I'm tired of sitting on my ass, bitching

[NightWatcher]

(a cross-post from GD)

We all keep saying that we need to mobilize people and take our complaints to DC. I know that there are groups like "united for peace" and "world cant wait", but I was wondering how many of us DU'ers can take the time away from home and work and can go to DC.

I live in South Georgia and it would be a pain to do so, but I think that the time is getting closer to the point where we will not be "allowed" to voice our protest. I would like to be able to come to DC in huge numbers and set up a tent city somewhere near the Capital where we could be a large, noisy reminder to the representatives that we, the people, do care what happens to our country.

For those of you who are experienced activists, what is the best way to mobilize a "shitload" of citizens to show that we are mad as hell and not apt to take it anymore? I have already prepared myself mentally to come to DC in the event that we attack Iran. I think that my dirty, hippie ass on the ground will speak louder than a ton of petitions and voicemail messages that are too easily forgotten.

I'm ready.

[Raven]

1. The phone, canvassing, lit tables, visibility! n/t

[ChairmanAgnostic]

2. frankly, regional meetings would have more of an impact.

One in every state would be a good start.

50 places, 50 people to contact, 50 permits to procure.

wait a sec. I am thinking of a quiet revolution, and here I go thinking about PERMITS?

what is wrong with me? Oh, yes, the terra alert is yellow today.

[ClintonTyree]

3. Would it matter?

Bush and the RepubliCONS have nothing but utter contempt for the people of this country and the Democratically "controlled" Congress is, at best, indifferent. They're going to do exactly what they want no matter what action we take. The grand experiment of American Democracy is over, it's dead. All it took was one malleable half-wit from Texas and his Corporate masters to finish it off. Welcome to the Corporatocracy of America.

[deepblue]

4. HOWTO: End the Wars by Forcing Accurate Casualty Counts Using a Single Website

Maybe now you guys will let me start my own thread:

In the background of our minds and US wars, US citizens feel US casualty counts are supressed. I have personally heard several accounts of suppression, and I have heard many people express belief that the US public is not accurately informed of US casualties. News stories surface, reflecting though presented as background that casualties resulting from conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan are not counted as casualties even if someone dies later, at Landstuhl, Germany, for instance. If true, our military's sacrifice deserves better. If true, according to Bushadmin the lives of our soldiers do not merit a digital increment in a piece of shared data. This particular clerical trick in exploitation of geography, amounting to "surviving the scene, but not surviving", in addition to other methodology, allows for much foolery in that families and loved ones attached to a fatality can be given information different from actual circumstances. This note is a proposal for development of an emotionally and legally binding citizen action to eliminate inaccurate casualty reports sponsored by Bushadmin for public consumption in furtherance of illegal war.

The process involves a website backed by credible figures. The website features a simple database of personal testimony from service and civilian personnel and families who have knowledge relating to any US fatality anywhere in the military. After completion of a carefully devised communication procedure informing significant others of available information and possibly securing permission, freed website testimony by personnel and families can conceivably be made available to the public. A casualty not currently reflected can be forced into acknowledgement. A few discrepancies ultimately involving institutional dishonor can reveal systematic abuse of individual honor. People in doubt
about circumstances of loss can at least be informed of actual circumstances in a manner that is incontrovertible.

We see abusive information provided to the public and the family most notably in the case of Pat Tillman. What if the treatment of the Tillman family is emblematic of a routine procedure applied to casualties qualifying by category according to the ability of people outside NTK military structure to detect the loss? For example, if a casualty is known to have nobody listed for notification, does not this casualty category provide opportunity not to list that person's loss in casualty lists provided to the public? What about Green card soldiers who have no family in the United States, another categorical opportunity for decrement of the actual casualty count? Thematically, organizational opportunity can be created by separation of records into pieces, including geographic "rationale" all ready noted, separation of records from reports of the records, with further separation and dissolution of responsibility in the announcement of report derived from dissolute record, further aided by inaccurate media reports of the announcement. How many families and loved ones can afford to navigate military bureaucracy to find out what really happened? Did the son or daughter really die in a car accident, and if a sorrowful friend shows up with a different story, what next, immersion in a new set of problems likely leading to harassment amid the emotional devastation of a loved one's loss? What choice would you make? What choice would you make after a few years living on a corporal's pay? Was it not difficult for the Tillman family to find out what happened to Pat Tillman despite Tillman's burgeoning fame, and wasn't this travail another tragedy for that family? Well, what about everybody else? The reader might say that Pat Tillman's case was special because Pat Tillman was special, that Bushadmin had strong motivation in his case to misrepresent the circumstances to the Tillman family and the public. On what basis can anyone say the same motivation does not exist for less well-known figures precisely because it is easier to organize misrepresentation in relation to publicly anonymous loss?

I will leave it to the readers to consider for themselves the societal and legal implications, and potential application to other areas of the procedures described above, and to consider the motivation of personnel volunteering by the thousands to tell us and the familes of the sacrifice of their deepest friends, and to consider the families affirmed or denied. If not one discrepancy were discovered, there would still be activating discovery and thereby change in the emotional cycle of war.

I had circulated the procedures described above by email to supposed antiwar websites, historians, and individuals. A few weeks later, a US Senator raised an obviously temporary concern about the requirement for accurate casualty counts. I then found a newly developed website, TBRNews.org, which claims to be concerned with the issue. When I wrote this website, I received in reply a strangely worded, veiled threat of my arrest couched in an outpouring of thoroughly overwrought self-pity laced with self-ennobling declaration of resilience in the face of the sender's continual danger. TBRNews.org claims to have in their possession a document purported by them to have been posted on a Pentagon website by mistake, a document declared to reflect true US casualties resulting from conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan. TBRNews will send this document by email upon request. Does anybody believe only this website is privy to an actual Pentagon report that is at odds with the public casualty list, a report which must only contain columns of meaningless, unverifiable numbers? And why wouldn't they simply post this data instead of sending it only upon request, saying they've all ready sent it to over 10,000 requestors? Well, for one thing, names and email addresses of interested parties TBRNews receives, meaningless numbers TBRNews provides. The purpose of TBRNews.org is sublimation. The document TBRNews declares is unuseable by definition. I certainly haven't bothered to request it. The procedures described above, however, are useful because of the involvement of real people, probably thousands, and this testimony is identification of legally useful evidence and a moving record of sacrifice.

We are not allowed to see the coffins or even photographs of the coffins. Will we hear the stories contained within them?

[rosesaylavee]

6. Are you proposing that we start compiling an

actual and verifiable list by state? Perhaps that is something we CAN organize from DU as we have members in every state.

Having no shame, I requested the TBR list and will wait to see what it looks like. I think this is something that could be substantially helpful and hit home with the American populace enough that removal from office will be the best thing *co could hope for... I personally hope to see him and his friends set up at Leavenworth in the near future.

Welcome to DU!

[deepblue]

7. I'd like to generate interest

I'd like to hear from people why this wouldn't work, why this wouldn't go a long way forward, why this wouldn't be a good thing. I want legitimate attack, honest critique. Everybody knows what that looks like. My intent is not to simply attack TBRNews, I think there are several websites that say everything right but are actually intended to be sublimation of legitimate feeling against the war, never actually accomplishing anything, gathering data about individuals and passing tiny bits of misinformation. I submit TBRNews for examination as a good example of this. I describe methodology, the website dedicated to the methodology can't be sublimation by definition. I think you get a lot of things out of the way if somebody credible backs such a website, and I mean somebody absolutely unquestionable like Chomsky, because then there is assurance that the thing is real and not sublimation.

Organize by state? I don't know. Tell me what's wrong with it theoretically. Tell me what's wrong with it as a practical matter. Tell me what's wrong with it as a technical matter. Tell me how it won't work. If you can't and are thereby assured that it will work, then help lobby it as a separate thread, as a baby step. Help generate interest. It begins right here.

[rosesaylavee]

8. I guess I am naive enough

to think that if enough people get interested, it will work, that the information will be gathered and exposed. I did get the list from TBR. I am not clear why you think they are not sincere in their interest to disseminate the information. I don't their history - have they done something in the past that makes you feel they are not trustworthy? They just seemed like disillusioned republicans to me.

My take on why it is so hard to combat this admin's lies and tactics is that 'we the people' haven't had to do this before. I'm for getting this information out and organizing DU to get it done. It may help others here to have a task to do to funnel some of the random frenetic energy floating around here into a focused result.

Do you have any sources other than TBR to support that casualties aren't being fully reported?

[deepblue]

9. There's plenty.

Turning the question onto circulating around TBRs credibility in support of casualties not being reported is your creation. I am absolutely not referencing TBR as a source, that is clear. In relation to the supposed data you have received, is it useable in a court of law to obtain benefits for the family? Is it useable in a credible news piece? Does it name the names of casualties which are not in official records? Do these people reflected in the meaningless columns of numbers exist? Think about the usefulness of what you have received.

Please describe for the readers the document you have received, in actionful detail. Don't just characterize it in relation to your overall opinion of TBRNews. Tell us what you received. Tell us how it is useful, also.

What is here is methodology. The methodology can result in information useable in a court of law and supported news pieces. What I'd like is discussion of that methodology and possible outfalls if it were implemented. If you don't feel you understand the proposal, ask questions about my initial post. If you do understand the basic proposal, to be useful you do a great deal of thinking for yourself in relation to the implications of the methodology, and come up with concerns that reflect advanced thinking on the subject. In reaction to these concerns, I will respond to them the best I can. Methodology is action. Ideas simply exist to be bandied about in relation to meaning, which ends up blather. This is an action proposal with definite consequences if implemented, not an idea, and these consequences are not nearly limited to exposing casualties not reflected in public records. To be concretely useful, you lobby DU administrators for moving this post to a separete thread.

I have said I have personally heard several accounts of casualties not being reported. News items exist indicating this, presented as background to other news pieces, just as rendition to other countries for the purpose of torture was widely reported on background in the MSM. There was nothing new about concrete revelation of torture, the corporate controlled news media reflected it for a long time before Abu Graib photos came out. It was only consciously new. There are reasons for this preconditioning by media in relation to torture. Everybody knew what was happening to prisoners when they were sent to other countries using torture. It is no big mystery the US engages in torture when there aren't complications of evidence allowing perpetrators to get caught out. Hell, Rumsfeld and Gonzales codified it. You will have no difficulty ascertaining that casualties not dead at the scene are listed and accounted for separately in the context of official casualty reports. What is the purpose of this? What are the implications of this in cases where there aren't complications of evidence allowing perpetrators to get caught out lowballing US casualties? There is very little question that official Iraqi casualties are purposely lowballed by several hundred thousand. What is the purpose of this? Is it not the same purpose that would motivate lowballing US casualties, namely, diminution of empathy? Empathy, which is the natural enemy of illegal war? You must do a good deal of thinking yourself.

[demnan]

5. Form an Impeachment Committee in your Congressional District

Go to Democrats.com and find your Congressional District. If it already has a committee you can join and contact people there, if not, start a committee on your own.

Encourage like-minded people to join you, meet in a local coffee house. Gather petitions, schedule local protests, any activist activities you can think of. Call the local office of your Congressman and ask for an appointment. Be persistent in this. Tell your Congressman your concerns through mail, email and phone. Schedule a local peace vigil. Invite or join with a local peace church in peace activities. The Quakers, the Unitarians and the Church of the Brethern are good examples of peace churches. Also Buddists, various Catholic organizations and please contact the Atlanta area chapter for Veterans for Peace.

Good Luck!

I live in the D.C. area and have done these things, I also work full time. Remember you don't have to do it all. Connect with like-minded people and you all will benefit.

[NightWatcher]

10. Jack Kingston R (Ga) is my rep.

I think that I would be alone if I were to start a group w/in my district.

I live in one of the most backward assed areas of the planet. The weird thing is that we get weekly news bulletins about local soldiers that are killed and injured in this madman's war.

I wont be in Georgia long however, I have to make a change of some kind.

[LauritzTheAgitator]

11. Save this date: September 21

Iraq Moratorium Day. More info coming soon, within the next week to ten days.

[rhett o rick]

12. Some organization should prepare to mobilize the instant King George

invokes Directive 51 making him the official dictator of the us. There is no doubt in my mind that he will do this. The democratic party seems hapless in combating the King. We need to get an organization dedicated to mobilize for protests when King George tries for the big take over.