December 2007 archive

When we last checked in with our intrepid antiwar warriors in Hayward, Wisconsin, they were basking in the afterglow of Iraq Moratorium #3, having turned out some 40 people in a city of 2129 for a roadside vigil. We noted that the same percentage turnout across the nation would put 6 million people in the streets, calling for an and to the Iraq war.

Now comes the local weekly, the Sawyer County Record, to remind us that organizing for peace in a small, rural community is not all seashells and balloons, as Al McGuire used to say (meaning everything was coming up roses.)  The paper reports:

They’ve become a familiar sight at the corner of Highways 63 and 27 in Hayward.

They hold signs. They wave. They usually smile.

They appreciate the honks of support. They tolerate the jeers and middle fingers pointed in their direction

.

But members of Peace North, which organizes the event, are busy working on turnout for Iraq Moratorium #4 next week, on Friday, December 21.

It’s a challenging time to organize for peace — four days before Christmas, one day before the shortest and darkest day of the year. It’ll be below freezing if not below zero in some parts of the country.  Most campuses will be shut down and students scattered.

Organizers are responding with some creative ideas, many of them holiday-themed to match the goodwill the season seems to generate. More events and plans are being listed every day on the Moratorium website.

“Dress warmly and be ready to sing,” warned organizers of the Patriots for Change peace vigil in Chagrin Falls, Ohio.

Mall walks, antiwar carols, Santa suits and hats, vigils and actions to reach out to holiday shoppers all are in the works.

In Valley Forge, Pennsylvania the Brandywine Peace Community plans a Christmas candlelight vigil at Lockheed Martin weapons complex,to include: reading of names of Iraq war dead (both Iraqi and U.S.)to the backdrop of Christmas Carols, bell-tolling, poetry and music, reading of the Christmas story and guest minister commentary on “Seeing the World Through Jesus Eyes”.

Check the website for an event near you.  But you don’t need an event to participate in the Iraq Moratorium.  All you need to do is to take some action on December 21 to express your wish for an end to the war.  Wear a button or a black armband to work or school.  Write, call or email your members of Congress.  Put a sign in your yard or hang one on a freeway overpass.   Make a donation.  The list is a long one, and you’ll find many more ideas on the website.

Do what you’re comfortable doing — but do something.

Curse the darkness, but also light a candle.

One closing note:  In our previous post in praise of Hayward, we erroneously identified the city as the Musky Capital of the World.  It turns out that although Hayward does play host to the Musky Festival and is the home of the National Freshwater Fishing Hall of Fame, which features a musky sculpture half a block long and four and a half stories high, that Hayward is NOT the Musky Capital of the World.

That honor belongs to Boulder Junction, Wisconsin, which guards it zealously.

When one of the Peace North members in Hayward pointed that out, we agreed that when Boulder Junction turned out two per cent of its population for an Iraq Moratorium event we might set the record straight. But we’re doing it now anyway.  How about it, Boulder Junction?  Want to be the Peace Capital of the World?

No, it’s not strike news, but  Terry Pratchett has Alzheimers. Here’s from  his statement, titled AN EMBUGGERANCE:

I would have liked to keep this one quiet for a little while, but … it seems to me unfair to withhold the news.  I have been diagnosed with a very rare form of early onset Alzheimer’s, which lay behind this year’s phantom “stroke”.

We are taking it fairly philosophically down here and possibly with a mild optimism.  For now work is continuing on the completion of Nation and the basic notes are already being laid down for Unseen Academicals. … Frankly, I would prefer it if people kept things cheerful, because I think there’s time for at least a few more books yet :o)

PS  I would just like to draw attention to everyone reading the above that this should

be interpreted as ‘I am not dead’.  I will, of course, be dead at some future point, as

will everybody else.  For me, this maybe further off than you think – it’s too soon to tell.

I know it’s a very human thing to say “Is there anything I can do”, but in this case I

would only entertain offers from very high-end experts in brain chemistry.

Sigh.

Today’s strike summary (& action links) below the fold.  

Salon:

Desperate times, desperate scientists

How dire is the climate situation? Consider what Rajendra Pachauri, the head of the United Nations’ prestigious Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), said last month: “If there’s no action before 2012, that’s too late. What we do in the next two to three years will determine our future. This is the defining moment.” Pachauri has the distinction, or misfortune, of being both an engineer and an economist, two professions not known for overheated rhetoric.

In fact, far from being an alarmist, Pachauri was specifically chosen as IPCC chair in 2002 after the Bush administration waged a successful campaign to have him replace the outspoken Dr. Robert Watson, who was opposed by fossil fuel companies like ExxonMobil. So why is a normally low-key scientist getting more desperate in his efforts to spur the planet to action?

Part of the answer is the most recent IPCC assessment report. For the first time in six years, more than 2,000 of the world’s top scientists reviewed and synthesized all of the scientific knowledge about global warming. The Fourth Assessment Report makes clear that the accelerating emissions of human-generated heat-trapping gases has brought the planet close to crossing a threshold that will lead to irreversible catastrophe. Yet like Cassandra’s warning about the Trojan horse, the IPCC report has fallen on deaf ears, especially those of conservative politicians, even as its findings are the most grave to date.

BBC:

Arctic summers ice-free ‘by 2013’

Scientists in the US have presented one of the most dramatic forecasts yet for the disappearance of Arctic sea ice.

Their latest modelling studies indicate northern polar waters could be ice-free in summers within just 5-6 years.

Professor Wieslaw Maslowski told an American Geophysical Union meeting that previous projections had underestimated the processes now driving ice loss.

Summer melting this year reduced the ice cover to 4.13 million sq km, the smallest ever extent in modern times.

1. The Guardian reports Climate talks progressing despite US opposition to targets. “A stand-off between the United States and Europe over carbon reduction targets should not overshadow the “significant” progress made on a new climate deal, Hilary Benn said today. [Britain’s] environment secretary said the so-called Bali roadmap, which negotiators hope to produce on Friday as the first step towards a new treaty, did not need a fixed target to be considered a success…The US is trying to remove a reference to 25-40% target cuts in carbon pollution by 2020 for developed nations, which remained in the latest draft roadmap released by the UN today.”

2. Bombs in the Middle East. First Lebanon, where the NY Times reports that Brig. Gen. François al-Hajj was assassinated by a bomb attack today. Al-Hajj “was closely involved in the army’s fierce offensive over the summer to clear out Fatah al Islam, a militia group inspired by Al Qaeda, from a refugee camp north of Tripoli… The general was also one of several candidates to succeed Gen. Michel Suleiman, the army’s chief of staff, who is being considered as the country’s next president.” And in Iraq, the Washington Post reports Three car bombs kill at least 46 in Iraq. At least 149 were injured in the attacks “Amarah in Maysan province was believed to be its first mass bombing since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. The area is considered one of the country’s safest, and the bombings shattered a hopeful, if brittle, lull in Iraq’s violence.” The British withdrew from Amarah in April.

3. The Hill reports Pelosi backs down in spending battle. “In the face of stiff opposition from powerful fellow Democrats, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) has abandoned a proposal she supported less than 24 hours ago to eliminate lawmakers’ earmarks from the omnibus spending package… By leaving earmarks largely untouched and agreeing to Bush’s budget ceiling, Democrats have capitulated in their spending battle with Republicans. In the end, Democrats realized they would not be able to muster enough Republican votes to override Bush’s veto. The president vowed to reject any spending package that exceeded the $933 billion limit he set.” It’s becoming part of the traditional media now. From the Rubber stamp 109th Congress to the Capitulation 110th Congress. Congressional Dems are snatching defeat from the jaws of victory in 2008.

4. Okay, so it’s from Politico via the Washington Post, but still… this is crazy. In her column, Ruth Marcus writes Gentlemen First: The Vice President gets the vapors. “Dick Cheney is worried that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has shrunken the ‘big sticks’ of the once-tough guys who were the vice president’s colleagues in Congress.”

   In case you missed it, the vice president made those comments in an interview with the Politico. “Most striking were his virtually taunting remarks of two men he described as friends from his own days in the House: Democratic Reps. John Dingell (Mich.) and John P. Murtha (Pa.),” wrote my former Post colleagues Mike Allen, Jim VandeHei and John F. Harris.

   Cheney, they wrote, “scoffed at the idea of two men who spent years accruing power showing so much deference to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) in the big spending and energy debates of the year.” The House’s senior Democrats “march to the tune of Nancy Pelosi to an extent I had not seen, frankly, with any previous speaker,” Cheney said. “I’m trying to think how to say all of this in a gentlemanly fashion, but [in] the Congress I served in, that wouldn’t have happened.”

   Asked if these men had lost their spines, he responded, “They are not carrying the big sticks I would have expected.”

   Gentlemanly, indeed. Once, Murthas and Dingells were Big Men on the Hill, swinging the Big Sticks of committee chairmen, Cheney is saying. Now they are, if not nancy boys, Nancy’s Boys. Somehow, Newt Gingrich took on the committee chairs when he was speaker, and no one questioned their, um, equipment.

   Now of course in addition to the sexism in Cheney’s statements, I and many others are disappointed with the lack of aggressive oversight and use of subpoena ‘power’ being displayed by the house chairs, but Cheney isn’t seeing it like that. He’s upset about the House passing any positive environmental/energy bills. But, really I think Cheney cannot believe how lucky he and Bush has gotten with the Dem’s strategy of “we need more Dems to do anything”. Going by how they looked in pictures last November, I suspect Cheney and Bush thought things would be a little hotter for them up on the Hill.