Rummy On The Ropes

An elementary school principal bans a kid from singing an anti-Bush song at a school event. You gotta wonder, would she have been banned if the song were pro Bush? Or what if the song were anti-Clinton? Hmm.

It seems yesterday’s blog topic has proven to be quite the thought provoker. There were many fine comments, for which I am grateful. It was additionally pointed out to me that, part and parcel of my “slippery slope” argument against a two-tiered citizenry, even birth citizens should be nervous, since we’d only be a hop anf skip away from limiting their rights, too, perhaps based on such defining characteristics as religion or descent. Internment camps, anyone?

Moreover, with the threat of deportation looming over new citizens who might attract the ire of holders of whatever doctrine the current power base embraces, I suspect that more political activities would be forced into the underground. And that is not that kind of society I think any one of us wishes to see evolve.

Here’s an interview with an activist/lawyer that captures some of what we’re talking about. Meanwhile, it has come to my attention that Dr Sharma (the pundit mentioned in yesterday’s post) has been receiving what has been described as hate mail. This is very concerning and disappointing news indeed.

Thanks to I. for this CNN video showing protestor Ray McGoevrn peacefully asking Donald Rumsfeld all the right questions. McGovern writes about the event here. Two interesting observations about the episode: (1) Rumsfeld not-so-subtly blamed the CIA for everything that he has done wrongly; and (2) he is buffered by a small army of sycophants and mindless cheerleaders.

While it’s warming to see so many non-partisan Americans turning on Rumsfeld for the ridiculousness that is Iraq, I am not so sanguine. See, such people aren’t becoming anti-war because they suddenly see the deep immorality and duplicitousness of the adventure. Rather, they are upset because, to put it bluntly, their side is losing. This does not fill me with hope.

So I leave you today with this quote by Jim Caroll:

“I love my country, and the American people are good
people. But we are allowing the government to do
things in our name that are wrong, they are criminal.
If I could say something really outrageous, I think
that the American people today have turned against the
war in Iraq for the wrong reasons. They’ve turned
against it because we’re losing. We should be against
this war because it’s wrong and unnecessary. If this
war had gone the way Rumsfeld and company thought it
would go, Americans would have been fine with it. And
that’s appalling. And of course if it had gone the way
they thought it was going to go, we’d be in Iran
today. That’s the tragic good news here. This war has
gone so badly that the American imperial enterprise
has been stalled. Thank God for that.”