Oct 12, 2002

Back when the first Gulf War was being debated, I gave a speech at an anti-war rally in Charleston, Illinois. A university student interrupted to heckle. I stopped and looked at him: “You look like you could carry a gun. If you think this war is such a great idea, why don’t you sign up for it?” He didn’t have an answer. But it wasn’t merely a rhetorical question.

Nearly two months have passed since President Bush hosted an “economic summit” – a flop the People’s Weekly World headlined as “all show and no go.” As events have since shown, we may have understated the case:

“Wheel about, turn about Do jis so An’ ebery time I wheel about I jump Jim Crow!”

This little ditty was expropriated from a Black performer in the South by Daddy Rice, a white entertainer, in 1828. Performing in blackface and dressed in tattered clothes, Rice took this version of black man imitating the hifalutin ways of white folks, put it in his minstrel act, and made a fortune.

Bush the Younger needs some elementary grammar lessons. Words such as “may,” “possibly,” “could,” “might,” “suspect,” are all conditional words, indicating some uncertainty or lack of proof for whatever is being asserted. For example, when he says, “Iraq may have certain weapons of mass destruction,” that indicates a less than complete knowledge. It betrays a willingness to guess. Needless to say, guessing isn’t conviction.

Editor’s note: War Times Editor Bob Wing is making a first visit to occupied Palestine with Barbara Lubin of the Middle East Children’s Alliance. The following is excerpted from his eyewitness report of Oct. 5. For the full report go to www.war-times.org

WEST BANK, Palestine – Today is one of those precious few days that in Palestine are called “very quiet.” That means that, as of noon today, “only” two Palestinian teenagers were killed, one in Gaza and the other in Jenin camp.

BOSTON – Los trabajadores de limpieza en el área metropolitana de Boston entraron en la segunda semana de su huelga con una victoria. Seis compañías de limpieza rompieron con los Contratistas de Mantenimiento de Nueva Inglaterra y se pusieron de acuerdo con el sindicato de los huelguista y firmarán acuerdos interinos. Los Contratistas de Mantenimiento de Nueva Inglaterra es una asociación de 30 compañías de limpieza y con el cual está negociando la unión laboral.

More than 1.5 million Italians took to the streets of dozens of cities Oct. 5 to protest possible U.S. military action against Iraq – putting heavy pressure on the Italian government to re-think its support of the Bush war drive.

Special coverage of the Israel-Palestinian conflict will continue next week with on-the-scene reports from Judith Le Blanc. While attending the Communist Party of Israel’s Congress, Oct. 10-12, she will be tracking the crisis in the region in light of the Bush administration’s drive to go to war with Iraq.

The following are excerpts from remarks to a town hall meeting at the Wisconsin State Capitol on Sept. 30. Gilman, a highly decorated U.S. Army veteran, began his remarks by explaining his experiences in World War II, where he participated in the Allied offensive against Hitler two days before D-Day, and experienced first-hand the inhumanity of war.