December 16th Came and Went

Posted: December 18, 2010 | Author: | Filed under: Anti-War | Tags: , , | 15 Comments

Notice anything on the mainstream news about an anti-war rally in DC?  Yea, me neither.  However, the rally was reported at the Huffington Post, at Democracy Now, at Raw Story and at Real News, amongst other alternative news sites (see David Lindorff at This Can’t Be Happening, for a good write up).  There were 131 veterans arrested at the rally, including Ray McGovern, Daniel Ellsberg and Chris Hedges.

Here are links to some pictures that the mainstream Press did not bother to use:  the Count, and UPI (pics run from number 5 to 10).

And here are links to some videos.  I sang along with this first video.  I credit my parents with my knowledge of the songs; I was very young during the Vietnam War protests and Civil Rights Movement, but I learned a lot of these at my mother’s knee.

Here’s Daniel Ellsberg’s speech.  This was very good.  He discusses Bradley Manning and Julian Assange.

If you only watch one video, watch this one.  Chris Hedges’ speech, interspersed with comments from the veterans, is very effective.  It’s linked off Stop These Wars.  And it’s on youtube here:

The Anti-War Movement is starting to Move Again

Posted: December 14, 2010 | Author: | Filed under: Action Memo, Anti-War | Tags: , | 17 Comments

My partner and I were going to a social function last Saturday, leaving our sodden and flooded farm for a few hours and driving through the gloom of a raging downpour.  On the corner outside our little town was the sign guy.  This gentleman appears at odd intervals with a huge sign constructed of two by fours and signboard.  The sign asks why the wars haven’t stopped.

The sign guy was standing there, holding up his sign from time to time, absolutely drenched.  I said as we turned past, “Next time we see him we’ve got to stop.”

“Why?”

“So, I can find out when he’s going to be out next and go stand with him.”

“Oh, good idea!”  I waved and gave a thumbs up as we passed the sign guy, and my partner honked the car horn in approval.

More people than the sign guy remember that we are still involved in two very expensive, very costly, very murderous wars.  All of us here know it, and people across the country and the ‘net are starting to wake up again.  Obama isn’t going to change a thing, he’s not really anti-war, and it’s time to start protesting… again.

There’s going to be an anti-war protest on Dec 16th in Lafayette park in front of the White House at 10 am.  There will be military veterans and leaders of the peace movement giving speeches.  I doubt the protest’ll be very big, and I don’t think it’ll get any media attention, but it’ll have happened, and, as Chris Hedges says in his Op-Ed on Truth-out this week, ‘No Act of Rebellion is Wasted‘:.

Hedges’ first paragraph got me choked up, I have to admit.  He says,

I stood with hundreds of thousands of rebellious Czechoslovakians in 1989 on a cold winter night in Prague’s Wenceslas Square as the singer Marta Kubišová approached the balcony of the Melantrich building. Kubišová had been banished from the airwaves in 1968 after the Soviet invasion for her anthem of defiance, “Prayer for Marta.” Her entire catalog, including more than 200 singles, had been confiscated and destroyed by the state. She had disappeared from public view. Her voice that night suddenly flooded the square. Pressing around me were throngs of students, most of whom had not been born when she vanished. They began to sing the words of the anthem. There were tears running down their faces. It was then that I understood the power of rebellion.

He goes on to talk about the professors of languages who rebelled in 68 and who were sent to Bohemia to work on the road crews laying tar and grading road beds.

And as they worked they dedicated each day to one of the languages in which they all were fluent – Latin, Greek, Italian, French, Spanish or German. They argued and fought over their interpretations of Homer, Virgil, Dante, Goethe, Proust and Cervantes. They remained intellectually and morally alive.

For a history, language and archaeology geek like me, these words are above inspiring.  But go read the rest of the article, and get ready to protest even in the smallest of ways.  Because that is what has to happen.

For more information on the December 16th protest, see the website www.stopthesewars.org.  I will try to find something local going on that day or at least send a few dollars their way.  Maybe the sign guy will be out and I can join him.

Sima Dives In

Posted: November 4, 2010 | Author: | Filed under: Anti-War, Elections | Tags: , , , | 36 Comments

I received the opportunity to take part in a small survey from Bold Progressives late on Tuesday night.  It was only three questions, and I thought I’d post my answers here to start my Introduction:

In general, what are you thinking tonight?
I am a liberal, not a progressive, although at one time those seemed the same.  I think too much trust was placed in a leader who had no experience, no proven record and nothing to show for his life but a couple ghost written books and the ability to make people believe in him.  I think that means we’ve had a comeuppance that was as deserved as it was cruel.  I think we have to go back to work… next question.

What do you think the progressive movement should do next? As in, immediately…
Go back to the basics.  Start elucidating and spouting progressive and liberal ideals in easy to understand bits.  Don’t go all professorial on the people, talk to them like they are friends and compatriots, because they are.  We have to tease out the liberal streak that runs deep in most Americans and get it to shine.

Do you think Pres. Obama and congressional Dems should fight harder for progressive policies or seek middle ground with Republicans? (Please elaborate.)
NO middle ground.  Fight, Fight, FIGHT.  I think the middle ground has made this defeat.  I mean, Feingold lost?  Why? Because he went back on his promises and was two-faced about that stupid health care bill.  My Senator, Murray, is struggling.  Not because she is a bad person, but because when the country wanted change to the left, real health care, a public option or medicare for all, we got big insurance’s wet dream.  Murray couldn’t stop it, nor could Feingold.  Obama could have, but didn’t because he is bought and sold.  We need a leader that is willing to betray his or her class (always the upper class) like FDR or Johnson.  Until we get that leader, it’s time to protest, even if it’s Obama’s White House we are protesting.  It’s time to meet and march and get people stirred up.  It’s time for anti-war pickets on every street corner.  It’s time to be heard, not taken for granted.  If we stand up, others will stand up with us.   This will not be easy, but mark my words, it will be done, or America is going to devolve into greedy mediocrity.

In these answers I paid too much attention to health care (which worries me personally right now) and not enough to the economy, un- and under-employment, anti-war protests, women’s rights, farming problems and more.  But my basic goal remains the same regardless.  It’s time for me to go beyond reading blogs, beyond nodding in agreement, beyond speaking up timidly, if at all, when friends say something ludicrous.  It’s time to stand up.

I’m starting with the first cause that got me truly politically active.  Like everyone else in this country, I went into shock after 9/11.  The event generated a huge amount of fear for me, fear not of terrorists, but fear of the horrible backlash I knew would come from our government.  I watched Bush read his stupid book and thought, “He can do anything he wants now, we are doomed.”

The stupid ineffective actions taken after 9/11, the build-up to the Afghan and then Iraq wars told me I was right, we were doomed.  The thought galvanized me, and I found protest groups on the Internet and made myself, shy geeky me, go to the meetings.  We organized and protested twice a week right on the corner in my home-town, right by where the ferry from Seattle empties.  We got honks and waves of support, we got spat on and cursed, we got nearly run over.  We stood in the rain, we stood in the hot sun.  Some of us travelled and got beat up by police as we marched.  My very small town doesn’t beat up demonstrators, thankfully;  not enough of us, and not nearly enough of them.  We made signs.  We went to meetings with our Congress people, and got them to change their minds about a few things concerning the potential war(s), the Patriot Act, supporting Bush blindly, and more.  My Congressman acted on what we’d discussed.  We shouted, we yelled.  Did we make a difference?  Don’t know.  But it made me feel as though what I had to say was at least heard.

We continued protesting after the Iraq war started and more people joined us.  Then the 2008 election rolled around.  Suddenly it seemed as though all the protests died.  Not in Our Name folded up and went home, I suppose they assumed the new President would do the right thing.  Other peace groups just withered, but didn’t die.  No-one protested on the corner any more.  I admit I turned my mind and work to other things.  And on the back burner these last two years the wars have simmered; killing more people, maiming innocents, sending home crippled and devastated young men and women, fuelling anti-American hatred all over, creating a servant soldier class out of our jobless youth, and more, so much more.

So it’s time to pick up the protest banners, the signs and slogans and start fighting again.  Here’s a bit of what I’ve gleaned while updating my moribund peace/anti-war links and searching the Internet.

Peace Action is still at work. Indeed I still get regular emails from them.

United for Peace and Justice is still very active. They started out in 2002 as a coalition of local anti-war and civil rights groups. They recently organized days of action in October. They were in Seattle, but only a few of them. Next time, I’ll be there.

Military Families Speak Out is still going strong. They need a new director.

Courage to Resist. This is an organization that supports members of the military who refuse to go to Iraq or Afghanistan.

Voters for Peace still sends me regular emails. They have regularly scheduled events.

CodePink is still doing stuff. Their webpage’s first link is about making Hillary Clinton doing business Blackwater. I’m not impressed because they’ve always seemed really anti-Clinton to me, but there’s the link for what it’s worth.

There are many anti-war resources linked from at the Holt Labor Library.

Generally, I will be writing about farming, gardening, dirt type concerns here at Sky Dancing. There’s a lot happening with the Federal Government on the food front, and most of it is bad for family farms, but we can change that! I will also sometimes do more Anti-War posts, if people are interested. I’m going to put a bit of bio type information in the comment thread to this post, in order to not make a long post longer.