The Heretik

PEACE NOW

Come Now dawn of peace. May a brighter sun rise in the east.  Battle only with arms open.  Peace within must find a road to a more humble but glorious home. The peace of one fades when we forget all others.  Where war divides, hold your sister and love your unknown brother.  Battle for peace without pause.

HOW WILL YOU WAGE PEACE TODAY?

EVERYWHERE IS WAR

EVERYWHERE IS WAR  Across the fields of language, in the valley of deception, and on the heights of rhetoric, war would dominate our lives and at great cost.  Honesty rarely soldiers in the halls of power.  Not just the war in Iraq, but discussion of it are sinking in soggy arguments that will only bleed out the moral vitality of this nation.

IF THIS WAR WAS WRONG FROM THE START, talk must be only about how it will end.  We are where we don’t belong.  No great truth can come from the further defense of a lie.  The question is not what is lost if we leave, but what more will be lost if we stay.  We drain lifeblood, treasury, and moral capital every minute we remain.

WAR WALKS wide awake crushing the weary who will not stand against it.  All applaud until one bravely admits the evil of acquiescence.  Someone must be brave enough to end this game of chicken.  A false bravery bullies true compassion only if the caring care not enough to speak up for what is right.

RECOMMENDED READING
[GARY HART] In 2008 I want a leader who is willing now to say: "I made a mistake, and for my mistake I am going to Iraq and accompanying the next planeload of flag-draped coffins back to Dover Air Force Base. And I am going to ask forgiveness for my mistake from every parent who will talk to me."

[WSJ] "We can't afford to lose," says Sen. John McCain of Arizona, a maverick on other issues, but a Bush ally on Iraq. While "there's nervousness" among Republicans, he says "I do not see any significant erosion or inclination to jump ship."

Old pirates, yes, they rob I;
Sold I to the merchant ships,
Minutes after they took I
From the bottomless pit.
But my hand was made strong
By the 'and of the Almighty.
We forward in this generation
Triumphantly.
Won't you help to sing
These songs of freedom? -
'Cause all I ever have:
Redemption songs;
Redemption songs.

Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery;
None but ourselves can free our minds.

"Redemption Song"
Bob Marley

TELL ME WHAT DEMOCRACY LOOKS LIKE

TELL ME WHAT DEMOCRACY LOOKS LIKE  Bush came to Salt Lake yesterday to face serious grilling from a HOSTILE VFW CONVENTION audience. Old time vets asked Bush why more young boys must die to honor the mistake of boys being sent to die before them in Iraq.  Actually that was the scene at a PEACE RALLY in Pioneer Park organized by Salt Lake City Mayor ROCKY ANDERSON.  The Heretik was there.

TELL ME WHAT DEMOCACY LOOKS LIKE  Democracy in Pioneer Park yesterday looked like a Sixties college campus forty years later.  Add dreadlocks, tattoos, and piercings to the flavor of passion for peace.  Something is growing besides anger and disgust for the policies of death.  With the anger is a joy in the resistance to moral decay.

TELL ME WHAT DEMOCRACY LOOKS LIKE  CELESTE ZAPPALA, co founder of GOLD STAR MOTHERS FOR PEACE, touched the face of god with her words yesterday.  The story of her son SHERWOOD BAKER, the seven hundred twentieth American to die in Iraq, moistened many eyes.  She spoke of people having hands full of hope, even as she mentioned her SON  was the first Pennsylvania National Guard member to die since 1945. 

TELL ME WHAT DEMOCRACY LOOKS LIKE  ZAPPALA directly challenged Bush where he says if we leave Iraq now, we send the wrong political message.  “I cannot bear that soldiers die for a political message,” she said.  Celeste Zappala asked some questions:  why do we think the Iraqis can’t do it?  If all the dead could speak, what would they say?  How will we defend democracy?

TELL ME WHAT DEMOCRACY LOOKS LIKE  Zappala had an answer ready for how we will defend democracy.  We will live it.  This line will linger today and tomorrow. Something great is rising from the earth that may now know release in a free sky.  The mothers speak and sons and daughters listen.  This is what democracy looks like.

TELL ME WHAT DEMOCRACY LOOKS LIKE  So many women, so many men live in a world filled with children.  If more women like Celeste Zapala speak truth to power and so well, peace may be more than a hope on the breeze.  Bush may find his arguments blown away.  The vast reservoir of the formerly voiceless has found its channel.  Peace will make its way to the sea.

MORE TO FOLLOW

I BELIEVE THE WAR IS OVER

ON WAR AND PEACE,  MEMOS, AND PHIL OCHS   When did this war in Iraq start? . Newly released STATE DEPARTMENT MEMOS reveal GEORGE BUSH wanted war even before the Downing Street Memos say he did.  The memos also confirm what everyone now knows.  In the rush after prejudgment, Bush never had a plan for post war Iraq. No surprise he doesn’t have one now.  Where do we go from here?

I BELIEVE THE WAR IS OVER  An illegal war started with lies now has its moment of truth for the government of the United States of America.  Masters of realpolitik will say we must think about the consequences if we should leave.  We should think more of the consequences if we should stay.  The same people who say we should stay are the people who say we wouldn't be there long anyway.  The masters of realpolitik would make us further slaves to their continued deception.

I BELIEVE THE WAR IS OVER  Where is wisdom in the argument that only we have the wisdom to settle problems in other people’s houses?  Make the connection, flypaper fools.  If we don’t want Islamists or anyone else settling scores over here, we should give them less numbers of things to complain about us over there.  We who are led by a drunk who presumes to know better than anyone have only shown the world our worst in Iraq.  Our involvement there is soiled forever by our lies.  Our unholy seed spilled on the ground has grown only weeds of wickedness and despair.  Our soldiers die in the flower of their youth.  Where have all our flowers gone?  When will we ever learn.

I BELIEVE THE WAR IS OVER  I am lighting a candle now for Cindy Sheehan as she remembers her boy Casey. I am lighting a candle for all the soldiers gone too soon and all the soldiers in Iraq too long.  I honor them in life as they honored themselves in death.  Soldiers fight the generals’ war. Generals take orders from their president, who presides over an order general in dismay and general in decay. 

I BELIEVE THE WAR IS OVER  I remember better to light the candle than to curse the darkness.  In the light of that candle, in the faint glow of one candle that yet holds the memory of the fallen and the dreams that yet may live, in that great glow of one small light, I see the way out of Iraq.  I see soldiers who still can hold their heads high for having done their best when war is at its worst.  I see two nations grateful.  America is grateful for their safe return and Iraq is grateful they are gone. So how will we find peace?

I BELIEVE THE WAR IS OVER  Who strikes first in war has hate in his heart.  How can the battle against hate be won?  I say it again. Peace is a growing thing. The seed of peace grows quick to life in the heart wherever it is planted.  War cannot there abide.  If war is over for you, it can be over for all who walk with open, unclenched hands. War cannot end with a slap of the back of the hand.  War in the heart only ends with a helping hand. War ends when we realize the enemy is not the foe we fear. War ends when we remember the enemy is the fear and hatred in our own hearts.

I BELIEVE THE WAR IS OVER  The war ends for me each morning, when the day starts new.  Find the way to peace with every step you take.  Your step will grow lighter and you might find yourself in the air.  When you are up in that light air, you might hear the lighter notes of Phil Ochs’s heavenly voice. Remember Phil who forgot himself.

PEACE IS A BIRD ON A BREEZE floating easily over the land we love.  When I look to the sky and a bird on the wing, the voice of PHIL OCHS rises in my mind as well.  You see a lot of Phil Ochs quoted across the internets these days and rightly so. In his high voice (some of which he lost before we lost Phil), we hear in Phil the truth that seeps into our hearts, the truth that springs up from our souls.  I believe the war is over.  Let it be over for us all. 

REQUIRED READING [STATE DEPARTMENT MEMOS][HAT TIP: COOKIE JILL]

RECOMMENDED READING
[AGITPROP]The war IS over. The war, as it exists today, CANNOT be won.
We invaded Iraq because the Bush administration argued that Saddam Hussein possessed biological and chemical weapons. We were told that Saddam Hussein had a nuclear bomb and that we could not wait for the smoking gun to come in the form of a mushroom cloud. We were told that Saddam Hussein wished to annihilate the entire United States. Remember the endless threats which all turned out to be lies? Don't forget the lies that led us to where we are now. WATCH THIS AND REMEMBER.. . .

Frank Rich offers a dose of reality . . . Hurricane Howard made some similar comments on Face the Nation . . . Jesse Taylor at Pandagonwe are in Iraq asks if we are in Iraq simply because ?

MORE FROM [ALL SPIN ZONE]
ON HYPOCRISY [CROOKS AND LIARS HAT TIP: SKIPPY/MIMUS]

A FINAL THOUGHT which may also be a beginning

Silent soldiers on a silver screen
Framed in fantasies and dragged in dream
Unpaid actors of the mystery
The mad director knows that freedom will not make you free
And what’s this got to do with me
I declare the war is over
It’s over, it’s over

Drums are drizzling on a grain of sand
Fading rhythms of a fading land
Prove your courage in the proud parade
Trust your leaders where mistakes are almost never made
And they’re afraid that I’m afraid

I’m afraid the war is over
It’s over, it’s over

Angry artists painting angry signs
Use their vision just to blind the blind
Poisoned players of a grizzly game
One is guilty and the other gets the point to blame
Pardon me if I refrain

I declare the war is over
It’s over, it’s over

So do your duty, boys, and join with pride
Serve your country in her suicide
Find the flags so you can wave goodbye
But just before the end even treason might be worth a try
This country is to young to die

I declare the war is over
It’s over, it’s over

One-legged veterans will greet the dawn
And they’re whistling marches as they mow the lawn
And the gargoyles only sit and grieve
The gypsy fortune teller told me that we’d been deceived
You only are what you believe

I believe the war is over
It’s over, it’s over

"War Is Over"
Phil Ochs

PHIL OCHS WAS A TORTURED SOUL Artists who feel pain in others often more pain themselves.  His love was for a greater humanity beyond nation.  He left this world by his own hand, as lovers often do.

THE HERETIK REMEMBERS PHIL WHO LEFT US TOO SOON, But who left us better for having shared the shining pearl near the bottom of his soul. Some must dive deep to recover what has been lost. And some do not return.   This war began with no reason.  Peace needs no reason to begin as well.  You only are what you believe.

PEACE IS A GROWING THING

PEACE IS A GROWING THE THING.  A groundswell of support is rising for The Mother for Peace Cindy Sheehan    Here is another GRAPHIC availle for those who are joining in a VIGIL FOR CINDY SHEEHAN tonight.  Find one in your area or help to organize one HERE.

IN SUPPORT OF CINDY SHEEHAN, DOWNLOAD THIS GRAPHIC (RIGHT CLICK AND SAVE FILE ON IE, or SAVE IMAGE ON FIREFOX). SMALLER GRAPHIC HERE

 

SUPPORT THE MOTHER FOR PEACE

SUPPORT THE MOTHER FOR PEACE: CINDY SHEEHAN.   All across America citizens who support our troops are joining in a VIGIL FOR CINDY SHEEHAN.  Find one in your area or help to organize one HERE.

IN SUPPORT OF CINDY SHEEHAN, DOWNLOAD THIS GRAPHIC (RIGHT CLICK AND SAVE FILE ON IE, or SAVE IMAGE ON FIREFOX). Take this graphic with you to the vigil. Share it with your friends.  Print off as many as you need.  More importantly, share the spirit of this event in your community.

SUPPORT OF PEACE IS SUPPORT OF THE TROOPS.  No value is greater than life.  The Heretik will be posting a larger version of the poster for tonight's event shortly.

DON'T FORGET THE SAINT PATRICKS FOUR.  A Federal Court Trial is scheduled to start September 19, 2005 in Binghampton, New York. Find out what you can do HERE.  NTODD will have interviews with PETER DEMOTT and TERESA O'GRADY later today.

 

LEAVE EVENT NOTES AND THOUGHTS IN COMMENTS. Remember peace is a growing thing.