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WHY DO WE STAND FOR THIS!
Cindy Sheehan wrote an article on Monday, (posted below) about a peace
activist Brian Haw, who lives in London. He has been carrying out a vigil
in protest of this BUSH/BLAIR Iraq war for 4 years now. These wonderful people who
brave the elements and ridicule, to awaken the rest of us who get taken in
by the lies and deceit of politicians, should be applauded until our hands
are red with pain. It is always an uphill battle for them, since we all
have our comfort zones and do not like to stray too far from them.
Our nation
especially needs some awakening. The shameful execution Tuesday December
13, 2005, of a
rehabilitated man who may or may not have been guilty of the crimes he was
murdered for, is an ideal example of the cruel nature of our culture.
Capital punishment is so political and barbaric, this one in
COW-LEE-FOR-NEE-A (as
schwarzenegger
pronounces it)
particularly, reminded me of the days when Royalty used slaves to perform
homicidal games for their entertainment. When the strongest
gladiator overpowered the other, he would look to the Royals in their
balconies for a thumbs up (to spare the life) or thumbs down (to kill
their opponent); to me Arnold gave a thumbs down with very little display
of leadership or compassion. This is the world, we the people, live in
today. Every break is given to the rich and powerful and hardly any crumbs
for those who need help the most. 60 billion in tax cuts to the rich and
60 billion in cuts to social programs...WHY DO WE STAND FOR THIS?? I
am ashamed to call myself an American if America only represents avarice
and barbarity, this has got to change. Please read Cindy's words of hope, she is a heroin and I hope her
efforts will change the course of our NATION AND OTHER NATIONS to start
thinking about who matters the most, WE THE PEOPLE the backbone of
society. Thanks, Thinkingblue
Comfort Zones
By Cindy Sheehan
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Monday 12 December 2005
Today was bitterly cold as I walked from the Charing Cross Tube Station to
Parliament Square in London. I was heading there with my traveling
companion, Julie, to go and visit Brian Haw after several exhausting but
productive days in England and Scotland.
Brian is a peace activist and an exceptionally compassionate man who has
been camping out and vigiling in Parliament Square since June 2, 2001. He
was so enraged by the sanctions of the United Nations against Iraq that
were supported by the US and his government that he felt it was the only
thing to do.
While I was vigiling and camping out in Crawford by George Bush's ranch
because of my outrage at the continued and unnecessary killing of Iraqis,
Americans and coalition troops, Brian sent me a letter. Part of it reads:
We stand beside you as family, and you can be sure of our love no matter
what. Now let's help the rest to understand, sort the mess in the quickest
possible time. I don't want another day, another child to come home in a
body bag, nor do you. Well, let's get through to the rest of our folks
pretty damn quick. Amen?!
Your brother Brian, in Jesus name xxx
This portion and the rest of the letter so touched me that I knew if I
ever visited England, I would have to go and see Brian. I was shocked when
I found out that Brian had been arrested early Saturday morning.
This past year, the British Parliament passed a very restrictive law
called The Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005. The act restricts
freedom of speech and freedom of assembly around Parliament and No. 10
Downing Street. Citizens who break this law can be arrested, and often
are.
A young woman went in front of the Parliament building and read the names
of the 97 British Iraq war dead. She was arrested.
An old man started yelling at Jack Straw for his complicity in war crimes.
He was arrested.
Brian Haw, who has been camping in front of Parliament for over 4 years,
was arrested very early the other morning. Brian is allowed to be there
because the law was passed after his vigil started, but he was arrested
for encouraging "new people" to join his vigil. These new people,
naturally, agree that the war is a tragic mistake and that our troops need
to come home.
These prohibitions and many more on freedom of speech and dissent seem
eerily familiar to me. I have been hauled in twice for exercising my First
Amendment freedoms in America. I have tried to petition my government on
dozens of occasions to redress the wrong that George Bush and the other
neocon monsters have inflicted on the world and my family. I have spent a
lot of money, sacrificed so much, and have traveled far and wide to do so.
No one in the government is listening. No one pays any attention.
I was speaking to a large crowd of hundreds of peace activists in London
at an International Peace Conference, and I challenged them to take back
the freedoms that our governments are taking away from us. Just as
thousands of people traveled from all over the world to join us at Camp
Casey over the summer, I wondered why hundreds of people didn't go to
Parliament and scream out the names of the slaughtered British war heroes
after the young woman was arrested for doing the same. Parliament's
complicity and support of the war crimes in Iraq have contributed to the
killing of the troops and innocent Iraqis. The MPs and Tony Blair should
be faced with their acts of murder on a daily basis.
Why, when Brian was arrested the other day, didn't hundreds of people go
down to Parliament Square and pitch their tents alongside Brian's?
Why do we as Americans sit complacently by and watch our government use
chemical weapons in Iraq? George Bush says that Saddam Hussein is "a bad
man" because he used chemical weapons against his own people. What does
that make George Bush and the leader of the War Department? I think that
makes them bad men. Why do we allow it to continue?
Why do we as Americans turn the channel when we see that our government is
transporting alleged criminals and torturing them in European airspace?
Why do we turn our backs on the innocent children who are killed every day
in the name of liberating a people and spreading "freedom and democracy?"
Why do we let the war criminals rape and pillage our treasury and rob
precious human treasure from our communities and families?
Brian Haw, who is a father of 7, left the comfort zone of his home and
family to save the children of the world. He states his reasons so
eloquently on his website:
I want to go back to my own kids and look them in the face again knowing
that I've done all I can to try and save the children of Iraq and other
countries who are dying because of my government's unjust, amoral, fear-
and money-driven policies. These children and people of other countries
are every bit as valuable and worthy of love as my precious wife and
children.
I was violently ripped out of my comfort zone on April 4, 2004, when Casey
was killed in Iraq. Even if I weren't constantly traveling and
demonstrating against the immoral occupation of Iraq, I will never be
comfortable again. I will live the rest of my life with a part of my heart
and soul missing. I have had my comfort cruelly amputated, as so many
soldiers have had limbs ripped off by IEDs.
Brian showed me pictures of babies who are affected by depleted uranium
sickness in Iraq. He showed me pictures of morbidly ill Iraqi children who
couldn't or can't get medicine because of the prior inhumane sanctions and
now the devastating occupation. Even as the occupational authority in Iraq
can live in relative security in the Green Zone in Baghdad, the people of
Iraq have no comfort zones. They are unrecorded, unreported and
marginalized as sub-human. What we as citizens of humanity are allowing
our governments to do is monstrous and heartless.
So we who care about our freedom and democracy, and who care about our
governments perpetrating crimes against humanity, have to take action. We
have to do as Henry David Thoreau said, "vote with our whole ticket."
If you do nothing for peace and justice in the world, start doing
something. If you are doing something, do more. Our survival on this
planet demands immediate action.
Now is the time to leave our comfort zones and make a difference.
If you don't know what to do, contact me at CampCaseyMom@yahoo.com.
I will give you some ideas.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Go to Original
'Peace Mom' Sheehan in New Play by Nobel Winner
Reuters
Sunday 11 December 2005
London - U.S. peace activist Cindy Sheehan, who won wide attention with a
vigil outside President George W. Bush's ranch in the name of her soldier
son killed in Iraq, is the subject of a new play by Nobel laureate Dario
Fo.
"Peace Mom" received its world premiere in London on Saturday night,
starring British actress Frances de la Tour, with both Sheehan and Italian
dramatist Fo in the audience.
The one-woman show is based on extracts from Sheehan's letters to Bush and
other writings. De la Tour delivered the monologues beneath large pictures
of Sheehan's son Casey and a tank in the Iraqi desert in front of a plume
of fire.
"Frances did such an amazing job of conveying my feelings of anger and
betrayal," a tearful Sheehan said after the play.
She said she hoped the play would help "put a human face" on the war.
Sheehan, from Vacaville, California, has become one of the best-known
figures calling for U.S. troops to be withdrawn from Iraq since she
protested for several weeks outside Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas, in
August.
Bush has said he sympathizes with Sheehan over the death of her son in
2004 but will not pull out U.S. forces. Some of his supporters have gone
further, accusing her of being an advocate of surrender in the face of
terrorism.
The play was rushed into production to conclude a day-long conference of
activists opposed to the U.S.-led war in Iraq, with de la Tour reading
some passages from a script.
Fo, the leftist playwright who won the 1997 Nobel Prize for Literature,
said his wife and artistic partner Franca Rame would star in a longer
final version of the play in Italy.
For whom the bell tolls a poem
(No man is an island) by John Donne
No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manner of thine own
Or of thine friend's were.
Each man's death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.
These famous words by John Donne were not originally written as a poem -
the passage is taken from the 1624 Meditation 17, from Devotions Upon
Emergent Occasions and is prose.
The words of the original passage Click Here
CAROLYNCONNECTION.COM
Warning very Graphic
REAL PICTURES OF WAR
