Revolutionary Worker #1175, November 17, 2002, posted at http://rwor.org
When the American President stands in front of the world, waving this shameful UN resolution in one hand and the equally shameful congressional resolution in the other--and when he claims he has the mandate from the world's people to bomb and invade--the answer must be loud and clear: NO. NOT IN OUR NAME.
George W. Bush is the over-privileged son of the ruling class who got into power through family connections, election gridlock, vote fraud, and vampires on the Supreme Court. He has no legitimacy.
This recent election also gives him no legitimacy. Why do the 20,000 votes that tipped the Senate to the Republicans mean that the Pentagon may take over the world at gunpoint? If Dick Gephardt, Tom Daschle, Joe Lieberman, Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden shamelessly express various shades of support for attacking Iraq, and their divided, spineless party then goes down to defeat in the election--how exactly does that mean a mandate for war?
Where did anyone in this election get to vote on sending the Marines to Baghdad or for shredding the Bill of Rights?
The media babbled that this election had "no big issues"--while the raging global controversies over life and death were crudely kept out of this election.
And if, at the end, Bush's party got a new Republican senator from Missouri or Minnesota--how exactly does that mean that "the people" approve his ugly war?
And as for the UN--this diplomatic club serves the governments and ruling classes of the world not the people . These governments were bullied and bribed into backing the U.S. attack on Iraq--and there is nothing legitimate about any of it.
This coming attack on Iraq would still be unjust if the UN passes a hundred resolutions of support. The U.S. grab for world power is sinister--whether the Pentagon does it alone or with the support of a hundred allied governments.
If nothing else, this recent UN vote can have one positive impact: It can make clear to many more people that the United Nations Security Council will not stand in the way of the U.S. grab for world domination.
It is up to us, the people of the world, to stop them from imposing a locked-down McWorld of dollars and smart bombs on our future. And it is essential to "step outside" of the dominant institutions and normal procedures of the system, to break out of the terms and confines of the dominant political process, and to transform the political terrain through massive mobilizations in opposition to the whole direction the society, and the world is being taken.
Literally billions of people oppose U.S. domination and want a better world. The morning after this UN resolution, 400,000 people gathered from all over Europe, filling the streets of Florence, Italy, in a historic protest against this attack on Iraq, against globalization and against the U.S. grab for world power.
We need to mobilize our forces, find our voice, build our networks, spread our insights, share our courage, make our plans and seek out the ways to unite--in opposition to this monstrous juggernaut of war and repression.
Time is moving quickly. Troops are moving into place. Governments are being slapped into line. This is a time for resistance.
This article is posted in English and Spanish on Revolutionary Worker Online
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