American Views Abroad

 
Cindy Sheehan and a contingent of women were arrested outside the US mission to the United Nations in New York on March 6. They spent the night under arrest for attempting to deliver the Women Say No to War petition to the US mission. Dede Miller, Sheehan's sister, writes a passionate plea in Lets Go Gandhi:

'What will it take for the majority of you who don't support the occupation of Iraq or the Bush regime to rise up? Polls tell us that 59% of you believe the occupation is wrong and we are being lied to by Bush. I do not see 160 million of you out in the streets. Again, what will it take? ...... I was having this conversation with a dear friend of mine. Someone on our side. But a person comfortable in life and as yet untouched by the last 5 years. When I asked her to speak out, call her congressman, newspaper, etc. She said to me 'who would listen?' my answer to her, no one if you don't do anything. I can't stress enough to you. At some point your life is going to be impacted by this administration of evil and greed. I implore you, I beg you, don't wait until it is too late. The time is now to take our country back. The time is now to make our elected official do our will. Non Violent Civil Disobedience is a time tested and proven tool to effect change.'

Her complete message is at www.gsfp.org/article.php?id=129.

Sheehan is to arrive in Germany tomorrow. Activities planned for this weekend in Ramstein are listed on the sidebar left under Important Links. Reports are in that counter demonstrations are being planned. On March 14 witnesses will be testifying at a special hearing of the Intergroup for Peace Initiatives at the European Parliament in Strasbourg regarding asylum rights in Europe for soldiers. For What Noble Cause?-- German and US Witnesses about the War on Iraq and Germany's Role will take place in Berlin on March 15 at 19:30 at the St. Bartholomaeuskirche, Friedenstrasse 1, corner of Otto-Braun-Strasse, near the Maerchenbrunnen and Haus der Demokratie -- S-Bahn and U-Bahn Alexanderplatz, Bus nos. 100, 200, 240, tram M4. The witnesses are Sheehan, Hart Viges, Florian Pfaff and Ikram Al-Moien, who fled Iraq and obtained asylum and citizenship in Germany. Wolfgang Kaleck, Attorney, is the moderator.

An historical note: in Freedom from Fear -- the American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945, David M. Kennedy writes on page 89 on the year 1932:

'These cries of impending revolution were largely empty-rhetorical posturings. True, some Communists and others on the far left thought they heard the knell of capitalism and cried for action in the streets. But what struck most observers, and mystified them, was the eery docility of the American people, their stoic passivity as the depression grindstone rolled over them. There might be some nervous stirring on Capitol Hill in the winter of 1931-32, Anne O'Hare McCormick wrote, but'beyond the Potomac there is silence .... a vacuum; no life-giving breath of popular enthusiasm or popular indignation, no current of that famous energy that propels the American dynamo.....Is American growing old? Have we......slumped into that sad maturity which submits to events?' Like Mr. Micawber, she concluded, 'we are all waiting for something to turn up.'
- posted by Gloria @ 5:22 PM