Romans 12:20.
(I’ve returned from APE. More on which later.)
Prentiss Riddle has found the original text of Ullman and Wade’s Shock and Awe on—where else?—line. From the introduction, the bit dealing with OOTW:
Given this reality that our military dominance can and will extend for some considerable time to come, provided we are prepared to use it, why then is a re-examination of American defense posture and doctrine important? The answers to this question involve
- the changing nature of the domestic and international environments;
- the complex nature of resolving inter and intra-state conflict that falls outside conventional war, including peacekeeping, and countering terrorism, crime, and the use of weapons of mass destruction;
- resource constraints;
- defense infrastructure and technical industrial bases raised on a large, continuous infusion of funding now facing a future of austerity; and
- the vast uncertainties of the so-called social, economic, and information revolutions that could check or counter many of the nation’s assumptions as well as public support currently underwriting defense.
Let’s give ’em a taste of the ol’ Number 5, eh? From Body and Soul:
- Find a bag of rice.
- Measure out 1/2 cup.
- Pour it into a ziploc bag.
- Squeeze all the air out and seal it.
- Write the following on a piece of paper:
“If your enemies are hungry, feed them.” —Romans 12:20
Please send this rice to the people of Iraq; do not attack them.
- Put the note and the bag of rice in a padded envelope or a small box and write on the outside of the package:
Rice for Peace—No War on Iraq
- Address it to:
President George Bush
White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW
Washington DC 20500
- Put $1.29 in postage on the outside.
- Drop it in the mail.
- Write about it and link it on your blog or journal or email list and spread the word.
“So-called” revolutions my ass.
Oh, and if, like Jeanne, you tend to suspect that our President’s compassionate, Christian conservatism is little more than a cynical vote-dredging scam, you might want to quote the entirety of Romans 12:20. He might like the bit about the coals.
Though I don’t mention the Eisenhower connection in this post, the Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center does. Patrick Nielsen Hayden notes rather pungently in the comments section that said Eisenhower connection is “all nonsense”; Jeanne d’Arc has a rather interesting take on why it isn’t. —In the interests of strict factuality, it should probably be noted that the original source of the anecdote (which I should probably summarize, for those who don’t follow links: supposedly, when the Joint Chiefs twice recommended the use of nukes against China in conflicts over the islands of Quemoy and Matsu [the First and Second Taiwan Strait Crises], President Eisenhower turned to an aide both times and asked, “How many little bags of rice came in?” referring to little bags of rice sent to the White House to urge the Eisenhower administration to act to alleviate famine on mainland China), David H. Albert’s People Power: Applying Non-violence Theory, includes no indication of how, exactly, he or anyone else learned that Eisenhower’s thinking was in any way influenced by that earlier “Feed thy Enemy” campaign.
That said.
The Instapundits of the world may try to belittle the movement because it’s been inspired by an urban legend. Let ’em—the war in question, after all, is itself based on distortions, dissemblings, and outright lies. Their Fiskings and self-satisfied chortlings amount to nothing more than a hill of hot air (much as do ours, to deflate my ugly moment of us-and-them), and will look rather foolish when you and me and everyone else sends a hill of rice like hot coals to the White House, one half-cup at a time.
Commenting is closed for this article.
As I've noted elsewhere, I like the idea of the Romans 12:20 campaign, but I wonder whether anything involving foodstuffs will get anywhere near the White House letter-answering and pulse-taking staff or will just get tossed by the various layers of security along the way (possibly right at your local P.O.). Has anyone gotten an answer to one of these yet?
Oh, and I like the part about the coals, too! :-)
I'm all for protesting the war, but the story about Eisenhower and the rice is all nonsense.
Why, so it is. And here's the requisite Snopes link demonstrating how it got started and what it more than likely came from.
However: the current campaign is real enough, and is in no significant way (to my mind, at least) compromised because it was inspired by an urban legend. Fiction can do as much if not more good as fact, darn it.
(This would, presumably, key in to those "vast uncertainties" Ullman and Wade cite as part of the "so-called" revolutions.)
Here's another way the original story is nonsense: the basic narrative is one in which senior military commanders are urging the President to let 'em rip, and the President then restrains them.
This has occasionally been the dynamic between the American military and its civilian masters. Much more frequently, however, it's been the opposite: civilians pressing for war, and senior military exerting a moderating influence. In fact, this is currently the case: Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and their fellow civilians are much more enthusiastic about war on Iraq than the Joint Chiefs are. American military managers are far from saints, but the Gen. Jack D. Ripper type has in fact been relatively rare.
I'm as against this war as you are, but this story is false in more ways than the merely factual. It's not even usefully-clarifying taken as a myth. Bluntly, it's bad fiction, and bad fiction has a much greater power to move us off the right path than mere errors of fact can.
The basic thrust of the urban legend, and its applicability to the now—that a President’s thinking on war was affected by bags of rice sent in by concerned citizens as a symbolic plea—is sound and is to my mind good fiction (for all that I naively hope it could be fact, as well). It’s also far more likely to be taken away as the salient “fact” by those who encounter it than those messier details of who wanted to go gung ho on whom which you cite. (I should, perhaps, have been more clear in pulling up that damning Eisenhower quote, rather than leaving it as title tag marginalia: here’s what he said about the First Taiwan Strait Crisis:
(It’s quite clear that the Strangelove dynamic as depicted in the legend isn’t at work here—certainly not as starkly and simply as it supposedly occurred. —Those who are enamored of the speak loudly and carry a big stick crazier-than-thou theory of diplomacy ought to note the outcome, as it supports your position:
(That’s again from the Federation of American Scientists .)
Myself, I’m as uncomfortable trafficking in bad fictions as you are, which is why once you pointed it out (for which my thanks) I went to such trouble digging around. I agree the legend isn’t up to the real. In that sense, it is indeed bad fiction—simplistic, distorting, factually untrue. But thus it is with most propaganda and sound bites: it’s the nature of the idiom. They don’t clarify, God no; they call to arms. Trumpet blasts ain’t much use for nuance. —The legend does, however, resonate with the “truth” indelibly stamped on the Zeitgeist by General Ripper and Strangelove; and its reversal on the current situation—then, the Joint Chiefs urged war, and were stopped by the President; now, the President urges war, over the objections of his Joint Chiefs—resonates with “our” deep conviction that this war is unnecessary, that this war is madness, that this war turns history on its head. It also resonates with an implicit moral lesson: if General-then-President Eisenhower could take humanitarian considerations into account when staring down those pernicious Red Chinese, why, AWOL-National-Guard-airman-then-President Bush can do the same when staring down those pernicious Ba’athist Iraqis. That all of this is based on an untruth does not alter the fact that these harmonic convergences strengthen the urban legend—and in that respect it’s a pretty strong piece of fiction. Rather like kudzu is a pretty strong plant. (This is why, I think, we’re circling it and poking it with sticks. After our own fashions.)
But!
Every site I’ve seen (not many, granted) that’s mentioned this movement has also either noted the falsity of the urban legend on which it is based or has recently sheepishly (or not so) owned up to it. (Blogtopia at work.) —And some of us never mentioned Eisenhower at all. Eisenhower, Taiwan, General Ripper, Dr. Strangelove—none of them is necessary to the strength of the symbol of sending a half-cup of rice in support of the Iraqis who aren’t Saddam. Not when the world has been starving Iraq for a dozen years to no good effect at all. Eisenhower meant nothing to me in this context when I wrote it up; he still doesn’t, except as an illustrative example of memes and legends and the power of bad fiction. I urge everyone who gives a damn to point this out—yeah, the Eisenhower story is bunk, and here’s why—and then send your rice anyway. I don’t think this fiction, bad though it is (and it is, yes), harms the beauty or effectiveness of the symbol, or delegitimizes the movement growing up around it.
The fact that we’re kicking it around so much rather militates against that, though. Doesn’t it.
An addendum to the extended riff off the comment on the update to the commented post: when I said, "Every site I've seen (not many, granted) that's mentioned this movement has also either noted the falsity of the urban legend on which it is based or has recently sheepishly (or not so) owned up to it," I meant "every site with the exception of the original Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center sites." They still have not addressed or noted the apparent falsity of David H. Albert's original claim.
Just so's we're clear. --Now: lunch is over. Back to work.
Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice does have a page dealing with the correction at: http://www.rmpjc.org/RiceForPeace/1950s-FOR.html
Which I note in my later entry on the subject, and which I really ought to get around to cross-linking off this one, where most of the Google hits come in, and which, thanks to your comment, I've now done. Thanks.