Montgomery County, MD Green Party Blog

After 28 days of fasting, anti-war hunger strikers received a breakthrough victory for their sacrifice: Leading members of the Iraqi Parliament invited fasters to join them to discuss their plans for peace in Iraq.

On Wednesday, August 2, hunger strikers will travel to Amman, Jordan to meet with these Iraqi MPs and break their fast. The delegation includes: Peace mom Cindy Sheehan, Retired Colonel Ann Wright, Iraq war veteran Geoffrey Millard, Politician/Writer Tom Hayden, and CODEPINK co-founders Medea Benjamin, Jodie Evans, Gael Murphy and Diane Wilson. The invitation from the Iraqi MPs comes after fasters were rebuffed in numerous attempts to meet with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki during his visit to Washington last week, including setting up “Camp Al-Maliki” across from the Iraqi Embassy and publishing an open letter to him in one of the largest Iraqi newspapers. Faster and CODEPINK cofounder Medea Benjamin was arrested for disrupting al-Maliki’s address to Congress last Wednesday, saying loudly and repeatedly, “Iraqis want the troops to leave, bring them home now!”

The parliamentarians, who expressed concern for fasters’ health and dismay at the Prime Minister’s dismissal of their repeated requests for a meeting, will travel to meet with the US delegation in Jordan on August 3. The Iraqi elected officials will brief the Americans on the Reconciliation Plan they have been working on at the Reconciliation Conference held in Cairo last week. With the increased violence between Israel and Lebanon, a part of the U.S. delegation will go on to Syria and Lebanon to bear witness to the suffering of innocent victims of war in the region.

Non violent resistance has gained some results again.

Youtube.com, a website where anyone can upload videos has become one of the hottest websites on the internet. So when what looked like a homemade spoof of Al Gore; An Inconvenient Spoof, it seemed like just another amateur effort. But when the Wall Street Journal tried to find the guy who posted the film, they found that the film didn’t come from an amateur, but from a Republican public relations firm called DCI, which has oil giant Exxon as a client.

Diane Farsetta, with the Center for Media and Democracy commented that, “They want it to look like this came from someone who really believes this, who is really critical of Al Gore and global warming,”

Ana Marie Cox, the Washington editor of Time.com, said Americans have come to distrust the mainstream media.

“They’re more likely to believe something that comes straight from the horse’s mouth,” Cox said.

Public relations firms have long used computer technology to create bogus grassroots campaigns, which are called “Astroturf.”

Now these firms are being hired to push illusions on the Internet to create the false impression of real people blogging, e-mailing and making films.

Yet another twist in the battle for cyberspace visibility.