The Emperor Has No Clothes! - Off to Belfast to Confront a Butt Naked Bush!
Ciaron - Catholic Worker/Plowshares | 15.06.2008 07:57
Reality check - the United States of America is an empire not a Republic. Go read some Gore Vidal if you need some convincing by someone a lot smarter and more charming than me.
Living at the centre of empire - any empire - is generally relatively cosey. Keep ya head down and your mouth shut and you'll generally have a nice day. It can be kind of liberal and tolerant in the centre while on the fringes of empire the reality is fascism pure and simple You can say anything you want in the safety valve soundproof room of the arts in London , New York and Dublin (see the journo hack war cheer leaders and Irish war supporting politicians swaying to Leonard Cohen's denunciation of U.S. warmaking last Friday night for example)...try dissent on the imperial fringe and they even kill artists there ..........and students and church folks and trade unionists and the list is endless.......
Less than a hundred years ago Dublin was on the fringe of empire, it looked a lot like Baghdad today - death squads, torture in Dublin Castle, military occupation on the streets. Less than 20 years ago, Belfast was on the fringe of empire - state backed military death squads, torture, internment et al.
Ireland - north and south, has been fast tracked to the centre of empire. The deal is if we keep our mouths shut, our heads down, we can reap from the upward mobility within the U.S. empire. The imperial troops will only stop over at Shannon, they will wait until they get to Baghdad to do the raping, killing, torturing and home wrecking. The arms companies will produce their hi tech shite in Derry, it will be dropped on other people in other places.
In the Roman empire they had an annual ritual where everyone would "burn incense for Ceaser" to recognise the emperor's dominion. For the first three centuries Christians refused to do this, or serve in the Roman military, - for this we were criminalised. Not because we worshiped a different God. The Romans were quite flexible in conscripting God and Gods from defeated regions of Empire. We were criminal because we refused to take life - the image of God - in service empire.
So what are we asked to do as the Emperor comes to Belfast. The defeated dissidents, now ensconsed, are asked to offer hospitality, the rest of us are asked to maintain a defeated, if not diignified, silence.
Since George W came to Belfast last time (03) over one million Iraqis, mostly women and children (Lancet Report) have been slain. Most of the U.S. troops doing the slaying have passed through Shannon Airport, Ireland, to get to their victims.. 4,000 of their number have returned in body bags, 20,000 with serious injuries (amputations, loss of sanity etc) they will never recover from and another 20,000 evacuated with injuries they should recover from. Thousands of veterans have suicided on return.
Last time Bush came to Belfast there was tension in the air. We created it nonviolently on the streets
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/60059 ....five years into this war, the war has no popular support and the visible opposition has evaporated from view. The opposition in Ireland to the war is massive and passive expressed clearly in the unanimous acquittals of the disabling and disarming
PItstop Ploughshares www.peaceontrial.com
and the recent Raytheon 9 www.raytheon9.org
It is important that people hit the streets in Belfast on Monday...downtown, Stormont, where they least expect it, wherever, whenever to confront the emperor to tell him and anyone in earshot that he has no clothes of credibility, that we don't believe him or his war. To break the consensus of silence on behalf of people being butchered is a powerful and worthy thing.
Today the British government attempts to remove free speech from their people in London http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/06/400898.html so the emperor can have an easy ride down the last bloodsoaked lap of his Presidency. Long after Bush joins Blair, Howard and that Spanish dude in retirement - the wars they kickstarted will still be claiming victims on the fringe of empire. The question will remain will it claim our spirit and our silence at the centre? All that is asked of us in Belfast on Monday is our silence and sedation - as Bush gets on with the killing, Raytheon gets on with the profiteering and our local politicians get on with the collaboration.
Good luck, and respect, to anyone taking to the streets.
Solidarity with anti-war resisters in jails & brigs and before the courts
Military
http://www.couragetoresist.org/x/
and Civilian
http://www.soaw.org/article.php?id=1621
Less than a hundred years ago Dublin was on the fringe of empire, it looked a lot like Baghdad today - death squads, torture in Dublin Castle, military occupation on the streets. Less than 20 years ago, Belfast was on the fringe of empire - state backed military death squads, torture, internment et al.
Ireland - north and south, has been fast tracked to the centre of empire. The deal is if we keep our mouths shut, our heads down, we can reap from the upward mobility within the U.S. empire. The imperial troops will only stop over at Shannon, they will wait until they get to Baghdad to do the raping, killing, torturing and home wrecking. The arms companies will produce their hi tech shite in Derry, it will be dropped on other people in other places.
In the Roman empire they had an annual ritual where everyone would "burn incense for Ceaser" to recognise the emperor's dominion. For the first three centuries Christians refused to do this, or serve in the Roman military, - for this we were criminalised. Not because we worshiped a different God. The Romans were quite flexible in conscripting God and Gods from defeated regions of Empire. We were criminal because we refused to take life - the image of God - in service empire.
So what are we asked to do as the Emperor comes to Belfast. The defeated dissidents, now ensconsed, are asked to offer hospitality, the rest of us are asked to maintain a defeated, if not diignified, silence.
Since George W came to Belfast last time (03) over one million Iraqis, mostly women and children (Lancet Report) have been slain. Most of the U.S. troops doing the slaying have passed through Shannon Airport, Ireland, to get to their victims.. 4,000 of their number have returned in body bags, 20,000 with serious injuries (amputations, loss of sanity etc) they will never recover from and another 20,000 evacuated with injuries they should recover from. Thousands of veterans have suicided on return.
Last time Bush came to Belfast there was tension in the air. We created it nonviolently on the streets
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/60059 ....five years into this war, the war has no popular support and the visible opposition has evaporated from view. The opposition in Ireland to the war is massive and passive expressed clearly in the unanimous acquittals of the disabling and disarming PItstop Ploughshares www.peaceontrial.com
and the recent Raytheon 9 www.raytheon9.org
It is important that people hit the streets in Belfast on Monday...downtown, Stormont, where they least expect it, wherever, whenever to confront the emperor to tell him and anyone in earshot that he has no clothes of credibility, that we don't believe him or his war. To break the consensus of silence on behalf of people being butchered is a powerful and worthy thing.
Today the British government attempts to remove free speech from their people in London
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/06/400898.html so the emperor can have an easy ride down the last bloodsoaked lap of his Presidency. Long after Bush joins Blair, Howard and that Spanish dude in retirement - the wars they kickstarted will still be claiming victims on the fringe of empire. The question will remain will it claim our spirit and our silence at the centre? All that is asked of us in Belfast on Monday is our silence and sedation - as Bush gets on with the killing, Raytheon gets on with the profiteering and our local politicians get on with the collaboration. Good luck, and respect, to anyone taking to the streets.
Solidarity with anti-war resisters in jails & brigs and before the courts
Military
http://www.couragetoresist.org/x/ and Civilian
http://www.soaw.org/article.php?id=1621
Ciaron - Catholic Worker/Plowshares
Homepage:
http://www.peaceontrial.com
Comments
Hide the following 2 comments
In 1978 we released a peace song for Ulster here it is
15.06.2008 13:33
Jake Burns of SLF
Ok this seems to be round 5 in 8 years with Emperor Bush.
16.06.2008 08:39
Ok this seems to be round 5 in 8 years with Emperor Bush.
The first time George passed me by was 2001, when I dragged my sorry ass down to Trafalgar Square on my lonesome. I was gradually joined by some anti-Exonn green activists. We were then surrounded by a heap of cops and eventually these dark tited SUV's favoured by Salvadoran death squads and a limo sped by in spitting distance. I rememember the last of the SUV's had its back hatch open and their sat the secret service I assume tooled up.
What struck me at the time was this was George's first trip to Europe! This was a rich kid without the distraction of hard work who had never made it to Europe. (Remember Ronnie Reagan observing that George Jr. was a waster and remember Ronnie's work ethic standards weren't that high - "Hard work didn't kill anyone, but why take the risk?" direct quote Ronald Reagan.) So George was designated to run the empire and the world without much of a curiousity about the world. Before taking the gig as President, I believe George had only left the borders of the U.S. twice - once on a club med safari in Africa and once across the nearby Tex Mex border. His vice president Dick Cheney would be calling the shots from the low profile media shadows (when he wasn't shooting friends on huting trips!) Given Dick's dodgy ticker and George's disineterest in the job at hand the inverted joke was George was only a heartbeat away fro the Presidency!"
After the cavalcade sped by to Downing St., we made our way down to Buckingham Palace escorted by Lodon's finest. I remember giving a spontaeous speech about L.A. Catholic Worker friends in jail
for nonviolent resistance to the Star Wars program at Vanderburg Air Force Base. An english woman came out of the crowd to say her husband was presently in the same jail - a professional photographer hired by Greenpeace, he had been swept up at Vanderburg at another action. These were the daze before the war coming home to NYC, the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. The priorities of what was left of the internatioal peace movement at the time were Star Wars
and the U.S. low intensity conflict Plan Colombia. Those daze seem a long time ago and even though a huge anti-war movement has come and gone, Star Wars and the war on Colombia fell off the radar and grind on outta sight outta mind.
I had never felt empathy with Bush...even though I've tried, I'm a Christian it is my job to at least try! I think it is because of his attitude to the death penalty. When I was in a Texas jail for 9 months, the liberal feminist Governor Anne Richards would execute once a month. When George Jr. became governor of Texas he doubled the rate to once a week. I remember visitng Huntsville - the most active death row in the western world - on release. The site of Texan college kids barbquing and drinking whenever there is an execution. George never commuted an execution, brother Jeb in Florida ran a close second.
The next time I was to be i the vicinity of Emperor Bush was after he had well and truly pissed out his territory in Ireland, transforming the civilian airport at Shannon into a major hub for U.S. military for the invasion of Iraq. Shannon had done its job (It's still servicing the U.S. military and C.I.A.) and thousands were dead in Iraq by the time Bush came to Hillsborough Castle 03.
There was still a stong anti-war activist scene in Ireland and a large crew headed north o short notice. It was too big and too vibrant for the self appointed IAWM leadership and swept past their platform fronting off the RUC cops. The next day youngsters did NVDA in Belfast City Centre, the response by the RUC robocops to a nonviolent sit down was brutal.
The lies George & Tony told to justify the invasion and occupation of Iraq were by this time rapidly exposed - no WMD, no AQ links......
George returned to Ireland as leadup photo op callout for the Irish American vote in his 2004 reelection bid. The sychophantic Irish government responded by deploying the Irish army and blowing 10 million euro on 18 hours of security. We thought this - a psycho meglomaniac in a Castle - was a great backdrop for the staging of MacBush, Photos and report here
This was to be the last effort of a broader anti-war movement in Ireland, the last large attempt to engage the role of Shannon in the ongoing U.S. war on Iraq. The anti-war movement is now an exhausted brand, among many, fought over by small Trot groups. There is very little creative thinking or engagement going on - the recent exception of course being the Raytheon 9 www.raytheon9.org who -along with the issue of arms trade in Ireland their action raised - deserved a lot more solidairty tha they got!
Why do we continue - we continue because human beings are being butchered in Iraq and Afghanistan with support of the Irish goverment and intsitutions - and we are still Irish human beings, rather than the housebroken Irish cosumer zombies they want us to be!
My last rendevous with the Emperor was in Sydney last year when he came to carve up the Asia Pacific region with fellow facists from Indonesia, China, Burma etc
The Emperor has the illusion of security not through justice but through superior firepower, hi tech surveillance, shrinking of liberty. It wasn't enough to stop these Chaser lads dacking them
Ciaron O'Reilly-Catholic Worker/Plowshares
Homepage:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-H6pU4UbRYE