In the freezing cold, I marched for
peace this Saturday, joining literally millions the world over, in what could be the largest global anti-war demonstration ever.
While al-Qaida may have hijacked a few planes, the Bush presidency has dragooned our entire country, alienated many of our closest and most trustworthy allies, obliterated a projected $5-billion domestic budget surplus, and ratcheted up the imminent probability of World War III.
Indeed, we were protesting the illegitimate American President George W. Bush's insane push to annihilate Iraq, perhaps triggering apocalyptic conflagration.
We were protesting the awfulness of the current United States government –
coup-become-junta – a bunch of testosterone-mad thugs, bullies, gangsters, corporate criminals addicted to power, oil and control at, apparently, any cost.
We were protesting the Bush administration's rule by fear and distortion, twisting a very real terrorist threat into a propaganda tool to terrify citizens, curtail domestic civil liberties, and create that most Orwellian of mega-bureaucracies, Homeland Security.
Philadelphia labor leader Thomas Paine Cronin's superb, impassioned speech says it best:
Notice [with] these terror alerts: Nothing happens. How politically convenient these terror alerts are for the Bush Administration.
The media used to talk about unemployment and the faltering economy. Now it's Saddam.
The media used to investigate and analyze Enron, Tyco, WorldCom.
Now it's war, terror, anthrax.
Notice the timing of this latest terror alert, announced as 150,000 US.
troops sit poised to attack Iraq.
In 1939, Hitler told the world Poland had invaded Germany. Of course, people everywhere knew this was a lie. Except in Germany, where Hitler's opponents were in camps and the press was muzzled.
Every word out of Bush's mouth is ... a lie, a threat, or a malapropism. And no one – outside America – believes any of it.
The truth is: Iraq is a 10th-rate military power. ... It doesn't matter. The inspections were never anything but a pretext for war. And the war is about one thing: the desire of one country – the U.S. – to control another country's resources by shaping that country's political destiny.
Just like this scare isn't about preventing acts of terror. It's about intimidating opposition to Bush's war.
The war in the desert is a smokescreen, a diversion, to cover for
the other war.
The one at home.
For the Bush administration, the real enemy is not Saddam, but the poor,
the elderly, the sick, and working Americans.
The federal budget is the weapon of choice.
Multi-trillion dollar tax cuts for the wealthy, and huge increases in
defense spending, will leave Washington running deficits for the next
[decade.]
Bush's budget cuts target Medicaid, Medicare, community development,
housing assistance, job training, and employment programs. Anything remotely progressive is either slashed or frozen.
Mr. Bush can easily come up with the $2 billion a month it costs to keep
8,000 American troops in Afghanistan. But he can't find $713 million for training and employment programs.
He can find $35 billion annually to run a department of Homeland
Security, which [takes] the place of an intelligent foreign
policy.
But he can't keep the schools in Oregon open five days a week.
Across America, state governments are cutting school days, laying off
employees, eliminating vital services for poor people.
State governments are $70 billion in the red, and running on empty.
Seventy billion dollars is a little more than what Bush's missile defense system
costs.
Right-wing pundits – if that's not redundant – called Bush's budget breathtaking.
In fact, it is.
Because never in the modern history of this country has there been such a naked attempt to hijack the government on behalf of privilege. Mr. Bush governs openly on behalf of his class. Steeped in ignorance and conceit, he's its consummate representative.
Now we're past the hot air about compassionate conservatism, we know what the Bush program's really about: war, poverty, and establishing the legal groundwork for a police state.
We in the labor movement say to Mr. Bush: If it's class against class you
want, we're prepared to fight. We pay the taxes, we serve in the army, we keep this country running. We will oppose your war against Iraq and your war against working people, the poor, the elderly, the disabled.
We will use the ballot box when we can and fill the streets when we need to.
You may control the state and intimidate the media.
But whatever the scale, form or purpose, a lie is a lie. The world knows it, and America will too."
Applause!