People for Peace and Justice
of Utah
Speeches made at actions in Salt Lake City, Utah
People for Peace and Justice of Utah
|
a grassroots organization advocating nonviolence and justice
January 20 and 22, 2005 ~ No War! Speeches made at actions in Salt Lake City, Utah |
 Louis Borgenicht, Physicians for Social Responsibility March 15, 2003 March 20, 2004 (Scroll down the page....) Freedom from Fear: speech for antiwar rally 1/22/05, SLC. Utah "A body of men holding themselves accountable to nobody ought not to be trusted by anybody." ~ Thomas Paine, The Rights of Man It has been 688 days since I stood on the steps of the Utah State Capitol and railed against the Bush administration’s plans for war in Iraq. The war began with “shock and awe” bombing four days later and has since gone from incredible to surrealistically horrendous. I will not recall the myriad of catastrophes which have taken place in Iraq since then, nor discuss the spillover of the human, financial and political costs of the war. The daily media are full of distressing details from which all of us have created our own private realities. For some of us it seems like a vision of Hell. What I want to do is lead you through my thought process as the Presidential election was taking place and comment on its aftermath.. As the vitriolic campaign slogged on I became convinced that the only issue that mattered was the War in Iraq. It impacted absolutely every issue I could think of. As I listened to the daily reports of the news on NPR, read about the latest suicide bombing or friendly fire incident in the newspaper, watched BBC news, read magazine articles, heard tales of personal loss and absorbed political email… I could not imagine any human being not being affected by the tragedy of this dangerously foolhardy war. As Election Day rolled around I became politically bipolar: on a good news day I was up and on a bad news day I was down. After the election I decided I needed a break, some time to think and console myself. I avoided even reading the rationales for President Bush’s edgy victory because I had come to my own conclusion: the election was won because of fear not, as some would have us believe, by moral issues like abortion and gay marriage. It all began with 911 when the President framed his perspective on the calamity in predictably simplistic black and white terms: good versus evil, Bush versus Bin Laden, and freedom versus terror. His understanding of what he called the War on Terror was traditional and frightening. It did not envision a more sophisticated view of the new reality which would entail a more subtle understanding of the political, religious and socio-economic realities in the Mideast. As a doctor I understand full well the need to deal with the uncertainty and fear created almost instantaneously by 911. When a patient has a set of symptoms or an illness which is undefined there is anxiety, anxiety created by uncertainty. In such instances both the patient and physician are frustrated by the lack of clear cut answers and search for them in an effort to resolve the ambiguity of the situation. Sometimes they are forthcoming and sometimes they are not. In the seven minutes during which the President tried to gather himself after being informed that the second plane had hit the World Trade towers one can only surmise what may have been going through his head. The following is a list of thoughts which might have comprise his mindset at that moment of crisis: 1) I wonder if this means we get to invade Iraq as the Project for a New America has been suggesting for a decade? 2) How can I deal with my anxiety much less that of the American people? 3) Are we at war? If so what does it mean? 4) We are the most powerful democracy in the world. How do we assert our authority? 5) And last but not least, is there any metaphorical meaning for me of My Pet Goat? As a result we were presented with a clear and facile way to resolve our anxiety and settle our uncertainty about the events of September 11th. We would go to war and kill all the terrorists. It was that simple and that simplistic. No questions asked. We would do this not only in the name of those who lost their lives but also in the name of our freedom, something which, we were told by the President, the terrorists hated: they hated us for our freedom. We would go to war as a result of our paternalistic benevolence: we would spread democracy throughout the Mideast. But as we all know you cannot spread democracy like buttah. So now 688 days since I last spoke, a few days before the War in Iraq started, we are confronted with a nation which has elected its President and Congress out of fear. Fear has been the administration’s trump card. Or, as the President says, and I quote, “…the enemies want to create a sense of fear and intrepidation.” Once again the President has added yet a new word to our vocabulary. Neologisms aside our job for the next four years is to be absolutely clear and succinct about our concerns not just for ourselves but for the rest of the world. As the recent tsunami demonstrated we are connected with one another, not merely through the fear of terror but because of our common humanity. Thus, it is our responsibility for the sake of our future to deny the President the use of his trump card. In this spirit I want to conclude with the words to two very wise men. "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself - nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance." — Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Inaugural Address, March 4, 1933 "To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom." — Bertrand Russell As we each have assimilated our own perspectives on the War on Terrorism we can construct our own view of the future, one that is not based on naïve and prideful self-serving simplicity. We can reject the values of the Bush Administration by conquering fear in the interest of our connections instead of our differences. Louis Borgenicht 1/22/2005 |
Photos of January 20 and 22 Actions