Iraq, Immigrants and Irritations

I’m sitting here in Denver, Colorado wondering what immediate cause we are focusing on. I read about the “imminent” threat of Iran being bombed, attacked or invaded by the U.S. and then see the somewhat knee-jerk reaction of the peace and justice communities.
Yeah, knee-jerk, because this just seems to be déjà vu all over again and again and we all seem to fall for the same tactic all over again.
As much as we despise the Bush regime we probably shouldn’t underestimate the intelligence and shrewdness of their actions. Keep in mind this is the administration that completed the coup d'état of the American democracy without a shot being fired.
Instead, in true Machiavellian and Orwellian tradition, Bush and his cronies created a constitutional crisis to win the 2000 election. They followed up by using 9/11 as the perfect tool to evoke fear and trembling in the masses who then called out for the patriarchal government to protect them from the nebulous of terrorism.
Few questioned why there would be anger enough against this nation that planes would be flown into the Twin Towers. The few who questioned did so at risk of being labeled traitors by the frightened new zealots of nationalistic vengeance. The Bush people led by Karl Rove savored the opportunity.
They fabricated the now infamous WMD defense to fight “terrorism” away from the shores of the homeland. They used the tactics of sheer terror and massive destruction against the most likely weakling available to demonstrate how they’d protect us against terrorism.
By the shock and awe of indiscriminate bombing and missile attack, the fight for peace was launched. An already devastated Afghanistan and Iraq took some more punishment as the American punching bags to extract revenge for 9/11 and open the door to the treasures of oil, black gold, Texas tea, Middle East money.
At home, the patriotism of the dissenters was battered and beleaguered. Those not strong enough went scurrying to the darkness of cowardly retreat. Their voices became quieted. For those too outspoken in exercising their freedom; judicial intimidation awaited.
It didn’t matter if local courts found some innocent on charges of civil disobedience; the federal government would find charges to stick. Think of the St. Patrick group in Ithaca. Or nuns, whose great crime was a symbolic break-in to spill their own blood on a nuclear missile site capable of ten times the destruction of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, were sent to federal prison as saboteurs.
Meanwhile, “smart-bombs’ and peace-keepers with the latest techno weapons were blowing up innocent Iraqis and Afghans along with the perceived enemy. Bomb blasts with one hundred yard kill zones seldom discriminate between an armed adult and an innocent mother and child.
Frightened soldiers and Marines looked upon every olive skinned man or woman as suicide bombers and with official wink and nod “blew them away” as they approached too close to checkpoints or were seen avoiding checkpoints. The civilian population was caught in the vice of opposing forces of deadly force.
War was peace-keeping and those who were truly trying to keep peace were traitorous. Each failing moment of the Bush policy was followed by increases in fear levels known as the color chart alert level…red, green, blue…yellow.
Rumors of Korean nukes exploding in Japan and South Korean cities were rampant. Rumors of Al Qaeda responsibility for insurgent rebellion, the common cold and the bird flu followed every investigation and inquiry into Team Bush corruption.
Every journalist who developed testes or courage was investigated and excoriated for their personal lives. Every congress person opposed to the tyranny crawled under rocks or went along as they read daily polls of the American masses fearing imminent terrorism on the shores of America.
They kept waiting for airplanes to fly into buildings again or sporting events to be disrupted by suicide bombers. They kept waiting for bio-chemical weapons in the air or the water. And as they waited they gave up more and more of the democratic freedoms they sought so much to save by allowing the true terrorists, the true “illegals” to steal away their country in the pretense of “protecting the homeland”.
Homeland security took on the life of a bestial and invasive disease that sucked the rights out of what was left of democracy. Torture wasn’t torture unless Alberto or Condi said it was. False imprisonment wasn’t false unless charges were brought and the charges were never brought.
The irony of the torture chamber and illegal imprisonment on Cuban soil was almost too much to contemplate. There, on the island nation so demonized and vile that embargoes remained forty years after any threat was gone, an American gulag was established and flaunted on the stolen land of a Marine base.
So, we have new and better reports Iran will be next. Seymour Hersh revisits his My Lai scoop and discovers American government hasn’t changed since that time. If Seymour says it, it must be fact. Too bad he and all the propagandist press didn’t have their facts straight before the carnage began.
I have problems accepting the propaganda machine’s “truths” even if they come from an acclaimed reporter who can’t get along with anybody who doesn’t agree with him. I have problems with any reports that have any hint of being “insider” information after hearing Rumsfeld has decided “disinformation” will be one of his new projects on the internet.
And then I sit here in Denver and hear the Colorado Progressive Coalition (aka the mouthpiece of the Democratic Party) and Catholic Church immigrant groups tell Latino, Hispanic and Chicano activists a one day walkout on May 1st would be too disruptive and divisive.
I wonder if they know the casinos in Mississippi hire undocumented workers from Latin America and Mexico for a month before they call INS to avoid paying them. I wonder if they care. Unions that work hard each day to get janitors and maids living wages and a scent of healthcare call for a walkout but the white led coalitions of Democrats and Catholics don’t want to upset anybody.
They fear a backlash against the “illegals” by the white leaders who are proposing legislation to outlaw humans who cross a man made imaginary line in the earth. On one side a human is a human but on the other side they’re disposable, they’re exploitable and they’re profitable.
These groups would have us believe they’re following the concepts of men like Gandhi and Christ but it’s likely both would scorn their passivity in the face of the outrageous oppression exhibited by the privileged class. The idea either Gandhi or Christ would fail to act directly against the oppressors is just wrong and deceitful on the part of groups posing as activists that are really more about maintaining the status quo.
While a Catholic, I can’t forget the history of Catholicism in third world nations. Impoverished peoples have long been under the yoke of religious oppressors feeding them homilies against birth control and for giving up much needed monies to remain sanctified in the eyes of God.
When families become far too large to feed adequately, the Church tells the masses to pray while their priests live mostly free of charge and have food always on their plate. When the patriarchs of the Church eschew the riches of the material world and do as Jesus truly instructed they might have more credibility.
Going out into the world with only the clothes upon your back and the trust that others will feed and house you must take incredible faith. Faith seems to be lacking in the overseers of the Church who hold onto the concept of maintaining the “treasures” of the Church. Unfortunately the treasures aren’t the laity as much as the gold.
I felt compelled to review the words of Gandhi the peace and justice groups are so fond of alluding to but which we seem to forget in the times direct action are called for.
“So long as I lived under a system of government based on force and voluntarily partook of the many facilities and privileges it created for me, I was bound to help that government to the extent of my ability when it was engaged in a war, unless I non-cooperated with that government and renounced to the utmost of my capacity the privileges it offered me.”
“One has to speak out and stand up for one’s convictions. Inaction at a time of conflagration is inexcusable.”
“The first principle of non-violent action is that of non-cooperation with everything that is humiliating.”
Gandhi was not one to cooperate with authorities when they represented the oppressor. Jesus Christ was clearly not one to do so either as exhibited by his defiance of the Pharisees. The Son of God was known to defy tradition by hanging out with thieves, prostitutes and tax-collectors. He allowed women to be part of his following in defiance of traditional values, also. He chased the money-changers at the temple in clear defiance of the “arrangement” with the chief priests.
So, I rant into religious and philosophical ideology because my interpretations are two of the often mentioned practitioners of non-violence took direct and non-cooperative actions against the oppressors. I do so to try to bring another side of thought into the passivity I see from the religious and the believers of non-violence.
How can we truly think we’re going to change things if we keep trying to do things by the rules of the oppressor? I’m confident Jesus and Gandhi wouldn’t care about borders and nationality in the case of the men, women and children who cross over into a place of better life.
I’m also confident they’d be staunch supporters of demonstrating to the groups who feel they are the elite and powerful the power of the poor and oppressed and those who are in solidarity with them is much greater. I think they and Martin Luther King would be in the streets with those who say shut down the country for peace and justice that has been promised but never delivered.
It seems to me the use of the term “illegals” is misdirected. The illegals are the rich and powerful who impose wars upon nations. They’re the ones who legislate who is human and who is not in a country priding itself on being a free and open society.
The illegals are those who sit by as fellow humans suffer. Sit by and watch inane and irrelevant entertainment as children die and suffer. Sometimes it’s us, in the “movement”, who think we can separate one atrocity from another to focus on.
So, I sit here in Denver thinking about the connections of the rumors and disinformation that frighten so many about terrorism and the treatment of our brothers and sisters who come to this country to have a better life. I think of the connection of the war against a nation already decimated and beleaguered and the brothers and sisters of New Orleans left to fend for themselves.
I think of words from Gandhi I just read again; “What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?”

Terry Leichner, RN
USMC Vietnam combat vet
VVAW