September 8, 2003

• Politics–
  I couldn’t have expressed this better myself.

  
  

  When the following rant landed in my email, it dawned on me that this summer has taken me right out of the loop in terms of national and international politics.  Without Greyfox at home, the TV hasn’t been turned on in weeks except when Doug and I both wanted to play games at the same time and pressed it into service as a PlayStation monitor. 

  
  

  During those long drives up and down the valley, instead of NPR news I’ve been going for smooth jazz or oldies.  Maybe it’s just that my own life has enough excitement that I don’t need the stimulus, or maybe as my other addictions fall away I’m no longer such a news junkie.  I do catch headlines as I pass newpaper vending machines, and Greyfox shares little bits of news stories he thinks will interest me, so I guess I’d catch the end of the world if it was covered in the Anchorage Daily News.  I certainly would have had no inclination to watch Bush’s speech, even had I known he was making one.  I have enough stress to grind my teeth over without listening to more of his lies.

  
  

  ---

  RESPONSE TO PRESIDENT BUSH’S
  NATIONAL TELEVISION ADDRESS OF SEPTEMBER 7, 2003
  
  Dear VoteNoWar Member:
  
  President Bush’s illegal war and occupation of Iraq
  has left the Administration in a position of extreme
  political vulnerability. He now wants the United
  Nations and U.S. taxpayers to bail him out. Having
  defied U.S. and world public opinion – which
  preemptively opposed his planned, illegal invasion of
  Iraq – the Bush administration wants to
  internationalize responsibility for the U.S. quagmire
  in Iraq. With U.S. casualties mounting daily he wants
  the soldiers of other countries to do more of the
  dying to take the heat off himself at home. And in the
  name of fighting international terrorism he wants
  already suffering working class, poor and middle class
  communities to foot the bill to the tune of another
  $87 billion (triple what they had “projected”). Having
  had his public rationale(s) for the war been exposed
  in recent weeks as a complete fraud, Bush shamelessly
  reverts to the time-tested tactic of trying to scare
  the hell out of people.
  
  
  President Bush’s conduct on Iraq – before, during and
  now after the Iraq war – has made the old cliché about
  truth being the “first casualty in war;” to be a grand
  understatement. Everything about this “pre-emptive
  war” is premised on deceit. Even in the realm of ever
  duplicitous “world politics,” the Administration’s
  pattern of cynical deception was and remains
  breathtaking. Tonight’s nationally televised address
  conforms to this pattern of endless deceit.
  
  
  1) Bush lied before the war. Iraq never posed a grave
  and imminent danger to the United States. Iraq had
  nothing to do with September 11th. Iraq never
  possessed nuclear weapons. Iraq was not rapidly trying
  to develop weapons of mass destruction. This was a war
  of aggression against the second-largest oil producer
  on the planet that had been weakened by a decade of
  economic sanctions and political isolation.
  
  
  2) Bush lied during the war. This was not liberation.
  The Iraqi people did not welcome the U.S. armed forces
  as liberators but as occupiers. Their lives did not
  become better. On the contrary, this culturally rich
  society has been torn apart, deprived of necessary
  services to sustain civilian society and is on the brink
  of internal collapse.
  
  
  3) Bush is lying now. Iraq is not the battlefield
  between “international terrorism” and the forces of
  so-called “freedom” and “civilization.” The growing
  resistance to U.S. occupation is the consequence of an
  angry and proud people in Iraq who insist on
  reclaiming their own sovereignty. Having killed tens
  of thousands of Iraqis in an illegal invasion – and
  responsible
  for a growing number of dead and maimed U.S. soldiers – the
  Bush team wants U.S. taxpayers to spend at least
  another $87 billion on the occupation of Iraq. The
  vast majority sentiment in Iraq wants the U.S.
  soldiers to leave and the U.S. GI’s want to go home.
  The Iraqi people’s call to end the occupation is not a
  call for even more foreign nations to occupy Iraq and to
  take a share in the looting of Iraq’s natural
  resources. The truth is that the invasion and
  occupation of Iraq is viewed by the people of the
  Middle East as an act of “international terrorism” and
  as such it can only lead to a dangerous escalation in
  the cycle of violence.
  
  
  Why did Bush address the nation tonight? He, like
  Nixon a generation ago, fears that the people of the
  United States are turning against this criminal war.
  During his administration, Bush has only rarely felt
  that he must address the people, and does so when he
  fears that a sentiment is growing strong enough to
  challenge his illegal actions. He must then lie more
  to convince the people of the U.S. to support his
  criminal endeavors, or at least acquiesce in them. His
  shameful “top gun” act aboard the aircraft carrier the
  U.S.S. Lincoln, in front of a “Mission Accomplished”
  banner, was an effort to tell people in the United
  States and around the world that the war was over and
  that no more critical attention need be focused on
  Iraq. Tonight, with that lie laid bare, he is seeking
  to go a new route, to convince people that far from
  being over, the war is a high stakes game to save
  “civilization” and “freedom” and that it requires
  endless sacrifice in human life and vitally needed
  resources.
  
  VoteNoWar.org calls on people in the
  United States to join together for a massive
  demonstration in Washington DC on October 25th to
  demand “Bring the Troops Home Now, End the Occupation
  of Iraq.” Tens of thousands will be in the streets
  that day as the antiwar movement picks up new
  momentum.
  
  Your support is needed to help end Bush’s criminal
  occupation of Iraq and to bring the troops home now! Visit
  http://www.votenowar.org/donate.html to make an online
  donation through our secure server or to obtain information
  for writing a check.
  
  Visit http://www.votenowar.org/pdf/o25flyer.pdf to download
  the October 25th flyer (pdf format).
  
  For information on transportation to Washington, D.C. for
  October 25, visit http://www.internationalanswer.
  org/campaigns/o25/oct25transp.html .
  
  If you have not already done so, vote today in VoteNoWar’s
  Bring the Troops Home Referendum at http://www.votenowar.
  org/. VoteNoWar, a campaign of the A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition,
  has provided a free service by which you can immediately
  make your views known to the White House and Congress by
  (optionally) sending via email your ballot and a
  personalized message to George W. Bush, Richard Cheney,
  and/or your district’s Congresspeople.

  
  

  ---

  Later today, I’m off again, down the Susitna Valley with a bunch of stuff Greyfox asked me to bring, including a warmer jacket for him.  There have been several frosty mornings lately and many leaves have turned, some have fallen.  Berries and shrooms are everywhere in the woods around here, what with this wet summer.  One of the things I’m taking to Greyfox is a box containing a jumble of rocks from the room that used to be his and is in transition now.  Rocks were everywhere, windowsill, bedside table, on top of stereo speakers, scattered on the carpet… now he gets to sort them, decide which to keep and which to put in stock for sale. 

  
  

  Doug checked some samples online and chose the wallcovering he wants for his new bedroom, and I’ll pick that up in town.  I need to get up on the roof sometime soon and clean the stovepipe.  Then, I’ll have to follow up with the firewood dealer about those other two cords of wood he said he’d bring us.  I don’t know why, but this year I feel more ready for winter than I ever have.  The migratory urge isn’t as strong as it usually is this time of year.  Go figure….

  
  

  

  
  

  
   

  • 11:15 am
  • 3 Comments