Saturday, June 07, 2003
-Japan Press Service News
Recent headlines:
NEWS
KOIZUMI NOW PUBLICLY SAYS HE IS IN FAVOR OF CONSTITUTIONAL CHANGE
Japan’s prime minister is more blatant than ever in ignoring constitutional limits, stating in parliament, “I would be in favor of revising the Constitution to enable Japan to proudly declare that the Self-Defense forces are armed forces.”
LDP OFFICIAL IS UNDER FIRE OVER JAPANESE COLONIZATION OF KOREA
The Liberal Democratic Party Policy Affairs Council Chair, Aso Taro, is under fire from South Korea’s government and mass media because of his remarks concerning the history of Japanese colonization of Korea.
JOB HOPPERS ACCOUNT FOR 20% OF JAPAN’S YOUTH LABOR FORCE
A government survey reveals that every fifth young worker is employed as a contingent worker, indicating that companies’ employment strategy is aimed at holding down labor costs to make immediate profits.
CONSTITUTION vs. CONTINGENCY BILLS
* Prime Minister Koizumi’s hawkish remarks increase (May 28)
* JCP is opposed to sending SDF to Iraq: Shii (May 29)
* Wartime bills force broadcasters to air war reports (May 29)
* No prosperity without peace: Democratic traders and producers lobby against wartime legislation (June 3)
* Public medical workers must support U.S. forces even before armed attack (June 3)
ECONOMY -Consumption tax-
* Consumption tax rate may go up (May 28)
More
http://www.japan-press.co.jp/2336/2336contents.html
Main Site
-Journalistic Fraud is the Norm at the N.Y. Times
All the News That’s Fudged to Print
If You Think Jayson Blair was Loose with the Facts, Look at How the Times Covered Iraq
Yesterday’s forced resignation of New York Times executive editor Howell Raines might lead a casual observer to conclude that the wayward reporter Jayson Blair (under Mr. Raines’s lax supervision) had committed serial rape on the Gray Lady of West 43rd Street, rather than serial acts of journalistic fraud. In reality, this metaphoric beheading by the company’s board of directors furthers a preposterous image of victimization that covers up far more serious transgressions by the “paper of record.” .....
http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0606-03.htm
Also see this:
MEDIA ADVISORY: Troubles at the Times: Beyond Blair
-Introducing Brian Small’s Page
Includes, in Japanese and sometimes English: I stand for peace and justice/ ?º–¾?‘?E•½˜a‚Æ?³‹`‚Ì‚½‚ß‚É, ƒOƒŠ?[ƒ“ƒR?[ƒ|‚Ì•½˜a?X?V‚Ì—lŽq/Green Co-op Peace March,•ê?e‘å‰ïŽÀ?sˆ?ˆõ‰ï??–¼Šˆ“®‚Ì—lŽq/Mothers Peace March, ‹{?è?‘˜J“¬‘ˆ’c‚©‚ç‚Ì?î•ñ?@?@•Ä‰pƒCƒ‰ƒN?UŒ‚‚â‚ß‚æ/article on iraq by fired railway workers in Miyazaki,‹Ù‹}‚ȃ??[ƒJƒ‹–â‘è/Urgent Local Problems and much more…
http://www.miyazaki-catv.ne.jp/%7Ebysmall/
-Introducing Ken Masuoka’s Page
In Japanese, most recent articles are:
http://www.jca.apc.org/%7Ekmasuoka/persons/persons.html
-Introducing Makiko Nakano’s English and Japanese sites
English: Rethinking Japan’s Postwar Compensation: Voices of Victims, by Kenichi Takagi
Rengashobo-shinsha in 1994, translated by Makiko Nakano
Also: In The Eyes of A Quasi-Refugee by Suh Kyungsik (22 Feburary 2003)
http://home.att.ne.jp/sun/RUR55/E/ehome.htm
Japanese: ?@Edward Said/ƒGƒhƒ??[ƒh?@W?@ƒTƒC?[ƒh: ƒCƒ“ƒ^ƒ?ƒ…?[?iƒyƒ“‚ÆŒ•?j, ‰“‚¢?ê?Š‚Ì‹L‰¯, ?ŋ߂̃Iƒ“ƒ‰ƒCƒ“ƒRƒ?ƒ“ƒg?B?B?B
Noam Chomsky:ƒm?[ƒ€?Eƒ`ƒ‡ƒ€ƒXƒL?[: ƒhƒLƒ…ƒ?ƒ“ƒ^ƒŠ?[,ƒ}ƒjƒtƒ@ƒNƒ`ƒƒƒŠƒ“ƒO?EƒRƒ“ƒZƒ“ƒg, “¯Žž‘½?ƒeƒ?Ž–Œ?‚ƃAƒ?ƒŠƒJ‚Ì?½‰ž‚ɂ‚¢‚Ä--‚X¥‚Q‚Q?@ƒCƒ“ƒ^ƒ?ƒ…?[, ?Þ‚ª‚»‚ê‚ðŒ¾‚¤Œ —˜?B?B?B
SQUATTING ROOM ‚Æ‚¢‚¤BBS‚à‚ ‚è‚Ü‚·?B?B?B
http://home.att.ne.jp/sun/RUR55/home.html
-Introducing Debito Arudou’s site
This website is about life in Japan from the viewpoint of one American-born writer residing in Sapporo, Japan, both before and after he became a naturalized Japanese citizen. It may interest people who want to know more about Japan, and how it affects residents who have the appearance and/or status of non-Japanese.http://debito.org/nihongo.html
-Recent News from Akubi’s diary
In Japanese, these are some the recent additions and links from Akubi in Osaka:
Wednesday, June 04, 2003
When Lying Pays Off
When Lying Pays Off
The Fabrications of the Neo-Cons
by WAYNE MADSEN
America’s manipulative neo-conservatives, who support unending aggression against any country that does not succumb to United States political, economic, and military control and who, themselves, seized power in Washington through electoral malfeasance, are taking a page from Nazi Germany’s leaders in their quest for world domination. It is no coincidence that the neo-cons are worried about comparisons between their policies and those of Hitler. Ed Gernon, the Canadian executive producer of the upcoming CBS miniseries, “Hitler: The Rise of Evil,” was fired when he suggested similarities between the methods used by both Hitler and Bush to wipe away civil liberties by playing on popular fear. The Nazi-like campaign against Gernon was launched by the New York Post and TV Guide, both owned by proto-fascist Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation.
After being caught lying about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction to prove their flimsy case that Iraq was a world class threat, the neo-cons now are planting fabricated documents in the rubble of Iraqi intelligence and secret police facilities. Through a media laundering process, “discovered” documents are handed over to right-wing outlets owned by such slash and burn media moguls as Murdoch, Conrad Black, and Sun Myung Moon.
We are now being fed information that captured Iraqi intelligence documents “prove” that France assisted escaping members of Saddam Hussein’s government by handing them French passports in Syria. This follows repeated allegations that other “documents” proved French (and Russian and German) intelligence cooperation with Iraq’s intelligence service before the war. Syria has been accused of accepting Iraq’s phony weapons of mass destruction. Iran is accused of helping Al Qaeda (its most bitter enemy). Hitler used false evidence and phony rhetoric to justify his invasions of Danzig, Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Poland. American ambassadors in New Zealand, Norway, Turkey, Greece, Canada, Mexico, Barbados, Jamaica, Brazil, Belgium, Chile, and Luxembourg have acted like Nazi German Foreign Minister Joachim Von Ribbentrop’s bellicose ambassadors in bullying nations that failed to support the U.S. war on Iraq. France is being faced with being kicked out of NATO military planning meetings, Germany with a loss of U.S. military bases, Belgium with the loss of NATO’s headquarters, and Canada, Chile, and Mexico with trade sanctions.
There are lies, damned lies, and Ahmad Chalabi. The leader of the Iraqi National Congress, stooge of the neo-cons, and a convicted bank embezzler is now aiming his wrath at Jordan. Chalabi, who bilked the American taxpayer out of millions of dollars from State Department and CIA budgets in order to fight his self-styled struggle against Saddam from the restaurants of London’s Mayfair District and the clothiers of Savile Row, now claims that recently “found” documents implicate Jordan’s Royal Family in Saddam’s spider’s web. Of course, it was a Jordanian court that found Chalabi guilty of stealing $300 million from the country’s Petra Bank and which sentenced him to over 20 years at hard labor. It is surprising that it took this Gollum-like sycophantic creature so long to accuse the Jordanians of being in bed with Saddam. Of course, Chalabi will not admit that while he was a math professor at the American University of Beirut during the 1970s, he served as an agent for the Shah of Iran’s feared SAVAK secret police. So much for Chalabi’s “democratic” credentials and his support for using Iraq as a base for the United States to attack Iran and install the son of the Shah upon a resurrected Peacock Throne.
Chalabi fits in well with the other congenital liars who now lead the United States government. Chief among them are those who prevaricated at every turn about why the United States went to war against Iraq. They first said the war was to rid the world of weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear, chemical, and biological. When no nuclear weapons were found and after a document purporting that Iraq purchased uranium from the West African nation of Niger was shown to be fake, the list of reasons for the war was pared down to the chem-bio weapons. When that story was shown to be untrue, the story changed to: “We had to liberate the Iraqi people from a ruthless tyrant.” The chief truth manipulators were President George Bush himself, Vice President Dick Cheney, White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumfeld, his obedient “Igor,” Paul Wolfowitz, and think tank denizens and administration consultants Richard Perle Newt Gingrich, and Michael Ledeen.
Why does the Bush administration lie so much? It is mainly because Bush’s Svengali-like political adviser, Karl Rove, has taken to heart the advice of Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels: “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.” Rove has lived by this tenet throughout his political career. During the 2000 GOP primary campaign, it was the hand of Rove that was behind vicious rumors about Senator John McCain’s prisoner of war record, his adopted daughter, his marital fidelity, and even his sexual orientation. Rove’s guns were then turned on Vice President Al Gore in the general election with similar lies about the Vice President’s Vietnam service and Senate voting record.
A true symbiotic relationship exists between Rove and the neo-cons. Rove provides for them a nurturing host - the Pentagon—in which to operate, procreate politically, and periodically ejaculate disinformation. No sooner had the fake Iraqi intelligence documents “exposing” links between Saddam on one hand and Germany, Russia, France, and British Labor Party Member of Parliament George Galloway on the other been “revealed,” other “documents” fingered former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter, Washington Democratic Representative Jim McDermott, former House Democratic Whip David Bonior, Michigan’s anti-war Representative John Conyers, Michigan Democratic Senator Carl Levin, and the 1996 Clinton-Gore campaign as similarly being linked to Saddam. It is fitting and timely that the Senate recently disclosed files from the hearings of the disgraced Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy. He also emulated Goebbels in using the “big lie” tactic. Rove and the neo-cons relish in the big lie tactic. It is their lifeblood. Without it they would be impotent. The neo-con’s obsessive use of the lie means that whatever they state, the opposite is true. They are the liars. Those who call them on their lies are the truth sayers. The neo-cons now say that 170,000 priceless ancient artifacts were not stolen from Iraq’s National Museum. They say Saddam and his henchmen stole them. The artifacts were stolen by thieves under the watchful eye of American troops. That is the truth. The neo-cons are lying. It is simply as binary an equation as that. All the lies of the neo-cons should be viewed in the same binary manner.
Sadly, the big lie may soon be turned on Secretary of State Colin Powell. After Powell’s deputy Richard Armitage counterattacked after New Gingrich used the neo-con fortress, the American Enterprise Institute, to launch a broadside against Powell and the State Department, the neo-cons are getting ready to again use their big lie weapon, a virtual “weapon of crass destruction.” The Washington rumor circuit is rife with speculation that one of the many right-wing muck mills will soon “reveal” an extra-marital affair involving Powell. These days, it does not matter whether such rumors are based on fact or not. Rove prefers the politics of personal destruction and Powell is currently target number one for the neo-cons and their White House nurturers.
Lying and character assassination have paid off handsomely for the neo-cons. Another Nazi leader provided the neo-cons with a blueprint for the strategy seen in their repeated attacks on those who dare question the party line. Their targets range from the Dixie Chicks, Senator Robert Byrd, Bill Maher, and Michael Moore, to Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon, to ABC News anchor Peter Jennings and MSNBC reporter Ashleigh Banfield. Nazi Reich Marshal Hermann Goering, before committing suicide at the Nuremberg Trials, appeared to be advising the future neo-cons: “Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.”
A little advice for the neo-cons and your nurturers. Every day you are creating more and more enemies within the United States and abroad. Governments, non-governmental organizations, political parties and social movements, labor unions and business interests, and religious organizations and student groups are talking to each other and are realizing they have a common purpose. That purpose is to drive the neo-con threat away from the power centers of the world. They are beginning to understand intermeshing dependencies and are connecting the dots: Enron, Hollinger, UNOCAL, Halliburton, Carlyle Group, Trireme, L-3, SAIC, etc. Your aggressive policies are upsetting the global balance of power, destroying economies, threatening international trade, and first and foremost, killing innocent people. Like the Nazis in Nuremberg, you will, one day, face an accounting for your crimes. As with the Nazis who stood in the docket in Nuremberg, few, if anyone, will be in the mood to grant you clemency or mercy.
Tuesday, June 03, 2003
Peace Movement Rising /Los Angeles Speaks Out
by Andrew Kay Liberman
While the world waits to see whether bombs will explode over Baghdad, implosions of a different kind are happening here at home. A world peace movement is unquestionably on the rise.
Step outside the boundaries of the U.S. via the Web, and one finds stories from Toronto to London, from Paris to Tokyo covering the revived anti-war movement. Over 400,000 marched in London in September; more in Florence last month. In the U.S., 10,000 protested at the L.A. Federal Building in October against the impending war on Iraq, and a few weeks after, 80,000 in San Francisco.
“Where did all these older activists come from?” asked a perplexed but pleased Angeleno, anti-war organizer Lily Espinoza,22, as she witnessed the hundreds of ‘older’ veteran activists assembled at the recent Office of the Americas benefit at the L.A. University Synagogue. Just back from Columbia University in New York, Espinoza thought she was part of a generation alone taking on corporate power and a U.S. war machine. Now, Espinoza is having a field day with an unending array of peace events to attend in L.A. County. On the streets, the peace movement is taking the form of ongoing vigils to oppose the war at busy street corners.
According to seasoned organizers, ever since the “Battle at Seattle” (the 1999 protests against the World Trade Organization), where mostly young people breathed life back into public protest, something good has been afoot. In addition, the ascendancy of President George Bush has not impaired the move of concerned citizens to move to the left in their politics and become active participants for peace.
Adrienne Golstone is an attorney new to the peace movement, but one who has alone coordinated weeks of vigiling on the corner of 3rd and Fairfax in L.A. “We started with a few people, and now, when it doesn’t rain, we have 20 to 30 people vigiling,” Goldstone said. “All sorts of people show support driving and walking by. People want outlets; a door to activism.” Golstone added that “what’s driving the interest of people I know is that Bush is spending billion for war.”
Kelly Lee Riley, Interfaith Coordinator at Occidental College and citywide anti-war religious community staff member, attributed the Internet to the success of the budding peace movement . “That’s how it’s grown so quickly,” he acknowledged. “But if it is to grow bigger, it needs to include more people of color. To do that, the message needs to change from just “don’t attack Iraq” and “no war” to what the costs will be at home with this war; the loss of domestic programs,” he said.
While a war on Iraq would wreak havoc on that small nation, it would not go without repercussions at home. A veteran in more ways than one; both to the peace movement and as a two-term enlisted marine in Vietnam, unrelenting anti-war activist Ron Kovic, upon whose life Born on the Fourth of July was based, said, “The most dangerous threat in the world today is my own country. We have to speak out to stop this war. We live in the most tumultuous time in our history since the American Revolution; a wonderful time, but a very dangerous time. The challenge for leaders of the peace movement is to connect the dots between the anti-war movement and the world democratic movement.
In Pasadena, students invited Scott Ritter, the former U.S. weapons inspector who now advocates no war with Iraq, to speak in November. Four hundred seats were set aside and 1,000 people showed up; hundreds were turned away. Word on the Ritter speaking engagement was entirely via email with about one week’s notice.
There is another almost unnoticed silver lining to the war fever and business of battle: the homegrown anti-war literature, button, sticker, and t-shirt trade is booming. Donnelly/Colt, a premier peace company in Connecticut, says they can’t keep up with the orders. “I had to skip going to the D.C. demo just to stay back and fill orders,” Clay Colt said begrudgingly, having missed out on the massive protest in Washington, D.C. on October 26.
Santa Monica’s own local Jerry Rubin, who among o ther things vends peace goods at the Santa Monica Promenade, says, “People are hungry for this stuff. They see finally stopping this war is do-able.”
Across town, artist/activist Randy Herr makes guerrilla art and sells it in front of Trader Joe’s in Silver Lake. “I get an idea for an art piece early in the morning, go to Kinko’s and run it off, and take the materials to a rally,” says Herr. At the big October demo, Herr printed up Bush posters. Words at the top: “Hey Dude,” and under a large photo of Bush, “Where’s my war?”
“Sometimes I can’t even hold the stuff; people stop me before I got to the protest to buy it right out from my overstuffed hands,” Herr said. Veteran activists said the new peace movement is striving to learn from the history of peace movements over the last century.
“What we’re learning in building the movement this time,” Rubin said, “is we can’t just shout ‘No war, no war.’ We have to look inside ourselves and do this work in a dignified way. But at the same time, we can’t just sit cross-legged and meditate on peace while bombs fall. we need to expand and connect the political with the personal growth people,” he said. As interest in the movement grows, youths continue to inject new life. Ariana Tyksinski, a psychology and English major at Loyola Marymount said to Kovic, “I would be willing to do anything possible to help with this movement.” He responded, “You are the movement, Ariana. Do whatever you can do. We won’t be denied.”
-- Andrew Kay Liberman is a freelance writer, longtime activist and organizer of the Coffee House Teach-Ins in L.A.
Anti-War Heating Up On Main Street
By JULIA ROMANO
BPNP Staff Writer
Nostalgia for the impassioned anti-war ‘60s-style teach-ins was replaced by actuality Monday night as some 200 people gathered in a Main Street bakery to celebrate activism and promise further non-violent action. The second in a series of coffee house teach-ins, the Veteran’s Day event reflected a growing urgency among Santa Monicans to speak out against the see seemingly imminent war with Iraq.
Even more than a teach-in, the rally was a call to action. “Brothers and sisters, it has begun,” said the Rev. Thomas Ziegert of, the Venice United Methodist, Church. The Rev. Ziegert opened by asking for a moment of silence to remember past and future veterans who, could not be present. A mosaic of faces comprised the crowd, the picture pieced together with the mortar of common experience. On most faces, the memory of past wars was etched. But some faces still had skin so smooth their innocence and inexperience with war could not be belied.
Andrew Kay Liberman, a veteran himself of 1960s anti-war activism, is one of the main forces behind the Coffee House Teach-Ins to End the War organization, the association which, in conjunction with the Venice United Methodist Church, is responsible for this series of, events that began last month. Four more teach-ins are scheduled, the next to be held at Cafe Future, Inglewood, on Monday, Dec. 9.
Mr. Liberman is very positive about the power of such events, as. well as the importance the movement is gaining in the public arena. According to many of the speakers, national media organizations have understated the presence of an anti-war movement in, the United States, minimizing the growing dissent of American citizenry with the Bush Administration’s decisions. However, Mr. Liberman does see hope for the future. He was thrilled with coverage of Monday night by two television networks, Fox and NBC. “It’s a slowly building movement,” he said. “The movement is building, the peace movement is building.
At Mani’s Bakery, Mr. Liberman’s coalition brought together the speeches and songs of several Los Angeles peace activists centering around Ron Kovic, the Vietnam veteran-turned-anti-war activist and subject of the movie “Born on the Fourth of July.” During his second tour as a U.S. marine, Mr. Kovic suffered a spinal cord injury that left him wheelchair-bound. “If you are going to call me a hero, call me a hero for having protested the war,” he said. “Call me a hero for saying no to injustice and for saying no to war.”
Mr. Kovic’s expression on of his convictions earned him a number of standing ovations as he wove a textured and colorful tapestry of poignant anti-war statements. The thread of what was referred, to as “true patriotism” ran throughout, engaging. Mr. Kovic’s audience as “real citizens of America” who would not be quieted. They’re going to have put me behind bars, and they are going to have to muzzle me to keep me to keep me from, speaking,” he vowed. ‘I’m not going to stop speaking, are you?” he asked, as the audience, fervently chanted reply: “No way! No way!”
The same passion was reflected in the messages of the evening’s other teachers. Eisha Mason of the Center for Advancement of Non-Violence spoke of a peaceful vision that can and must be articulated through “people power.”
Bob McCloskey and his wife Linda Tuvak told of, their trip to Iraq to deliver $2.5 million worth of medicine to Iraqi hospitals. Ms. Tuvak spoke of tremendous generosity and goodwill of the Iraqi people they met, “To say that Iraq is a threat is a farce and a lie,” said Mr. McCloskey.
Stephen Longfellow Fiske, veteran author, songwriter, singer and “true patriot,” provided an impassioned musical accent to the evening as did radio, host Sonali Kolhathar of 90.7 KPFK-FM, who was accompanied by her husband Jim Ingalls on guitar,. and coffeehouse teach-in volunteer Matt Zaslow. Longtime peace activist Jerry Rubin found inspiration in the evening’s positive spirit. He spoke to the crowd, about the prospect of peace on earth. “This is where it is going to begin,” he said. “We’re going to stop this war before it starts.”
Ruth Hoffman Writes
THANK YOU for the work you are doing.
I believe in education. I believe in living the example. I am so encouraged by your work.
I feel quite certain that we need to get the YOUTH involved. They are the future, and they will be permanently shaped by this moment in history. We must take the opportunity to TEACH them peace, peacemaking, and the difficult and painful art of real dialogue. If we teach this, model this, live this, give them a voice, we have a chance of raising up leaders in the future who will be strongly rooted in the politics of peacemaking.
I work very well with high school kids, (taught in the inner city for three years), but am limited right now because of a family crisis. HOWEVER, nothing lasts forever, and once this passes, I will be available to help in whatever way I can. Please let me know if I can help run small group breakout sessions, or contact teachers at local high schools to get the word out to their kids, or organize things on campuses during lunch (This would be ideal timing for me, since my young child is in preschool during the day). Let me know. I am really into the idea of bringing our youth up in the LIGHT!
Blessings and peace to you
Ruth Hoffman
Ron Kovic Speaks
Marina Del Rey, Argonaut.
What’s On Feature
Nov. 8, 2002
Vet activist Kovic renews call for peace, no war against Iraq
BY RAHNE PISTOR
Recent overtures to United States military actions in Iraq have served to refuel the nation’s anti-war movement. Stalwart war protesters have begun to resurface and publicly denounce military actions.
Now, Ron Kovic, a former U.S. Marine Corp Sergeant paralyzed during combat in Vietnam, who later became a figurehead of the American anti-war movement, plans to lead a Veteran’s Day teach-in against war with Iraq at 7 p.m. Monday, November 11th, at Mani’s Bakery, 2507 Main St., Santa Monica. Admission is free.
Kovic was the subject of the Academy Award-winning film Born on the Fourth of July, directed by Oliver Stone. The film, released in 1991, is based on Kovic’s autobiography of the same name, published in 1976. Kovic wrote the book while living in Santa Monica.
On January 20th, 1968, during his second tour of duty in Vietnam, Kovic was shot, leaving him paralyzed from the waist down. He’s been in a wheelchair ever since and has never regained use of his legs.
Upon returning home from Vietnam, Kovic found the treatment he and other war veterans received from Veterans Administration (VA) hospitals appalling.
Currently, Kovic is combing through the Los Angeles area participating in the Coffee House Teach-In Project, a series of anti-war lectures and gatherings financed by the Venice United Methodist Church.
Disillusioned and enraged in the aftermath of his military experiences, Kovic became an avid anti-war protester at the height of the Vietnam War.
He chose to channel his rage into activism. He spoke out against poor conditions in VA hospitals and later protested U.S. support of the authoritarian government of El Salvador in the 1980s.
He managed to disrupt Nixon’s acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention in 1972. His antics earned him a two-minute on-camera interview with CBS correspondent Roger Mudd.
“I’m a Vietnam veteran,” he said. “I gave America my all, and the leaders of this government threw me and others away to rot in VA hospitals. What’s happening in Vietnam is a crime against humanity.”
In 1976, Kovic made another appearance with a U.S. president. This time he was invited. At the Democratic National Convention during Jimmy Carter’s nomination Kovic spoke about the hell he experienced in Vietnam.
He began by reading a poem:
I am the living death
The Memorial Day on wheels
I am your Yankee Doodle Dandy
Your John Wayne come home
Your Fourth of July firecracker
Exploding in the grave.
Kovic feels that military attacks are “awful waste” and “deep immorality,” he wrote.
He cites Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi as his inspirations.
“Those of us who have found that love and forgiveness are more powerful than hatred are not being heard,” wrote Kovic on September 14th last year, in opposition to military retribution for the September 11th attacks.
He has also criticized the glamorization of war in popular culture, which he sees as war mongering propaganda that makes young people lust for war.
Kovic himself says he was raised and influenced by the films of John Wayne and movies like The Sands of Iwo Jima and To Hell and Back.
He joined the marines in 1964 to fight for his country and try to make something of his life.
Nowadays, he views U.S. military action as the cause of terror.
At an anti-war rally in San Francisco on Saturday, October 26th, Kovic stressed his opposition to the Bush administration’s current war drive.
“The leaders, the president, those in power right now, who have in fact made targets of terror of all of us because of their policy, they are the ones who have brought on 9/11,” said Kovic. “It is their violence that brought the violence to our nation, and it’s their violence that we must stop and stop forever.”
Andrew Kay Liberman, an organizer of the local teach-in planned at Mani’s, is trying to spread the anti-war sentiment locally.
“We’re trying to help build the peace movement,” he says. “Every day that the war doesn’t take place, the movement is building.”
Along with speakers, the teach-in will feature live music, poetry and “guerrilla theater” – street theater with a political target.
Holding the teach-in on Veteran’s Day is highly significant, as Americans have much to think about, says Liberman.
“I want people to stop and reflect on the death war has caused Americans, and the death incurred on foreigners. The expense of war, in both dollars and lives, is too great.”
Besides, most Americans are unclear what the push for war with Iraq is even about, says Liberman.
“There’s a mass blur. Some people think its about weapons inspection. Others think its about 9/11. It’s not. It’s really partly about oil.”
Admission to the teach-in is free, but reservations are suggested to assure available seating.
Reservations, (310) 203-1542
Reflecting the Concerns of the Community
November 6 - 12, 2002 Vol. 4, Issue 21
Santa Monica Mirror
Friday, November 8, 2002
Coffee House Teach-Ins Continue
Celebrated author and anti-war activist Ron Kovic, the central figure in the film, Born On the Fourth of July, will speak at the third event sponsored by the Coffee House Teach-In Project.
It’s scheduled for Monday night, November 11, Veteran’s Day, at Mani’s Bakery, 2507 Main Street in Santa Monica.
Also on the Monday roster are people who have recently visited in Iraq, and organizer Eisha Mason, of the Center for the Advancement of Non-Violence. In addition, Stephen Fiske will sing some of his new songs for peace and stage some guerilla theater dramatizing the threats Americans face at home while the nation fights wars overseas.
Coffee House Teach-Ins, a new non-profit project of the Venice United Methodist Church, are designed to inform people about the impending U.S. war on Iraq and encourage them to oppose it.
The idea of organizing at coffee houses is based on the the successes of the Vietnam era anti-war movement.
“While public protest is important,” says coordinator Andrew Kay Liberman, “We need to talk amongst ourselves and show people, ourselves, and the world what kind of world we want – in addition to what kind of world we don’t want. The teach-ins are a place to explore the possibilites for this very world without war, and what we can use American resources for in place of initiating violence.”
It was standing room only at the first two Coffee House Teach Ins. Monday’s event is free, but requires reservation, call (310) 203 1542, as seating is limited.
The next scheduled teach-in will be held at Cafe Future, 1314 La Brea Avenue in Inglewood, on Friday night, December 6, from 7 to 10 p.m.
According to Liberman, the Project is seeking other venues at which to hold events, offering involvement opportunities and offering speakers from a developing speakers bureau.
For more information, visit [url=http://www.stopUSwars.org]http://www.stopUSwars.org[/url]
