Thursday, November 29, 2007

This is a well documented post reprinted from www.dailykos.com
I am not going to rehash all the ways that the Bush administration has used its so called War on Terra to initiate the first steps towards fascism. They had us waving flags and fearing the Enemy and giving up our civil liberties and circling our wagons and profiling Muslims and Arabs, the way the play book demands if you are trying to weaken a democracy and make it safe for fascism. However, the threat from a handful of Saudi terrorists over there is so vague. What they really needed was an internal threat. Something that would allow them to call out the National Guard using the John Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2007

http://www.towardfreedom.com/... /

so that they could round up immigrants and confine them in Halliburton constructed camps where they could be put to work. All it would take is for a handful of Latinos to try to fight back when the Minutemen show up to use them for target practice on the border. Once that happens, all Latinos in the country will be suspect, since their sympathies will be presumed to lie with their incarcerated kinfolk. Good thing the President now has the power to declare even citizens enemy combatants. Lock them up, too. Let them pluck chickens for Tyson, with Halliburton collecting their wages. Or put them to work picking crops on the chain gang.

Mexico won’t like it. But hey, part of fascism is expansionism. If Mexico gets too uppity, that will give us an excuse to invade for the umpteenth time so that we can liberate all of that nationalized oil.

We are kidding ourselves if we think that no one in the far right is thinking this way in America right now. The right wing movement which tried to have FDR overthrown in a political coup and which is trying to stack our courts with Federalist judges can benefit from a fascist political movement, which can, in turn, benefit from partnering with the political elite. And a fascist political movement needs some group here at home to hate, preferably an immigrant group.

http://www.splcenter.org/...

In times of economic hardship, it is even easier to sell messages of hate, since the working class wants to blame someone. While unions and the left attempt to blame the business owner and the politicians and the rich (income disparity has never been higher), the hate right says "Blame the immigrant. He is taking your job and using up your tax money." And it is always easier to kick someone more vulnerable than it is to shake your fist at someone above you.

Most ominous of all, We will also lose our sense of justice. The "all of us are created equal" doctrine will be thrown out the window.

The natural tendencies of man are to be loyal to ones’ own people, thus having an aversion to all that is foreign. Preying upon this very idea, the Klansmen preached of their hatred for all groups alien to their original American stock. These groups included Catholics, Jews, African Americans, and all immigrants in general. http://www.theamericanist.com/...

We all recognize that this is fascism: http://www.ushmm.org/...

On November 9, 1938, the Nazis unleashed a wave of pogroms against Germany's Jews. In the space of a few hours, thousands of synagogues and Jewish businesses and homes were damaged or destroyed. This event came to be called Kristallnacht ("Night of Broken Glass") for the shattered store windowpanes that carpeted German streets.
Snip
Stormtroopers killed at least 91 Jews and injured many others. For the first time, Jews were arrested on a massive scale and transported to Nazi concentration camps.

Keep your eyes open, and when it is finally fascism, someone be sure to tell the rest of us, so that we can panic.



Feature: Doorways

Introduction: http://www.sapphyr.net/natam/na-active.htm
The article below has been re-printed with kind permission of the author, Sharon Pacione. It is an attempt to wake people up out of their complacency and ignorance and see what's really happening around them, right at this very minute. The US launched an attack on Iraq, regardless of the many in the world who opposed it, including most of the nations of the UN. Do we really believe this bullying will stop at Iraq? Country after country will follow the same fate as Iraq, until we wake up to what is going on.
History books are written by the victors, and is never an indication of the truth of what really happened, and the Native Americans are but one example. We are not being told the real truth, whether it be about history, or about current events.
But now, more and more, courageous voices are speaking out against war as a solution to anything. The first step to creating Peace is to arm yourself with the Truth. The second step is to do something about it. Each of us individually has the power to create the Peace we all wish for. And not just the power, but we have a responsibility as Global Citizens. As long as we sit back and do nothing, whether out of fear or out of ignorance, we will all be victims in the end.
I encourage you to arm yourself with Knowledge. Then rid yourself of your fears and start to do something, before it is too late. Let's give our children a world to look forward to. The native americans have the custom of basing all their actions on how it will affect 7 generations into the future; that is, the future we leave our children with. What a wonderful idea for governments to implement before they make any policies. Start to become aware of what's happening, and look behind the scenes. Start questioning.

War does not determine who's right, only who's left!
Author Unknown

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Aquila ka Hecate writes, in an article about electoral politics in South Africa,

It may be only as more of us start to grow up into the realisation that we are deeply responsible, each of us, for our creations, that we may begin to stand outside of ourselves-outside of our wants and perceived needs, outside of our drives to power over and oblivion from,that we can begin to be what we shaped ourselves to be originally- the universe in mortal consciousness, feeling our connection to each other and to all with every fibre of our beings, waking and sleeping in the surety that whatever befalls our brother befalls ourselves, and knowing beyond a shadow of doubt that we all belong here.

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Posted & reprinted from: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/112707K.shtml
Baghdad - Gunmen in Baghdad's Shaab neighborhood stormed into a house not far from an Iraqi police checkpoint and killed 11 members of an Iraqi journalist's family, witnesses and journalism organizations reported Monday.

The killings came after the journalist, Dhia al Kawazz, who edits a Web site from Amman, Jordan, that's frequently critical of militia groups, was warned to stop his work, said the family member, who asked to be identified only as Abu Mohammed. Kawazz was in Amman during the attack.

"As you've noticed, there is no one seeking an investigation, and no investigation has been opened," said Ibrahim al Saraj, who heads the Association to Defend Iraqi Journalists' Rights in Iraq. Saraj said the killings were part of a campaign to attack journalists "to dim the news in this country and to oppress journalistic freedom in Iraq."

Journalists are frequent targets of violence in Iraq. At least 206 journalists and media assistants have been killed in Iraq since March 2003, according to the Paris-based advocacy group Reporters without Borders, which condemned the killings on Monday.

But Sunday's killings also provided a chilling look at why Baghdad remains a city governed by fear, despite declines in violence hailed by Iraqi and U.S. officials.

Abu Mohammed, Kawazz's relative, said neighbors told him that the Land Cruiser was carrying five men when it pulled up in front of Kawazz's house at 7:30 a.m. Four gunmen got out and used some type of explosive to enter the house, where members of the family were eating breakfast. One man stayed in the vehicle, its engine running.

The four gunmen opened fire with automatic weapons, Abu Mohammed said, killing seven children, two women who reportedly were Kawazz's sisters and their husbands. Kawazz's mother survived because she was on the roof, Abu Mohammed said.

The men detonated another explosive as they left the house, but nearby police made no effort to stop the assailants as they drove away, said Mohammed, a colleague who refused to be identified, and Saraj.

Kawazz, a Shiite, runs an electronic news agency that often criticizes the U.S. and Iranian "occupations" in Iraq as well as the Mahdi Army and the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council and its military wing, the Badr Organization. His Web site, www.aliraqnews.com, often drops the honorific "sayed" or "honored one" from before Sadr's name, and Kawazz recently published a lengthy article detailing divisions within the Mahdi Army.

Kawazz was told of the killings by a third sister on Sunday. His Web site published an account of the attack on Monday and accused "sectarian militias" of the crime.

Abu Mohammed said that Kawazz had received letter and telephone threats to stop his work. "They are seeking to make Iraq empty of journalists who can report the truth," he said.

Monday, November 26, 2007

Feature: Doorways


Posted /reprinted from: http://usterrorism.blogspot.com/
I received this email also.....had the same response...

I bought a bird feeder. I hung it on my back porch and filled it with seed.
Within a week we had hundreds of birds taking advantage of the continuous flow of free and easily accessible food.
But then the birds started building nests in the boards of the patio, above the table, and next to the barbecue. Then came the poop. It was everywhere: on the patio tile, the chairs, the table...everywhere. And others birds were boisterous and loud:
They sat on the feeder and squawked and screamed at all hours of the day and night and demanded that I fill it when it got low on food.
...I took down the bird feeder and in three days the birds were gone... no one demanding their rights toa free meal.
Now lets see....... our government gives out free food, subsidized housing, free medical care, free education and allows anyone born here to be an automatic citizen.
Then the illegal's came by the tens of thousands.
Suddenly our taxes went up to pay for free services; small apartments are housing 5 families: you have to wait 6 hours to be seen by an emergency room doctor: your child's 2nd grade class is behind other schools because over half the class doesn't speak English:

* Corn Flakes now come in a bilingual box;
* I have to press 'one' to hear my bank talk to me in English:
* and people waving flags other than 'Old Glory' are squawking and screaming in the streets, demanding more rights and free liberties.
Maybe it's time for the government to take down the bird feeder.
"Wow, what a bunch of crap. That kind of "logic" is the Jim Crow of today's racist, fascist subculture.There is no debate that whoever wrote this is motivated by a strong vein of racism and white supremacy, but that aside, there are some 'points' he tries to make that are worth dispelling." Subsidies The truth is the US government subsidizes the oil companies, defense contractors, weapons manufacturers, pharmaceutical companies, mega-farms and other big profit industries to an massive degree, and things like urban development, housing projects, and food programs get a pittance. "Welfare," as Americans know it, has been intentionally set up to fail. Take second to think about it-- ever since Reagan, there has been a conscious attempt by right-wing ideologues to only pass legislation that makes such social programs bloated, bureaucratic, and destined to fail. But if you take a look at European "welfare states" such as France, Germany, the UK, and the Scandinavian nations, their "welfare" systems guarantee such things as months of paid leave for new mothers, subsidized daycare, sick leave, 1 month paid vacation, etc.. Things that help people and society work better.. WORK. The concept of a "safety net" is a strawman set up by Republicans to encourage "free market" social policy-- raping our national resources, including labor and capital, and filling the coffers of big business. The real thesis of this racist's tirade is that: the US is some kind of big free meal ticket, with bloated, generous, and free access to vast amounts of freebies and easy rides...and that's why we have all the problems we have, everything from violence and crime to budgetary problems.

Well, if that's true, and the US government is such a generous free ride, the statistics sure don't think so. You'd expect the US to be at the top of a list of nations and their expenditures on social programs:Immigration is a totally separate issue. The same neoliberal/neoconservative policies that the IMF, World Bank, the Chicago School, and Economic Hitmen have forcefully implemented in South and Central America over the past 50 years has created a blowback of desperate immigration. If we hadn't pillaged their nations and corrupted their governments, people would be quite happy to stay at home. There is no room in this debate for such blatant ignorance, racism, and fascism. And it makes me sick.

Feature: Crossroads

How long will Americans ignore the terrorism of their government?
How long before we recognize the enemy?




"They call it terror
if you are few and have no B-52s
if you are not a head of state with an army and police
if you have neither napalm nor tanks nor electronic battlefields
terror is if you are dispossessed and have only your own two hands each other and your rage
It is not terror
if you are New York’s Finest and you shoot a ten-year old Black child in the back because you think Black people all look like
they’ve just committed a robbery
It is not terror if you are ITT and buy the men who line Chilean doctors up in their hospital corridors and shoot them for supporting the late democratic government of their country
It is not terror but heroism if you were captured by the Vietnamese for dropping fragmentation bombs on their schools and hospitals Only those who have nothing can be terrorists ....... "

a poem by the Women of the Weather Underground, from Sing a Battle Song: Poetry by Women in the Weather Underground Organization (Factory School/Southpaw Culture, 2006; originally published in 1975 by the Red Dragon Print Collective)

Thursday, November 22, 2007

Feature: Crossroads

Posted and reprinted from:
http://www.nativeamericans.com/

One path to healing is to bring what lives in the shadows to full light. It is a choice; to either seek truth or to believe whatever is repeated as truth over and over.
It is a choice to be fully present or minimally alive.

"LONG BEFORE the white man set foot on American soil, the Native Americans , had been living in America. When the Europeans came here, there were probably about 10 million Indians populating America north of present-day Mexico. And they had been living in America for quite some time. It is believed that the first Native Americans arrived during the last ice-age, approximately 20,000 - 30,000 years ago through a land-bridge across the Bering Sound, from northeastern Siberia into Alaska . The oldest documented Indian cultures in North America are Sandia (15000 BC), Clovis (12000 BC) and Folsom (8000 BC)

So, when the Europeans started to arrive in the 16th- and 17th-century they were met by Native Americans , and enthusiastically so. The Natives regarded their white-complexioned visitors as something of a marvel, not only for their outlandish dress and beards and winged ships but even more for their wonderful technology - steel knives and swords, fire-belching arquebus and cannon, mirrors, hawkbells and earrings, copper and brass kettles, and so on.

However, conflicts eventually arose. As a starter, the arriving Europeans seemed attuned to another world, they appeared to be oblivious to the rhythms and spirit of nature. Nature to the Europeans - and the Indians detected this - was something of an obstacle, even an enemy. It was also a commodity: A forest was so many board feet of timber, a beaver colony so many pelts, a herd of buffalo so many robes and tongues. Even the Indians themselves were a resource - souls ripe for the Jesuit, Dominican, or Puritan plucking.

It was the Europeans' cultural arrogance, coupled with their materialistic view of the land and its animal and plant beings, that the Indians found repellent. Europeans, in sum, were regarded as something mechanical - soulless creatures who wielded diabolically ingenious tools and weapons to accomplish mad ends.

The Europeans brought with them not only a desire and will to conquer the new continent for all its material richness, but they also brought with them diseases that hit the Indians hard. Conflicts developed between the Native Americans and the Invaders, the latter arriving in overwhelming numbers, as many "as the stars in heaven". The Europeans were accustomed to own land and laid claim to it while they considered the Indians to be nomads with no interest to claim land ownership. The conflicts led to the Indian Wars , the Indian Removal Act empowered by President Andrew Jackson in 1830 and other acts instituted by the Europeans in order to accomplish their objectives, as they viewed them at the time. In these wars the Indian tribes were at a great disadvantage because of their modest numbers, nomadic life, lack of advanced weapons, and unwillingness to cooperate, even in their own defense.
The end of the wars more or less coincided with the end of the 19th century. The last major war was not really a war, it was a massacre in 1890 where Indian warriors, women, and children were slaughtered by U.S. cavalrymen at Wounded Knee , South Dakota , in a final spasm of ferocity.
A stupefying record of greed and treachery, of heroism and pain, had come to an end, a record forever staining the immense history of the westward movement, which in its drama and tragedy is also distinctively and unforgettably American."

Tracy Chapman - New Beginning

Image a New Beginning....what if, on the arrival to the Americas, the ruling white Europeans choose co-operation instead of domination, participation instead of authority, peace instead of war with the native people. Lets dream a new dream on this day of Thanksgiving.

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Feature: Crossroads

This month in Vanity Fair.....a piece which deserves our attention.


Graydon Carter has been editor of Vanity Fair since July 1992. He has won six National Magazine Awards, including two for general excellence for magazines with circulation of more than one million, the highest honor in journalism.

http://www.vanityfair.com/magazine/2007/12/graydon200712?currentPage=1
An excerpt of : " We Are All Guilty" by Graydon Carter // December 2007
"A
t the end of the day, the torture conversation is a reflection of how much America’s moral compass has shifted since 9/11. The administration’s colossally wrongheaded reaction to the attacks has caused the U.S. to retreat to the dark, Cheney-esque shadows. The issue of torture goes to the heart of any discussion of who we are as a world citizen. It is not just the top levels of the administration that bear the guilt of war crimes committed in our name. Every government lawyer who helped construct the legal paper trail for the White House is guilty. So are the administration underlings who turned blind eyes to things they knew were wrong. Every legislator and journalist who chose silence over the withering furies of right-wing demagogues and talk-radio hosts is guilty, too. We are all guilty, and we should be ashamed. A nation that used to be better than its enemies has, under the Bush administration, become its own worst enemy."

Graydon Carter is the editor of Vanity Fair. His books include What We’ve Lost (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) and Oscar Night: 75 Years of Hollywood Parties (Knopf).

Feature: Doorways

Thanks to Hecate's blog...."Lunaea is right: this blog and associated shop are adorable, and perfect for Novembers feelings....
check this out....really imaginitive!!!
http://www.intothehermitage.blogspot.com/

Sunday, November 18, 2007

Feature: Shifters

Herstory is becoming.....herstory is being made.....herstory is being told.....listen.

November 12, 2007
Women Hold Catholic Ordination Ceremony
Two Missouri women, Rose Marie Hudson and Elsie Hainz McGrath, were ordained as Catholic priests on Sunday by Roman Catholic Womenpriests. 600 well-wishers came to view the ceremony, held at the Central Reform Congregation synagogue in St. Louis, Missouri.
St. Louis Archbishop Raymond Burke threatened to excommunicate the women if they proceeded with the ceremony. Patricia Fresen, the ordaining bishop with Roman Catholic Womenpriests, said "For us in St. Louis today, the (St. Louis) Arch is a symbol for the gateway to justice and equality for women," reports the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
Catholic women risking excommunication and defying the Vatican to be ordained as priests and bishops is a growing movement that started in June 2002, when seven women were ordained on the Danube River. Pope Benedict XVI, then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, excommunicated all seven. However, the movement continued and nine more women were ordained in 2005 on a boat in the international waters between the US and Canada, and another eight in Pennsylvania in 2006.

Posted from: Ms. magazine: http://www.msmagazine.com/



Feature: Shifters


Posted and reprinted from:
http://www.rainewalker.com/kali.htm

"Kali is the surgeon. She cuts away what has to go. I ask for that quality when I have to cut something out of my life; an addiction, or a relationship that no longer is about growth. And I ask it be done precisely, this cutting away of dis-ease, malignancy, the aspects that no longer serve. Kali was the last resort savior. When the Gods couldn't kill the demonic forces that ravaged the Earth, they called on a woman's wrath."

"Women need to become angry. Now. About the women of Afghanistan, the meaningless wars, the destruction of our environment. The demons of insatiable lust are devouring our planet. Those souls who await the future are being denied their birthright. Kali is the catalyst for saying "No more". She's the voice of women whose voices aren't being heard, women who need to open their mouths and speak for the first time. It's time to embrace the sword of Kali and start cutting away the delusions that are destroying our world. This is the ferocious mother who says "get away from my children, or I'll kill you." Mothers today aren't saying that. They're giving their children away. Giving them away to war, giving them away by allowing our environment to be depleted, giving permission to the powers that be to destroy their future. This is the dance of Kali."

by Drissana Devananda

Feature: Crossroads

Numbers telling a story.....a story of loss, a story of betrayal and deception......

Two Years Since Rep. Murtha’s Call // November 16th, 2007 by Jesse Lee

Murtha: “Flawed Policy Wrapped in Illusion”

Two Years after Calling for a Redeployment of U.S. Forces from Iraq — President Bush Refuses to Provide the American People with a Responsible Exit Strategy
“This week the House of Representatives passed legislation that provides the President, our troops, and our nation with a responsible plan for bringing our troops home.
“It requires the redeployment of U.S. troops from Iraq to begin within 30 days, with a target for completion of December 15, 2008. It ensures that our troops are fully trained and equipped before they are sent to Iraq. It extends the Army Field Manual to all personnel, making torture not only unacceptable but also unlawful. And it transitions our forces from a combat roll to specifically supporting and training Iraqi Security Forces and counterterrorism operations.
“Unfortunately Senate Republicans today chose to stand by the President instead of the American people’s call for a new direction.

Saturday, November 17, 2007

Feature: Doorways

When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodron
Heart Advice for Difficult Times:
http://www.thinkingpeace.com/Lib/lib091.html
http://www.thinkingpeace.com/

When Things Fall Apart

Widening the Circle of Compassion
Only in an open, nonjudgmental space can we acknowledge what we are feeling. Only in an open space where we're not all caught up in our own version of reality can we see and hear and feel who others really are, which allows us to be with them and communicate with them properly.

When we talk of compassion, we usually mean working with those less fortunate than ourselves. Because we have better opportunities, a good education, and good health, we should be compassionate toward those poor people who don't have any of that. However, in working with the teachings on how to awaken compassion and in trying to help others, we might come to realize that compassionate action involves working with ourselves as much as working with others. Compassionate action is a practice, one of the most advanced. There's nothing more advanced than relating with others. There's nothing more advanced than communication -- compassionate communication.

To relate with others compassionately is a challenge. Really communicating to the heart and being there for someone else -- our child, spouse, parent, client, patient, or the homeless woman on the street -- means not shutting down on that person, which means, first of all, not shutting down on ourselves. This means allowing ourselves to feel what we feel and not pushing it away. It means accepting every aspect of ourselves, even the parts we don't like. To do this requires openness, which in Buddhism is sometimes called emptiness -- not fixating or holding on to anything. Only in an open, nonjudgmental space can we acknowledge what we are feeling. Only in an open space where we're not all caught up in our own version of reality can we see and hear and feel who others really are, which allows us to be with them and communicate with them properly.

Recently I was talking with an old man who has been living on the streets for the last four years. Nobody ever looks at him. No one ever talks to him. Maybe somebody gives him a little money, but nobody ever looks in his face and asks him how he's doing. The feeling that he doesn't exist for other people, the sense of loneliness and isolation, is intense. He reminded me that the essence of compassionate speech or compassionate action is to be there for people, without pulling back in horror or fear or anger.


Friday, November 16, 2007

Feature: Crossroads

It’s Treason: Dems Stay Silent on Bush White House Crimes
By
Richard W. Behan, AlterNet. Posted November 16, 2007.

Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort.
--Article III, Section 3, United States Constitution (emphasis added)
The mainstream Democrats -- represented, say, by Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John Edwards, Joe Biden, and Christopher Dodd -- have not levied war against the United States. Their treason lies instead in committing the second offense: They adhere to enemies of the country, giving them aid and comfort.
The enemies are President George W. Bush and Vice President Richard Cheney. Like no other president and vice president in history, these men attacked their country.
It was not our geography George Bush and Richard Cheney invaded. Instead they abandoned and subverted the bedrock institution of our constitutional democracy: the rule of law. By word and deed, Mr. Bush repeatedly and arrogantly sets himself above the law, claiming obedience to be a matter of presidential choice. Mr. Cheney orchestrates, coaches, applauds and iterates.
This cannot stand if the country we know and cherish is to survive. George Bush and Richard Cheney are literally enemies of the state; long before now and by any measure of constitutional justice, they should have been impeached and removed from office.
Abjectly, continuously and stubbornly refusing to hold them accountable, however, the mainstream Democrats adhere to this criminal president and vice president: Nothing they have asked for has been denied, no barriers placed in their way. That is giving them aid and comfort, and that is treason. George Bush and Richard Cheney took the country to war illegally, with a deliberate, carefully designed and executed package of fear-mongering propaganda: lies, distortions and deceptions. No informed citizen entertains the slightest doubt about this.
Lying to the people and the Congress was the most despicable violation of the rule of law by Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney, but many more followed: torturing prisoners, denying habeas corpus, spying on U.S. citizens, nullifying new laws with "signing statements" and so on and on. The litany of impeachable offenses is long and painful, but the so-called "War on Terror," these men insist, makes all of it acceptable, even necessary.

Thursday, November 15, 2007

Feature: Crossroads


Withhold from War/Pay for Peace
2008 War Tax BoycottThis fall the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee urges all who oppose the Iraq war and occupation to register and prepare for an April 2008 nationwide boycott and redirection of the federal income taxes that fuel the war in Iraq. http://www.WarTaxBoycott.org


Imagine what will happen when the millions of Americans who oppose the government's escalating militarism proclaim in unison, "WE CHOOSE PEACE! WE'RE BOYCOTTING WAR!" http://www.nwtrcc.org/omtfp/imt.html
There are many ways to boycott war, including refuse to serve in the military; refuse to fund the military; fund peacemaking, social justice, environmental, health, and education programs be vocal in your community and to your legislators about your opposition to war and desire for peace and social justice; refuse to purchase war toys or see movies or shows that glorify violence; cut down on fossil fuel consumption; use language of cooperation and connection rather than that of competition and separation: practice kindness;
working for campaign funding to be only from public monies and more…
One Million Taxpayers for Peace provides resources about one strategy for boycotting war, "symbolic war tax resistance." What this means is, that one refuses to pay a very small portion--symbolically, $10.40--of federal taxes that fund the military and war. This site discusses
why someone might want to do symbolic war tax resistance, how to do it, and answers frequently asked questions, called yes, but.
If you deliberately deduct $10.40 from your tax payment, you will be committing civil disobedience, and following in the footsteps of many courageous Americans whose acts of conscience led the country to positive reforms, such as abolition, women's vote, and civil rights laws. (
The Role of Civil Disobedience in a Democracy)


"If a thousand men were not to pay their tax-bills this year, that would not be a violent and bloody measure, as it would be to pay them, and enable the State to commit violence and shed innocent blood. This is, in fact, the definition of a peaceable revolution, if any such is possible." Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience

Monday, November 12, 2007

Feature: Crossroads

Cross-posted from: http://www.paxamericana.net/2007/11/boston-veterans.html

Congratulations to the Boston Veterans Day 18 for a great action today. We stood peacefully with gags over our mouths and signs saying "American Legion SILENCES messages of peace from veterans". since they refused our request to have Iraq veteran Liam Madden speak. 18 of us were arrested by the Boston Police and charged with disturbing a public assembly, which we were definitely not doing. We were completely silent and peaceful. 15 of the 18 are veterans and 3 of them are women.
Getting arrested along with 92 year old Paul Brailsford (who managed to get the plastic cuffs off in the police wagon!!), 80 something year old Sev Bruyn, 76 year old Tony Flaherty was a privilege that I have trouble expressing. Seeing these guys in cuffs was just such an inspiration.
Amazingly enough we get the best media coverage from the local Fox affiliate. Go figure. Thanks to Paul Rifkin for the pictures...
In the next day or so we will be figuring out how to fight this thing in court. Stay tuned.

Oh yeah....this is a "free country" or something like that!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Feature: Doorways



LA Times has an telling story told by an Iraq Veteran: link to http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/marlboromarine/

Sunday, November 11, 2007

Feature: Crossroads

Veterans Day 2007. I send my deepest sense of gratitude to all Veterans on this day...I also feel my deepest sense of sorrow and shame. I just want to shout....Stop! Not in my name!!!



George Bush visits Army medical Center......I do not understand how he can be smiling for a photo ops...not after this. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2007/11/09/in-pictures-president-bu_n_71991.html

Friday, November 9, 2007

Feature: Shifters


http://www.rainewalker.com/earthshrines3.htm

WELCOME DARK MOON --- WELCOME SCORPIO ENERGY.....
May this dark moon envelope us and enable us do our real work.....

Letting go of the old way to move into the new is the gift of Scorpio’s transformation. The key word here is TRANSCENDANCE.(newmoonjournal.com)

Feature: Crossroads


Unpopular and desperate, Musharraf suspended the bulk of Pakistan's Constitution, shut down the judicial system, raided the Office of Human Rights Commission, arrested human rights activists, and restricted TV and radio stations from broadcasting. He is justifying his actions by blaming terrorists -- but he's only targeting opposition leaders, peaceful demonstrators, lawyers and judges. Days ago, he detained several of the Supreme Court Justices, including the Chief Justice.
Musharraf relies heavily on the United States for aid, as well as arms supplies. The United States has provided billions of dollars worth of arms and military training for Musharraf's security forces in the last couple of years, ranging from F-16 fighter jets, tens of thousands of parts for the M-113 armored personnel carrier, to rifles, pistols, and revolvers. President Bush must intervene. The United States has a special obligation to stand up to Musharraf's actions, given the nations' alliance in the war on terror. President Bush has spoken out -- but he must speak more forcefully and suspend any weapons transfers to Pakistan that would likely be used to commit or facilitate human rights violations in the close to $1.5 billion U.S. proposed military package to Pakistan for FY08.
Security in Pakistan will not come until human rights are universally respected. Freedom of expression, freedom of press, and an independent judiciary are cornerstones of any democracy.
Could this happen in America? Is our country currently being set up so that a situation like this one could happen here; In the land of the Free, home of the Brave?

Feature: Shifters


"Mending the Web"......"We Moon's" title for the calender of 2008...
every wild, wise, remembering womyn might want to check this out....
if i only had one word for description "Potent"

Wednesday, November 7, 2007

Feature: Doorways


Last week this image was plastered all over the news.... I have since contemplated, besides the obvious "in my space violation" the courage of this woman. I can not image having this much conviction, this much action, to bring attention to this illegal war. She is speaking truth to someone who was instrumental in the lead up to the Iraq war...remember "mushroom clouds" or "smoking guns""...This Code Pink women was taken to jail for this harmless act. All the while, the war criminals, including Condoleza Rice, are treated with privilege. 3800 dead American soldiers, just as many American families torn apart, 1.2 million dead Iraqi civilizations....just as many families torn apart.....It is obvious the people who have the power to ACT and CHANGE policy are refusing to do so....i guess it is up to US.
Lets make herstory.!

Feature: Doorways

The worse violation of the last 7 years in the USA, is not the subtle dismantling of our government, our Constitution & Bill of Rights, or even the smearing of the US image in the world. No the worse part is the covert & steady stripping away of our humanity, the very source of our connectedness.
Mr. Olbermann is, as usual, right on the mark. Mr. Olbermann deserves a medal of honor....

I urge all people to remember their Humanity.....I urge all people to be vigilant and protect the core of the two-legged ....Compassion and Love. Re-mem-ber!


The Presidency Is Now a Criminal Conspiracy Bush may not observe the rules, but the country abides by them
by Keith Olbermann http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/11/06/5045/


It is a fact startling in its cynical simplicity and it requires cynical and simple words to be properly expressed: The presidency of George W. Bush has now devolved into a criminal conspiracy to cover the ass of George W. Bush.
All the petulancy, all the childish threats, all the blank-stare stupidity; all the invocations of World War III, all the sophistic questions about which terrorist attacks we wanted him not to stop, all the phony secrets; all the claims of executive privilege, all the stumbling tap-dancing of his nominees, all the verbal flatulence of his apologists…
All of it is now, after one revelation last week, transparently clear for what it is: the pathetic and desperate manipulation of the government, the refocusing of our entire nation, toward keeping this mock president and this unstable vice president and this departed wildly self-overrating attorney general, and the others, from potential prosecution for having approved or ordered the illegal torture of prisoners being held in the name of this country.
“Waterboarding is torture,” Daniel Levin was to write. Daniel Levin was no theorist and no protester. He was no troublemaking politician. He was no table-pounding commentator. Daniel Levin was an astonishingly patriotic American and a brave man.
Brave not just with words or with stances, even in a dark time when that kind of bravery can usually be scared or bought off.
Charged, as you heard in the story from ABC News last Friday, with assessing the relative legality of the various nightmares in the Pandora’s box that is the Orwell-worthy euphemism “Enhanced Interrogation,” Mr. Levin decided that the simplest, and the most honest, way to evaluate them … was to have them enacted upon himself.
Daniel Levin took himself to a military base and let himself be waterboarded.
Mr. Bush, ever done anything that personally courageous?
Perhaps when you’ve gone to Walter Reed and teared up over the maimed servicemen? And then gone back to the White House and determined that there would be more maimed servicemen?
Has it been that kind of personal courage, Mr. Bush, when you’ve spoken of American victims and the triumph of freedom and the sacrifice of your own popularity for the sake of our safety? And then permitted others to fire or discredit or destroy anybody who disagreed with you, whether they were your own generals, or Max Cleland, or Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame, or Daniel Levin?
Daniel Levin should have a statue in his honor in Washington right now.
Instead, he was forced out as acting assistant attorney general nearly three years ago because he had the guts to do what George Bush couldn’t do in a million years: actually put himself at risk for the sake of his country, for the sake of what is right.
And they waterboarded him. And he wrote that even though he knew those doing it meant him no harm, and he knew they would rescue him at the instant of the slightest distress, and he knew he would not die - still, with all that reassurance, he could not stop the terror screaming from inside of him, could not quell the horror, could not convince that which is at the core of each of us, the entity who exists behind all the embellishments we strap to ourselves, like purpose and name and family and love, he could not convince his being that he wasn’t drowning.
Waterboarding, he said, is torture. Legally, it is torture! Practically, it is torture! Ethically, it is torture! And he wrote it down.
Wrote it down somewhere, where it could be contrasted with the words of this country’s 43rd president: “The United States of America … does not torture.”
Made you into a liar, Mr. Bush.
Made you into, if anybody had the guts to pursue it, a criminal, Mr. Bush.
Waterboarding had already been used on Khalid Sheik Mohammed and a couple of other men none of us really care about except for the one detail you’d forgotten - that there are rules. And even if we just make up these rules, this country observes them anyway, because we’re Americans and we’re better than that.
We’re better than you.
And the man your Justice Department selected to decide whether or not waterboarding was torture had decided, and not in some phony academic fashion, nor while wearing the Walter Mitty poseur attire of flight suit and helmet.
He had put his money, Mr. Bush, where your mouth was.
So, your sleazy sycophantic henchman Mr. Gonzales had him append an asterisk suggesting his black-and-white answer wasn’t black-and-white, that there might have been a quasi-legal way of torturing people, maybe with an absolute time limit and a physician entitled to stop it, maybe, if your administration had ever bothered to set any rules or any guidelines.
And then when your people realized that even that was too dangerous, Daniel Levin was branded “too independent” and “someone who could (not) be counted on.”
In other words, Mr. Bush, somebody you couldn’t count on to lie for you.
So, Levin was fired.
Because if it ever got out what he’d concluded, and the lengths to which he went to validate that conclusion, anybody who had sanctioned waterboarding and who-knows-what-else on anybody, you yourself, you would have been screwed.
And screwed you are.
It can’t be coincidence that the story of Daniel Levin should emerge from the black hole of this secret society of a presidency just at the conclusion of the unhappy saga of the newest attorney general nominee.
Another patriot somewhere listened as Judge Mukasey mumbled like he’d never heard of waterboarding and refused to answer in words … that which Daniel Levin answered on a waterboard somewhere in Maryland or Virginia three years ago.
And this someone also heard George Bush say, “The United States of America does not torture,” and realized either he was lying or this wasn’t the United States of America anymore, and either way, he needed to do something about it.
Not in the way Levin needed to do something about it, but in a brave way nonetheless.
We have U.S. senators who need to do something about it, too.
Chairman Leahy of the Judiciary Committee has seen this for what it is and said “enough.”
Sen. Schumer has seen it, reportedly, as some kind of puzzle piece in the New York political patronage system, and he has failed.
What Sen. Feinstein has seen, to justify joining Schumer in rubber-stamping Mukasey, I cannot guess.
It is obvious that both those senators should look to the meaning of the story of Daniel Levin and recant their support for Mukasey’s confirmation.
And they should look into their own committee’s history and recall that in 1973, their predecessors were able to wring even from Richard Nixon a guarantee of a special prosecutor (ultimately a special prosecutor of Richard Nixon!), in exchange for their approval of his new attorney general, Elliott Richardson.
If they could get that out of Nixon, before you confirm the president’s latest human echo on Tuesday, you had better be able to get a “yes” or a “no” out of Michael Mukasey.
Ideally you should lock this government down financially until a special prosecutor is appointed, or 50 of them, but I’m not holding my breath. The “yes” or the “no” on waterboarding will have to suffice.
Because, remember, if you can’t get it, or you won’t with the time between tonight and the next presidential election likely to be the longest year of our lives, you are leaving this country, and all of us, to the waterboards, symbolic and otherwise, of George W. Bush.
Ultimately, Mr. Bush, the real question isn’t who approved the waterboarding of this fiend Khalid Sheik Mohammed and two others.
It is: Why were they waterboarded?
Study after study for generation after generation has confirmed that torture gets people to talk, torture gets people to plead, torture gets people to break, but torture does not get them to tell the truth.
Of course, Mr. Bush, this isn’t a problem if you don’t care if the terrorist plots they tell you about are the truth or just something to stop the tormentors from drowning them.
If, say, a president simply needed a constant supply of terrorist threats to keep a country scared.
If, say, he needed phony plots to play hero during, and to boast about interrupting, and to use to distract people from the threat he didn’t interrupt.
If, say, he realized that even terrorized people still need good ghost stories before they will let a president pillage the Constitution,
Well, Mr. Bush, who better to dream them up for you than an actual terrorist?
He’ll tell you everything he ever fantasized doing in his most horrific of daydreams, his equivalent of the day you “flew” onto the deck of the Lincoln to explain you’d won in Iraq.
Now if that’s what this is all about, you tortured not because you’re so stupid you think torture produces confession but you tortured because you’re smart enough to know it produces really authentic-sounding fiction - well, then, you’re going to need all the lawyers you can find … because that crime wouldn’t just mean impeachment, would it?
That crime would mean George W. Bush is going to prison.
Thus the master tumblers turn, and the lock yields, and the hidden explanations can all be perceived, in their exact proportions, in their exact progressions.
Daniel Levin’s eminently practical, eminently logical, eminently patriotic way of testing the legality of waterboarding has to vanish, and him with it.
Thus Alberto Gonzales has to use that brain that sounds like an old car trying to start on a freezing morning to undo eight centuries of the forward march of law and government.
Thus Dick Cheney has to ridiculously assert that confirming we do or do not use any particular interrogation technique would somehow help the terrorists.
Thus Michael Mukasey, on the eve of the vote that will make him the high priest of the law of this land, cannot and must not answer a question, nor even hint that he has thought about a question, which merely concerns the theoretical definition of waterboarding as torture.
Because, Mr. Bush, in the seven years of your nightmare presidency, this whole string of events has been transformed.
From its beginning as the most neglectful protection ever of the lives and safety of the American people … into the most efficient and cynical exploitation of tragedy for political gain in this country’s history … and, then, to the giddying prospect that you could do what the military fanatics did in Japan in the 1930s and remake a nation into a fascist state so efficient and so self-sustaining that the fascism would be nearly invisible.
But at last this frightful plan is ending with an unexpected crash, the shocking reality that no matter how thoroughly you might try to extinguish them, Mr. Bush, how thoroughly you tried to brand disagreement as disloyalty, Mr. Bush, there are still people like Daniel Levin who believe in the United States of America as true freedom, where we are better, not because of schemes and wars, but because of dreams and morals.
And ultimately these men, these patriots, will defeat you and they will return this country to its righteous standards, and to its rightful owners, the people.– Keith Olbermann

Tuesday, November 6, 2007

Feature: Crossroads

Yahoo !!!!!!!!!!
the congress has spoken


http://www.commondreams.org/
Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, is trying to impeach Vice President Cheney for what he describes as “high crimes and misdemeanors” before the invasion of Iraq.
1106 10 1

Right after the proposal was read on the House floor this afternoon, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer stepped forwarded and tried to convince lawmakers to table the bill.

“Impeachment is not on our agenda. We have some major priorities. We need to focus on those,” Hoyer told Fox News.

Update at 3:39 p.m. ET: We thought that the vote to table was over — the clock said 0:00 — but lawmakers are still switching things around and Kucinich is within a few votes of getting his bill to come up for a vote.

Update at 3:43 p.m. ET: At least 149 Republicans have voted in favor of considering the impeachment resolution. Hoyer’s motion, which would have blocked a vote, looks like its going to fail by at least 31 votes.

Update at 3:53 p.m. ET: The 15-minute vote began at 2:53 p.m. ET. It’s been an hour, and they’re still voting. The tally stands at 170-242 right now. Hoyer needed 218 votes to push the bill off the agenda. He’s 72 votes short.

Update at 4:02 p.m. ET: Hoyer’s motion failed 251-162. (Roll Call) The House is now voting on whether to vote on whether the resolution should be sent to the Judiciary Committee.

Update at 4:25 p.m. ET: The vote to decide to vote (yes, you read that correctly) just ended. By a 218-194 margin, the House has to vote on whether to send the resolution to the Judiciary Committee. That’s happening right now.

Update at 4:30 p.m. ET: Perhaps we should pause to explain. When most Republicans unexpectedly — and on orders of GOP leadership, the AP is reporting — switched sides and voted against tabling the measure, they essentially forced Democrats to keep talking about it on the floor. Tabling the measure would have killed it.

Debate over Cheney’s impeachment is in direct opposition to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s wishes. She has repeatedly said an impeachment of Cheney or President Bush is off the table. Thus, failing to table this measure is a essentially a jab in Pelosi’s ribs.

“We’re going to help them out, to explain themselves,” Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas, told the AP of the impeachment’s supporters. “We’re going to give them their day in court.”

Update at 4:32 p.m. ET: The House just voted, 218-194, to send the resolution to the Judiciary Committee. That should end today’s debate — but it does keep the resolution at least technically alive.

Feature: Shifters

Planting Peace

A Resource Center for news and activities that seek to build a powerful coalition to bring about cooperation and synergy between the peace movement, the climate crisis movement, and the organic community.


http://organicconsumers.org/plantingpeace/index.cfm


What does a peace flower look like? A peace herb, grass or bean?
Go to the link......and hop on the peace train.

Monday, November 5, 2007

Feature: Doorways

The Real News interviewee arrested in Pakistan

Asma Jahangir is a founder and Chair of The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, an independent, voluntary, non-profit organization unassociated with the government. She is also the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief of the Council on Human Rights.

Asma Jahangir forced into house arrest under Pakistan martial law, two weeks after interview in TRNN studio, she expects to be jailed soon.

Listen to this short interview.....and what she has to say about US policy.

http://www.therealnews.com/web/index.php?thisdataswitch=0&thisid=524&thisview=item

ISLAMABAD: Up to 500 people have been arrested across Pakistan in a crackdown launched after the declaration of a state of emergency, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz said yesterday.Aziz further said that parliament was entitled to delay elections for a year under emergency rule imposed by President Pervez Musharraf, but added that the government had not yet made a decision.

"There have been 400 to 500 preventive arrests in the country," Aziz said, giving the first confirmed figure since Musharraf announced the emergency on Saturday.

The arrested activists include Javed Hashmi, acting chief of former premier Nawaz Sharif's party, leading rights activist Asma Jahangir and cricket legend-turned-politician Imran Khan.

http://www.gulf-daily-news.com/Story.asp?Article=199111&Sn=WORL&IssueID=30230

Feature: Doorways

Wangari Maathai has a very moving piece in Ms. Magazine this month....if you get a chance, check it out...she is a woman who understands social justice. How I would love to spend a day with her.

"GBM provides income and sustenance to millions of people in Kenya through the planting of trees. It also conducts educational campaigns to raise awareness about women's rights, civic empowerment, and the environment throughout Kenya and Africa.

Wangari Maathai is the founder of the Green Belt Movement, an environmentalist, a civil society and women's rights activist, and a parliamentarian. You can read about her life and her organization through her two books, Unbowed: A Memoir and The Green Belt Movement.
In her autobiography Unbowed, now available in paperback, Wangari Maathai explores her roots and the challenges she faced in an inspiriting message of hope and prosperity through self-sufficiency. You can also scan condensed versions of her life and achievements, including being awarded the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize."
http://greenbeltmovement.org/index.php

Saturday, November 3, 2007

Feature: Doorways

THE WAY OF THE WARRIOR http://www.fmbr.org/editoral/edit06_07/edit2-oct06.php

The very first gateway, which aspirants encounter and through which they must pass on the journey toward warriorship, is fear. In the Shambhala warrior tradition of Tibet, fear is the cocoon of habitual patterns woven to reinforce our stories assuring a false sense of security, familiarity and safety. Regarded as one of the "four natural enemies" for the Toltecs, fear is "treacherous, and difficult to overcome. It remains concealed at every turn of the way, prowling, waiting." Once externalized, ever stalking us, fear paralyzes and blinds, preventing us from thinking and acting with clarity, sobriety and ease. This fact is precisely why Indigenous cultures crafted rites of passage and initiations in order to force neophytes to grapple with and face the fears and anxieties which prevent them from experiencing the exhilaration, adventure and Mystery of being fully alive, completely human.

Fearlessness is achieved by directly confronting and embracing our fears; becoming intimate with them; learning about them and performing that which terrifies. In so doing, warriors begin to understand their illusory nature as well as their utility, the underlying and concealed gifts they contain. The following story of Chögyam Trungpa, the renowned Tibetan Rinpoche who is credited with introducing the Shambhala Warrior teachings to the Western world, illustrates this innate and natural state: "he [was] traveling with his attendants to a monastery he'd never seen before. As they neared the gates, he saw a large guard dog with huge teeth and red eyes. It was growling ferociously and struggling to get free from the chain that held it. The dog seemed desperate to attack them. As Rinpoche got closer, he could see its bluish tongue and spittle spraying from its mouth. They walked past the dog, keeping their distance, and entered the gate. Suddenly, the chain broke and the dog rushed at them. The attendants screamed and froze in terror. Rinpoche turned and ran as fast as he could -- straight at the dog. The dog was so surprised that he put his tail between his legs and ran away."

Thus, the warrior does not flee from terror but approaches it, headlong. Such a strategy does not eliminate the existence of fears from the world only their appearance in one's life and one's responses to them if ever they arise. In essence, the warrior "grows daily less and less accessible to fear." Don Juan, the Yaqui Indian warrior and sorcerer, when his apprentice Carlos Castañeda inquires how to overcome fear, explains, "The answer is very simple. He must not run away. He must defy his fear, and in spite of it he must take the next step in learning, and the next, and the next. He must be fully afraid, and yet he must not stop. That is the rule! And a moment will come when his first enemy retreats" At this point, the warrior is no longer incapacitated or subjugated by the presence of fear and no longer experiences the feeling of fear at all.

Ultimately, all fears are capable of being distilled into one - namely, Death. This is the reason warriors make peace with their inevitable demise. They are simply unafraid to die. The formidable Lakota warrior and peerless leader Tasunka Witko (literally translated as His Crazy Horse), prior to rushing an enemy in battle, would declare, "Hoka Hey! It is a Good Day to Die! For I have everything in this moment to make the Journey Home!" Don Juan states, "One of the greatest forces in the lives of warriors is fear, because it spurs them to learn. "Death, like our shadow, stalks and walks with us moment to moment. It is the warrior's greatest teacher and ally. The presence of death brings considerable sobriety to the life of the warrior, crystallizing what is truly important. Therefore, never is there time or energy to squander in pettiness, needless attachments, and indulgence in self-importance for we are, in the grand scheme, merely nothing.

Death, therefore, is a catalyst for awakening. Considering impermanence is the nonnegotiable truth of existence, the warrior, realizing there may never be a tomorrow, does not take life for granted and lives every moment as his/her last -- for it is! Being aware of this finality, the warrior makes each and every act count. Free from future concerns and outcomes, riveted in the present, no longer gripped by the disabling fear of death, the warrior approaches Freedom, "The worst that could happen to us is that we have to die, and since that is already our unalterable fate, we are free; those who have lost everything no longer have anything to fear." Having transcended fears, the warrior lives with abandon. As Socrates, a character in the book, The Way of the Peaceful Warrior, laments "Death is not sad; the sad thing is that most people don't ever really live at all."

And what is the attribute, which banishes the fear of death from one's heart? Courage. Courage is an essential virtue, which the warrior cultivates and which is vital and harnessed for the state of fearlessness to manifest. The word courage is derived from the French, Coeur, for heart. Therefore, the warrior lives the "path of heart", with heart. Mahatma Gandhi, one of the preeminent peaceful warriors of the 20th century, considered courage as "the most important quality on the spiritual path." What exactly is courage? Faith. Conviction. Trust. Resolve. The warrior supplants fear, with faith in himself, in his skillfulness and in his relationship to the Mystery and the Earth, which guide and shape his destiny. Don Juan clarifies, "What we need to do to allow magic to get hold of us is to banish doubts from our minds, once doubts are banished, anything is possible." By living courageously, faithfully, we experience the wonder of being alive, where everything is possible for nothing is determined or certain.

Phillip Scott, Founder/Director, Ancestral Voice - Center for Indigenous Lifeways,

[This essay is abridged from Chapter 1, Principles and Practices of Indigenous Warriorship, Phillip Scott's Master's Thesis. Both the Thesis and this essay are copyrighted. For additional information contact Phillip@AncestralVoice.org or go to http://www.ancestralvoice.org/