Alternative America: The World Wide Web versus 'Dubya'

Some commentators have argued that Howard has had to go along with Bush on Iraq in order to 'honour' the American alliance. A question that might be asked is which alliance and which America, writes Macquarie University's Associate Professor Joan Kirkby. Although his electoral mandate is extremely slim, George Bush has imbibed the Emersonian rhetoric that 'to believe what is true for you in your private heart, is true for all men' (a solipsism that US literary historian Quentin Anderson dubbed psychotic in The Imperial Self, 1971) and ignored the intelligent commentary of alternative America, which may in fact represent a majority of Americans.

Thanks to the World Wide Web we can access these voices. Some sites include:http://www.thenation.com's archive No War with Iraq of 60 essays including Matt Bivens 'Inspecting U.S. Weapons' (self-declared 'citizen weapons inspectors' demand access to US military base), Jonathan Schell's magisterial 'The Case Against the War', and Gore Vidal's 'Blood for Oil'.

http://www.AlterNet.org features Tai Moses on the 'Lysistrata Project' - over a thousand readings of Aristophanes anti-war comedy (no peace/no sex) at regional theatre companies, campuses, hospitals, libraries in 60 countries worldwide.

One production featured Christine Lahti, Eric Stolz and Julie Christie who said "At least for the record of history, we have to let it be known that millions and millions opposed this war". According to Matt Wheeland's 'Dial "P" for Peace': "The peace movement's newest tactic is a 'virtual March,' that aims to bury Capital Hill in a landslide of antiwar messages."

The current http://www.tikkun.org includes Mark Levine's 'What Our Students are NOT Learning about Iraq' and Fred Branfman's 'Bush March of Folly to Iraq'. The author of Stupid White Men who calls Bush the 'Thief-in-Chief' in the White House features a daily update about the President's war on Iraq on http://www.michaelmoore.com together with 'Your Mission' links to activist websites, eg. the March 15 Emergency Convergence on The White House to Stop the War on Iraq.

This huge, articulate outpouring of alternative views and intelligent discussion offers a very different US from that which Bush and his hawks claim is the voice of America.

Finally, an excerpt from Katha Pollit's 'Poetry Makes Nothing Happen?' from http://www.thenation.com: "So Laura Bush will not, after all, be discussing the works of Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman and Langston Hughes with a selected group of American poets at the White House on February 12. The conference, 'Poetry and the American Voice,' [note the singular] was abruptly 'postponed' after Sam Hamill, editor of Copper Canyon Press ...responded to his invitation by putting out an email urging invitees and others to send him poems and statements opposing the invasion of Iraq....Within days almost 2,000 poets had responded....The White House, so bold to make war, is afraid of poems...." On February 12 there were readings all over the country and 3,500 poets sent poems and statements to http://www.poetsagainstthewar.org.

Associate Professor Joan Kirkby is a Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Critical and Cultural Studies, Macquarie University