Tag: Peace

Jan 14 2009

Frostbite victims for peace?

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.

Jan 13 2009

Dear SHGirl, from America

Wow, only a couple days, and look at all the replies I got on my first post “I Want to go to America”!!!!!

Some were kind of funny. I know how to swim. Dang.

Splashbaby, Iowa:

Wow, skankhatergirl. Are there bombs blowing up every day where you live? That must be scary. Its so safe here. What is Israel like? I like to swim a lot, I’m going to be on the Swim Team when I get to High School. Are there lakes and pools there? Or is it a big desert? I’d love to be your friend!!! I’ll teach you to swim. I’d love to go to a rave but my parents would totally kill me for that. But we have dances at our Jr High that are kewl too. You could come to those.

PS: Who do you think is thehottest band?

Some were really mean.

L.A.Starr367, California:

Don’t come to LA. There’s too many of dark people here already. Some Chicano skank stole my boyfriend, and we already hate the immigrants we got. Why can’t we white people stick together? I waz gonna kick her butt, but my old boyfriend stuck up for her, and so did my former so-called best friends. They called me hater. They ain’t ever seen hate like I’m gonna give them. Like I said, don’t come to my school, we don’t need no Jew girls either.

Sounds like SHE is skankier than the Skank at my school. OK, LA is out. But, I only got the one like that, the rest were nice.

Jan 12 2009

I Want to go to America!

Welcome to my blog. I’m skankhatergirl. I can’t use my real name but I know my friends at my school who read this will know who that means.

I’m kind of a myspace, facebook junkie, and I love reading American blogs from other kids like me. But really, they haven’t got much to complain about compared to me.

That’s not me, my hair is shorter, but I really like the picture. I hope they are writing “Peace” but the prints too small to tell.

Being a teenager in Israel sucks. Especially when your parents are not what you call mainstream.

In a couple of years, I have to do my military service. It sucks. My parents don’t want me to go either, but a lot of people they work with are very hard line.

I guess, like Americans hate their neo-cons, my parents are really getting sick of the war party leading our country.

Jan 08 2009

A Place to Visit for ‘PEACE’ while in DC for Inauguration

While those of you attending the Inauguration may be staying over for a few days, either before or after, you may find this a restful and enlightening venue to stop in and visit.

1/1-31 Georgetown: The Peace Mural, the unbelievable 2,000 paintings exhibition of art on war, peace, and torture that the Vietnamese-American artist Huong has on display in a 10,000 square foot gallery on M Street in Georgetown: Peace Mural Foundation

Jan 07 2009

Iraq Moratorium: Now more than ever

Sometimes we think we should just call it the War Moratorium.

We all want to end the war and occupation of Iraq — but not to free up more troops for Afghanistan.

Violence continues to rage on a daily basis in both of those war-torn countries.

And now Gaza has been added to the mix, with innocents dying on both sides.

A new president takes office in less than two weeks — someone whose candidacy was launched and sustained in its early stages by his opposition to the Iraq war.

He, and other policy makers, need to hear from us, loudly and clearly, that we elected them to follow a path to peace — in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Gaza, and around the globe.

What better time than Friday, Jan. 16, Iraq Moratorium #17, four days before the inauguration?

The Moratorium offers a chance for people across the country to speak out for peace with a united voice, in their own communities, all across the country.  Since it began in September 2007, it has sparked more than 1,500 local events in 43 states and 260 communities.

Please join us this month.  It’s easy.  You simply have to disrupt your regular routine and do something on January 16 to call for peace in Iraq.  The Moratorium is a big umbrella.  You decide what to do — as an individual or with a group.  Aside from unity on Iraq, there is plenty of room for other messages — to convert military spending to health care or other urgent needs, for example, or to stop the bloodshed in Afghanistan and Gaza.

The main thing is that we all do something — and that we share that information with others, so that it can inspire them and let them know that they are not alone, but truly part of a national grassroots movement that is mobilizing in local communities.

Please check our website to see if there’s an event listed in your community. Here’s the list.

If not, please send us the information on any group or individual action you’re planning for January 16.  Just use this form.

Afterward, we hope you’ll share your experience by sending us a short report, with photos or video if possible.

This is not a time to relax our efforts.  It is a time to renew and redouble them, knowing that we’re no longer trying to speak to a President and Congress with deaf ears on this issue.   There is a lot of talk about hope these days, and we should be hopeful, too — but take nothing for granted.

Thanks for all of your efforts to date, and for whatever you can do this month in the cause of peace.

Dec 30 2008

‘Obama we’re hopeful — but we’re watching, marching, too’

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.

 

Dec 29 2008

Oy!

What a world!

How does one even begin to comment?

Not to diminish the achievement of President Elect Barack Obama, it does seem in some ways a dirty joke on African American aspirations that we would finally elect an African American just at THE moment in history when the country is about to tank, and tank hard.  Welcome to the presidency African America.  Here’s the big, reeking pile of dung we’ve turned the country into for you.  Good fuckin’ luck with that!

Dec 26 2008

Distress: December 26th 1971 and December 26th 2008

Back on December 26th 2006 I put together a post, for my site and a few others, in remembrance of an anniversary of a day my fellow Vietnam Veterans made a statement to our country, a statement of a Country in  Distress, Our Country!

A shoutout about not only our War of Choice but what our society was going through, Civil Rights Movement, care of the returning Vets, civil disobedience for the many failed policies, and more, the statement wasn’t really taken seriously except by the minority, as is usually the case, the country itself just dug deeper into it’s apathy and never came to terms with our War and Occupation and still hasn’t!

December 26, 1971

Two dozen members of Vietnam Veterans Against the War “liberated” the Statue of Liberty with a sit-in to protest resumed U.S. aerial bombings in Vietnam. They flew an inverted U.S. flag from the crown as a signal of distress.

Dec 25 2008

A Christmas Card

Merry Christmas, happy Hanukah, and etcetera to everyone at Docudharma.  Peace on earth and good will to all.  

Dec 23 2008

National Presto products shoot a lot more than salads

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.  

Dec 22 2008

Giving the gift of peace

So you say it’s below zero out there, and your garage door’s frozen shut, and you don’t know if your car will start anyway, and even if it does that shopping malls make you so tense and irritable you want to sit down in the aisle and cry, and you don’t even have the slightest idea what to get anybody for a gift anyway, and time is running out?

Is that what’s troubling you, Bunky?

Well, be troubled no more.

If you’re reading this you’re already at your computer, so just relax and take care of your holiday shopping needs in the next few minutes.

Consider giving the gift of peace.    

Dec 21 2008

Carols ask Congress members: Bring our families home

Armed with a guitar, Santa hats and some terrific antiwar lyrics for Christmas caroling, members of Military Families Speak Out sang out on Iraq Moratorium day Friday, serenading two members of Congress and asking them to bring family members and loved ones home now.

The carolers visited the homes of two Republican House members,Ed Royce (R-Fullerton) and Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach) and even got a photo and article in the Orange County Register, no easy feat.

The lyrics by Vern Nelson are terrific.  You can find them, for eight different songs, on the Orange Juice Blog  Here’s a sample:

Why the Hell Are We Here?

(tune of Do You Hear What I Hear, Nelson-Alviso 2006)

Said the grunt to his sergeant in Iraq:

Why the hell are we here? (Why the hell are we here?)

Tryin’ to not get shot in the back,

Why the hell are we here? (Why the hell are we here?)

A wife and child wait for me back home,

spending Christmas-time all alone,

spending Christmas-time all alone.

Said the sarge to the Captain in command:

Why the hell are we here? (Why the hell are we here?)

Ev’ry week it seems I lose a man.

Why the hell are we here? (Why the hell are we here?)

A roadside bomb planted in the night

filling ev’ry moment with fright;

There’s no way to win such a fight.

Said the Captain to the Joint Chiefs of Staff:

Why the hell are we here? (Why the hell are we here?)

In this civil war in Iraq?

Why the hell are we here? (Why the hell are we here?)

Each bomb we drop only makes things worse;

and our choosing sides is perverse

in this Sunni/Shia universe.

Said the troops to the Congressman back home

Time to bring us back now! (Time to bring us back now!)

Congressman all comfy back home,

Time to bring us back now! (Time to bring us back now!)

This war, this war, has gone on far too long,

Can you hear the words of our song-

Getting out will make us- more strong!!!

A report from that action, and reports and photos from others across the country, are available at the Iraq Moratorium website.

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