Bush Comparison Seen As Unfair to Dogs
This is the question now raised in Iraq: If they throw shoes at your face are you a combat troop or a noncombat troop?
The answer may be important in helping to guide President Elect Obama's strategy of reducing but continuing the
genocidal occupation that has made a shoeless journalist one of the most beloved, if little known, people in the world
overnight.
A related dilemma is this: If shoes become weapons, were the metal detectors, searches, and bribes to phony journalists
successful? This strikes me as a similar question to the following: if box cutters become weapons, were the nuclear
arsenal, the missile offense shield, and the empire of bases successful?
That all depends upon what the goal was, I suppose. If the goal encompassed the well-being of only one person, then
success may have been achieved. Dallas mansion, six-figure speeches, and drunk golfing here I come! But no dog's goal
would ever be so narrow, and animal rights groups can be expected to speak out against Muntadar al-Zeidi's comparison of
George W. Bush to a dog. I also hope human rights groups will be closely monitoring the well-being of this shoe-throwing
hero to billions.
I don't advocate violence, even in response to violence, much less as substitution for words, and yet it seems to me
that al-Zeidi has restored the good standing of journalists in the world. He's punctuated his brief editorial with a
statement in the universal language of television. A cream pie would have helped but would probably have tipped off the
Secret Service to his plans. With the toss of two shoes, this journalist communicated more honest information to more
people than a thousand New York Times exposes on aluminum tubes or expert commentaries on the Pentagon paid for by the
Pentagon.
Here's a little of what he communicated: no technology, no weaponry, and no propaganda can protect you from the results
of mistreating millions of human beings. Iraq has been made a living hell. Everyone there has suffered and lost people
they loved because of the callous greed and self-centered calculations of George W. Bush who has blood up to his
shoulders after waging an illegal aggressive war for politics, money, oil, and bases from which to murder human beings
in neighboring countries while seated at the safe distance of the Oval Office.
The question we should really ponder is not why al-Zeidi could be so impolite as to throw his shoes at Bush, but why the
dozens of other shoes in the room remained on people's feet, why no foot odor ever purifies the air at a White House
press conference, why a man who throws his shoes at our president is more popular with the people I've spoken to here in
O'Hare Airport in Chicago than our president himself and yet most Americans are not working with all the advantages we
have to put our nation right with the people of Iraq by prosecuting and imprisoning not just petty crook governors of
Illinois but also emperors whose nudity has to be exposed by other people taking off their shoes.
When I worked for ACORN six years ago and Bush was pushing a plan to eliminate welfare that had been written by a slimy
character at the Heritage Foundation who believed pushing women to get married would do more good than transportation,
child care, education, a living wage, or even protection from abusive husbands, we took a few hundred people into the
Heritage Foundation building in D.C. and pelted the guy with shoes until he agreed to "walk a day in the shoes" of some
of our members on welfare. He later did so, and it changed his mind to some degree, as he admitted to reporters covering
the story.
When I worked to expose Bush's war lies three years ago, we took a crowd of people with a petition from tens of
thousands to present at the White House gate. When the guards would not accept our petition, we hurled hundreds of pages
of white paper over the White House fence, scattering them all across the lawn of our finest public housing.
I recall these two actions only because it occurs to me that people often walk by the White House with shoes on their
feet that could perhaps be put to better use.
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David Swanson is the author of the upcoming book "Daybreak: Undoing the Imperial Presidency and Forming a More Perfect
Union" by Seven Stories Press and of the introduction to "The 35 Articles of Impeachment and the Case for Prosecuting
George W. Bush" published by Feral House and available at Amazon.com. Swanson holds a master's degree in philosophy from
the University of Virginia. He has worked as a newspaper reporter and as a communications director, with jobs including
press secretary for Dennis Kucinich's 2004 presidential campaign, media coordinator for the International Labor
Communications Association, and three years as communications coordinator for ACORN, the Association of Community
Organizations for Reform Now. Swanson is Co-Founder of AfterDowningStreet.org, creator of ConvictBushCheney.org and
Washington Director of Democrats.com, a board member of Progressive Democrats of America, the Backbone Campaign, and
Voters for Peace, and a member of the legislative working group of United for Peace and Justice.
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