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Bernard Weiner's Blog
March 23, 2005
Schiavo Manipulation, Anti-War Demos, Cowardly Rummy
Some brief thoughts on the Schiavo case, last weekend's anti-war rallies, and how Rumsfeld yet again attempts to escape responsibility for the disaster that is the Iraq War.
Poll after poll shows that the American people, by a wide margin, think that the Congress sticking its nose into the Schiavo family's tragic business is cynical political gamesmanship at its worst. So why did Karl Rove and his lackeys in Congress decide to go for it?
One doesn't have to look far for the reasons why. An anonymous memo circulated to all GOP senators laid it out:
>>"ABC News obtained talking points circulated among Senate Republicans explaining why they should vote to intervene in the Schiavo case. Among them, that it is an important moral issue and the 'pro-life base will be excited,' and that it is a 'great political issue -- this is a tough issue for Democrats'."
In other words, using Terri Schiavo as a prop throws some red meat to the GOP's fundamentalist wing, and ties up the Democrats in a political knot. And it worked in both cases: the pro-life forces jumped on board enthusiastically, and most Democrats ran for cover.
Even though a federal judge has ruled there is no reason to overturn years of state-court decisions in this case, there is no end to this tragic controversy. Appeals will drag on forever, or until the brain-dead Schiavo succumbs to the withdrawal of her feeding tube.
In the meantime, and after she dies, right-to-lifers will use her has a poster-child prop to raise big bucks for their organizations.
The whole thing is sick, and the initial polls seem to indicate that the American public is turned off by the crass manipulation for political effect.
But, thanks to Rove and the rest, the Schiavo brouhah trumped the anti-war protests in the mass media over the weekend.
ANTI-WAR RALLIES NEED BOOSTER-SHOT
As a matter of fact, one would be hard put to find much mention of those Saturday protests -- 800 major demonstrations around the United States, many thousands marching in capitals abroad -- amid the all-Schiavo, all-the-time coverage in the corporate mass-media.
I went to the anti-war rally in San Francisco. Impending rain no doubt kept away a lot of would-be marchers, but something else is happening in the anti-war movement that needs to be addressed, especially if what happened in San Francisco is typical of the demonstrations elsewhere across the United States.
Mass demos are, in a way, becoming overly predictable paint-by-numbers events. The march itself -- with all the colorful street performers and musicians and puppets and signs and such -- is fun, filled with determined, grassroots citizens. But the formal rallies, despite the fiery rhetoric, is becoming, dare I say it?, boring.
It's the choir preaching to the choir. And that choir, by traditional rule, has to be made up of every constituent part of the progressive movement, even if that means 25 speakers. So there is the obligatory Native American speaker, Latino speaker, Palestinian speaker, war veteran speaker, labor union speaker, African American speaker, and on and on. It goes on for hours.
The speeches are fine, don't get me wrong -- filled with justified anger, rage and inspiration -- but they are directed to the already-convinced, and we aren't the one who need to hear it.
The Bush war on Iraq has entered into its third year. The polls indicate that most Americans think the war was begun in error, and is not worth the death and money spent on it. More and more traditional/moderate Republicans, ordinary middle-class families (many with sons and daughters sent to Iraq), small business owners seeing the economy tank while $300 billion goes to the war effort abroad, et al. -- all are suspicious of Bush's war.
In short, there is a large constituency out there that perhaps could be brought into the active anti-war ranks -- maybe not all marching, but many contacting their elected officials, organizing in their churches, writing letters, etc.-- but few in the peace movement are engaged in that kind of outreach.
They're content speaking to themselves, not noticing or caring that hundreds of folks walk away from the rally while the speechifying drags on.
In the anti-Vietnam War days, we Movement activist types finally came to realize that the war wouldn't end until ordinary, middle-class Americans abandoned Nixon and his mad war policies. So, across the country, we made sure to meet them in non-threatening surroundings -- church picnics, community events, school classes, in their homes, one-on-one meetings, etc. -- and let the human contact work its magic.
They discovered that despite the hippie garb and habits that so outraged and threatened them, we were just ordinary, worried young people, sincere in our beliefs; we came to know these bourgeois types as caring, anxious, intelligent citizens.
Within a few months, many of them were marching with us, or at least doing anti-war work in ways that felt more comfortable to them. Nixon shortly came to understand that he'd lost his middle-class base, and ended the war.
I don't want to make it seem that it was us scruffy anti-war protesters that ended the war -- but our activities, especially in eroding the pro-war base in the American middle class, certainly had some salutary effect in bringing that immoral war to a close. And it could help in bringing this war -- one that not only is immoral but incompetently managed, and which will in the long run do untold damage to the national interests of the United States -- to an end as well.
SEE RUMMY RUN
Speaking of the Iraq War, did you catch Rumsfeld's recent remarks blaming NATO ally Turkey for the problems the U.S. is having in Iraq?
As is always the case, Bush and his cronies are never responsible for what goes wrong, not ever. They take credit when something good happens in Iraq, or elsewhere, but if negative things happen, it's always someone else's fault -- or nobody's fault, caca just happens.
This time, on "Fox News Sunday," Rummy was asked about the quick rise of the Iraqi nationalist insurgency and how America seemed unprepared for that situation. It was Turkey's fault, said Rumsfeld, because the Turkish Parliament wouldn't let U.S. military forces enter Iraq from the north, and thus the insurgents had time to scatter and hide out, avoiding a pincer movement from the South and North that would have rounded them up, or destroyed them.
So Bush and Rumsfeld, the Secretary of Defense, the ones in charge of launching the war, did not have all their ducks lined up in a row, and OKd the invasion anyway. How many Americans died needlessly because of the tunnel-vision rush to start this unnecessary war by Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld and the rest of the Bush neo-cons ?
Wasn't my fault, said Rummy; the Turks ate my homework.
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