Whatever you do, please take some action on Mother’s Day to commemorate the true meaning of this day, we must put an to end the insanity of sacrificing our children to war!

Take the Peace Pledge to Honor Mother’s Day

Sign the Mother’s Day Pledge that you will honor the world’s mothers by devoting time during the year to actions against war.
Of the 10 action ideas below, pledge to pursue one of them during the coming year:

1. Educate myself about countries the U.S. government calls “Evil”

  1. Pressure the media to be more truthful
  2. Become a more effective communicator/organizer
  3. Hold elected leaders accountable
  4. Help us kick our oil addiction
  5. Build your local peace coalition
  6. Support members of the military who are speaking out
  7. Protect civil liberties and oppose the backlash against immigrants
  8. Support the creation of a Department of Peace
  9. Teach Peace to Youth

Mother’s Day is often seen as if through a soft-focus lens — a sentimental day of cards and flowers and frills. It has a surprisingly radical history, however. Just as International Women’s Day, March 8, started as a day for women to rise up for peace and justice, so did Mother’s Day in the US begin with:

Julia Ward Howe’s inspirational 1870 Proclamation against the carnage of the Civil War

Arise then…women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts!
Whether your baptism be of water or of tears!
Say firmly:
“We will not have questions answered by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage,
For caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.
We, the women of one country,
Will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.”

From the voice of a devastated Earth a voice goes up with
Our own. It says: “Disarm! Disarm!
The sword of murder is not the balance of justice.”
Blood does not wipe our dishonor,
Nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil
At the summons of war,
Let women now leave all that may be left of home
For a great and earnest day of counsel.
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace…
Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
But of God –
In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality,
May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient
And the earliest period consistent with its objects,
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
The amicable settlement of international questions,
The great and general interests of peace.

And whether you’re in the US or overseas, please consider writing a letter to Laura Bush to ask her how she, as a mother, can continue to support a war that is leaving scores of American and Iraqi mothers bereft. Send your letters to

laurabush@codepinkalert.org

, we’ll deliver them en masse; we’ll also take the most compelling letters and turn them into a book called,

“Letters to Laura.”

Let’s come together to build the world we want for our children — and our mothers.

For more information on CodePink Activities and how to get involved, please visit their Mother’s Day Campaign and do what you can to be a voice against the bloodshed.

Every day IS Mother’s Day!

Thank you.