43% of your taxes pay for war

Now that your taxes have been filed, you are officially a sponsor of war. Forty-three cents out of every dollar you paid in 2007 goes for military spending (click to enlarge image):


In other words, we spend 43 cents to blow 'em up, and 1 penny to help 'em out later. Nice diplomacy, Condy.

Here's a thought: when you receive your bribe complete waste of money we don't have economic stimulus check next month, please consider putting at least a part of it toward funding peace by donating to the Friends Committee on National Legislation. (Yeah, the Quakers -- the same ones Cindy McCain steals from!)

Seriously, why can't we all just get along?

Obama, Clinton, McCain supporters — I don't know who's the rat, who's the cat, or who's the dog. Actually, yes I do. But in the spirit of keeping the peace, I'll keep my opinions on that matter to myself ....

War is not the Answer

From the Friends Committee on National Legislation website. Photo by Kati Short.

The peace symbol turns 50 today

H/t to Cootamundra Wattle, (who feeds me lots of great ideas!) for this one:

A peace of history turns 50
A familiar icon has reached a milestone. The peace symbol turns 50 today.

Before it was a hippie fashion accessory, before it became the emblem of the Vietnam era anti-war movement, the peace symbol stood for nuclear disarmament.

The British Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament details the origins of its logo. Designed by British artist and conscientious objector Gerald Holtom for what then was the Direct Action Committee Against Nuclear War, the bisected circle with two downward spokes combined the semaphores for the letters “N” — two flags held down at a 45 degree angle — and “D,” one up, one down.

The symbol was unveiled Feb. 21, 1958, according to the New York Public Radio show “On the Media,” and made its public debut at a 1958 Easter weekend anti-nuclear march, according to CND.

It later migrated to the U.S., where it was adopted by student pacifists and later by the anti-Vietnam War movement.

Columbia University professor Todd Gitlin said it was in the mid- to late 1970s that the peace sign started to become more of a fashion statement.

As the anti-war activists of the 1960s grew older, a younger generation was looking for a way of declaring who they were, Gitlin said. “For them, it seemed to signify being righteous or hip.”

“Back in the ’60s and ’70s, everyone was familiar with the sign. People were putting it on their graduation caps,” said Keith Knutson, a Viterbo University professor who said he protested the Vietnam War before serving in the Navy.

Knutson compares the Vietnam War to the current war in Iraq. Both were wars of choice, not necessity, he said. “But the peace symbol doesn’t seem to be coming back.”

Read more about the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament here.

Pope Benedict: Teh gays a threat to peace

Wow. We've been accused of a lot of things before, but does the Pontiff really think we're the cause of violence around the world?

"Those who are hostile, even unknowingly, to the institution of the family ... make peace fragile for the entire national and international community," the Pope told crowds gathered in a sunny St. Peter's Square.

"I wanted to shed light on the direct relationship that exists between the family and peace in the world," the Pope said.

"The family is the primary agent of peace and the negation or even the restriction of rights of the family ... threatens the very foundations of peace."

The irony, of course, is that internationally so many gays and lesbians are in fact involved in the peace movement. If only the Pontiff would turn his peace-lovin' attention toward the religious right who preach hate and intolerance. That is the true threat to "the very foundations of peace," sir.

The American mindset: we can't even imagine a peaceful world

A few months ago when I was getting a flat tire repaired, I had an unexpected discussion about peace with the mechanic. It began when he saw the Kucinich bumper sticker on my car, and asked "Who's that?"

Now, I'd never been to this shop before, and I didn't know this guy. But he was really very sociable, and more talkative than some mechanics I've dealt with. He was kind of short and stocky, and had the shaved head look, which looked a little bit military to me, but who knows. Of course you can't judge a person by their looks, but in general I just didn't get the feeling he was a raging left-wing liberal — you know, like me.

So when he said "Who's that?" I tried to get a read on whether he was being serious, or making a joke about the long odds of the Kucinich campaign. I said, "Oh, he's just some guy running for president." The mechanic responded that he'd never heard of him, and he asked me a little about him. Well, again, I didn't feel like getting into a debate, but it seemed pretty open-minded of the guy to ask about Kucinich. So without going into great detail, I told him that Kucinich's basic platform was peace.

What the mechanic said next floored me. He said "Well if there was peace then I'd be out of a job — see, I'm in the National Guard."

"But there will always be floods and hurricanes," I said. "There will always be natural disasters here at home that will need the National Guard."

He looked up from his clipboard and said, "Huh, I guess you're right."

And the children will lead us ...

Over 30 anti-war protesters at Morton West High School in Berwyn [IL] face expulsion for a demonstration at the school on Thursday.

Many thanks to my school chum Denise for sending this to me:

Over 70 students participated in a sit-in against the Iraq War on All Saint's Day, Thursday, November 1st. It began third hour when dozens of students gathered quietly in the lunchroom at Morton West High School and refused to leave. The administrators and police became involved immediately and locked down the school for a half hour after class ended. Students report that they were promised that there would be no charges besides cutting classes if they took their protest outside so as not to disturb the school day. The students complied, and were led to a corner outside the cafeteria where they sang songs and held signs while classes resumed.

Despite a police line set up between the protesters and the student body, many other students joined the demonstration. Organizers say they chose November first because it is the Christian holy day called the feast of All Saints and a national day of peace. They wrote a letter and delivered it to Superintendent, Dr. Ben Nowakowski who was present at the time, stating the reason for their protest.

Deans, counselors and even the Superintendent tried to change the minds of a few, mainly those students with higher GPA scores to abandon the protest. The school called the homes of many of the protesters. Those whose parents arrived before the end of school and took their students home, or left before the protest ended at the final bell, received 3-5 days suspension. All others, an estimated 37 received 10 days suspension and expulsion papers. Parents report that Nowakowski stated those who are seventeen will also face police charges.

Read more about the incident here and here.

To quote Arthur Silber, “Here's your minimal act of civil disobedience for today”: Sign the petition supporting the students here.

Bumper sticker mania!

Krazy Kat, I saw this sticker while I was in bumper to bumper traffic the other day and thought it was way cool. Then I got home and saw the same sticker on your car! In the words of Dame Edna, “Spooky!”

The day I brought Buddha home with me

A while ago, I went to the local big box home improvement/garden store on a Saturday afternoon. That in itself is stressful enough. But this particular store is in a large suburban shopping center along with “Bed, Bath, etc.,” “Best Buy,“ and all of the rest — you know the kind of shopping center I mean, I'm sure.

So, I saw this wonderful Buddha garden statue on sale, about a foot tall, and decided he would be a nice addition to my garden. I paid for it and took it out to my car. Since I had only bought some small items, I guess I automatically put everything into the front seat next to me (including Buddha).

As I was navigating my way out of the parking lot, a small car suddenly whipped out of a side lane and cut me off. I had to slam on my brakes, and also did that reflex move: my right arm instinctively stretched out to keep Buddha from flying forward.

I glanced over at my statuary passenger, and in that moment, my rage at the driver who cut me off dissipated immediately under the peaceful gaze of Buddha. That glimmer of a smile, the hands together in his lap, with palms facing upward. Peace and enlightenment.

I drove home with a little small on my face the entire way. And now Buddha sits on my front porch and greets me with that same gaze every evening when I come home.

Peace.

I will pray for peace today

On this day, it's hard to know what to write. I thought about it all morning on my drive to work, and I have so much running through my head that I don't know where to start — or where to end up.

Six years ago I was a Special Education teacher in a middle school in Baltimore. I didn't see a whole lot of what was going on in “real time,” because I was mostly trying to calm scared kids. At the same time, I was worried about my parents and brother who live only a few miles from the Pentagon, and my other brother who worked only a few miles from the Pentagon. Only later did I find out that my uncle and his wife were in New York City, and that he was getting ready to go pick up his photos from the camera shop in the first floor of the World Trade Center. (He had not yet left to pick up the pictures when the first plane hit, so thank God he was safe. Someone found the pictures many months later and tracked him down in Arizona to return them to him!)

So mostly what I remember from that day is the anxiety, worry, and effort to reassure the kids that they were safe with us at school. (Which became harder as more and more parents came and took their kids out of school. The ones left behind got, understandably, a little paranoid as they day wore on.)

And then when I went home, my partner and I watched the news and just couldn't even process what was going on. It was a strange place to be, geographically, because we were so close to DC, and pretty close to Pennsylvania and New York, too. So there was this fear hanging over us: will we be next? (Which is, of course, the whole idea behind terrorism.)

Six years later, I've had many cases of the “six degrees of separation” syndrome. I have met people who had a son in the Towers who barely escaped, people who had a meeting at the Pentagon that they missed, and a dear friend of a dear friend who's husband was killed at the Pentagon — days before his wife was due to have their baby. At the same time, many other friends who work in DC looked out their windows and saw the smoke rising across the river at the Pentagon.

And my cousin was sitting on a bench on the National Mall, trying to absorb what was going on (there was nowhere to go, anyway, as the city was basically shut down), and a reporter from the New York Times stopped to interview him.

Six years later, and we live under more security and regulation than ever before. And I don't feel any safer today than I did on that day in the classroom with those scared kids. We are occupying and fighting in a country that has become a breeding ground for the very type of people who attacked us on September 11 — but it is very important to remember that when we entered Iraq, the actual people who attacked us had no connection there. Al Qaida has since moved in to take advantage of the power vacuum we created when we ousted Saddam Hussein. So, since September 11, we attacked a country that had nothing to do with the terrorist attacks of September 11, and created haven for the terrorists who did attack us.

So I will pray for peace today. And I will pray for all the 3,000 people who died in this country on September 11, 2001. And I will pray for the people of Iraq, where 3,000 people are killed every three months. And I will pray for our military service men and women, 3,771 3,774 of whom have died since we invaded Iraq.

I will pray for peace today.