Last Sunday at a peace rally in central California, in a very Republican part of the state, people visiting our table with its five clipboards and a big map usually asked: "What are we signing?" But we had no petition - that was at another table.  What we offered was a promise to fax their own handwritten message to their congressman or senator. Many liked the idea and wrote messages like this:

Remember, you represent all of us and most of us are opposed to the war! Stop the madness.

In a matter of a few months I will turn 80 years old and have seen the same things with alarming circumstances. Pull the purse strings now! Not today, not tomorrow. NOW!

In an article today in Counterpunch The Tragedy of a Dozen Evil Men
Paul Craig Roberts says these few have triumphed over American democracy:  Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Lewis Libby, Douglas Feith, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Elliott Abrams, Zalmay Khalilzad, John Bolton, Philip Zelikow, and Attorney General Gonzales.  They are "the main operatives who have controlled policy."  In a probable oversight, Bush is not on list even though Roberts refers several times to "the Bush-Cheney regime."

Roberts also blames the "media shills" at the Weekly Standard, National Review, Fox News, New York Times, CNN, the Wall Street Journal editorial page, and think tanks such as the American Enterprise Institute.  As the former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury under Reagan, and one who has worked for the Wall Street Journal and National Review, Roberts knows more than most about these people and institutions.

On January 18, Lt. General William E. Odom  (US Army Ret) testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee about Iraq, which he calls the greatest strategic disaster in U.S. history.  You can find the full text of his testimony here.

In a Jan. 6 article in the Chicago Tribune and also here, Molly Ivins begins:

The president of the United States does not have the sense God gave a duck--so it's up to us. You and me.

Outraged, she continues:

This nostalgic memoir by Mary Joury was first published in 1959 in "The Arab World." Its more recent title (1999) is Christmas in the Holy Land.  I  enjoy the details of a family's Christmas in pre-1948 Jerusalem and the Christmas Eve service near Bethlehem, one I attended long ago and remember exactly as Mrs. Joury describes here.

In the January 2007 Harper’s, former editor Lewis Lapham takes aim at Nancy Pelosi’s "impeachment is off the table."  Nor does he like Robert Reich's "it would be far better if Democrats used their newfound power to lay out a new agenda for America.  There’s no point digging up more dirt."

Last week at a crafts fair, I heard a group of Raging Grannies sing anti-war and anti-consumer songs.  I knew they had appeared at events across the country, but had never seen them.  I didn't know they wore outrageous hats and remarkable dresses, mocking the stereotype of grandmothers.  In fact, they are not all grandmothers, just older women whose main concern is the world being left to future generations.  Here’s a picture of a S.F. Bay Area group which appears on their website:
           

On Monday, Shatha al Awsy hastily left her Baghdad home with her baby daughter, other family members, and one suitcase.  A special correspondent for the McClatchy Newspapers, Ms. al Awsy describes her flight in a poignant article, "The garden may stay, but I must leave Iraq," which was featured on the front page of my local paper Tuesday.  

The Natural Resources Defense Council is asking people to send a message to the Bureau of Land Management to defend a proposed wilderness area in Utah.  Here is their request:

America may have voted in a new Congress, but the Bush administration shows no signs of slowing its assault on our western wildlands.

The Bureau of Land Management is poised to approve a plan to
drill 24 new gas wells -- and construct a maze of roads and
pipelines -- in the spectacular White River wilderness in
northeastern Utah. We need your urgent action to help block this attack: the deadline for public comments on the plan is this Monday, November 20th.

 

Dr. Helen Caldicott, co-founder of Physicians for Social Responsibility, compares the nuclear test in North Korea to the arsenals of the U.S. and Russia still aimed at each other.  In The Way the World Ends, an article dated October 23, she says:

As the world tries to come to terms with a possible tiny new entrant into the nuclear club, the U.N. Security Council, the U.S. administration... and the Kremlin fail to recognize the most serious danger -- thousands of hydrogen bombs maintained on tenuous hair-trigger alert.

If you haven't read Lapham's droll "Going by the Book" in the November Harper's, you might want to get hold of a copy and read his essay mocking the War on Terror.  Lapham begins by explaining that "In concert with the fifth-anniversary festivities celebrating the 9/11 day of doom," he attended a conference in New York City on Sept. 8, a four-hour program of risk analysis hosted by the Council on Foreign Relations. The former editor of Harper's was not impressed.  

In California's Central Valley, a large newspaper has today thrown its support to TJ Cox, the Democratic challenger of rubber stamp George Radanovich.  As the editorial says, the incumbent is "a poster child of a do-nothing member in a do-little body."  In a recent article on the two candidates, the paper quoted Radanovich as totally favoring the occupation of Iraq, even if "we" have to be there "30 to 50 years."

In 'The More Subtle Kind of Torment (Washington Post, 10/02), Joseph Margulies describes "touchless" interrogation techniques used during the Korean on 36 U.S. airmen, techniques so effective that eventually all the captives confessed falsely to conspiring to bomb civilian targets with bacteriological weapons.

On the editorial page of the Fresno, Ca. BEE today, the subtitle to Congress Caves is "Not only detainees are at risk with concessions by Congress."  The editorial begins by blaming Bush for the travesty:

For a while during the debate over President Bush's insistence on having a free hand in the treatment of terrorist suspects in U.S. custody, it seemed that a few rebellious Republican senators might be able to force the president to back down. But in the end, Sens. John McCain, John Warner and Lindsey Graham were the ones to back down, supporting legislation that comes down heavily in Bush's favor.

Finally something is being done about the black smoke belching from trucks and buses. According to a recent article in the Fresno Bee, regulations which require a 97% reduction of sulfur in diesel fuel will take effect tomorrow in California, and by Oct. 1 elsewhere in the U.S.  The article, "Low-sulfur diesel switch completed," was written by Chris Bowman of the Sacramento Bee, dated Aug. 28.

In the Guardian today, an article titled Saviour of Iraq's antiquities flees to Syria  describes what has driven out Iraq's most prominent archaeologist.  It also says that salaries for a "protection force" for the antiquities will soon go unpaid.

At TomDispatch.com  today, you can find an article titled 7 Facts You Might Not Know about the Iraq War. Written by Michael Schwartz, a professor in New York, the article provides arguments against continuing the U.S. occupation.  

Here is a letter from Adam Shapiro, a co-founder of the International Solidarity Movement. Adam is currently in Beirut, Lebanon, planning to lead an aid convoy to south Lebanon.  You can learn more about Adam and his work here.