Can "the People" Speak?

James Ridgeway's most recent installment of Mondo Washington says Uncle Sam's a Bigger Bully than Saddam. Some interesting ideas to add to the "attacking Iraq is a bad idea at this juncture" column. Ridgeway ends the feature with a connection between the threat of war with Iraq and the upcoming Labor Day holiday:

"They have always taught and trained you to believe it to be your patriotic duty to go to war and to have yourselves slaughtered at their command. But in all the history of the world you, the people, have never had a voice in declaring war, and strange as it certainly appears, no war by any nation in any age has ever been declared by the people." —Eugene Debs, Socialist candidate for president, June 16, 1918. The speech led to Debs's being stripped of his citizenship and sent to jail for 10 years.

MoveOn.org is doing some great work to make sure Debs' words remain true. By trying to make the voices of the people heard, MoveOn hopes to stop the war so that we'll be able to say "some wars have been averted by the people." Wouldn't that be nice?

Eric Alterman also makes a clear and concise argument against attacking Iraq right now. This was brought to my attention by Jason Rylander, whose blog is definitely a daily read. Rylander chooses his links carefully, quotes from them provocatively, and comments on them with insight and level-headed balance. Highly recommended.

Posted September 1, 2002 09:17 AM | general politics