university anti-retaliation movements

[jack stroube]

ladies and gents,

it is time to put our money where our mouth is.

The upcoming UNI collegiate debate tournament will be a waste of time if 
concerned student radicals from across the country are not planning a mass 
rebellion against the forthcoming military maneuvers in conjunction with 
other activist groups.

it is time to take over campus buildings.  the harvard students and staff 
protesting subcontracted employee wages last spring is the coming trend.  
the emerging levels of militarization believed to be justified by the 
attacks on the WTC and the Pentagon will place even more "innocent American 
civilian" lives in jeopardy.  we can no longer go along with the television 
or we will fast approach apocalyptic scenarios.   experts have produced 
disaster upon disaster.  the "peace process" has predictably blown up in our 
faces.  we must take back decisionmaking from the technocratic elite.

a series of campus building takeovers inspired by debate students is fully 
in reach.  edebate and other email networks can facilitate national support 
for each site pressuring admin through various forms of electronic 
resistance from email, and fax to pirate radio attacks.  we and other 
activist groups including the national lawyer's guild can breach the new 
"civil liberties paradigm" of blatant fascism currently being implemented.  
manuals are being constructed for those unexperienced in these types of free 
speech activities.

drastic measures are needed.  many of us have never seen nationalism this 
high.  lyrical indignation at debate tournaments and other campus 
discussions is an insufficient response to what is happening.

many are saying that Osama Bin Laden has set the "anti-globalization 
movements" back.  i contend that something else is now required of us.  the 
immediate danger is not global trade and finance agreements that widen the 
rich-poor gap and obfuscate labor exploitation.  right now, we must use the 
democratic ideals supposedly on which the rising nationalism rests to 
restrain military aggression.

military "solutions" will fail.  Osama Bin Laden has in off-shore accounts 
the worth of $300 billion in value in outside the United States.  the 
bolt-cutters, box-cutters or whatever they were were a slap in the face of 
leaky security systems.  Bin Laden's forces deployed simple weapons when 
they have at their disposal higher grade artillery permeable to current 
security.  the ceramic glock and ceramic knives are undetectable by metal 
detectors and would still get through under the new regulations.  not to 
mention, that Bin Laden's network has their own planes and do not even need 
to hijack to create suicide bombs from private airports.  supposedly, the 
capability of the network to inflict harm is beyond repair at this point 
including biological weapons if not nuclear devices.  they have a rhizomatic 
structure of cellular groups in many nations and use anonymity to shield 
themselves from surveillance.  the legions are in the thousands and have 
been trained for a decade.  Osama Bin Laden was trained by the CIA and is 
turning those tactics back on the United States.  Osama Bin Laden proves 
that the CIA and its secret operations are a liability to American citizens.

even if Bin Laden can be found or killed, the organization he has built will 
survive.  bombing Afghanistan and killing people unrelated to Osama Bin 
Laden's activities will do nothing but feed the cycle of violence and 
reinforce stubborn nationalism and arrogant ignorance.  it would be better 
to analyze his political agenda and drastically reduce american military 
presence in the Gulf region and cease unconditional support of Israeli 
colonialism.

this is the war that can not be won.

it is time to reassess our foreign policy and acknowledge its stark failure. 
  persisting along the course proposed by government, policy experts and the 
media will lead to greater and greater disasters.

the poverty of the media and its control of public opinion require strident 
activism.  lyrical indignation at debate tournaments will not send the 
needed signals to the larger public.  universities traditionally are places 
where the free and open discussion can be forced to have some value.  the 
berkeley free speech movement of 1964 is an apt example to study in 
preparation for what is required of us.  vietnam proved that universities 
are the weak link of imperialism.  time to make hell for the minions again. 
our voice is not allowed in the media so therefore we must make it heard by 
any means necessary.

the domestic resistance to the iraqi sanctions and the wars that accompanied 
them as well as the bombing of kosovo and serbia have not yet been able to 
reverse american military projection.  it is time for the situation to 
change.  the lack of numbers we have in opposition can be compensated for by 
serious and strategic tactics.

attack

ps this message primarily aimed to the edebate list-serv for the collegiate 
debate community has been copied to edward said and the al-awda right of 
return list-serv as well as copied to noam chomsky on his list-serv.  any 
thoughts from outside the official boundaries of academic tournament debate 
would be helpful in creating a broad anti-retaliation coalition on college 
campuses.

please forward this plea to any group or individual potentially interested 
in participating in this coalition.

thanks again


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