Entries this day: AM Class HWG_individual_meetings Hokkaid'oh Iraq_lecture Niveen

AM

7:48am AZOST Wednesday 13 July 2005

This morning has arrived earlier than I wanted, but I still got up in time for breakfast. Nicole got me with the eye-tag game in the cafeteria. I pretended to drop my water with a long step toward the ground as my punishment.

Sometimes I eye-block her but she seems to react as if I eye-tagged her.

7:58am AZOST Wednesday 13 July 2005

Heh. I almost stepped out of my room with toothpaste tube stickin out of my pocket.

Class

12:25pm AZOST Wednesday 13 July 2005

I have 25 minutes until I need to meet Happy Wonderful Girls 15 minutes each individually. Our lesson was much better today than yesterday. Now it's only been half the cruise, but hopefully I have a better sense of what they want. We went up onto top deck and practiced "it looks like" and "it sounds like" and "it seems like"

After class I ran down and did the Super Beginner and Beginner lesson. I worked on Responding to Good News and Responding to Bad News.

Hitomi just brought a recently washed Francois back to me.

HWG individual meetings

2pm AZOST Wednesday 13 July 2005

Oh man. Yuko was like, "what do you think me?" after about a five minute pause to think of a question. I responded like, "I think you are too shy and you will not learn unless you try." I tried to be firm but gentle. She cried for a full 35 minutes, fortunately the next 15 minute timeslot was unallocated (only 5 girls showed up today, though there are seven in the class, so I allocated six timeslots). I told her, "it looks like you're sad. So I think you *want* to speak English. I know you can do it." She was still crying when the next HWG showed up (Mariko). Mariko talked to Yuko, but later told me that she, too, didn't know why Yuko was crying.

3:30pm AZOST Wednesday 13 July 2005

I'm here for English cafe. Kris came to say HI; she has a Japanese lesson, it seems.

Hokkaid'oh

16:02pm AZOST Wednesday 13 July 2005

I am about to attend my first non-teaching event today. (not including taking a whiz)

I am in the Broadway Lounge now, where I planned to see Ann Sinclair's lecture on the history of jazz / blues / music. But, had I checked the schedule, I may have learned before too late that this lecture is about the culture of Ainu: an indigenous people in Hokkaido, the north island of Japan.

Fuck. This is not quite as understandable nor interesting as I had hoped.

He told us parents of newborns would not name the babies until about age 3, but instead refer to them as a sack of shit or pile of poo, etc, so that the gods would not be interested in taking the child.

But once a (male) baby had a name, it was remembered for five generations so the gods would recognize them. Recognize us by dropping names or recognize them by having heard their names?

I am on the front row so I'm not going to jet out of here, but damn this is not money for me.

Iraq lecture

10:30pm AZOST Wednesday 13 July 2005

Just attended Erik's second Iraq lecture. Awesome.

Afterward, He told us about a march in Washington in late September, and I was like, "I'm there, dude."

Pb - Lecture 2
The U.S. Peace Movement

Thank you all for coming tonight. We had a lecture yesterday about the Iraq War and it focused on the situation in Iraq and some possible solutions. But it is clear that with the Bush administration that the war and occupation will not end any time soon. So, it is our job to mobilize the peace movement to help create public pressure both in the U.S. (which is my job) and abroad (which is your job) to stop the war.

Background

Before going into the background and current status of the peace movement in the United States, I want to give a bit of an introduction of the NGO I work for because our history is so closely linked with the U.S. peace movement.

IPS' background:

The Institute for Policy Studies was founded in the late 1960s by two members of the Kennedy Administration who objected to war in Vietnam. While organizing against the Vietnam was the first activity of the Institute, throughout the last four decades my organization has been involved in every major movement including the civil rights movement, women's rights, anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, opposing the wars in Central America, and more recently we were at the forefront of the anti-globalization movement, and today, Iraq. Our office's mission is to linking scholarly research with activism. This allows us to help educate the peace movement and for us to help guide the peace movement to influence policy.

Short History of the US Anti-war Movement:

Pictures from the anti-war movement during Vietnam were shown in the film the other night about the disintegration of Yugoslavia. It was a very vibrant movement. Culture was influenced by anti-war songs and movies and they were prevalent in U.S. society. They helped create a strong and powerful movement. But even during this time the movement was made up of many different movements, each with their own tactics and strategies. After the Vietnam war the movement fragmented - in to small single issue sectors, each following their own agenda. We became a bunch of smaller movements--none with enough political power to substantially change US policies. And shortly before the Iraq War there was not a strong anti-war movement that existed. It had to be newly created.

This is why using the term "peace movement" in the U.S. is difficult as we have a lot of smaller movements that are all concerned about their single issue.

So this talk will focus more on the anti-war movement and I'll say a few words later about the work that is being done to broaden the anti-war movement to become a peace movement.

Run Up to War

Unlike the war in Afghanistan where few people were in opposition, many citizens opposed the war in Iraq. Why not opposition to war in Afghanistan? Americans suffered from shock of the loss of the trade towers. It directly impacted so many people. I lost a childhood friend in the attacks, and was lucky enough to have a family friend in the 2nd tower escape unharmed. My office is located one block away from the White House where we would have been harmed had the 4th airplane made it to the White House, and from our office we could see the Pentagon on fire. But while some of us were able to use logic and reason after these attacks, most Americans were paralyzed by fear.

But in the aftermath of 9-11 and even while we were opposing the war in Afghanistan, we paid close attention to what the Bush administration was saying about Iraq and by early 2002 we knew we needed to start organizing to try to stop the Iraq war. A new formation of the anti-war movement began. And my organization helped start the largest anti-war group, United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ), based in NYC, which has more than 1,000 member organizations. At the same time two other anti-war coalitions began. Each represents different segments of the anti-war movement ranging from the left to the far left but all operate with the same goal - stopping the Iraq war. And there is loose coordination between all of the groups.

Before war started the groups largely focused on pressuring the President and conducting education campaigns aimed at the broad American public. And there were several large protests which brought all three anti-war coalitions together in the run up to war.

The anti-war movement also contained a strategy to engage Congress. The work was very successful. Public calls to members of Congress were 10-1 against the war. But Congress did not listen - nor did they have to - no one who voted for the war was voted out of office because they did so. And so the President obtained authorization to go to war.

Finally the anti-war movement focused on the UN as the last hope. And while the UN did not give the U.S. legal authority to go to war, it did not challenge the invasion.

Finally, we joined the rest of the world in opposition to the war marching in the streets of New York City in February 2003. The New York Times newspaper - one of the most influential papers in the United States - dubbed the protests around the world as, "The Other Superpower." A superpower of global public opinion. But even being a superpower we were not strong enough to stop President Bush.

Start of War

The start of the war had a chilling effect on the U.S. anti-war movement. People were torn between wanting to "support the troops" and wanting to bring them home. Initially the war seemed to be over quickly and with the President declaring "mission accomplished" on the deck of an aircraft carrier a month after battle begun, the anti-war movement had little momentum.

My organization working in partnership with other organizations both in the U.S. and across the world helped found an NGO in Iraq called Iraq Occupation Watch. This was an effort to use a valuable strategy from the wars in Central America in the 1980s and 1990s. Where people in the States visited Central American fighters and people from Central America came to the U.S. to explain the situation there. It was a powerful and effective tool for educating the U.S. public and policymakers. But it was a difficult model to follow in Iraq as NGOs in Iraq didn't exist and it was difficult to establish lines of trust. Also, those opposed to our work were able to use fear to their advantage by accusing the Iraqis we were working with of being Baathists. This had a chilling effect in both the U.S. - with foundations funding our work unwilling to provide additional money - and in Iraq, where these people became targets of violence and locals would not cooperate with them. Eventually the center closed.

Just as the start of war hampered the anti-war movement, so too did it keep members of Congress from speaking out against it. Congress passed two immense packages of money shortly after the war - totaling 125 billion dollars with very little dissent.

Shortly thereafter, President Bush claimed that power was being transferred in Iraq and large segments of the public believed it. The anti-war movement was perhaps at its weakest point since the war began.

Where We Are Now?

But as many of us predicted before war even began, the situation in Iraq got worse for both Iraqis and U.S. soldiers. More Americans started dying. And this sadly, gave new life to the anti-war movement. But progress hasn't been steady - instead it has flowed and ebbed much like a wave at the beach. And progress has varied as events in Iraq have changed.

       -Battle in Fallujah: lots of US casualties, more dissent 
       -Iraq Elections: seen as a success, more supported Bush
       -Recent offensive: car bombings - now public opinion is the strongest against Bush

60% of public now thinks the war is going badly but yet only 25 percent favor immediate withdrawal. So our job in the anti-war movement is to convince the remainder of those who think the war is going badly that we have a sensible plan to reduce danger to Iraqis while brining the troops home. And this message was part of my speech yesterday.

Just as public opinion is beginning to change, so are members of Congress. They are becoming more willing to challenge the President, and right before I left to get on the Pb I was involved in drafting new legislation that includes both Republicans and Democrats calling for the President to begin withdrawing troops next year. This leadership by a few courageous members of Congress is giving new life to the anti-war movement.

And at the forefront of the movement are the soldiers who are returning from Iraq and the family members who have loved ones in Iraq. And sadly there is a growing organization of families who have sons, daughters, husbands and mothers, brothers and sisters die in the war.

So as the movement gathers strength what Will be Next?

The movement has three principle tasks ahead:

Activities aimed at showing the strength of the anti-war movement

* September march/demo in NYC around the opening of the UN.
* September demonstration in DC aimed at the end of the congressional
* session. Lobbying component, direct action component.

Activities aimed at broadening the anti-war movement

breaking down the racial gap
the importance of liberal churches who have become strong advocates in the U.S. in the campaign to eliminate global debt
finding new messages that reach the broad public - thinking in terms like businesses
Resurgence of teach-ins - a form of public education where all day lectures are given. We celebrated the 40th anniversary of the very first teach-in in the U.S. which focused on the Vietnam War this past March. And I'm proud to say that my organization had people speak at the first teach-in and we continue this type of public education 40 years later.
And we continue to engage the media - both mainstream and progressive media to try to reach people who haven't heard our messages.

Activities aimed at building the peace movement

As I mentioned earlier, there is a huge task ahead of bringing together the fractured movements. This started to happen around the last Presidential elections. Groups representing labor, the environment, anti-globalization, and anti-war movements shared membership lists, jointly coordinated voter registration, some worked together on paid advertisements and TV ads.

This work will continue and I'm sure we'll see the peace movement focusing on electing peace candidates in local city, state, and congress elections.

Foundations are supporting these efforts but we still see collaboration difficult. NGOs want to guard their work, worried about future funding, as well as different work styles between organizations make this difficult for us in the US.

It will be a difficult struggle but an important one. We've seen what has happened in the U.S. with a divided movement - our only hope is to unite as one to confront the dangerous direction the U.S. is leading the world.

Conclusion

I'm going to return now to the Vietnam War movement. The peace movement really started becoming strong in 1967. But the War did not end in 1967. It took a decade for the U.S. to bring the troops home. We are now 2 and a half years into the Iraq War and we have the history and still many of the leaders of the anti-Vietnam war as leaders and members of the anti-Iraq war movement. I don't think it will take us 10 years but I know it is going to take all of us, working as hard as we possibly can to stop the war sooner rather than later. Being here with all of you I gain great encouragement with your commitment to peace and I know we will succeed. Thank you.

Niveen

12:41am GST Thursday 14 July 2005

I just talked to Niveen for about 2 or 3 hours; she wants to continue being active, and her parents want her to settle down. Tough gig.