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For information about upcoming peace & antiwar events see the LMNOP calendar at http://lmno4p.org/calendar.htm ------------------------------------------ http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2002/10/12/DD16412.DTL ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Saturday, October 12, 2002 (SF Chronicle) Writers take bites out of war David Kipen Writers become writers, at least in part, to make the world shut up and listen. Lately, though, at a time when we may need writers' voices most, it's diplomats and politicians who have monopolized the world's attention. Consequently, sound bites get a bad rap for their brevity, when in fact it's their frequent witlessness that debases them. But in the mouths of people who know how to put a paragraph together, brevity by no means precludes wisdom and may even encourage it. With that in mind, here are some initial random "war chestnuts" from writers around town -- either local or just passing through -- who haven't ducked some form of the question Michael Krasny put to novelist Salman Rushdie at a recent City Arts & Lectures event. The question went, "What are your feelings about the United States pre-emptively striking Iraq or beginning a war with Saddam Hussein?" The answers follow. Rushdie, as transcribed by Erika Sloan: "The short answer is, I'm sort of not for it. But the longer answer is sort of more complicated, because I don't think that Saddam Hussein is OK. I don't think he is someone one can ignore, and I think he probably is seriously trying to procure the material with which to make nuclear weapons. And there is more and more evidence that that is so. What I worry about is, well, that I think that even the United States, with all its power, cannot afford to be completely isolated in the world. The world is just too interdependent a place, and I think it's not good for America to put itself in a position where everybody, including America's natural allies, are against the American position. That just doesn't help anybody. . . . "I think if somebody were to overthrow Saddam Hussein tomorrow, I wouldn't shed a tear. I don't think any of the heads of government in the region would shed a tear either. They all can't stand him. But for America to do it like this, unilaterally, and . . . for the United States to take on the position that it reserves the right to pre-emptively strike any power in the world if it believes that that power may one day do something they don't like, well, that won't do. That won't do." Poet, publisher and bookseller Lawrence Ferlinghetti: "Attacking Iraq unilaterally amounts to a total annihilation of everything the United Nations stands for, and it will set a precedent allowing one country in the world to attack any other country they don't like. Our spineless senators and representatives should be ashamed of themselves." Anne Lamott, on a recent broadcast of "West Coast Live": "Just to be political for one tiny, tiny, tiny second, what do you do in the face of this juggernaut that's going to take us to war in Iraq? Which is not going to be a video game but is going to involve very, very young people, our nieces and nephews of 18 or 19, dying in indescribably horrific ways, and then half of them coming back addicted? What do you do? It's all hopeless. I basically wake up and my addiction and my pessimism have already gotten up and had a couple cups of coffee and they want to talk about how poorly things are going already, and how we're behind, and how it's all hopeless, and how it's all over for England. "And so what do you do in the face of that? You do something. You start anywhere. You do it poorly. You send someone money. You send Paul Wellstone $25. You send Doctors Without Borders $25. You send one e-mail. You call the phone line to the White House and you say, 'Not in my name.' You know? You do one thing every day." ____________________________________________ E-mail David Kipen at [EMAIL PROTECTED] -------------------------------------------- Copyright 2002 SF Chronicle http://www.sfgate.com __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Faith Hill - Exclusive Performances, Videos & More http://faith.yahoo.com --------------------------- ANTI-NATO INFORMATION LIST ==^================================================================ This email was sent to: archive@jab.org EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84x2u.bacIlu Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^================================================================
