Cheney on Iran: Just how alarming?

I come back to the US and to analyst/blogger mode after my great break in Spain, and find many signs of escalating tensions on the world scene. It’s hard to know where to start…

    * The horrible recent bombing in Pakistan, presaging the strong probability of continued political deterioration there?
    * News of continued security deterioration in Afghanistan?
    * The sharp rise in tensions between Turkey and northern Iraq?

… And it is at this point that Vice-President Cheney chooses to up the rhetorical ante against Iran??
His recklessness is almost unbelievable.
In remarks delivered yesterday at the annual conference of the AIPAC-sired “Washington Institute for Near East Policy” (WINEP), Cheney promised “serious consequences” if Iran doesn’t abandon its present nuclear policy (which the Iranians have said is aimed only at enriching uranium to power-generation olevels, not the much higher levels required for nuclear weapons.) He also warned that:

    “The Iranian regime needs to know that if it stays on its present course, the international community is prepared to impose serious consequences…The United States joins other nations in sending a clear message: We will not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon.”

Many people have already noted that this language is almost exactly the same as the tension-raising rhetoric that Cheney and Bush both used in the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq.
Just days before Cheney’s speech, Bush himself had warned in a press appearance that Teheran’s achievement of even the knowledge of how to make a nuclear bomb could lead to World War 3. (This seemed like a silly threat, since the knowledge as such is widely available on the internet.) Bush later tried to deny he had been raising the tensions there… But then Cheney chimed in with his Sunday statement.
For many months now, people have been speculating about the chances of the Bush administration launching an attack (or permitting Israel to launch an attack) on Iran.
Until recently, I have remained fairly sanguine on this score, considering the probability to be considerably less than 50%– say, about 30% (max.)
On Sunday, I think the probability went up. So today, I have produced a little graph to illustrate what I think has happened:
JWN's Probability of Attack on Iran Counter
The reason that, despite Cheney’s alarmist rhetoric, I still haven’t raised the number above 50% is because this time, unlike in late 2002, we no longer have Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense. I have a lot more confidence in the good (realist) sense of Bob Gates than I ever did in Rumsfeld.
I have the strong impression that Cheney is once again now, as in 2002, trying to “corner” the President into seeing “no alternative” but to launch the military attack that, apparently, Cheney seems to strongly favor. (On Iran this time, as on Iraq five years ago.) He may well be doing this at this point by claiming to the president that the rhetorical escalation is an essential part of the “coercive diplomacy” required to force the Iranians to back down on the nuclear issue. My judgment is, however, that this will not force the Iranians to back down, for a number of reasons– and also, that Cheney most likely shares this assessment. So then, Cheney could hope that two things may happen: (1) The Iranians in their turn would also up the rhetorical ante, or even the policy ante, by one or more further notches in response to the braggadocio from Washington, thus (in Cheney’s view) even further “proving” their irrationality and the danger this poses, both to Bush and to the US public, and (2) Bush would also find it harder to bring his administration down the tree of escalation that Cheney has been assiduously pushing it up into…
And thus would Cheney “corner” his man.
Back in late 2002, we can certainly nowadays discern a very similar cornering effect at the level of escalating the accusations and the hate-rhetoric against Saddam. But there was also another form of cornering going on: that from the military preparations that Rumsfeld was assiduously masterminding from over in the Pentagon. By February of 2003, Rumsfeld had in place (or, well on the way to the battleground) just about all the forces he thought he needed for the assault on Iraq. Keeping armies of such a size in the field is an expensive undertaking. In the recent El Pais account of the conversation between Bush and Aznar on the eve of the war, you certainly heard Bush talking about the “need” to use the invasion force soon.
(But oh! From today’s perspective we can see how very, very much cheaper and better it would have been for everyone all round if he had never launched them into battle that March, but merely kept them hanging around while the diplomacy continued its course… )
This time, though, I feel fairly sure that Gates is not playing the same game as Cheney. At this point, I think of Condi and Hadley both as being empty ciphers on this issue. Maybe I’m wrong.
So the months ahead will be really momentous ones.
Unfortunately, the dynamics of a US election year can too often be dynamics that favor belligerency and the braggadocio that leads to it. And I feel no confidence at all that, on the issue of Iran, the Democrats will be any cooler and saner than the administration.
I wish the “international community” had a few effective adults in it– leaders who could step in and persuasively explain to Pres. Bush just how crazy it would be to attack Iran. (They could also explain how crazy and destabilizing the present rhetorical escalations already are.) I don’t, however, see any such adults from outside the US playing any effective role in this direction.
I guess we, the US citizenry, are just going to have to be our own adults, and exert whatever pressures we can to rein in this escalation and take our country back to a saner path.
Anyway, from now on, I’m going to try to keep my little “Probability of Attack on Iran Counter” updated, at least once a month. I have the cut-off date for it, as of now, at Inauguration Day 2009. There may well be some periods of particular sensitivity along the way between now and then– determined by the political calendar…. I’m also trying to imagine which way the political pressures may push Bush in that strange twilight period after the election… In the past, in those uber-lame-duck nine weeks, presidents have done a number of surprising, and not always belligerent, things.
(Also, of course, January 20, 2009 will not necessarily see the sudden arrival of realism and sanity in the White House… )

57 thoughts on “Cheney on Iran: Just how alarming?”

  1. Great that you are back, Helena. If having a real holiday means you never thought about anything serious the whole time, that was a proper holiday!
    I like this:
    “we, the US citizenry, are just going to have to be our own adults”
    But not this:
    “and exert whatever pressures we can to rein in this escalation”
    There’s the rub. The warmongers have got a plan, but the peaceniks are still trying to think of one. They have decided they want to be grown-ups at last, but they have not yet decided exactly how they are going to manage it.

  2. Is there a believable and reliable source on either side of the issue on whether it is true that Iran is shipping penetrating bombs into Afghanistan, or allowing them to be shipped in?
    I know the Administration is not credible, but these are manufactured and shipped into the war zone and used against US troops and civilians, destroying lives.

  3. John R as you say its terrible that so many people, american and native, are dying needlessly in Iraq during the illegal occupation by US troops. The thing is there is no credible evidence that the Iranian government is shipping (explosive) penetrator weapons to Iraq, or as you asked Afghanistan.
    We are talking about the copper-lined shaped explosive charge, a weapon which, while requiring skilled and careful manufacture, is old enough to be on a pension. Heard of “bazookas”, that type of charge is what they fire. And there are moderen counters, such as ceramic armor, but its costly and nothing’s perfect.
    However, Iran clearly have nothing to gain by co-operating with the current US government and every reason to learn as fast as possible how to defend themselves against further impending unilateral US aggresion.
    By the way, the term you used (earth) “penetrating bombs” is normally used by US military to describe “Bunker buster” weapons, ironicly those planned for use in the attack on Iran. You may have read the term in an article about that.

  6. One cannot help but wonder how much the attempt to do away with Benazir Bhutto might have to do with the fact that it was the United States that brought her back to potential power in Pakistan.

  7. War and Deliverance
    Since my late father, James Dickey, wrote the novel “Deliverance” and the screenplay for the movie, I like to think there’s more to the story than that, and indeed there is. But it was only last year, when I was asked by my friend Sue Walker at the University of South Alabama (yes, USA) to give a talk about the Middle East, which I normally write about, and also the making of the film “Deliverance,” which people seem to want to hear about, that I started thinking about the movie’s particular relevance for the post-9/11 world. My old man and I disagreed about many things, but when I watched the re-released film again just recently, in light of current headlines, I realized just how well he’d tapped into those mind-sets that eventually helped plunge us into the Mesopotamian quagmire.

  8. Helena –
    One additional factor is the change in the French administration. Britain appears to be a little less of a total lackey to Bush under Brown, but he is nonetheless in line on this. Merkel is, like all German leaders, so afraid of offending Israel, that anything goes with her. Szarkozy is the new card, and he is sounding like a French version of Cheney. I think this ups the odds of some kind of bombing campaign considerably. You may have missed the articles saying that Bush may have ordered a retargeting in Iran to make it appear that the bombing campaign is directed at sites in Iran that are “supporting” insurgents in Iraq. And then there is Hillary who sounds like a female Cheney on the Iran issue. I think that the odds of Bush bombing Iran before he leaves office are far higher. BTW, I notice that no one ever mentions that the IAEA inspectors in Iran have reported no signs of a nuclear weapons program.

  10. “Eleven simultaneous anti-war rallies all across the USA on October 27.”
    Oh yes – having millions and millions of people taking to the streets in anti-war rallies all around the world was so effective in stopping the aggression against Iraq!
    Pardon my sarcasm, but the only thing that is going to stop those madmen is removal from power, and that, as Nancy says, is “off the table”, so I guess a people’s revolution is the only option, and that’s not going to happen either.

  11. Rallies won’t stop these madmen, no. But would cutting back on rallies demoralise, alienate and further marginalise people who want to protest against this journey into chaos? Those who want to protest won’t see their views shared in any other public forum outside the internet. The MSM has largely marginalised “hippies marching with placards”. So there is no dialogue to be had with the madmen, however there is one to be had with each other while respectfully reaching out to other citizens. Sharing anger at a corrupt government as opposed to naively asking it to be better than it is and expecting a result. Personaly I have higher hopes for direct action, but its not “either or”.
    Couldn’t people also take a punt and vote for Kucinich? I know he’s short but your country is in a rather massive crisis. Despite Hillary, Barack’s and John’s agreement with the other Republocrats, who else really still believes more invasions or scare alerts are going to really work for America? Helena herself mentioned thinking of making a donation to Kucinich a while back. Or do you Americans as “voters” really just get the choices you are given? if so I guess your conclusion is right.

  12. “Christians Bring Iranian Jews to Israel”
    If the Jews in Argentina were not safe from the Iranians, what makes them think they’d be safe in Israel…the “wipe off the map” place?

  13. f the Jews in Argentina were not safe from the Iranians,f the Jews in Argentina were not safe from the Iranians,

  14. Has the “wipe off the map” quote been addressed in this blog?
    Why is America ostensibly planning to attack Iran again? What’s the storyline again? Is it because Iran supposedly plans to wipe Israel off the map and/or is a suggested global threat to Jewish people? Or is that being woven into the plot now too? Are the Quds force now to be accused here of also being the MEK, (an Islamic Socialist organization that advocates the overthrow of Iran’s current government)?! Ergo what, blow up Iran?
    All this ad hoc casus belli formation is getting as confusing as the revolving post hoc justifications for Iraq.
    So the story is Iran is a: “Super-IED” smuggling, Nuke Building, anti-Semitic, “Islamo-fascist”, terrorist army about to commit global genocide presumably as their panzer tanks roll over the Brooklyn bridge. Seems like ‘mushroom cloud’ time again, but the spelling of the evil enemies name has changed almost imperceptibly. “Fool me twice, shame on you”(GWB)

  15. One obvious and practical method of applying pressure is to begin serious campaigns against pro-war incumbents, of both parties.

  16. Exactly, Bevin. A successful campaign to elect Dennis Kucinich will apply a serious amount of initial pressure. Then we build on that. If one HAS to vote Republican, (and big “D” Democrats are no longer in any position to judge), there is Ron Paul.

  17. “One obvious and practical method of applying pressure is to begin serious campaigns against pro-war incumbents, of both parties.”
    Agreed.
    And what about the pro-war presidential candidates? Unfortunately that means only 2.3 candidates to NOT campaign against. Ron Paul is the only Republican who is not frothing at the mouth to kill, kill, kill, torture, torture, torture. Hillary and Obama find bombs a perfectly acceptable approach to dispute resolution, and don’t see a bit of urgency about leaving Iraq for Iraqis – maybe some time after 2013, maybe not. Edwards is not THAT much better, Richardson is not completely terrible, and that leaves Kucinich as the only truly anti-war, anti-occupation Democratic candidate.

  18. to begin serious campaigns against pro-war incumbents, of both parties.
    “In the case of World War II, families endured rations and donated to the war effort. Almost every single American contributed to victory. In the case of Iraq and Afghanistan, the war is squeezed into a half hour of prime time television. In WWII, in Korea, in Vietnam, we were a country at war. Now we’re a military at war, with less than 1% of the population in uniform. Unless you have a friend or family member in the military, it’s a separate reality. In airports and in living rooms, you can see for yourself the effect in the eyes of a soldier at war for fifteen months at a time, hidden behind a smile that conceals a secret: you’ll never quite understand what we did there.”
    Coming Home, Part Two

  19. Kristallnacht was a pogrom against Jews throughout Germany and parts of Austria on the night of 9 – 10 November 1938. Jewish homes were ransacked in numerous German cities along with 8,000 Jewish shops, towns and villages, as civilians and stormtroopers destroyed buildings with sledgehammers, leaving the streets covered in smashed windows. Jews were beaten to death; 30,000 Jewish men were taken to concentration camps; and 1,668 synagogues were ransacked with 267 set on fire. (This information is from Wikipedia).
    In Prague, in the Czech Republic, a fascist organisation called “National Resistance” is to be permitted to hold a march to celebrate the anniversary of Kristallnacht with a march through the city’s Jewish Quarter. The Prague municipality twice banned the march but Eric Sedlacek of the “National Resistance” went to court to challenge the ban. On both occasions, the Czech courts found in favour of the fascists, and now the march looks set to go ahead.

  20. More about the Czech fascist march through the Jewish Quarter of Prague in celebration of the anniversary of Kristallnacht.
    The march is scheduled for 10 November, which is a Saturday.
    People are being encouraged to contact the Embassy of the Czech Republic in every country in the world, wherever you may be, to protest against this monstrous atrocity.
    Thanks to Liberation, in London for this info .
    The Czech National Day is October 28 (a Sunday).

  21. We know all too well that BushCo will start wars to affect electoral dynamics. But surely no President starts a conflict of choice in his last year?

  22. I really think people like ‘dominic’ who keep moaning about anti-jewish stirrings should look in the mirror a little more often.
    Of course, it is always easier to moan – you can waste a little more of your life calling me an antisemite, if it makes you feel more important.

  23. I really think people like ‘dominic’ who keep moaning about anti-jewish stirrings
    AND OFFF TOPIC ALSO

  24. Bob, your ruling class is playing a much longer game than you suggest, and the electoral charade has almost nothing to do with it. The masses are not assisted by relying on the empty spectacle of bourgeois politics. They must also play a longer game, if they are to defend their interests against the veiled machinations of the Imperial power. Hopes hung upon the next electorap extravaganza will surely be dashed.
    Let me try to knit your part of the dialogue with my own meditation on the extra-parliamentary politics of the left, the right, and the simply peace-loving, using another example.
    In India, the concerted action of the communists over the past two years has included a re-run of the Ghandian “salt march” tactic. The alliance that these communists have led has succeeded in stalling what is referred to in India as the “Nuclear Deal”, between India and the USA. The nuclear part of this deal is scandalous at a time when the USA is threatening war on Iran on the grounds that Iran has a nuclear power programme, while India has long since developed and tested an actual nuclear weapon. But the deal means much more than just lethal nuclear double standards. It means the selling of Indian independence by the Indian bourgeoisie to the US ruling class, and the consequent abandonment of the Indian poor to a terrible fate.
    Read a well-written tour d’horizon from an Indian standpoint about these matters at:
    http://www.counterpunch.org/prashad10232007.html

  25. “Electorap” was a typo, but it suggests a nice realist lexicon.
    “Electocrap” springs to mind, and “crapocracy”.
    “Elector glide-in blue”‘s another one (blue is the colour of the right where I come from, and red is for the revolutionaries).
    Sorry, but I can’t take US electoral politics seriously.

  28. A word of caution: Onion news (see above) does hard edged satire and some episodes contain adult language and themes (including sexual references) which may offend some people.

  29. Dear Peacenicks, please make sure your 11 demonstartions against the war also are against the Turks waging war on the Kurds. That is a nobel cause, there are barely 3.000 PKK fighters, not a real threat to Turkey’s welfare. And while you are at it how about demonstrating for the Kurds’ rights and the right to their own state. Or only Arabs deserve statehood?
    PS: If war breaks out with Iran, my prayers and my tax dollars will find a home on the good guys side.

  30. – The number of Americans who say they worry at least “somewhat” about a terrorist attack has increased seven points in six months.

    – Nearly six in 10 say we have a moral obligation to the Iraqi people, while only one-third say the United States should act in its own interest without regard to how it affects the Iraqis

    – When asked if U.S. troops should stay in Iraq to control the violence even if it means more American casualties or withdraw even if it means more Iraqi casualties, 55 percent said the United States should still withdraw

    Full report here

  31. Darn straight Doris mate one shouldn’t overreact to a few of one’s countrymen being killed by people fighting to have their own country. Shame on the Turks. Now lets see, have we missed out any protests about similar unjustifiable overreactions? We peace nicks do indeed have this thing about maintaining a consistent and thorough position, just as you “war nicks” would expect conscientious people to have.

  32. Darn straight Doris mate one shouldn’t overreact to a few of one’s countrymen being killed by people fighting to have their own country. Shame on the Turks. Now lets see, have we missed out any protests about similar unjustifiable overreactions? We peace nicks do indeed have this thing about maintaining a consistent and thorough position, just as you “war nicks” would expect conscientious people to have.

  33. “The representative of Prague’s Jewish community are alarmed that despite all the efforts the authorities have failed to ban the neo-Nazi demonstration,” community leader Frantisek Banyai said in a statement Wednesday.
    “It is absolutely obvious that the march through the Jewish quarter on the anniversary of the pogrom is meant as a menace which has nothing to do with the declared protest against the war in Iraq,” Banyai said.
    “Prague’s Jewish community, together with all who take the neo-Nazi threat seriously, are ready to guard the religious gathering, secure security for its participants and prevent the neo-Nazis from marching through the Jewish quarter,” he said.
    The gathering will commemorate the victims of the pogrom, he said.
    http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/10/24/europe/EU-GEN-Czech-Neo-Nazi-March.php
    For those who may have forgotten, the Wednesday of that week, 7 November 2007, is the 90th Anniversary of the October, 1917 proletarian revolution in Russia. Once again, anti-semitism and anti-communism march in jack-booted step.

  34. Paul Woodward nails it again:
    “At least the Russians understood they were being lied to. Most Americans, on the other hand, are completely ignorant of the incestuous relationship between the press and the government. In this system shaped by unspoken agreements, there is no need for some clumsy Ministry of Information. All the managing editors of the major outlets can be relied upon to shape their products (within an acceptable latitude) in alignment with political and commercial power — even when that means that they knowingly makes themselves instruments of an altogether avoidable disaster.”
    http://warincontext.org/2007/10/26/news-editors-comment-israel-can-live-with-a-nuclear-iran/

  35. What exactly does Paul Woodward nail, JC, pray tell? His first nine words are a genuflection to the Cold War. Why does he have to do that? What exactly are these Russian lies he is talking about? Were the Russians (he means Soviets) lying about Imperialism and neo-colonialism? Were they lying about the USA at all? No, they were not!
    People like this show off their cowardice as soon as they open their mouths. Even as he makes towards a denunciation of “unspoken agreements” and “acceptable latitude”, he can’t help himself, gipped as he is by fear of what he might be doing, from paying homage to the same evils he is about to denounce. What a coward!

  36. “We’re at a moment when the international system is in a period of change like we haven’t seen for several hundred years. In some parts of the world, the nation state, on which the existing international system was based, is either giving up its traditional aspects, like in Europe, or as in the Middle East, where it was never really fully established, it is no longer the defining element. So in those two parts of the world, there is tremendous adjustment in traditional concepts.”

    Henry Kissinger, June 2007

  38. What exactly does Paul Woodward nail, JC, pray tell?
    What Woodward nails? Well, that, in the end, the New York Times is as much an instrument of State Propaganda for USA policy as the Pravda was for USSR policy. And that newspapers like the New York Times and the Washington Post are even more effective means of propaganda than Tass and Pravda in the USSR could ever have been, for the simple reason that in the USSR people knew that their press was just an outlet for State Propaganda for the Party Bosses that ruled the USSR, while in the USA people think that their press is noble and honest and really tries to inform them about what’s going on in the world.
    In reality, though, the only real task of the Mainstream press in the West seems to be to make official spin credible, by recycling spin as news (after having received the spin from the “official sources”, which seem to be their main source of “news”).
    So no real debate in the USA press about the rights or wrongs of being in Iraq, but only “debates” about whether or not the occupation could or should have been better executed. Someone compared the level of “debate” in the US press about Iraq with the kind of debate one could find in High School magazines about the performance of the school’s baseball team; shouldn’t the coach have used different tactics, and would it have been wiser to select some different players? That’s the level of debate in the mainstream press.
    The same type of “debate” might have been found in the pages of the Pravda during the Russian occupation of Afghanistan. If so, no one in the West fell for it. But when the Western press does the same, it suddenly becomes different. Then we speak about “a lively debate”. After all, our press is free, isn’t it?

  39. Menno,
    You, JC and Paul Woodward construct your protest against the perfidious US bourgeois press in a way that can only be designed to ward off the admission that the Soviets were absolutely right about the fundamental problem, which is Imperialism in general and US Imperialism in particular. They were not lying about it. They spoke the truth about it from the first beginnings of their revolution, when US and British forces invaded their country and had to be expelled. They knew that US Imperialism was a menace to peace and to every independent state on earth, especially independent bourgeois-nationalist ones like Afghanistan and Iraq. Also, as a matter of fact, the intervention of the USA against the republican (i.e. anti-royalist) Afghan government preceded the Soviet response.
    It is actually quite reasonable to argue about Soviet anti-Imperialist tactics, and the mistakes they may have made in Afghanistan and elsewhere. Other anti-Imperialists have made these arguments, and continue to do so, because the question of how to counter Imperialism is the burning issue of our times. But it is unreasonable, and creates a hopeless muddle, to argue a parity of aggressiveness between the two sides in the Cold War.
    The end of the Cold War provides the proof of this. The Soviet Union disappears, but US aggression continues and even increases. There is no enlightenement to be gained in a comparison between the USA and the Soviet Union that holds the Soviet Union up as the standard of evil. This is a travesty.
    You will not find a way forward if you appeal to a fraudulent standard based on a Cold War construct. Appealing to the bourgeois press to hold itself to such a measure is laughably naive: the charicature is of their own construction.
    Rather avoid odious comparisons of this kind, and instead argue with them from first principles. At the same time begin the work of constructing a body of information and properly informed opinion, separate from and in parallel to the bourgeois media. You still have the means to do this, including fora like this one (JWN). Do not worry that you are starting small. You will soon find that there are many other resources that are not tainted with tendentious Cold War rhetoric, if you have eyes to see them.

  40. Menno,
    You, JC and Paul Woodward construct your protest against the perfidious US bourgeois press in a way that can only be designed to ward off the admission that the Soviets were absolutely right about the fundamental problem, which is Imperialism in general and US Imperialism in particular. They were not lying about it. They spoke the truth about it from the first beginnings of their revolution, when US and British forces invaded their country and had to be expelled. They knew that US Imperialism was a menace to peace and to every independent state on earth, especially independent bourgeois-nationalist ones like Afghanistan and Iraq. Also, as a matter of fact, the intervention of the USA against the republican (i.e. anti-royalist) Afghan government preceded the Soviet response.
    It is actually quite reasonable to argue about Soviet anti-Imperialist tactics, and the mistakes they may have made in Afghanistan and elsewhere. Other anti-Imperialists have made these arguments, and continue to do so, because the question of how to counter Imperialism is the burning issue of our times. But it is unreasonable, and creates a hopeless muddle, to argue a parity of aggressiveness between the two sides in the Cold War.
    The end of the Cold War provides the proof of this. The Soviet Union disappears, but US aggression continues and even increases. There is no enlightenement to be gained from a comparison between the USA and the Soviet Union that holds the Soviet Union up as the standard of evil. This is a travesty.
    You will not find a way forward if you appeal to a fraudulent standard based on a Cold War construct. Appealing to the bourgeois press to hold itself to such a measure is laughably naive: the charicature is of their own construction.
    Rather avoid odious comparisons of this kind, and instead argue from first principles. At the same time begin the work of constructing a body of information and properly informed opinion, separate from and in parallel to the bourgeois media. You still have the means to do this, including fora like this one (JWN). Do not worry that you are starting small. You will soon find that there are many other resources that are not tainted with tendentious Cold War rhetoric, if you have eyes to see them.

  41. When asked if U.S. troops should stay in Iraq to control the violence even if it means more American casualties or withdraw even if it means more Iraqi casualties, 55 percent said the United States should still withdraw.
    Salah, I am curious how you would vote on this question.

  42. Menno – you are absolutely correct in pointing out that the NYT and WaPo are the “better” than Pravda and Izwiestija ever have been. The Soviet Porpagandists were like children compared with the “pro’s” in the “free” MSM.

  43. Dominic, the interesting areas to me in observing myself and my fellow humans are the differences between (1) how we try to present ourselves to others, (2) how we view ourselves, (3) how we strategize to improve our lot, and (4) what is actually happening in our lives. All of these factors come into play in Woodward’s brief analysis of US propaganda (a/k/a the free press). That’s why I liked it. I enjoy reading your views as well, especially on those occasions when you feel at liberty to depart from your more dogmatic communist doctrines.

  45. Hi Menno:
    Does this passage sound familiar, and if so do you see any thematic link?
    “How many roads must a man drive down before you can call him The Man? The answer my friends, is one road, if that road is driven down in a gas-guzzling Cadillac Escalade.”

  49. So, how many people bothered to show up this time around?
    It just keeps feeling more and more useless.

  51. “How many roads must a man drive down before you can call him The Man? The answer my friends, is one road, if that road is driven down in a gas-guzzling Cadillac Escalade.”
    Ah! Bob Dylan! Still going strong, for Cadillac & Country:
    http://tinyurl.com/yp7c2q

  53. Dominic, whether the “vids are great” or not is irrelevant. It really, really matters how many people actually show up for those things, and I understand even the organizers, who always exaggerate, are only claiming about 30,000 for the San Francisco march. That is less than 25% of the numbers before the invasion, and in the early months after the invasion. If the point of these things is to send the war mongers a message, then it isn’t much of a message.

  54. That was just my point, Roland. If this Saturday was supposed to send some kind of big message to Bush. The message that it sent was was pretty sad. The message was that for the most part the people of the United States don’t care all that much what he does in Iraq, and aren’t hugely concerned about what he might do in Iran or Syria or anywhere else either.

  55. OK well, Shirin as ususal you have a reasonable point. The protests aren’t the “right hook” to Bush some expect them to be. But let’s reconsider the rest of the obvious truth for a moment. They worked out you couldn’t draft just anybody’s kids in Vietnam. Now they just send the poor, and mercenaries the tax payer buys from their corporations. The “man on the street” now feels: “OK you kids and bleeding heart liberals go protest, its all very sad but the government isn’t listening. I’m no Che Guevara, I just need that next pay cheque and gas in my Cadillac.”

    We have to change that culture, because of the terrible truth, that it can’t last and we either change or will be largely wiped out. People need to be brought to face the real question, what do you decide now, at the 11th hour, do we want a sustainable world for all of us, or do we want a few neocons to be the only survivors after grabbing control of what little is left? Whatever happens folks, going to the Mall isn’t a choice most of us will have a few decades out. We will be protesting in front of soldiers for food. Slaughtering people overseas won’t fix this. So what do we do? Much is known but the whole answer is yet to be found.
    What we currently have is a “progressive” 5% of the population protesting and bickering furiously on sites like Commondreams.org on every issue.
    The current protests have a vast range of messages that assail the senses. Look at the array of placards and banners. It’s a celebration of diversity, a carnival of the liberals. And it has a value, because it lifts thinking people’s spirits. Stopping it would be wrong. But no it won’t directly change anything critical. Compare these boutique protests to the simple, huge group of ordinary people on the white house lawn with a few flags. How do we get that huge group again?
    It’s the role of artists, politicians, other speakers and writers to convince ordinary people about the one key issue, genocidal, global resource war or sustainability. Without selfishly succumbing to depression first from this burden. Even though the revolution will not be televised. Other causes need to wheel their own barrow on their own time. We “masses” protest one thing at a time and only when our minds are made up. When other ordinary people know, as we do, that it’s our children’s future or the plutocrats, “get on the streets, change the world in a decade or die”, they will do what they did in Vietnam. Shirin you are a clear and convincing writer, you have an obligation to understand what is at stake and get the word out. As individuals, we need to start the necessary changes in our own lives to start having faith in humanity and living sustainably ourselves. We have to lead by example, obviously one cannot be deaf to one’s own message, one needs to see how hard it may be to follow.

  56. Hi Shirin,
    Your idea of what a demo is all about and mine are different. You think a demo is supposed to send a message to Bush. You think that message is big if there are a lot of people and not if there are less people. I suppose you have some notion of a “critical mass” that would create a tipping point or something like that.
    I don’t see it like that at all. My comparison to a demo would be what I am doing now. Let’s say a hundred people are going to read this Comment that I am writing. Even if it is fifty ,or less, it is still very well worth doing.
    If I go to a demo with my comrades and a banner, and if we make placards, and if we have flyers, and a bit of a band, we will reach thousands with our message. It’s another medium of communication. In fact a demo is a mass medium of communication and it can have spin-offs like these videos, and photographs, and the transcripts of the speeches, and e-mail addresses exchanged. It’s like a political market as well. It’s a political theatre, with plenty of scope for comic talents as well.
    The idea that you all go out and somebody counts you, and then the numbers go up to the Presnit and he says, oh crikey, I’d better do something. This is not the point at all. The Presnit is only going to get worried when he thinks those ideas are bubbling up. In fact he is going to get worried when he has no idea of the numbers, because at that point he will have lost control of the formation of opinion.
    A demo’s part of the repertoire. It’s a great part but by no means the only one. The whole thing is to get a movement rolling. In human self-expression you need all the arts. Music, painting, film, writing, dance. It’s not normal to rely on just one channel. Demos are great because there is so much scope there.
    It’s a time for us to see each other, too, and that is important. In a big way it is for ourselves, for us peaceniks. For me to watch those films from SA, and have a really good look at those Yanks, real Yanks doing a demo! It’s incredible. It’s very pleasing, I can tell you.

Comments are closed.