or Powell's or me• • •
"Mike and Jon, Jon and Mike—I've known them both for years, and, clearly, one of them is very funny. As for the other: truly one of the great hangers-on of our time."—Steve Bodow, head writer, The Daily Show
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"Who can really judge what's funny? If humor is a subjective medium, then can there be something that is really and truly hilarious? Me. This book."—Daniel Handler, author, Adverbs, and personal representative of Lemony Snicket
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"The good news: I thought Our Kampf was consistently hilarious. The bad news: I’m the guy who wrote Monkeybone."—Sam Hamm, screenwriter, Batman, Batman Returns, and Homecoming
May 22, 2008
New TomDispatch
River of Resistance
How the American Imperial Dream Foundered in Iraq
By Michael SchwartzOn February 15, 2003, ordinary citizens around the world poured into the streets to protest George W. Bush's onrushing invasion of Iraq. Demonstrations took place in large cities and small towns globally, including a small but spirited protest at the McMurdo Station in Antarctica. Up to 30 million people, who sensed impending catastrophe, participated in what Rebecca Solnit, that apostle of popular hope, has called "the biggest and most widespread collective protest the world has ever seen."
The first glancing assessment of history branded this remarkable planetary protest a record-breaking failure, since the Bush administration, less than one month later, ordered U.S. troops across the Kuwaiti border and on to Baghdad.
And it has since largely been forgotten, or perhaps better put, obliterated from official and media memory. Yet popular protest is more like a river than a storm; it keeps flowing into new areas, carrying pieces of its earlier life into other realms. We rarely know its consequences until many years afterward, when, if we're lucky, we finally sort out its meandering path.
—Jonathan Schwarz
Posted at May 22, 2008 04:06 PMAnother Schwar[t]z!
Posted by: StO at May 22, 2008 05:20 PMYet popular protest is more like a river than a storm; it keeps flowing into new areas, carrying pieces of its earlier life into other realms. We rarely know its consequences until many years afterward, when, if we're lucky, we finally sort out its meandering path.
Yes, just like history will judge Bush kindly a hundred years from now.
It's ridiculous to say the global debate "gave many Iraqis time to lay in stores, evacuate, brace for the onslaught." Most Iraqis were too poor to store anything, and there's really no way to prepare for what's turned into a 5 year siege (and counting).
OK, so we tried and failed. There's no shame in that. But there is shame in creating a feel good fantasy about what we've accomplished.
And given the cost of this war to the Iraqis (which MS does mention towards the end), there's something a little unseemly about trying to find a rainbow in this catastrophe.
Posted by: Carl at May 23, 2008 05:13 AMWhat Carl said.
Flyfishing in the "meandering path" of public protest may nourish pundits and historians, but only a relentlessly swelling stream could sweep away corrupt and vicious institutions. In 1968-72 some Americans made a dash in that direction. It would take a much larger mass and bloody persistence to go the distance. Things will have to be a lot darker for even a chance of that happening.
The cleanup starts with IMPEACHMENT. 1-202-225-0100. (could just sit and watch, do nothing, see what happens next, after all, what's 5 more years or 10 in the "hundred years" scheme of things. I know, I know, the 12 billion a month, 100 or so deaths of OUR guys a month look scary, but as long as WE keep killing Iraqis, sooner or later the OIL will be OURS to burn as WE please. Who knows, maybe the price at the pump really will go down.)
Posted by: Mike Meyer at May 23, 2008 12:24 PMAnother aspect to this is likely that much capital has realised the direction the wind is blowing and are getting the funding in to obtain influence in what will be the new government. There's no point in backing losers, in the short term at least. And it's useful to be able to moderate any threats to one's interests.
Posted by: me at May 23, 2008 01:18 PMAnother aspect to this is likely that much capital has realised the direction the wind is blowing and are getting the funding in to obtain influence in what will be the new government. There's no point in backing losers, in the short term at least. And it's useful to be able to moderate any threats to one's interests.
Posted by: me at May 23, 2008 01:35 PMAnother aspect to this is likely that much capital has realised the direction the wind is blowing and are getting the funding in to obtain influence in what will be the new government. There's no point in backing losers, in the short term at least. And it's useful to be able to moderate any threats to one's interests.
Posted by: me at May 23, 2008 01:39 PMI was at that protest in New York. The streets were overflowing with people - tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands. It was beautiful and tragic, impossible to forget.
Posted by: dc at May 23, 2008 06:01 PM
