TWO FROM THE PROGRESSIVE

Radical historian Howard Zinn on an alternative approach to combating violent Islamic militantism:

Our War on Terrorism

What is the appropriate way to respond to such awful acts? The answer so far, given by Bush, Sharon, and Putin, is military action. We have enough evidence now to tell us that this does not stop terrorism, may indeed provoke more terrorism, and at the same time leads to the deaths of hundreds, even thousands, of innocent people who happen to live in the vicinity of suspected terrorists.

What can account for the fact that these obviously ineffective, even counterproductive, responses have been supported by the people of Russia, Israel, the United States? It's not hard to figure that out. It is fear, a deep, paralyzing fear, a dread so profound that one's normal rational faculties are distorted, and so people rush to embrace policies that have only one thing in their favor: They make you feel that something is being done. In the absence of an alternative, in the presence of a policy vacuum, filling that vacuum with a decisive act becomes acceptable.

And

The CIA senior terrorism analyst who has written a book signed "Anonymous" has said bluntly that U.S. policies--supporting Sharon, making war on Afghanistan and Iraq--"are completing the radicalization of the Islamic world."

Unless we reexamine our policies--our quartering of soldiers in a hundred countries (the quartering of foreign soldiers, remember, was one of the grievances of the American revolutionaries), our support of the occupation of Palestinian lands, our insistence on controlling the oil of the Middle East--we will always live in fear. If we were to announce that we will reconsider those policies, and began to change them, we might start to dry up the huge reservoir of hatred where terrorists are hatched.

Click here for the rest.

As my buddy Jim once said, the best way to end terrorism is for the US to "stop pissing people off." Indeed, this is the only way accomplish that goal. The catch is that the wealthy elite who pull the government's strings depend on pissing people off in order to make more and more money. It is not likely that any presidential candidate could ever pass the so-called wealth primary (that is, being blessed with enough corporate cash in order to effectively compete in an election) by espousing such policies as Zinn advocates: Kerry, pockets overflowing with capitalist dollars, wants to keep pissing people off.

Expect the utterly ineffective "war on terrorism" to continue, perhaps for the rest of our lives. We're screwed.

Next, an ironic report from the Progressive's McCarthyism Watch:

Three Teachers Evicted from Bush Event for
Wearing "Protect Our Civil Liberties" T-Shirts

"A guy had Janet by the elbow and was leading her away," says Julian.
"And he said to us, 'Give us your tickets.' "

"We said, 'Why?' And I put the ticket behind my back, and one of the guys who had been following us ripped it out of my hands."

Seeing what happened to her sister's ticket, Tong put hers down her pants, she says.

Campaign officials then told all three women to leave.

"They said it was a private event, for invited guests," Tong recalls.

"We said we were invited because we were given tickets.

"One said, 'You don't have tickets anymore.'

"We said, 'We did until you ripped them out of our hands.'

"And we asked him, 'Are you offended by our shirts?'

"He said our shirts were 'obscene.' "

Tong and Julian say that about ten men, including Secret Service officers and sheriff's deputies, proceeded to surround them.

"They weren't letting us move anywhere," Tong says. Campaign officials told law enforcement, "These people need to leave," she recalls.

"We asked what would happen if we didn't, and the police said we'd be arrested for disorderly conduct," Tong says.

So the three teachers headed away.

Click here for the rest.

As the article later points out, this event was held on public property; these teachers had bought their tickets fair and square, and their t-shirts were utterly non-partisan.

As I've said before, at this point, voting for Bush is simply anti-American.

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