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To ML & Other Peaceniks... |
by Harold Green
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: -1
07 Oct 2002
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(ML) "If it's so easy to find out about what is happening across our land, why does most of the media ignore so much of the news?"
Why? Because IMC is hardly news at all. For instance, the day after the latest protests in Washington, ALL of the IMC outlets forget to mention the FACT that protestors blocked traffic, threatened IMF/WB employees, and physically assaulted police officers. I would at least credit Urbana's IMC for not hiding posts of dissent like most others.
As for the war, didn't you watch our President's speech last night? Let's talk about it. |
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IMC Coverage Of Washington Protests |
by Sascha
sascha (nospam) ucimc.org (unverified) |
Current rating: 0
08 Oct 2002
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Yes, protestors blocked traffic -- though probably a lot less than the Police themselves blocked. But I haven't seen much evidence to support the other so-called facts Harold mentions (threats to IMF/WB employees, physically assaulting police officers, etc.).
What I definitely have seen a lot of is police targeting innocent bystanders, press (including arresting such "protestors" as Washington Post reporters), harrassment, intimidation, etc. Much of which will probably be found to have been illegal in a court of law after the fact.
As for Mr. Bush's talk last night -- I suppose he did a great job of almost showing us the evidence, of almost giving us proof, and of almost supporting his points with "facts." The only fact I could see was that we're about to seriously attack another country for something it might do, at some unspecified date, sometime in the future, with an unknown (but suspected) weapon. |
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A Metaphor For Your Consideration... |
by Michael Feltes
mfeltes (nospam) shimer.edu (verified) |
Current rating: 0
08 Oct 2002
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I have no doubt that Saddam Hussein would attempt and is attempting to obtain a nuclear weapon. However, I see a war by the United States against Iraq (and this notion is not completely isomorphic to the situation; we are talking about states and not persons, among other things) as shooting a man who probably wants to shoot you, and does not possess a gun, but is seeking one. Is that justified? No. Does that moral decision scale up to the geopolitical situation we're talking about? Perhaps. |
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A Metaphor For Your Consideration... |
by Michael Feltes
mfeltes (nospam) shimer.edu (unverified) |
Current rating: 0
08 Oct 2002
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I have no doubt that Saddam Hussein would attempt and is attempting to obtain a nuclear weapon. However, I see a war by the United States against Iraq (and this notion is not completely isomorphic to the situation; we are talking about states and not persons, among other things) as shooting a man who probably wants to shoot you, and does not possess a gun, but is seeking one. Is that justified? No. Does that moral decision scale up to the geopolitical situation we're talking about? Perhaps. |
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A Day In The Park Turns Bad |
by via ML
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
08 Oct 2002
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This is for Harold Green, who seems to prefer police operating as a repressive force in support of government policy, rather than having a country where your constitutional rights have any real meaning.
BTW, Mr. Green, it's hard to see how you snide comments were even relevant to my story, which was about peace demonstrations, rather than the anti-IMF/World Bank protests that occured in Spetember in Washington, DC. It seems that you oppose the idea that anyone should have freedom of speech or assembly. I can think of few notions that are more profoundly anti-American than your expressed digust that anyone should speak up in this country about their views. If those who founded our country had been surrounded by people like you, they would have been hung and we'd all still be swearing alleginace to the Queen.
ML
The following letter was published in the San Francisco Examiner on Oct. 3rd:
A day in the park turns bad
By Joe Mayer
I AM A lieutenant colonel, retired from the U.S. Army after 20 years of service, including Vietnam. My second career is law and I work as a trade association president and adjunct professor at a local law school.
As a soldier, I risked my life to defend the Constitution. With the GI Bill, I went to law school to learn to apply it. I have always been proud of our constitutional system and the wealth and power it has generated. While the wealth and power of our nation could be more fairly distributed, the opportunity this nation provides to its citizens, native and naturalized, is unequalled.
On Friday, Sept. 27, in Washington, D.C., my sense of my own place in our society was stunned when I was arrested for the first time, at the age of 69. This experience shook my confidence that our Constitution and my adherence to that rule of law made me safe and secure on the streets of our capitol.
At 9:15 a.m. I met my 28-year-old daughter, Alexis, for what we thought was a permitted demonstration scheduled for 9:00 a.m. in Freedom Plaza, opposing the Bush administration's policies regarding Iraq. I believe that those policies pose grave dangers to our country and to the world, and I wanted to join Alexis and show my support. In pursuing causes in the past, Alexis had been arrested. As her father, this grieved me and instilled in me a fear related to her activities.
I support all of Alexis' motives and most of her causes, but my parental vision is for Alexis to use her law degree to achieve her goals and not to get herself arrested. Joining her on that Friday gave me the opportunity to personally ensure that she took my advice and avoided going to jail, which I thought was largely a matter of choice on the part of the demonstrators.
When met by a police line blocking access to Freedom Plaza, we followed police instructions to join a small crowd of a few hundred demonstrators in Pershing Park, across the street. We held an anti-war banner for a few minutes until the approach of a police line made the exercise futile by closing the park to pedestrians and blocking the banner from the sight of passing traffic.
When we asked the police for permission to leave the park, they answered us by closing ranks. When I saw that a man my age dressed, as I was, in a business suit was allowed to pass, I realized that without the "Don't Attack Iraq" button I wore on my lapel, I would be a free person who could direct my own movement.
The police line continued to close around us and we were forced through trees and over benches to avoid the charging line of riot cops with raised batons. The charge did not stop until the confinement forced everyone to stand packed together, surrounded by hostile police in the armored suits of Star Wars villains. After several minutes, without warning, the police began seizing the unresisting would-be demonstrators and pinned our arms behind our backs with plastic cuffs.
The result of the command decision to treat us as criminals, if not actual terrorists, was a 29-hour incarceration, a summary punishment disproportionate to the violation ("failure to obey") that we will return to court to defend.
The details of our illegal detention are an appalling, if not unusual, example of government abuse of power. But there is another lesson here, a cautionary story that we ignore at our peril.
Chief Charles Ramsey and the D.C. Police Department executed a preemptive strike against American citizens in Pershing Park, people who committed no criminal acts. All of the actions in Pershing Park by the demonstrators were legal, peaceful and protected by the First Amendment of the Constitution.
Ramsey does not attempt to justify the mass arrest in the park by events that actually occurred. He justifies them by saying that if not arrested in advance, the demonstrators would have broken the law. Ramsey does not identify these future crimes nor offer any evidence to support his claims. He ignores the rule of law.
The similarity of the D.C. police preemptive action to the war policy it was used to defend is striking.
Contributor Joe Mayer lives in Alexandria, Va.
http://www.examiner.com/opinion/default.jsp?story=op.mayer.1003w |
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Organizing Against Aggressive War Spreads |
by ML
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
11 Oct 2002
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Follow this link:
<http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/1012-02.htm> |
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Organizing Against Aggressive War Spreads |
by ML
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
11 Oct 2002
|
Follow this link:
<http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/1012-02.htm> |
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Organizing Against Aggressive War Spreads (Bad Link Fixed) |
by ML
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
12 Oct 2002
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Follow This Link:
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/1012-02.htm |
