the guy by the door …

We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. -‘widely believed to be’ Karl Rove[1] [Karl wasn’t actually at the rally. Photo: Wikipedia]

We on the left should frame our opposition to the war as opposition to empire.

– Adaner Usmani

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Some folks at Harvard Law School are doing just that with their event series, Confronting Empire: 5 Years of War in Iraq. The series is over, but the website has a link for each and every speaker, many of whom have freely downloadable articles. I’m told that proceedings from it, will, in time, appear. [And I’ll point you to my faves.] The series was sponsored by, Justice for Palestine at Harvard Law and:

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Harvard Anti War Coalition passing Langdell Hall, Harvard Law School.
Skewers in the foreground each commemorate 100 deaths, Iraqi and American, since March 19, 2003. Signs along the “Iraqi Freedom Trail” explain.

A report of this action for 5yearstoomany.org and one for the rally on Boston Common.

^[1]In an earlier edition, I quoted Karl as saying, “We make our own reality. We’re an empire now.” I relied on memory. I’m sorry. What appears in the text now is the quotation reported by Ron Suskind in an opinion piece of October 17, 2004 of the New York Times Magazine, Without a Doubt. The quote is from Paragraph 8 on Page 7.

The aide said that guys like me were ”in what we call the reality-based community,” which he defined as people who ”believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.” I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ”That’s not the way the world really works anymore,” he continued. ”We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”

As you can see, Ron attributed to “the aide”. In paragraph 7 on Page 7, he uses the phrase “senior advisor’. It was only later that undisclosed pundits decided it was Rove. There are some, who, as I did, make the unqualified claim that it was Rove. I can’t find anyone who will say how they know what they claim. Again, I’m sorry. That said, I’ll bet it was Rove.