Saturday, April 24, 2004

Stopping the Wars That Be With a Free Mickey Z

Ending the Schell Game

By Richard Oxman

(This article is dedicated to General Jacques Paris de Bollardiere)

“I’ve got your happy ending. We’ll let the Germans win the war.” — Lewis Milestone, American director of All Quiet on the Western Front, when asked to provide an upbeat coda for his film

“Free the Mickey Z One!” — Voice in my head, having fallen asleep in the library watching Russell Crowe kill Frenchmen on the High Seas

Jonathan Schell, in reviewing Tim Russert’s recent interview with Kerry, laments how the Democratic candidate was treated following revelations that American companies — such as JK’s — were guilty of war crimes in Vietnam:

"The powers that be, with the approval of mainstream opinion, had sent him into a misbegotten war whose awful reality they covered up. When he helped uncover it, it was not they but he who was punished. In short, by sending young men into an atrocious, mistaken war, they created a truth so distasteful to the public that its disclosure, by discrediting the discloser, keeps them in power."

Where the focus here is on partisan parsing and niceties, it could have been placed on the fact that all wars are atrocious and mistaken (admittedly, a mild word), including our so-called “just war” in the 40s. But, of course, you’re not going to get that kind of fare from either Russert or Kerry. Obviously, Schell, Mr. The Unconquerable World and firmly ensconced member of The Nation, is playing the same game.

But where are you?

All you have to do is read Howard Zinn’s chapter on “Just and Unjust War” in his Declarations of Independence and Mickey Z’s Saving Private Power: The Hidden History of World War II (1) to arrive at the position that there are NO just wars, including our much-heralded humanitarian response to Hitler. That should be the starting point for all of the endless talk about pros and cons vis-a-vis Iraq. But it is not. Leftists seem to be enamored of their own voices, along with their right-wing counterparts. If they’re not willingly engaging in debating the justification for this and that, verbal entrapment becomes the rule of the day. It’s the stuff academic careers are made of, the practice that prevents marginalization and the basis for avoiding our obligation to humanity.

We must begin to assert our disgust with the abominable nature of all wars, and the fact that they’re avoidable. We must not put off any longer ... making ourselves vulnerable to the so-called evils in this world. As you can see (as I hope you can see), it is not worth living to do so. And, on a higher plane, it is a violation of what everyone’s spiritual essence tells them. Everyone.

Please note, as you read on, that I am a huge fan of Ward Churchill’s (2). You won’t find it easy to pigeonhole me as a Pacifist Dove, dismissing the thrust of what I’m pushing out of the nest here. Only the best that’s in you can give it wings.

In Angela Davis’ Are Prisons Obsolete?, she quotes Arthur Waskow of the Institute for Policy Studies as saying “...having no alternative at all would create less crime than the present criminal training centers do.” (3) He’s talking about forgetting about “reform” and beginning to talk about abolishing our jails and prisons. One can easily extrapolate to make the case for abolishing war ... putting one’s faith in the positive aspects of humanity, what such a stance would encourage. Making oneself vulnerable.

The time has come. The alternative is to go back and forth about the abominations of history, and feed The Machine that has brought us all ... all the gory glory of all the Charges of the Heavy Brigdes. It’s time to lighten up. The world is begging for us to acknowledge the alternative, the obvious.

We are doomed if we do anything less. As all enlightened leftists know, the U.S. military alone — on its closed U.S. bases alone — has already made uninhabitable a land mass equal to the size of Florida. (4)

At present, we are stuck in routines regurgitating the arguments for and against this and that war. And, as Beckett said in Waiting for Godot, habit is the great deadener.

If anyone is interested in acquiring a free hardcover copy of the gorgeous Mickey Z work cited above, feel free to contact me; we can arrange for you to receive your personal copy if you’re willing to pay for the postage. Hopefully, each person receiving SPP will make a special effort to distribute a second free copy to a local library ... or other interested organization. I don’t really “have the time” to make good on the above offer, but I will. I will because I believe we can make a difference, and we are obligated to do so. Besides, I don’t really believe my children will have a world to play in, if I don’t.

Take the heartbeats. Get the hardcover and refuse the hard cover.

(1) Just prior to OneDance: The People’s Summit, my partner, Sylvie, and I acquired about 1,000 copies of SPP from the sweet Richard Nash of the wonderful Soft Skull Press; we just couldn’t allow them to be pulped. It can be a cruel world, indeed. Our intention was to distribute them gratis nationwide, forming a core group of activists. Our efforts in so-called progressive Santa Cruz, California were undermined by local middle-of-the-road activists, and our relatively low turnout did not allow us to get all of the copies into enthusiastic hands. It is still our belief that unless people in this country see through the sham that was, for Tom Brokaw, “our shining moment in the sun,” we’ll never make significant change in this country. That’s where Mickey comes in.

(2) See “The Satya Interview with Ward Churchill.”

(3) Angela Y. Davis, Are Prisons Obsolete? (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2003), p.105.

(4) Peter Phillips & Project Censored, Censored 2004: The Top 25 Censored Stories (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2003), pp.79-82.

Richard Oxman, former anti-prof college professor, is about to retire from this kind of activism, and immerse himself in the sort of activity suggested in many of his Press Action, Counterpunch, and Dissident Voice articles ... to stop The Machine. He can be reached at mail@onedancesummit.org.

Comments (6)

Printer Friendly Format | Tell-a-Friend

Next: A Realistic Election Strategy the Left Can Really Get Behind -->

<-- Previous: Why Don't Iraqis Appreciate American Generosity?

Support Press Action