From: Hubert Mania (humania@t-online.de)
Date: Tue Nov 26 2002 - 14:20:56 MST
The German newsmagazine "Der Spiegel" - www.spiegel.de sent a reporter to
New York to interview some US celebrities who engage in the small but fine
Peace Movement. He talked to Al Pacino, the son of Martin Luther
King, Patty Smith, Oliver Stone, Noam Chomsky et al. who feel they have to
do "something" to express their worries about the political course of the
US Government. I thought, the article might inspire some of the more
critical persons on the list and might give you the feeling you are not
alone.
There is country singer Steve Earle. He wrote a song about John Walker
Lindh, who got caught by US soldiers with the Taliban in Afghanistan and was
sentenced to 20 years of jail this October. Jay Leno and David Letterman
have cancelled Earle's appearance on their shows. No radio station plays his
song which tries to understand a boy who was on a spiritual quest, trying to
find himself.
Al Pacino deliberately acts in the play "Arturo Ui" by Bertolt Brecht which
is a disguised name for Adolf Hitler and shows his rise to power.Pacino
makes clear that Nazi-Germany is not the *only* possible analogy to Arturo
Ui. And to emphazise his stance, that he wants to warn about the American
Government, he projects the US Constitution at the stage wall.
Patty Smith got a reception by Germanys Bundeskanzler Schroeder on her
concert tour through Germany this summer. She says she admires him for
standing up against a war on Iraq.
Martin Luther King III:
"My father said in 1968: 'The bombs we throw on Vietnam will one day explode
back home.' This was true then and it still is true, when we talk about the
war on Iraq. You harvest what you sow."
Oliver Stone:
"This all reminds me of Germany in the 1930s, the same paranoia, and just
like then, anger is an argument again. The Americans are angry because they
have lost 3000 people in World Trade Center. The media and the politicians
don't want a discussion, they want this anger. But if you imagine Bush with
a small beard, he would look like Hitler. I know, I should not say that in a
German magazine. But as a movie director I know: He could play Hitler."
Noam Chomsky (talking every night in front of several thousand people):
"There is this need for information and clarification. People don't want to
be put up with things any more. These demonstrations are unprecedented,
because they take place *before* the war has started. But the movement is
not connected. The country is so huge. People are frightened because
everybody thinks she is alone."
Join the American Peace Movement:
The Pledge of Resistance
Not in our name
will you wage endless war
there can be no more deaths
no more transfusions
of blood for oil
Not in our name
will you invade countries
bomb civilians, kill more children
letting history take its course
over the graves of the nameless
Not in our name
will you erode the very freedoms
you have claimed to fight for
Not by our hands
will we supply weapons and funding
for the annihilation of families
on foreign soil
Not by our mouths
will we let fear silence us
Not by our hearts
will we allow whole peoples
or countries to be deemed evil
Not by our will
and Not in our name
We pledge resistance
We pledge alliance with those
who have come under attack
for voicing opposition to the war
or for their religion or ethnicity
We pledge to make common cause
with the people of the world
to bring about justice,
freedom and peace
Another world is possible
and we pledge to make it real.
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