I did not plan on writing a diary tonight. I am sick of writing. I’m sick of emailing. I’m sick of reading passionate calls to action being ignored. I’m sick of being ignored by the elite in Washington.
Answer this question for me.
HOW SICK ARE YOU?
Every time I read Rub DMC’s Iraq Grief diaries I get sick. Sick to learn that another innocent child of Middle Eastern descent has been murdered, yes, MURDERED by my country. Every time I pass the sign in my neighbor’s yard with the latest tally of American soldiers lost for a lie, I get sick. I want to throw up every last piece of my guts. Every time Ductape Fatwa makes my inbred American ass hate myself for my complacancy and my privelege, I get sick.
Every time I look at my son and envision his future I get sick. What battlefield will he be forced to die on and who’s child will he be forced to kill? I want to vomit!
Every time I envision my daughters being forced to carry pregnancy’s they can’t survive I want to get my hands around some fucking fundies neck and choke his ignorant, backwards life away for wanting to force his beliefs on my daughter’s lives. I get sick.
Everytime someone suggests I shut my mouth because I might get disappeared if I don’t, I feel rage and defiance.
Every time I hear of the death of Dr. King while we watch the bodies of our brothers and sisters left to rot in New Orleans for weeks I am sick. Sick.
This is my fucking country.
It’s history is full of murder and hypocrisy but it’s all I have to build on.
I WILL NOT LEAVE
I WILL FIGHT
MY HEART IS SICK BUT IT’S BEATING
My Grandchildren will know that I did not yeild to insanity.
What will your Grandchildren remember about you?
WHAT WILL YOU TELL YOUR GRANDCHILDREN?
Please,
It’s time.
.
We all make daily choices, basically trying to do good, be supportive within the family and perform our job to the best ability.
There are specific moments in one’s life, where one realizes a choice to be made is crucial for oneself or family and friends. Tough defining moments require the courage and endurance to follow one’s internal compass and guide, to make a commitment and fulfillment for the next generation.
Most diaries I read here at BooMan’s Place give encouragement to continue the political process within one’s local community. I am and will always will be optimistic about the goals we can attain within our own lifetime. Especially on such a memorable MLK day.
“Treason doth never prosper: what’s the reason?
For if it prosper, none dare call it treason.”
▼ ▼ ▼ MY DIARY
Oui,
my children’s lifetime is an extension of my own lifetime. If I settle for attempts at changing my local political landscape, I feel I am closing my eyes and wasting my time.
1994 was the time for local politics when Gingrich took the Congress.
In 2006 the entire planet is threatened. The planet is local.
We’re on the verge of witnessing a cataclysm. I no longer have the patience to wait for the criminals to fade away.
They have to be removed.
You’re the best. You have one of the biggest hearts I know.
Susan,
thank you for saying that. It means so much to me. The thing is, my heart, whatever size, is breaking daily and shattering into smaller and smaller pieces. You are a great souce of inspiration for me and your integrity and your big heart help to guide me toward whatever path lay ahead.
Grandma just scrubbed it with sand.
My hope is that it will be:
“You children are lost and alone?!
Please. Come closer to the fire. Let me share what I have with you.”
This Sunday – the 22nd – Capitol Steps – 10:00 AM till ?
I’ll meet you. I’ll make and carry my “No Alito” umbrella. Want one?
Might just be “You and me, you and me-e-e-e, babe”… but that is two who wouldn’t be there otherwise.
I’ll be there.
Thank you
Oh no, my friend, thank you.
I couldn’t do this by myself.
Pick me up on the way?
Of course I will.
Thank you CG
Oh good. 🙂
Washington, District of Columbia
Silent Vigil for Peace
Saturday, March 18th 2006 noon
Each Saturday at Noon, for one hour.
For over three years, Quakers and others have been vigiling silently for peace on the West Lawn of the Capitol in Washington. This is not a demonstration, or a protest. We stand in silent witness for peace for one hour each Saturday. On March 18th, please come join us as the third anniversary of the tragic War on Iraq passes. Please bring no signs or banners, but do bring yourselves, and your hopes for peace.
Look for the simple blue banner, “Seek Peace and Pursue It” Ps. 34:14.
Maybe you can make that? If not, know that you’ll have my support. PLEASE alert us or have someone alert us that you made it “OUT” okay.
xoxox!
I think we’re tuning in the same radio waves with our fillings or something. Your voice sounds like my own, humming in the back of my head constantly.
I will tell my grandleezy that I never gave up and did all I possibly, humanly could. She will be nine this month and is already writing about how she hates war.Waiting for more of the same from the no show dems is not going to change a fucking thing. Theses are drastic times that call for drastic measures. I have had it! I’m in Super!! But I think you know that already. Still waiting for that knock on the door by the men in black!
Let them knock. Let them club us. Let them lock us up.
I’m afraid Lee, but I’m determined.
I know you are too. I know you’re active and engaged.
Let them stop us all if they can.
It’s time.
“It’s time”. No truer words ever written. March 31st, Del Mar Revolution planning weekend. Be there or be taken over.
Today is a good day to get clubbed.
Today is a good day to be imprisioned.
Taoday is a good day to die.
For the sake of our people.
For the sake of our world.
LETS TAKE BACK OUR GOVERNMENT,OUR RIGHTS,OUR FUTURE
I posted this quote by MLK in a different diary(can’t remember where)but I think it speaks to what you’re saying or not what your saying but what you’re heartsick bruised and battered mind and soul are shouting super:
“In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.” MLK
.
Sun Jan 15th, 2006 at 05:01:04 AM PST
Speaking Truth To Power
A Time to Break Silence By Rev. Martin Luther King
Historical quotes of MLK placed in contemporary context, an excellent diary … recommended. Thanks for referencing this alohaleezy!
Martin Luther King, ‘At Canaan’s Edge’
“Treason doth never prosper: what’s the reason?
For if it prosper, none dare call it treason.”
▼ ▼ ▼ MY DIARY
Thanks Oui.
Of course becoming a father in my forties I could hardly even think about grandchildren. But I agree, e-mails, faxes, calls etc. have yielded frustratingly little. It is time for more. The party does not pursue my interests.
As for my seven year old son, he sees his father being active and hopefully it will mean something to him. (I’m involved locally as well.) He already knows that Bush is an asshole. He’s heard it from me perhaps too many times. Not that it isn’t true, but a 7 year old shouldn’t hear so much ranting. When I was that age, I was blissfully(?) naive.
Dear Grandchildren,
Right now the odds aren’t so good for your eventual existence since I’m 28 years old, unmarried, no serious prospects. And very focused on making the world a better place for everyone else’s children and grandchildren. But you never know. This letter can be for them too.
Everyone’s grandchildren: it’s easy to admire heroes that you see on television, that you read about in books. It’s easy to aspire to be one. It’s easy to think that if you’d only been born in just the right place and time, you could have been a hero, too. I grew up in the 1980s, wishing I had come of age in the 1960s, because I thought that in the antiwar movement and civil rights movement that occurred then, I could have found a way to be a hero, and to contribute to the making of a better world for all of us.
It’s easy to decide what you stand for, with plenty of time to read and ponder and think. It’s easy to decide what you’d do if faced with a choice between death and the preservation of your principles. It’s even easy, in a single moment of brilliant clarity, to choose personal destruction for the sake of what’s right.
What I never understood when I spent all those hours as a child reading and thinking and wishing I could be a hero, is that those moments of brilliant clarity are very rare. I’ve never encountered one in my life. I don’t know if I ever will. That’s good, because I’m not keen on personal destruction if I can avoid it. It does make it harder to be a hero. Harder to believe you can accomplish anything of worth.
But not impossible. And this is the secret that many people don’t want folks like you and me to know. The hard part isn’t the action. The hard part is wading through all the shades of gray – figuring out where the situation really stands – so that then, you can put your principles into practice.
Is today the day, is this the moment, on which I should stake everything?
Is the threat I’m facing now the worst threat, or is there a greater one?
Is it worth giving up what I might lose, including a position of advantage for future battles?
Questions like these aren’t just scary ones. They can paralyze you. They can keep you waiting, always waiting, for just the right moment to act to change the world.
Here’s the thing: there is no right moment. There is now. Now is the moment. Now is the moment to act. To do what? That’s for you and me and every single one of us to answer, for ourselves, in each moment of every day. This is the way to courage. Know what you stand for. Know where you’re standing. And then, decide on the action that best reflects the principles you want to uphold, and the world you want to create.
I’ve made signs. I’ve walked neighborhoods. I’ve knocked on doors. I’ve made phone calls. I’ve written letters. I’ve posted on blogs. All that matters. The most important work I’ve done is what I have done to recruit and encourage and train other activists. Individually we’re not much; it’s together that we will accomplish our purpose.
I don’t consider myself a hero now, in the sense that I’m anything special, or more special than the next person. But courage isn’t something that I long for or see as being out of my reach. Because every contact I make in support of justice, in seeking a government that doesn’t prey on its people, every conversation I have and every meeting I host and every email I send – every one of these is courage. I could just fire up my favorite video game and sit back. Some nights I do. But most nights I’m working instead, working for a just government and a just society.
Every moment I dare to act, instead of turning away, is courage. Some days I succeed; some days I fail; some days I just cop out. But I don’t let a bad day stop the next day from being a better one. I haven’t been perfect – I haven’t done everything I could. But I have not and will not give up. This I promise you. I will never give up.
Thank you FJ
That was so inspiring.
You’re welcome.
I’m just really glad I’ve found my place in the world. I guess that’s the best way to put it. I know who I am and what I stand for. And this year is the year that I will not give in to fear. Not even the fear of doing the wrong thing. Because doing something is almost always better than doing nothing.
I have a feeling that when the Revolution comes, and it will, you will be there.
Thanks! Don’t let’s tell the NSA, though. 🙂
Wonderful! Will we see you on the Capitol steps?
This Sun., the 22nd, 10AM – it would be a delight to meet you – 🙂
I may have plans already, but I’m not sure. Can you email me more info? What’s this action about? politics AT furryjester DOT com. Thanks!
I’d hate to be your opening act. Great essay!
I’d hate to follow your act. (And we just saw one of the reasons why ;^)
Well, you made me giggle anyway! Thanks for the kind words.
the inconvenience of physical space between me and the capitol steps will prevent my actual physical self from being there with you. . .but wear my energy presence like a sheild because I am not afraid of these suckers, not any of them and what the heck can they do to this old lady that they haven’t done to a million others over our history.
I will be there in full energy presence with you and I may also be standing in front of City Hall in Idaho Falls with a sign and a word for anyone who is within hearing range. And we happen to have at least one very good local tv news station that just might catch the old gal on camera. I’ll give a holler out to all the GLBT folks I know and perhaps they will come stand with me too.
They cannot have my country, I refuse to relenquish it.
and in strength. Thank you for going when I cannot. I am sick and disgusted right along with you. But this is my country, and you will not take me down without a fight. Guaranteed.
Well people- do you need a room in DC? I can do that ya know.
One of my clients is in serious crisis right now,but I can do that,if you want.
You know how to find me.
My Aunt (wife of my Uncle who killed himself) is still amazed and awed at how Booman Tribune all hooked up and went to D.C. and some amazing woman had rooms there waiting for us….and it was all done on the internet and we all risked our hearts and big mouths to make the friendship we have here. It just blows her away.
Thanks ,Tracy,
It was pretty cool, wasn’t it? I was cackling in glee,to think that that kind of thing could be done while I sat here in my pajamas.
Now, you all know the drill,I need a name and dates(s).
Lemme know.
Besides,the pic of Boo on the floor was Priceless!!
HAHAHA
I’m pretty sure that is the first time anyone has called me ‘amazing’ although I am quite familiar with the one the rhymes with witch. 🙂
I’ll probably tell them I got out before it was too late, so they could live in a country that wasn’t so deluded as to believe its own lies.
with a lot of help!
the Bible with all of us in it? If I print out all of the archives from Booman and bury it in my backyard and someone digs it up in a 1,000 years and deciphers it will they worship large Black Dogs?
only of they’re wearing handcuffs.
(o/t- you checked your email lately?)
Finally have nine puppies. 7 girls and 2 boys…..girls rule this year. Teenager still being impossible, strange people lurking around the house last night and captured by spouse…..appear to be “boys”. How come I can’t any help from the NSA on this? We are being taken over by insurgents! I’m sure that phone calls and emails have been exchanged! Didn’t they intercept them?
Congrats on the puppies. Pictures?
So the nice-guy-bringing-dinner-over thing was just an act? Gosh, that was clever…Did you call their parents after the spousal unit caught them? (tee-hee)
I hate this part 🙁 this first 48 hours! Photos when we know we don’t have anymore funerals. I have milk replacement but it doesn’t seem to fix everything damn it! Nice guy bringing dinner has told his parents to take a flying leap. Brings other two friends with him who also told parents to take flying leap. They live life on the lam hiding from the JPO sleeping in the bushes. Good thing it is nice and cool out right now so the snakes don’t get em, just have all the rain to contend with. Last text message to my daughter’s confiscated cell phone reads…WILL BE AT YOUR WINDOW AT 12:30 FOR FOOD JASON IS STARVING. That isn’t 12:30 like noonish. Called police to report “stupid children”, hope Meth doesn’t enter the equation – the fact that they are hungry is a good sign. They need to go home, finish high school, and eat for crying out loud. They are currently “musicians”, me too by the way I just forgot to tell you that I aspire to play in a band someday! Friggin insurgents going against the American Dream living in the bushes…..NSA! NSA! Are you fuckheads asleep or something? I have the proof right here on this phone!
Well, I’m sure the NSA men will read this post and come to your aid and remove those insurgents from your bushes ASAP. Oh wait, they’re busy waiting for BooMan to come into Walgreens and buy his nail file. They won’t have time for you. Try again later.
I’m sorry about the lost puppy. I hope all the others do okay.
My granddaughter is 9. She knows I supported and worked for Howard Dean. She knows I supported and worked for John Kerry. She knows I have been helping people try and get elected to Congress to the County Court and to my Town Board. She knows and as she is able to understand we talk.
Interesting story… shortly before the 2004 election we spoke about the election for President. I told her I was supporting Kerry. Her other grandparents are right to lifers… I didn’t ask (we don’t get along)… but assume they support Bush. Her mother supported Ralph Nader. When I told her I was working for Kerry she informed me that politics was too confusing.
About a week before the election after she went to bed one night her mother watched Fahrenheit 9/11. The next morning Mommy was voting for John Kerry and politics became much clearer for her and she now supported Kerry too.
I tell my children and my grandchildren that life is full of choices and it is up to them to personally make every choice they can. That, I tell them is responsibility. Personal responsibility. I tell them life has always been hard and has always been characterised by exploitation of one man by another. Nothing says it more eloquently than an article in counterpunch today called The Liberties of the Subject by Werther, a defense analyst. See it here: http://counterpunch.org/
I also tell them that the human animal is a species, or a breed that is less reliable than dogs in many cases. I just read this morning in the http://news.aol.com/strange
news that 6 million Irish men are descended from one individual. In China, 8 million are estimated to have been descended from Genghis Khan.
DNA is a wonderful thing it has revealed so much to us about our species. What the foregoing paragraph means is that power begat children begat children etc. This is the first generation that trend is reversed. Changes in the wind for ol’ mankind. DONNCHATHINK?
Buck up. Things are gonna get worse before they get better and your grandchildren need your best efforts.
hello keone and welcome to the pond! I welcome your input/insight. We do have a long haul ahead of us. Each day, each one of us has the responsibility to do all we can to assure there is still a United States of America, land of the free, home of the brave for the future generations.
Buck up, sure. I’m up. I’m asking how many more are up.
You say it’s going to get worse. On that we agree 100%
I’m saying it’s time, past time for different tactics. I want to know how bad it has to get before millions enter the streets. Obviously it’s not bad enough. Well, I’m sick of complacent people. That includes me. I can email my Senators every day for the next ten fucking years and they aren’t going to listen to me. Are they listening to you? Obviously they have a different agenda. It’s not to keep the courts from going all fundie on us. I mean how dry do they need their goddamn powder to be before they load and fire? They are part of the problem.
Yesterday Bob Barr said that Bush is daring the American people to do something about it. So…….WTF are we going to do about it?
I’m going to DC to let them know that I’ve had all I can stand.
Buck up should be the title of this diary. It’s the best goddamn advice I heard all day.
that I saw all this coming and moved back to Canada as soon as I could?
(yikes, now I feel like some sort of a wussbag defeatest or something… but since I am technically a Canuck I have the excuse that I’m working to stop the conservatives from taking over this country too… oh, and I worked to keep Canada out of the Iraq war… that’s gotta count for something, right?? Right?? Come on now, throw a girl a bone here…)
Catch!
;o)
I can’t tell you how many times I looked at Canada, Australia and especially New Zealand. Hell they’re even looking for people with my skills in NZ. I’m terrefied for my son Spider. He comes first and if it comes down to it then I’ll do whatever is necesarry to protect him. But the more I thought about leaving, the angrier I got. The thought of being run out of my own country is counter to everything I believe about myself.
The truth is I’m scared to death watching all this and I don’t understand why more people aren’t so scared. I really didn’t mean to put anyone on the defensive. I’m frustrated is all and I want to see people get up and get as scared and angry as I am. This shit isn’t going away by itself.
Anyway, speaking of bones, I have a whole skeleton I’ll toss at you.
Duck ;o)
I hear ya super. I can understand your thoughts and feelings completely. I would/ do feel the same about Canada… I would do anything to help fix her if she’d gone so wildly astray.
Keep doing what your doing and if it ever becomes truly necessary, for the sake of your son, to jump ship to another country, well, that’s what “exile” is all about… you can still work for change, but in a more hospitable environment. 🙂
My grandchildren are 9 and 6 1/2 and they know that Mom and Dad and the west coast Grandparents believe in freedom and diversity and equality and justice.
They haven’t been to a protest with us – but they sit with us as the grownups talk about fighting the bad guys…this administration and any like them. About going to meetings and making calls and working campaigns.
My spirit will be with you in DC – my physical being will be up to my elbows in local politics. Campaign work for progressive prosecutors (where’s BostonJoe?) and for progressive judges up for re-election. Oh yeah and Take Back Red California…fighting locally to keep the CA Bear Blue.
So – I’ll tell my grandkids we kept fighting – fairly and with truth…until we took our country back…AND WE WILL TAKE IT BACK! okay maybe I am shouting!
I’ve had something on my mind for a few months that I’d like to try to write about here because this discussion has made me think. Bear with me – I’m still trying to put this together.
My concern is that no matter how much we shout about our concerns, we’ll never reach critical mass unless we begin to reach people on a personal level. So many people in this country have been raised to worship greed and easy answers. They will not hear us or join us if we can’t reach them. And slogans, speeches and bumber stickers won’t do it. The only way it happens is through relationships. And unfortunately that only happens one person at a time or in small groups.
All this reminds me about the theories that authoritarian child-rearing practices in Germany made people vulnerable to Hitler’s message. I think we have something similar going on in this country right now. Not the authoritarian parenting, but lots of people who have been raised disconnected from others and attached to greed.
I’m thinking of a quote from a book “Lest Innocent Blood be Shed” by Philip Hallie. It tells the story of a minister in a small village in France during WWII who led people to provide refuge for those fleeing the Nazis. “For the rest of his life he sought another union, another intimate community of people praying together and finding in their love for each other and for god the passion and the will to extinguish indifference and solitude… Only in intimacy could people save each other. And because he learned this well, the struggle of Le Chambon against evil would be a kitchen struggle, a battle between a community of intimates and a vast, surrounding world of violence, betrayal, and indifference.”
That all sounds a little rambling, but I’d love to know if any of it makes sense to anyone else.
I’m with you. Hopefully whatever I tell my grandkids will be with a clean conscience.
I just got an email from NH Peace Action saying that United for Peace and Justice is coordinating an anti-war rally in NYC on Sat., April 29th. There’s nothing on their website yet, but apparently it’s coming. www.unitedforpeace.org.
Thank you Sherm. I had’nt seen it yet my self but would definetily go.
Could this coincide with the Bootrib East Coast meetup? That might be a thought. I know there’s little enthusiasm for a meetup in the city but maybe it could be incorporated into the meetup.
I’d have to agree with you. If it happens, I’m sure fellow east-coast Boo Tribbers would go. We shall see, once we get more info on it.
that with a little help from our friends… we can move one foot in front of the other.
I’m crying in this photo… not the most flattering.. but looking at it and seeing me with my friend, SuperSoling, it makes me see that there is still beauty to fight for.
There is still a chance.
RUmors are brewing about April in DC. gawd let it be on a weekend and I’ll be there.
the FDR memorial and all of his words that are carved there, and I wonder how we ever came to this place that we are at right now. How did we become so removed from recovering from the Great Depression and honoring our neighbor and loving ourselves to not trusting our neighbor and losing total touch with hearts and souls and everything that makes us all human beings?
some surprised. We were all, “Don’t they read these fine words of wisdom?” ACK!!!
I’m sure the Patriots Act will have all those “disruptive” words removed.
I haven’t seen Bro Feldspar around here in a long time, was just noticing that yesterday and today. Anybody know what he’s up to?
Fighting facism is hurrrd wurrkkk, it tires an American woman out, Tracy 🙂
Brother Feldspar is around. He’s probably plotting out the next post-march walking expedition. 🙂
Courage and Conviction. As well as some friends watching your back and helping you smile and letting you cry.