NMBR has been busy. We resume now with the regularly scheduled program.
“But if we, as a nation, want to end the farce of false patriotism to justify wars for profit and empire, we will have to sacrifice until it hurts. In this cleansing act will come redemption, because then we can be assured that all of the children of the world are safe and sound. If we don't work to end the absolute stranglehold of violence we are clutched in, then we deserve what we get.”
~Cindy Sheehan, April 17, 2007
Also see: Cindy Sheehan: “We need a non-violent revolution to overthrow this private government.”
Cindy Sheehan came to Purdue on Thursday, April 12, 2007. The local media, and seemingly half the population of our humble hamlet, became frenzied, mad.
[You will find at the bottom of this post a series of articles and letters written against her visit.]
In good biopolitical form, protestors against Cindy Sheehan tend to buy into Bush’s sacrificial logic of “you are either with us or against us.” What they assume to be anti-American is in fact an indifference to stupid patriotism.
In good biopolitical form, protestors against Cindy Sheehan tend to buy into Bush’s sacrificial logic of “you are either with us or against us.” What they assume to be anti-American is in fact an indifference to stupid patriotism.
A concern for the all the innocent dead of war is not necessarily an hysterical mobilization against Amerikkka.
Those who still support the war in Iraq—and, worse, those who still support the president—are controlled and manipulated through RADICAL FEAR. Many so-called supporters of the war, if they are not out-right racist, will pretend to a courage that they can never imagine. It is fear that drove this people to war; it is fear that keeps the people from coming to honesty and realizing the magnitude of lies; it is fear that maintains the scapegoating mechanism operative at the heart of our culture; and it is fear that will function ideologically to mask the obscenity of war-profiteering driving the continuation and escalation of the war.
Let there be no mistake: Cindy Sheehan is a radical whose plans for change would bring this country to a radical identity crisis. But that’s why this velvet revolution she proposes is necessary. Most importantly, her revolution is a Socratic revolution! It takes political discourse for diversity, freedom, and happiness seriously—even when the supporters of Bush, who claim to be most Amerikkkan, willingly effect a “state of exception” to the constitutional rights ostensibly afforded to everyone.
Cindy Sheehan promotes a radical, non-violent, and revolutionary gesture of self-sacrifice—a bold new political and religious subjectivity that necessarily challenges “patriotic” fear and racist paranoia. It is a revolution of love—a revolution whose ethical corrective to solidarity is guaranteed by critical, Socratic questioning and by the directly communicated imperatives of love, obligation, and a preferential treatment for the poor, the subaltern. This call for self-sacrifice is inspired (as breathed life into) by a certain Scriptural tradition, or a postsecular discourse of responsibility—a discourse that offers notions of “bearing witness,” “self-sacrifice as cleansing act,” and agapic “unconditional love” (and not privileging the preferential love of patriotism).
Let there be no mistake: Cindy Sheehan is a radical whose plans for change would bring this country to a radical identity crisis. But that’s why this velvet revolution she proposes is necessary. Most importantly, her revolution is a Socratic revolution! It takes political discourse for diversity, freedom, and happiness seriously—even when the supporters of Bush, who claim to be most Amerikkkan, willingly effect a “state of exception” to the constitutional rights ostensibly afforded to everyone.
Cindy Sheehan promotes a radical, non-violent, and revolutionary gesture of self-sacrifice—a bold new political and religious subjectivity that necessarily challenges “patriotic” fear and racist paranoia. It is a revolution of love—a revolution whose ethical corrective to solidarity is guaranteed by critical, Socratic questioning and by the directly communicated imperatives of love, obligation, and a preferential treatment for the poor, the subaltern. This call for self-sacrifice is inspired (as breathed life into) by a certain Scriptural tradition, or a postsecular discourse of responsibility—a discourse that offers notions of “bearing witness,” “self-sacrifice as cleansing act,” and agapic “unconditional love” (and not privileging the preferential love of patriotism).
**
Here is a copy of anarkissed’s speech given at the rally:
FREE SPEECH! FREE SPEECH! FREE SPEECH! FREE SPEECH! FREE!
FREE SPEECH! FREE SPEECH! FREE SPEECH! FREE SPEECH! FREE SPEECH! Welcome everyone to the free speech island so generously abandoned to us by the police!
Welcome activists, leftist, and human beings alike! We’ve got to be here tonight to speak out against this right-wing lynch-mob which has organized tonight against Cindy Sheehan.
On the one hand, the title of Cindy Sheehan’s speech—“Speaking Peace to Power”—brilliantly modifies the obsolete and clichéd imperative to “Speak Truth to Power”: As Noam Chomsky asks, what the hell does speaking truth to power even mean when power already knows the truth! The Bush administration is fully aware of their lies that drove us to war and their attacks on our civil liberty!
Power already knows the truth, because the truth is that power is making obscene profits from this war!
Power already knows the truth, because the truth is that power still controls the fears and minds of a full third of the American population!
Power already knows the truth, because the truth is that power has destroyed the truth!
In a time of mass nationalist hysteria and radical war fever, in a time of saturated corporate media plugged directly into the war-machine, in such times all we can do is speak PEACE to power!
But how do you speak peace to a mob? Is it even possible to speak peace to the mob mentality—with its echoing and paranoid chatter of fear?
The right-wing lynch mob thinks we are caught up in a culture war! They read their O’Reilly’s and their Limbaugh’s and their Glenn Beck’s like heroes in some courageous culture war! CULTURAL WARRIOR! Bill O’Reilly declares himself. The fearful and the frightened gather together into a mob and they call it courageous, or even heroic.
But these people have no idea that what we’re fighting is not a culture war. It’s a motherfuckin’ Class War! But if they keep us distracted fighting the so-called culture war, they can keep waging their class war with relative invisibility. We are caught up in a class war that we are finally beginning to realize was commissioned decades ago by the right-wing—by the so-called moral majority that freaked out about people dropping out of the culture of fear!
And don’t fool yourself: Capitalism adores the culture war. In the culture war, the consumer is the soldier and fear is the tactic of choice. Why else did Bush tell us after 9/11 to go out and buy things? Capitalism profits from demographics fighting demographics. Capitalism loves to sell you t-shirts and bumper stickers. Capitalism loves to sell you television and hatred and mindless diatribes. And most importantly, capitalism loves to sell you fear!
Analysts complain that the Bush administration went to war in Iraq without a sufficient strategy, but if we read the Iraq war as another tactic in the broader globalized class war, then the war serves it purpose—which is to continue shifting radical amounts of capital—hundreds of billions of dollars every year—from the people to the private corporations getting multi-billion dollar no-bid contracts from their cronies who designed the war.
The right-wing lynch-mob thinks we’re fighting a culture war! But we’re really caught up in a class war—that we didn’t even start!
Check this out: Last month, Forbes magazine declared 2006 “The Richest Year in Human History!” The same week that Forbes declared 2006 the richest year in human history, another article was published—a separate article that paints an entirely different economic portrait of America. This second report points out that the US Economy is “Leaving Record Numbers in Deep Poverty.”
How is it that the richest year in human history also sees the highest and the deepest poverty rates in America since 1975—the year the Vietnam war finally came to a close? Where has all this money gone if not back to our communities? If not to our schools, our hospitals, our environment? Where does the money go? It gets concentrated into the hands of a few. It goes to Exxon Mobil, Halliburton, KBR. It goes back to the military-industrial-congressional complex and thus it goes to fuel a more aggravated class war!
Corporations profiting in the billions from this war are the ones who staged it! This means that private interests are paraded as public interests! It was never about Weapons of Mass Destruction! It was never about “Fighting them over there rather than over here”! It was never about “spreading democracy”! It was about shifting massive amounts of capital across the globe! And now what are they doing? Halliburton is moving to Dubai, and Blackwater USA—the world’s largest private corporate army of mercenaries are protecting Halliburton at the expense of the tax payers and of the workers and of the generations coming to age!
The right-wing lynch-mob thinks that we’re fighting a culture war. The problem is that it’s easier to speak peace to power than it is to speak peace to a mob. Maybe, then, to speak peace to the mob we must start by speaking Peace not to power, but peace to Truth! You start by giving a shit about others! You start with real courage to stand up against the administration, to speak your mind even when confronted by the police or by the right-wing lynch-mob. This is why we’re here today: We must speak peace to the mob so that Cindy Sheehan can speak peace to power!
Recently, Cornel West describes what it means to be a leftist, which is how I will conclude:
So that if you are concerned about structural violence, if you’re concerned about exploitation at the workplace, if you're concerned about institutionalized contempt against gay brothers and lesbian sisters, if you're concerned about organized hatred against peoples of color, if you're concerned about a subordination of women, that's not cheap PC chitchat; that is a calling that you're willing to fight against and try to understand the sources of that social misery at the structural and institutional level and at the existential and the personal level.”
That's what it means, Cornel West says, to be a leftist. I add, that’s what it means to be a human.
NO WAR BUT THE CLASS WAR!!
On the one hand, the title of Cindy Sheehan’s speech—“Speaking Peace to Power”—brilliantly modifies the obsolete and clichéd imperative to “Speak Truth to Power”: As Noam Chomsky asks, what the hell does speaking truth to power even mean when power already knows the truth! The Bush administration is fully aware of their lies that drove us to war and their attacks on our civil liberty!
Power already knows the truth, because the truth is that power is making obscene profits from this war!
Power already knows the truth, because the truth is that power still controls the fears and minds of a full third of the American population!
Power already knows the truth, because the truth is that power has destroyed the truth!
In a time of mass nationalist hysteria and radical war fever, in a time of saturated corporate media plugged directly into the war-machine, in such times all we can do is speak PEACE to power!
But how do you speak peace to a mob? Is it even possible to speak peace to the mob mentality—with its echoing and paranoid chatter of fear?
The right-wing lynch mob thinks we are caught up in a culture war! They read their O’Reilly’s and their Limbaugh’s and their Glenn Beck’s like heroes in some courageous culture war! CULTURAL WARRIOR! Bill O’Reilly declares himself. The fearful and the frightened gather together into a mob and they call it courageous, or even heroic.
But these people have no idea that what we’re fighting is not a culture war. It’s a motherfuckin’ Class War! But if they keep us distracted fighting the so-called culture war, they can keep waging their class war with relative invisibility. We are caught up in a class war that we are finally beginning to realize was commissioned decades ago by the right-wing—by the so-called moral majority that freaked out about people dropping out of the culture of fear!
And don’t fool yourself: Capitalism adores the culture war. In the culture war, the consumer is the soldier and fear is the tactic of choice. Why else did Bush tell us after 9/11 to go out and buy things? Capitalism profits from demographics fighting demographics. Capitalism loves to sell you t-shirts and bumper stickers. Capitalism loves to sell you television and hatred and mindless diatribes. And most importantly, capitalism loves to sell you fear!
Analysts complain that the Bush administration went to war in Iraq without a sufficient strategy, but if we read the Iraq war as another tactic in the broader globalized class war, then the war serves it purpose—which is to continue shifting radical amounts of capital—hundreds of billions of dollars every year—from the people to the private corporations getting multi-billion dollar no-bid contracts from their cronies who designed the war.
The right-wing lynch-mob thinks we’re fighting a culture war! But we’re really caught up in a class war—that we didn’t even start!
Check this out: Last month, Forbes magazine declared 2006 “The Richest Year in Human History!” The same week that Forbes declared 2006 the richest year in human history, another article was published—a separate article that paints an entirely different economic portrait of America. This second report points out that the US Economy is “Leaving Record Numbers in Deep Poverty.”
How is it that the richest year in human history also sees the highest and the deepest poverty rates in America since 1975—the year the Vietnam war finally came to a close? Where has all this money gone if not back to our communities? If not to our schools, our hospitals, our environment? Where does the money go? It gets concentrated into the hands of a few. It goes to Exxon Mobil, Halliburton, KBR. It goes back to the military-industrial-congressional complex and thus it goes to fuel a more aggravated class war!
Corporations profiting in the billions from this war are the ones who staged it! This means that private interests are paraded as public interests! It was never about Weapons of Mass Destruction! It was never about “Fighting them over there rather than over here”! It was never about “spreading democracy”! It was about shifting massive amounts of capital across the globe! And now what are they doing? Halliburton is moving to Dubai, and Blackwater USA—the world’s largest private corporate army of mercenaries are protecting Halliburton at the expense of the tax payers and of the workers and of the generations coming to age!
The right-wing lynch-mob thinks that we’re fighting a culture war. The problem is that it’s easier to speak peace to power than it is to speak peace to a mob. Maybe, then, to speak peace to the mob we must start by speaking Peace not to power, but peace to Truth! You start by giving a shit about others! You start with real courage to stand up against the administration, to speak your mind even when confronted by the police or by the right-wing lynch-mob. This is why we’re here today: We must speak peace to the mob so that Cindy Sheehan can speak peace to power!
Recently, Cornel West describes what it means to be a leftist, which is how I will conclude:
So that if you are concerned about structural violence, if you’re concerned about exploitation at the workplace, if you're concerned about institutionalized contempt against gay brothers and lesbian sisters, if you're concerned about organized hatred against peoples of color, if you're concerned about a subordination of women, that's not cheap PC chitchat; that is a calling that you're willing to fight against and try to understand the sources of that social misery at the structural and institutional level and at the existential and the personal level.”
That's what it means, Cornel West says, to be a leftist. I add, that’s what it means to be a human.
NO WAR BUT THE CLASS WAR!!
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Partial List of Sheehan Hate-Mail to Purdue’s Exponent
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Department embarrasses Purdue with Sheehan visit
Sheehan will not receive warm welcome with all
http://www.purdueexponent.org/?module=article&story_id=5271
Anti-American speakers have no place on campus
http://www.purdueexponent.org/?module=article&story_id=5035
Purdue may as well invite Chavez to teach politics
http://www.purdueexponent.org/?module=article&story_id=5342
Sheehan 'speaks peace' to mixed audience
Note: This article frankly lies when it suggests that the heckler “was nearly escorted from Fowler Hall” when he protested during Sheehan’s speech. The cops were willfully ignoring his interruptions. It was quite a different story from when anarkissed was kicked out of Colin Powell’s recent Purdue speech for clapping alone.
http://www.purdueexponent.org/?module=article&story_id=5404
Here’s a funny fool who suggests: “Cindy Sheehan’s version of “peace” is the same as the Islamic jihadists’…” This guy groups all his scapegoat victims under the rubric of communism—but it could just as easy be fascists, Jews, Mexicans, or niggers.
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1 comment:
When discussing patriotism, this is the best quote I have heard:
"Patriotism is supporting your country all of the time, and your government when it deserves it."
Mark Twain
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