Harvey Wasserman - Dewey Square Says HELL NO! to an Attack on Iran

by Harvey Wasserman, host of GREEN POWER on PRN, debuting Tuesday, Nov 29 at 2pm ET.

The wall-to-wall tents at Dewey Square make a bright, brilliant statement against the idea of yet another useless imperial war.  Defying all odds, Occupy Boston has sustained its place in the sun.  And with it comes the unmistakeable message that the 1% is dead wrong to think it can count on a free pass to attack Iran.

On a bright, sunny Sunday, for a full 90 minutes prior to the coming of the great Peter Tosh, the Occupy Movement, Boston Branch, made it clear that this spontaneous global grassroots uprising has come to be in the knick of time. 

Among the many things this movement knows, there is one above all:  War is the health of the corporate state. The 1% needs its endless cash flow to stay in power. 

As the slaughters in Iraq and Afghanistan transform into something less visible, the 1% war machine must have a new profit center. The pretext for this latest war is the spectre of a nuclear-armed Iran. It's a tawdry re-run of the lies George W. Bush used to sell the 2003 attack on Iraq. It's no surprise those "Weapons of Mass Destruction" were never found---or that Bush could later joke about it. 

The hypocrisy of the 1% railing against bombs allegedly flowing from Iran's "Peaceful Atom" program comes in unholy tandem with the corporate push for a "nuclear renaissance" peddling these same reactors all over the world. (It helps to remember that the nuclear industry once tried to sell 36 "peaceful" reactors to the Shah). 

STOPPING THE ATTACK ON IRAN IS ABSOLUTELY VITAL TO OUR HOPES FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE AND DEMOCRACY. THE OCCUPY MOVEMENT HOLDS THE KEY. 

The slaughter in Iraq and Afghanistan has been horrific, but pales beside the bloodshed that could come next. Iran is a far more advanced country, with 76 million people. It's powerful, diverse and sophisticated, with significant ties to Russia, China, India and throughout the mideast. In the 1980s it fought a land war with Iraq that killed a million people. Does the 1% expect us to embrace a re-run? 

It's up to our newly energized grassroots movement to stop this madness before it happens. 

Remember that peace movements have been critical in shaping the course of history. For example, Richard Nixon's "secret plan" to beat Southeast Asia into submission included the use of nuclear weapons. But he refrained, in part because of his well-justified fear of a national upheaval. 

Global demonstrations failed to stop George W. Bush from attacking Iraq. Today the GOP wannabes are AGAIN howling for war. There are certainly advisors within the Obama Administration arguing---as they did for Bush in 2003---that an on-going war might be a ticket to re-election. 

We must find non-violent ways to stop this war in Iran. Old tactics and new---time-tested strategies and ones not yet imagined---will surface and resurface in the coming months. The de facto universities, debating societies, strategizing collectives, and action groups that help define the Occupy Movement will give birth to a new generation's means of making social change. If we work hard enough at it, one or more of them will hold the key to our future. Somewhere, somehow, the means for stopping the next war must emerge. 

The truly great news is that we are all now party to every organizer's dream: a spontaneous eruption of the global dispossessed. It is a thoughtful, sophisticated, diverse, energized populace, ready to change the world---and compelled to find the non-violent means for doing it. 

Step one is to cut off the endless military spending that is the lifeblood of the 1%, and to begin starving out the warfare state. 

It's the only way to a world built on social justice and ecological survival. 

So let's find that fork in the road... and take it!!! SEE YOU IN THE STREETS! 

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Harvey Wasserman's SOLARTOPIA! OUR GREEN-POWERED EARTH is at www.harveywasserman.com, along with his HISTORY OF THE US.  Check the Occupy Network for his talk at Dewey Square, and be sure to tune in for his brand new show on PRN: Green Power and Wellness