“Deliver our nation from this sinful and self-serving war,” he prayed. He then asked for G-d’s help “not only to end this war, but to end racism, oppression, and human suffering” — purportedly three of America?s most ignoble contributions to human civilization. He said nothing about anything sinful or shameful that might be occurring in Iraq.
Shortly thereafter, NAACP chairman Julian Bond took the microphone to denounce, America’s “pursuit of empire, not world peace.” He called Bush’s Iraq policy “a political strategy designed to win the recent mid-term political elections.” Bush’s talk of launching a preemptive strike, he said, is “erasing our moral standing across the globe.”
Bond then confidently asserted that Saddam “does not represent any imminent threat, while bin Laden still does.” He did not say how he could be certain that the Iraqi dictator is, and will remain for the foreseeable future, harmless to our country. Instead, he shifted his focus to the price tag of war, a cost he believes would be better spent elsewhere. “This war will cost billions of dollars,” he complained, “at a time when funding for education, the environment, and health care are already at risk.” He condemned President Bush’s plans for a war that would cause “the deaths of thousands and thousands of innocent Iraqis.”
“If we really believe in regime change,” he said to thunderous applause, “we ought to begin right here at home.” He concluded his address by pronouncing, “We need peace, not war.”
The crowd was soon treated to the oratory of New York City Councilman Charles Barron, the self-described non-racist who recently announced that he would like to slap a white person “just for my mental health.” As is his wont, Barron chose to assess the Iraq situation from a ‘black’ perspective. “I want to say on behalf of black youth in New York and the Latino youth of this nation, we will not go to war for a selected president who wasn’t even elected!”
“We don’t care if you [Bush] put forth Condoleezza Rice or Colin Powell,” he continued. “They do not represent the black community.” In the eyes of Barron and his ilk, Rice and Powell are mere mascots exploited by racist Republicans, inauthentic blacks who are traitors to their race.
When Barron was done, a man introduced as a poet recited his most recent work: “Our country has been wrecked by barbarians . . . like Trent Lott and Katherine Harris, [who] killed democracy in Florida” — a reference, of course, to the disputed 2000 election of “hanging chad” came. “It’s not just a war dance” that Bush and his aides are performing, said the poet. “They have a plan. It’s inherited through history. They destroyed the native tribes. Now each July they celebrate their victory.”
In short, his message was that Bush is but the most recent in a long line of oppressors that have led our nation throughout its purportedly sordid history.
Shortly thereafter, a New York University professor explained the importance of protecting the world’s children from American aggression. “Children should learn their ABC’s,” she told her listeners. “They should not be killed [by U.S. bombs].” Those words earned her a loud ovation. Notably, she did not mention the thousands of Iraqi children who have been imprisoned, tortured, mutilated, and even slaughtered in retribution for their parents’ real or imagined disloyalty to Saddam’s regime.
The parade of platitudes continued with the founder of the group Courage to Refuse, which consists of some 500 Israeli army officers who refuse to serve in the West Bank and Gaza. “The best way to neutralize your enemy is to make him your friend,” he said. “We have to remove the reasons for hatred.”
