Here's a second stirring call today. As we see we can be a force, we become that force. This helps. I especially like the door Hayden keeps open at the end, where he notes that even if the unthinkable happens, and we go to war, our efforts will continue to build o­n themselves until the people take back this stolen land.

If Bush exposes American troops to chemical attack in the desert at a cost of $200 billion for a permanent imperial outpost, the peace movement will o­nly grow. The stage is set for what was unthinkable six months ago, a serious presidential campaign in 2004. The nobodies are becoming a force to contend with.

TOM HAYDEN o­n RADIO NATION  2/19/03

A few weeks ago I said the peace movement was larger than the movement at a comparable time as the Vietnam war began. Revise that estimate.

The current peace movement is the largest in history. Period. Over ten million people demonstrated in mid-February in 600 cities around the world. The New York Times threw its customary caution to the winds, declaring that there may be two superpowers o­n the planet, the White House and world public opinion.

And this war hasn’t even started. The cynics say the anti-Vietnam movement was big because of the draft and the fear of American casualties. But here you have a larger movement already, a global movement, with no draft and no body bags. What will they think up next to deflate this movement?

They’ve already started blaming the Europeans as if they were wimpy McGovern Democrats.

It’s very confusing. Growing up with a Marine father, I heard that we fought World War 2 to end German militarism, Nazism, nationalism. Now the Bush Administration complains that the Germans have become too pacifist, which I thought was the point!

Globalization apologists like Thomas Friedman are calling for the expulsion of France from the UN Security Council. The complaint is that they are unserious, stupid, insufferable, cheese-eating surrender monkeys. Okay, they like organic food, and their own movies, and they have a 35 hour workweek. That’s why the White House and corporations are rubbing their hands over the new Europe to the east where labor is cheap and US military bases are welcomed.

The willingness of France and Germany to balk at the American empire so far is a great tribute to the power of people in the streets in those countries. The corporate media were clueless, but the resistance around the world went wild when the French foreign minister embraced the slogan of the anti-globalization movement to close his speech at the Security Council: France, he declared, “believes in our ability to build together a better world.”

The smug dreams of empire are turning into a chapter in Barbara Tuchman’s March to Folly. President Bush is home alone. His poll ratings o­n the war and the economy are dropping like smart bombs o­n his presidency. o­nly 45 percent would vote for him if the election were held today, against 40 percent who would vote for an unnamed alternative, a nobody! If Bush exposes American troops to chemical attack in the desert at a cost of $200 billion for a permanent imperial outpost, the peace movement will o­nly grow. The stage is set for what was unthinkable six months ago, a serious presidential campaign in 2004. The nobodies are becoming a force to contend with.

I haven't found this piece,sent by Maireid Sullivan, to be in wide circulation, and wanted to bring you this  unique perspective o­n our times. We get food for thought about what's happening now from these intimate sharings about what was going o­n when containment of Russia, not Iraq, was the issue.  Adlai Stevenson delivered the talk to the Security Council that confirmed Soviet missile-building in Cuba.  His son, Adlai Stevenson III, writes this piece to rebut those who are comparing Colin Powell to his dad.

Different Man, Different Moment

by Adlai E. Stevenson III – New York Times | Op-Ed  2/7/03

Quotes

Pundits and officials in Washington have dubbed Secretary of State Colin Powell's attempt to make a case for war against Iraq in the United Nations Security Council an “Adlai Stevenson moment.” I couldn't disagree more. My father was Adlai Stevenson, who in 1962, as President Kennedy's representative to the United Nations, presented the Security Council with incontrovertible proof that the Soviet Union, a nuclear superpower, was installing missiles in Cuba and threatening to upset the world's “balance of terror.” That “moment” had an obvious purpose: containing the Soviet Union and maintaining peace. It worked, and eventually the Soviet Union collapsed under its own weight. This moment has a different purpose: war. The Bush administration clearly rejects the idea of containing Iraq through committed monitoring by the United Nations, even though this course is the better option…

For o­ne source that will keep you riveted on what really is happening, get o­n the list for Media Lens. I get the feeling that if the world could meet in its pages, we could make things work. In addition to astute criticisms of goings o­n, you also get a sense of things we can do.

Here's the ending for two MEDIA ALERTS (on their site you have to click o­n Media Alerts and then o­n the title of each piece)  — about a major appearance Blair made o­n British TV, BLAIR'S BETRAYAL – PARTS 1 & 2 — which are written with this premise: “We believe that Blair consciously sets out to deceive the public while obscuring his deceptiveness behind an appearance of sincerity. If this sounds like wild speculation, recall that it has in fact been standard political practice since the time of Machiavelli.”              

All of the facts in this two-part Media Alert were readily accessible to us – part-time, unpaid writers – and yet almost none of them were raised by Jeremy Paxman – a full-time, professional journalist backed up by a large BBC research team – nor in the press in the days following the interview.