Speaking Truth to Power in Washington, DC

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By Bob Fitrakis, Posted by Rob Kall (about the submitter) Page 2 of 2 page(s)

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The illegality of the war was captured on thousands of signs including mine, which simply read Bush would be guilty at Nuremberg. With the curtain drawn back after the catastrophe in New Orleans, the wizardry of the great and powerful Oz is no longer working. More than one sign and T-shirt bore the inscription: Make levees, not war.

A middle-aged woman, dressed rather stylishly, shocked me when she stopped and told me that she'd brought an oven mitt to use if she needed to toss back tear gas canisters. I ain't no cherry girl. I'm ready for action, she told me.

But somebody had told the police to stand down and step back. Missing was the Darth Vader and jack-booted appearance of the DC police and federal government agency SWAT teams so visible at recent DC rallies.

The reason is obvious. Had the police gotten out of control and beat the peaceful marchers, the corporate mainstream media would have had to actually cover the event. Cooper would have had to report that he was about to be trampled by a wall of people, and that the power of the people, the superpower of peace, had finally arose.

As Milton Mayer wrote about the rise of Nazism in Germany, Each act . . . is worse than the last, but only a little worse. You wait for the next and the next. You wait for one great shocking occasion, thinking that others, when such a shock comes, will join you in resisting somehow.

In Mussolini's Italy and in Nazi Germany, a quarter of a million people never took to the streets as Mayer laments: But the one great shocking occasion, when tens or hundreds or thousands will join you, never comes. That's the difficulty.

Our problem is different. What if a quarter million people or more march in the street and demand that our leader be impeached or tried before an international tribunal or indicted, and the media refuses to cover it?

That's what happened. A call from Debbie in the Finger Lakes of New York said that her local news claimed the 250 pro-Bush counter-demonstrators were the same size as the 250,000 anti-Bush protesters. Similar calls came in from New Jersey.

Yet, the superpower of peace has the internet, the blogs, streaming video and can document the corruption, complicity and moral cowardice of the infotainment conglomerates.

Our job is simple. To speak truth to power on the streets and on the internet. To engage in lobbying and civil disobedience. And to do everything in our power to drive W from office and stop the war in Iraq. The whole world is watching and the vast majority are with us.

Bob Fitrakis is co-editor with Harvey Wasserman of the new book "How the GOP Stole America's 2004 Election & Is Rigging 2008," and is editor of freepress.org. Co-marchers Suzanne, Emi and Phil contributed to this article.

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