Wednesday, May 28, 2003

Re: America's new sweetheart   Dear Friends:   At 85, Robert Byrd has become an overnight Internet sensation and the Senate's unlikeliest liberal. Due to his fierce opposition to the Iraq war, elder statesman Byrd has become an icon of the information highway, with an avid following of young and liberal admirers. In January, Byrd's website had received 436,000 hits; by March, he was at 3.7 million. May his wings never be clipped. _____________________________   Time Magazine June 2, 2003 Issue   Lionized in Winter At 85, Robert Byrd has become an overnight Internet sensation and the Senate's unlikeliest liberal By Mathew Cooper/Washington   In the history of the republic, 11,707 men and women have served in Congress. Only two have held office longer than Robert Byrd, first elected to the House in 1952 and the Senate in '58. He has been around long enough to have served with a Connecticut Brahmin named Prescott Bush, the President's grandfather. With his white hair, benign tremor and penchant for quoting the Romans, Byrd seems more like a Senator from the 19th century than one from the 21st. He has never seen MTV. He refers to the camera in the Senate chamber as "the eee-leck-tronic eye." But due to his fierce opposition to the Iraq war, Byrd at 85 has become an Internet icon with a rash of young and liberal admirers, which is ironic given that Byrd fought civil rights in the '60s and, as is often noted, briefly joined the Ku Klux Klan. Once known as a hawk ("I was the last man out of Vietnam," he says), Byrd has become the Senate's new Paul Wellstone.   The Byrd renaissance began on Feb. 12, 35 days before the first bombs fell on Baghdad, when he rose on the Senate floor to rail against the looming conflict. While other Senators muted their criticism, Byrd derided President Bush as "reckless and arrogant." He also denounced his fellow Democrats: "This chamber is, for the most part, silent ominously, dreadfully, silent." Byrd's words lit up the Internet. Wes Boyd, the head of MoveOn.org, a liberal group that opposed the war, received 15 copies of the speech from fellow activists in 72 hours after it was delivered. "It's the way stump speeches were delivered generations ago," says Boyd. "It was tacked on a wall and a crowd gathered to read it. And it got bigger and bigger." In January, Byrd's website got just 436,000 hits; in March, 3.7 million.   Just last week Byrd drew another Internet throng, declaring that Bush had lied about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and would get caught: "This house of cards, built of deceit, will fall." The attention has made Byrd a prime target of the right. The conservative site NewsMax.com includes Byrd in its Deck of Weasels playing cards, along with Susan Sarandon. Rush Limbaugh labels the Senator's talks "Byrd droppings."   To understand Byrd, though, you have to understand his love of history, from devouring classics to penning tomes about the American and Roman Senates. When John Kennedy Jr. asked Byrd to list his summer reading for his magazine George, Byrd included such page turners as The Lives of the Twelve Caesars.   For Byrd, history not only teaches the importance of rules and precedent but also offers warnings for the present. Deviation from democratic process can, he says, cloak an attempt "to dominate all branches of government." For that reason, Byrd says, "this Republic is at its greatest danger in its history because of this Administration." He cites as an example the Bush Administration's efforts to seek greater discretionary defense spending free of congressional scrutiny. That doesn't sound so alarming, but for Byrd precedent is everything. And everything about the Iraq war from the radical new doctrine of military pre-emption to the Administration's failure to offer an estimate of the war's cost ate at Byrd's sense of tradition. Conservatives and liberals who think he's a peacenik miss the point. With Byrd, the rules aren't picayune but the bricks of democracy. His legendary 98.74% voting record grows out of his faith that every vote matters, even when it's merely procedural. For him, God and the Republic is in the details.   And why not? Obsession with process has made Byrd a god in West Virginia; his mastery of appropriations has funneled billions to the perennially poor state. While Al Gore lost the state in 2000, Byrd won all but seven of its 1,970 precincts. Senators, too, admire his command, seeking him out like a somewhat eccentric sage. When Bill First ascended to Byrd's old post as majority leader, the two met for two hours. Hillary Clinton comes by for advice.   While Beltway types often dismiss Byrd as a fossil, his anachronistic style is bracing, especially at a time when the Republican-led Senate is considering revamping the filibuster rules to smooth the path of Bush's judicial nominees. Like anyone who has seen Jimmy Stewart in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Byrd knows the filibuster can be used for good and for ill and is better left alone. "It may irritate us. It may irk us, but it's stood the test of time," Byrd declares. He could well be talking about himself.   Copyright © 2003 Time Inc. All rights reserved. ________________________________   In peace,   Otoño ________________________________   Read all about it and get the news that matters by receiving the War and Peace Watch. To subscribe, send an e-mail to: Reikiworks@compuserve.com Thank you for your support, The War and Peace Watch publisher. contact: Otoño Johnston =========================================================== = (In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment for research and educational purposes only.) =========================================================== = 7:06:33 PM

Re: US pressure continues on Iran Dear Friends: The Bush administration continues to apply pressure on Iran, claiming that it is sheltering top level al Queda members, and that its nuclear capacity is intended for non-peaceful means. Sound familiar? The Washington Post reported Sunday that the US had broken off contact with Iran, suspecting that al Qaeda operatives in Iran had a role in the May 12 bombings. Iran, which is on President Bush's axis of evil list, is suspected of sponsoring terrorism, and is facing increasing pressure from Washington since the end of the war in Iraq. _____________________ The Guardian May 27, 2003 Next Stop Tehran? By Simon Tisdall With Iraq beaten, the US is now playing the same dangerous WMD game with Iran Imagine for a moment that you are a senior official in Iran's foreign ministry. It's hot outside on the dusty, congested streets of Tehran. But inside the ministry, despite the air-conditioning, it's getting stickier all the time. You have a big problem, a problem that Iran's president, Mohammad Khatami, admits is "huge and serious". The problem is the Bush administration and, specifically, its insistence that Iran is running "an alarming clandestine nuclear weapons programme". You fear that this, coupled with daily US claims that Iran is aiding al-Qaida, is leading in only one direction. US news reports reaching your desk indicate that the Pentagon is now advocating "regime change" in Iran. Reading dispatches from Geneva, you note that the US abruptly walked out of low-level talks there last week, the only bilateral forum for two countries lacking formal diplomatic relations. You worry that bridge-building by Iran's UN ambassador is getting nowhere. You understand that while Britain and the EU are telling Washington that engagement, not confrontation, is the way forward, the reality, as Iraq showed, is that if George Bush decides to do it his way, there is little the Europeans or indeed Russia can ultimately do to stop him. What is certain is that at almost all points of the compass, the unmatchable US military machine besieges Iran's borders. The Pentagon is sponsoring the Iraq-based Mojahedin e-Khalq, a group long dedicated to insurrection in the Islamic republic that the state department describes as terrorists. And you are fully aware that Israel is warning Washington that unless something changes soon, Iran may acquire the bomb within two years. As the temperature in the office rises, as flies buzz around the desk like F-16s in a dogfight and as beads of sweat form on furrowed brow, it seems only one conclusion is possible. The question with which you endlessly pestered your foreign missions before and during the invasion of Iraq - "who's next?" - appears now to have but one answer. It's us. So what would you do? This imaginary official may be wrong, of course. Without some new terrorist enormity in the US "homeland", surely Bush is not so reckless as to start another all-out war as America's election year approaches? Washington's war of words could amount to nothing more than that. Maybe the US foolishly believes it is somehow helping reformist factions in the Majlis (parliament), the media and student bodies. Maybe destabilisation and intimidation is the name of the game and the al-Qaida claims are a pretext, as in Iraq. Perhaps the US does not itself know what it wants to do; a White House strategy meeting is due today. But who knows? Tehran's dilemma is real: Washington's intentions are dangerously uncertain. Should Iran continue to deny any present bomb-making intent and facilitate additional, short-notice inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency to prove it? Should it expand its EU dialogue and strengthen protective ties with countries such as Syria and Lebanon, India, Russia and China, which is its present policy? The answer is "yes". The difficulty is that this may not be enough. Should it then go further and cancel its nuclear power contracts with Moscow? Should it abandon Hizbullah and Palestinian rejectionist groups, as America demands? This doubtless sounds like a good idea to neo-con thinktankers. But surely even they can grasp that such humiliation, under duress from the Great Satan, is politically unacceptable. Grovelling is not Persian policy. Even the relatively moderate Khatami made it clear in Beirut recently that there would be no backtracking in the absence of a just, wider Middle East settlement. And anyway, Khatami does not control Iran's foreign and defence policy.  Indeed, it is unclear who does. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, ex-president Hashemi Rafsanjani, security chief Hassan Rohani, and the military and intelligence agencies all doubtless have a say, which may be why Iran's policies often appear contradictory. Tension between civil society reformers and the mullahs is endemic and combustible. But as US pressure has increased, so too has the sway of Islamic hardliners. Iran's alternative course is the worst of all, but one which Bush's threats make an ever more likely choice. It is to build and deploy nuclear weapons and missiles in order to pre-empt America's regime-toppling designs. The US should hardly be surprised if it comes to this. After all, it is what Washington used to call deterrence before it abandoned that concept in favour of "anticipatory defence" or, more candidly, unilateral offensive warfare. To Iran, the US now looks very much like the Soviet Union looked to western Europe at the height of the cold war. Britain and West Germany did not waive their right to deploy US cruise and Pershing nuclear missiles to deter the combined menace of overwhelming conventional forces and an opposing, hostile ideology. Why, in all logic, should Iran, or for that matter North Korea and other so-called "rogue states" accused of developing weapons of mass destruction, act any differently? If this is Iran's choice, the US will be much to blame. While identifying WMD proliferation as the main global threat, its bellicose post-9/11 policies have served to increase rather than reduce it. Washington ignores, as ever, its exemplary obligation to disarm under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT). Despite strategic reductions negotiated with Russia, the US retains enormous firepower in every nuclear weapons category. Worse still, the White House is set on developing, not just researching, a new generation of battlefield "mini-nukes" whose only application is offensive use, not deterrence. Its new $400bn defence budget allocates funding to this work; linked to this is an expected US move to end its nuclear test moratorium in defiance of the comprehensive test ban treaty. Bush has repeatedly warned, not least in his national security strategy, that the US is prepared to use "overwhelming force", including first use of nuclear weapons, to crush perceived or emerging threats. It might well have done so in Iraq had the war gone badly. Bush has thereby torn up the key stabilising concept of "negative security assurance" by which nuclear powers including previous US administrations pledged, through the NPT and the UN, not to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states. Meanwhile the US encourages egregious double standards. What it says, in effect, is that Iran (and most other states) must not be allowed a nuclear capability but, for example, Israel's undeclared and internationally uninspected arsenal is permissible. India's and Pakistan's bombs, although recently and covertly acquired, are tolerated too, since they are deemed US allies. Bush's greatest single disservice to non-proliferation came in Iraq. The US cried wolf in exaggerating Saddam's capability. Now it is actively undermining the vital principle of independent, international inspection and verification by limiting UN access to the country. Yet would Iraq have been attacked if it really had possessed nuclear weapons? Possibly not. Thus the self-defeating, mangled message to Iran and others is: arm yourselves to the teeth, before it is too late, or you too could face the chop. Small wonder if things grow sticky inside Tehran's dark-windowed ministries right now. If Iran ultimately does the responsible thing and forswears the bomb, it will not be for want of the most irresponsible American provocation. _______________________________ In peace, Otoño  ________________________________ Read all about it and get the news that matters by receiving the War and Peace Watch. To subscribe, send an e-mail to: Reikiworks@compuserve.com Thank you for your support, The War and Peace Watch publisher. contact: Otoño Johnston ============================================================ (In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment for research and educational purposes only.) ============================================================ 8:54:27 AM

Re: National reaction to Chris Hedges commencement speech Dear Friends: When Chris Hedges, a New York Times Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter and author, recently attempted to deliver the commencement speech at Rockford College, he was heckled and drowned out by students and family members. The crowd's irate reaction was prompted by Hedges' criticism of US policy in Iraq. National reaction is growing, and a sampling of some of these responses follows. ______________________________ Rockford Register Star May 22, 2003 Speech Continues to Draw National Reaction - New York Times columnist Chris Hedges was critical of U.S. policy in Iraq during his Rockford College commencement address. By Carrie Watters, Rockford Register Star ROCKFORD--Opinions keep rolling in about a New York Times columnist booed from the stage at Rockford College. Some from the left. Some from the right. Some bemoan a liberal media and others criticize a conservative one. Some call for freedom of speech, others call for debate on ideas--something unavailable Saturday at the college graduation ceremony. People near and far are chiming in on the debate over Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Chris Hedges commencement speech Saturday. Hedges was heckled from the stage. His keynote speech about war and group-think fervor was trimmed to 18 minutes because of the ruckus. Hedge[s] was critical of U.S policy in Iraq and included references to the U.S. as an occupier, not a liberator. A few students protested, and within three minutes Hedges was silenced by a pulled microphone plug. Once corrected, the college president urged the audience to respect freedom of speech. Audience protest grew with some students leaving, others vocally protesting and Hedges microphone unplugged again, bringing the speech to a hurried close. About 600 e-mails have been received by the Rockford Register Star. More than 325,000 people have read the Rockford Register Star news stories on the Internet. The audio version of the speech has attracted 50,000 hits and the transcript 30,000 hits on the Web. Here's a handful of opinions from readers across the country: * I have heard that college students generally have been becoming more conservative, and, well, less sophisticated and aware of current events. Living near Harvard and MIT, I don't get to see these trends. But I guess the dumb, bizarre behavior of Rockford's graduation class indicates that the Dumb and Dumber mentality does indeed exist. --Bernie Connelly, Somverville, Mass. * In many respects, I think it reflects well on the students and their families. After all, they didn't tar and feather the speaker from The New York Times. Nor did they sit there like sheep or hinterland bumpkins and take his opinions. --Michael Warder, Claremont, Calif. * I am dismayed at your community's disdain for the freedoms which patriots have fought and died for over the past 200 years. I ask each of you in the community ... to contemplate what kind of country you want to live in. Do you wish to live surrounded by anger, hatred and fear? Do you want to spend your life worrying whether you'll be shouted down by an angry mob just because you speak uncomfortable truths? Do you want to be led like lambs to the slaughter, content simply to know that your views are approved by the powers that be? Or would you rather live a life of intellectual challenge and open debate, thinking and contributing to the moral questions of our time? --Chris Vincenti, San Francisco Bay area, Calif. * Chris Hedges and Mr. Pribbenow (college president) should recognize 1960s-style campus protest and activism and appreciate it for the healthy, if heated, exchange of ideas that it is. Just because Pribbenows man is on the receiving end of the protest this time around doesn't mean his students don't appreciate freedom of speech. --Andrew Freeman, Raleigh, N.C. Copyright © 2003 Rockford Register Star. ________________________________ In peace, Otoño ________________________________ Read all about it and get the news that matters by receiving the War and Peace Watch. To subscribe, send an e-mail to: Reikiworks@compuserve.com Thank you for your support, The War and Peace Watch publisher. contact: Otoño Johnston ============================================================(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment for research and educational purposes only.) ============================================================ 8:06:56 AM

Re: Chris Hedges heckled during speech Dear Friends: Recently Chris Hedges, author of War Is the Force That Gives Us Meaning, spoke at Rockford College, delivering the commencement address to the graduates. This Pulitzer Prize-winning writer of exquisite words was greeted with catcalls, boos, and bullhorns. What was the force operating that gave them meaning?  _________________________________ Rockford Registrar Star May 20, 2003 Text of the Rockford College graduation speech by Chris Hedges [given May 17, 2003] I want to speak to you today about war and empire. Killing, or at least the worst of it, is over in Iraq. Although blood will continue to spill -- theirs and ours -- be prepared for this. For we are embarking on an occupation that, if history is any guide, will be as damaging to our souls as it will be to our prestige, power, and security. But this will come later as our empire expands and in all this we become pariahs, tyrants to others weaker than ourselves. Isolation always impairs judgment and we are very isolated now. We have forfeited the good will, the empathy the world felt for us after 9-11. We have folded in on ourselves, we have severely weakened the delicate international coalitions and alliances that are vital in maintaining and promoting peace and we are part now of a dubious troika in the war against terror with Vladimir Putin and Ariel Sharon, two leaders who do not shrink in Palestine or Chechnya from carrying out acts of gratuitous and senseless acts of violence. We have become the company we keep. The censure and perhaps the rage of much of the world, certainly one-fifth of the world's population which is Muslim, most of whom I'll remind you are not Arab, is upon us. Look today at the 14 people killed last night in several explosions in Casablanca. And this rage in a world where almost 50 percent of the planet struggles on less than two dollars a day will see us targeted. Terrorism will become a way of life, and when we are attacked we will, like our allies Putin and Sharon, lash out with greater fury. The circle of violence is a death spiral; no one escapes. We are spinning at a speed that we may not be able to hold. As we revel in our military prowess -- the sophistication of our military hardware and technology, for this is what most of the press coverage consisted of in Iraq -- we lose sight of the fact that just because we have the capacity to wage war it does not give us the right to wage war. This capacity has doomed empires in the past. "Modern western civilization may perish," the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr warned, "because it falsely worshiped technology as a final good." The real injustices, the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land, the brutal and corrupt dictatorships we fund in the Middle East, will mean that we will not rid the extremists who hate us with bombs. Indeed we will swell their ranks. Once you master people by force you depend on force for control. In your isolation you begin to make mistakes. Fear engenders cruelty; cruelty, fear, insanity, and then paralysis. In the center of Dante's circle the damned remained motionless. We have blundered into a nation we know little about and are caught between bitter rivalries and competing ethnic groups and leaders we do not understand. We are trying to transplant a modern system of politics invented in Europe characterized, among other things, by the division of earth into independent secular states based on national citizenship in a land where the belief in a secular civil government is an alien creed. Iraq was a cesspool for the British when they occupied it in 1917; it will be a cesspool for us as well. The curfews, the armed clashes with angry crowds that leave scores of Iraqi dead, the military governor, the Christian Evangelical groups who are being allowed to follow on the heels of our occupying troops to try and teach Muslims about Jesus. Hedges stops speaking because of a disturbance in the audience. Rockford College President Paul Pribbenow takes the microphone. "My friends, one of the wonders of a liberal arts college is its ability and its deeply held commitment to academic freedom and the decision to listen to each other's opinions. (Crowd Cheers)  If you wish to protest the speaker's remarks, I ask that you do it in silence, as some of you are doing in the back. That is perfectly appropriate but he has the right to offer his opinion here and we would like him to continue his remarks. (Fog Horn Blows, some cheer). The occupation of the oil fields, the notion of the Kurds and the Shiites will listen to the demands of a centralized government in Baghdad, the same Kurds and Shiites who died by the tens of thousands in defiance of Sadaam Hussein, a man who happily butchered all of those who challenged him, and this ethnic rivalry has not gone away. The looting of Baghdad, or let me say the looting of Baghdad with the exception of the oil ministry and the interior ministry -- the only two ministries we bothered protecting -- is self immolation. As someone who knows Iraq, speaks Arabic, and spent seven years in the Middle East, if the Iraqis believe rightly or wrongly that we come only for oil and occupation, that will begin a long bloody war of attrition; it is how they drove the British out and remember that, when the Israelis invaded southern Lebanon in 1982, they were greeted by the dispossessed Shiites as liberators. But within a few months, when the Shiites saw that the Israelis had come not as liberators but occupiers, they began to kill them. It was Israel who created Hezbollah and was Hezbollah that pushed Israel out of Southern Lebanon. As William Butler Yeats wrote in "Meditations in Times Of Civil War," "We had fed the heart on fantasies / the hearts grown brutal from the fair." This is a war of liberation in Iraq, but it is a war now of liberation by Iraqis from American occupation. And if you watch closely what is happening in Iraq, if you can see it through the abysmal coverage, you can see it in the lashing out of the terrorist death squads, the murder of Shiite leaders in mosques, and the assassination of our young soldiers in the streets. It is one that will soon be joined by Islamic radicals and we are far less secure today than we were before we bumbled into Iraq. We will pay for this, but what saddens me most is that those who will by and large pay the highest price are poor kids from Mississippi or Alabama or Texas who could not get a decent job or health insurance and joined the army because it was all we offered them. For war in the end is always about betrayal, betrayal of the young by the old, of soldiers by politicians, and of idealists by cynics. Read Antigone, when the king imposes his will without listening to those he rules or Thucydides' history. Read how Athens' expanding empire saw it become a tyrant abroad and then a tyrant at home. How the tyranny the Athenian leadership imposed on others it finally imposed on itself. This, Thucydides wrote, is what doomed Athenian democracy; Athens destroyed itself. For the instrument of empire is war and war is a poison, a poison which at times we must ingest just as a cancer patient must ingest a poison to survive.  But if we do not understand the poison of war -- if we do not understand how deadly that poison is -- it can kill us just as surely as the disease. We have lost touch with the essence of war. Following our defeat in Vietnam we became a better nation. We were humbled, even humiliated. We asked questions about ourselves we had not asked before. We were forced to see ourselves as others saw us and the sight was not always a pretty one. We were forced to confront our own capacity for a atrocity -- for evil -- and in this we understood not only war but more about ourselves. But that humility is gone. War, we have come to believe, is a spectator sport. The military and the press -- remember in wartime the press is always part of the problem -- have turned war into a vast video arcade came. Its very essence -- death -- is hidden from public view.  There was no more candor in the Persian Gulf War or the War in Afghanistan or the War in Iraq than there was in Vietnam. But in the age of live feeds and satellite television, the state and the military have perfected the appearance of candor. Because we no longer understand war, we no longer understand that it can all go horribly wrong. We no longer understand that war begins by calling for the annihilation of others but ends if we do not know when to make or maintain peace with self-annihilation. We flirt, given the potency of modern weapons, with our own destruction. The seduction of war is insidious because so much of what we are told about it is true -- it does create a feeling of comradeship which obliterates our alienation and makes us, for perhaps the only time of our life, feel we belong. War allows us to rise above our small stations in life; we find nobility in a cause and feelings of selflessness and even bliss. And at a time of soaring deficits and financial scandals and the very deterioration of our domestic fabric, war is a fine diversion. War for those who enter into combat has a dark beauty, filled with the monstrous and the grotesque. The Bible calls it the lust of the eye and warns believers against it. War gives us a distorted sense of self; it gives us meaning. (A man in the audience says: "Can I say a few words here?" Hedges: Yeah, when I finish.) Once in war, the conflict obliterates the past and the future all is one heady intoxicating present. You feel every heartbeat in war, colors are brighter, your mind races ahead of itself. (Confusion, microphone problems, etc.) We feel in wartime comradeship. (Boos) We confuse this with friendship, with love. There are those who will insist that the comradeship of war is love -- the exotic glow that makes us in war feel as one people, one entity, is real, but this is part of war's intoxication. Think back on the days after the attacks on 9-11. Suddenly we no longer felt alone; we connected with strangers, even with people we did not like. We felt we belonged, that we were somehow wrapped in the embrace of the nation, the community; in short, we no longer felt alienated. As this feeling dissipated in the weeks after the attack, there was a kind of nostalgia for its warm glow and wartime always brings with it this comradeship, which is the opposite of friendship. Friends are predetermined; friendship takes place between men and women who possess an intellectual and emotional affinity for each other. But comradeship -- that ecstatic bliss that comes with belonging to the crowd in wartime -- is within our reach. We can all have comrades. The danger of the external threat that comes when we have an enemy does not create friendship; it creates comradeship. And those in wartime are deceived about what they are undergoing. And this is why once the threat is over, once war ends, comrades again become strangers to us. This is why after war we fall into despair. In friendship there is a deepening of our sense of self. We become, through the friend, more aware of who we are and what we are about; we find ourselves in the eyes of the friend. Friends probe and question and challenge each other to make each of us more complete; with comradeship, the kind that comes to us in patriotic fervor, there is a suppression of self-awareness, self-knowledge, and self-possession. Comrades lose their identities in wartime for the collective rush of a common cause -- a common purpose. In comradeship there are no demands on the self. This is part of its appeal and one of the reasons we miss it and seek to recreate it. Comradeship allows us to escape the demands on the self that is part of friendship. In wartime when we feel threatened, we no longer face death alone but as a group, and this makes death easier to bear. We ennoble self-sacrifice for the other, for the comrade; in short we begin to worship death. And this is what the god of war demands of us. Think finally of what it means to die for a friend. It is deliberate and painful; there is no ecstasy. For friends, dying is hard and bitter. The dialogue they have and cherish will perhaps never be recreated. Friends do not, the way comrades do, love death and sacrifice. To friends, the prospect of death is frightening. And this is why friendship or, let me say love, is the most potent enemy of war. Thank you. (Boos cheers, shouts, fog horns and the like) Copyright © 2003 Rockford Register Star.  ________________________________ In peace, Otoño  ________________________________ Read all about it and get the news that matters by receiving the War and Peace Watch. To subscribe, send an e-mail to: Reikiworks@compuserve.com Thank you for your support, The War and Peace Watch publisher. contact: Otoño Johnston ============================================================ (In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment for research and educational purposes only.) ============================================================ 7:28:57 AM

Re: An interview with Senator Robert Byrd Dear Friends: Recently, MoveOn featured a grassroots interview with Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV). The interview came about through the organization's members posting their questions to the senior congressman. Excerpts of his responses to these questions follows. MoveOn is an issue-oriented, nonpartisan, nonprofit organization giving people a voice in shaping the laws that affect their lives, and coordinating grassroots advocacy campaigns to encourage sound public policies.  ____________________________ Grassroots Interview: Senator Byrd The following are Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV) responses to some of the questions MoveOn members posed: Question One: What are the ways we can impact the choices being made today as powerfully as possible? -- Michael McCann, West Lebanon, NH Mr. McCann, you ask a very good question. Many of those who want to speak out are cowed by the intimidation and ridicule that often accompanies going against the perceived grain. That is as true in Congress as it is outside the Capitol Beltway. At times of national distress, it is natural to want to come together and to look for leadership from a single, clear voice. But America's song has never been expressed by a single note. It was never intended to be. America's music is not a solo, but rather a symphony made richer by the harmony of different views. Remember, our founders rejected a Monarchy, and sought, instead, a Republic. They chose a representative form of government that allowed the many voices of America to be heard. Write your Members of Congress. Write your newspaper. Talk with your neighbors. Do not sit back and assume that everything will work out for the best. If we are going to make a difference, if we are going to break through the constant beat of rhetoric and bombast that fills the airwaves each day, we cannot be complacent. The freedom to dissent, to speak out, and to question is the birthright of every American There is a power which can serve as a check against abuses by a government or by government officials and that power is the power of the informed citizen -- one who has read enough, who understands enough, who has developed a base of knowledge against which to judge truth or falsehood. Participation in the great debates of our time must not be relegated to the power elites in Washington. An informed citizenry has to participate, ask questions, and demand answers and accountability to make a country like ours work. Without some base of knowledge upon which to make judgements about the critical issues that face us, the average citizen will be buffeted this way and that by spin doctors from the White House, statements by politicians seeking to please voters, and daily news coverage and talk shows which often have an editorial agenda. I say, for the sake of our country, arm yourself with information. Especially with an Administration which has a demonstrated penchant for secrecy, our people must be vigilant. We must resist excessive invasion of personal privacy because of a well-intentioned zealousness by government to hunt down terrorists, and we must question the necessity of all measures which seem extreme.  Dictators and despots triumph when the people become complacent, drop their guards, and leave government to "the powers that be." Remember, sheep could never be peacefully led to slaughter if they could ask where they were headed and get an honest answer. It is up to each citizen to do what he or she can to provide that all-important check on power, the wisdom of the people. Question Two: How can we stop the right wing revolution of George W. Bush? -- Elizabeth C. Mark, Alexandria, VA Ms. Mark, you are not alone in your frustrations. Many Americans are concerned about what they see as a bias in the media. There are voices in the media that seek to present an alternative point of view. But too often, these men and women are sent packing because their corporate bosses fear a commercial backlash. I do not question the media's right to report on stories and to have talk shows which express opinion. That right is clearly laid out in the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights. "Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press." This Amendment, ratified in December, 1791, gives broad power to the press. Our Constitutional Framers understood that the Republic would not function properly if the press is not allowed to operate freely and without intervention from government. However, the media must also recognize the responsibility it has to the public that relies so heavily on the information learned in the daily reports. The free press must be a fair press. Through the First Amendment, our Framers guaranteed a free press. We, the people, demand a fair press, one that meets its responsibilities and our expectations. A free press cannot exist without the trust of the public it serves.  To win and maintain that trust, the press must be fair in its work. As I recently said on the floor of the Senate, the American people unfortunately are used to political shading, spin, and the usual chicanery they hear from public officials. They patiently tolerate it up to a point. But there is a line. The calculated intimidation which we see so often of late by the "powers that be" will only keep the loyal opposition quiet for just so long. Because eventually, like it always does, the truth will emerge. There is no obstacle that cannot be overcome by the vigorous mind determined to follow the truth. Question Three: How can we regain freedom of the press and airwaves, and restore free public speech and debate? Where are the liberal intellectuals and think tanks and how could they have been so easily marginalized? -- Rev. Gerry Staatemeier, Tucson, AZ First, let me thank you, Reverend Staatemeier, for your more than kind remarks. I am humbled by them. The Reverend Mr. Staatemeier asks a question very similar to that of Ms. Mark. The media. What to do about the media. This should not come as a great shock but, while I have a good understanding of the complexities of the Constitution and the issues facing the nation, I have very little understanding of the enigma of the modern media. I have often wondered how Daniel Webster or Henry Clay or James Madison would have come across on television. How would they do in 20-second sound bites? Yet their ideas helped to build the foundation for this country. Would their beliefs have been as strongly followed if all people heard were short bits and pieces? These questions have all shared common themes. How can we speak out? How can we make our voices heard? How can we break through the barriers that seem to hold back balanced opinion? It is frustrating, I know. I have, for months, pushed, prodded, and pleaded with my colleagues to speak out, to let their voices be heard, and to not be intimidated by this Administration or others who would criticize. The best advice I have is to read, listen, and participate. Share your opinions with your family and friends. Talk at your churches and community organizations. Not everyone will agree with you. When there are those who do not, stay civil. Rely on reason, logic, and facts. And remember, at the end of the day, we are all Americans. There is far more that unites us than divides us. Question Four: What can citizens do? -- Sid Kemp, San Antonio, TX Mr. Kemp, you ask for specifics. I have already outlined many of the steps that I think are important: ready; study; write; talk with your neighbors; contact your lawmakers; ask real questions and do not settle for half-answers. Stay involved in politics. Support candidates who share your views. Vote. Get your neighbors to vote. Each of us has a part in making this government good by exercising the duty and privilege of the ballot box. We can show our gratitude for all that our nation means to us by the quality of our citizenship. Question Five: Why is Congress giving up its Constitutional duty? -- Eli Pariser, New York, NY  Mr. Pariser, your question is one that has vexed me for several months. The October 11 vote by the Senate to hand over to the President the authority to solely determine when, where, how, and why to declare war will go down in history as one of the lowest points in the Senate's existence. Twenty-three Senators voted against that resolution. Twenty-three Senators would not walk away from their Constitutional duties. Reversing that vote will not be easy, especially in this climate and with this President. What also concerns me is this new doctrine of preemptive strikes. I continue to believe that this policy of preemptive strikes is a dangerous policy that carries unintended consequences.  When America acts unilaterally to enforce its will on other nations, without an imminent, direct threat to our security and without regard for the rest of the world or even our traditional allies, we endanger the peace of the world. America is the world's remaining superpower. But that unique status does not give America the right to impose its will whenever and wherever it chooses. We have a responsibility to lead, not to bully. As post-war reconstruction moves forward, more than just the Iraqi nation needs attention. The United States would be well advised to reconstruct many of the diplomatic relationships that have been seriously strained because of the doctrine of preemptive strikes. In the months and years ahead, we will need the world's support of our allies. We will need assistance in the effort to stop global terrorism; we will need the goodwill of the world to foster peaceful resolutions to dangerous situations. It is especially important that America show the world that we have the confidence and wisdom to step back from this policy of preemption and return to the steadier course of diplomatic resolution. Question Six: Can Democrats offer an alternative vision for America? -- Susan Faraone, Chicago, IL Ms. Faraone, I certainly believe so. We have many brave men and women in Congress, in state government, and in local government who are working to improve the lives of their fellow citizens. And one does not have to be in government to make that difference. This nation faces daunting challenges in the coming years. The baby boomer generation will begin to retire in the year 2008. Because of the demands of that generation, both the Social Security and Medicare trust funds are expected to be running in the red by 2016. In 2015, more than 60 million Americans expect to rely on Social Security as a backbone of their retirement and more than 45 million Americans will rely on Medicare for their health care. But what steps have we taken to prepare for this looming crisis? Not one. Not a single dime is devoted to shoring up Social Security. Not one penny is directed to pay back the IOUs that Congress has been putting in the trust fund kitty for so many years.  Education. We know that 75 percent of our nation's school buildings are inadequate to meet the needs of our children. In fact, the average cost of capital investment needed is $3,800 per student. But are we providing the dollars to build and renovate schools? No. The American Society of Civil Engineers has graded the nation's infrastructure. How did we do? Abysmally. Roads: D-plus. Aviation: D-minus. Schools: D-minus. Transit: C-minus. Drinking water: D. Overall, in 10 different areas, the nation's infrastructure received an average grade of D-plus. When touting his tax cut packages, the President is fond of saying that we ought to give the people their money back. I think we ought to give the people their money's worth. Instead of more massive tax cuts, we ought to look toward tomorrow and repair our outdated infrastructure. We ought to help provide for safe highways and bridges; airports and transit systems that work; clean air; safe drinking water; and schools that help children to learn. We ought to plan ahead to insure that Social Security and Medicare will be available in the long-term. In his book, The Greatest Generation, Tom Brokaw discusses the greatness of the generation of Americans of the 1930s and the 1940s. He points out that it was this generation of Americans who "came of age in the Great Depression when economic despair hovered over the land like a plague." This was "the greatest generation any society has ever produced." Like Mr. Brokaw, I too admire the generation of Americans who survived the hardships of the Great Depression and won World War II. They were truly outstanding Americans, a great generation. I am proud to say that they are my generation. But ever since reading Mr. Brokaw's book, I can't help but think of the greatness of not only this generation of Americans, but the greatness of generation after generation of Americans. It seems that in every age of our history, Americans have risen to meet the challenges and the difficulties of their times and to move our country toward further greatness. We will not fall short now. After answering these questions, I am reminded of a poem that I have recited since my youth. The words were penned by Josiah Gilbert Holland in the 19th Century, but the message carries forth into the 21st Century. God give us men! A time like this demands strong minds, great hearts, true faith, and ready hands. Men whom the lust of office does not kill; Men whom the spoils of office cannot buy; Men who possess opinions and a will; Men who have honor; men who will not lie. Men who can stand before a demagogue And brave his treacherous flatteries without winking. Tall men, sun--crowned; Who live above the fog, In public duty and in private thinking. For while the rabble with its thumbworn creeds, It's large professions and its little deeds, mingles in selfish strife, Lo! Freedom weeps! Wrong rules the land and waiting justice sleeps. God give us men! Men who serve not for selfish booty; But real men, courageous, who flinch not at duty. Men of dependable character; Men of sterling worth; Then wrongs will be redressed, and right will rule the earth. God Give us Men! --The MoveOn Bulletin, May 23, 2003 Research team: Leah Appet, Joanne Comito, Lita Epstein, Janelle Miau, Kim Plofker, and Ora Szekely. Editing team: David Taub Bancroft, Judy Green, Nancy Evans, and Alfred Karl Weber. The MoveOn Bulletin is a project of MoveOn.org ________________________________ In peace, Otoño ________________________________ Read all about it and get the news that matters by receiving the War and Peace Watch. To subscribe, send an e-mail to: Reikiworks@compuserve.com Thank you for your support, The War and Peace Watch publisher. contact: Otoño Johnston ============================================================ (In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. 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