On October 6, I told you Stormy and I operated a chat room for five days and nights named "Stop The Iran War." I told you about a visitor who promised to take the discussion of how influential members of our military opposed attacking Iran to the Dutch press.
Yesterday, Spiegel Online published an interview with Gabriel Kolko, a prominent, Amsterdam-based historian citing the very information I provided that chat room visitor. I won't excerpt the article. He discussed the global economy, oil supply and balance of power, all of which we touched upon in the chat room conversation. I told her it was very important for a discussion to happen around the world because (1) people should know there are many in the United States who oppose the war and (2) it could stop this developing catastrophe, which has the potential of producing global economic collapse and a tactical nuclear exchange.
She didn't mention Mr. Kolko or identify herself, so I don't know that the interview and article are a result of our conversation. But, she told me that our talking was "no coincidence," and, after reading the article several times, I am certain the two events are directly related.
I'm sure the remarks in the article come as a big surprise to many people in Europe and everywhere else, and they portray America in a far more favorable light than Bush and Cheney wish. I told this girl the world should know that in my traveling some two million miles in this country, I'd run across enlightened individuals; although a small percentage, they are many in number. I said you can spot them a half block away, because there is light in their eyes.
Recently I've seen a great many people comment on news sites and blogs that they suffer from protest weariness—and some say their focus now is to move out of the United States. Certainly the oppressive despotism foisted on our fair country by a radical, conservative Supreme Court and executive branch comprised of back-alley charlatans who have not held their duty duly before them gives attentive, compassionate individuals cause to feel discouraged. But I'm telling you, don't give up. To the vigilant go the spoils. This blog gets practically no comments, and at a glance you'd think no one reads it. But, people do read it, and it helps provide push—some days a little, other days a lot.
I don't get an award, I don't get paid, I don't get recognition—and I don't want those things. I want real freedom, peace and prosperity. I'm an old man, and I know how it goes. I make very few predictions, in that it's risky business and I'm no soothsayer—but I'll make one now, one you'll see come true. The justice we've waited for and been so long denied grinds slowly yet surely, and is coming this way for the Bush administration. It's going to be sweet, sweet. Would you miss it, even for all the money in the world? I wouldn't.
I'll tell you something else that isn't a prediction, but a fact of history. One person can change the whole world. It's Admiral Fallon, Lt. Gen. Williams, Dana Priest. It's Glenn Greenwald, it's a girl in a chat room, it's you and it's me. Don't ever think that's not so! The New York Sun reported we would get news of a U.S. preemptive strike on Iran October 15. Instead, we got an international discussion of the folly of such a war and how responsible Americans oppose it. I think that's pretty damn good. One person can change the world. In fact, that's the only way it was ever changed.
