A peacenik day

The peace movement is building. This afternoon I went to a peace vigil in LA, beginning at the federal building in Westwood, then a candlelight walk to a Methodist church for a short rally. 

Several hundred people were there, plus, surprisingly, six TV vans and a couple of helicopters filming the procession. This is distinctly more media coverage than even a few weeks ago. Methinks mainstream media is starting to see that something really is happening.

This event was co-sponsored by Physicians for Social Responsibility and (deep breath now in preparation for a long clumsy name), Interfaith Communities United for Justice and Peace (ICUJP), a new umbrella group of 80+ mainly faith-based organizations.

Earlier, I was at The Onion, a Unitarian Universalist (UU) church for their Sunday service featuring speakers from Not In Our Name. NION was enthusiastically received by this hardcore activist congregation. Later during discussion with NION, church members decided to draft a resolution in opposition to an Iraq War to present to the national UU council to vote on. Plus they plan outreach to other congregations and faiths.

This very same UU church, in 1982, drafted a resolution against nuclear weapons, which got endorsed by UU national, and then spread nationwide. Yes, this little church was a primary instigator for what turned into a national movement.

From litle acorns, mighty oaks grow…! 

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Hamas refuses to halt suicide attacks in Israel. 

Hamas leaders reaffirmed Sunday their strong opposition to the suspension of suicide bombings inside Israel and said the goal of talks with Fatah officials in Cairo was to unite the Palestinians in their struggle against Israel.

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The continuing Brit soap opera gets bizarre

Palace braced for new scandal. 

The Monarchy is braced for further damaging revelations, after a former Royal worker who yesterday publicly accused a member of the Prince of Wales staff of raping him passed to a newspaper details of an incident he had witnessed involving a member of the Royal Family and a Palace servant.

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UK expects Iraq to fail arms tests

Government prepares for war on growing assumption Saddam Hussein will fail to disclose his full weapons armoury.

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Linux in the Extremadura region of Spain.

In April, the government launched an unorthodox campaign to convert all the area’s computer systems, in government offices, businesses and homes, from the Windows operating system to Linux, a free alternative. ” See this Washington Post article for more info. [Living Without Microsoft]

Not to mention Google, which is powered by 10,000 mid range PCs running Linux.

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500,000 march in Florence Italy

This may well have been as large or larger than any Vietnam-era peace march. Doubly impressive, as this was protesting a war not yet started.

All peaceful. All opposed to a US invasion of Iraq. Imagine how many will turn out if the war does start.

And will the deeply pro-war Italian government survive such massive social tumult?

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Oh Boy More Fear And Gluttony

Darkness falls across the land, flowers wilt, the GOP takes full, and frightening, control

Feel that numbness? That strange slightly chilling shift deep in the heart, like a cold wind across the blood, an ice pick straight to the third eye, fingernails across the karmic chalkboard?

Fear not — it’s just the dark storm clouds of sadness and savage spiritual pain that just settled in over the collective soul of the country and indeed much of the world recently, as the Republican Party snatched total control of the American government and really honestly promised to further its agenda of fear and war and intolerance and bad sex and more petroleum products forevermore.
…
Neither party should have such power. And the GOP now has far too much. The counterbalance lost its footing. The greedmongers and the power vipers have been loosed like never before in recent history. The center cannot hold.

He’s right. Goodbye center. Hello polarization and angry gnashing of teeth in the streets. Been there done that (in the 60’s) and in my view, we willl be seeing an encore of 60’s-like chaos. For those of you who may be misled by media misrepresentations of the 60’s as hippie dippie peaceland good vibes, well, sometimes it was (and that was fun), however often it was serial assassinations, campuses in revolt, and cities in flames,

As noted crusty and ruthless and largely unpleasant former Clinton adviser James Carville observed just after the election, “The American people just don’t have a clue as to what’s coming.”

If you are female, gay, bisexual, atheist, black, immigrant, poor, progressive, intellectual, open minded, open hearted, if you hold alternative views, dress funny, dance, enjoy sex, read seditious literature, believe in peace and funky spirituality and don’t particularly care for a sneering angry self-righteous well-armed anti-everything deity, you are about to find out. The hard way. And so is everyone else.

The gods can only shake their heads, and sigh.

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Hold on for this shocker!

US aims to control Iraqi oil: Yamani

The United States is planning a war against Iraq primarily to gain control of Baghdad’s rich oil resources and thus decrease its dependence on Saudi crude, a former Saudi oil minister and co-founder of OPEC said.

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