Tag: anti-war

No, it’s not one of those nonsense questions.

Like, “What would you rather be or an elephant?”

“Would you rather carry your lunch or walk to work?”

“Is it farther to New York or by airplane?”

What would you rather have than the war in Iraq?

Setting aside the human cost, the carnage — if that is possible, by an act of will — just focus on the monetary costs.  Money’s something everyone can relate to — even conservatives.

And there is no better teaching moment, no better time to make the argument that we can’t afford to continue this war and occupation, than April 15, the day we empty our pockets and send our money to the Pentagon.

That could and should be a focus of antiwar activity this month.

Hi all,

This is my first official post at docudharma. Exciting. 🙂

I wrote this post which combined a quick note of thanks I wrote as a self introduction to OOIBC, images I posted for Wordless Wednesday and an older post I wrote about being a privileged north amerikkkan homebirther who can reasonably expect to birth children that are not irradiated and howling in pain, birthing in peace and quiet not amid the sounds of bombs and the screams of the traumatized, dominated and dying.

I just want to offer a quick thank you to Edger for turning me in the direction of this group blogsite. I appreciate the words of encouragement, Edger.

darkdaughta

originally posted onWednesday, March 26, 2008

Greetings from darkdaughta…

Hi,
I'm darkdaughta. My other blog is here.

I'm new here. I was invited over the weekend but I waited. I wanted to bring something useful to the conversation. I wanted to bring something that locates me not just as a war resister, but also as a mama, as a flesh being who is attempting to deal with her lived reality as someone who benefits from the war in Iraq.

So, I thought every day since the first invitation about what would do this space justice and about what I could come bearing that would help to expose what our warlords have brought to the people of Iraq.

This is the story of the vigil that refused to die — or at least refused to be snowed under. Friday was a horrendous day in Milwaukee as Spring arrived with a huge snowfall that may end up being more than a foot (it’s still falling as I write this.)  This was the noon report:

Nearly five inches of snow has fallen this morning at General Mitchell International as a winter storm warning remains in effect, keeping police and firefighters busy with multiple accidents reported on local streets and highways.

“Boy it’s bad outside,” said Milwaukee Battalion 1 Fire Chief Steven Gleisner, who was making rounds to the firehouses in his battalion this morning. “I almost spun out in a 4-wheel drive vehicle, a 6,000 pound Chevy Suburban, and I’m having a tough time getting around. I’ve never done that in a four-wheel drive vehicle. I’m like, ‘No. I’m heading home. Plus, the visibility is lousy.”

He suggested others do the same.”If folks don’t have to go out today, I wouldn’t go out,” he said.

It just got worse as the day went on. Side streets were nearly impassible, buses were running late if at all, the airport eventually closed.  Many churches even canceled Good Friday services. So organizers of a 5 p.m. Iraq Moratorium vigil, a monthly action held on downtown’s busiest corner, conferred during the afternoon.  Should the show go on? Your humble scribe, having ventured out once in his lightweight car, really didn’t want to do it again.  However, having written a rather macho online essay earlier in the day, about how weather doesn’t stop Wisconsinites from stopping the war, staying home didn’t seem like an option.

In mid-afternoon, Peace Action’s George Martin said he planned to show up with signs, flags and paraphernalia, since some people were bound to show up no matter what.  But he called about 4 p.m. to say the event was off.  Let’s be honest; I breathed a sigh of relief. I could stay home with a clear conscience, although I might have to eat a little crow about that blog.

But, I looked out at 4:30 p.m. and, although the snow was still falling heavily, our street had miraculously been plowed.  So, staying only on a few main arterial streets, I managed to make it to the site of the alleged vigil. There, at Water Street and Wisconsin Avenue, four young people huddled on the corner.  One had a rolled-up sign, so it seemed plausible they were there to protest the war, not catch a bus. That turned out to be the case. I told them the vigil was canceled, and asked if they’d at least stay long enough for me to haul a brand new Iraq Moratorium banner out of my car and take a photo.  Once there was a banner and a few more people showed up with their own signs, everyone decided to stay for the scheduled hour-long vigil. We ended up with 10 people.

So Milwaukee’s record is intact. Seven vigils in the seven months since the Iraq Moratorium began in September.  Although this was the smallest turnout ever, it may have been the most satisfying one to be a part of. The people in these photos are winter soldiers, indeed.

Reports from other actions are beginning to trickle in from around the country.  Read them, or post your own accounts of what you did, at IraqMoratorium.org

Before and after an hour in the snow in 30-degree temperatures:

It’s Iraq Moratorium day, so of course it’s snowing heavily here in Wisconsin, where more than a dozen outside vigils are planned.

There is already several inches on the ground in Milwaukee, and it is still coming down heavily.  By our 5 p.m. downtown vigil tonight there could be a foot of the stuff.

But those who can get there will be there, just as they have been during the winter when temperatures and wind chills were sub-zero.  (Pictured are folks in Whitewater, WI at their February Moratorium vigil.)

Why?

I have to wonder myself sometimes.  Why do we persist, when other public events are being canceled left and right?

The easiest answer is that people are committed to ending this senseless, bloody war — and they want to demonstrate their commitment.

Last week, Iraq Veterans Against the War held Winter Soldier hearings, to testify about what life is like on the ground, and what our troops are being asked to do in the name of “freedom.”  

Winter Soldier, modeled after the 1971 Vietnam Winter Soldier hearings, takes its name from these words of Thomas Paine, written during the terrible winter of Valley Forge:

“These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.”

So, maybe the weather today is just testing whether we are “summer soldiers and sunshine patriots” or are really committed.

I’ve talked myself into it:  I’ll be there tonight, whatever the weather.

Whether you’re battling the snow or basking on the beach, please join us in doing something today to show your opposition to the war and occupation of Iraq.

Wear a button or an armband.  Write a letter.  Send an email.  Donate to a peace group.  Whatever.  But do something.  You’ll find ideas for individual action and a list of group events at IraqMoratorium.org

Be a winter soldier.

They’ll discuss it in Detroit.

They’ll write letters in Cornwall, Ct.

They’ll march in Duluth, rally in White Plains, and vigil in Cincinnati.

And they’ve been getting arrested in San Francisco.

Friday is Iraq Moratorium #7, and people across the country are marking it in dozens of different ways, from rallies, marches, protests, vigils to individual actions to call for an end to the war and occupation.

There’s even been a bit of civil disobedience by people willing to make arrest to make their point.

It all fits (as long as it’s non-violent) under the umbrella of the Iraq Moratorium, a loosely-knit national grassroots movement to end the war and bring the troops home.

The convergence of the 5th anniversary of “shock and awe” with Christian Holy Week and Iraq Moratorium #7 has sparked hundreds of antiwar actions across the country this week.

The Iraq Moratorium, a loosely-knit grassroots movement, is usually observed on the Third Friday of every month, but March events are spread throughout the week.

It began last weekend, when more than 500 people gathered at the Unitarian Universalist Church of San Francisco for a rally, march and vigil.

Speakers included Daniel Ellsberg, State Sen. Carole Migden and former San Francisco Supervisor and current Green Party vice presidential candidate Matt Gonzalez.

Ellsberg invited the crowd at the church to join him in a “die in” Wednesday at noon outside the San Francisco office of Sen. Dianne Feinstein. “We may be arrested for disturbing the peace,” he said. “But there is no peace.

Golden Gate XPress, the student newspaper at San Francisco State University, reports:

[Cindy]Sheehan,(right) a congressional candidate … concluded the event by reflecting on her personal loss. She told the story of her son who was killed in the third bloody mission into Sadr City, a mission forced upon him against his will.

“Today I have one dead son,” she said to a silent hall, using a tissue to dry a tear. “When your child is killed in a war, they always say ‘Your child volunteered. Your child was a hero,'” she said. “What makes him a hero if he was ordered to kill innocent Iraqis?”

Sheehan further acknowledged the Americans and Iraqis who lost their lives in the war and the politicians who put them there.

“It’s bullshit that we’re not impeaching,” she said.

Because the Moratorium, which encourages local grassroots action on the Third Friday of every month, coincides with the Christian observance of Good Friday, March 21, some actions will include a religious theme.

The Pike’s Peak Justice Coalition will take part in Pax Christi’s Way of the Cross/Way of Justice procession in downtown Colorado Springs.  

A Hartford, CT “Lamentation and Protest” will begin with an interfaith prayer service, followed by a silent procession to the federal building, where marchers will pile stones bearing the names of victims of the Iraq war.  Church bells will ring in a number of communities in Massachusetts to mark Moratorium observances.

In Cincinnati, candlelight vigils will be held in eight neighborhoods, and dozens of street corner vigils are planned across the country.  Most vigils take place every month, and some have been going since the war began.  

In a session called “Write Some Wrongs,” people in Cornwall, CT will meet at the public library to write their Congressman about “what is in your heart about the Iraq war and what you want him to do about it.”

The Iraq Moratorium encourage local organizers to “do their own thing” on the third Friday of the month – but to do something, whatever it is, to end the war.  It is all a loosely-knit national grassroots effort operating under the Iraq Moratorium umbrella.

Friday is the seventh monthly Moratorium, and more than 800 events have been listed on the group’s website, IraqMoratorium.org , which has a list of this month’s actions and reports, photos and videos from previous months.

Lest we think that opposition to the war and occupation of Iraq is limited to the left in this country, consider the lineup of speakers for a March 16 Iraq Moratorium event in San Francisco:

Several of the usual suspects: Sean Penn; Cindy Sheehan; the Rev. Gregory Stewart, senior minister of the Unitarian Universalist Church; Matt Gonzalez, ex-president of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and rumored vice presidential candidate on the Green Party ticket.

And one Justin Raimondo, libertarian and paleoconservative (look it up; we did) author who also runs the website Antiwar.com, where he writes things like:

Our foreign policy has put us in mortal danger, and not only because it empowers the worldwide Islamist insurgency that aims to attack the American homeland, but also because the “Iraq recession” is fast threatening to become the Iraq depression. The U.S. is teetering on the edge of bankruptcy, and the $3 trillion war is going to sink us if it isn’t stopped.

It’s an interesting mix, to say the least, and helps explain how Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich could at least agree on one thing – that the invasion of Iraq was a terrible mistake, and we should bring our troops home now. (It was interesting, at the Oct. 27 regional antiwar march in Chicago, that Ron Paul’s was the only presidential campaign represented, with signs, campaign material and even an airplane flyover with a banner.)

When I posted this on another unnamed blog, some commenters pointed out that Raimondo’s politics leave a little to be desired, and that I probably wouldn’t agree with him on much besides the war.  OK, granted.  My whole point here (aside from some shameless promotion of the Moratorium) is that if antiwar sentiment in this country includes nearly two-thirds of the population, the Iraq Moratorium must be a big tent — or big umbrella, if you will — that brings together people who have the common cause of ending the war and occupation of Iraq.  That single issue unifies us.  I met a Ron Paul enthusiast at our March Iraq Moratorium vigil in Milwaukee, so it’s not just hypothetical; people are uniting to end this war.

Details on Sunday’s event, sponsored by the Iraq Moratorium-SF Bay Area, are listed in the March events on the Iraq Moratorium website .

From our friends and colleagues at the Iraq Moratorium:

Sometime in the next few weeks, the 4,000th American service member will die in Iraq. Coalition deaths in Iraq reached 4,000 last August, but Americans focus on American casualties. Even approximate numbers of Iraqi deaths are estimates, so we will never learn when the millionth Iraqi is killed–and it may well have happened already.

On March 19, this unjust and unjustifiable war will enter its sixth year! Kids who were in first grade during the 2003 invasion will be entering Junior High this year, more than half their lives spent with the horror of war constantly in the background.

March 21, the Third Friday of this month, will mark the seventh Iraq Moratorium Day, a day to interrupt our normal routine and speak out against this senseless bloodshed and the damage it is doing to our country. Politicians and talking heads on TV speak calmly of the occupation lasting another decade–or another hundred years–or they try not to talk about it at all.

Many of us will be taking part in protests around the 5th Anniversary of the start of the war. It begins with some courageous Iraq Veterans Against the War holding Winter Soldier hearings March 13-16. Some Iraq Moratorium vigils will be held on Wednesday, March 19, this month to highlight the anniversary of the war’s start, and to link up with other protests called by United For Peace & Justice and a broad range of individual anti-war groups. Some will continue on the Third Friday as usual. Check the listings at IraqMoratorium.org for an action near you.

March 21 is also Good Friday, the religious holiday marking when the man many of us know as The Prince of Peace was killed by Roman soldiers occupying Judea.  Some of us will wear a button or black armband to services to remind others of the need to speak out and to act to end the war. In a growing number of towns, especially in New England, local churches will ring their bells at noon in observance of the Iraq Moratorium.

As we have said from the beginning: It’s got to stop! We’ve got to stop it!

So do something on March 21 to keep this issue on the front burner — and to turn up the heat.

If you’re traveling for Easter, or on spring break from school, take the Iraq Moratorium with you wherever you go.  Wear a button or a black ribbon.  Talk to your family about the war.  Find an event in the community you’re visiting. Send an email or write a blog post. Make a donation to a peace group.  But do something to mark the day. (You’ll find a list of activities and ideas for individual action on our website .)

Finally, if you can, please make a contribution to keep this grassroots, volunteer effort going and growing.  We operate on a shoestring.  American taxpayers spend as much on the Iraq war in four seconds as the Iraq Moratorium spends in a year.  Every dollar you can spare will go to immediate and effective use in the cause of peace.

Donate here.

In closing, we thank you for all you are doing to end this catastrophic war.

March 19th marks the 5th anniversary of the illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq.  This debacle is costing us ,upwards of two trillion dollars, nearly four thousand American lives so far, and a million or so Iraqi lives.  

This diary carries a message or two but is also a tribute.  It is not hero worship.  I am well aware of JFK’s flaws and weaknesses as a human being – you needn’t remind me.  But John F. Kennedy was also a gifted orator who inspired and uplifted us with the poetry in his soul and the power in his words – and certain of his words resonate now more than ever.