How Can You Laugh at a Time Like This? is a Dream Machine Site
The Dream Machine --- The Imagination of the World Wide Web

Home Current Column Previous Columns Other Sites Libertarian Feedback

Gypsy & Willy - The Original Libertarian Bloggers

How Can You Laugh at a Time Like This?

Gypsy & Willy

No. 406

We hope we're wrong!

March 24, 2003

Last Friday, on Bill Mahrer's new show "Real Time with Bill Mahrer" on HBO, he said a couple of insightful things...meaning, of course, that we agree with him. First, he suggested that since the Iraqi war is now in progress...basically a "done deal"...isn't it pointless and inappropriate to continue demonstrating against the war? After all, these are our men and women fighting (and dying) in Iraq. Furthermore, he continued, he truly hopes that he has been wrong, that the war will NOT produce any disastrous results, that Saddam Hussein will be quickly removed from power, that the people of Iraq will in fact welcome us as liberators.

We found ourselves agreeing wholeheartedly. Yet, Tim Robbins, one of his guests and a person we have often belittled in the past for his truly inappropriate political comments at venues like the Oscar presentations, made a very interesting dissent. He reminded us of the prolonged and eventually successful protests against the Vietnam war and asked, "After how many deaths is it appropriate to demonstrate? Five? Five hundred? Five thousand?" Of course, the Vietnam war did not end until almost 60,000 American soldiers and 2,000,000 Vietnamese had perished. The numbers of Americans against the war at the time it BEGAN to wind down was well over 85%, but in the beginning, only a handful, 7%, bothered to oppose that action.

Today, we find ourselves allied with the half of Americans who feel that the Iraqi war, despite Saddam's clear deceit and viciousness, is a terrible mistake. Win or lose, we have felt...and said in print...that the direction in which the United States is proceeding is parallel to and equivalent to the early days of Nazi Germany. This does not mean that we think that we will proceed indefinitely in the same direction. This is not the 1930's, the U.S. is not Germany and Hitler never had to contend with the Internet. For example, our leaders, who are practicing the Big Lie...e.g. Saddam Hussein was behind 9/11...with a certain degree of initial success...it is said that 70% of Americans believe this whopper although even the CIA has found no evidence supporting it...a significant minority already KNOWS that it is false. This effect can only multiply as more and more people begin to turn to the Net to get information and to organize around common principles.

But, given this tool, what are we to do? We are convinced that violent reaction, either through terrorism, revolution or direct confrontation to the U.S. military is futile. It can not succeed. Even now, with Osama bin Laden still on the loose, it has been estimated that of the 7,000 fighters trained by al Qaida in Afghanistan, only 200 are still alive or out of captivity. Of course, there is a large likelihood that the aggressive moves of the U.S. will serve as a recruiting tool for those who wish to turn this into a Holy war of Islam against everyone else, but there is no reason to suppose that the world can not withstand and triumph over this violent challenge.

Furthermore, we are personally convinced that civil disobedience, successfully practiced by the followers of Martin Luther King, will also fail for the peace movement. Why? It's a simple matter of logistics. Having ramped up our criminal justice/jail/prison system to accommodate the HUGE numbers of drug criminals being arrested, prosecuted and incarcerated, the government is well positioned to deal with even massive protests of this sort. The fact that over a thousand demonstrators were arrested in San Francisco last week in a single day, mostly for civil disobedience, suggests that this tactic is doomed to failure in the 21st century as well.

So, what to do? One interesting proposal, which has been advanced by a Quaker activist, is to go to the U.N. and seek draconian sanctions against the United States by the remaining countries of the world. The actual proposal, excerpted from the source reads:

The United Nations relocate its headquarters out of the northern hemisphere to a suitable venue, perhaps to one of the most impoverished nations in the world, certainly not to a so-called first world country.
Nations close U.S. embassies and consular offices in their territories.
Nations declare U.S. officials persona non grata and expel them.
Governments and international jurisdictions undertake massive indictments and prosecutions of C.I.A., F.B.I., State Department, U.S. military, etc. employees (present or former) who are or were engaged in promoting terrorist activities by the U.S. government or by other governments or paramilitary forces.
Nations deny use of their territory, territorial waters, and air space to U.S. military forces, and insist that the U.S. immediately relinquish and evacuate U.S. bases on their territory.

This is indeed radical and, if implemented, would probably work. Chances? Certainly right now, slim to none. There are simply too many nations economically tied to the gigantic U.S. economy to give much credence to such proposals. However, if the U.S. continues its campaign to form a New World Order...proposed during the first Bush administration by leading voices now in power in the second administration...continues on to aggressive moves against North Korea, Iran and Syria...the suggested next targets...then there certainly WILL arise some sort of concerted opposition. Western nations appeased Nazi Germany and Japan for a while, but eventually rose up to soundly defeat the Axis powers.

We need to re-emphasize that we do not think that the U.S. can be militarily defeated without disastrous results to the entire world. Our military budget next year will equal the combined budgets of all 191 other nations in the entire world! This year, by the way, it "merely" equals that of the next 23 largest nations. However many weapons of mass destruction possessed by Saddam Hussein, Kim Jong Il or the Ayatollahs, they are VASTLY exceeded by our armory of the same. We possess thousands of nuclear weapons alone, plus thousands of TONS of biological and chemical weapons, certainly enough to kill every living thing on the planet. Yes, Russia and China also possess a lot of these weapons. But, so what? Their use, in any large quantity would be a catastrophe of unimaginable proportions.

We live in perilous times. And the main danger is NOT from al Qaida, or Iraq or Iran, but from the greatest superpower the world has ever known. Us. Damn, we hope we are wrong.

Talk to you later...

Click on image to buy these books!

If you buy them from here, we get a kickback!

Visit Write your Congressperson or Senator and DO IT!

Would you like to "subscribe" to a text only version of this column? Just click HERE and fill out the form you find there and each new column will be delivered to you via email on Moday morning.

Visit Write your Congressperson or Senator and DO IT!

If you would like to recommend this column to some friends, click HERE and fill in their email addresses in the form you will find there, along with your comments.

To contact Willy or Gypsy and comment on what they have written...or anything else...write to willy@dreamagic.com or gypsy@dreamagic.com.

Visit Write your Congressperson or Senator and DO IT!

...the best independent ISP in the Twin Cities

Back to the table of contents.

The Dream Machine --- Network Services

A newspaper near you.