Peaceful World Uprising Says
By William Thomas / Lifeboatnews.com
February 21, 2003
February 16, 2003 - Thousands of Arabs and Jews marched together through Tel Aviv yesterday, united in the cause of peace. In Kuala Lumpur, Malaysian peace campaigners gathered more than one million signatures against Bush's proposed invasion of Iraq.
With the biggest anti-war marches in American history about to kick off in cities across the USA today, mainstream news sources are reporting more than six million peace marchers taking to streets around the globe on Saturday. From Seoul, Thailand, Ankara, Moscow, Glasgow, Jakarta and more than 600 other towns and cities, protest organizers insist that the following news figures should be doubled:
London: one million
Rome: one million
Baghdad: one million
Malaysian peace campaigners: more than a million signatures
Spain: two million - 1.3 million in Barcelona and 600,000 in Madrid
Berlin: 500,000
France: at least 300,000
Sydney: 250,000.
New York 250,000
Damascus: more than 200,000
Athens: 50,000
Vancouver: 25,000
[Reuters February 15-16, 2003]
COMPLETE GLOBAL PEACE PROTEST COVERAGE
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In New York City, Nobel Peace Prizewinner Archbishop Desmond Tutu told hundreds of thousands of peace advocates outside the UN that he believed the peace marches could make a difference. "People marched and demonstrated and the Berlin Wall fell. People marched and demonstrated and apartheid ended," he said. "And now people are marching and demonstrating because they are saying no to war."
In London, during the biggest peace demonstration in British history, Mayor Ken Livingstone told more than one million peace protesters, "This war is solely about oil. George Bush has never given a damn about human rights." [Reuters 15, 16, 2003]
As people around the world hastily re-evaluate their feelings toward French officialdom, a delighted French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin told parliament, "France is giving peace a chance. France is giving hope to the world and all over the world people are looking to France." [Reuters 15, 16, 2003]
It seems incredible that one man born to destiny - George W. Bush - has managed to accomplish something not achieved since Hitler - namely, to rally the entire world together in common cause against a threat many see as dire as the tyrant who coined the term, "New World Order". Thanks to Bush's unstinting efforts to unite the world in opposition to his policies, people throughout their global village are looking to each other with the heartfelt understanding that not only are we not alone - we're neighbors united in the belief that "war is not the answer."
The World Unites for Peace
The peace train got rolling last October 5, with UPI reporting, "1.5 Million Take to the Streets in Italy to Protest Bush War Plans". On the 25th, Americans from every walk of life filled Washington's wide boulevards and sidewalks shoulder-to-shoulder for more than two miles.
By December 2002, the revolt had spread to at least 20 cities and towns across America, where government employees were told to ignore federal authorities attempting to impose the USA Patriot Act. According to the American Free Press, "a prairie fire" of similar resolutions was by then sweeping 40 municipalities in 24 states. Getting into the spirit of the Boston Tea Party, the American Civil Liberties Union encouraged all municipalities to join the resistance. The ACLU's Laura Murphy explained that "local governments can tell officials not to spy without evidence." [American Free Press Dec. 11, 2002]
Those governments also took legal action. As Wired reported, "Fearing that the Patriot Act will curtail Americans' civil rights, municipalities across the country are passing resolutions to repudiate the legislation and protect their residents from a perceived abuse of authority by the federal government. Oakland was the 20th municipality to pass a resolution barring its employees - from police officer to librarian - from collaborating with federal officials who may try to use their new power to investigate city residents."
Librarians required to divulge patrons' book-borrowing and Internet-surfing habits to federal investigators - without telling anyone - resisted. "In retaliation, some librarians have called special meetings to educate their communities about the Patriot Act's implications. Others now routinely purge borrowing records and Internet caches. One former librarian devised a series of technically legal signs to warn patrons of FBI snooping." [WIRED Dec. 19, 2002 ]
According to the American Free Press, the dream of the Pentagon is to compile a database on every breathing soul in America - "complete down to every aspect of your life: where you live, what you buy, what you read, where you travel."
In resisting what the New York Times termed "dictatorial powers", the ACLU "urged Americans to tell their congressman and senators to closely monitor implementation of the Patriot Act, which permits federal bureaucrats to read your email, search your home or office without your knowledge, eavesdrop on your phone calls, and imprison you for life without being charged." [American Free Press Dec. 11, 2002]
Bill of Rights Defense Committee
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Chicago Joins Global Anti-war Movement
Early in the New Year, "After one of the most mesmerizing, impassioned and personal debates ever to occur in Chicago's City Council Chamber," Chicago became "the largest and most prominent city in the USA to formally oppose a unilateral pre-emptive strike on Iraq. One by one, black and white, Latino and Jewish, men and women, the Aldermen stood to draw attention to their own particular concerns with the current path of the Bush Administration. Many pointed out that the real dangers this nation faces today are the rising rates of unemployment and economic stagnation. Others were concerned about the double standard the administration is showing with respect to North Korea." [ICIS-Institute for Cooperation in Space Jan. 16, 2003]
Chicago's "Resolution Opposing A Pre-Emptive US Military Attack On Iraq" has become a model for other cities opposing a pre-emptive US military attack on Iraq - "unless it is demonstrated that Iraq poses a real and imminent threat to the security and safety of the United States."
Calling for a return of UN weapons inspectors to Iraq, the Chicago city council "urge the US to work through the UN Security Council and reaffirm our nation's commitment to the rule of law in all international relationships." Added Ald. Joe Moore, a co-sponsor of the measure, "The war will be financed by deficit spending and drastic cuts in domestic funding," said [Chicago Tribune Jan. 16, 2003]
Warning that a war would take more money from schools, infrastructure and the homeless already hard hit by declining tax revenues and massive federal spending on weapons of mass destruction, more than 90 local governments across the USA urged Bush to find a peaceful end to the standoff with Iraq.
In Connecticut, resolutions against the war were passed in New Haven, Mansfield, Cornwall and Salisbury. In Detroit city councilwoman Maryann Mahaffey stated, "We believe that we need to (put) our resources not into putting people into war in Iraq, but into developing our cities."
CITIES FOR PEACE
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Suing George
Filed last month in Boston, a lawsuit brought by six House members, parents of servicemen and active duty members of the US military went to federal court to block an unelected president "from launching an invasion of Iraq without an explicit declaration of war from Congress."
Michigan Democrat John Conyers and the other plaintiffs said the congressional resolution hurriedly passed last October backing military action against Iraq "did not specifically declare war and unlawfully ceded the decision to President George W. Bush."
Conyers cited the pesky US Constitution, reminding the White House of the stipulation that "Congress shall have power ... to declare war."
"Get it?" Conyers told Bush, "Only Congress."
Passed in response to President Nixon's adventure in Vietnam - which saw the deaths of more than two million Vietnamese and 55,000 young Americans - the War Powers Act requires the president to seek congressional approval before or shortly after ordering military action abroad. It also requires the president to report to Congress.
Representatives Dennis Kucinich, Jesse Jackson Jr., Jim McDermott, Jose Serrano, and Sheila Jackson Lee also signed the lawsuit. So did activated member of the Massachusetts National Guard, an Air Force reservist, and an exceptionally courageous Marine stationed in the Persian Gulf. According to John Bonifaz, the Boston lawyer who filed the lawsuit, military members bringing suit against their Commander-In-Chief "are facing the possibility of death." [AP; St. Louis Post-Dispatch Feb. 13, 2003]
Impeach Bush
Two days after the lawsuit was filed to force Bush to comply with the law, Ramsey Clark told a half million demonstrators in Washington that "George W. Bush must answer to the people." Clark reminded Americans that their Constitution "provides the means for preventing George W. Bush from engaging in a war of aggression against Iraq, and from advancing a first strike potentially nuclear preemptive war."
"It's called impeachment," he said.
Impeachment, the former Attorney General explained, occurs when a president is found guilty of "High Crimes and Misdemeanors" in acting or threatened to act against the Constitution, its system of government, or the rule of law."
The US Constitution refers to impeachment six times. In 1776 the Founding Fathers accused King George III of all the charges currently being brought against King George W. Bush:
* Usurpation of the power of the people.
* Being above the law.
* Criminal abuse of authority.
Clark explained that impeachment seeks to "prevent further crimes by the President and the human catastrophe they threaten, and to force accountability for crimes committed."
Other organizations are seeking to try Bush in International Court for documented war crimes committed in Kosovo and Afghanistan. Belgium courts have just ruled that Bush ally, Israeli Prime Minister Sharon can be tried for war crimes.
Former US Attorney General has urged impeachment for "the most dangerous acts and threats ever committed by an American President. If courageously pursued, they can save our Constitution, the United Nations, the rule of law, the lives of countless people and leave open the possibility of peace on earth."
Any American not wishing to be culpable for a holocaust or wishing to live in a police state must get off the couch, out of the office, out of their daily distractions long enough to act. "Each of us must take a stand on impeachment now," Clark challenged, "or bear the burden of having failed to speak in this hour of maximum peril."
CAST YOUR VOTE TO IMPEACH BUSH
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As Clark spoke, signs waved in the biggest peace crowd since Woodstock. One branded the US a "Rogue Nation". Others demanded, "Disarm Bush". A sign in Florida read, "Smart Bombs Dumb Move". A Las Vegas sign reminded Americans, "Elvis hates war". In Richmond, Kentucky demonstrators laid out life-sized dolls representing dead Iraqi children. Outside the US Embassy in Moscow, a banner read: "Iraq isn't your ranch, Mr. Bush."
They walked in London and Oslo, Norway, in Hong Kong, Ireland, Goteborg, Sweden and across the Netherlands. People took to the streets in Cairo and Lebanon, waving posters of President Saddam Hussein. In Jordan, US, British and Israeli flags were burnt. American residents in Florence helped form a human chain near the US Consulate. In Germany protestors marched on the US Army Europe headquarters in Heidelberg.
Three days later, the Joint Chiefs of Staff was on the verge of mutiny. "This is not Desert Storm,'' one of the Joint Chiefs told Rumsfeld. "We don't have the backing of other Middle Eastern nations. We don't have the backing of any of our allies except Britain and we're advocating a policy that says we will invade another nation that is not currently attacking us or invading any of our allies.'' [Capitol Hill Blue Investigates January 22, 2003]
Some Pentagon staffers pointed to the many Desert Storm veterans who marched in the previous weekend's huge antiwar rally in Washington. Robert Brighton of Detroit marched in Washington. "I served in Vietnam,'' he said. "I supported Desert Storm. I don't support this. It's madness.'' [Capitol Hill Blue Investigates Jan. 22, 2003]
One big worry for Washington war planners is too many wars and not enough plans. Or planes. Intelligence sources say that Arab nations are telling US diplomats they may have to side with Iraq if the US attacks without the backing of the United Nations - or face being overthrown by unpopular uprisings.
No power is stronger than massed, vocalized, unified intent. As an unprecedented, Internet-coordinated worldwide uprising continues to build - with more protests planned in Europe at the end of this month - people from all walks and localities of life are shouting in a single multilingual voice for peace, no more killing, no more war.
With the wheels coming off the Bush war wagon, many believe that a published agenda cooked up by the President-select's closest advisers calling for world domination through military force is about to be derailed. As the European Union finds it fun to face down a bully - as people everywhere discover the power of massed peaceful intent - it now seems possible that a growing peaceful revolution can "flip" the overwhelming negative energy of militarized death and destruction into an equally powerful transformative force for good.
The world could come of age within the next 30 days.
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William Thomas is the author of All Fall Down: The Politics of Terror and Mass Persuasion, Bringing The War Home, Scorched Earth and Chemtrails Confirmed. Click here to learn more.
