Damn Near Seven Years of Failure: The Phoenix Anti-War Movement and the Ritual Cult of Defeat

By Phoenix Insurgent
http://www.phoenixinsurgent.blogspot.com

In the process of getting ready to write something new about the anti-war movement here in Phoenix, I re-read my past writings on the topic. Looking them over, I realized, why bother? Nothing has changed. Ritual and ineffectiveness still dominate the movement, as do activists who need the war to justify their management of others (to get votes, to build organizations or just to massage their own egos). A fear of shaking things up and a conservative attitude towards tactics prevails.

Failure, rather than success, has become the benchmark for the movement. To continue losing, to continue to stand impotent before the forces of the elite war machine, has in fact become a sort of measure of success in its own right. We're still here, and we're still against the war, seems to be the message, ignoring the fact that as long as that's true, the war must also still churn mercilessly on, devouring both American and Iraqi alike (although one in substantially greater proportion than the other). After all, you can't be against a war once it's over.

Heavy on symbol and low on substance, the movement in Phoenix has become a candle-holding caricature of itself, at war with imagination and as a result completely unable to conceive of any action other than to repeat its own failed mistakes of the past. Nearly seven bloody years of war have passed and still the local liberal anti-war movement has yet to claim anything remotely approaching a victory, having instead allowed itself to be diverted into dead ends like electoralism, petitioning and moral witness.

Literally, the movement here has engaged in the exact same protest almost since the day American bombs started pummeling Iraq: show up at Senator McCain's office, hold some signs and deliver a petition. The movement's success is judged in terms of honking horns rather than concrete results. Initially, there were street protests and some enthusiastic energy, but those days are long gone. The vampires of the liberal left have sucked all the blood from the movement, leaving behind a lifeless, mindless corpse incapable of creative action.

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German anti-globalization activist refused entry to Japan

Japan's immigration authorities have denied a German anti- globalization activist entry to Japan at a port in Japan's northernmost island of Hokkaido, where security checks have been tightened ahead of July's Group of Eight summit, his supporters said Friday.

Martin Kraemer, 37, left a port in Russia aboard a freighter March 7 and arrived at Otaru port, some 30 kilometers west of Hokkaido's capital Sapporo, on Monday.

Kraemer was scheduled to attend an anti-summit rally in Sapporo on Saturday, they said.

The Japanese Justice Ministry's Sapporo Regional Immigration Bureau has refused to confirm the incident, saying that it does not comment on specific cases.

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One Foot in the Grave: Iran Attack Nearer, More Likely Than Most Suspect

A very important, very disturbing -- and almost entirely overlooked -- piece appeared on Juan Cole's Informed Comment site this week. It was a guest column by William R. Polk, laying out, in copious and convincing detail, the evidence indicating that the United States will indeed launch a military strike against Iran, most probably before George W. Bush leaves office.

However, even if Bush does hold off for some reason, the processes that Polk describes will almost certainly lead the next president into war with Iran, especially as the three remaining major candidates have forcefully pledged to keep "all options, and I mean, all options on the table" (Polk quotes Barack Obama's bellicose formulation). And none of them are likely to have the political courage that Polk rightly says would be necessary to climb down from the highly aggressive posture that both parties have adopted toward Iran.

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Lovelock: Paris A Desert, China 'Uninhabitable' By 2040

“Lovelock believes it is too late to repair the damage. Government targets are 'futile,'” Sands wrote. “Britain contributes such a tiny amount of emissions compared with countries such as China that our self-regulatory measures are pathetic.”

“Everyone could burn coal all day and drive around in 4x4s and it would not make a scrap of difference,” Lovelock said to The Daily Mail.

According to Lovelock, several scenarios will play out by the time the magical year 2040 arrives. The Chinese will inhabit Africa, the Russians will migrate to Siberia and Americans will move into Canada. He told The Daily Mail he believes “white Americans” will adapt easily to these Armageddon circumstances.

“White Americans are descended from those who had the guts to cross on rough old ships and find a new life,” Lovelock said. “They have the right spirit of can-do.”

The British Isles will survive this pending doom because Lovelock estimates the Gulf Stream that has kept Britain warm for hundreds of years will end and counteract the rise in global temperature. Unfortunately, the rest of Europe won't be as fortunate.

“By 2040, parts of the Sahara desert will have moved into middle Europe,” Lovelock said. “We are talking about Paris. As far north as Berlin. In Britain we will escape because of our oceanic position.”

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Asia Times: Save the market from market forces

Neo-liberalism is slowly fading away - that is, if we define neo-liberalism as an ideology that steadily wants to reduce and belittle the role of government and promote ever freer markets.

While almost everybody nowadays recognizes the market as an interesting instrument, dogmatic market fundamentalism is on the way out. If you want to prevent big trouble, there is really no alternative but that it should be so.

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