I traveled to New York for the weekend to attend a gathering at the Brecht Forum of University of Wisconsin graduates who were students of Harvey Goldberg. There was an excellent but unsettling presentation on our involvement in Iraq.
There is no question about the sinister intentions of the Bush administration. The tragedy is that all of the evidence was available in 2003 for intelligent people to see the nature of our interest in Iraq, oil not humanitarian. Yet the American people and the Congress were bullied and intimidated into supporting this adventure.
Glenn Silber presented a few excerpts from the The War at Home.
It was great to see so many old classmates and catch up.
The next day I settled in to watch the Badgers play Michigan State in my hotel room. Impulsively, I changed my mind and headed to the Upper East Side. I had no problem finding the Mad River Bar and Grill. It was the saloon with the inflatable Bucky Badger on the sidewalk on Third Avenue. Once I was inside, I was back in Madison. No question about it.
There were a few others over the age of 40, but as I learned from the Badgers there, most of them attended the UW in the 1990's. They were a mixture of native New Yorkers, a few transplants, and more than several who grew up in Madison. It was fun, and I did not mind their innocent reminders as they told me their stories, that I was the same age as their parents. Go Bucky.
When commercials aired, rock from campus days was played with the entire patronage joining in. They sing pretty good.
I left with Wisconsin leading 34-24 and headed to Times Square to join a classmate to see Spring Awakening. Again, I was overpowered by the spirit of youth. If you missed the sweetness, the bitterness, and the exhilaration of growing up, you will be wasting your time. All others get in line to see this great award-winning play.
The play's value lies not only in its content and the quality of the production, but also how it was developed. The Atlantic Theater Company strives to open the world of the theater to creative people, with important stories to tell, who use their gifts, not gimmicks.
"There is no question about the sinister intentions of the Bush Administration. The tragedy is that all of the evidence was available in 2003 for intelligent people to see the nature of our interest in Iraq, oil not humanitarian. Yet the American people and the Congress were bullied and intimidated into supporting this adventure."
OK, now replace Iraq and 2003 above with Iran and 2007. Now that the U.S. Senate has voted to designate the Iranian Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist force (along the lines of Blackwater/Bilgewater USA) and Lee Bollinger went off the deep end at Columbia, much to the approval of the warmongers, can more shock and awe be far off?
Posted by: realist | September 30, 2007 at 10:14 AM
Read Stephen Zunes piece over at commondreams.org for how less of a threat the Iranian president actually is. For Bollinger to call the president of Iran a dictator was totally absurd. When you think of a "president" you think of a guy like Bush, who has an army, powers to intervene in people's lives, and the ability to profoundly influence the economy, etc. And Saddam was actually in control of a whole country. Ahminedejad controls very little in his country and while he does say some ridiculous things, his fear inducing statements have largely been mistranslated or exaggerated.
It is truly stunning how seriously the group running the country is taken by the mainstream media. Saddam was absolutely no threat to anyone at the time the U.S. illegally invaded, as Noam Chomsky has meticulously documented. And those who said he was a threat were wrong and should be denied a forum on mainstream media outlets. Now, they're sounding the alarm about a guy who has little power to do anything. They have proven themselves to have no credibility. Why should a professional news organization give them a forum? There are street corners for their kind of free speech.
Posted by: Brian | September 30, 2007 at 12:04 PM
Seymour Hersch has a frightening piece in the current New Yorker about our plans to start bombing Iran ASAP.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/10/08/071008fa_fact_hersh?printable=true
Unfortunately, Hersch was spot on about our plans with Iraq while Bush 7 Cronies were claiming "all options were on the table" and "no plans had been made to send troops into Iraq". We all know how that one worked out.
Mr. Soglin - I wish I had known you were in town yesterday - I popped over to Scruffy Duffy's to watch a little of the game, but had to get back to work. (you met me onstage at the WinterGarden last year - I'm a friend / coworker of Sherry's). Glad you liked Spring Awakening - it's a fun show.
I hope to meet and talk with you again sometime.
Posted by: ex-pat Cheesehead | September 30, 2007 at 03:39 PM
What is really scary about this push to bomb Iran is that the White House isn't going to be slowed down by politics. One key reason why the White House pushed for Iraq in 2002 was the desire to "do something big" and enhance the image of Bush as the heroic wartime president and the GOP as the faithful wartime political party.
The New Yorker article had this telling quote: At a White House meeting with Cheney this summer, according to a former senior intelligence official, it was agreed that, if limited strikes on Iran were carried out, the Administration could fend off criticism by arguing that they were a defensive action to save soldiers in Iraq. If Democrats objected, the Administration could say, “Bill Clinton did the same thing; he conducted limited strikes in Afghanistan, the Sudan, and in Baghdad to protect American lives.” The former intelligence official added, “There is a desperate effort by Cheney et al. to bring military action to Iran as soon as possible. Meanwhile, the politicians are saying, ‘You can’t do it, because every Republican is going to be defeated, and we’re only one fact from going over the cliff in Iraq.’ But Cheney doesn’t give a rat’s ass about the Republican worries, and neither does the President.”
Posted by: Tim Roth | September 30, 2007 at 10:08 PM
Yeah, the crowd at Mad River is pretty young. I went there last spring for one of the basketball tournament games. There was only one grad there older than I (class of 70). I think there were a couple of *parents* of UW students that may have been younger than I. But it was fun.
I can't quite agree with your take on Spring Awakening, though. Yes, there was plenty of youthful spirit. But I found the music uninspired and some of the performances sub-Broadway level--though that may have been due to having a number of understudies that evening.
Posted by: caprice | October 02, 2007 at 11:50 AM