Using Technology to Deepen Democracy, Using Democracy to Ensure Technology Benefits Us All

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

MundiMuster! Support and Protect Shoe Hurling Iraqi Journalist Muntadar al-Zaidi

[via COPEPINK]
Sign-up [via the link] to support Muntadar al-Zaidi! Your signatures will be delivered to the Iraqi Embassy this week!

We, the undersigned, understand and sympathize with the sentiment expressed in the action of Iraqi journalist Muntadar al-Zaidi, who hurled his shoes at President Bush, shouting, "This is for the widows and orphans and all those killed in Iraq." We, too, feel for the widows and orphans and all those killed in Iraq, thanks to the policies of the Bush administration.

It's outrageous that al-Zaidi could get two years in prison for insulting George Bush, who is directly responsible for the deaths of 1.5 million Iraqis and 4,200 U.S. troops, and for the displacement of 5 million Iraqis. The one who should be in jail is Bush, not Muntadar al-Zaidi.

We call on the Iraqi government to immediately release al-Zaidi without charges.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm not so sure about this. Isn't it kind of important to make sure people aren't getting up and throwing things at public speakers? What if it had been a grenade?

What exactly are the charges? Is he actually in trouble for saying in Iraq what we all know in North America, or is it more of a "don't look like you're attempting to assassinate a world leader" thing?

Dale Carrico said...

What if it had been a grenade?

You mean like the munitions we actually did drop killing thousands of innocent Iraqis in an immoral illegal catastrophic war of choice cheerlead by the man at whom the shoe was tossed?

Were nonlethal pies and shoes and shit sandwiches to be hurled at this lying warcriminal motherfucker every day for the rest of his miserable life it would be quite fine with me.

And if what is wanted here is to stand on principle (yes, we can all agree that assassination is wrong and I refuse to take seriously the suggestion that anything about my position would be construed as suggesting otherwise to anybody without a highly questionable ideological axe to grind), I do think the thing for the preincipled to be making sure of in this case is that this man is not being tortured or killed or shunted off into some deep hole for having the temerity to register in a public way "what we all know in North America" already.

This last, by the way, is a claim I do not know that I agree with you about, because like any good pragmatist I cannot feel sure that one can properly be said to "know" a thing until one's conduct reflects that knowing in a meaningful way, something I scarcely see evidence of given the amount of money, death-dealing, and rationalization still flushing our appalling war machineries as though everybody in North America actually "knows" something altogether different from what they claim to know -- namely, that the war and occupation is and always has been illegal, immoral, devastating to all but a few warprofiteers, based on lies, and productive of mostly the opposite effects to the ones on the basis of which it was and is promoted by moneyed elites. If everybody really knows this, then why on earth are we acting the way we do?

Anonymous said...

Shit, nobody appreciates a good pie-ing of a public figure like I do, especially if it's George F. Bush; I see your point, though.

As important as it is to take seriously the threat of assassination (especially of a person like George F. Bush), I doubt many eyebrows would rise in surprise to learn that this guy had been shipped off and shot or shanked or tortured for some length of time just in case he might know how to find al-Qaeda's secret volcano lair. Mr. None-Too-Soon-to-be-Ex-President and his posse are still a greater threat to Muntadhar al-Zaidi than any number of pissed off Iraqis ever will be vice versa.

Besides, people are good at lying to themselves. I'm afraid I might asphyxiate myself if I hear yet another rendition of that "but if we pull out there'll be a power vacuum" shtick. Unfortunately I suspect I'll be made a liar on this point soon enough.