
Thanks, Marcie!
When I hear that robin singVan Morrison, Starting A New Life.
Well I know it's coming on spring
Ooo-we and we're starting a new life
I've been shovelling the snow away
Working hard for my pay
All I gotta say is we're starting a new life
I've spent my life following things I cannot seeSteve Earle, You're Still Standing There.
And just when I catch up to them, they slip away from me
I've been down a thousand trails I've never walked before
I found out that without fail, they lead me to your door
And the world keeps turning round and round
It leaves me hanging in the air
My heart keeps turning upside down
And you're still standin' there
In the interest of regional balance, having heard from Edmonton, let us now hear from Montreal:Cool song. However, I must tell you that this:
Radio Free Vestibule--I Don't Want to go to Toronto:
(I don't want to go to Toronto, I don't want to go...)
I don't want to go to Toronto,
I don't want to go
All of the blocks are square,
None of the streets are twisted;
None of the streets are paved with bricks;
There's too many elevators in Toronto--
Not enough stairs in Toronto
Not enough stairs!
(I don't want to go to Toronto, I don't want to go...)
All of the food in Toronto is made of edible oil products
They don't have bagels in Toronto
They have doughnuts,
Doughnuts made of edible oil!
I don't like doughnuts,
They don't have bagels!
(I don't want to go to Toronto, I don't want to go...)
I don't want to go to Toronto!
People don't have faces in Toronto
They have cigarette ads, instead
They listen to your phone calls
THERE'S A TOWER IN TORONTO THAT CONTROLS PEOPLE'S MINDS!!!
It's illegal to possess brightly coloured balloons in Toronto
Illegal to own brightly coloured balloons!
(I don't want to go to Toronto, I don't want to go...)
All of the children in Toronto must wear suits
Even the girls, three piece suits!
The buildings in Toronto have no windows
I don't want to go
Everyone lives in sub-terranean caverns
Filled with doughnuts made of edible oil
I don't want to go!
(I don't want to go to Toronto, I don't want to go...)
Nobody goes to the bathroom in Toronto
They have a special operation
They have it removed surgically
There's a tax on all wicker goods in Toronto
There's huge buildings with no windows
And streets with no curves
And inside you find little girls in suits
Running around with black balloons
And munching on edible oil products
(I don't want to go to Toronto, I don't want to go...)
The kids don't have names;
They have numbers which are assigned to them at birth
They're called "Three hundred and eighty seven point seven",
"Four hundred and twelve point nine"
And they all have cigarette ads instead of faces
I don't want to go to Toronto
I don't want to go
I have plenty of wicker goods
I don't want a tax on my wicker goods
I like going to the bathroom
I don't want to go the hospital
I don't want to go to Toronto
I don't want to go
Do I have to go to Toronto?
Do I?
Do I have to go?
I don't want to go
Do I have to go to Toronto?
I don't want to go...
Everyone lives in sub-terranean cavernsis why Allan wants to move in the first place. You thought it was for a more democratic society? Ha. Allan is planning on living in a subterranean cavern: we are setting up his office in our basement. In addition to his computer and a TV, there's a bathroom and a fridge down there, so I'll basically see him, well, never. Fill it with doughnuts, and we should say goodbye right now.
Filled with doughnuts made of edible oil
You know, in a weird way, I bet you'd have a more concrete sense of it if you were moving to a country like Japan or India, instead of to what amounts to some Twilight Zone version of the US where the American Revolution never happened and the Queen is still on the money (dun-dun-DUHHHH!!!). Let's face it, you're making the least-profound international move possible for an American. :) There'll be some changes when you're actually here, but I speculate that the similarity of culture and daily life is going to drag out the process of it really setting in for a long time.That's very true. Leaving New York City is strange. Exchanging my very urban life of apartment and public transportation for a suburban house and car is strange. Of course, there are cultural differences, as we talk about here all the time. But it's not that different, looking at cultures globally. We're not moving to Lagos or Sao Paolo or even Marseilles.
Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie’sThis is downright hilarious. I love that Mississauga made the cut! Best line, hands down: "The water is polluted and the mayor’s a dork /
The Toronto Song (1989 Version)
I hate the Skydome
And the CN tower too
I hate Nathan Phillips Square
and the Ontario Zoo
The rent's too high
The air's unclean
The beaches are dirty
And the people are mean,
And the women are big
And the men are dumb
And the children are loopy
'cause they live in a slum
The water is polluted and the mayor's a dork
They dress real bad and they think they're New York
In Toronto-
Ontario-o-oh...
(spoken)
A: You know...I think I pretty much hate all of Ontario.
B: Oh yeah…Me too.
I hate Thunder Bay and Ottawa,
Kitchener, Windsor, and Oshawa,
London sucks,
and the Great Lakes suck,
And Sarnia sucks,
and Turkey Point sucks
I took a trip to Ontario,
To visit Brian Mulroney-
Moosoonee sucks and Beaverton sucks Southhampton sucks and Hull sucks, too
He beat me up
and he stole my pants
and he put me on a tree
Peterborough, Marlborough, Stockton suck, Elk Bay Islands And Uxbridge suck
I went to see the Maple Leafs,
and got hit in the head with a puck
Mississauga sucks and Sterling sucks Port Elgin Sucks and Brighton sucks
I don't even know how they did it, I mean,
I was playing the organ at the time
Ravenhurst sucks and Sudbury sucks and Thunder Bay sucks and
Alan Thicke sucks!
Ontario-o-o-o-oh
Sucks.
(spoken)
A: Yup. Actually you know now that I really think about it, I think I pretty much hate every gosh darn province and territory in our country.
B: Well, except Alberta…
A: Oh yeah, I love Alberta!
B: It's very nice, lots of cows and trees and rocks and dirt
A+B: moo moo moo!
but,
I hate Newfoundland cause they talk so weird
And Prince Edward Island is- too small!
Nova Scotia's dumb cause it's the name of a bank
New Brunswick doesn't have a good mall
Quebec is revolting and it makes me mad
Ontario sucks, Ontario sucks
(spoken)
B: And the average population density of Manitoba is 1.9 people per square kilometer…
A: Isn't that stupid?
Saskatchewan is boring and the people are old
And as for the territories: they're too cold!
And the only really good thing about the province of British Columbia is that it's right next to us;
Cause Alberta--
Doesn't suck;
but Calgary does.
OMFG, we have to introduce redsock and LG to The Worms, Frantics and The Vestibules (ne' Radio Free Vestibule) post haste!To which I reply: Fuckin' A!
Ha, you know, when I read the title of your posting, "life among the boxes", I was suddenly reminded of the Talking Heads song "Life During Wartime". If you look up the lyrics, they seem so appropriate to what you're about to do!In fact, I've thought of "Life During Wartime" several times in relation to our drive north this Tuesday. I have this image of us escaping to freedom. Hugely exaggerated, I know. We're not exactly smugglers on the Underground Railroad. But it's a neat thought, and these lyrics are amazing.
Of course, that doesn't stop us having a little fun with them... :)
Heard of a van that is loaded with boxes,
packed up and ready to go
Heard about Customs, out by the highway,
a place where nobody knows
The sound of yawning, off in the distance,
Guess I’ll get used to it now
Lived in New England, lived in the Boroughs,
I've lived all over this town...
Transmit the right forms to CIC now,
hope for an answer some day
They want our passports, to send us visas,
They sure as hell know my name
Here on the island, the trucks are loading,
everything's ready to roll
I blog in the daytime, I sleep in the nightime,
Next week I’ll have a new home...
Heard about Moncton? Heard about Windsor?
Heard about Surrey, B.C.?
You oughta know not to tell folks you’re going
somebody call you a creep
I got some groceries, some maple syrup,
to last a couple of days
But I ain't got no preachers, ain't got no Uzis,
ain't got no death row to slay
Why stay in New York? Why vote for Kerry?
Gonna be different this time...
Officials unveiled the high-tech future of transit security in New York City yesterday: an ambitious plan to saturate the subways with 1,000 video cameras and 3,000 motion sensors and to enable cellphone service in 277 underground stations - but not in moving trains - for the first time.Lockheed Martin just got a little richer, New Yorkers just got a little less free, and nobody is getting any safer. New York Times story here.
Moving quickly after the subway and bus bombings in London last month, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority awarded a three-year, $212 million contract to a group of contractors led by the Lockheed Martin Corporation, which is best known for making military hardware like fighter planes, missiles and antitank systems.
The authority abandoned its earlier reservations about cellphone service, agreeing that the benefits of allowing 911 and other calls during emergencies outweighed the costs and the risk of a phone-detonated bomb. It invited carriers to submit proposals by Oct. 12. The winning bidder, which would receive a 10-year license, would have to pay for the installation of the wireless network and would be required to disable all calls at the authority's request. It is not clear how long installation, which will cover 277 of the 468 stations, will take.
The surveillance and cellphone strategies, together with a police campaign begun last month to check riders' bags and packages, are a step toward what some critics have long said cannot be done - putting the nation's largest transit system under constant watch, and fortifying it with enough obstacles to deter potential terrorists.
"We will try everything, and deploy all technologies possible, to prevent an attack from happening," said Katherine N. Lapp, the authority's executive director.
The new security measures will be in place in the subway, along with the authority's two commuter railroads and nine bridges and tunnels and busy transit hubs at Grand Central Terminal, Pennsylvania Station and Times Square. While transit agencies in Boston and Houston have experimented with so-called "intelligent video" software, and London has far more cameras, the New York plan is the first to try to marry several advanced security technologies at once, experts said.
At the center of the effort will be a dense network of cameras that can zoom, pivot and rotate, all while transmitting and recording images of vulnerable areas, from dark tunnels under the East River to bustling subway platforms in Midtown. Each camera will capture distances up to 300 feet and will cost about $1,200. A selected location could have 2 to 30 cameras. For now, there will be no cameras on trains and buses.
In a tartly worded ruling, a federal judge ordered the Bloomberg administration yesterday to reinstate a permit for a block party in Chelsea featuring the painting of graffiti on mock subway cars.And don't think there's no Canada connection here!
The judge, Jed S. Rakoff of Federal District Court in Manhattan, called the city's abrupt cancellation of the permit unconstitutional. He even poked fun at Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's argument that the party would incite the defacement of real subway cars.
"By the same token, presumably, a street performance of 'Hamlet' would be tantamount to encouraging revenge murder," the judge wrote.
"As for a street performance of 'Oedipus Rex,' " he added, "don't even think about it."
The permit was issued to allow Ecko Unlimited, a company run by the designer Marc Ecko, to close West 22nd Street between 10th and 11th Avenues from 10 am. to 6 p.m. tomorrow. During the party, Mr. Ecko's company is planning to have 20 people paint graffiti on metal panels made to look like the sides of the subway cars of the 1970's and 80's, which were easy targets for vandals with paint.
Now we can go paint," said Alan Ket, a 34-year-old artist from Brooklyn.A few links to famous NYC graffiti:
Mr. Ket said he began painting years ago on subway cars, as did Mr. Ecko. The artists he knows have long ago stopped painting on subways, he said, and now paint other things, like murals on public walls, usually with permission. His most recent painting was on a temporary wall at a music festival in Toronto, he said.
Campolo's critique of U.S. policies and culture leads him to some stark positions. "To be a Christian in today's world is to be opposed to America," he says. "Why? America believes in capital punishment, and Jesus says, 'Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.' America says, 'Blessed are the rich.' Jesus said, 'Woe unto you who are rich, blessed are the poor.' America says, 'Blessed are the powerful.' Jesus said, 'Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.'"Campolo doesn't just talk, he totally walks the walk. Jim Wallis of Sojourners says,
Tony Campolo is my favorite evangelist. He blends revival with social justice. In that way, he's like one of the nineteenth century evangelists who fought for the abolition of slavery and women's suffrage and social reform. His altar calls urge all of us to overcome poverty, end war, and stand up for human rights for everybody.Campolo opposes abortion rights and gay marriage, so I'm not about to convert. But people like Wallis and Campolo are the reason that, although I am areligious myself, I can never be anti-religious. History books are stuffed with the ill effects of organized religion, but I also see its potential for good. No student of the American civil rights movement can avoid it.
By running for the U.S. Senate, Katherine Harris, Florida's former secretary of state, has stirred up some ugly memories. And that's a good thing, because those memories remain relevant. There was at least as much electoral malfeasance in 2004 as there was in 2000, even if it didn't change the outcome. And the next election may be worse.A friend of mine, a staunch Democrat not known for incendiary ideas, recently emailed this:
In his recent book "Steal This Vote" - a very judicious work, despite its title - Andrew Gumbel, a U.S. correspondent for the British newspaper The Independent, provides the best overview I've seen of the 2000 Florida vote. And he documents the simple truth: "Al Gore won the 2000 presidential election."
Two different news media consortiums reviewed Florida's ballots; both found that a full manual recount would have given the election to Mr. Gore. This was true despite a host of efforts by state and local officials to suppress likely Gore votes, most notably Ms. Harris's "felon purge," which disenfranchised large numbers of valid voters.
But few Americans have heard these facts. Perhaps journalists have felt that it would be divisive to cast doubt on the Bush administration's legitimacy. If so, their tender concern for the nation's feelings has gone for naught: Cindy Sheehan's supporters are camped in Crawford, and America is more bitterly divided than ever.
Meanwhile, the whitewash of what happened in Florida in 2000 showed that election-tampering carries no penalty, and political operatives have acted accordingly. For example, in 2002 the Republican Party in New Hampshire hired a company to jam Democratic and union phone banks on Election Day.
But as Woody Allen said in "Manhattan," op-eds are fine but sometimes you need bats and clubs (in reference to Nazis marching in New Jersey). A great line and, as with most great lines, there is an element of truth to it.Krugman's column here.
Jones said the reason for going to war — Saddam Hussein's alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction — has been proven false.Before dissecting the resolution or speculating on how the White House will ignore it, I ask you to pause. Remember that the anti-war movement, like every thing worth fighting for, will succeed cumulatively. Every voice of opposition is a Good Thing. Every member of Congress who opposes Fearless Leader is doing the right thing. The chorus demanding an end to the war gets louder, others gain courage to add their own voice, and one day, one bright day in the future, we will have grown too large to ignore.
"If I had known then what I know now, I wouldn't have supported the resolution," said Jones, who had coined the term "freedom fries" as a show of support for the war in Iraq.
He said that if numbers are accurate that between 75,000 and 100,000 Iraqis have been trained as soldiers and police, then it's approaching time for the country to start defending itself.
Jones said he has sent letters to families of fallen troops. He's also met with family members of troops killed in Iraq, including with Cindy Sheehan, the California woman who was sitting outside President Bush's ranch in Texas to protest the war.
If America is truly on a war footing," Thom Shanker asks in the New York Times, "why is so little sacrifice asked of the nation at large?" Military recruiters are coming up short of volunteers, yet neither party is pushing for a draft. No one is proposing a tax increase to cover the $60 billion annual cost of the Iraq and Afghan wars. There are no World War II-style war bond drives, no victory gardens, not even gas rationing. Back here in the fatherland, only "support our troops" car ribbons indicate that we're at war--and they aren't even bumper stickers, they're magnetic. Apparently Americans aren't even willing to sacrifice the finish on their automobiles to promote the cause.Rall closes with this advice:
"Nobody in America is asked to sacrifice, except us," the paper quotes an officer who just returned from a year in rose-petal-paved Iraq. "[Symbolic signs of support are] just not enough," grumbles a brigadier general. "There has to be more," he demands. "The absence of a call for broader national sacrifice in a time of war has become a near constant topic of discussion among officers and enlisted personnel," the general claims.
Northwestern University professor Charles Moskos says: "The political leaders are afraid to ask the public for any real sacrifice, which doesn't speak too highly of the citizenry."
To which I say: Screw that. It's not my duty to suffer for this pointless war. I've been against it all along, and you can stick your victory garden where the desert sun can't penetrate.
If you voted for Bush, here's your chance to plant your butt where your ridiculous car magnet is, smack dab in the middle of the Sunni Triangle. Good luck.Read his column here, or if it's no longer current, here on Common Dreams.
President-elect Dr. Ruth Collins-Nakai disputed that the medical association is endorsing private health care, as critics have charged.Thoughts?
The primary concern of physicians of Canada is that patients have timely access to quality care based on need, not ability to pay, said Collins-Nakai, a pediatric cardiologist in Edmonton.
Every resolution passed reflected the frustration of physicians not being able to provide that timely access to care that they so want for their patients, she said.
"Delegates have said clearly that they believe the best solution is to provide that type of access is through a public health-care system," she added.
Doctors have also adopted a list of "benchmark wait times," she noted. The list puts limited on how long patients should have to wait for key medical services such as cardiac care, cancer treatment or MRIs.
Nakai-Collins noted the motion on private health insurance that passed today merely reflects a recent Supreme Court decision, which upheld the right of Quebecers to turn to private health insurance if the public system fails them.
But she added: "Our feeling is that if the public system fails to provide timely care, then patients need to have alternatives.
"And one of those alternatives may be the private sector," she said, stressing the word 'may'.
. . . "Jesus" has come to be viewed by many evangelical Christians as a singularly modern tool for spreading the Gospel. It speaks, though without special effects or quick editing, to a populace fluent in Hollywood. It comes in multiple languages on one disc. It concludes with a "salvation prayer" the viewer can recite with the narrator. Its local distributors consider it so effective that millions of dollars have already been spent toward the goal of delivering a copy to every household in the United States, as if it were free trial software from America Online. [Emphasis mine.]If I found a copy of this video in my mailbox, I would go ballistic. Fucking ballistic. I detest proselytizing. And in this case, I wouldn't even have the chance to make a snarky comment and shut the door in someone's face!
The ministry overseeing this operation, the Jesus Video Project America, calls the mass mailings "saturation evangelism." Since 1992, 20 million copies have been sent out on DVD and videotape, blanketing Alabama, Hawaii and South Carolina and large swaths of Ohio and Texas, with smatterings in the rest of the states. County-by-county distribution in North Carolina is well under way. If the current rate continues, it might take until 2040 or beyond to reach every home.
A turning point came when a doctor in Birmingham, Ala., Robert Cosby, bought 1.7 million copies and mailed them in 1998 to every household in Alabama, although he "wasn't very impressed" when he saw the film.Cool!
"I mean, it was a nice film," Mr. Cosby recalled the other day, speaking by telephone from his home. "I would say it was moderately good."
The mailing included Mr. Cosby's home address and telephone number. One day, he said, he found a copy of the video in his front yard with a note that said, "Jesus has returned."
That has not been the only rejection. Over the years, the effort, which began using direct mail after Alabama, has been criticized by people who objected to Jesus' being played by a white actor, or who said the money could be better spent on the poor, or who felt that the mailings were unwelcome proselytizing. Perhaps the most vigorous objections came in 2000, when a mailing was done in Palm Beach County, Fla. Thousands of videos in heavily Jewish West Palm Beach were returned, some taped to bricks in hopes that the sender would have to pay the postage, according to news reports.
Many pundits and editorial boards still give Mr. Bush credit for trying to "reform" Social Security. In fact, Mr. Bush came to bury Social Security, not to save it. Over time, the Bush plan would have transformed Social Security from a social insurance program into a mutual fund, with nothing except a name in common with the system F.D.R. created.I thought Mr Krugman might like some help for his next column, so I looked up "lie" in Webster's New World Roget's A-Z Thesaurus. The word lie has four general categories: to utter an untruth, to be situated, to be prostrate, to assume a prostrate position. Although President Moron probably spends far too much time in a prostrate position, I'd rather not think about that. For "to utter an untruth", Roget's lists these synonyms:
In addition to misrepresenting his goals, Mr. Bush repeatedly lied about the current system. Oh, I'm sorry - was that a rude thing to say? Still, the fact is that Mr. Bush repeatedly said things that were demonstrably false and that his staff must have known were false. The falsehoods ranged from his claim that Social Security is unfair to African-Americans to his claim that "waiting just one year adds $600 billion to the cost of fixing Social Security."
falsify, prevaricate, fib, tell a lie, equivocate, fabricate, [here come some goodies] deceive, mislead, misinform, misrepresent, exaggerate, distort, misstate, misspeak, concoct, tell a falsehood, be untruthful, forswear, be a liar, dupe, pervert [oo, use this one!], slant, twist, overstate, embellish, embroider, overdraw, bear false witness [I understand god gets you for that one], say one thing and mean another, dissimulate, dissemble, perjure oneself, delude, malign, invent, manufacture, make up, trump up [alternate meaning: to have a bad hair day], palter [a new word for me - cool!], beguile [Mr Krugman, please don't use this one], tell a white lie [not to be confused with white men telling lies], stretch the truth, spin a long yarn, bull, make out of whole cloth [can they make WMDs out of cloth?].While you're thinking of others, read Krugman's excellent column here.
Like the Japanese soldier marooned on an island for years after V-J Day, President Bush may be the last person in the country to learn that for Americans, if not Iraqis, the war in Iraq is over. "We will stay the course," he insistently tells us from his Texas ranch. What do you mean we, white man?Read the rest here.
A president can't stay the course when his own citizens (let alone his own allies) won't stay with him. The approval rate for Mr. Bush's handling of Iraq plunged to 34 percent in last weekend's Newsweek poll - a match for the 32 percent that approved L.B.J.'s handling of Vietnam in early March 1968. (The two presidents' overall approval ratings have also converged: 41 percent for Johnson then, 42 percent for Bush now.) On March 31, 1968, as L.B.J.'s ratings plummeted further, he announced he wouldn't seek re-election, commencing our long extrication from that quagmire.
But our current Texas president has even outdone his predecessor; Mr. Bush has lost not only the country but also his army. Neither bonuses nor fudged standards nor the faking of high school diplomas has solved the recruitment shortfall. Now Jake Tapper of ABC News reports that the armed forces are so eager for bodies they will flout "don't ask, don't tell" and hang on to gay soldiers who tell, even if they tell the press.
We Have the PowerFrom HuffingtonPost via Common Dreams.
By Cindy Sheehan
My day started way too early today. After 3 hours of sleep, I was being shaken awake by someone at 6:30 a.m. telling me that the Today show wanted me to be on. I had come into town to sleep in a trailer because my tent had been infested with fire ants.
We had a very interesting day. We had Bush drive by really, really fast twice. I caught a glimpse of Laura. I was hoping after she saw me that she would come down to Camp Casey with some brownies and lemonade. I waited for her, but she never came.
The Bushes were going to a barbeque/fundraiser down the road from us. I was very surprised that they let us stay so close to Bush. The families of the fallen loved ones held their son's crosses from Arlington West while Bush drove by. I bet it didn't even give him indigestion to see so many people protesting his murderous policies.
I am a continued thorn in the side of right-wing bloggers and right wing-nut "journalists." One man, Phil Hendry, called me an "ignorant cow." But you know what, the people who have come out from all over the country to give me a hug and support the cause of peace, overwhelms me so much, I don't have time to worry about the negativity and the hatred. The people who are slamming me have no idea about what it feels like to unjustly have a child killed in an insane war. Plus, they have no truth to fight truth with, so they fight truth with more lies and hate.
Three active duty soldiers from Ft. Hood came to visit me and tell me that they really appreciated what I was doing and that if they were killed in the war, their moms would be doing the same thing. That made me feel so good after all of the negativity I had been hearing from the righties. I also got to hold a couple of toddlers on my lap while their mom or dad took pictures of us. I am honored that people have resonated with the action that I took to make our mission of ending the war a reality.
We are here at the Crawford Peace House now. I came here so angry and I have been so encouraged and overwhelmed by the support from all over. I was thinking that there is no reason for us progressive liberals to be angry anymore. We have the power. One mom has shown that ordinary citizens can make a difference. We the people have to hold George Bush accountable. We have to make sure he answers to us. If he doesn't have to answer to Congress, or the media, we will force him to answer to us.
My country is in the grip of a president surrounded by thugs in suitsIt's an excellent piece. You can read it here.
It has quickly become clear that Iraq is not a liberated country, but an occupied country. We became familiar with that term during the second world war. We talked of German-occupied France, German-occupied Europe. And after the war we spoke of Soviet-occupied Hungary, Czechoslovakia, eastern Europe. It was the Nazis, the Soviets, who occupied countries. The United States liberated them from occupation.
Now we are the occupiers. True, we liberated Iraq from Saddam Hussein, but not from us. Just as in 1898 we liberated Cuba from Spain, but not from us. Spanish tyranny was overthrown, but the US established a military base in Cuba, as we are doing in Iraq. US corporations moved into Cuba, just as Bechtel and Halliburton and the oil corporations are moving into Iraq. The US framed and imposed, with support from local accomplices, the constitution that would govern Cuba, just as it has drawn up, with help from local political groups, a constitution for Iraq. Not a liberation. An occupation.
And it is an ugly occupation. . . .
But more ominous, perhaps, than the occupation of Iraq is the occupation of the US. I wake up in the morning, read the newspaper, and feel that we are an occupied country, that some alien group has taken over. I wake up thinking: the US is in the grip of a president surrounded by thugs in suits who care nothing about human life abroad or here, who care nothing about freedom abroad or here, who care nothing about what happens to the earth, the water or the air, or what kind of world will be inherited by our children and grandchildren.
. . .
Our faith is that human beings only support violence and terror when they have been lied to. And when they learn the truth, as happened in the course of the Vietnam war, they will turn against the government. We have the support of the rest of the world. The US cannot indefinitely ignore the 10 million people who protested around the world on February 15 2003.
There is no act too small, no act too bold. The history of social change is the history of millions of actions, small and large, coming together at points in history and creating a power that governments cannot suppress.