Let me see, we attend major national protests and minor local ones, we visit, email, write and sit-in at our misrepresentatives, we write editorials. short of giving up our jobs and moving to the streets of DC with pitchforks, and torches and staying or having the numbers for a national strike that shuts the country down, what do you suggest?!

Dear Jaded Prole,

The answer to your question is simple. What we need to do is vote out the stench that currently occupies the White House and get someone in there with a whole lot more brain and a whole lot less attitude. Duh!

I think people are angry. I certainly know I am; mostly about the war itself, but from time to time (as now) I feel at least very annoyed with people with whom I ostensibly agree on the basic issue, but who want some kind of collective responsibility which includes me, for this war. My anger has made NO DIFFERENCE! Virtual shouting INTENDED!! None, zip, nada, what part of that are some folks NOT GETTING?? This is NOT A DEMOCRACY!!!!! I did think so, I did protest and many have continued to do so and they can't even get seen on television let alone have ANY IMPACT WHATSOEVER!!!! I do pat myself on the back from time to time for one lifetime act of moral consistency. Growing up as a baby boomer, I always thought it unfair to blame the average German citizen for Hitler, whom they could not have stopped. Now I can reap the benefit of my earlier refusal to judge others for their unwanted impotence. If that's a benefit........ I live near an Air Force Base, this stuff IS real to me; one more time IT MAKES NO DIFFERENCE AND THAT ALSO ANGERS ME. But, then what??????????

dmia--Elections have made no difference; where were you since 2000? Duh right back!

I suggest we figure out some way to make NBC, ABC, and CBS, do what the hell they are supposed too.

The media could change this in a heart beat. If they showed rallies, and Sit-ins things would change. If the posted on the bottom of the screen all the executive powers that have been put in to place, or were the latest rights that have been stripped from us things would change.

If the media would show all the camps people are being held at with out charges or trial. Show the dead Iraq Citizens, Show the people that run in fear every time they see an American flag. Show the quotes and interviews of those that hate the US because of our Imperial ways.

Do this and change will happen. But until then!!!! We will be forced to shed our on blood and those of others in the revolution to free our land and save our children's children future.

~Future~

Voting is a waste of time given the choices and the level of corruption. We don't have the numbers for an effective national strike. We are a nation of slaves rightfully afraid of destitution. We need a revolution but it isn't happening anytime soon. The only thing that will save us is a total economic collapse that will outrage people to the point of re-organizing our society along very different lines.

As for NBC, ABC, and CBS, they ARE doing exactly what they are supposed to do. They are an integral part of the corporate dicatatorship.

Ms. Martin has it right. Just about every person to whom I have spoken does not know what to do. 69% of Americans polled are against the war and don't know what to do. They fear being thrown in jail if they protest; a reasonable fear intensified by the lock-up programs on MSNBC that scare the hell out of any law abiding citizen. Many of my friends are afraid to blog or say much in email lest they be targeted. Cell phones are monitored. It is said that TVs have listening devices built into the chasis. Even people on the street shy away from political conversation.

Many American are so caught up in debt that they can't afford any time off to protest. Some are working so many jobs that they simply do not have a free moment..to protest or to even engage in political discourse. It's a pathetic state of affairs for what is supposedly the most free and prosperous nation on earth. Very sad indeed.

So, what do we do? Well, here I go again! Passive resistance. Start small. See what happens. Cut your gasoline consumption. Stop buying junk you don't need. Turn off your water heater when you are not using it. Stop mowing your lawn every week. Carpool with a neighbor. Hang your clothes out to dry. Bring your lunch. Just work to slow down the economy. It's a form of activism without the risk of incarceration.

Be innovative. View it as a serious game. As a result, the least that will happen is that you will have more money in your pocket or in your savings account. That can't be bad. At the most, TPTB will take heed. Start slowly. See how it goes.

Stop using credit cards unless you pay them off without interest.

It takes some discipline, but it can be a passive starting point for those of you who don't know what else to do.

And, while your at it, take some time to call your reps and senators and the White House. Tell them you are against the war and this is what you are doing.

Maybe it will make a difference. Maybe it won't. If you care, start from there and see where it goes.

If you don't care or don't wish to do anything as more American soldiers are killed and more Iraqi men, women, children and infants are slaughtered, live with your own conscience. It won't be easy..........

Jaded Prole - You're probably right. Because the current administration is in bed with big business, it probably will take an economic colapse before enough people realize what a mess we have on our hands. Most people are still too busy driving their SUV's to shopping malls and taking vacations to Cancun. Good point.

George Orwell was right. George Carlin is right.

Free speech is dead. Democracy is dead.

-YOU- allowed this to happen. You sat idly by, entranced by purile entertainment and self involvement, and let dangerous psychopaths steal not one but TWO(!) general elections. You let successive administrations chip away your hard won rights and freedoms, and labour protections. You let the corporations erode the hard won benefits you forefathers went on strike , often at risk to their personal safety, to give to you.

-YOU- are alone responsible for this state of affairs. You will be held accountable by history.

I completely agree with Courtney Martin. She's asking how American can let this war go on, and all I can think is that we signed off on insanity when we elected (sorta) Bush in 2004. America bought into the lies, and America doesn't know how to admit it now. Egos. That's why more people won't work hard enough to stop it.

If representatives were hammered on the issue, all of them every day, the war WOULD stop. But not enough red-staters care enough to do that, and the blue-purples can only do so much. Protests are played off as radical fringe, not mainstream efforts, and politicians feel free to ignore the will of the people. They should never have felt free to ignore the will of the people. We need labor, we need AARP, we need conservatives of all stripes to jump onboard.

I think we need to appeal to red America, because without them, I don't think we can stop the war. That's all I can figure now. We need the other half, we need to unify.

Red America! Quit talking about the party, the party, the party, ya'll sound like a bunch of Nazis, you know that? With your all-important party. Let it GO!

Liberals/Dems can't do everything America. Stand up. While you still can. Listen to us, Red America, if we were right about how bad Iraq would be, what if we're right again? Who you gonna blame? And further, who's gonna care?

Think about it, fellow North Americans: we have all fallen for Thatcher's "There is no such thing as 'society.' There are only individuals." That played right into the American ideology of "rugged individualism" -- i.e., I'm alright, Jack. Let those suckers in Baghdad burn. Most of us do not even know how to spell "solidarity," much less practise it. Perhaps it's time for a little civil disobedience?

agreeing with jaded prole. martin still holds on to my respect, but i am tired of people telliing me that what i do is not good enough. it is good enough because it is all i can do!!!!!!

http://www.petitiononline.com/unsan01/petition.html

Here's part of the measure of my outrage. I authored it, I posted it and, if I can get enough signatures, I'll hand deliver it to the UN myself if I'm not "disappeared" first. It just needs to get outside the American online community and I'm not sure I can make that happen. But I'll TRY! Appealing to the "government" is a complete waste of time. Appealing to the consumers of this country is equally fruitless.

Well, with the new BBC poll showing that 47% of Iraqis want us to leave immediatly, I think we need to get the hell out of there. The poll also showed the fallacy of talking about "iraqis" without taking into account their religious divisions and tribal divisions. Example : 88% of Sunnis said that their lives have gotten worse since the invasion, while 54% of Shias said that their lives have gotten BETTER. Why the heck stay in an artificial country ruled by mutually exclusive blocks. To bring democracy? I don't think so.

dmia September 10th, 2007 12:19 pm

"vote out the stench that currently occupies the White House "

Easier said than done. Especially if there are no more elections.

Jaded Prole:
We're not anywhere close to doing all we can do. Perhaps the first thing everyone can do is get angry, but also maintain the anger. I think that can be a drive for further action considered "too much effort" or "too radical" at the moment. I feel like I'm getting to the point of standing on a certain nearby busy intersection at rush hour with a sign, if only to offer fellow drivers a counterpoint to the animated gung-ho pro-military idiot out there in fatigues with the "We defeated Saddam!" sign. My point is that there's a wide range of further action to be done, and the more effective action is going to be more in-your-face and more personally taxing than writing letters or participating in protests - which I've come to believe are mostly watered-down "safe" channels of dissent in our society our corporate masters tolerate as a safety valve.

willybill:
I think your idea of being less of a consumer as a form of protest is well-intentioned, but the point of such action will ultimately get muddled and not recognized as political action. It's not overt enough. Instead, such action could be spun by the powers that be - positively - as evidence of the growing concern for the environment and of responsible American frugality, for example. Your actions are *necessary*, but I don't think they'll register as dissent.

This is what needs to be done! By taking the example set forth by right-wing Christian Evangelicals, who after Janet Jackson's nipple slipped on Television, began contacting the FCC to complain out it. The way they achieved this was by having one congregation made up of thousands of thier ilk, bombard the FCC with telephone calls deploring Ms. Jackson.

If you really think about this, it is the strategy of Rove, with direct mailings, donor lists that can be tapped at a moments notice, and jamming the phone networks with unsolicited phone calls, i.e. 2006 Presidential campaign in the Northest.

The problem as I see it is that Progressives don't have the mobilization power that Christians do. We do have organizations such as Move-On who have millions of members, myself included. If they were to mobilize us to commit to the same style petitioning, then we stand a chance.

Why is no one posting any info on the planned demonstration on 9/15 in DC?

Because we've marched around in circles shouting slogans on a weekend a bunch of times already and the only result has been sore legs and a hoarse throat. WE NEED NEW TACTICS!

At the risk of being repetitive, I'll add my voice to all the others who keep saying, "What can we do?" I protested before and after the war in national and local demonstrations, wrote to my congressional reps and senators (but Robert Byrd was already against the war, so it was not like I had to pressure him), wrote letters to the newspapers, and talked to everyone I knew about the folly and horrors of this invasion.

The vast majority of my friends, family, and acquaintances are opposed to the war, but they also don't know what to do.

Voltaire had it right - this is not the best of all possible worlds, and we are limited as to how we can change it. Cultivate your own garden, literally and figuratively. Some suggestions for doing this are:

Stop shopping at Walmart (and other big businesses) and buy locally as much as possible.

Grow a garden. Unless you live in the city with no yard at all, it is possible to grow many vegetables and some fruits in very small areas. I live in a rural area, but there are lots of people I know who have urban gardens.

Find a farmers' market and buy your fruits and vegetables, eggs, and meats there. Buy in quantity in season and can or freeze for the winter. Yes, this is a lot of work, but we are talking about what we can do, not what is easy. (I have a full time job, and last year I grew nearly all my vegetables for the year with the exception of those that are eaten fresh - lettuce, some onions, and other salad ingredients. That includes making my own relish, pickles, and pickled peppers.)

Cook real food instead of using packaged quick meals or going to fast food restaurants.

If you work outside the home, pack a lunch. It saves on the gas to go out to eat and the food is better for you.

Insulate your home and find other ways to cut energy costs. Turn the heat down to 68 in the winter and the air conditioner up to 76 in the summer. Open windows and turn it all off when the weather outside is nice.

Go listen to live music instead of corporate-owned commercial music. Better yet, learn to play an instrument and get together with friends.

Turn off the TV and create art (you don't have to be good at it - as Kurt Vonnegut said, creativity nurtures the soul whether it's drawing, dancing, writing, or just singing in the shower), play music, talk to your family and friends, or go for a walk. There are many things to do that don't involve electronic devices.

Read.

Don't stop the protests, letters, calls to your representatives, blogging, and other expressions of opposition. If you are financially able, donate to the causes you believe in.

These are small things, but they add up. Do what you can, keep in touch with people of like mind, and continue to search for better answers.

Voting obviously has little or no meaning. There is so little difference between candidates, with the exception of Kucinich, no change is likely to occur no matter who gets elected.

My previous post does not seem to address the issue of war. It does so only indirectly. The needs of large corporate interests seem to be the driving forces for war. Although it is not the only reason, we are at least partly in Iraq for the oil. If we can save energy by doing some of the things I suggested, it should make a difference in our need for oil.

By growing our own food and buying locally, we can also make a dent in the vast amounts of plastic used. It seems rare to find any information about how much oil it takes to make all that crap everything is wrapped in these days.

Which reminds me of another good idea - when you do go to a grocery store, take cloth, reusable bags. They are available everywhere, cost very little to buy, and eliminate a lot of plastic and paper.

LeeAnnG offers good advice. Yet though I continue to pursue most, if not all, of the directions outlined, I still find myself feeling empty. There must be something more effective, more tangible, to change the direction of this country, than what seems most available at this time. Like many of my friends and colleagues, I am becoming desperate enough to consider abandoning the country in which I was born to live in unwanted exile.

A very thoughtful, well-stated article. Too often we hear nothing but defeatism when someone discusses the inadequate response by the American public to a war that has grown more and more abhorrent and unpopular. It's important to analyze carefully what is really keeping people from being bolder and more outspoken in their opposition to the war. For the majority of Americans, who are not even keeping their heads above water, it's fear. The average American is not too busy consuming, as some who comment here would have us believe, they're too busy trying to survive. Additionally, it's hard to mobilize people who are already spending whatever extra effort they have trying to deal with local threats to their survival by the oligarchy. A war thousands of miles away isn't as real to people as the war on the poor and middle-class that's going on at home. Our job is to help people make the connection between the war in Iraq and the war at home.

Yeah, everybody has marched in the streets. But who has been willing to go to jail? Who has been willing to put their bodies in front of the machine? The labor movement, the civil rights movement, the anti-vietnam war movement were successful only in so much as their adherents were willing to risk civil disobedience on a massive scale.

That is what is missing here. We're too fat and comfortable, and we aren't willing to put our actions where our blog posts are. If you believe voting and polite marching in the streets alone will make a difference, then you haven't studied history. Go back to the books, kids.

"If most of us can agree the Iraq War is a colossal failure, why aren't we doing much about it?"

Because we're not organized. To organize we HAVE to incorporate. Otherwise other corporations steal our resources and split our forces. Divide and conquer can't work in a for-profit corporation where We the People are equal shareholders of non-transferable stock in trillions of publicly owned resources that accrue equal dividends to each citizen and give each equal voting rights in our corporation.

I will argue with some of the comments. It is not fear that keeps us from speaking out. To some extent, the necessity for survival limits what people can do.

The biggest obstacle is that we are not heard. The mainstream media's only reporting of protests is to refer to those participating as extremists. The E-mails we write to Congresspeople are ignored.

The only time we were noticed was when the comprehensive immigration bill what stopped. Now, of course, it's coming back in pieces.

The government has separated itself from the people. When Bush talks about "educating Americans", he is referring to using PR (or force) to get us to agree.

As far as voting is concerned, the Focus on Family group is very well organized. It will turn out the vote for the only two items on its agenda - no abortion and no gay marriages. It cares nothing for anything else except its own political power. But, it will get the vote out.

"how do you measure a public's responsibility to end war?"

Americans innately understand that, presently, America is not "at war" with any country on the planet. We know we are currently illegally occupying a sovereign nation that does not appreciate our deadly presence. And we know that if we rise up in protest, we would have to admit to the world that The United States of America has been illegally killing millions for six years.

Protests did not end the Vietnam Police Action. Politicians ended for their own selfish reasons. Today, conventional protesting means being caged, shot with rubber bullets and gas, and being photographed and investigated by all 16 intel agencies, the IRS, etc. Grandmothers, nuns, reverends have been jailed for standing in the "wrong" place or wearing the "wrong" tee shirt. Quakers and catholic charities had government undercover cops in their midsts. Whistleblowers and truthtellers have been labeled bin Laden lovers. Meanwhile, the majority of "we the people" are living so close to financial collapse, the idea of losing it all in order to hold up a sign no one will read is simply ridiculous.

Seven years of anti-American fear of freedom brainwashing combined with the outright ruthlessness of the loyalbushie cult has succeeded in turning the Constitution into nothing more than a quaint memory. And, seeing as how we Americans suffer from chronic ADD, said memory should fade by Christmas.

I know this will not be popular here, but I have come full circle since Vietnam on the subject of a draft. We do need one. Of course, it needs to be universal--kids of the rich and powerful must be just as likely to be drafted as kids of the middle class and poor. There also have to be opportunities for alternative service.

We have lost the idea of shared sacrifice in the US and a draft is one way to begin restoring it. It is not unreasonable for us to ask our children to begin their adult years by making a contribution that benefits the nation. The current "volunteer" military consists mainly of three groups: the economic underclass with few other options, those who have a personal sense of obligation to serve, and a few war-mongers. A draft would be beneficial in many ways: elimination of the idea that only poor people need to die in war, the possibility of inculcating a sense of service and shared sacrifice across the entire population, and a dilution of the influence of war-monger mentality in the military.

Finally, a univeral draft won't solve everything, but you can bet if we had one we wouldn't be in Iraq. The influential class would never have stood for sending their kids to die in this useless conflict.

How about the workers in the war materiel plants start leaving a few critical parts out? Or just a few rivets off the wings of warplanes? What if the lowly re-fueling personnel slip some sugar into the tanks of the fighters and bombers? Why don't we use the old CIA published 'Insurgent Handbook'?

> How about the workers in the war materiel plants start leaving a few critical parts out?

They already do that, because then they can charge $1m to send the parts out to the battlefield.

There will be no change before a collapse. It is equally true that after such a collapse the change we get may not be to anyone's liking or better interest.

LeeAnnG and others have the right idea (have been doing most of those things for a long time) but it is not nearly enough. How to hasten the collapse but not have it become a catastrophe of suffering and lawlessness, brutality and cruelty?

Actions taken by individuals are too easily disrupted by the gestapo. Collective action that deprives the powerful of profits and keeps money in the hands of the collectives may be the answer. Don't get me wrong; I'm not about money, but I know that the powers that be are.

It is about 3am of a nightlong orgy of greed. The avaricious not only feed upon us, they are now feeding on themselves. It cannot be sustained much longer, so we must prepare ourselves for the collapse and my point is the preparation for survival and the hastening can and should be one and the same effort.

And I used to laugh at and ridicule survivalists!!!

I'd like to add to the list:
Make your own news, put a TV on the sidewalk and turn it on. Write your own newspaper and go to a copy machine. Sing your own protest song in the mall. Buy stock so you can go to the investors meetings. Have your own cacus and primary. Run for Office.

But one of the POINTS OF THE ARTICLE is to try and find a connection between modern atrocities and the public at large, in a way to chanel their eventual anger towards effective change. Could that be the CORPORATION? I would bet that all Americans are negatively affected in some way by some coporation (and probably most of us are affected by many), and I would hope the majority of people would finally stop believing in the corporate model. That would mean keeping your money and energy as close to yourself and community as possible.

Yes, every form of protest and activism and democratic action are necessary and should be praise, but to bring everything into FOCUS….

Barricade the factories and corporate offices of all industry, financeiers, and govt workplaces (and media outlets) and show America where the people who profit from war do business, then have hundreds of people on every corner from a 50 mile radius pointing at those places and yelling at the tops of their lungs on what NOT to buy and what to demand from corporations and media.

If there are coporations that profit from war, then the question is what ties do they have to you, then cut those ties.

End the practice of protecting corporations from prosecution.

I saw the chairman of the Petraeus Report this morning having people removed if they said anything or held up a sign in protest. That's how bad it is folk's and that dude is a democrat our freedom's are disappearing,they can wiretap our phones,read our emails and spy on us. this is what happened in Germany in 1939 and Hitler took over before the people knew what was happening. Most people here in America are just as uninformed as the German people were over 50% think Saddam and Al Quada were working together on 9/11 because Bush/Cheney still put that lie out every chance they get.Vote every warmonger out of office would be a start to stopping this illegal war and getting our freedoms back.

clyde- I think it will be more a use of 'Musolini neck-ties' than the ballot box for these vermin...

Jaded Prole
Stop paying taxes. Stop filing tax returns. And get everyone you know to do the same. And have all of them get everyone they know to do it and so on. A tax revolt. A non-violent, civilly disobedient, passive (casting a wink at willybill) revolt.
You won't need a gun, or a gas mask. You won't need a babysitter, a charge card or an airline ticket. You won't even need to take a day off.
Of course for it to be really effective you'll need to lean out your window at midnight on the 15th of April and shout "I'm mad as HELL and I'm not going to take it anymore!!!"

Hi,

Here's an update from the Global Network, a good group that is organizing resistance in a variety of ways. In the US they are based in Maine, where they have been putting pressure on their Senators, including civil disobedience in Senate offices.

This article is about blockading a nuclear weapons facility in Scotland. We need actions like this to grow! Find out who is organizing in your community, join and support them. If no one is organizing, start!

Links are at the bottom if you want more information.

(CND, referred to by acronym in the article, is the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, the oldest anti-nuclear group in Britain. CND invented the peace symbol, from the semaphore code for ND, Nuclear Disarmament.)

**********************************************************************
Bruce Gagnon reported that he and Dave Webb were released from jail at about 10:00 this morning. They were arrested at about 5:00 p.m. Saturday blockading the entrance to the Faslane Trident nuclear submarine base in Scotland.

Bruce noted they were well treated -- they were even allowed to take books into jail, which was much appreciated.

Normally when someone is arrested on a weekend in Scotland, they are required tostay over until Monday morning, but given that Bruce has an airline flight to return home on Monday, officials made an exception this morning and released them both.

Bruce should return to Maine late Monday night.

What follows is yesterday's post:

GLOBAL NETWORK LEADERS ARRESTED AT FASLANE NUCLEAR BASE

Contact: Brian Larkin 07760 401267
Dave Webb 07717 606189

U.S. peace activist Bruce Gagnon and British activist Dave Webb were arrested today blockading the entrance to the Faslane Trident nuclear submarine base in Scotland. Gagnon is the Coordinator of the Global Network against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space and lives in Maine in the U.S. Dave Webb is the chairperson of Yorkshire CND and also chairs the Global Network.

Gagnon has been on a speaking tour in England, Wales, and Scotland for the last 10 days talking about the nuclear hypocrisy of the U.S. as it lectures the rest of the world about the evils of WMD while at the same time building new generations of nukes and now planning to move the arms race into space.

"It's clear to me that the U.S. and Britain should be held to the same standard they are claiming that Iran should be held to. If Iran should not have nuclear weapons then why should the U.S. and Britain be jointly building new generationsof nuclear warheads," Gagnon said.

Dave Webb said, "It's time for people to make a stand and show where their priorities lie. Do we really need nuclear weapons when there are so many other real problemswe need to solve together?"

The protest is part of the ongoing yearlong Faslane365 blockade and brings the total number of arrests at Faslane since October 2006 to 944. People from at least twelve countries including Japan, Australia and the United States as well as several European countries have travelled to Faslane to participate in the protests.

There will be a Big Blockade of the Faslane base on 1st of October with more thana thousand expected to attend.

For further information on Global Network see http://www.space4peace.org/
For further information on Faslane 365 see www.faslane365.org

Contact: Brian Larkin 07760 401267
Dave Webb 07717606189

Bruce K. Gagnon
Coordinator
Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space
PO Box 652
Brunswick, ME 04011
(207) 443-9502
http://www.space4peace.org
globalnet@mindspring.com
http://space4peace.blogspot.com (Blog)
http://www.myspace.com/brucekgagnon (MySpace profile)

Why do politicians work for war profiteers and not for We the People?

Post-Mortem America

By CHRIS FLOYD

Put your hand on my head, baby;
Do I have a temperature?
I see people who ought to know better
Standing around like furniture.
There's a wall between you
And what you want -- you got to leap it.
Tonight you got the power to take it;
Tomorrow you won't have the power to keep it.

-- Bob Dylan

Tomorrow is here. The game is over. The crisis has passed -- and the patient is dead. Whatever dream you had about what America is, it isn't that anymore. It's gone. And not just in some abstract sense, some metaphorical or mythological sense, but down in the nitty-gritty, in the concrete realities of institutional structures and legal frameworks, of policy and process, even down to the physical nature of the landscape and the way that people live.

The Republic you wanted -- and at one time might have had the power to take back -- is finished. You no longer have the power to keep it; it's not there. It was kidnapped in December 2000, raped by the primed and ready exploiters of 9/11, whored by the war pimps of the 2003 aggression, gut-knifed by the corrupters of the 2004 vote, and raped again by its "rescuers" after the 2006 election. Beaten, abused, diseased and abandoned, it finally died. We are living in its grave.

Hi,

i agree with the posts about not buying any corporate crap, growing your own food, buying locally only true essentials, and preparing for serious disruption of the economy, ecology and social fabric.

This will work much better if the people around you are also doing these things, so it is essential to organize your neighbors. You can do it as "Disaster Planning" so they don't just think you're loopy - many cities have programs for helping you get your neighbors organized for disaster.

Again, sorry if this posts twice, i am getting many wierd responses from Common Dreams today...

Ezeflyer: They always have. If We the People had hired them, it wouldn't be reverse Robinhood. They've shown themselves to be institutionalized warlords who demand their tribute.

"In our four years so far of the Iraq War, we haven't even suffered 4,000 yet"

That's if you don't count the number of mercenaries, I mean "contractors". Also the Iraqi insurgents are not unified in combatting American troops, partly due to the basic conflicts that were built into the creation of the country & partly due to Death Squad Negroponte's distribution of money & weapons to those who, determined to create havoc, had no true political program beyond that.

"What the hell do we do? I looked one of the 50-something-years olds deep in the eyes and asked, "But seriously, what do you suggest we do in order to actualize our outrage? I've been to protests, and they were called focus groups. I've signed online petitions that, as far as I can tell, just got lost in the internet ether. What do we do?"

She shrugged her shoulders, as did the other balding conservatives and aging hippies around the table. "Things are changing," they swore. "Bush is getting closer to pulling the troops out.""

The 'aging hippies' abandoned those who were committed to radical action & hung them out to dry. The conservatives were at least consistent in hating radicalism, while the others wanted a safe radicalism . . .

Well, its clear there are plenty of very angry people out there, and that is good, because it means we haven't all become completely zombified yet. I call it cultural zombification which is another way of describing the effects of living in a culture mediated by corporate propaganda and surrounded by masses of people who live their lives like lemmings, rushing through their days, consuming, and doing just what the corporatist fascist elite who run the game want them to be doing. Yes, it is a SLAVE society. You are only free when you know you are free, and tens of millions of people in this degraded culture no longer feel at all free, and I include in that number people with means. So who is free here? Who isn't a SLAVE? Well, on one end there are the fascist power elite who have the means and the ambition to realize their dreams of controling the rest. And there are those of us who are diehard dissidents who refuse to back down, who refuse to submit, who will struggle against the Monster Society at all costs. And, folks, that is how it has been since the rise of ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt, Shang dynasty China, and any other early civilization. Its really the nature of civilization. An Indian yoga teacher I used to know called civilization syphilization, and now I know why.

What we really need is a ONE campaign directed at ending the war (and preserving civilization) by providing scripted letters to Congress that go beyond partisanship and address the immoral and inhumane aspects of what is going on in Iraq and that call for civilized, negotiated settlements to the burning Middle East questions. These scripted email pieces need to be targeted to a broad spectrum of groups from MoveOn list to religious groups to heartland groups to mothers' groups to international groups that I don't even know about yet--so that all anyone has to do (a la One) is forward that email message to his/her reps in Congress, the New York Times (et al.)and the United Nations leadership with a mouse click and a signature--kind of like writing on this page (i.e. protected but potentially massive in effect). Take a look at what One has accomplished. Now, I ask you, Jaded Prole, and others whom I have seen on this space before, would not that collective voice have more power in this new age than one more march before the cameras?

If anyone knows a contact with some backing and know-how to get this kind of thing going, let us all know--or what about Common Dreams finding the backer for us, but not necessarily through this progressive site? We need a broad-based, ecumenical appeal that leaves out the conspiracy theories and concentrates on humane action against this misguided war. Yes, we need to pick up those Republicans, too. What about the new American Democracy collective action site? (I can't seem to find the URL right now; would someone remind me what it is?) Think we can propose our own series of letters to them? Although what we need is an international AND apolitical presence. I will be willing to write/brainstorm scripts that bleach out the diatribe and get to the point. And this is from a boomer chick who has been through every conspiracy theory in the world--and they're all probably accurate. Thus, even more reason to build as broad a base as possible--not playing on fear or partisanship but striking that nerve of wanting to bring the world forward into the 21st century and rescuing the American Dream--and the world's dream--from sudden death in the medieval morass of Iraq. If you're interested, my point of view about saving us from ourselves is at www.changetheschools.com and my theory of change centers around the not-often-employed concept of synergy.

I have a new idea for a protest if you really want to send a united signal. It will require very little planning, and no risk of government retaliation. Mass suicide. If all the pathetic crybabies on this site would switch their commondreams kool-aid with some Jonestown kool-aid, just think of all the tax money this government will never get, for years to come. No more shopping at Walmart and buying from the evil corporations. No more gas consumption putting profits in big oil's pockets. There will be less people to draft when we attack Iran. A mass suicide protest will send a strong signal to this government saying that we would rather be dead than live another day under this regime. That will really show them.

Well Mike what can I say . . .
Your idea has merit . . . However how about you starting it out . . .
We are a country of "It's not my responsibility" . . .
"Someone else will do it" . ..
"If" we as a nation except responsibility for what we have done then maybe something will begin to change . . . Without that the rich will continue to get richer and those that are not rich will continue to buy lottery tickets and watch "reality" TV so they can feel superior.
That's just the way it is and you can't change anything or anyone except yourself. That folks is a fact . . . Face up to it and live with it because that will let the status quo continue as is . . . Even down in Tampa . . . .

Corporations own this country. The only thing that rich people who own the corporations understand is making a profit, anything that is going to change this country is for the
corporations to start losing their profits. People standing out on the streets with a sign that
says "Stop the war" is not going to cause corporations to lose money. I don't have the answer,
but whatever it is, it is going to take a huge undertaking of the public that will hurt profits.
Getting off the subject, Can anyone show where there is a country on the map called "AMERICA"?.
There is North America, Central America and South America. Why is it that of all the millions
of people who live From hundreds of miles above the nothern canadian border to the tip of
Argentina, only people who live in the United States have the right to call themselves
"Americans"? We are the United States of America.

One place that may offer other choices for action may be outside what is the common comfort zone. The labels "democrat", "republican" mean nothing. Nor does "progressive" especially if it isn't progressing.

As soon as we are willing to drop labels, ideologies, and dogmatic responses, perhaps then new ways will come into view. Of course they are already in plain sight. It's just that we've been indoctrinated to believe they are "wrong" therefore we continue to support the state.

Or, we can continue to "protest" in the designated areas.....

The needs of 3000 corporations destroyed Chile for a generation when on September 11, 1973, they began the war against the democracy of Salvador Allende's government. Families lost 30,000-40,000 killed and torture ruled the day.

The needs of 3000 corporations are biting the hands that feed them by destroying the American worker and the American family.

This September 11th, let us come together to denounce again the actions of American exploitation at home and abroad. Let's end poverty in the USA by supporting workers and worker's rights

Outrage is not enough it it stops there. Short of a revolution, if an organized effort by known leaders of our movement was made to form an alternative party with a platform of peace, ecology, and return to legal democratic norms and public accountability and that party ran respected candidates like Kucinich, Medea Benjamin, or Bill Moyers we would have something to rally behind and build an energetic movement with and WE WOULD WIN!

Is anybody listening?

Voting for Dims is a proven waste of time.