Banging the drum for peace

Noon, Saturday, April 9, 2011, New York City: the kick-off time for the “Bring the Troops Home Now” rally, gathering in Union Square for a march down Broadway to Foley Square.

Union Square has long been the centerpiece for causes, activists, and rallies, and this Saturday offered us cloudless blue skies, a darker blue major police presence, a spring temperature, a crowd of several thousand as diverse as the causes they represent. Collectively known as the United National AntiWar Committee, their agenda included . . .

• Bring U.S. troops home now: Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
• End the sanctions and stop the threats of war against the people of Iran, North Korea and Yemen.
• End the war and plunder of the people of Latin America, the Caribbean and Africa.
• End U.S. aid to Israel! End U.S. support to the Israeli Occupation of Palestine and the siege of Gaza.
• Use Trillions saved from war for jobs, education, social services.
• End all foreclosures.
• Provide quality single-payer healthcare for all.
• Work towards a massive conversion to sustainable and planet-saving energy systems and public transportation.
• Provide reparations to the victims of U.S. terror at home and abroad.
• End FBI raids on antiwar, social justice and international solidarity activists.
• End the racist persecution and prosecutions that ravage Muslim communities.
• End the police terror in Black, Latino and Native American communities.
• Provide full rights and legality for immigrants.
• End all efforts to repress and punish Wikileaks and its contributors & founders.
• End immediately torture, renditon, secret trials, drone bombings and death squads.
• And last, there was one thin table saying “the Muslims did not do 9/11.” Yes.

Of course this is an ambitious agenda, including the young woman lawyer’s petition to close the Indian Point nuclear facility. But if all the above issues were resolved, that would give the US government pretty much nothing to do but the right thing for the people: provide liberty, peace, prosperity, happiness, Social Security for the elderly, Medicaid for the poor, and still have the funds to rebuild the economy, create jobs and infrastructure and stay the hell out of the world’s face. Could it be that bad? Is it possible? It is.

If Congress were really serious about cutting the deficit, not just that drop in the bucket of $37 billion they’re been shredding themselves over for the past two years, they would fold up the tents in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya and the rest of Africa and bring the boys, the hardware, and the trillions home, to reinvest in America. Make it for real great, not just “a tedious argument of insidious intent,” as Eliot would say.

Let us stop making America, as Pulitzer Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz writes in Vanity Fair, Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1%, who control an inordinate amount of income and wealth in America, and for whom the wars and the brutality continue to protect their personal and corporate interests. Ain’t nobody out there from back here fighting for the rights of the poor, the middle class, or people of color and/or of Islam. Yet here they are gathered in common cause under the sun and sky within the confines of Union Square, their speeches smearing together into one frustrated rant, as cameras click or roll their tape, belonging to activists, the Indy film makers, or the CIA.

As Stiglitz writes, “Americans have been watching protests against oppressive regimes that concentrate massive wealth in the hands of an elite few. Yet in our own democracy, 1 percent of the people take nearly a quarter of the nation’s income—an inequality even the wealthy will come to regret. It’s no use pretending that what has obviously happened has not in fact happened. The upper 1 percent of Americans are now taking in nearly a quarter of the nation’s income every year. In terms of wealth rather than income, the top 1 percent control 40 percent. Their lot in life has improved considerably. Twenty-five years ago, the corresponding figures were 12 percent and 33 percent.

“One response might be to celebrate the ingenuity and drive that brought good fortune to these people, and to contend that a rising tide lifts all boats. That response would be misguided. While the top 1 percent have seen their incomes rise 18 percent over the past decade, those in the middle have actually seen their incomes fall. For men with only high-school degrees, the decline has been precipitous—12 percent in the last quarter-century alone. All the growth in recent decades—and more—has gone to those at the top. In terms of income equality, America lags behind any country in the old, ossified Europe that President George W. Bush used to deride. Among our closest counterparts are Russia with its oligarchs and Iran. While many of the old centers of inequality in Latin America, such as Brazil, have been striving in recent years, rather successfully, to improve the plight of the poor and reduce gaps in income, America has allowed inequality to grow.” And why is that?

Because they feel entitled; it belongs to them. It was their birthright as white, expensively-but-semi educated, upwardly mobile Republicans, Tea Baggers or even the white mime Obama, whom Kaddafi still ironically calls “a son of Africa,” not a son of something else for turning his back on the poor, Single Payer Healthcare, real financial regulation, toe-to-toeing it out with this thick-skulled opposition, continuing and expanding Bush’s hegemonic war march in the Mid-East and Africa with impunity.

Does he think he’s fooling anyone here at this rally? Someone pointed out there wasn’t even a picture of him among the flocks of posters and banners being waved and passed out. He has become the invisible president to the base of his constituency, a mere pawn in the “game theory” of Israel, as Jeff Gates calls it, that they are our real allies, not simply the colonizing provocateurs of Palestine’s theft, and who would gladly steal us next, not to mention any available properties in Africa. Obama is working for the 1%, the in-crowd, and he thinks he’s one of them, though the racism still runs deep as the East River current against him, don’t be mistaken.

He picked up the right to kill in Afghanistan like a rifle, like a poisonous snake, and ran with it, asking for billions in cash more to kill more people. He’s droning Pakistan with a 50 to 1 ratio of killing innocents instead of the bad guys. He’s worried about the people of Libya so he makes it a no-fly zone just to get in a week of carpet bombing at a cost of a billion dollars. Then he retreats and leaves the patsy rebels on the hook and lets the oil-and-blood thirsty English and French keep up the dirty work. Did he forget who blessed the installation of Kaddafi as well as the other tyrants of the world? The US and friends!

And here we are in Union Square, getting to march, banging the drums loudly for peace as the crowd moves like a righteous dragon across East 14th Street’s store-studded shoppers down Broadway towards Foley Square. As we march, the police narrow our width and move us ironically to the left side of the street to give “the traffic,” human and mechanical, right of way. People wave at us, cabs honk. No middle fingers are thrust in the air, the litmus test of frustration generally felt by people who don’t do rallies or marches, but are living in the largest city in America with one of the largest budget deficits, dumbfounded and feeling powerless.

They’re watching teachers and schools vanish in air, a Napoleonic mayor fire the head of the Department of Ed, to put in another one of this cronies, without a real search for a properly credentialed chancellor. They’re watching firehouses close, crime rise, prices rise, collective bargaining rights fall, labor being blamed and attacked for this Napoleon’s and his pals’ failures. Yes, this is Our Town, USA. Nevertheless, in our way, we love it as we love America. We know it can work. Those who are older, like myself, and the friends I’m with know it can work. We lived through WW II, Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf War I, Iraq, etc., and see how far and deadly the fall from grace has been. But we know we can land on our feet

In fact, at some point, we duck into the subways, using our senior citizen cards to rest our aching feet and head back home to care for a sick friend. My friend Anita is still carrying her “Out of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Libya” sign that reads on the other side, “Bring all the Troops Home.” For all my bravado, I ask her if that is wise, if some random wingnut won’t start trouble. Her husband Tom is with us, too, wearing a black cap that reads “Investigate 9/11.” Some of the young people on the subway platform ask us what’s going on. Anita immediately explains the rally, the march, and suddenly she’s talking to a young girl named Mia with two placards, each nailed to a cardboard pole, crisscrossing to frame her pretty face. Mia says she’s here on her father’s behalf. He was a professor of mathematics at Long Island University for 40 years, and he passed away several days ago. He had cancer and his insurance company would not permit him to use the chemo treatments he selected for recovery. And so he died. Kerching! And some HMO saved some shekels for their investors on a man’s life. Bless her for joining us.

As the train pulls in like fate, we walk on and Anita is standing in the crowded car before a bullish-looking man, could be a steamfitter, in a navy blue running suit. At some point, after scanning the signs, he mumbles to Anita, “How’d it go?” “Great,” she says, “Couple of thousand people I’d say.” “That’s good,” he says. And she adds, “Wisconsin has come to New York.” Without a beat he says, “That’s exactly what we need.” At 42nd Street, we get off. He goes his way, we go ours. People are looking at the signs, Mia’s, Anita’s, Tom’s hat, the “Give Peace a Try” sticker on my shirt. I sense interest not hostility.

Mia it turns out lives only two blocks from me. Anita tells her I write articles and she should read them. I write www.intrepidreport.com on a card and hand it to her. My own personal angst has turned into a kind of amazement, so used to dodging hard-hats in marches of the 60s. But as we surface from the number 3 Express train to the station and up onto Broadway, walking uptown, we see three young men, one brawny, one well-built, one medium build, looking at us. I think well, three of us, three of them. So it goes.

Nevertheless, the mercuric Anita has already engaged the hulk in conversation. And he is responding like a fact machine, data on Iraq, Afghanistan, personal chips inserted in the body, domestic concentration camps, the Fed, DU, etcetera. And we almost unconsciously are embellishing his and then the second young man’s information. It turns out the hulk is an ex-marine, trained at Fort Lejeune, who served both in Iraq and Afghanistan. It turns out he’s not a recruiting poster. Quite the contrary, he shows a picture of himself from Iraq, saying “I always used to be fat,” but in the photo he looks roided, totally, a roided fighting machine.

He says his outfit had different foods, not the mainstream crapola for the Marines. They drilled in crowd-control exercises for Iraq and stateside, he adds. His buddy, slightly smaller, looks at Tom’s cap. Tom points to “Investigate 9/11” and asks him, “What does it mean?” “Inside job,” the young guy responds with a smile on his face. Well, these three guys turn out to be info-magnets, amazingly aware. And people continue to turn and look at the signs. This has turned into our own personal march, and Tom, Anita, Mia and I are conversing with people. The sign was exactly the spark that people needed to open up and express their feelings, to say the so-called unsayable truths they are feeling: that we are being screwed royally by the government.

So, there we are, my voice now raspy from shouting in the march, talking over the speakers at the several hours of rally, about to become a nasty sore throat, but hey, it was worth it to meet these random strangers, to see behind the street-masks to inside them, to bond with strangers, and be as one, young and old, and in between. For after all is said and done, these people are America, the ex-soldiers, the daughter who lost her father, the young people who wanted to know about the march, the “steamfitter,” probably coming from the Times Square Labor rally and march, also scheduled for Saturday. They all can throw a left or a right to the jaw of “Entropy—the force that drives us to destruction.” This thought from Jeff Gates’ piece, Can the U.S. Beat Israel at their Game? This piece discusses Israel’s use of “game theory,” the agents provocateur role, to attack in order to get a response it will interpret to media as a first strike, as it did in its 60-plus year history. Read it. Like the Stiglitz piece, it is excellent and relevant.

More importantly, take to the streets in your town, whenever, wherever you can. Talk truth to power if only for an hour, or as much time as you can spare. Let your voice be heard, your numbers counted. This is still the people’s America, not just the 1 percenters.’ And given the advantage of our numbers on all fronts, we can turn it around. America can be taken back from the Kochs, the Gateses, the Obamas, et al, if we persevere. For every scam they run, we can find a way to reveal it, such as Banks Financing Mexico Gangs Admitted in Well Fargo Deal.

Yes, read all about this. “The smugglers [from a Mexican cocaine cartel] had bought a DC-9 [one of four] with laundered funds they transferred through two of the biggest banks in the U.S.: Wachovia Corp. and Bank of America Corp.,” Bloomberg Markets magazine reports in its August 2010 issue.

“This was no isolated incident. Wachovia, it turns out, had made a habit of helping move money for Mexican drug smugglers. Wells Fargo & Co., which bought Wachovia in 2008, has admitted in court that its unit failed to monitor and report suspected money laundering by narcotics traffickers—including the cash used to buy four planes that shipped a total of 22 tons of cocaine.

“The admission came in an agreement that Charlotte, North Carolina-based Wachovia struck with federal prosecutors in March, and it sheds light on the largely undocumented role of U.S. banks in contributing to the violent drug trade that has convulsed Mexico for the past four years.” Read the whole piece. It’s fascinating.

For this skullduggery, Wachovia’s new owner Fargo ended up “paying $160 million in fines and penalties, less than 2 percent of its $12.3 billion profit in 2009,” a mere slap on the hand for Wells. So look down the road for the Wells Fargo stagecoach, John Wayne riding shotgun, other stages flying in packed with cocaine and cash, i.e. liquidity for our financially and morally bankrupt system. And that’s just a piece of the action. In fact, our 1%ers happen also to be among the world’s lowest criminals, bringing pain, corruption, and financial destruction to your town—if you don’t watch them and/or blow the whistle. And don’t forget to put their names on a sign next time you march! You’d be surprised how many friends you can make.

Jerry Mazza is a freelance writer and life-long resident of New York City. An EBook version of his book of poems “State Of Shock,” on 9/11 and its after effects is now available at Amazon.com and Barnesandnoble.com. He has also written hundreds of articles on politics and government as Associate Editor of theintrepidreport.com (formerly Online Journal). Reach him at gvmaz@verizon.net.