Return-Path: <sentto-279987-5246-1030367191-fc=all.net@returns.groups.yahoo.com> Delivered-To: fc@all.net Received: from 204.181.12.215 [204.181.12.215] by localhost with POP3 (fetchmail-5.7.4) for fc@localhost (single-drop); Mon, 26 Aug 2002 06:08:08 -0700 (PDT) Received: (qmail 26858 invoked by uid 510); 26 Aug 2002 13:04:44 -0000 Received: from n8.grp.scd.yahoo.com (66.218.66.92) by all.net with SMTP; 26 Aug 2002 13:04:44 -0000 X-eGroups-Return: sentto-279987-5246-1030367191-fc=all.net@returns.groups.yahoo.com Received: from [66.218.67.192] by n8.grp.scd.yahoo.com with NNFMP; 26 Aug 2002 13:06:31 -0000 X-Sender: fc@red.all.net X-Apparently-To: iwar@onelist.com Received: (EGP: mail-8_1_0_1); 26 Aug 2002 13:06:30 -0000 Received: (qmail 73737 invoked from network); 26 Aug 2002 13:06:29 -0000 Received: from unknown (66.218.66.217) by m10.grp.scd.yahoo.com with QMQP; 26 Aug 2002 13:06:29 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO red.all.net) (12.232.72.152) by mta2.grp.scd.yahoo.com with SMTP; 26 Aug 2002 13:06:28 -0000 Received: (from fc@localhost) by red.all.net (8.11.2/8.11.2) id g7QD6sV11497 for iwar@onelist.com; Mon, 26 Aug 2002 06:06:54 -0700 Message-Id: <200208261306.g7QD6sV11497@red.all.net> To: iwar@onelist.com (Information Warfare Mailing List) Organization: I'm not allowed to say X-Mailer: don't even ask X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.5 PL3] From: Fred Cohen <fc@all.net> X-Yahoo-Profile: fcallnet Mailing-List: list iwar@yahoogroups.com; contact iwar-owner@yahoogroups.com Delivered-To: mailing list iwar@yahoogroups.com Precedence: bulk List-Unsubscribe: <mailto:iwar-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com> Date: Mon, 26 Aug 2002 06:06:54 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [iwar] [fc:A.lonely.voice.of.New.York.dissent] Reply-To: iwar@yahoogroups.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Spam-Status: No, hits=-0.3 required=5.0 tests=MAILTO_WITH_SUBJ,MAILTO_LINK,DIFFERENT_REPLY_TO version=2.20 X-Spam-Level: Observer Comment Extra A lonely voice of New York dissent "For critics of war a day at the office is rather like being a homosexual in a homophobic world - you search others for signs that it's safe to to come out to them", <A HREF="http://www.observer.co.uk/worldview"Observer Worldview</A Michael Steinberg Sunday August 18, 2002 The Observer <a href="http://www.observer.co.uk/Print/0,3858,4483514,00.html">http://www.observer.co.uk/Print/0,3858,4483514,00.html> It is a persistent misconception that the United States - where free speech is guaranteed by the Constitution - has a vigorous tradition of dissent and protest. Just as conservatives fail to see how unusual the quiet, relatively crime-free 1950s were, so leftists forget that the fractious 1960s were an anomaly. Americans remain likely to identify with government policy, especially in international affairs where there is something of a national consensus that the U.S. should present a united front to the rest of the world.So I suppose I should not have been surprised at the near-unanimous support for the Bush administration after the September 11 attacks. All the same, my first reaction was something like shock. My wife and I had watched the president's speech to Congress, and we wondered how his stiff, choppy, overly-scripted delivery could possibly be mistaken for strength. But television commentators and acquaintances all admired his presidential stature.That was the first taste of the isolation most opponents of the war have come to feel, and it was only a beginning. As the country moved towards an invasion of Afghanistan my first impulse was to join what I thought would be a national debate - like any good citizen I wrote to my local newspaper. But I found it almost impossible to place an op-ed piece or even a letter there. It was soon clear that the quality of the writing wasn't the issue. The paper was no longer a forum. Instead, its mission seemed to be to encourage unity and build support for what was taken to be the national consensus.I couldn't bear the silence. One morning, overwhelmed with powerlessness and dread, I registered a domain name, designed a logo, and converted my rejected letters and articles into the core of an anti-war website. It gets about 5,000 hits a week. But I am visible only in cyberspace. I have found that there is a personal quality to the support for the war that goes beyond the hyper-patriotism of the Vietnam era. It makes face-to-face discussion almost impossible. I've never told the judge I work for about the site, although I suspect he would be more understanding than another judge, who dropped a "map" of the Middle East on my desk a few days after the attacks showing Afghanistan as a parking lot. Riding in the elevator the other day I heard a woman read with audible disgust the American Bar Association's recommendation that U.S. citizens held as unlawful combatants be allowed counsel. Our court clerk - an Italian-American woman who has never had the education her intelligence deserves - is simply afraid to discuss the issues with her co-workers. For critics of the war, a day at the office is rather like being a homosexual in a homophobic world - you search others for signs that it's safe to to come out to them.How did this happen? Most Americans have little knowledge of the rest of the world, an ignorance the media do little to dispel; and most would like to believe that the war on terror is the best way to ensure safety in the future. Many adhere to an almost Manichean division of the world into good guys and evildoers, a world-view which makes the most outrageous of Bushisms seem plausible.But this is also, in part, due to the failure of opponents of the war to present any kind of coherent analysis or anything around which popular opinion might coalesce. Last week, for example, at an academic conference where many of the speakers were highly critical of the war, I heard that everything was either the fault of the oil industry or the military technology companies. Besides the conspiracy theories, there were accounts that buried the specificity of recent events under categories dragged, in bleeding hunks, from the books of Michel Foucault and Edward Said. A speaker explained how the scapegoating American Muslims was comparable with the internment of Japanese-Americans after Pearl Harbour, since both were hegemonic constructions of the Other. Beneath these unconvincing banalities, though, was a peculiar strain of nostalgia for the days immediately after the attack. One newspaper editor recalled a spontaneous sense of solidarity that, he felt, had led to the massive display of American flags. This is something of a classical trope in American life: the composer Charles Ives heard a crowd of commuters break into a hymn as the news of the Lusitania sinking reached them in 1915, and titled a piece evoking the experience "From Hanover Square North, at the end of a tragic day, the voice of the people again arose."An NYU professor spoke feelingly of the temporary triumph of real journalism, free for a few days after September 11 from commercial interruption and corporate constraints. And a tenured professor, a Muslim facing removal from his position because of comments presented (out of context, he insists) on a Fox News program, remembered blood drives, interfaith services and meetings during which he and his family felt truly American for the first time.This may be the best explanation for the reticence of opponents to the war. America may have been founded and populated by people who deliberately left or were removed from their communities, and who chose to govern themselves through a system explicitly crafted to eliminate factions. Yet Americans have nonetheless retained the desire for an all-encompassing sense of national purpose. I felt it myself in the horrible hours of September 11 and, in spite of the government's rhetoric, for weeks after that. The Bush administration has played on that desire with some skill, aided by a press that often seeks to build as well as express a common voice. Opponents face the challenge of not only providing a coherent alternative explanation for the events of September 2001 and after but of shaking the country's confidence and need to believe that the future is being secured. Few wish to be woken from a seductive dream of unity.That the American press has offered little perspective and even less critique is not surprising. The belief that the mainstream press opposed the Vietnam War is a myth. Opposition to that war had little political visibility until significant numbers of American lives were lost.And so the post-9/11 dream remains, supported by little flags on countless office desks, American eagle screen-savers, and public silence. It is, for all that, a troubled dream. As she cut my hair a few weeks ago my hairdresser asked me, "So, what is it about this WAR?" Her tone was pained as well as ironic. There is opposition to American foreign policy, concerns about its co nsequences and fears about the possible invasion of Iraq. But this opposition and concern remains inchoate. It would be a tragedy if it came into the open only after thousands more die; but it would not be an unprecedented tragedy.· Michael Steinberg is a legal clerk and writer based in New York. You can find his website at <A HREF="http://www.whythiswar.com/"www.WhyThisWar.com</A and contact him at <A HREF="mailto:<a href="mailto:mlstein@rochester.rr.com?Subject=Re:%20(ai)%20A%20lonely%20voice%20of%20New%20York%20dissent%2526In-Reply-To=%2526lt;17b.d6abcb5.2a99d42e@aol.com">mlstein@rochester.rr.com</a>"<a href="mailto:mlstein@rochester.rr.com?Subject=Re:%20(ai)%20A%20lonely%20voice%20of%20New%20York%20dissent%2526In-Reply-To=%2526lt;17b.d6abcb5.2a99d42e@aol.com">mlstein@rochester.rr.com</a> </A. ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> 4 DVDs Free +s&p Join Now http://us.click.yahoo.com/pt6YBB/NXiEAA/mG3HAA/kgFolB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> ------------------ http://all.net/ Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.2 : 2002-10-01 06:44:32 PDT