So This it What it Takes, Maybe | Planet Waves for Nov. 9, 2004, 10:09 am CET My inbox keeps getting more intense. And I am not sure I want to get so deep into the psychology of the lust for war, and the simultaneous denial of human suffering, and the denial of human potential. But they are all the same thing. One critical issue that we will face is that we somehow have to acknowledge what is happening in order to do something about it. There is a lot of resistance to that. Most people just want to get on with their lives, which is challenging enough. But there is, I think, more resistance yet to coming to terms with how powerful, beautiful, intelligent and sexy we are. You feel that somewhere in there, yes? Anyway -- I got this today. It's from the Journal News, I think that's a Gannett paper in Westchester County, N.Y. Man it's really beautiful in upstate New York this time of year. Even the New York State Thruway is like a work of art. The most interesting thing that the writer, Chris Hedges said in his presentation, to my thinking, is how the war will cease to be an abstraction; that it will become deeply personal. It reminds me of what a TV show it is to so many. I for one believe that we can stop this before it takes a few million more lives. But we're going to have to work, and work well, and fast, and together, and I don't know many people who would rather spend their Saturday night doing social justice work rather than going out drinking. But as Bob said, the times are changing. Teenagers, parents, big brothers, help everyone 16-25 get their draft resistance files together. Start collecting letters that say you object to war on religious grounds, so that when you find yourself in the company of a Quaker or Unitarian Universalist who knows what they are doing, they have some material to work with. I mean it, start with a file folder that says, "Julie's Draft Resistance File." Did everyone see the Rumsfeld press briefing yesterday? Maybe CNN will rerun it. He's a real piece of work. Anyway, I digress -- a little. Begin quote: Reinstatement of the draft is imminent, war correspondent and author Christopher Hedges told a crowd of more than 120 students and residents yesterday at Manhattanville College. "We are losing the war in Iraq very badly, but the Bush administration will not walk away from the debacle without trying to reoccupy huge swaths of the territory they have lost," Hedges said. While working for The New York Times, he covered fighting in Central America, the Balkans and the Middle East, including Iraq during the first Gulf War. To regain territory lost in Iraq, it will take double or triple the current 140,000 troops, Hedges said during the last lecture in a series called "The Costs of War." The reservists and National Guard members who make up half of the U.S. forces are stretched to the breaking point and need relief, he said, and the draft is the only way to assemble the numbers needed. Reintroduction of the draft will be made in the name of the war on terrorism soon after an attack in the United States or abroad, he predicted. "The war in Iraq will no longer be an abstraction," he said. "It will become deeply personal. In the next few weeks look for shifts in administration policy leading in the direction of an escalation of the war." Hedges encountered no detractors at Manhattanville, unlike his experience at Rockford (Ill.) College in May 2003, when he was booed off the stage while giving a commencement speech shortly after President Bush's battleship announcement that the U.S. mission in Iraq had been "accomplished." On the contrary, many in the audience last night said they had braved rainy weather to hear Hedges indict the seductiveness of war and the dangers of mindless jingoism as an antidote to their depression over the results of the presidential election. "It's been a hard week and there are much harder times ahead. That's why it is so important for us all to be together tonight," said Connie Hogarth, who has a peace and justice center on the Manhattanville campus named after her. "After we finish grieving, we have to get back to working for peace and justice, and an end to this war and its killing."