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Posted December 1, 2001
Rattlesnake
Society
Kudos to Raimondo for his little bit on the Gadsden flag. A couple of years ago, I tried encouraging people to fly it with a little club I called the "Rattlesnake Society." I hope Raimondo's considerably higher profile helps it become a trend.
Boycott Christmas
In her e-mail posted in November 27th's "Backtalk," Ilse from Brazil suggested that concerned people of all faiths might wish to fast during Ramadan in order to show solidarity with Muslims from around the world. Ilse has her heart in the right place, and I encourage her to go ahead and fast if that's what she feels moved to do. As for me, my chosen form of political statement is a personal boycott on participation in Christmas-related activities – including attending office Christmas parties, buying gifts for friends and family, sending cards, etc. I am not a religious person, but in years past I have gone along with social convention and observed the holiday, so as not to be a big misfit. This year, however, I find myself too disgusted with the mess adherents of the "great" monotheistic religions are making of the world – from the violent nutjob Jewish settlers in Gaza and the West Bank, to the Muslim lunatics who hijacked the airliners on September 11, to our idiot Christian President who announced his resolve to avenge the 9-11 deaths from the pulpit of the National Cathedral, which avenging has involved the wholesale killing of innocents – to yet again pretend that I care about a religious holiday by buying crap for people who never appreciate it anyway.
If I inspire anyone out there to opt out of observing Christmas this year, I ask that they consider redirecting some of the money they'll be saving to Antiwar.com.
Citizen-Education
Just wanted to say, for all of us out here it the cyberether, that Antiwar.com is doing extraordinarily important work in citizen-education. It's the best site I know of for timely, important news and commentary; like many others, I always log on to your site first.
Raimondo in Bulgaria
Just wanted to say Justin's last two pieces are a blast. Also, thanks for that great article by Joseph Stromberg. I am happy to see such sound and brave viewpoints being expressed. Justin Raimondo is actually quite often translated in the Bulgarian media. Felt like sharing that.
Gulf War II
Since 9/11, innumerable articles posted on Antiwar.com have discussed (and, to your credit, criticized) the War Party's obsession with starting a war with Iraq. Given the apparent failure of the War Party's efforts to tie Iraq to the 9/11 attacks, Iraq's resistance to resuming UN weapons inspections has emerged as the War Party's principal pretext for starting Gulf War II. What has not been adequately discussed in the Western press to date (perhaps somewhat intentionally given the Western press's lust for a US war against Iraq) is that all the recent signals coming from Baghdad seem to indicate a willingness to readmit the UN weapon inspectors in exchange for a lifting of the UN sanctions regime. This willingness to trade a readmission of UN weapon inspectors for a lifting of the UN sanctions regime is implicit in the Iraq government's statement of Nov. 28 ... as well as in the recent statement of the Iraqi Foreign Minister in a newspaper interview that Iraq might be willing to readmit UN weapons inspectors after UN sanctions were lifted. The War Party, of course, would want to nix any discussion of this proposal because what they want really is the overthrow of the Iraqi government and US hegemony in the region, not disarmament.
(...On your advice, I am proudly flying Gadsden's liberty banner side-by-side Old Glory. It's a wonderful symbol for the antiwar movement!)
Patriot Act
One thing you neglected to mention is that this legislation was whipped out and passed in record time. Do you know how long it takes for one of these bills to be prepared? A lot longer than the time they had. It had to have been already written before Sept. 11....
Prison Uprising
Why the heck would men who surrendered to spare their lives risk them by having a prison uprising? Could it be that the CIA officer was using the Northern Alliance thugs to torture these men in violation of the Geneva Convention?
~ Beserker