People please come prepared to the Darfur round table discussion tomorrow night. The in-house event at the PPJPC is intended to bridge a perceived divide that our organization may be telegraphing regarding non endorsement of the Save Darfur organization and other like efforts. Is the PPJPC for western intervention in Sudan or against, military and/or economic?
I’m hoping a moderator will be able to preempt filibusters by spirited missionaries intent on witnessing with descriptions of Janjaweed atrocities until the rest acquiesce in submission.
Come prepared to be informed, but please do the background research. The discussion time will be limited and will be quite ill-served, I think, with a chorus responding “I didn’t know snake oil was both TASTY and LESS FILLING.”
If you can read about the Darfur Crisis, you can read why it is also considered the Darfur Controversy.
Yes, it was a round and round discussion as all 7 of us local yokels sat in judgment of the Sudanese government. Nothing was much accomplished at all, as 1 of us definitely wanted economic warfare by the US government and US corporations against the Sudanese, I didn’t, and the others hymned and hawed with an intent at ‘finding common ground’ between the 2 of us.
Since I thought the focus should be on getting the US out of African affairs altogether, I was told that that was not the theme of tonights discussion, but only focusing, focusing, focusing on Darfur is. This is getting to be a mantra at these Darfur things, it seems. Focus on Darfur, Focus on Darfur, Focus on Darfur. Pay no attention to the magician behind the curtain, Dorothy. It is only Uncle Sam.
A sad way to spend a night with people who seem determined to add their voices in some way or another to the campaign to blame Chinese and Arabs for all that is evil. And then what? Well maybe to go to war…. to save save save …the people of the moment? Bombs away! It’s Americans united to save the Fur!
“Thinking back through the fog of cable news, some may recall General Wesley Clark’s little revelation on p130 of his tome Winning Modern Wars that on a chummy trip to the Pentagon, the looming attack on Iraq was presented to him as part of a five year plan to control seven nations — Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Iran, Somalia and (altogether now) Sudan.”
http://tinyurl.com/2seu65
At our little meeting of 7 last night to decide the fate of the Sudanese people I mentioned the size of Sudan (it is as large as all of Westerrn Europe) and that it was insanity to be melding our voices with those of the governments and corporations of the US, Britain, and France in ‘urging that we do something’ to intervene in that country’s affairs. How the hell do we get off in thinking that we should be meddling in with our 4ever so beautiful love, peace, and goodwill there? And why should be highlighting Darfur, Sudan instead of trying to get our country to butt out of Africa entirely?
The others resisted discussing Africa as a whole and US interventionism there, saying that they were there at there little get together only to be talking up ‘Darfur’, which quite frankly they know not a farthing about. They showed little concern that the US is causing chaos to spread throughout Africa and there was not a word of backup to my urgings that we make Africa as a whole the centerpiece of any ‘manifestos’ we were to litigate among ourselves.
What the gang wanted was to make some statement alongside the likes of Madelyn Albright and Bill Kristol. ‘We must do something!’ was the sentiment, and it must be only about ‘Darfur’. They didn’t want to talk about the rest of anything real.