Bulletin Board of Bad Behavior

hey rosie! that's nice, thanks. it's always good to hear from you. :) "But what if they refused ever to tour again, after this, because of global warming? Then there would be no need to donate to environmental causes to make up for it, right? And would PJ fans get really mad and storm the barri...

"Do I wish that Bush had listened to other leaders, formed a stronger coalition, and pursued terrorists on other fronts, perhaps eventually including Iraq, yes." oh, wow, i've had time to fully read this post and respond and okay i see now how i misunderstood your views -- you are for war ...

take old people into the military. and that makes more sense than young.

"As for my "being for the war from the beginning", that is untrue. If you will look back, I said clearly that I did not agree with the manner in which the american (Bush) government was ignoring the advice and opinions of our allies (and even many american military officers.)" i'...

about soldiers who've learned a great lesson from war, there is a book it's called Soldiers in Revolt: Haymarket Books has just published the long out of print Soldier's in Revolt by David Cortright, with a new introduction by Howard Zinn. From the publisher: "This book—on the historic resist...

and another thing on the subject sort of

Changes in this country by and large have not come from just voting. These are some stories of peace that you may not have heard of if you're not in a group or on a list of folks who are working for it. Thousands of Americans are, just because Maverick's not heard of them, doesn't mean they are not powerful and it doesn't mean they are pulling “hippie stuntsâ€￾. My parents, my mom really, who grew up in the sixties explained to me a long time ago, that the peace movement of her time was very small in comparison to what the modern media has made it out to be. Hollywood has glamorized / idealized a few incidents and they have become our cultural memory of that time. Talk to someone who was a young professional then, they don't have the same impression of the sixties that others living later on do. I think today's peace movement may actually be a great deal larger, it's just very, very different . . . because of technology. Here are a few ways that changes are being made and how citizens are making them:

Peace and Security: Building a safer America
• Amplifying the call for an exit plan in Iraq. In the spring of 2005, Republican Congressman Walter Jones—a staunch war supporter—and Democrats in Congress announced a plan for a responsible exit from Iraq that would conclude in 2006. MoveOn members endorsed it, and since then we've been pushing hard for a solution to the mess in Iraq that will bring our troops home and serve the Iraqis well.
o Hundreds of thousands of us gathered in vigils to support Cindy Sheehan and to mourn the passing of the 2000th soldier. When Cindy Sheehan went to Crawford to demand that President Bush meet with her about the death of her son, MoveOn members gathered in thousands of locations across the country to show our support. Two months later, we gathered again in candlelight vigils to honor and mourn those who died in Iraq. The vigils were picked up by local media across the nation and sent a clear and emotional message: the public supports the troops but not an endless occupation.
o We ran a series of ads to highlight growing public support for a change of course. Thanks to generous contributions from thousands of MoveOn members, we were able to run a number of ads at key moments in the debate over Iraq. After Nancy Pelosi came out in support of Rep. Murtha's plan for exit, we ran an ad in the districts of Murtha's attackers. Just after the elections in December, we highlighted the fact that most Iraqis want us out.
o We helped turn the tide in Congress toward an exit plan. At the beginning of 2005, few members of Congress supported an exit from Iraq. Now, people from Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi to Senator Russ Feingold have come out for a responsible exit, and Republicans are moving in that direction, too. MoveOn members made tens of thousands of phone calls, pushing Congress to stand up to President Bush and demand a plan for exit. We delivered petition signatures to hundreds of congressional offices nation-wide, getting local media across the country. Thirty members of Congress announced that they were more supportive of an exit plan that week alone.

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I mentioned Howard Zinn earlier, and that he'd written the play of Emma Goldman's life. She was a brilliant anarchist and labor leader. She did not get exceptionally excited about voting. She understood that it was sort of the second opiate of the masses and that women as humans weren't going to do any better than men at bringing about change through voting:

Excerpt from "Woman Suffrage" by Emma Goldman (1910)
Published in Anarchism and Other Essays

The poor, stupid, free American citizen! Free to starve, free to tramp the highways of this great country, he enjoys universal suffrage, and, by that right, he has forged chains about his limbs. The reward that he receives is stringent labor laws prohibiting the right of boycott, of picketing, in fact, of everything, except the right to be robbed of the fruits of his labor. Yet all these disastrous results of the twentieth¬ century fetich have taught woman nothing. But, then, woman will purify politics, we are assured.
Needless to say, I am not opposed to woman suffrage on the conventional ground that she is not equal to it. I see neither physical, psychological, nor mental reasons why woman should not have the equal right to vote with man. But that can not possibly blind me to the absurd notion that woman will accomplish that wherein man has failed. If she would not make things worse, she certainly could not make them better. To assume, therefore, that she would succeed in purifying something which is not susceptible of purification, is to credit her with supernatural powers. Since woman's greatest misfortune has been that she was looked upon as either angel or devil, her true salvation lies in being placed on earth; namely, in being considered human, and therefore subject to all human follies and mistakes. Are we, then, to believe that two errors will make a right? Are we to assume that the poison already inherent in politics will be decreased, if women were to enter the political arena?

http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/Goldman/Cur ... frage.html

and beyond that, the comment that these people should vote is absolutely moronic and void of understanding of this issue, which is PEACE. number one, it is the president who decided that we would go to war number two, in the presidential election that followed the current president's decision to go ...

"that sounds like a dumb hippie stunt to me. and not even that many people heard about it. That's the sort of thing that just makes no sense to me. If these people want to make a difference, they should vote, and teach their children to vote." i hope you're kidding. i'm afraid you're not. ...

i love pearl jam. i can't wait to tell the hubby about this. i think i'm going to call him even though he's at work. that ecuadorian rain forest is very close to his heart. he spent thanksgiving there one year while he was in the navy. it's one of a handful of truly beautiful, worthwhile experiences...

sometimes when i'm bored and there is nothing really new here i will go back and read old things i missed. and god how my life was missing the cucumber slut. i like the edit: "sweaty dirty drill..." but the title is cucumber slut -- it really needs to be "sweet dirty dill." there...

"And it's like Lingerie to a Vinyl afficianado. It's a sexual thing, this LP sleeve. It's white on one side and see-through on the other."

that's a really great simile. very original. you should write a poem.

mark, i hope you don't mind me putting this here -- it's the news article about sonia sanchez's arrest earlier this summer. it's just i think sometimes people forget that people like sonia sanchez still exist, that really we are all people with the potential to be like sonia sanchez. i really love t...

whoops, maya angelou may be right but i was wrong the quote about sonIa sanchez is "this world is a better place because of sonia sanchez." here's part of one of her poems. i think it ties nicely into the song quote from mark in the other thread, what's so funny about peace love and unders...

recently i saw a news clip called i stand for lebanon. it made me cry, a lot of things do. i'm pregnant. but it was made by this very beautiful young lebanese woman, who made what is happening to her and her country so human and real through film. i wish more people could see it. we're not only lear...

i have no idea about carol gilligan, maybe pixie knows. what was her seminar about? my hero is actually a black female who calls herself an activist and mother, not a feminist. she was recently carted off by the cops in philadelphia and i think new york city too for protesting the war at a recruitme...