[thechat] name of Operation Infinite Justice to be changed

[Erika Meyer]

Bill,

>What's changed in 50 years is that about 30 years ago, we went to Vietnam.
>At that time, large numbers of Americans stood up and said WAR SUCKS, WE
>DON'T WANT WAR. Have Americans changed their minds since then?

It looks to me like we have.

OTOH I know it takes time for a peace movement to get revved up, but 
it's so quick to set the warplanes flying.  That's the unfortunate 
thing.

>Or will we hold true to those ideals that so many spoke out for 
>during our presence in Vietnam.

I have seen a few baby-boomers speaking out.
And many others with their blinders firmly in place.
I hope that their kids (us) at least have the guts to speak out.

>We would do so because we are having the kind of war that
>nobody wants to have, right?

People are afraid to voice their worst fear.
"Global war" they have said.
Too horrible even to visualize.
Yet forward we march.

>I'm 31. I was taught by the generations that lived through Vietnam that we
>don't want to do that ever again.

+1.  I'm 33.

OTOH since Vietnam, we have continued a scary-as-shit cold war, years 
of nuclear sabre-rattling, and lots of covert & semi-covert military 
activity, lots of financing and hushing up of atrocities committed by 
pro-capitalist dictators, and a few long embargoes.

For example, in the 1970's the Carter administration quietly watched 
as Indonesia invaded East Timor.  Why?  Perhaps it was about oil. 
Indonesia produces it, and we desperately needed it (so we believed).
http://www.zmag.org/CrisesCurEvts/sunil.htm

So we gave the Indonesians lots of money and guns so that they could 
gleefully massacre 50,000 Timorese people (give or take)...

Later our CIA guys were very active in training and supporting death 
squad thugs for a variety of Central American countries (killing 
nuns, priests, teachers, and other commies).

And, oh yeah.  We trained Bin Laden and his boys, too.  Then 
abandoned them when they were no longer useful to our anti-red 
campaign.

Why do we allow any of it to happen?

My POV is we are not quite democratic enough.  Certain voices are 
never heard, and many truths are never told.  My POV is that the 
corporations, not the people, are running the show.  Their greatest 
weapon is their quiet control of media and industry.

How many of us really know what the US government is up to?

>There's a big chunk of the American population (myself included) that hasn't
>ever seen a war like that.

It's easier to hide the true face of a war if you aren't sending home 
young Americans in boxes.  We've hidden much violence behind a 
shallowly peaceful mask.

>So I repeat my question: Will Americans (especially all of those many who
>protested so many years ago) tolerate that kind of war again? From what
>you've all told us, the answer is NO.

now look who is the idealistic one!

I have less faith.

In the old days, you were called a commie if you were against US 
military action.

Now, I guess all us the old "commies" are now going to be called 
something else.  "Terrorist sympathizers," perhaps.

I'm thinking one of the biggest things I can do right now is to 
deliberately and vocally reduce or eliminate my consumption of 
petroleum products: especially gasoline.... for the sake of stopping 
conflicts like those in East Timor and the Persian Gulf, and for the 
sake of our Wilderness areas (Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge) which 
are under threat of drilling.

George W Bush defiantly defends the "American Way of Life."

While I believe the "American way of life" must be drastically modified. Now.

Time to dust off the ol' bicycle and get real.

Erika

--