Three thousand people around the world are fasting

[bigtree]

or have done so for at least one day this past week as part of a national "Troops Home Fast" to end the Iraq war. Democracy Now talks about it with CodePink founder, Medea Benjamin.

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/07/10/1356240

Listen to Segment
http://play.rbn.com/?url=demnow/demnow/demand/2006/july/audio/dn20060710.ra&proto=rtsp&start=

Download Show mp3
http://www.archive.org/download/dn2006-0710/dn2006-0710-1_64kb.mp3

[The2ndWheel]

1. Still not sure

how depriving yourself of food is going to do anything to people who don't give a damn about people. Want to make the elected leaders listen? Take their food away. Then maybe you've got something. Until that happens, what exactly is being accomplished? They're sitting there with no food, the troops aren't coming back(today or tomorrow), and what else?

[Dominic Harr]

2. I, too, am curious

I don't understand how a hunger strike has any potential to affect change.

Then again, I don't know the history of hunger strikes, so perhaps they have been effective in the past.

[newyawker99]

4. Hi Dominic Harr!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[Dominic Harr]

7. Hi, back!

And thanks!

:-)

[Warpy]

5. Public figures and organized, publicised fasts have changed

things. Gandhi's fasts come to mind, although even he stopped at 18 days for the longest one. Bobby Sands fasted until it killed him, and things did chage, but only after the media shamed the government over it.

If fasters assembled in parks and media got notified, perhaps it might do some good.

Fasting at home and donating the food budget for the period to Oxfam might do some good.

Otherwise, it only helps the person who is fasting.

[robcon]

6. Bobby Sands' fast/death didn't change anything

The effect of Sands' (and others') fasting and deaths was a more polarized Ireland, but in the end the IRA gave up the one demand Sands wanted... getting the British out of Ireland. Northern Ireland was incorporated into Great Britain (creating the UK) in the early 70's, and it's still there.

[Warpy]

8. On the contrary

it did get a few things changed along the lines of recognizing imprisoned IRA members as political prisoners/prisoners of war, meaning they got to wear their own clothing and receive a slightly better level of treatment than common criminals did.

This may not seem like much to you, but it did to them, the recognition that the war in Ireland had always been an anticolonial war and not just organized crime.

[robcon]

9. You're right.

It does not seem much to me.

[EFerrari]

3. I bet that number is low! This action has some real juice behind it

I got the notice from four different organizations that I remember -- suddenly, everyone was talking about it.

Thanks for posting this, bigtree. :hi: