When the president wants to fulfill a constitutional duty — like nominating a Supreme Court justice — Congress is up in arms. When he launches a blatantly unconstitutional war, it shrugs.
The peace movement has a vital stake in building a movement powerful enough to challenge those who would restrict voting rights or violate civil liberties with racial profiling.
Sometimes, just when you least expect it, symbolism steps right up and coldcocks you. So how about this headline for - in the spirit of our last president - ushering America's withdrawal from Iraq right over the nearest symbolic cliff: "U.S. empties biggest Iraq base, takes Saddam's toilet." They're talking about Victory Base, formerly - again in the spirit of thoroughly malevolent symbolism - Camp Victory, the enormous American military base that sits at the edge of Baghdad International Airport and that we were never going to leave.
For as long as I could remember, the Brandenburg Gate had been the preeminent symbol of the age and Berlin the epicenter of contemporary history. Yet by the time I made it to the once and future German capital, history was already moving on.
When Former Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) administrator L. Paul Bremer III left Baghdad after the highly publicized “transfer of sovereignty” in June 2004, he left his imprint through 100 orders that he enacted as chief of the occupation authority in Iraq.
