James and I spent a couple of hours with some smart queer activists talking about anti-war activism that doesn’t involve a laundry list of other issues, or worrying about being polite: exactly the people I need to be around right now.
If you want to join us for the 5pm rally — whichever day it is — or the one on Saturday, send me an email or call me.
Here is what James had to say about it.
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I’ve just added a new category to my blog: War.
Go read Matt Stoller on the Administration’s ‘audacious’ plan to rebuild Iraq using private American construction companies rather than multilateral organizations with experience in nation-building in the Balkans and Afghanistan.
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… just not our current regime.
From Ha’aretz:
GAZA – Palestinians held a symbolic funeral yesterday for U.S. student Rachel Corrie, who was killed by an Israel Defense Forces bulldozer as she protested the demolition of a house in the southern Gaza Strips’s Rafah refugee camp.
Holding a stretcher draped with an American flag, some 1,000 Palestinians marched through the refugee camp as a sign of mourning for the 23-year-old American who was killed on Sunday.
“We fly a U.S. flag today to show our support to all American peace lovers – those like Rachel,” said Palestinian farmer Hassan Abu Toa’ma, 24.
It was a rare change of pace for Rafah, where American flags have more often been burned than held in reverence since the Palestinian uprising began in late September 2000.
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No wonder we have almost no allies left. So the 48 hours to leave thing was just a joke?
From the BBC:
President George W Bush’s spokesman Ari Fleischer said that allied troops would go into the country “no matter what”, but warned the Iraqi leader that if he did not leave it would be his “final mistake”.
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Michael Moore‘s web site has the new anti-war video he directed for System of a Down. Make sure you watch all the way to the end.
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Saddam Hussein and his sons must leave Iraq within 48 hours. Their refusal to do so will result in military conflict commenced at a time of our choosing.
I thought this was supposed to be about disarming Iraq.
I don’t think another country has ever given an ultimatum like that: change your government or we invade. Also, what’s with the “his sons” part?
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Robin Cook, leader of the House of Commons, resigns from Blair’s cabinet.
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Update: He receives a standing ovation from the Commons after making his statement.
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Bush vs. Tic-Tacs. You decide.
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Yahoo has a nice photo of colored powders, ready for the Holi festival. Stephen Dean had a beautiful video from the festival at Henry Urbach in 2001.
Ha’aretz has a good column by an Israeli on the deaths of civilians at the hands of the Israeli Army.
I’ll quote the end:
Israel’s efforts at obfuscation are intended above all to keep our conscience clean. This is false posturing that can no longer be countenanced. When the IDF demolished a mosque on the “Philadelphi” route on the outskirts of Rafah and immediately claimed that the building had been abandoned, no one asked why the mosque had been abandoned. Here is the real sequence of events: first the Gaza Strip is occupied, then settlements are established in it, then guarded roads are built to protect the settlers. In the next stage, after the Palestinians begin to rebel violently against the occupation, we begin killing them until they are forced to abandon the mosque and indeed the entire area. Finally the “abandoned” mosque is demolished. But to us it seems that only the Palestinians destroy holy places, such as Joseph’s Tomb. Our conscience is pure and unblemished, always.
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