By Sheila Samples
"You is feeling like you was lost in the bush, boy? You says: It is a puling sample jungle of woods. You most shouts out: Bethicket me for a stump of beech if I have the poultriest notions what the farest he all means."~~James Joyce, Finnegans Wake (1939)
03/27/07 "ICH " -- - My friend Bernie says ever since the Bush gang stormed the White House in 2000, then stormed the World Trade Center in 2001, we've done nothing but run in circles like a bunch of terrified chickens with our heads chopped off. "We have no sense of direction," Bernie said, "we're staggering around in a jungle of lies, deceit, and scandal with no way out -- and that's the way they planned it."
"You're kidding!" I exclaimed, astonished. "You mean they planned this mess? It's nothing but bloody chaos out there --"
Bernie nodded. "You got that right. Bloody chaos is the best -- the only -- way to get what they're after. Don't be fooled by those little American flags stuck in the lapels of this bunch," Bernie continued. "The people in this nation, the hungry and homeless, the ill, the elderly, displaced Katrina victims, and especially those returning from war's inferno either in body bags or maimed physically, psychologically, and spiritually aren't even blips on their New World Order radar screen. They suffer at the pleasure of the president."
Bernie reminded me that shortly before the 2000 presidential campaign, when Dick Cheney was CEO of Halliburton, he made a speech to the Institute of Petroleum in London where he complained that oil producers "had to deal with the pesky problem that once you find oil and pump it out of the ground you've got to turn around and find more or go out of business."
Cheney went on to say, "That means by 2010 we will need on the order of an additional fifty million barrels a day. So where is the oil going to come from? Governments and the national oil companies are obviously in control of about ninety per cent of the assets. Oil remains fundamentally a government business...the Middle East with two thirds of the world's oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies..."
Bernie grinned. "If that didn't set off alarms, especially in Iraq, you gotta know they started going off when, a year later, with his eyes on the prize, Cheney appointed himself vice president, put himself in charge of the nation's energy policy, based that policy on the location of oil fields -- not only in Iraq and Iran but throughout the Persian Gulf -- then mounted up and headed out to solve big oil's 'pesky' problem."
I have to agree with Bernie. Cheney and his bumbling bunch of neo-conservative henchmen are obsessed with this really crazy "vision" that they can control the world. Flip through their chilling masterpiece and you'll see that they believe the world is theirs -- everything, including space and cyberspace -- all theirs. And, it'll hit you right between the eyes that every one of these suckers is a flaming psycho. If it takes lies, they'll lie. If it takes imprisonment, torture, mass murder, either at home or abroad -- they'll do that too.
Bernie says folks in this country have no idea what they're up against. In spite of the draconian USA Patriot Act, they still hang onto the illusion that their freedoms are protected by the US Constitution; yet they emerge from each succeeding crisis with fewer and fewer freedoms. "If Americans were willing -- or capable -- of reading and thinking," Bernie said, "they'd know that the war being waged throughout the world began here at home, and the US Constitution and Bill of Rights were its first victims."
Can't argue with that. The truth's been out there for years. In December 2002, before the Washington Post drank the Stepford Kool-Aid, it published a riveting piece, "In Terror War, 2nd Track for Suspects," in which writer Charles Lane exposed Bush's executive power grab to strip courts of all oversight or authority. Lane sounded the alarm on the "parallel legal system in which terrorism suspects -- U.S. citizens and noncitizens alike -- may be investigated, jailed, interrogated, tried and punished without legal protections guaranteed by the ordinary system."
Lane went on to say the administration, with approval of the "special" Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, could "order a clandestine search of a U.S. citizen's home and, based on the information gathered, secretly declare the citizen an enemy combatant, to be held indefinitely at a U.S. military base." If the courts were aware of this activity at all, they would have "very limited authority to second-guess the detention."
Lane's article is no longer available on the WaPo site (surprise!), but can be found on Common Dreams.org, as can Jonathan Turley's August 2002 article,"Camps for Citizens: Ashcroft's Hellish Vision," originally published in the LA Times, but alas, is also no longer there.
Turley, a straight-talking professor of constitutional law at George Washington University, exposed then Attorney General John Ashcroft's "hellish vision" to incarcerate citizens he decided were "enemy combatants," i.e., all who were disloyal to Bush or dared to resist his "smoke-em-out" war on terror. According to Turley, in Ashcroft's America, "security precedes liberty." Liberty is nothing more than a "rhetorical justification for increased security," and citizens have a choice -- accept autocratic rule and surrender their rights peacefully, or be labeled enemy combatants and be held indefinitely by the government, without charges, a hearing, or access to a lawyer.
The camps are there, fully staffed and ready. In the absence of the US Constitution, Bush's Executive Orders are in place. Everything needed to keep this country running has been contracted out. Halliburton has left the building. Those in our society still having bragging rights to civil liberties are illegal aliens, whose growing numbers give new meaning to the word, "surge." One swipe of Bush's pen will inflict martial law and we will discover, too late, that we live in a police state patrolled by jackbooted Blackwater USA mercenaries who will, indeed, serve at the pleasure of the president..
Blackwater is in place to become this nation's shadow police force and is its current shadow army. Go back to the "dry run" of Katrina and take a look at the heavily armed force that laid seige to New Orleans, that sped through the streets rounding up hurricane victims, packing them into a "detention" arena where they were forced to stay for days without food or water or assistance. Go back even further -- the bodies hanging from the bridge in Fallujah were not US soldiers, but Blackwater mercenaries -- death squad troops 100,000 strong who roam the Iraqi streets at will and stir up violence and hatred against the uniformed US military.
We are awakening to find ourselves in a dark evil tangle, a "puling sample jungle of woods." Reminds me of the helplessness I felt on that bright, sunshiny day when I pulled over at a roadside park near Atlanta to take a short nap. When I awoke two hours later, it was pitch dark -- and it was only noon! Then, I realized with horror that I was covered with Kudzu -- I could hear it relentlessly growing, munching, crunching around me!
I was faced with a choice. I could hunker down in fear and hope someone else would save me, or I could at least make the effort to get out of the mess I had gotten myself into. Armed with only a dull pocket knife, I managed to slice my way out of the jungle by cutting frantically for a few minutes and then "inching" the car forward. Finally, after a three-hour battle with the stuff, I was free! I sped toward the state line with the carniverous vines hot on my tail. I have never been back to Georgia. Only the Devil goes down there...
It doesn't matter if that actually happened. The important thing is that we are now faced with a choice. We can hunker down and hope for the best, or we can rise up and take our country back. Texas Republican Congressman Ron Paul says we must act before it is too late and we find ourselves being herded into camps. Paul says we must contact every single member of congress and demand "a repeal of freedom-crushing legislation such as the Patriot act and the Military Commissions Act and the Defense Authorization Act which essentially wipes out Habeas Corpus."
They must be forcibly stopped. We must impeach this unholy gang of war criminals because they have no intention of leaving office in 2008, or ever, if they are left unchecked. We must not allow ourselves and our children to be forced to live in a Kudzu World -- to survive only at the pleasure of the president.
Sheila Samples is an Oklahoma writer and a former civilian US Army Public Information Officer. She is a regular contributor for a variety of Internet sites. Contact her at rsamples@sirinet.net
Friday, March 30, 2007
Thursday, March 22, 2007
Austin Rally/Protest/Concert March 17
The top picture is my youngest daughter, Jaime and her son, Aiden. They are what this is all about for me. I don't want them to live in a world of war. Aiden, especially, deserves to know peace.
The rest of the pics are from the gathering at the Capital, the march through the streets of Austin and at the concert at City Hall. It was quite a gathering and there is no way I could possibly get pictures of it all. It was an amazing day!
Monday, March 19, 2007
Can Bush be Purged?
Mayan priests purified their sacred land after Shrub scurried off. Can we do the same?
By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist
Friday, March 16, 2007
Sage is always good. Or maybe lavender. Pine is nice, too. Dried, bundled, tied with string, burned with hot, divine intent. Would it work? Do we have enough to go around? This is the question.
I speak, of course, of ritual. Purging and cleansing and purifying and, truly, burning a nicely dried, blessed smudge stick can be a terrific slice of personal magic, to rid a space (or perhaps even your own body) of negative juju or vicious spirits or just to make way for the new and the moist and the good. You can smudge a room. You can create a divine smoldering cloud and then move through the smoke, invoke change, purge the negative, invite hot licks of yes. It is a thing to do.
But here's the thing: Can you smudge an entire nation? Do we have enough lavender for 300 million? It is, all things considered, a big goddamn country. Windy. Rocky, in places. Could be tricky. Not to mention, you know, hazy. From all the smoke. Think of the potential traffic accidents. Coughing.
Important considerations, really, because it is becoming increasingly evident that a great national purifying ritual is just about exactly what we need. We are, after all, almost at that point. The Great Bleakness is nearing its end and you can veritably feel the swarm of uptight BushCo demons and malicious energies swirling around the country like happy karmic leeches, like a giant intellectual rash, like black raindrops of dank sweat from Karl Rove's evil mealy thighs.
To make matters worse, these dark energies, these base spirits were actually invited here by the Powers That Be, by those quivering, shivering, terrified armies of evangelical right-wing neocon bonk jobs and attorneys general and sour Supreme Court justices and scowling defense secretaries lo these past half-dozen years, and this means they shall not leave easily, despite how it is quickly coming time for them to be shoved back down into the bowels of fear and shrill egomania whence they came.
We must, therefore, do like the Mayans do. We must follow their divine and entirely appropriate example, set just recently.
Apparently, George W. Bush -- famed warmonger, despoiler of lands, despiser of gays and women and science and earthly resource, hapless fascist-wannabe -- it seems George just visited Guatemala, where he happily trod upon a holy Mayan site or two and shook hands with wary diplomats and blinked a lot and mispronounced a hundred different names. You know, same old, same old.
But then something interesting happened. Seems Bush left behind huge steaming piles of banality wherever he went, and therefore the first thing Guatemala's holy guardians of the sacred did as soon as Air Force One's wheels lifted off the ground was, of course, to purify the hallowed ground our president's shockingly low, nefarious energy had infected.
It's true. Those Mayan priests rushed in right after George left and cleansed the sacred archeological site upon which Dubya had trod, shooed away the snickering hordes of bleak spirits that trail behind America's Great Embarrassment like a sickly fog of ignorance and misprision and shockingly humiliating grammar.
Yes, we need a grand American ritual. We are, after all, far more deeply infected than that Mayan site. Does it not seem entirely appropriate? Does it not make perfect sense? Of course it does.
Ah, but maybe you scoff. Maybe you say what those highly regarded Mayan priests did was just quaint tribal nonsense, a little savage, silly, pagan. Truly, most Christians tend to sneer at such things, mock and deride and denounce even as they kneel before giant gruesome crosses and flock to pieces of suspiciously burnt toast and make Mel Gibson insanely wealthy.
Christian rituals, if they exist at all, are largely tepid and bland and might involve, say, a little rosary bead here, a little sip of wine there, maybe a quick bologna sandwich followed by 4,000 Hail Marys and a bunch of blind fervent prayers to some grand unhappy deity because, well, most Christians don't really understand the notion of spirit guides or negative energies unless it looks really sexy in red leathery skin and black boots and sharp pointy horns.
I bring this up only because an estimated 75 percent of Americans at least vaguely identify with the Christian faith, and we can safely presume that only a wizened handful know how to burn, smudge, cleanse with anything resembling deep laughter and honest pagan intent and the understanding that Bush has been more toxic to this nation than Adam Sandler and MySpace and cheap piss-water domestic beer combined. Would this fact be an obstacle? Can we please try, anyway?
We could try water. Sacred baths. Not-so-sacred baths. Any sort of bath, shower, divine scrub-down involving divine intent and maybe some candles and a little dish of salt and some blessed soap and the prayer-full idea that you are sloughing off skanky Bush demons and old skin and past loves and idiotic politicians.
Can we bathe each other? Hose each other down? We do, after all, have a lot of water laying around. Bottles and bottles of it stacked to the rooftops of the nation's Costcos and Wal-Warts like wet plastic kindling. Would this be sanitary? Do we have proper drainage? Enough soap? Ah, logistics.
Ah, but wait. There is another fabulous possibility. There is, of course, fire. I love fire. Fire is God's own enema. Fire is the devil's dental floss. It is beautiful and powerful and dangerous and obvious and fun. As purgatives go, it can't be beat. Ritualistically, you can burn it all: incense, candles, locks of hair, photographs, bedsheets, foreign policy documents, Dick Cheney's black charcoal heart, Jenna Bush's beer bong. Fire is good. Fire kicks serious spiritual butt. This is what they say.
Sure, it won't be easy. We will have to get around the law. Skirt the federal fire marshal's implied edict that we cannot really have, say, a National Day of Fire, a grand torching of the toxic memory that is eight miserable years of the Bush administration.
No matter. It's still worth a try. It is, in fact, mandatory. And this being America, we can just keep it simple. Obvious. Keep the metaphor so clear that even celebrities and teenagers and recovering born-again Christians will understand.
Here is what we can do: We shall burn a bush. Ten thousand bushes. Maybe a million. Bushes laced with sage, lavender, pine, incense, with eight years of warmongering and intolerance and those beady squinty vacant eyes. We shall gather in parks or street corners or fire pits at the beach sometime next year, and ignite.
We will burn bush. We will burn away Bush. We shall purify and rinse and cleanse the nation of this horrific and banal poison, once and for all, and it shall be Good. And those Mayan priests? Why, they'll simply look over and nod, smile knowingly. They understand completely.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/gate/archive/2007/03/16/notes031607.DTL&nl=fix
By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist
Friday, March 16, 2007
Sage is always good. Or maybe lavender. Pine is nice, too. Dried, bundled, tied with string, burned with hot, divine intent. Would it work? Do we have enough to go around? This is the question.
I speak, of course, of ritual. Purging and cleansing and purifying and, truly, burning a nicely dried, blessed smudge stick can be a terrific slice of personal magic, to rid a space (or perhaps even your own body) of negative juju or vicious spirits or just to make way for the new and the moist and the good. You can smudge a room. You can create a divine smoldering cloud and then move through the smoke, invoke change, purge the negative, invite hot licks of yes. It is a thing to do.
But here's the thing: Can you smudge an entire nation? Do we have enough lavender for 300 million? It is, all things considered, a big goddamn country. Windy. Rocky, in places. Could be tricky. Not to mention, you know, hazy. From all the smoke. Think of the potential traffic accidents. Coughing.
Important considerations, really, because it is becoming increasingly evident that a great national purifying ritual is just about exactly what we need. We are, after all, almost at that point. The Great Bleakness is nearing its end and you can veritably feel the swarm of uptight BushCo demons and malicious energies swirling around the country like happy karmic leeches, like a giant intellectual rash, like black raindrops of dank sweat from Karl Rove's evil mealy thighs.
To make matters worse, these dark energies, these base spirits were actually invited here by the Powers That Be, by those quivering, shivering, terrified armies of evangelical right-wing neocon bonk jobs and attorneys general and sour Supreme Court justices and scowling defense secretaries lo these past half-dozen years, and this means they shall not leave easily, despite how it is quickly coming time for them to be shoved back down into the bowels of fear and shrill egomania whence they came.
We must, therefore, do like the Mayans do. We must follow their divine and entirely appropriate example, set just recently.
Apparently, George W. Bush -- famed warmonger, despoiler of lands, despiser of gays and women and science and earthly resource, hapless fascist-wannabe -- it seems George just visited Guatemala, where he happily trod upon a holy Mayan site or two and shook hands with wary diplomats and blinked a lot and mispronounced a hundred different names. You know, same old, same old.
But then something interesting happened. Seems Bush left behind huge steaming piles of banality wherever he went, and therefore the first thing Guatemala's holy guardians of the sacred did as soon as Air Force One's wheels lifted off the ground was, of course, to purify the hallowed ground our president's shockingly low, nefarious energy had infected.
It's true. Those Mayan priests rushed in right after George left and cleansed the sacred archeological site upon which Dubya had trod, shooed away the snickering hordes of bleak spirits that trail behind America's Great Embarrassment like a sickly fog of ignorance and misprision and shockingly humiliating grammar.
Yes, we need a grand American ritual. We are, after all, far more deeply infected than that Mayan site. Does it not seem entirely appropriate? Does it not make perfect sense? Of course it does.
Ah, but maybe you scoff. Maybe you say what those highly regarded Mayan priests did was just quaint tribal nonsense, a little savage, silly, pagan. Truly, most Christians tend to sneer at such things, mock and deride and denounce even as they kneel before giant gruesome crosses and flock to pieces of suspiciously burnt toast and make Mel Gibson insanely wealthy.
Christian rituals, if they exist at all, are largely tepid and bland and might involve, say, a little rosary bead here, a little sip of wine there, maybe a quick bologna sandwich followed by 4,000 Hail Marys and a bunch of blind fervent prayers to some grand unhappy deity because, well, most Christians don't really understand the notion of spirit guides or negative energies unless it looks really sexy in red leathery skin and black boots and sharp pointy horns.
I bring this up only because an estimated 75 percent of Americans at least vaguely identify with the Christian faith, and we can safely presume that only a wizened handful know how to burn, smudge, cleanse with anything resembling deep laughter and honest pagan intent and the understanding that Bush has been more toxic to this nation than Adam Sandler and MySpace and cheap piss-water domestic beer combined. Would this fact be an obstacle? Can we please try, anyway?
We could try water. Sacred baths. Not-so-sacred baths. Any sort of bath, shower, divine scrub-down involving divine intent and maybe some candles and a little dish of salt and some blessed soap and the prayer-full idea that you are sloughing off skanky Bush demons and old skin and past loves and idiotic politicians.
Can we bathe each other? Hose each other down? We do, after all, have a lot of water laying around. Bottles and bottles of it stacked to the rooftops of the nation's Costcos and Wal-Warts like wet plastic kindling. Would this be sanitary? Do we have proper drainage? Enough soap? Ah, logistics.
Ah, but wait. There is another fabulous possibility. There is, of course, fire. I love fire. Fire is God's own enema. Fire is the devil's dental floss. It is beautiful and powerful and dangerous and obvious and fun. As purgatives go, it can't be beat. Ritualistically, you can burn it all: incense, candles, locks of hair, photographs, bedsheets, foreign policy documents, Dick Cheney's black charcoal heart, Jenna Bush's beer bong. Fire is good. Fire kicks serious spiritual butt. This is what they say.
Sure, it won't be easy. We will have to get around the law. Skirt the federal fire marshal's implied edict that we cannot really have, say, a National Day of Fire, a grand torching of the toxic memory that is eight miserable years of the Bush administration.
No matter. It's still worth a try. It is, in fact, mandatory. And this being America, we can just keep it simple. Obvious. Keep the metaphor so clear that even celebrities and teenagers and recovering born-again Christians will understand.
Here is what we can do: We shall burn a bush. Ten thousand bushes. Maybe a million. Bushes laced with sage, lavender, pine, incense, with eight years of warmongering and intolerance and those beady squinty vacant eyes. We shall gather in parks or street corners or fire pits at the beach sometime next year, and ignite.
We will burn bush. We will burn away Bush. We shall purify and rinse and cleanse the nation of this horrific and banal poison, once and for all, and it shall be Good. And those Mayan priests? Why, they'll simply look over and nod, smile knowingly. They understand completely.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/gate/archive/2007/03/16/notes031607.DTL&nl=fix
Friday, March 16, 2007
Impeachment Forum in Houston
IMPEACHMENT
Our Right, Our Duty
Monday April 9 @ 6:00 PM
Resurrection Metropolitan Community Church
2025 West 11 Street
(Just west of TC Jester Blvd)
Houston, TX 77008
* An event for networking, protesting, petition signing, postcard writing, tabling, food, drinks, videos, music, and speeches *
On Monday, April 9th, join us for this very special event.
Get involved in taking our country back from Bush and Cheney!
Show them that our American spirit will NOT tolerate:-- Illegal war-- Warrantless wiretaps-- Torture-- Erosion of the Constitution-- Subversion of our electoral process-- Indifference to those hit by disasters-- Dishonor and neglect of those injured in our country’s service
Join us for a night of edification and action.
Keynote Speaker – Cindy Sheehan
You will also hear from:
Monday April 9 @ 6:00 PM
Resurrection Metropolitan Community Church
2025 West 11 Street
(Just west of TC Jester Blvd)
Houston, TX 77008
* An event for networking, protesting, petition signing, postcard writing, tabling, food, drinks, videos, music, and speeches *
On Monday, April 9th, join us for this very special event.
Get involved in taking our country back from Bush and Cheney!
Show them that our American spirit will NOT tolerate:-- Illegal war-- Warrantless wiretaps-- Torture-- Erosion of the Constitution-- Subversion of our electoral process-- Indifference to those hit by disasters-- Dishonor and neglect of those injured in our country’s service
Join us for a night of edification and action.
Keynote Speaker – Cindy Sheehan
You will also hear from:
Ann Wright
Debra Sweet
Diane Wilson
Sissy Farenthold
Professor Bob Jensen
Professor Bob Jensen
State Representative Lon Burnam
City Councilwoman Ada Edwards
Also, Texas singer and songwriter Saylor White will provide musical entertainment to warm up the crowd.
Snacks, Appetizers, and Refreshments will be served.
$5.00 donation requested. No one turned away due to lack of funds.
Visit www.paa-tx.org or call 713-432-1277 for more information
City Councilwoman Ada Edwards
Also, Texas singer and songwriter Saylor White will provide musical entertainment to warm up the crowd.
Snacks, Appetizers, and Refreshments will be served.
$5.00 donation requested. No one turned away due to lack of funds.
Visit www.paa-tx.org or call 713-432-1277 for more information
Monday, March 12, 2007
How Will You End This War? By Tina Richards
I’ve received emails thanking me for speaking out on behalf of my son and other troops serving in Iraq. In addition, I’ve received questions about my exchange with Rep. David Obey that was videotaped by a citizens news group, Kathleen Gabel and Tyler Westbrook, that is documenting the peace movement in the halls of Congress. They’ve covered my visits with other members of Congress as well as the work of other citizens working to end the war.
I’ve come to Washington, DC because my son Cloy, who has been honorably discharged from the Marines with the presidential unit citation, is now facing a possible third deployment. Cloy is suffering from undiagnosed traumatic brain injury and post traumatic stress disorder. As Cloy says in one of his poems "every time I look in the mirror I see a casualty ofthe war." (You can see on http://grassrootsamerica4us.org the impact the war has had on him through his poetry.)
Like other soldiers, my son has suffered neglect. Therefore, I’ve also been lobbying Congress on the inadequate treatment our troops receive in the VA system – my son is not an isolated case. He should not be going back. Indeed it is time to bring all our sons and daughters home from Iraq.
Although my senators have offered to help Cloy individually, he has refused special treatment unless they are also actively working to bring home all his brothers and sisters. He is a Marine and will not leave his fellow soldiers behind.
My unplanned meeting with Rep. David Obey in the hallway was an opportunity to ask the Chairman of the Appropriations Committee, the committee that will write the budget for the Iraq War and occupation, how he will use the ‘power of the purse’ to bring the war to an end. The frustration he showed in his response to my questions was understandable. Many in Congress who know the war is wrong feel unable to do all they can to end it.
On November 7th, Nancy Pelosi was given a mandate by the American people to bring our troops home. It time for Speaker Pelosi to spend her political capital.
As a citizen, I am confused why the Democrats are working from President Bush’s appropriation when his party lost the 2006 election because of the war. The new majority should write their own supplemental budget bill based on the views of the vast majority of Americans, majority oftroops in Iraq, and majority of Iraqis – one that ends the war, brings the troops home safely and takes care of them when they return.
I hope to meet with Rep. Obey and I have been contacted by Speaker Pelosi’s office to schedule an appointment to meet with her. I want to understand how they are going to end the war.
As a mother of a Marine I have a personal interest, but it is an interest shared by other mothers whose sons and daughters are in Iraq – we want this war to end. We want U.S. troops to come home. We want our sons and daughters cared for when they return. We want our country tolive up to its highest ideals and help Iraq rebuild its country, provide support to a regional peace keeping force and talk with the other countries in the region about how to reduce the violence and bring stability to the Middle East. We want to see the damage of this war undone.
I have seen the horrors of war through my son’s eyes. Therefore I ask "How will you end this war?"
Sincerely,Tina Richards, Grass Roots America, CEOGrassRootsAmerica4us.org
Below are some questions I have received:
Q. Did you set him up?
A. I Didn’t. I heard there was going to be an occupation of his officeand I wanted to get there early to try once again to get an appointment.I have been there a dozen times and never ran into him and did notexpect to run into him.
Q. But the camera was shooting up?
A. The camera woman is short. There was another gentleman there thattook pictures of Rep. Obey, the camera woman with the large camera andmyself. It wasn’t hidden.
Q. Why are you here when your son is in trouble?
A. I’ve been home two years taking care of him when the VA hasn’t. Ineed to stop his deployment. After his second tour of Iraq, I promisedmyself as a mother to never feel powerless again. DC is where I couldstop the deployment.
Q. Why are you asking for money on your website?
A. I have sold my house, given every penny to help my son and to endthis war. I have no money left. I planned to go home after January 29thand return to being a banker in which I earn a nice salary. I’m livingon a couch in Maryland.
Q. Who’s funding you?
A. I’ve received $10 and $15 checks mostly, and some others like a $50check from a Lt. Col. in Fargo N. Dakota. I have raised about $3,000 inthe last few months which I’ve used to support my son, my daughter andmyself. I’ve also increased my credit card balances – the only thing inmy finances that has increased.
Q. Why did you give the video to the media?
A. We shot it on Monday and deliberated for three days as to whether weshould show it or not. We finally decided to show it as it reflected thefrustration we all feel, citizens and lawmakers alike.
Q. Why won’t your elected officials help?
A. After everything that has happened, my son refuses to be theirpolitical pawn. Unless they are working to bring his brothers andsisters home, he will not accept their help. He is a Marine and will notleave his fellow soldiers behind.
Q. How can I help?
A. Congress needs to palpably FEEL the presence of we the people, tohear us, and know that we mean it. There cannot be too many voices!
Ask them, “How will you end this war?”
“We are the people who run this country. We are the deciders. And everysingle day, every single one of us needs to step outside and take someaction to help stop this war.” Molly Ivins
I’ve come to Washington, DC because my son Cloy, who has been honorably discharged from the Marines with the presidential unit citation, is now facing a possible third deployment. Cloy is suffering from undiagnosed traumatic brain injury and post traumatic stress disorder. As Cloy says in one of his poems "every time I look in the mirror I see a casualty ofthe war." (You can see on http://grassrootsamerica4us.org the impact the war has had on him through his poetry.)
Like other soldiers, my son has suffered neglect. Therefore, I’ve also been lobbying Congress on the inadequate treatment our troops receive in the VA system – my son is not an isolated case. He should not be going back. Indeed it is time to bring all our sons and daughters home from Iraq.
Although my senators have offered to help Cloy individually, he has refused special treatment unless they are also actively working to bring home all his brothers and sisters. He is a Marine and will not leave his fellow soldiers behind.
My unplanned meeting with Rep. David Obey in the hallway was an opportunity to ask the Chairman of the Appropriations Committee, the committee that will write the budget for the Iraq War and occupation, how he will use the ‘power of the purse’ to bring the war to an end. The frustration he showed in his response to my questions was understandable. Many in Congress who know the war is wrong feel unable to do all they can to end it.
On November 7th, Nancy Pelosi was given a mandate by the American people to bring our troops home. It time for Speaker Pelosi to spend her political capital.
As a citizen, I am confused why the Democrats are working from President Bush’s appropriation when his party lost the 2006 election because of the war. The new majority should write their own supplemental budget bill based on the views of the vast majority of Americans, majority oftroops in Iraq, and majority of Iraqis – one that ends the war, brings the troops home safely and takes care of them when they return.
I hope to meet with Rep. Obey and I have been contacted by Speaker Pelosi’s office to schedule an appointment to meet with her. I want to understand how they are going to end the war.
As a mother of a Marine I have a personal interest, but it is an interest shared by other mothers whose sons and daughters are in Iraq – we want this war to end. We want U.S. troops to come home. We want our sons and daughters cared for when they return. We want our country tolive up to its highest ideals and help Iraq rebuild its country, provide support to a regional peace keeping force and talk with the other countries in the region about how to reduce the violence and bring stability to the Middle East. We want to see the damage of this war undone.
I have seen the horrors of war through my son’s eyes. Therefore I ask "How will you end this war?"
Sincerely,Tina Richards, Grass Roots America, CEOGrassRootsAmerica4us.org
Below are some questions I have received:
Q. Did you set him up?
A. I Didn’t. I heard there was going to be an occupation of his officeand I wanted to get there early to try once again to get an appointment.I have been there a dozen times and never ran into him and did notexpect to run into him.
Q. But the camera was shooting up?
A. The camera woman is short. There was another gentleman there thattook pictures of Rep. Obey, the camera woman with the large camera andmyself. It wasn’t hidden.
Q. Why are you here when your son is in trouble?
A. I’ve been home two years taking care of him when the VA hasn’t. Ineed to stop his deployment. After his second tour of Iraq, I promisedmyself as a mother to never feel powerless again. DC is where I couldstop the deployment.
Q. Why are you asking for money on your website?
A. I have sold my house, given every penny to help my son and to endthis war. I have no money left. I planned to go home after January 29thand return to being a banker in which I earn a nice salary. I’m livingon a couch in Maryland.
Q. Who’s funding you?
A. I’ve received $10 and $15 checks mostly, and some others like a $50check from a Lt. Col. in Fargo N. Dakota. I have raised about $3,000 inthe last few months which I’ve used to support my son, my daughter andmyself. I’ve also increased my credit card balances – the only thing inmy finances that has increased.
Q. Why did you give the video to the media?
A. We shot it on Monday and deliberated for three days as to whether weshould show it or not. We finally decided to show it as it reflected thefrustration we all feel, citizens and lawmakers alike.
Q. Why won’t your elected officials help?
A. After everything that has happened, my son refuses to be theirpolitical pawn. Unless they are working to bring his brothers andsisters home, he will not accept their help. He is a Marine and will notleave his fellow soldiers behind.
Q. How can I help?
A. Congress needs to palpably FEEL the presence of we the people, tohear us, and know that we mean it. There cannot be too many voices!
Ask them, “How will you end this war?”
“We are the people who run this country. We are the deciders. And everysingle day, every single one of us needs to step outside and take someaction to help stop this war.” Molly Ivins
Why I Will March to Support the Troops and End the War -- by Ann Wright
Why I Will March to Support the Troops and End the War
By Ann Wright
t r u t h o u t Guest Contributor
Monday 12 March 2007
I am returning to Fayetteville, North Carolina, on March 17 for the first time in over twenty years. I spent three years on active duty at [nearby] Fort Bragg as an instructor at the Special Warfare Center and as executive officer of the 96th Civil Affairs Battalion, Special Operations Command. During my time at Fort Bragg, I deployed to Grenada on the 18th Airborne Corps international law team and was a member of the US Army claims commission in Grenada. I stayed for four months, helping to re-establish governmental functions and assisting with economic development programs.
I ended up being in the US Army and Army Reserves for 29 years and retired as a Colonel. I then joined the US diplomatic corps and served in Nicaragua, Grenada, Somalia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Sierra Leone, Micronesia, Mongolia and Afghanistan. I was on the first State Department team to reopen the US Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan in December 2001 after the CIA and US military pushed the Taliban out of Kabul and had al-Qaeda heading for the Tora Bora mountains.
Ironically, after serving in eight presidential administrations, either in the US military or in the US diplomatic corps, I am returning to Fayetteville to participate in a rally and march to end the war on Iraq.
Why would a 29-year retired US Army colonel be marching to end the war? Well, in March 2003, four years ago, as the war in Iraq began, I resigned from the US diplomatic corps in opposition to the war. I was one of three US government employees who resigned. That's why I am marching to end the war - I gave up my career over the war.
The rally and march in Fayetteville, the home of one of the largest military bases in the United States, is not a march against the men and women in our military services. If it were, I would not participate.
Instead, the march is to call for an end of the administration's policy that placed our military in Iraq in the first place, and secondly to demand that our servicemen and women be provided with proper care when they return.
On March 5th I attended the Congressional hearing in the auditorium at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, DC, concerning conditions at Walter Reed for our wounded military and how the transition from active-duty medical care to Veterans Administration care can be done much, much more effectively.
While some may disagree with our view that the war in Iraq must end, we will be in the streets of Fayetteville in solidarity with our active-duty colleagues, demanding better care for those returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. That we all can agree on.
--------
Ann Wright served 29 years in the US Army (13 years on active duty and 16 years in the Army Reserves) and retired as a colonel. She also worked for 16 years as a US diplomat in Nicaragua, Grenada, Somalia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Sierra Leone, Micronesia, Afghanistan and Mongolia. She was awarded the State Department's Award for Heroism for her actions in the evacuation of 2,500 members of the international community and Sierra Leone government during the invasion of rebels into the capital city of Freetown in May 1997. She resigned from the US diplomatic corps in March 2003 in opposition to the war in Iraq.
By Ann Wright
t r u t h o u t Guest Contributor
Monday 12 March 2007
I am returning to Fayetteville, North Carolina, on March 17 for the first time in over twenty years. I spent three years on active duty at [nearby] Fort Bragg as an instructor at the Special Warfare Center and as executive officer of the 96th Civil Affairs Battalion, Special Operations Command. During my time at Fort Bragg, I deployed to Grenada on the 18th Airborne Corps international law team and was a member of the US Army claims commission in Grenada. I stayed for four months, helping to re-establish governmental functions and assisting with economic development programs.
I ended up being in the US Army and Army Reserves for 29 years and retired as a Colonel. I then joined the US diplomatic corps and served in Nicaragua, Grenada, Somalia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Sierra Leone, Micronesia, Mongolia and Afghanistan. I was on the first State Department team to reopen the US Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan in December 2001 after the CIA and US military pushed the Taliban out of Kabul and had al-Qaeda heading for the Tora Bora mountains.
Ironically, after serving in eight presidential administrations, either in the US military or in the US diplomatic corps, I am returning to Fayetteville to participate in a rally and march to end the war on Iraq.
Why would a 29-year retired US Army colonel be marching to end the war? Well, in March 2003, four years ago, as the war in Iraq began, I resigned from the US diplomatic corps in opposition to the war. I was one of three US government employees who resigned. That's why I am marching to end the war - I gave up my career over the war.
The rally and march in Fayetteville, the home of one of the largest military bases in the United States, is not a march against the men and women in our military services. If it were, I would not participate.
Instead, the march is to call for an end of the administration's policy that placed our military in Iraq in the first place, and secondly to demand that our servicemen and women be provided with proper care when they return.
On March 5th I attended the Congressional hearing in the auditorium at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, DC, concerning conditions at Walter Reed for our wounded military and how the transition from active-duty medical care to Veterans Administration care can be done much, much more effectively.
While some may disagree with our view that the war in Iraq must end, we will be in the streets of Fayetteville in solidarity with our active-duty colleagues, demanding better care for those returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. That we all can agree on.
--------
Ann Wright served 29 years in the US Army (13 years on active duty and 16 years in the Army Reserves) and retired as a colonel. She also worked for 16 years as a US diplomat in Nicaragua, Grenada, Somalia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Sierra Leone, Micronesia, Afghanistan and Mongolia. She was awarded the State Department's Award for Heroism for her actions in the evacuation of 2,500 members of the international community and Sierra Leone government during the invasion of rebels into the capital city of Freetown in May 1997. She resigned from the US diplomatic corps in March 2003 in opposition to the war in Iraq.
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