Fisk v. Friedman
Dear Friend,

There are no more excuses. Either we organize for change. Or we
don't. We have the technology. We have access to a flood of
information. Here's a case in point:

Let's say that you want to listen to a news show about the war in
Lebanon. In most areas of the United States, you can pick up
National Public Radio's Fresh Air with Terri Gross.

This week, Gross interviewed New York Times columnist Thomas
Friedman. Friedman has just returned from the Middle East.

"I don't care at the end of the day what Hezbollah says about
Israel. They can hate the Israelis and the Jews all they want,"
Friedman told Gross. "What really disgusts me and makes me
enormously angry is not what they do to the Israelis. It's what they
do to their own people. The future they have deprived their own
children of. The fact that they hate Israel more than they love
their own kids. That is such a travesty."

Gross then asked whether Friedman has agonized over the death of
innocents in Lebanon.

"Of course," Friedman said. "And this isn't some – I feel agonized
about all civilians. I lived in Beirut for five years... I was so
excited to go back and see the incredible amount of rebuilding that
had happened... I have a lot of friends there. Lebanon is where I
started my career. It breaks my heart to see this."

If so, why not save some "disgust" and "anger" for the illegal
collective destruction through mass bombing of Lebanese families,
their homes and critical public services – paid for in part by
American taxpayers?

So, you can listen to Gross interview Friedman, or you can change
the channel and listen to Amy Goodman interview the London
Independent's Robert Fisk.

Unlike Friedman, who now speaks to diplomats and world leaders, Fisk
goes to the scene of the various bloody fields and reports first
hand.

Fisk reported on last week's Israeli bombing massacre of more than
60 civilians – about half of them children – at Qana, Lebanon – a
city that saw an aerial massacre by Israel of 106 innocents in 1996.

The Israelis said they fired in the area because Hezbollah was
firing rockets from Qana – a claim residents of Qana disputed.

Here is what he told Amy Goodman just three days ago:

"It's quite clear from listening to the Israeli Defense Forces
statement today that they believe that family deserved to die,
because 90 feet away, they claim, a missile was fired. So they
sentenced all those people to death. Is that what we're supposed to
believe? I mean, presumably it is. I can't think of any other reason
why they should say, `Well, 30 meters away a missile was fired.'
Well, thanks very much. So those little children's corpses in their
plastic packages, all stuck together like giant candies today, this
is supposed to be quite normal, this is how war is to be waged by
the IDF."

"I got back from Tyre on a very dangerous overland journey on an
open road, which was under air attack, and I got back, and just
before the electricity was cut, I saw the BBC reporting what the
Israelis had said, but without questioning the morality that if
someone fires a missile near your home, therefore it is perfectly
okay for you to die."

So you have a choice – NPR's Terri Gross and the New York Times'
Thomas Friedman or Democracy Now's Amy Goodman and the London
Independent's Robert Fisk.

(Now, you might say – how am I supposed to listen to Democracy Now?
I can't get it on my radio dial. If you can't, you can get it on-
line. You can get almost every radio station on line. And soon the
same will be true for television. As it is now true for print.)

There is one answer to war: peace.

There is one answer to violence: non-violence.

There is one answer to the right-wing corporatist drift in our
country – organize.

Our children don't know that answer because we live in such a
militaristic culture that non-violence, peace and organizing have
been shut out. (One thing the children of the United States,
Lebanon, Israel and Palestine of a certain means have in common is
violent video games.)

But Americans can organize the people for settling conflicts through
peace and non-violence – an organizing strategy still in its
infancy – although it has worked well in South Africa, in the
Ukraine, in the Philippines – and earlier in India.

In the 1990s, a Palestinian-American, Mubarak Awad, started a center
for non violence in the West Bank. He imported the complete works of
Mahatma Gandhi – but the Israelis threw him out of the country for
advocating a non-violent revolution against the occupation.

Kids know more today about X-Box video games than they know about
Dorothy Day, Cesar Chavez, and Martin Luther King.

They know far more about war games and mayhem than they know about
Gandhi and Saul Alinsky.

To help turn this situation around, and as our enduring recognition
of your ongoing support, we offer you today three important books
for a contribution of $100 to help us pay down our dwindling
campaign expenses.

http://www.independencegear.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?
Screen=PROD&Product_Code=985&Category_Code=BKS

First, hot off the presses, Gandhi and Beyond: Nonviolence For an
Age of Terrorism by David Cortright (2006)

This is the long awaited introduction to the history of non-violence
resistance by Cortright, the former head of the largest peace
organization in the United States during the 1980s – SANE – and now
a professor at the Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace
Studies at the University of Notre Dame.

Second is a book about non violence for the younger generation – Non
Violence Explained to My Children by French scholar Jacques Semelin
(2002)

Semelin has been working on the issues of violence and non-violent
action for almost twenty years – and he's found that most of the
questions children ask about this subject deal with day-to-day life:
If someone hassles me, what should I do? How do I deal with bullies
at school? What about violent kids? This book is based on his
teenaged daughters' nearly seventy questions – and he gives answers
from an ethical and historical perspective.

And third, Robert Fisk's classic – Pity the Nation: The Abduction of
Lebanon (2002).

Abducted once, abducted once again. But maybe someday, we can learn
from history. If you know nothing about Israel's meddling with
Lebanon, start with this book.

Again, that's three cogent learned books – a special gift for young
and old alike – for a donation of $100 to our campaign. Please
consider giving a second set of these three books to friends in
need – of political insight.

Onward in peace.

Thank you again for your support.

Sincerely,

Ralph Nader and Peter Camejo

P.S. Please let your friends and family know about this
latest "bookshakes" offer by forwarding this letter to your e-mail
address book.

Paid for by Nader for President 2004 General Election Committee
Contributions are not tax-deductible.

Proceeds from this email will go toward Nader-Camejo 2004 campaign
expenses.

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Nader for President 2004
www.votenader.org
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USA