It’s such a “business as usual” story that the NY Times relegated it to page 21.

House Democrats have made another deal to fund the war in Iraq.

They’re voting today to give the Bush administration another $162-billion for Iraq and Afghanistan.

In return, Bush and the Repubs have apparently agreed to a better, expanded GI bill for veterans, extended unemployment compensation, and some helped to flooded areas.

A bad deal.

Call your House member today — right now — and say that.

It seems like the fix is in.  The deal is probably done.

But let’s not let it happen quietly on page 21.  Speak up.

The Washington Post says there will be two votes, one on the domestic spending and one on the money for the war.

Tell them to just say no.  Call now. The House switchboard is 202-225-3121. Or find your member here.

And on Friday, take some action yourself to end the war and occupation.  It’s Iraq Moratorium day, a day to take some action, individually or collectively, to interrupt your normal routine and make a statement.  

A postscript: Mission Accomplished:

BAGHDAD – Four Western oil companies are in the final stages of negotiations this month on contracts that will return them to Iraq, 36 years after losing their oil concession to nationalization as Saddam Hussein rose to power.

Exxon Mobil, Shell, Total and BP – the original partners in the Iraq Petroleum Company – along with Chevron and a number of smaller oil companies, are in talks with Iraq’s Oil Ministry for no-bid contracts to service Iraq’s largest fields, according to ministry officials, oil company officials and an American diplomat.

This Friday, June 20th, marks the Summer Solstice, the longest day in the year.

Unfortunately, it will be just one more grueling day in what is already the third longest war in US history.

June 20th is also the tenth monthly observance of the Iraq Moratorium, held on the Third Friday of each and every month until this horrific war is over.

“It’s got to stop! We’ve got to stop it!” has been the watchword of the Iraq Moratorium from Day One. The majority of this country’s people want this war over, pronto. But the politicians keep hedging, media coverage keeps shrinking, and US troops and Iraq men, women and children keep dying.

It really will take all of us, acting together, to force an end to the tragedy. On Friday, please break your daily routine and take some step to end the war. You can act with others-there are around 100 scheduled events taking place from coast to coast listed for Moratorium Day #10 at the Iraq Moratorium website website. You can act on your own – there’s a list of things you might want to do linked from the home page as well. Or use your imagination, but do something.

I've been skeptical of the calls to impeach George Bush and Dick Cheney, fearful that acting this late in their terms will create a circus that overshadows the question of who will succeed them in January.

David Swanson, of Democrats.com, ImpeachCheney.org, and AfterDowningStreet.org, will surely disagree when he speaks in Milwaukee Thursday, sponsored by Iraq Moratorium and others. His topic is, "Peace, Impeachment and Election Day: Which Comes First." Swanson's own writings make a strong case for impeachment.

Dennis Kucinich, who read his 35 articles of impeachment against Bush into the record on C-Span the other night, clearly thinks there are more than enough grounds to impeach.

But the person who may convince me that it's time to act is a conservative Bush backer, a Marquette University professor and blogger named John McAdams.

McAdams lives in fear that a Barack Obama administration might prosecute Bush or others for crimes they may have committed while in office, based on this statement from Obama:

What I would want to do is to have my Justice Department and my Attorney General immediately review the information that’s already there and to find out are there inquiries that need to be pursued. I can’t prejudge that because we don’t have access to all the material right now. I think that you are right, if crimes have been committed, they should be investigated. You’re also right that I would not want my first term consumed by what was perceived on the part of Republicans as a partisan witch hunt because I think we’ve got too many problems we’ve got to solve.

You know, I often get questions about impeachment at town hall meetings and I’ve said that is not something I think would be fruitful to pursue because I think that impeachment is something that should be reserved for exceptional circumstances. Now, if I found out that there were high officials who knowingly, consciously broke existing laws, engaged in coverups of those crimes with knowledge forefront, then I think a basic principle of our Constitution is nobody above the law — and I think that’s roughly how I would look at it.

That seems pretty straightforward. If someone "knowingly, consciously broke existing laws" they should be prosecuted. You'd think a law and order Republican would have no trouble with that concept.  

They’ll be flipping pancakes for peace Friday at the Midwest Renewable Energy Expo in Wisconsin.

They’ll hold a teach-in on torture on the train to San Jose, where a picket and vigil will target a Boeing subsidiary accused of providing logistics for those “extraordinary rendition” flights.



Church bells will ring in Massachusetts. Activists will leaflet commuters in San Francisco Bay area, Brooklyn, and Takoma Park MD. Street corner vigils are planned in dozens of communities across the country, large and small.

It’s all part of the Iraq Moratorium , a monthly event that asks people to break their daily routines and do something to show that they want to Iraq war and occupation to end.

Nearly 100 events in 82 communities are listed on the Moratorium website, bringing the total to more than 1000 since the Moratorium began last September.

The Iraq Moratorium does not believe that one size fits all.  It asks people to act, but in whatever way they choose.

The whole idea is to do something — anything — to show your opposition to the war, whether it’s wearing an armband or writing your members of Congress or donating to a peace group working to end the war and occupation.  All it takes to have an action is two people and a sign.  

Friday’s the day.  Please do something.

John McCain insensitive to the human cost of the war in Iraq?

Au contraire.  He’s very sensitive:

“Nothing is more precious than Americans, and I know that it has caused great heartache and pain,” he said, “but I also want to tell you that I believe in the conflict in Iraq with this new strategy, we are succeeding.

“Every American is precious, every casualty is someone that pains and grieves us, no one more than a veteran,” said Mr. McCain, who spent five years as a prisoner of war during Vietnam. “But the consequences of failure would be chaos and genocide in the region.”

Maybe that’s why we don’t even bother to count the number of Iraqis killed, while estimates range in the hundreds of thousands, even a million.

Every American is precious.

Iraqis’ lives are cheap.

And it’s really “not too important” when the killing stops.

Common sense has prevailed, at least momentarily, in Madison, Wisconsin’s municipal court.

Trespassing charges were dropped today against three peace activists who had entered an Army recruiting station to discuss the Iraq war with recruiters.

The Army apparently decided to cut its public relations losses.  When the officer who was to testify on the Army’s behalf failed to show up (was AWOL, in other words), the judge dismissed the charges against the trio.

They were arrested on March 19, the fifth anniversary of the war.  Bonnie Block, David Nordstrom, and Joy First  went in to talk to recruiters while other activists outside the recruiting station were reading names of the war dead.  They were arrested and charged with trespassing, which carried a $424 fine.

They were to appear Monday before Judge Dan Koval in Madison Municipal Court on the charge, which carried a possible $424 fine.  

The activists said they were ready to argue that a recruiting station is a government office and therefore public property paid for by taxpayers.  As their press release put it:

The activists were engaging the recruiters in a dialogue that made the recruiters very uncomfortable, but the activists were not disruptive and they planned to argue that they had every right to be there.

Nordstrom noted, “In the 5 years of American occupation, about 1 million Iraqi men, women, and children have died. That’s a death rate of about 1 per 25 people. Much of the country’s infrastructure is destroyed. The occupation has spawned an armed resistance which has attracted foreign fighters from several countries.”

Block used the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to justify her actions, stating, “I am a dissenter and claim that right under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Article 19 states: ‘Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression: this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.’ Even if that frontier is a military recruiter’s office.”

First said that they will return to the military recruiting station in the future, explaining, “As long as we have a war criminal in the White House, it is the responsibility of concerned citizens to speak out in resistance as our government breaks the law. We must continue to take action to try to do everything we can to stop the unbelievable carnage and suffering that is taking place in Iraq – that we feel deeply compelled to follow our conscience in this matter.”

The action was organized by Madison Pledge of Resistance, a member group of the National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance.

Are you coming to Cleveland June 27-28 for the National Assembly of antiwar activists, to talk strategy to end this senseless slaughter?

It looks like a lot of people are.  There are 482 endorsers of the session,including many of the nation’s most active peace groups.

The Iraq Moratorium, with which I’m affiliated, will have a number of people there to take part in the discussions, present a workshop, and, we hope, make some personal connections with people from around the country who participate in the monthly Iraq Moratorium or would like to know more about it.

If that describes you, we’d like to hear from you in advance so we can look you up in Cleveland or plan to get together while we’re there.

Iraq Moratorium #10 is on Friday, June 20, and already some 55 events are listed, with more being added every day for the next two weeks.  Check the listings for one near you, or add your own if it’s not already listed.  

There have already been more than 1,000 actions under the Moratorium umbrella, ranging from street corner vigils to direct action against warmakers.

That’s one of the unique things about the Moratorium.  It’s not “one size fits all.”  People and groups are free to do their own thing.  All the Moratorium asks is that they all do it on the Third Friday of every month, so coordinated action can have a bigger impact.

The focus in Cleveland is likely to be on building big national or regional protests, and we need to do that.

But the Moratorium, mobilizing people every month, can help to build the kind of network that will turn people out for bigger actions later.  The Moratorium’s goal is to get many more of the vast majority of Americans who oppose the war to act — to get the silent majority to speak up.

But I digress.

If you’re going to be in Cleveland and would like to get together with some of the national core group working on the Moratorium, please e-mail us and let us know.

In the meantime, do something on June 20 to end the war and occupation.  

I’m sure Dylan would not call it an endorsement, but the Times of London does:

His 1964 track ‘The Times They are a-Changin’ became the anthem for his generation, symbolising the era-defining social struggle against the establishment.

Now Bob Dylan – who could justifiably claim to be the architect of Barack Obama’s ‘change’ catchphrase – has backed the Illinois senator to do for modern America what the generation before did in the 1960s.

In an exclusive interview with The Times, published today, Dylan gives a ringing endorsement to Mr Obama, the first ever black presidential candidate, claiming he is “redefining the nature of politics from the ground up”.

He does, indeed, have some very positive things to say about Obama, even if it’s not “a ringing endorsement” as the paper claims:

Asked about his views on American politics, he said: “Well, you know right now America is in a state of upheaval. Poverty is demoralising. You can’t expect people to have the virtue of purity when they are poor.

“But we’ve got this guy out there now who is redefining the nature of politics from the ground up…Barack Obama.

“He’s redefining what a politician is, so we’ll have to see how things play out. Am I hopeful? Yes, I’m hopeful that things might change. Some things are going to have to.”

He added: “You should always take the best from the past, leave the worst back there and go forward into the future.”

Pretty amazing stuff from the “Don’t follow leaders, watch the parking meters” guy who has always insisted he doesn’t speak for anyone but himself.  

Wonder if he votes.

Anyway, endorsement or not, it’s one more piece of evidence that maybe the times really are a-changin’ if even Dylan sees reason for hope.  

This may sound a tad familiar if you’re a regular here, but for once it’s not me saying it.  

This article by Julie Byrnes Enslow, director of Peace Action-Wisconsin, is featured on the front page of the June issue of The Mobilizer, Peace Action-Wisconsin's newsletter.

Silence will not stop the occupation of Iraq.

“I shall go to Korea”

I gladly paid you next Tuesday for a hamburger today.   I’ll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today”

We have overcome.

We would not be moved.

Ask not what your country did for you, ask what you did for your country.

The British came!

Tell the bill collector: “I paid that!”  When?  Next payday.

Writing about the recent House vote against more Iraq war funding, The Nation notes that growing numbers of Democrats in Congress are finding it safer to vote to stop funding the endless war and occupation. Susannah Vila writes:

Since March 2006, eighty Democrats have switched to voting no on war funding, due in part to persistent lobbying by local constituents and peace groups. After voting for funding as recently as December, veteran Democrats like John Dingell and Dale Kildee changed their votes in response to pressure from United for Peace and Justice’s Michigan Peace Action Chapter. “They are riding the wave,” says UFPJ’s Sue Udry of the additions to the nay camp. “Now it’s safe to vote against the war. There had been pressure on them from their districts, but it had been building slowly. The grassroots peace movement has been hounding Congress for years, and finally it pushed them over.” The lesson of the May 15 vote? “The strength of the peace movement is people’s willingness to keep hounding.”

The appropriations bill is coming back for a House vote soon, since $193-billion for the war was restored by the Senate.  It will almost certainly pass the House this time; it failed last time not only because Dems voted no, but because many Repubs, mostly angry about procedural issues, voted “present” instead of aye.  That’s unlikely to happen again.