The Voila moment
From Naomi Klein, author of No Logo
“At the Pentagon they call it the Voila Moment. That’s when Iraqi soldiers and civilians, with bombs raining down on Baghdad, suddenly scratch their heads and say to themselves: “These bombs aren’t really meant to kill me and my family, they are meant to free us from an evil dictator!” At that point, they thank Uncle Sam, lower their weapons, abandon their posts, and rise up against Saddam Hussein. Voila!”
The above paragraph is not, repeat, is not, satire. The alleged rational humans in the Pentagon appear to genuinely believe that dropping bombs on people will make them love us.
Naomi Klein continues –
“But all this Voila talk got me thinking: the civil disobedience the US military is hoping to provoke in Iraq is exactly the sort of thing the anti-war movement needs to inspire in our countries if we are really going to stop, or at least curtail, the pending devastation in Iraq.
What would it take for large numbers of people in the US, the UK, Italy, Canada – and any other country assisting the war effort – truly to break with our leaders and refuse to comply?
Can we create thousands of Voila Moments back home?
…
On one end of the caring spectrum, Levi’s Europe has decided to cash in on the anti-war fad by releasing a limited edition teddy bear with a peace symbol attached to its ear. You can clutch and hug it while watching the scary terror alerts on CNN.
Or you could turn off CNN, refuse to be a soft and cuddly peacenik, get out there and stop the war.”
As an example, Italy is already getting seriously antiwar
“Hundreds of protesters occupied train stations and railway tracks for nearly a week to delay trains carrying U.S. military equipment from northern Italy to the Camp Darby military base near Pisa.”
“Protesters disrupted trains carrying military equipment, encouraged union dock workers not to load U.S. matériel at the Tuscan port of Livorno, blocked ferries in the Sicilian port of Catania and busted into an Italian military airbase in Pisa.”
I’m also hearing a US military base in Italy was searched by officials, then fined, when they found depleted uranium weapons, which were specifically banned. In other words, the United States flunked a weapons inspection…