[O29] From Ty de Pass: demands, obtaining a permit_fyi

Fri Oct 7 07:42:51 PDT 2005

Ty dePass <maceito at comcast.net> wrote:From: "Ty dePass" <maceito at comcast.net>
To: "Gary Hicks" <big_g19462002 at yahoo.com>,
"'Keith Rosenthal'" <keithmr81 at yahoo.com>,
<ja_roderick at igc.org>,
<jbissonnette at afsc.org>
Subject: FW: [O29] demands, obtaining a permit_fyi
Date: Fri, 7 Oct 2005 08:37:16 -0400

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gente – i sent this out yesterday but it doesn’t seem to have made the O29 list. anyway, fyi. Judith, since David Keil name you as part of a “special committee” to review this matter in an e-mail posted last night, i thought you might find these comment useful.

("tio") Ty

it ain't what we don't know that hurts us...it's what we do know, that ain't so...

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From: Ty dePass [mailto:maceito at comcast.net] 
Sent: Thursday, October 06, 2005 18:15
To: 'DAVID KEIL'; 'o29 at massglobalaction.org'
Subject: RE: [O29] demands, obtaining a permit

David – sorry, man, i don’t buy it. you’re saying that adding a demand condemning the systematic victimization of Arabs/Muslims living in the US since 9/11 would open the floodgates for a deluge of other “equally valid” demands—like the denial of reproductive rights for women in uniform? further, that this demand (which is principally an anti-racist one) is not really as “directly related” to the conduct of the US war in Iraq as the existing 4—Out Now; End the Occupation; Military Recruiters Out of Schools; and Fund Human Needs, Not War and Occupation—so anything more is
clutter? lastly, that the responsibility for leading on this particular issue rests primarily w/the Arab/Muslim community. in general, you defend the vote outcome, basically drawing out Chrystie’s point about preserving the integrity of the process, the sharpness of focus, and the press of logistical concerns. did i miss anything? 

while i certainly share your sense of urgency over ending this war, i keep asking myself what ending US hostilities in Iraq will mean in 10, 20, 30 years from now—how would you describe the long term benefit of the US withdrawal from Vietnam? i'm dead serious. despite the hard lesson that wars are won/lost by people, not technological hardware, we’re at it again. i mean, isn’t our government again playing cowboy in someone else’s yard? haven't the victorious Vietnamese people left their rice paddies to sweat for Nike? and aren’t most of the vets from that war still dealing w/myriad psychological, physiological and sociological maladies? so please help me understand what anyone gained from advancing the limited demand that US troops be brought home from SE Asia—that is, anyone besides the Right.

anyway, looking back over the last 30+ years, it seems that the only ones actually learning anything from that war are the folks promoting this war. for them, the humiliating defeat in Vietnam was a bitter setback, but one which merely slowed w/o reversing the course of US imperial designs. likewise, the destruction of Jim Crow was quickly grasped as signaling the need for new language and structures for explaining and defending white supremacy. indeed, if we take arch-conservative Irving Kristol at his word, neo-conservatives—“liberal who were mugged by reality”—were the unanticipated spawn of the apparent triumph over war-and-racism (two of Dr. King’s “evil triplets”). but, borrowing a leaf from our book, the reactionaries didn’t mourn, they organized—while we gloated, then temporized. 

moreover, reflecting on the content of the 4 demands, i'm struck by how racially neutral they read: the “troops” are faceless aggregates, lacking any identity beyond their camo uniforms—but we know better than that, don’t we? we also know that Iraqis are commonly referred to as either sand-niggers or haadjis by US military personnel—and while Iraqis and many other Arabs are actually categorized “white” by law, we recognize that racism is an expression of a socio-political arrangement, yes? and while NCLB doesn’t exempt high schools in Newton or Brookline, we can be assured that the parents of students attending those schools got their yellow postcards into the mail by last Friday’s deadline—can we confidently say the same for parents of students at Madison Park or the Burke? finally, after years of fighting for some recognition of where the government finds the funds for war w/o raising taxes, a concern for human needs still falls far short of an explicit anti-racist demand. perhaps
 i'm being oversensitive—or perhaps you’re not being sensitive enough? 

so, what does all this political analysis contribute toward the immediate and pressing task of mobilizing large numbers for Oct.29th? admittedly, not much for the short term. Chrystie and David seem clear that many (if not most) current endorsers don’t want to hear it. pity; because beyond orchestrating the next grand public spectacle, the real challenge of movement-building remains: building a lot of new relationships, establishing structures for reflection/critique/dialogue, and deepening our collective understanding of the barriers and opportunities before us, and grappling w/notions of solidarity and mutual accountability—recognizing that, ultimately, if we’re not prepared to fight for the future we want, we’ll have to find a way to endure the future we’ll undoubtedly get. (hopefully figuring out who “we” are along the way) ‘nuff said?

("tio") Ty

it ain't what we don't know that hurts us...it's what we do know, that ain't so...

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