Look up your Rep’s fax and phone numbers here.
John Perry Barlow sent this out today…
If you have opened this e-mail today, Thursday, October 10, stop
reading it right now.
Drop your mouse and grab your phone.
Call the offices of your senators and representatives and tell them how you feel about their willingness to give “President” Bush blanket authorization to make war whenever and however he feels like it, renewable indefinitely. They may vote to do so as early as this evening.
He also cited this really cool quote from Mark Twain:
Next the statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself that the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception.
— Mark Twain, The Mysterious Stranger, 1916, Ch.9
(Thanks, Cory)
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?r107:6:./temp/~r107TB8tOV::
oct 4 byrd
Begin forwarded message:
From: John Perry Barlow barlow@eff.org
Date: Thu Oct 10, 2002 12:17:18 PM US/Pacific
To: John Perry Barlow barlow@eff.org
Subject: (SPAM?) [E-S] BarlowFriendz 8.6: Please, Folks, Call The
Capital Today!
^
(o)
/_ _\
——— B a R L o W F R i e N D Z
Bit more of that quote:
“Still, it is true, lamb,” said Satan. “Look at you in war–what mutton you are, and how ridiculous!”
“In war? How?”
“There has never been a just one, never an honorable one–on the part of the instigator of the war. I can see a million years ahead, and this rule will never change in so many as half a dozen instances. The loud little handful–as usual–will shout for the war. The pulpit will–warily and cautiously–object–at first; the great, big, dull bulk of the nation will rub its sleepy eyes and try to make out why there should be a war, and will say, earnestly and indignantly, “It is unjust and dishonorable, and there is no necessity for it.” Then the handful will shout louder. A few fair men on the other side will argue and reason against the war with speech and pen, and at first will have a hearing and be applauded; but it will not last long; those others will outshout them, and presently the anti-war audiences will thin out and lose popularity. Before long you will see this curious thing: the speakers stoned from the platform, and free speech strangled by hordes of furious men who in their secret hearts are still at one with those stoned speakers–as earlier–but do not dare to say so. And now the whole nation–pulpit and all–will take up the war-cry, and shout itself hoarse, and mob any honest man who ventures to open his mouth; and presently such mouths will cease to open. Next the statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself that the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception.”