March 28 | Linking the Issues I RECEIVED an email from one of those Planet Waves readers who is a news hawk yesterday. We have a few of them and it's a lot of fun to know they are out there, scouring the issues and putting together the mosaic of reality. She was annoyed that last weekend's protests were over a proposed immigration law that is likely to fail anyway. She felt it would have been nice if that energy had been vented in he direction of something more important, like the war; I get the point. Personally when I saw news about the protest being over immigration, I thought wow that's pretty cool, this is a pretty subtle issue. People are standing up for the rights of others to be in the United States -- to keep it an open society. I immediately made the connection between this and Iraq. I see the war as part of a larger ethnic issue involving Muslims. This goes back a long way, but when I first heard "pro war" Americans referring to Muslims by derogatory names during Bush War I, that's when I got the message that something else was going on. If it was really true that Saddam was a threat to the legitimate feudal monarchy of Kuwait, why would we need to also stir up anger at individual people who live in those countries? Well, the answer is, it works to keep that violent spirit going. The proposed immigration law protested last weekend may, in theory, be aimed at Mexicans, but you can be sure it's really aimed at Muslims. It's always good to keep your eye on the large and larger agendas that are in play. I say this realizing that there are a lot of people out there who really do believe that 'Muslim' and 'terrorist' are synonyms. So, I see the link behind the scenes, even though it's not being mentioned. But what I really saw in that photo on the cover were a lot of people. And for whatever reason they were there, I assure you that's what they were seeing in the White House as well. A lot of people is a lot of people. The issue does not matter because the issue can always change. And in this particular case, as I see it, the issue is very germane to one of the larger issues of the Iraq war, which is racism. It takes time for movements to learn how to link the issues themselves. It's beautiful when it happens because so much more energy and sense of common ground are created. So many more people are included. And in truth there really is just one issue, which is social justice. The war in Iraq is the master issue. It is for the Big Boys, too -- because with that as the drum to pound on, all manner of other injustices can be pumped up and made into necessities -- like how to cut the budget, how to saddle the country with debt so that no money goes back to the people, how to keep the banks rich, and the arms dealers, and everyone else for whom national debt is personal profit.