Saturday, December 20, 2008

Shoe-ing Bush Out Of Office

Bombing is so passe. Will shoe throwing replace bombing as device du jour?

That relief is urgently needed by a weary and wary polity especially in South Asia and West Asia.

Civil society, on the path to building discursive democracy, cannot possibly accept the throwing of shoes as appropriate and effective political strategy. Instead, we can choose to talk; listen; speak out; protest peacefully non-violently; take legal action; vote; approach our elected representatives; persist and persuade; speak and perform Truth to Power until progress towards the Greater Collective Good (GCG), becomes real and enduring.

Yet, the shoe as powerful political projectile has caught the popular imagination.

Why?

Because in the faltering progress towards civil society and discursive democracy, the flung shoe has to be particularized and contextualized:

Where did the shoe-throwing occur?

By whom?

At whom?

At what event?

What was accomplished?

At a press conference, Iraqi journalist Muntadhar al-Zaidi, reportedly called the visiting US president and author of militarism against Iraq, "a dog" (a disparagement of our wonderful canine friends) before throwing both his shoes one after the other, at him. Bush displayed his reflexes by ducking them in time. The journalist was wrestled to the ground by security and is now in police custody, without an announced release date.

Most concerned persons know the answers to the above critical-thinking questions.

My immediate sense is flinging footwear is perhaps going to catch on in the US and elsewhere. Just yesterday an elderly, disgruntled subway transit rider bent down and attempted to remove his shoe for the ostensible purpose of throwing it at Metropolitan Transit Authority executives at a public hearing in my city. He was immediately removed by NYC cops.

Shoe-throwing, or at the very least, the shoe as political dissent metaphor, may become part of the idiom of resistance against seemingly intractable forces of U.S. militaristic and now criminally irresponsible financial opportunism.

How aptly ironic.

The American electorate (of which I am one but as a vigorous dissenter against US hegemony) and their elected representatives in Congress, who bear responsibility for supporting the invasion and occupation of Iraq will hopefully be joining hands, some time in the not too distant future, with their Iraqi victims.

That moment of recognition of a common humanity and common aspirations cannot come a moment too soon. The shoe is now on the other foot. Exit from Iraq, Reparations for Iraq.

Chithra KarunaKaran
Ethical Democracy As Lived Practice
http://EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com

Comment #36.
December 22, 2008 10:39 am

Link
These are Two Shoes for Dignity.

We have to speak Truth to Power. Occasionally, as in this case, especially when the marauding superpower just doesn't get it, we have to perform Truth to Power.

The US has a long way to go, especially after these last eight years, before it can dare to lecture anyone, anywhere, about Democracy.

The journalist was discourteous. But the US is criminal.
Chithra KarunaKaran
Ethical Democracy as Lived Practice
http://www.EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com

— EthicalDemocracy, New York, NY
by 2 Readers
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NYTimes copyright
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/22/opinion/22cohen.html
http://community.nytimes.com/article/comments/2008/12/22/opinion/22cohen.html?s=1&pg=2

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CNN copyright:

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/12/19/zakaria.iraqshoes/index.html

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AP copyright
Iraqi shoe thrower released; says he was tortured
09/15/2009 3:46:23 AM
By HAMZA HENDAWI Associated Press Writer

The Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at former President George W. Bush was released Tuesday after nine months in prison, and he said Iraqi security forces tortured him with beatings, whippings and electric shocks after his arrest.

Muntadhar al-Zeidi, whose stunning act of protest last December made him a hero around the Arab and Muslim worlds, said he now feared for his life and believed that U.S. intelligence agents would chase after him.

"These fearful services, the U.S. intelligence services and its affiliated services, will spare no efforts to track me as an insurgent revolutionary ... in a bid to kill me," he told a news conference at the TV station where he works.

"And here I want to warn all my relatives and people close to me that these services will use all means to trap and try to kill and liquidate me either physically, socially or professionally," he said.

The 30-year-old reporter's act of protest deeply embarrassed Iraq's prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, who was standing beside Bush at a Dec. 14 news conference when al-Zeidi suddenly shot up from his chair had hurled his shoes toward the podium.

Bush, who was on his final visit to Iraq as American president, was unhurt but had to duck twice to avoid being hit.

Al-Zeidi was wrestled to the ground by journalists and al-Maliki's security men.

The reporter said Tuesday that he was abused immediately after his arrest and the following day. He said he was beaten with iron bars, whipped with cords and was electrocuted in the backyard of the building in the Green Zone where the news conference was held.

"In the morning, I was left in the cold weather after they splashed me with water," he said.

He promised to reveal the names of senior officials in the Iraqi government and army who he said were involved in mistreating him.

He explained that his actions were motivated by the U.S. occupation and said that while he is now free, his country is still "held captive."

"Simply put, what incited me toward confrontation is the oppression that fell upon my people and how the occupation wanted to humiliate my homeland by placing it under its boots," he said.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I found your blog from one of your comments left on the NYTimes article about the shoe-throwing incident. You are a repugnant person and you are evil, along with the rest of the Anti-American media. "Ethical Democracy" has no real meaning to Patriots who love America. If you don't love this country leave it we don't want you here anymore. Soon this country will tire of Obama and his indecision about terror. Admit it the economy and the folksy inexperienced Sarah Palin handed Obama the election with the Iraq War no longer being important. Soon we will have a brilliant competent tactician of a leader that will make the Angry Left wish Bush was back in office. Dick Cheney may play a role in this New Administration! This Post-Obama New Administration will do what every liberal fears- KILL TERRORISTS and MAKE AMERICA GREAT! suck on that one! infact suck them both ,,!,, ,,!,,

I don't have a google name or ID if I did I would gladly dispense it for you so you would know who pissed on you.

SILLY LIBERALS SHOES ARE FOR WALKING!

Anonymous said...

if you don't show my comment you are a coward; it is that simple.

Enyonam Nanevie said...

In defense of my friend Chithra, and this is after all a DEMOCRACY we live in yes....? then why anonymous? How dare you use the word coward when you make comments from the cloak of secrecy...

Bush and Cheney and their EVIL Secrecy with which they did everything like COWARDs and BULLIES, has lost, has been shut down by the American people, even the hillbillies of the Midwest and the bigots in rural deep south VOTED NO TO BUSH, CHENEY, SECRECY, BULLYING and LYING, and not being MAN ENOUGH, sadly not even HUMAN ENOUGH to be anywhere close to being leaders.

I guess you are in their camp with your ANONYMOUS self, with nerve to call someone else coward. She states her opinions plainly, clearly, and guess what honestly. If you are not a COWARD stop posting anonymous, if you have guts put you name to your warp mind and words!!! And in the 21st century you live in America and don't have id or name from which to post, you are liar, and guess what dream on and while you are at it, you can go join Sarah Palin and her delusions in Alaska and you both can watch Russia from her porch and be on the look on out for terrorists, maybe you can even catch some if you are lucky...yes?

And guess what too, slaves and immigrants built this country, ignorant fool, and since we now know without a doubt that "Columbus did not discover America", guess what this land belongs to it rightful people (the Native Americans) (if you want to go there) so you also don't belong here and should ship yourself back to wherever you came from to steal from others. And you obviously don't even know about the idea of the "founding fathers" (though they were also flawed in many ways, they owned slaves) but in their moments, they wrote the constitution... you ever heard of it, cause if you did you could MAYBE discern that Ethical Democracy was what was gnawing at them and that Ethical Democracy would be the highest form of democracy practiced or possible.(since capitalistic and materialist democracy as practiced now simply can not continue and MUST EVOLVE TO INCLUDE MORALITY AND ETHICS AND JUSTICE FOR THOSE WHO VIOLATE MORAL AND ETHICAL CODES OF LIFE, THE HUMAN RACE AND THE UNIVERSE...

and to conclude, if this democracy claims to be of the people, by the people and for the people, then the TRUE PATRIOTS OF AMERICA ARE THOSE THAT DEMAND LIKE THE COLONISTS DEMANDED AND STATED THAT THEY INHERENTLY HAD THE RIGHT TO DEPOSE OF ANY ELECTED REPRESENTATIVE (OF WHICH THE PRESIDENCY IS THE HIGHEST OFFICE) WHO DOES NOT SERVE THE PEOPLE WHO ELECTED THEM.

and last point Mr. or Ms. Anonymous....

in the constitution from which the oath for the vice presidency is written, a sentence in it says "I will protect and defend the constitution from all enemies both abroad and domestically" so you see, you are the unpatriotic American and an enemy of the constitution!

Enyonam Nanevie said...

In defense of my friend Chithra, and this is after all a DEMOCRACY we live in yes....? then why anonymous? How dare you use the word coward when you make comments from the cloak of secrecy...

Bush and Cheney and their EVIL Secrecy with which they did everything like COWARDs and BULLIES, has lost, has been shut down by the American people, even the hillbillies of the Midwest and the bigots in rural deep south VOTED NO TO BUSH, CHENEY, SECRECY, BULLYING and LYING, and not being MAN ENOUGH, sadly not even HUMAN ENOUGH to be anywhere close to being leaders.

I guess you are in their camp with your ANONYMOUS self, with nerve to call someone else coward. She states her opinions plainly, clearly, and guess what honestly. If you are not a COWARD stop posting anonymous, if you have guts put you name to your warp mind and words!!! And in the 21st century you live in America and don't have id or name from which to post, you are liar, and guess what dream on and while you are at it, you can go join Sarah Palin and her delusions in Alaska and you both can watch Russia from her porch and be on the look on out for terrorists, maybe you can even catch some if you are lucky...yes?

And guess what too, slaves and immigrants built this country, ignorant fool, and since we now know without a doubt that "Columbus did not discover America", guess what this land belongs to it rightful people (the Native Americans) (if you want to go there) so you also don't belong here and should ship yourself back to wherever you came from to steal from others. And you obviously don't even know about the idea of the "founding fathers" (though they were also flawed in many ways, they owned slaves) but in their moments, they wrote the constitution... you ever heard of it, cause if you did you could MAYBE discern that Ethical Democracy was what was gnawing at them and that Ethical Democracy would be the highest form of democracy practiced or possible.(since capitalistic and materialist democracy as practiced now simply can not continue and MUST EVOLVE TO INCLUDE MORALITY AND ETHICS AND JUSTICE FOR THOSE WHO VIOLATE MORAL AND ETHICAL CODES OF LIFE, THE HUMAN RACE AND THE UNIVERSE...

and to conclude, if this democracy claims to be of the people, by the people and for the people, then the TRUE PATRIOTS OF AMERICA ARE THOSE THAT DEMAND LIKE THE COLONISTS DEMANDED AND STATED THAT THEY INHERENTLY HAD THE RIGHT TO DEPOSE OF ANY ELECTED REPRESENTATIVE (OF WHICH THE PRESIDENCY IS THE HIGHEST OFFICE) WHO DOES NOT SERVE THE PEOPLE WHO ELECTED THEM.

and last point Mr. or Ms. Anonymous....

in the constitution from which the oath for the vice presidency is written, a sentence in it says "I will protect and defend the constitution from all enemies both abroad and domestically" so you see, you are the unpatriotic American and an enemy of the constitution!