Dear Folks,
I wonder how people are actually feeling about the push to war in Iraq. Is this really a legal or illegal war? (Can there be an application of such terms to war?) How unprecedented is this assault on what is, for all intents and purposes, still a third world country? After all we have a 400 billion dollar defense budget and Iraq has 1.4 billion dollar defense budget. . . And 50% of Iraq's population is under age 14. . .Is this an attack on children? Is this a battle of the rich against the poor? Is there a racist component to this war? Or do you feel as if there is some emotional link for you between the 9/11 destruction and the taking down of Saddam Hussein that gives you some small sense of satisfaction? Can any of us honestly make an open and shut case for or against this current war?
Is anyone who is opposed to this war in any facet guilty of being "unpatriotic?" (Is patriotism the last refuge of the scoundrel?) Or are those who feel that we have to now fight, since our troops are caught up in it and it would seem untoward to not feel sympathy for them or to not support them, subconsciously "baby killers?" What do you think of the message being sent by our political leaders who "oppose" the war but still "support" the troops? Shouldn't we be sympathetic to all the troops? After all "troops" don't really want to go to war. It's not normal to feel dying is in one's interest. . .
What should we do and say now? The war has started. The violence is under way. What do we do? Most of our political leaders even if they are opposed to the war are in a state of paralysis and at best are engaged in wishful thinking, believing that we can have business as usual, and at worst they are still manipulating us, our emotions, our beliefs. . .
After participating in yesterday's demonstration down Broadway I was interested to see that in fact this was a true representation of New York City. Granted the bulk of the people were white 20 and 30 somethings, but for the most part it looked like the same people I travel to work with in the mornings. Every group and category was obviously represented, from small children to the aged. You could see broad representations of every color of the human spectrum, many individuals wearing definable ethnic clothing. Truly we live in an international city. Thus in some ways we are the voice of the world. And that voice stretched from Washington Square to Times Square for almost 5 hours. Do the actual numbers matter? It was huge and the reports of "violence" marring the march were overblown as usual by the news media who can't report anything without some kind of contrary view in their goal of "objective" reporting. Is New York City out of step with the rest of the country?
At first I went to the march feeling a little ambivalent, asking myself what is the point? The point came to me very simply: This is democracy in action. Democracy is a participatory form of political action. There were no leaders here telling us what to do or what to say. Democracy is not just voting or saying and doing the "right" thing at the convenient time and then sitting down in Starbucks and fretting over the NY Times. Democracy of course is an idea and not a political system. But we shouldn't give up on an idea that ultimately is the foundation for this nation. This democracy is a strong message being sent to the (appointed and paid for) leadership of this country that their policy, however it is defined, is wrong! And that message comes from the city that has suffered the worst from a over half a century of bad US policy, a policy that seems to have an inexorable bent toward empire. If we don't, at the least, practice our rights to be who we are as citizens of this country, we have lost. All is lost! That was my ultimate justification for marching yesterday. That is the most patriotic thing I can do at this time.
But questions remain. What do we do now, today? How do we proceed in the future? Can marching in the streets ultimately lead to another kind of war? Are we doomed to repeat history again and again? Are we doing this for future generations? How do we get back our country? And finally if the Bush war on Iraq is the war on terrorism would anyone rather take their chances with terrorism? At this point I am still mulling that question over. . .
