Remember the British Socialist in SiCKO saying that in the United States the people are afraid of the government, while in France, the government is afraid of the people – because whenever their rights are compromised, they march in the streets.

In France they also storm the Bastille – through all this hand wringing angst, I wonder if you realise how powerful that act was.

Commented on this previously but it disappeared into the ether.

What can we do, you ask.

Remember what the American colonists did a few hundred years ago when they invented Democracy and started a thing called The Revolution?

thank you – through all this hand wringing angst, I was wondering if anybody thought how powerful the storming of the Bastille really was.

Remember the British Socialist in SiCKO saying that in the United States the people are afraid of the government, while in France, the government is afraid of the people – because whenever their rights are compromised, they march in the streets.

Remember the words of Howard Zinn – No leader ever changed anything; it was the people who went out into the streets that changed things.

What was it they all did?

PROTEST

In the streets, in the buildings, in the condescending faces of their families, friends, neighbors and co-workers.

Not in their armchairs, eating chocolate and saying “zed”.

I refuse to accept this “we” are at fault cuz we “haven’t done enough cuz we’re still in Iraq.”

This regime answers to no one. There is NOTHING we can do to stop this war. We won’t get out until Halliburton is done making money there. Only then, will we get out.

I’m done being involved; done supporting democrats cuz w/exception of Gravel and Kucinich, they all suck.

The two parties are just two faces of Imperialism.

Imagine the possibility that you are wrong. AS so many were wrong when I used to say, in the winter of ‘03, that we should leave. Because if we didn’t leave at THAT time, the situation would deteriorate terribly. That’s what I was afraid of, in ‘03. Now, the situation HAS deteriorated terribly. We would be farther ahead NOW if we had left THEN.

Think about it. They’d be farther along now, if we’d have left THEN.

Imagine what it means if you, those of you who thought that idea was ridiculous then, imagine what it means if you’re wrong AGAIN now. What if we (and they…remember them, the Iraqis?) would have been better off if we’d have pulled out now. What if staying there now only increases an already unimaginably terrible situation?

What odds are you playing? Are you sure you’re looking at the real possibilities? Are you sure that what you’re afraid of is worse than what is SURE to come? As it was in ‘03?

How many people might be alive now, if we’d have left then? How might they have worked out “their” differences (since we blame them for the “civil war”) in a more stable, less war-torn country? Some cities would still be standing. It might have been easier to have pulled out then, no?

Think about it. Just…think about it.

What if you’re wrong? As SO many were in ‘03, when we could have left them still standing? Dear god, what if you’re wrong again?

I accept Maryam’s diagnosis of American racism. Racism has shaped our collective response to a number of our foreign conflicts, and the Iraq war is no exception. There’s been a lot of frustrated head-scratching over the persistent belief that Saddam Hussein was behind the 9/11 attacks, and though some of that belief stems from the Bush administration’s deceptive linkage of Saddam and Al-Qaeda, the belief itself could not take root absent a receptive audience of ignorant bigots. It’s fair to say that millions of Americans, including the ones currently in power, believe that all Arabs are alike. I’d go so far as to say that the terms “Arab” and “muslim” are, to most of our fellow citizens, generally interchangeable.

To those who object to analogies with German Nazism, I’d remind you that British officers serving in Iraq complained that Americans regarded Iraqis as “untermenschen.” That word choice was deliberate, lacerating and came from our closest military ally.

Clem

It’s quite understandable that any Iraqi today would hate all Americans or not be able to tell us apart. That an American would endorse that pov is another matter.

It is also the attitude most likely to get Americans to vote Republican and thus create still more Iraqs, but hey, what is that compared to the need of some people for theatrical mea culpas?

I respect Dr. Maryam’s suffering and the emotional toll it must take on her. What the Republican party has done is awful; they owe her and her country an apology. I also think it’s important for us to know that there are people who think like she does. But I cannot remotely respect her views. She grossly overgeneralizes us in ways we would not accept from our own right wing. Many of us opposed the war, voted for candidates who opposed the war, and are doing what we can in our own ways to try to bring it to an end. To call us all racist murderers and announce that the two parties are identical and equally corrupt – what purpose did that serve here? What did that add to our knowledge except the knowledge that there are people who hate us because of what George Bush has done. What he has done is abominable; but it is not something I – or many of my fellow progressives – did, nor is it useful to her cause to call us racist murderers.

While Iraq is a war based on lies and imperialism under the Neocon Republicans, Viet Nam was a war based on lies (Gulf of Tonkin) and imperialism under the Great Society Democrats. Currenly the Military Industrial Complex and those who benifit from own most Democrats as well as Republicans. When Democrats speak of Iraq in terms of War Crimes under the Nuremburg Laws and that we should be prosecuting American leaders, I’ll know they are different from Republicans.