|
CounterPunch
February
17, 2003
People of Conscience
Can Change History
Putting
the Public Back in Public Policy
by ROBERT JENSEN and
RAHUL MAHAJAN
On Saturday (Feb. 15), we stood on the Capitol
steps in Austin, Texas -- across the street from the governor's
mansion where George W. Bush once lived -- and spoke to 10,000
Texans who had gathered to reject Bush's mad rush to war in Iraq.
The next morning we watched National
Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice explain on a talk show why
the views of those 10,000 people -- and hundreds of thousands
more across the United States, and millions more around the world
who rallied and marched against a war -- don't really matter.
At first glance Rice seems right; increasingly
public opinion has little to do with public policy, which is
probably why Americans feel so alienated from politics.
In the past decade, the institutions
that govern our lives have grown more unaccountable and remote.
Take a crucial issue such as corporate power. Public outrage
over Enron and similar scandals has been wide and deep. On the
eve of the 2000 election, a Business Week survey showed that
nearly three-quarters of Americans said business has gained too
much power over too many aspects of their lives. The public would
like to see corporate power curbed, yet politicians -- Republicans
and Democrats -- take no serious action.
Of all the public policy issues, none
seems as remote and beyond citizen influence as foreign policy.
Even though opposition to U.S. wars persisted throughout the
1990s, organized protest dwindled as people begin to feel powerless.
In the past six months that trend has
dramatically reversed, for several reasons.
First, after Sept. 11, 2001, everyone
sees that foreign policy directly affects us at home; there is
no denying that U.S. actions in the Middle East have helped fertilize
the soil in which terrorism grows. People realize it is a mistake
to leave such issues to foreign-policy "experts."
Second, people understand that the Bush
administration is manufacturing pretexts for war and that there
is no credible threat; none of Iraq's neighbors (with the exception
of Israel, whose leaders favor a U.S. war on Iraq for their own
interests) fears an Iraqi attack. The Hussein regime is brutal
(which is not exactly news to the American officials who once
supported Hussein), but few people believe that Bush is telling
the truth about U.S. motivations. When administration officials
claim a war has nothing to do with U.S. desires to maintain and
extend its global hegemony -- including greater control over
the flow of oil and oil profits -- people around the world simply
laugh.
And, perhaps most importantly, people
are beginning to believe once again that they can change things.
In public, Rice and other administration
officials appear to pay little heed to opposition. They want
to undermine people's sense of their own power, instill a sense
of futility and convince us of the inevitability of war. But
in private, they no doubt are paying attention -- and are nervous.
The same has been true in the past. In
1969, President Richard Nixon had a secret plan called "Duck
Hook" to escalate dramatically the attack on Vietnam, including
the possible use of nuclear weapons. Nixon officials planned
to issue an ultimatum to North Vietnam on Nov. 1, 1969.
On Oct. 15, a half-million protesters
descended on Washington, DC, and across the country millions
took part in local demonstrations, church services and vigils
as part of Vietnam Moratorium Day. Another major demonstration
was in the works for the following month. Although the public
would not know until years later, that opposition was a main
reason Nixon canceled Duck Hook.
The Bush administration, as the Nixon
administration before it, wants desperately to ignore the rising
tide of worldwide and domestic opposition to this war. But the
more we begin to believe in our own power and act on that belief,
the harder it will be to ignore us.
That is why -- even as Bush officials
work desperately to block diplomatic solutions -- all who reject
the administration's militarism and plans for empire must speak
louder and press harder. That commitment by people of conscience
-- people who believe in their own power -- has changed history
in the past. Our commitment today can do the same.
Robert Jensen
is an associate professor of journalism at the University of
Texas at Austin, a member of the Nowar Collective, and author
of the book Writing
Dissent: Taking Radical Ideas from the Margins to the Mainstream
and the pamphlet "Citizens of the Empire." He can be
reached at rjensen@uts.cc.utexas.edu.
Rahul Mahajan
is a member of the Nowar
Collective and the Green Party candidate for Governor
of Texas. His book, "The
New Crusade: America's War on Terrorism," (Monthly Review
Press, April 2002) has been described as "mandatory reading
for anyone who wants to get a handle on the war on terrorism."
He is currently writing a book on Iraq titled "Axis of Lies:
Myths and Reality about the U.S. War on Iraq."
He can be reached at rahul@tao.ca.
Yesterday's
Features
CounterPunch News Service
Slow
Lerner: It May Not Help Kids in Iraq, But It Sure Got Michael
Lerner Airtime
Andrew Murray
Tony
Blair Versus the British People
Ben Tripp
President
A**hole
Peggy Thomson
My
Close Encounter with Saddam
Gary Leupp
Meet Mr. Blowback:
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, CIA Op and Homicidal Thug
Saul Landau
Bush and Corporate Fraud
Adam Engel
A Civilian Occupation:
The Politics of Israeli Architecture
Anthony Gancarski
Jacksonville in Crisis
Rick Giombetti
Specific Threats to Democracy
Jean-David Levitte
A Warning on Iraq from France:
Make War the Last Option
Ian Gurney
Whose Side is Bush On?
Maria Engqvist
Did
the FARC Shoot Down a US Military Plane in Colombia?
Ron Jacobs
This Madness Must Cease
Josh Frank
Call to Washington:
Stonewall Bush
Website of the Day
Rock
Out Against War
Keep CounterPunch Alive:
Make
a Tax-Deductible Donation Today Online!
home / subscribe
/ about us / books
/ archives / search
/ links /
CounterPunch Available Exclusively
to Subscribers:
- CounterPunch Special:
The Persecution of Gershon Legman by Susan Davis: Smut, the Post Office, Commies
and the FBI;
- Reeling Democrats: Is Pelosi the Answer?
- Gandhi v. Hitler: the Secret Race for the Nobel
Prize;
- Sullying Mario Savio's
Memory;
- Lynching Then and Now;
- Earn While You Learn: Chris Whittle and Child Labor;
The Case of the Pompous
Professor;
- The Class Struggle in
Boston: All that
Effort, But What Did They Get?
Remember, the CounterPunch website is
supported exclusively by subscribers to our newsletter. Our worldwide
web audience is soaring , with about seven million hits a month
now. This is inspiring, but the work involved also compels us
to remind you more urgently than ever to subscribe and/or make
a (tax deductible) donation if you can afford it. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe
Now!
Or Call Toll Free 1 800 840 3683
home / subscribe
/ about us
/ books
/ archives
/ search
/ links
/
|