Phase 2

Phase two of the 21st Century antiwar movement has begun according to Medea Benjamin. And as the cofounder of CodePINK and a significant player in UFPJ and Progressive Democrats of America -- even though she is a Green -- she should have a pretty good grasp of where the country and the movement are at, This article on Common Dreams is factual and a great article to pass on to others.

Great Compilation of Sites

I found a great Women on War Resource List from the Feminist Press at CUNY when I was checking it out to send a query on an entirely different subject. Synchronicity... There were several organizations and sites of which I was not aware... I think it is a very good list.

Pandora meets Frankenstein... the first reports out of Nagasaki

Editor and Publisher's SPECIAL REPORT: A Great Nuclear-Age Mystery Solved by Greg Mitchell discusses the recently discovered first journalistic reports, by American Reporter George Weller, out of Japan after the bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. A Nagasaki Report by George Weller has been published by The Mainichi Daily News Interactive.

The significance of these reports and their suppression by the military clearly illustrates the longstanding practice of shaping public opinion by limiting access to information essential to adequate understanding of the costs of war and the use of specific weaponry. Would public opinion about "splitting the atom" have been significantly different if this report and consequent photographic documentation had been allowed to be disseminated? Undoubtedly.

Freedom of information... Americans still believe that we live in the most free of countries. The U.S. public and the world was denied access to information it needed to form an adequate understanding of the weapons used in WWII. The secrecy was not related to national security. Information was suppressed so that this horrific and immoral and ultimately uncontrollable weaponry as well as "peacetime uses of nuclear energy" could be further developed without the interference of public outrage.

If we are serious about enabling democratic processes around the world, this sort of suppression of facts to shape public opinion whether from 60 years ago, or from 3 years ago, must be condemned. Steps must be taken to recognize the toxic nature of propaganda.

Peace and propaganda cannot coexist.

Grill to Chill

I was wondering about the indexing of blogs so when I went to blogpulse I found that this was one of the most frequently linked to blogs. "Veeery interesting" as Artie Johnson's character on Laugh-In used to say...and not at all stupid.

My own experience is trivial in comparison to a visit from the Secret Service. But... it is of the same ilk.

The Army is using the Police as local henchmen to suppress Indy Media. That is my story and I'm sticking to it.

On May 20th there was a Stand Up Against Predatory Military Recruiters Day.

That's the day that local police showed up at my door (I wasn't home) to inform me they "could arrest me if anyone pressed charges." Apparently someone was terribly upset about the temporary posting of alternative media around town. The police saw this as important enough to send a squad car to my home. Hmmm.... if I remember correctly, and I'm pretty sure I do... when my house was broken into through a window and robbed, the police acted like it was no big deal. When a rock was thrown through my car's rear window the police were too busy to come and take the report. But this purported use of marking chalk spray to temporarily publish a street message and the posting of a sign with tape, not wheat paste, over a recruiting station window merits a visit to my house and a discussion details of my supposed actions with my minor daughter. This is in a town with serious violent crime occuring 24/7.

The cops were doing nothing but attempting to intimidate "activists" -- middle aged women wearing pink.

The Army Recruiters had called the police on me a few days before that. I became really pissed off, incensed, when my minor daughter received an offer for a free gym bag in the mail from U.S. Army Recruiting. My mamma lion protecting her cub instinctual nature took over. I couldn't figure out what the call number to get her removed from the list was (it isn't easy to find) so I marched down to the nearest Army Recruiting Station (there are many in my town) and demanded to know how to get my daughter's name off of their recruiting list. I asked for the number. And yes I was almost shaking with rage. They argued and belittled and told me I could get the number easily. I gave up talking to one guy who only wanted to argue and went across the room to ask another guy to please get me the number. This time three other guys stood in a circle around me while another stood in the doorway of the recruiting center and attempted to intimidate me into leaving. They never asked me to leave. I repeated that I would leave when they gave me the number and I sat down and folded my arms to wait for the information. At this point the initial person I spoke to told his buddy that he thought it was time to call 911. They all sort of smiled and agreed, and went through the motions of placing the call. I left after asking the second man I had spoken to in the office if he was still getting the number for me. He said no. I left.

So that is two times that the local recruiters have used the local cops as their goon squad of which I am personally aware.


Yes. We live in a police state.

But this isn't news to me. The first inkling I personally had that liberty existed only as long as you stayed under the radar screen happened in 1974 when an FBI agent showed up at a group I'd been asked to join by a teacher. This youth group met at the City Hall in an overflow court room. The agent showed up before the meeting and chatted up the teacher and wrangled an invitation to attend the meeting. The agent then spent the next hour grilling me about munitions. I was a 15 year old farm girl... who apparently knew someone who knew someone who was in the SDS. What a bunch of B.S.!

Grill to chill: Intimidation to suppress individual freedom of expression.

Lumpers and splitters - "ists" and "ides"

Feminist/Femicide

hominist/homicide
terrorist/terricide
chauvanist/chauvacide

The above contrasts words that do exist with words that might be expected to exist but do not.

Equalities and inequalities in language are telling. Marked and unmarked words inherently frame the meanings of words. Huh? Read this for an explanation of marked and unmarked terms. It is a linguistic distinction, but it is a very useful tool for looking at cultural assumptions.

At the link above, you will find Deborah Tannen's full 1993 discussion of markedness and gender implications. In that article Tannen, a respected author and professor states,

"THE TERM "MARKED" IS a staple of linguistic theory. It refers to the way language alters the base meaning of a word by adding a linguistic particle that has no meaning on its own. The unmarked form of a word carries the meaning that goes without saying -- what you think of when you're not thinking anything special. ... The unmarked forms of most English words also convey "male." Being male is the unmarked case. Endings like ess and ette mark words as "female." Unfortunately, they also tend to mark them for frivolousness. Would you feel safe entrusting your life to a doctorette? Alfre Woodard, who was an Oscar nominee for best supporting actress, says she identifies herself as an actor because "actresses worry about eyelashes and cellulite, and women who are actors worry about the characters we are playing." Gender markers pick up extra meanings that reflect common associations with the female gender: not quite serious, often sexual. ... Men can choose styles that are marked, but they don't have to...(unlike women...they have) the option of being unmarked."

Derivation of the female state is implicit in English. To be feminine is to be marked; to be a feminist is to be doubly marked. No term can neutrally percieved with doubly embedded marking. That is why I do not use the term feminist. I use the term egalitarian. I don't beieve that "setting apart" or drawing distinctions can ever promote equality of anything. I'm a lumper not a splitter. Lumpers categorize using fewer categories - splitters increase the number of categories. To build peace we must consider how to create lumps rather than splits.

That is why I'm uncertain whether using the term femicide to describe the murder of women along the US Mexican border is soemthing that should be used. Genecide would be a more powerful description. Using the prefix "fem" unfortunately sets up a mindset to work with a derived or lesser term. Systematic widespread murder is never qualitatively greater or lesser. The murders of the women of Juarez are no less a genocidal phenomenon because those tortured and murdered are women.

I had the opportunity to meet a woman named Swan Eagle Harajan at a Corporate Personhood Study Group in Tucson. Her car had broken down and she was stuck in Tucson for a while. She is intense. She's angry. She's a splitter. But she knows her data backwards and forwards. I like intensity... if it is a good intensity as that is also described as passion. I like passionate people, people who care. I may not want to be around it all the time as it would be exhausting, and I personally would burn out and become ineffective. We all need to know our limits and recharge when we have to. She gives her life to fighting injustice with special focus on First Peoples and women.

I'm not sure that some of the practices Swan Eagle has in her toolkit are the most effective of tools. I come from a perspective that believes peace can only be created when we:

Find commonality.

Talk to individuals.

Motivate them to act.

The key is to communicate effectively so that they understand and disseminate the information that touched them.

All change comes about through personal incorporation of the change. All levels of organization in a system must incorporate a change if the change is to be systemwide. War and genocide can never be stopped when change takes place only at the highest of geopolitical levels. Solutions to problems that created the original hostility that turned into warfare must be accepted by individuals in the waring factions.

I'm quite interested in how the subject of the Juarez Murders will be covered by the new book that will be coming out by Stella Pope Duarte. As a taleted woman who has only just recently begun her writing career and already been a finalist for the Pushcart Prize in Literature I am hoping her coverage of the genocide on the border will not belabor the point that the vicitims in this killing field are women... but she does use the term femicide. The use of that word does inform. But at some level is also supports the notion that women are different, derivative, and not worth as much as men. It matters not that those murdered are women and girls.... it matters that they are people and children.


We need to get over splitting violence up into types -- this ultimately leads to the sanctioning of certain types and the ban of others. It is ludicrous to differentiate murder into allowed and nonallowed forms. We need to work to decrease violence. I suggest reading the article, "Women and the evolution of world politics" to gain more understanding of the thinking involved in this argument.

"The core of the feminist agenda for international politics seems fundamentally correct: the violent and aggressive tendencies of men have to be controlled, not simply by redirecting them to external aggression but by constraining those impulses through a web of norms, laws, agreements, contracts, and the like. In addition, more women need to be brought into the domain of international politics as leaders, officials, soldiers, and voters. Only by participating fully in global politics can women both defend their own interests and shift the underlying male agenda."

Most cultures accept much higher rates of the killing of women than men.

Iranian Women Stage First Protest in Decades

Originally from the NYT.... but I found it here.

I also recommend reading:

Reading Lolita in Tehran

for a better understanding of the recent history of protest and women's networks in Iran.

The Tools and Toys of Peace - How to Build Peace

So far I've mainly been bitching in this blog, but real things are happening in this world to give us hope. So I'm going to ramble on about people and processes building peace. Perhaps it will generate further efforts.

UN resolution 1325 was a real start. Several sites related to this resolution that calls for women's inclusion in conflict resolution around the world is probably the most significant step on a global scale. Without the inclusion of over half of the humans living on the planet, no agreement or treaty can relly be viewed as a valid agreement. Sort of like those peace treaties with the First Americans.

I can't speak to whether these organizations have ties to existing political entities that may or may not be working against the very things that the organization supports.
But language has power and the mention of the need for the inclusion of women will have impact in and of itself, even if some of the women initially included have ties to less than egalitarian, democratic, or representative administrations.

Inclusive Security: Women Waging Peace

Peace Women: A Women's International League for Peace and Freedom Project The site is an inspiring collection of information about international efforts of NGOs, the UN, and others to build peace in wartorn areas of the world. I find the calendar here to be informative about various gatherings and conferences. This lets me know what is happening as such meetings often have resultant publications with information that is very difficult to find elsewhere.

This information is great, but I should get down to discussing the tools and toys of peace. I equate tools and toys as my study with the anthropologist Myrdene Anderson taught me that difference is subjective. I choose to see most tools as toys--as creative assistants in the exploration of (play with) the world and life, not as means to an end. This is why I focus on peace rather than war. I'm not naive... I know the horrors and savagery of the details of war. I chose not to focus on them -- I can't. I would do nothing if I saw only sadness and pain. I do not even own a pair of rose colored glasses. But I do notice roses, and I think glasses are marvelous inventions. I am in awe of people who give their lives to peace.

Look at Marla Ruzicka's life and work. In her all too short of a life, she made a difference. Only a week before her death she began to get the U.S. Military in Iraq to admit they kept tallies of civilian deaths. A very young woman who built CIVIC the Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict. As she said to a San Francisco Chronicle Reporter, "To have a job where you can make things better for people. That is a blessing. Why would I want to do anything else?" She went to the horror, walked in it, lived it and breathed it -- and died in it. That is a perspective of true joy... a perspective of hope. Marla was only 28 when she died. She acted.

Act, play, build, dream, talk about peace, build it.

Downing Street Memo Hearings

HEARINGS ON DOWNING STREET MINUTES SET FOR 1 PM THURSDAY

Hearings to be held at DNC because Republicans Denying Democrats Use of Rooms on Hill
Got this info a few minutes ago from Progressive Democrats of America:

On Thursday June 16, 2005, at 1:00 p.m. in the Wasserman Room at 430 S Capitol St. SE, Washington, D.C., Rep. John Conyers, Jr., Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee, and other Congress Members will hold a hearing on the Downing Street Minutes and related evidence of efforts to cook the books on pre-war intelligence.

The hearings are being held at the Democratic National Committee because the Republicans controlling the House Judiciary Committee refused to permit the ranking Democratic Member to use a room on the Hill. http://www.thehill.com/thehill/export/TheHill/News/UndertheDome/index.html Nonetheless, Republicans are welcome to attend.

Later on the same day at 5:00 p.m. ET in Lafayette Square Park, in front of the White House, a large rally will support Congressman Conyers who plans to deliver to the White House a letter addressed to President Bush and signed by over 500,000 Americans and at least 94 Congress Members. The letter asks the President to respond to questions raised by the Downing Street Minutes.

A Few Women's Peace Groups

Women Peace Building Groups

Raging Grannies
The Raging Grannies' International This non-violent organization of activists has a network of Granny Gaggles in Canada, the United States, Australia, Greece and the United Kingdom.

CODEPINK - Women for Peace
Calls on women around the world to rise up and oppose the war in Iraq by bring attention to people and processes standing in the way of peace. Encourages actions, from public education and free speech to nonviolent civil disobedience, that build peace. Pro-active, Prowomen. Action alerts, email updates, campaigns. Established November 2002.

Women in Black
Women in Black Not an organization, but a means of mobilization and a formula for action. Members stand in silent vigil to protest war, rape as a tool of war, ethnic cleansing, and human rights abuses all over the world.

The Lysistrata Project
The Lysistrata Project Promotes peace through economic justice. Dedicated to building community and, in particular, raising women's voices for peace. Articles, photos, action alerts, facts, and contact information for policymakers.

Groups Focused on Women in Countries the U.S. has Attacked

Afghan Women's Mission supports Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) which is the oldest political/social organization of Afghan women struggling for peace, freedom, democracy and women's rights in fundamentalism-blighted Afghanistan since 1977.


Afghan Women's Network

Kosovo Women's Network NOT in English.

I also have started accumulating a list of Iraqi Women's Organizations that may or may not still exist but did exist:

Diwanyiah Women's Association; Hillah Women's Association (also called Fatima Zahra Women's Rights Association); President, Karbala Women's Association; Al Kut Women's Association; Rabab Mahmud; Najaf Women's Association; Hillah Human Rights Association; Human Rights and Democracy Center in Diwaniyah; High Council for Iraqi Women; Al Nahda Association; Iraqi Women's League

As I find meaningful web references to these groups I will link them.

War is harmful to children and other living beings.

I'm forwarding a note to a CODEPINK Women for Peace Discussion List I'm on about a fantastic opportunity for folks who want to help Iraqi, children, or Iraqi children.

The poster says she was at Fogbelt Studios (somewhere in the Bay Area, CA) where she a woman really lit up when she saw the poster's Code Pink button. I'll quote from her post:

A woman, May Tung, is a clinical psychologist who has
been working on a project toassist kids in Iraq w/ ptsd
(post traumatic stress disorder) in 2 ways:
1) teaching folks to recognize it
2) working w/ kids, including getting $ for stuffed
animals and stuff

It is a tiny program, but determined! They did one
shipment via Turkey/Voices in the Wilderness; this
become impossible to repeat so then got $ in via
Jordan and a toy store in Baghdad when he heard what
it was for sold at cost.

I don't have a concrete proposal, but wanted to
network to bring this to our attention and throw out
there: is there some way CP national or local (or GX)
is interesting in working w/ or supporting this?
Here are links and a copy of her leaflet is printed
below:
http://www.geocities.com/mtungboat/AFTIC.html
http://www.worlddreamspeacebridge.org/aidforchildren.htm
http://www.worlddreamspeacebridge.org/ptsdproject.htm

"The POST-TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER (PTSD) IN
IRAQI CHILDREN project was
founded in June, 2003, by Dr.Ali Hameed Rasheed, a
psychiatrist, of Baghdad, Iraq. The goal
was to train teachers and health care workers to
recognize PTSD symptoms in children and how
to help them. They named their program “TRAINING OF
TRAINERS (TOT).” They also hoped
to train mental health workers in child psychotherapy
which is in short supply in Iraq. After two
months of the activities of PTSD program, the funding
was cut by the American advisor in the
Ministry of Health. The project then collaborated with
UNICEF in the "BACK TO PLAY AND
SAFE TO PLAY" program. Shortly after the
collaboration began, UNICEF had to leave when
the conditions became too dangerous in Iraq. However,
the project continued, sporadically, in the
midst of explosions and gun shots, through funds by
the Together Foundation of Slovenia and
Austria. The Foundation funded the Babylon project
first, then, at a lower amount of funding, to
the Baghdad program. Baghdad mental health
professionals who provided the training in these
workshops volunteered their services without
compensations.

On March 11, 2005, CBS’s Baghdad correspondent,
Kimberly Dozier, interviewed Dr. Rasheed
in the program IRAQ'S CHILDREN IN SHADOW OF WAR.
“Instead of using their
imagination or toy guns- they fire real guns, loaded
with blanks." Dozier reports, “They talk of
rivers of blood, and revenge."; Dozier asks Dr.
Rasheed: “So they are being trained to be
killers?"
“I’m sorry to say that I think yes," was his
response.

Such portraits should not surprise anyone: children
imitate and learn from what they see adults
doing unless there is timely and effective
interventions.

AFTC and the PTSD program collaboration began in
December, 2004. It is our hope to fund
both the psychological items such as soft stuffed
animals to comfort the children, arts and crafts
materials for them to re-create and express their
inner states, puppets for play therapy, sports and
musical items for them to be children again, and to
PTSD training program, especially the
intensive training of child mental health workers.
These are ambitious and long term goals.
There are orphans housed in Mosques and tents
waiting for our aid. In fact, we believe all the
children in Iraq need help for their post-traumatic
psychological conditions.

In March, 2005, we were able to donate $800 of
psychological and re-creational items. These
items were purchased in Baghdad, thus, supporting
local business. When the toy shop owner
learned that the items were to go to children in the
refugee camps at Baghdad and Fullujah, he
sold them at cost! The first shipment just arrived in
Fullujan on April 14, 2005. We hope to
obtain photographs of the children’s reactions and
activities, if Dr. Rasheed and persons helping
him can surpass obstacles and enter the much damaged
city."

This seems like the right thing to do in my estimation in so very many, many ways. We should not be forgetting the women and children of Afghanistan either. More on that one in another post.

How to tell a battalion from a division.

It's easy....

(although Curt Weldon can't tell the difference and had to ask Joe Biden which is which)

We've lost a battalion of soldiers. 1,694
A division has been wounded. 18,219


Shouldn't Representative CURT WELDON, (R-Pa.)who serves as Vice Chairman of the Armed Services Committee know the difference between divisions, batallions and platoons? Today on "NBC NEWS' MEET THE PRESS" the ignorace and ineptitude of the Republicans in charge many key processes was made woefully apparent when the topic of the state of training and the number of trained Iraqi troops was discussed.

"And if you look at those troops that have a level one capability, which mean they can operate totally on their own without backup of U.S. support, it's not the size the numbers that are being reported back home here in America.

MR. RUSSERT: How many would you say it is?

REP. WELDON: I think it's around three divisions.

MR. RUSSERT: Which is?

REP. WELDON: Was it 80,000, Joe?

SEN. BIDEN: No, it's much less. It's three battalions.

REP. WELDON: Oh, three battalions.

SEN. BIDEN: Three battalions. You're talking about thousands, Tim. Not tens of thousands.

REP. WELDON: And the point was that, you know, we all support the effort there.

How will we ever have peace when idiots (or at least folks who don't know anything about what they are in charge of) are in power?

Impeachment. What a Peach of an Idea!

I'm going through a bit of culture shock. We spent last evening at the home of friends who don't seen that much older than us. Yet, it was the last evening for them at that house. They've decided to move to a 55 and over condo. Neither of them are retired. But it is so *bleeping* weird. I guess age doesn't mean much.

The buzz among all the folks at last night's gathering was impeachment! And this morning I received several emails directing me to theafterdowningstreet.com website. It is a very good start for pressing our purported legislative representatives to appoint a special investigator to thoroughly and independently investigate the Downing Street Memo or the Downing Street Minutes as it is being called on The Hill.

This is a very good sign that people are perhaps starting to realize that there has effectively been a coupe d'etat in Washington and it is time for us to take our great country back from those who would use their administrative power to their own ends. There have been impeachable offenses and criminal actions throughout the G.W. Bush administration.

The copy of the letter I sent through Ted Kennedy's website follows:

The most egregious abuse of power in recent US History, and perhaps ever, appears to have taken place in the time following terrorist attacks on U.S. soil in NY and Arlington and continues to this day.

The serious threat of fundamentalist extremists to our country is real. Why are we not pursuing Al Qaida with all our might? Why are we not utilizing our National Guard Troops to guard chemical plants and nuclear power stations in our country?

The Downing Street Memo appears to answer some of these questions. If indeed President Bush neglected real and present dangers to our land, people, and allies in favor of pursuing the take-over of Iraq long before UN inspections were deemed ineffective, and if indeed data was selectively used to support a false case for war based on non-existent weapons of mass destruction then impeachable abuse of power by the President and prosecutable crimes against our country and people have been committed by several of the top level members of the G. W. Bush Administration.

As my representative in the government I am asking you to speak out about the need to investigate the Downing Street Memo and follow up with a special judiciary investigation of the administrations actions. The integrity and indeed the future of our great United States of America pivots on this issue and is in your hands. The world is watching.

We are expecting you to do the right thing; not be a partisan puppet.

We must keep up the pressure. We must be the change we want. We must build peace, not declare war on war.

Spew Index.

Once again I woke up and went to make coffee without turning on the news. This quiet peace in which I read real, self-chosen news stories from around the world lasted until my husband woke up and turned on CNN. We're both news junkies, but I've reached the spew index. That is the ratio of news to infotainment within any given broadcast. I personally can't tolerate anything approaching even 3 to 1 and many purported news programs have an index above 1 to 1. I begin to get queazy at 3 to 1. True nausea sets in at 2 to 1. By 1 to 1 I spew. Dry heaves set in above this.

So how do I get my news?

Democracy Now. I listen to it on KXCI Community Radio, watch it on Access Tucson Television, and try to find a friend with Dish Network TV when I travel.

The Daily Show. Jon Stewart may be on Comedy Central, but there is no upset tummy with him. And he has guests who are more significant than most of the talking heads circulating ad nauseum through the commercial/corporate media.

The Snooze Hour.

Meet me in D.C. - Sept 24 -26, 2005

I've tried to add Audio Blog capabilities, but I can't get through to check it out. Busy...busy....busy....

It's true that I love web bells and whistles, but that isn't why I'm trying to add this feature. When I travel in the Hard Hearted Heartland in August, when I join the hundreds of thousands of folks for Three Days of Action to take back our country and stop this obscene "war on terror" that is a sham with it's focus on Iraq and has made those of us who live in the U.S. less safe, and when I then zip off to Manhattan for some unwinding at a wedding, I would like to be able to call in reports and not have to have a laptop with me and have to find a free hotspot (especially if I engage in CD).

So eventually Audio Blogs will be a part of this site.

I was a rather young girl when I first realized the disparity of access, rights, responsibilities, duties, and resources between the have and have not in the U.S.A. But as a have not I was lucky to be bright and have a couple great teachers. I was encouraged to become a journalist. My writing abilities landed me scholarships. Growing up dirt poor and having elderly parents made those scholarships a lifesaver. (Women in similar situations today face losing the few such lifelines to higher education that still exist.) But instead of studying journalism, I drifted from major to major gleaning all the information I could about society and how it worked, was said to work, and how it worked for the ruling class -- all the information I was denied as a poor child. I was a peace studies major, economics major, clinical psychology major, and anthropology major as an undergraduate. I pursued graduate studies in anthropology and semiotics. But other than letter writing, sending the occasional contribution to a non-profit group, and working outside the corporate world, I was not an activist in any real sense until early 2003. In just two years I've become integrated into women's networks of peace building. It doesn't take long.

Anyway... you should join us in D.C. I think this will be as big as the rallies and actions in February and March of 2003 or the March for Women's Lives in March 2004. Come. Learn. Participate.

I haven't been an activist for all that long -- I became perceptably active (as opposed to comfortably numb) in the months before Dubya's declaration of war on Iraq. If you want to read about the zeitgeist in the DC area that touched and spoke to me -- read and view all the info and links at Kirsten Michel's site.. I particpated as part of the throng, but made connections to sane women working for peace.

We HAVE to make it clear we will not stand for this unjustifiable war build on lies and treason.

Building Peace and Aware Language Usage

Just got shivers up my spine from seeing an image on CNN. Bush with a sea of blue police from a police academy in Columbus, OH behind him. It was most reminiscent of images of Hitler and the Brown Shirts. There. I've already played the Hitler card in the first post so we can just get on with it. I believe Bush Jr. is building a fascistic state. We need to build a peaceful state. We must envision peace. We must not live in a world of reaction. That feeds power into the thing to which the reaction is aimed.


Language is powerful. We must speak out. I do in many ways other than blogging. But... communication is humanity's most powerful tool. We must take the discourse back into the realm of reason, constantly and in as many ways as possible. Visualize peace and work toward that vision. Framing. It is called framing. I first ran across George Lakoff's work years ago when I read his book Language as Metaphor, but his recent mainstream work Don't Think of an Elephant brings the concept of framing into realm of everyday language we can all use to direct language toward achieving our goals. Corporations and Corporate Lackeys, Dupes, and Stooges in the business and political realms know these tactics and use them. We must teach ourselves and regular folks who make up our daily lives these techniques so we can use them and so we can recognize such tactics when corporate controlled media and the government use them.

Act. Do not react.

*** WARNING ***

This blog will contain spiritual language. Progressives must come to terms with their connections to goodness and "godness" in the broadest most open armed manner possible. Only through this can we reclaim conversation about peace and peace building as shown us by the many enlightened teachers we honor. Jesus, Buddha, Martin Luther King, Gandi. See what I mean on the Rockridge Institute's web page.