March 2003

Sat Mar 01 10:38:49 PST 2003

Just noticed this morning that one of the dollar bills in my wallet was stamped:

Please Report Sightings Of This Bill To: www.wheresgeorge.com

And indeed that site is just that: a way to track how various pieces of currency circulate. It's one of those "why didn't I think of that?" ideas -- I remember wondering where my money had been and where it would end up after I had spent it as a child.

My bill's history wasn't that exciting. It had been stamped in Longview, WA last December and my report of its whereabouts was the first.

Sun Mar 09 14:49:58 PST 2003

My parents are solidly part of Middle America. That enables me to get insights into the Middle American political mindset, something that I've personally never been able to comprehend myself.

Anyhow, today my dad expressed that he was almost certain that (a) Bush II would last through the end of his term, (b) he was grossly mismanaging both economic and foreign affairs, and (c) his gross mismanagement of the economy would almost certainly result in his losing the next election by a landslide.

While I don't exactly like insight (a) (why can't we have some very damning revelations of scandals in the press forcing a resignation ala Nixon, or massive protests forcing one ala Marcos?), insight (c) is somewhat comforting. I'll note that these sentiments of my parents have generally functioned as accurate predictors of political trends in the past.

Wed Mar 12 12:30:17 PST 2003

Oh. My. Gawd. If there's any doubt that the right-wing warmongers are squarely in loony-land, take a look at this.

It's just a silly name-change, mind you. It's the attitude behind it that's scary. It's the same attitude that lead to several anti-communist witch hunts that did far more damage to American freedom than communism ever did. As well as the attitude that locked up tens of thousands of Americans of in concentration camps for no other crime than having the wrong ancestors.

"I don't think we have to retaliate against France," [House Majority Leader Tom Delay, R-Texas] said. "They have isolated themselves. They have resigned from any responsibility for the war on terror."
Uh-huh. Right. Remind me again which nation has defied the majority of both the General Assembly and the Security Council in insisting on war with Iraq, and which nation has unilaterally withdrawn from the International Criminal Court, the Kyoto Protocol, and the ABM Treaty. Clue: it ain't France.

Mon Mar 17 23:30:54 PST 2003

As the U.S. edges closer to war with Iraq, some are wondering whether the conflict could have been avoided. As the CBC Reality Check team found, the current course of events has been carefully planned by a powerful group of men, beginning even before George Bush assumed the U.S. presidency.
Full story here.

And before you glibly dismiss this as yet another poorly-strung-together conspiracy theory that no decent news agency would run, I'll point out that the CBC is the major broadcast network in Canada, on par with the BBC in the UK.

Mon Mar 17 23:34:22 PST 2003

Well, it seems inevitable. War will happen. There's so much running through my head that it's hard to organize it all into a coherent summary.

Firstly, the current US leadership is one of the most arrogant and clueless the world has seen. This probably means it will suffer the fate of other arrogant and clueless regimes: it will go down, hard. Such is typically the fate of leaders whose ego and pride prevents them from seeing the vulnerabilities in their plans.

I was recently at a meeting planning direct actions to shut the city down when war breaks out. Looking at indymedia, Portland's not the only place where such plans are being made. If such things can be successfully organized and get enough support, that's one way Bush II could end up really being over a barrel. He'd need to declare a state of emergency and call out the military to stay in power ... but huge segments of the military would already be deployed and tied up abroad (in Afghanistan as well as Iraq).

But I italicized that if deliberately. Two things really struck me coming out of that meeting:

  1. The general lack of love and compassion in all segments of American society.
  2. The general trend for people to be so focused on their pet way of doing things that they refuse to entertain serious thoughts about whether or not their pet strategies might have serious drawbacks in certain situations, and whether other strategies might be appropriate.

As a most extreme example we have the "Black Bloc" factions. The only way I can see them is as angry, spoiled, white, middle- to upper-class brats. It's just another clique of annoying teenagers out to be annoying and rebellious. Nothing new about that. Of course they're in total denial about that, and don't expect them to ever do serious worrying about why there's nobody with black or brown skin in their affinity group or if their actions might be doing more harm than good for the causes they claim to be advocating.

Then there's this. The spoilt white brats thing applies here, too -- Rosebraugh is from the animal liberation movement, which like all facets of the environmental movement is just about the whitest movement since the KKK. But more than that, he's so convinced that non-violent direct action doesn't work that he can't see how it does. No, I don't buy his argument about the end of Vietnam -- really, now, was it all the successes of the VC and was none of it due to opposition at home? Is it impossible for that opposition at home to transfer to a lack of enthusiasm in the US troops (thus leading to VC successes on the battlefield)? So it didn't "work" (i.e. end the war) immediately -- success is often not instantly achieved. Things take time. Heck, the Soviet Revolution (plenty of armed conflict there) had seventy years to create a communist utopia of freedom and abundance, yet failed miserably at its goal.

And I've locked horns -- repeatedly -- with pacifists who insist that violence is never an option. Never got a good answer from any of them as to what they'd do if some nut with a gun was shooting people in their neighborhood. (Calling the cops isn't an answer -- police carry guns and are authorized to use them. Violence by proxy is still violence.) And sorry, I'll always consider folks like the Jews who carried out the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising or the FALINTIL guerrillas in East Timor to be heroes. Or while on the subject of Timor, the Australian soldiers who went into Timor to stop the terrorist "militia" groups from waging their campaign of bloodshed. Expecting the victims of a genocide to not fight back is the real outrage!

Then of course we have those who decry any law-breaking at protests at all as unwarranted, and want to see all change pursued through legal channels. Tell me then, just what are people supposed to do when oligarchy has corrupted and corroded a society so badly that there's no real representation of opposition views on the media or in government?

There are no magic strategies that apply in all situations. It's just not the way the world works. Sorry.

It's getting late. I'll cover the item about the lack of compassion and love some time later.

Tue Mar 18 17:01:34 PST 2003

Something worth reading from a Republican.

Tue Mar 18 17:03:43 PST 2003

One thing that seemed evident at the meeting was that everyone seems to be scrapping for a confrontation of some sort. There's a real palpable "us versus them" sense in the air, and an eagerness to confront them (in this case, the Establishment).

I think that's merely the other side of the same coin that's making the Establishment so eager to start a war with Iraq. There's little or no respect for the concepts of love and compassion in contemporary America, and that lack of respect has, sadly, permeated all of society, even its opposition elements.

Myself, it is with a heavy heart that I realize it has come to this. I've tried to search for some honest alternate course of action. I can't. I'm squarely at the same point Mario Savio was when he wrote:

There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart that you can't take part; you can't even passively take part, and you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus and you've got to make it stop. And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you're free, the machines will be prevented from working at all.

The President claims that the UN is irrelevant, and desires to go to war without a proper declaration of same as per Article I Section 8 of the US Constitution.

Two can play at this game. I proclaim the laws of the US government are irrelevant when it comes to valid tactics for stopping this war. I see no reason why I should be troubled to obey the laws of a government unwilling to obey its own constitution.

And no, this doesn't mean "anything goes": there's still moral choices and practical consequences to weigh, and I believe that violent means are both morally unjustifiable and politically impractical. But don't expect me to get all worked up and concerned about participating in a protest that is "illegal" because it is "blocking traffic" or "failing to disperse".

Wed Mar 19 17:41:14 PST 2003

Why does this not inspire confidence? Especially the following excerpt (boldface emphasis by yours truly):
It is difficult to find substantive proof for Bush's words of praise for Karzai's activity or for the American efforts to assist him. The draft foreign aid budget submitted by the administration to Congress contains not so much as one dollar for Afghanistan. In an unusual move, it was Congress itself that initiated aid of $300 million for Kabul. When an official of the State Department, testifying before the Senate Appropriations Committee, was asked why the administration was not asking for aid for Afghanistan, he replied that when the budget was drawn up, it was unclear how much money would be needed. The reply drew guffaws from the committee members. Karzai explained to members of Congress that he needs $1.5 billion this year for development purposes and another $500 million for routine administrative expenses.

Thu Mar 20 09:05:37 PST 2003

Security and Civil Disobedience

The war is on. At this point, I believe it's crucial to underscore the importance of civil disobedience from a security viewpoint.

Make no mistake, it's an important connection. There's a difference between a nation's government and it's people. (For sake of brevity, I'll take a pass on the issue that the current government probably isn't a legitimate one from a constitutional standpoint.)

It is absolutely critical for both our national security and the security of the world that this difference be underscored in the minds of the world. Probably the best way to do that is to have as massive and disruptive (while at the same time nonviolent) demonstrations as possible in the nations responsible for starting this war. And make no mistake, that's us.

The rest of the world, especially the Arab world, absolutely must see as many news stories about US (as well as those in other Western nations) cities failing to function normally as possible. Every angry young Arab man who sees on Al Jazeera pictures of a New York or San Francisco being shut down by Americans disgusted at their government is a potential terrorist that has just had a crucial seed of doubt planted in his mind.

Normal garden-style demonstrations won't cut it here. We need general strikes, we need walk-outs, we need sit-ins, we need blocked highways and bridges. Anything else won't get the news coverage we need and risks falling short of making enough of an impression where it counts. We can't take that risk.

"Shutting it down" is not merely an expression of frustration and disgust. It's probably the best way we can create effective real-world anti-recruiting material for the likes of Al Qaeda.

Thu Mar 20 10:39:52 PST 2003

San Francisco Indymedia has been reporting it for at least an hour, and now SF Gate (run by the major dailies in that city) concurs: downtown San Francisco is paralyzed by massive demonstrations.

And yes, a quick check on Al Jazeera shows that they are indeed giving coverage to Western anti-war activity.

Recall what I wrote in the previous entry. This is very good news.

Thu Mar 20 11:56:28 PST 2003

Well, I'm off downtown, to see what (if anything) is happening. Apparently protests have spontaneously broken out in other downtowns around noon as office workers walk off the job. I'll be taking my camera.

Thu Mar 20 14:44:00 PST 2003

Yet another vote of confidence in Maximum Leader Genius:
WASHINGTON, March 19 (UPI) -- The top National Security Council official in the war on terror resigned this week for what a NSC spokesman said were personal reasons, but intelligence sources say the move reflects concern that the looming war with Iraq is hurting the fight against terrorism.
Full story here.

Thu Mar 20 20:24:29 PST 2003

Well, now isn't this little tidbit from a KOMO News article interesting:
About two dozen people turned out for a support-the-troops rally outside Camp Murray, near Tacoma. The camp serves as Washington National Guard headquarters and the nerve center of the State Emergency Operations Center.
This, in an article that cites militant antiwar demonstrations numbering in the hundreds (or in the case of Seattle, thousands) in Olympia, Seattle, and Bellingham. Yes, it's the only pro-war rally they could find.

For those of you who don't know much about the geography of Washington state, Camp Murray is right up next to Fort Lewis, a big Army base south of Tacoma. That's right, in the whole state, the only demo in favor of the war worth mentioning was in an area with literally thousands of enlisted men and their families. And only a few dozen of them were enthusiastic enough about the war to stand and be counted in support of it.

Kind of makes you wonder about those polls showing 70+% in favor, doesn't it?

Thu Mar 20 20:35:39 PST 2003

I'm typing this (and the previous) entries after roving around and taking part in various activities this evening. I'd say that there were at least 10,000 people involved all totaled, though exact estimates are difficult because there were lots of things going on in lots of places.

A large rally in Terry Shrunk Plaza across from City Hall, a protest march winding through downtown, a Critical Mass ride, and the occupation of the Burnside Bridge were the three places I spent most of my time. I've heard that at various times, the I-84, I-5, and I-405 freeways were occupied and blocked, though I did not witness any of these actions.

Around 7:30pm it started to rain, and as I had no rain gear with me and was unprepared to face arrest (no direct action/civil disobedience training yet, plus I had my camera with me), circumstances dictated it was time to return home.

A regrettable fact of all of this is that there was a certain amount of "collateral damage": people's schedules were disrupted, possibly to the detriment of being able to spend time with their families. Simply put, it's one of the drawbacks of direct action. So be it. We live in unfortunate times. I would like very much to not have to do the sort of things I participated in tonight, but unfortunately despite my best efforts, events leave no other reasonable alternative.

And in the "kind of makes you wonder about those poll numbers" department, the pro-war rally (which the Critical Mass ride passed) had maybe 150 participants, tops. And that's being generous. Sure, Portland is a pretty liberal place, but given that a giant broadcasting conglomerate is using its voice to promote the pro-war rallies, you'd expect at least couple thousand at the pro-war rally if the sentiment in Portland is four-to-one against, which is about as lopsided a split in favor of our side one could reasonably expect if approval nationwide is what the polls allege.

Thu Mar 20 23:05:29 PST 2003

Way to go, Chicago! Reports indicate that up to 6000 disrupt business as usual there. Let's make that 60,000 next time.

I'll note that, between budget cuts and having to keep an eye out for terrorist threats, the Portland police are so over stretched they are complaining (I have a scanner going in the next room) about having difficulty keeping control of the protests. It seems as if the Establishment might have miscalculated the level of domestic unrest their crimes would provoke.

On a more pessimistic note, if the traffic on my police scanner is to be believed, some bolts are splashing acid at the cops. Idiots. Violence is the Establishment's game, not ours.

Fri Mar 21 07:59:12 PST 2003

I turn on the radio by my bed this morning -- National Public Radio, called by some wags National Pentagon Radio for its prowar bias -- and what do I hear?

No reports of sweeping victory with Iraqi troops melting before the US advance, no reports of mass surrenders. No report from Iraq at all, in fact. It's a report from Cairo, where demonstrations on a scope unprecedented have paralyzed the Egyptian capital for two days running. Cairoans and riot police are fighting battles for the control of the streets; they are not flinching even in the face widespread brutal police tactics. There's been attempts to set the headquarters of the ruling party afire.

Things are, thankfully, not filled with that much violence and hate here. But the local police are expressing surprise at how last nights demonstrations were different partially because of the number of people who stayed for so long. Demonstrations disrupted business as usual in a number of other major US cities as well.

There's reports of "progress", and "advances" towards targets. Not "rapid progress", not "overwhelming advances". Given the level of technological superiority our troops have, I would have expected more. Perhaps even more tellingly (and a surprise to me as well), I see no reports of mass surrenders of Iraqi troops. They appear to be fighting instead of surrendering.

Let's just sum it all up by saying that things do not seem to be going very well for the chicken-hawks.

Fri Mar 21 09:21:16 PST 2003

From a post on indymedia:
News of what you, the citizens of Portland, have and continue to accomplish is just now reaching the East Coast. Know that the nation is watching and that the powerful statement made by your efforts is being felt much further than the Portland city limits. Two thousand-two hundred and ninety miles a way the will of a small activist community is strengthened by your determination and together we stand with you in solidarity. I promise to spread the word.
Full article here.

Even more important, of course, is for people in the Islamic world to see this kind of opposition, and to have the message driven home again and again that the US Government and the American People are two different things. Rachael Corrie's tragic death has, so far, probably been more instrumental in this regard than any domestic protest, as in this article about a Lebanese Islamic organization establishing a scolarship in Corrie's name:

[Association president Jamil Ibrahim] added that Corrie was expressing the US peoples rejection of both killing and destruction policies, which are exercised on a daily basis by President George W. Bush.
A Lebanese couple has also decided to name their newborn girl after Rachael. Full article here.

Fri Mar 21 11:18:08 PST 2003

More news reports trickle in. In the "this may in fact be going easier" department, there are now reports of Iraqi troops surrendering, and apparently the command structure of their army is in disarray. It seems as if all their top leaders turned chicken and are hiding in some remote bomb shelter, unable to communicate and direct their troops.

In the "uh-oh, maybe not" department we have reports of US forces tearing down pictures of Saddam in towns liberated[1] from his rule. What's wrong with this picture, you ask? If the Iraqis really do hate Saddam as much as we hope they do, why aren't they spontaneously tearing down and destroying the pictures? Also, many more Iraqi troops appear to be retreating towards Baghdad rather than surrendering. Does this portend a difficult and bloody round of urban warfare?

[1] And despite my doubts, no my certainty, that this war is about imperialism and subjugation rather than liberation, it's still the case that Saddam Hussein was such an awful leader that any puppet ruler installed by the US is going to be a great improvement. Therefore in a relative sense, the word "liberation" does indeed apply. A similar argument can be made about Vietnam's invasion and occupation of Cambodia (the one that unseated Pol Pot).

Fri Mar 21 12:22:42 PST 2003

Someone on KBOO (the local progressive/leftie radio station) expressed the hope that Iraq will soon be set free to rule itself after Saddam Hussein's government is destroyed. I'd like to see that happen, too, but I don't think it's very realistic.

Firstly, Iraq borders are a bastard stepchild of Western imperialism. Like most such borders, they were deliberately drawn to make the territory so delimited incapable of self-government, so as to create a permanent need for a colonial administration to do what the people can't do themselves.

It's no mystery why Iraq has been a dictatorship ever since it gained independence -- that's the only way such a bickering collection of three distrustful ethnic groups can be governed. Thus any attempt to create a democratic Iraq will be extremely difficult, and most likely will fail. Either we'll get another dictatorship, or we'll get indefinite US military rule.

The alternative is to split Iraq three ways along the lines of its three minority groups. That's probably the most feasible from a democratic self-rule point of view. Unfortunately, the Shiite subregion would naturally drift towards Iran, which is completely unacceptable to the US. This means that the likely outcome here is a dictatorial puppet regime or, once again, indefinite US military rule. An independent Kurdistan would be anathema to the virulently anti-Kurdish Turkish government. Given that the US has never stood up to Turkey's oppression of the Kurds, it's unlikely to do now. Iraqi Kurdistan would probably end up (you guessed it) with US military rule for an indefinite period of time. That leaves the central Sunni portion, which would probably have the best chance of ending up democratic and independent.

So the best possible outcome (the best!) is for 2/3 of the country to end up as the US's own West Bank, breeding resentment and hatred of its overlord, and fueling the flames of terrorism.

Fri Mar 21 15:50:12 PST 2003

I've heard from at least one source that the part of Iraq that US troops are currently occupying is the same region where we betrayed an uprising against Saddam Hussein at the end of the first Gulf War. Brutal and vicious retribution was exacted upon them as Hussein regained control. That would explain the reluctance of the populace to do things like celebrate wildly or rip down portraits of Saddam.

On the humorous side, not to sound like a West Coast snob or anything, but I find it a real hoot that in Milwaukee the hot topic of debate about acceptable behavior at protests is whether or not cars should be allowed to honk their horns in solidarity.

Fri Mar 21 19:07:58 PST 2003

Uh-oh. This certainly isn't good news.

Fri Mar 21 19:40:33 PST 2003

Something Is Happening. In the 'blog world, on Usenet, on the streets, you see people who would never have thought of it a week or two calling for a revolution, a general strike, removing Bush from office as soon as possible by any means necessary, etc.

A growing number of people are realizing the illegitimacy of the current government, and the menace it poses to civilization. People are going from "let's work within the system" to "the system we used to work within is gone, thus there's nothing to work within".

The question is, what happens when it starts giving those in power a credible scare? Will the repression squelch the revolution or will it move underground and morph into forms more immune to the repression? Or will the credible scare be the motivator for those in power to resign from office?

Sat Mar 22 07:11:05 PST 2003

Update on Iraqi Kurdistan: the reports of Turkish troops crossing the border appear to have been false.

Just listened to Whitewash of the Nation on National Pentagon Radio for a few minutes this morning before my disgust tolerance level was exceeded. They had two Iraqi exiles giving a total whitewash to Emperor Bush II's war.

Get it straight: No, those of us opposing this war do not have delusions about Saddam's atrocious human rights record. Human rights have been an interest of mine for years and US support for politically-expedient tyrannies abroad is one of the insights that got me politically where I am today. Practically every anti-war commentator I've read has at one time acknowledged, and in many cases expounded, upon the details of Saddam's brutal dictatorship. And in most cases were doing so well before it became the fashion-de-jour of the mainstream media you so enthusiastically shill for today.

No, the issues that lead me to oppose the war are international law, the terrorist threat, world security, and US domestic politics. By some miracle NPR let a caller through who started expressing concerns about the the first three issues on that list. Were his points addressed? Dream on -- the guests launched into repeat of their shameful and patronizing description of the war's opponents as being naive about the situation in Iraq. It's like arguing with a gramophone playing a scratched record.

Sun Mar 23 00:28:25 PST 2003

War is peace.
We've certainly been hearing lots of that recently.
Freedom is slavery.
Not slavery in the traditional sense, but in the sense of the wage slavery and slavery to consumer debt for all sorts of crap the advertising industry convinces people they "must" have, that's there, too.
Ignorance is strength.
The American anti-intellectual conservative mindset distilled into three words.

Welcome to 1984.

Sun Mar 23 00:38:13 PST 2003

The Kurdistan situation seems to be completely unknown. Conflicting reports say that Turkey both has, and has not, crossed the border into the Iraq portion.

Ominously, many more Iraqi troops seem to be fleeing towards Baghdad then surrendering. Looks more and more like some exceptionally nasty urban warfare might be in the making.

Sun Mar 23 08:54:20 PST 2003

Attributed to a WWII veteran at an antiwar protest in Berkeley on Friday the 21st:
Fifty years ago, we went over there [France and Germany] to help save you from fascism. It's time for you to return the favor.

Sun Mar 23 10:21:45 PST 2003

And the helathy trend of growing radicalization and vigorousness in the opposition to the war continues. Just a few weeks ago, who would have thought a mainstream columnist like Maureen Dowd of the New York Times would be lobbing verbal missiles like "The Prince of Darkness" at those in the government. Yet she just has.

Sun Mar 23 14:27:04 PST 2003

Spin watch: The latest reports out of Basra mention "Iraq soldiers surrender[ing] in droves". Note wording: soldiers, not divisions or batallions. No firm numbers given, just "droves". How many soldiers in a "drove"? Talk about weasel word central!

Then reports that "the fight wasn't over" and other units were fighting fiercely. And "US forces may just choose to move on".

Translation from newspeak: the first significant engagement of urban warfare in Iraq did not go well for the US. The majority of Iraqis are fiercely and effectively defending Basra. As a result, US has decided to give up on attempts to conquer the city.

Pay special attention to this: when the going got tough, the tough gave up. The chickenhawks have bitten off way more than they were willing to chew.

Mon Mar 24 08:06:36 PST 2003

The spin could only last so long, I suppose. Even some mainstream sources are not admitting that the Iraqi army is starting to put up serious resistance.

And ya gotta love the irony of the Bush Administration making petulant whining noises about the Geneva Convention, something it couldn't find itself troubled to obey during the operation in Afghanistan.

Fri Mar 28 23:11:12 PST 2003

One thing's clear: the war is not going well for the USA. That's clear whether you read between the lines in the domestic media, read the foreign media, or (most damningly of all read) the Russian military intelligence reports or the publically-available briefs from Jane's

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