WISCONSIN PROTESTERS: call out the national guard yourselves

The one card Governor Scott Walker has to play is calling out the national guard, but what if protesters beat him to the punch?

If you know someone in the guard ask them if they will obey the order to disperse or even fire on their friends and neighbors, and what kind state they think they'd end up living in if they did. Then post their replies to blogs or here, anonymously if they want or with their names if they are willing.

It would be a good question for capitol and state police as well.

Reporters should be asking guard commanders the same question. (I'm going to email or call later today).

Even if they say they. Will follow orders, it will plant a seed of doubt.

If someone says they won't follow the orders, I would challenge them to join the protest in uniform--which would be a good idea for veterans among protesters right now. If the right doesn't mind calling teachers and other public workers lazy pigs, it will a lot harder for them to do if it makes them look like they aren't ''supporting the troops.''

Maybe if you know a someone in the military in Iraq or Afghanistan, especially public workers deployed in the guard, you could get video clips of statements of support.

We need to do more than beat the right here--we need to make them afraid to bash public workers and union bash ever again. We should make them BEG for the privilege to vote for the Employee Free Choice Act. This needs to be their Waterloo, and we need the troops on our side to do it.

what won't change even if Iran's government does

Americans and many others around the world are hoping for an outcome to Iranian election away from the religious hardliners like President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but even if Mir-Hossein Mousavi takes power, several things are unlikely to change, and most of them are the points of tension between the US and Iran.

For example, while a new government might be less likely to call for Israel to be "wiped off the map" (or "disappear" from the map as many translators said was more accurate), they will still probably be sympathetic to the plight of Palestinians, fellow Muslims who are undeniably being killed in far larger numbers than Israelis, and systematically forced off their land by Israeli settlers, a process we would call ethnic cleansing anywhere else.

Likewise, it's hard to see them forsaking Hezbollah in Lebanon, given the multiple invasions by Israel and the many Muslims (and Christians) killed there, first in "overkill" to drive the PLO out of the country, then in attempts to crush Hezbollah whose ranks were swelled with Lebanese angered by the first war that caused so much death and destruction beyond its supposed targets.

What is especially unlikely to change is a sense of national ownership of their oil reserves and the income derived from it. Iran has the second or third largest oil reserves in the world. One of our goals in the Iraq War was to force them to give up 88% of their oil income to oil companies as stated in a Bush sponsored Hydrocarbon Law. For comparison, the Saudis, only give up about half. Despite Bush and members of both parties in Washington strong-arming Iraqis to pass it, they could only get the Iraqi cabinet to pass it, never the whole parliament--even when the oil companies offered millions in bribes to each member. And in spite of a war and occupation that cost the lives of over a million Iraqis.

If Iraq won't surrender their oil after all that, the tools of the oil industry in Congress would be foolish to expect the Iranians to give up theirs after an election. The truth is, real democracy makes it harder for corporations to cheat countries out of their natural resources. The oil companies would have had an easier time simply trying to bribe the handful of mullahs who are the real power behind the throne in Iran, just as they did the Shah, the dictator we installed after we overthrew the last secular, democratically elected leader of Iran, Mohammed Mossadegh. His sin was trying to nationalize his country's oil, which would have cut the big oil companies out of most of the profits. In the 1979 revolution in Iran, students were carrying signs with his photo on it. They had not forgotten who fought for their oil, and they wouldn't forgive someone who gave it away now.

Neither will Iran's antagonism with some of her neighbors diminish.

The Saudi conflict with Iran is likely based oil and who gets to decide how much is pumped and therefore the price as much as the Sunni-Shia rivalry.

Israel doesn't want any strong Muslim country in the region who might check their expansion or even criticize it, so they are unlikely to change much, even if the new government makes peace proposals that offer recognition in exchange for reasonable conditions on how Israel treats Palestinians.

And on the broader global stage, how the US treats a more secular, democratic Iran will depend almost entirely on how compliant they are to oil interests. After all, we overthrew Iran's secular prime minister in 1953, and have embraced the Sunni religious extremist Saudis for decades, even though they are far from democratic and Saudi Arabia supported the 9/11 hijackers who killed 3,000 Americans. Blood is thicker than water, but in Washington, oil is thicker than both (or at least the bribes oil companies give are).

MORE IRAQ OIL THEFT LINKS

WWJLD: What would John Lennon do about Iraq War?

John Lennon and Yoko Ono used the publicity of their honeymoon to protest for peace by staging two week-long "bed ins" in 1969.

Now we can do the same March 19 in a nationwide call in sick day, to get the attention of our elected representatives who seem to forget they represent us when it comes to the war, constitution, and just about anything else that conflicts with a corporate donor.

ANIMATION

March 19 ''SICK OF IT DAY'' call in sick to show we're sick of lies, war, the erosion of our rights, and the half-assed, token protests of Congress (which are usually followed by swift rubber-stamping of more abuses in spite of overwhelming public disapproval).

You may think that the time for action has passed and all things will be be healed if the Democrats win the White House and expand their majorities in Congress, but half the Democrats are as business-owned as Republicans, will continue to obey the orders of oil companies and defense contractors, and therefore need an overwhelming show of public disapproval so that fear of voters removing them will outweigh love of their donors and future employers who will give them jobs as lobbyists, CEO's, and board members when they leave office.

''Sick outs'' have been effective when cops caught the ''blue flu'' instead of doing a formal strike.

FROM THE ORGANIZERS' SITE:

WHAT IS SICK OF IT DAY?

Sick Of It Day is a day for everybody who is SICK OF THE LIES, SICK OF THE CORRUPTION, SICK OF THE WAR to make their statement in a way it will really count—CALL IN SICK on March 19, the 5th anniversary of the Iraq invasion!

In our own Declaration of Independence, it says, "Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed..."

Calling in sick on March 19, "Sick Of It Day" is a powerful way for every one of us to withdraw our consent from a government that continues an immoral, illegal and SICK war.

SICK OF IT DAY LINK