A reminder that change may have come to Washington, but it hasn’t made it to Iraq yet.

Iraq Moratorium #19 is only 10 days away, on Friday, Feb. 20.

Here’s one idea for action from United for Peace and Justice:  Schedule a meeting with your members of Congress, who will be home on a recess that week, and ask them to end the war and occupation of Iraq.

Of course you can always protest outside of their offices.  But why not ask for a face-to-face conversation and see what happens?  UFPJ says:

To make sure you can get appointments with your elected officials you need to call now. Go here to find out who your Representative or Senators are and their contact information.  We want members of Congress to know they are getting calls from UFPJ. We want legislators to know that we are connecting the issues of the war and the economy.

There are three messages we want to deliver to the members of Congress.

1) The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan must end! We believe that security will be forged internationally and diplomatically, not by the United States unilaterally occupying nations. Furthermore, the economic crisis has created and exposed tremendous human needs in our own country. Millions are without health care, stable housing, and living wage jobs. The priority of the national treasury must go from a war economy to a peace economy where the winners are all of us, rather than military contractors. A first step in this process must be to stop the funding for these wars! It is critically important that Congress knows the antiwar movement is as strong as ever.

2) It is time to fix our country’s health care system! We encourage you to support HR 676, the Single Payer Health Care bill. Passage of HR 676 would mean that health care is provided by a single source, rather than dozens of private insurance companies making profits. This would be a cheaper way to cover health care costs, as it is all over the world where governments guarantee health care. Health insurance being separated from employment would also help U.S. corporations who cannot compete with international corporations, who do not have to provide employee health care. For more information on this bill go here.

3) We support passage of the Employee Free Choice Act!  This bill allows workers to unionize when a majority of people demonstrates their support for a union representing them by signing union cards. Passage of the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) would result in more workplaces being unionized. With unionization, workers get the benefit of collective bargaining, which results in higher wages. Higher wages means more spending power that boosts the economy; higher wages means families can be supported without every adult working multiple jobs, which leaves little time for families, children, and being an informed citizen. For more information on this bill go to

AFL-CIO site.

Support for both HR 676 and EFCA is a good place to start. UFPJ member groups such as Progressive Democrats of America and US Labor Against the War are already working on them.

Everyone doesn’t live in a town where there is a Congressional office, of course. But you can bring cell phones and contact numbers to your Moratorium event and place calls from there. Keep the heat on.

This idea also ties in with the Raise Hell for Molly Ivins Campaign, which has been urging contact with members of Congress, in their home offices, on the Third Friday of the month and has produced a video with Vietnam vet Ron Kovic to promote it.

But we’re not telling you what to do to mark the Iraq Moratorium.  That’s not our role.  It’s simply to encourage people to do something, individually or collectively, on the Third Friday of the month to end the war and occupation.

Whatever you’re planning, please list it and share your plans with others. Here’s the link.

To see what others are doing, read reports from last month, get some new ideas, read about the peace movement, donate to Iraq Moratorium, buy a T-shirt, or just surf, visit the website/

Steve Burns at the Wisconsin Network for Peace and Justice asks a very timely question, as Congress takes it sweet time tinkering with a stimulus bill:

What is it the makes Democrats so committed to the Senate rule that allows the minority to tie things in knots?

Remember the "nuclear option" threat by the GOP when Republicans ruled the Senate? The threat, basically, was that if Dems didn't play ball they'd change the rules and eliminate the rule that says you need 60 votes to end debate and pass a bill.

It’s not like it was in “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.” Says Burns:

After Democrats retook the Senate in the 2006, Republicans, now the minority, filibustered frequently, under a tacit agreement with Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid that they would never actually be required to go through exertions of Mr. Smith’s Senator Jefferson Smith. No thermos of hot coffee and wax-paper-wrapped sandwiches for them, Republican leaders merely needed to utter the word “filibuster” and Reid would quickly drop any proposed legislation that didn’t have a guarantee of 60 votes. This exercise became so routine that newspapers began to omit mention of the filibuster entirely, simply reporting that a piece of legislation failed because it didn’t have the “60 votes needed for passage.” An inattentive reader might be forgiven for thinking the Constitution had been quietly amended to require a three-fifths majority for passage of legislation in the Senate.

Why do the two parties have such differing levels of commitment to the filibuster? Republicans, when in the majority, are willing to discard it entirely, and agree to keep it only on the condition that it never be used, while Democrats cling stubbornly to the filibuster, even when it appears to ensure the defeat of their legislative program. Why?

I’ve thought for some time, during the last session of Congress, that Democrats should call the GOP bluff.  Make them actually filibuster.

I’ve been thinking it while watching this charade on the stimulus bill.  If Republicans want to stand up and talk for days to prevent passage of an economic stimulus package, while the economic handbasket careens closer to hell every day, let them do that.

Let the whole country see what they stand for.  Let the voters see that it’s not just Rush Limbaugh who is willing to put everyone at risk for the sake of political payback.

If they want to filibuster, I say bring it on.

It’s time for Dems to quit making nice and up the ante.

But WNPJ's Burns suggests that Harry Reid and others may actually like the rule, and the way it’s applied now, because it gives them a great excuse for inaction or half-assed action:

It places Senate Democrats in the enviable position of enjoying all the perks of being the majority party – like committee chairmanships and an increased ability to bring home the bacon – with none of the responsibilities that would normally accompany majority party status. “Want more money for Head Start? Sorry, we’d just love to do that, but those nasty Republicans won’t let us – the filibuster, you know,” is the standard Democratic refrain.

Read the rest of Burn's excellent piece on the WNPJ blog here.  

He had me at "my fellow citizens."

But of the many remarkable things Barack Obama said as he assumed this office of president, this simple phrase spoke volumes to me, and no doubt to many of my fellow Vietnam veterans, numbering some 2.5-million with another 6+ million who served during the Vietnam era:

For us, they fought and died, in places like Concord and Gettysburg; Normandy and Khe Sahn.

I'll leave the analysis to others. I know what hearing that from the lips of our new President meant to me.

Vietnam, like Iraq, was a terrible mistake. But, as Vietnam Veterans Against the War have said for 40 years, it is possible — and fitting — to honor the warrior, not the war.

By mentioning Khe Sahn in the same breath as Lexington, Gettysburg, and Normandy, Obama has done that.  

How many cases of frostbite will it take to end the war and occupation of Iraq?

Iraq Moratorium activists in Wisconsin ponder that, with the weather forecast for Friday, Jan. 16, this month’s Iraq Moratorium day, for subzero temperatures and even worse wind-chill readings.  There are warnings about frostbite and hypothermia.

Iraq Moratorium-Wisconsin noted, in an email to organizers:

While standing at a vigil in sub-zero temperatures may be an expression of our commitment, frostbite and hypothermia will not end the war and occupation of Iraq.

This is not to suggest canceling planned events for Friday; our experience in Milwaukee is that it is almost impossible to get the word out to everyone even when a decision is made to cancel.  Some people will come anyway.

However, if it is really as cold as the forecast indicates, it might make sense to think about shortening up the vigil and moving indoors after 15-30 minutes to a nearby coffee shop, restaurant or other location.  Use the time to discuss the war, plan a February Moratorium event, write a letter, circulate a petition to bring the National Guard home, or take some other action to help get US troops out of Iraq.

Here’s a list of scheduled Wisconsin events on Friday: Iraq Moratorium-Wisconsin.

It may fall on peace-loving people in warmer climes to pick up the slack this week.  You’ll find a list of events in your area, ideas for individual action, and more on the national website.

We’re hardy in Wisconsin, but even we have our limits.

UPDATE: They didn’t exactly say it, but methinks the folks in Wyandott, MI think we’re wimpy.

Obama We’re Hopeful

(Nelson 2008, tune of “O Come All Ye Faithful”)

Obama we’re hopeful, cautiously believing

you meant when you told us that you’d end this war,

Sooner than later, let’s get our troops back state-side!

OBAMA WE’LL BE WATCHING,

OBAMA WE’LL BE MARCHING,

OBAMA WE’LL BE HOLDING YOUR FEET TO THE FIRE!

Ensconced in the White House, trying to get your bearings,

Oil men and gen’rals whisp’ring in those big ears,

Filling your head with doubts and grim scenarios,

OBAMA WE’LL BE WATCHING,

OBAMA WE’LL BE MARCHING,

OBAMA WE’LL BE HOLDING YOUR FEET TO THE FIRE!

That could be the theme song* for Camp Hope, which opens a 19-day presence in the president-elect’s Hyde Park neighborhood on New Year’s Day, also known as Emancipation Proclamation Day.  Activities and actions are planned daily in Chicago, ending on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Jan. 19.

 

What was Steve Burns, a staff member of Wis. Network for Peace and Justice, doing on an anti-shopping spree in Madison Friday?

Well, it was Iraq Moratorium day, and Burns decided his action this month would be to call shoppers' attention to a little-known connection between a Wisconsin company and deaths of civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Burns learned that Wisconsin's National Presto Industries, known to the public for making Salad Shooters and Fry Daddies, has a dark side that it doesn't advertise.

The Eau Claire-based company produced artillery fuses during World War II, artillery shells in the 1950s, and during the Vietnam war, from 1966 to 1975, manufactured more than two million eight-inch howitzer shells and more than 92 million 105mm artillery shells.