current Iraqi political leaders as possible, as they’re all probably exteremely closely tied to Hussein’s politics and tactics. Possibly create a governing body supplied at least in part by U.N. approved personnel to assist the Iraqi goverment in rebuilding and reinventing itself.
    • Establish a U.N. peacekeeping force. Rather than relying solely on our own soldiers, use a multinational force through the U.N. to keep the peace. The goal should not be to try to enforce U.S. policies, but to keep retalitory violence (both among what various Iraqi political and religious factions might exist, and between Iraqi militants and U.S. military personnel) to a minimum.
  • Let other nations assist in the rebuilding of the Iraqi infrastructure. Contracts to rebuild and recreate the Iraqi physical and business landscape are already being dolled out to U.S. companies. While in one sense this is a mess very much of our own making, and we should play a large part in cleaning up after ourselves, it’s no secret that from a business perspective, there could be much to be gained in having a hand in the post-war reconstruction of Iraq. If other nations — and companies based in other nations — are willing to take on a share of the burden, then let them have a share of the profits, also.
  • In short, convince the world that the U.S. isn’t in this purely for its own interests. Not an easy thing to do, but not impossible, either.

Naïvely idealistic, I’m sure, and not likely to ever happen. But I can hope. Of course, as I said at the beginning, I’m incredibly unqualified to do justice to a question like this — feel free to pick apart what I’ve posted, and toss other ideas about.

More music

Two more anti-war music links:

  • Zach de la Rocha and DJ Spooky: March of Death
  • Meshell Ndegeocello: Forgiveness and Love (Turn down the volume on your speakers first — the ‘music off’ button to kill the site’s background music is a tiny little button in the top right. Click on ‘downloads’ on the grey menu bar towards the top of the window, then you’ll find the download link in an orange box towards the bottom. I try to support artists by driving traffic to their sites, but Flash-based websites make it really tempting just to go ahead and post the direct download link [ahem] even though that’s considered ‘bad form.’ Anyway…)

(Via the NION Music Project)

On your knees, part II

From ABC News:

They may be the ones facing danger on the battlefield, but US soldiers in Iraq are being asked to pray for President George W Bush.

Thousands of marines have been given a pamphlet called “A Christian’s Duty,” a mini prayer book which includes a tear-out section to be mailed to the White House pledging the soldier who sends it in has been praying for Bush.

Good thing we only let good Christian boys into our Army…

…oh, forget it. You get the point.

(Via Tom Tomorrow)

On your knees!

Gee, it’s a good thing that I live in a country that’s filled to the brim with nothing but one hundred percent, across the board, no exceptions, God-fearing Christians. Because if I actually had the misfortune to live in some backwards heathen country that had the gall to admit all those poor souls doomed to everlasting hellfire and damnnation — because of their refusal to let the word of the One True God our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ into their lives — within the borders of the country, why, one or two of them might get a little upset that our Congress has created a government-mandated day of humility, prayer and fasting.

Then they’d just start whining on and on about that silly “separation of Church and State” business that some Godless heathens snuck into the Constitution. Thank goodness our God-given President, President George W. Bush (bless his soul) has seen fit to do away with all that sillyness! It never should have been there in the first place, if you ask me!

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go find my sackcloth-and-horsehair robe and my flagellation rods to get ready. See you all at church!

(via Kirsten)

I 'Hart' blogging?

Another political contender is dipping is toes into the blogging world — this time it’s Gary Hart.

I don’t know as much about him (aside from numerous mid-80’s Bloom Country references), but it’s great to see another politician exploring blogging as a method of communication. And as a bonus, his site is using MovableType, complete with comment and trackback capability. Quite cool. Now let’s see what he has to say.

More protest music links

busn-n-bones

A couple more protest song links, courtesy of Doc Searls:

First off, R.E.M. has released a rough take of a song called “Final Straw“. It’s only available as streaming audio, rather than being downloadable, but at least it’s out there.

Secondly, Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth has created Protest Records, a site focusing on collecting protest .mp3’s that have been released free for download. Nineteen have been posted so far, and it looks like there’s space for quite a few more. There are also a collection of stencil files provided with simple instructions: “Download. Print. Cut. Spray.” So if you start seeing things like the ‘Bush-N-Bones’ around your town, you know where they came from.