January 2008 Archives

Operation Crossroads, Bikini, July 24, 1946, 23 kiloton, exploded 90-feet underwater

One of the un-sung heroes of the early post-World War II fight against nuclear weapons died this week: David Bradley. As an Army doctor, Bradley was sent to Bikini Atoll in 1946 for the first postwar tests of nuclear weapons, assigned as a “geiger man” or radiological monitor.

The Navy was desperate to show that its ships had not become irrelevant to the future of warfare, and assembled a large fleet of captured Axis warships, plus some worn-out American ships, in the lagoon at Bikini. One of the tests involved detonating an atomic bomb underwater in the middle of this captured fleet, and then sending sailors back aboard the contaminated ships to see how rapidly they could be decontaminated. One of the tests involved setting off the atomic bomb underwater, the one and only nuclear weapons test that the U.S. ever conducted underwater.

In the rush to build more weapons, the officials in charge of testing paid very little, if any, attention to protecting U.S. personnel, and the native islanders, from the effects of radioactivity.

Bradley saw how poorly protected our sailors were, and how hopeless the task of decontaminating large ships could be after a nuclear blast. When he returned from Bikini, he wrote a wonderful book, No Place to Hide, that became a surprising best-seller in the U.S. The book is unfortunately out of print, but copies are available at your library, and at Amazon for less than $5.00. Bradley became a regular speaker against the acceleration of the arms race. Here are some quotes from his book:

"We certainly have little idea what the long-range effect on our lives would be from an all-out atomic war, devastating our shores, our fish and our agricultural industries.

"But at least at this time we do know that Bikini is not some far-away little atoll, pinpointed on an out-of-the-way chart. It is San Francisco Bay, Puget Sound, East River. It is the Thames, the Adriatic, the Hellespont and misty Baikal.

"It isn't just King Juda [of Bikini] and his displaced native subjects about whom we have to think -- or to forget."

[Washington Post obit]

One night not long ago, I had a disturbing dream in which I had moved to Washington DC and kept running into GW Bush. He had no Security and no one seemed to recognize him but me. I'd be in a "safe" location like a library and there he would be, tapping me on the shoulder and making some "cute" little remark and smirking. When I woke up, I chalked it up to a combination of his being in office for so long and things I had read recently about surveillance and invasion of privacy.

FISA (the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) allows our intelligence agencies to listen in on conversations between terrorists overseas. National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell believes that the government needs more expansive powers to examine web searches, internet activity and email. He considers FISA to be an outdated obstacle to doing so and believes that lawmakers are dragging their feet. McConnell convinced Bush of his position by hypothesizing about a cyberattack on a US bank. In his opinion, security will only come at the expense of personal privacy. His CyberSecurity Plan is still in draft, but would give the government authority to examine the content of any email, file transfer or Web search. Google records would be fair game.

AT&T Whistleblower Mark Klein claims that the infrastructure for monitoring our emails and calls is already in place. (Hear radio broadcast at the link)

Part of Klein's report:

"My job was to connect circuits into the splitter device which was hard-wired to the secret room. And effectively, the splitter copied the entire data stream of those Internet cables into the secret room -- and we're talking about phone conversations, email web browsing, everything that goes across the Internet. As a technician, I had the engineering wiring documents, which told me how the splitter was wired to the secret room. And so I know that whatever went across those cables was copied and the entire data stream was copied. We're talking about domestic traffic as well as international traffic. It involves millions of communications, a lot of it domestic communications that they're copying wholesale."

Meanwhile, Privacy International (UK) and Electronic Privacy Information Well (US) have both given US the lowest possible rating ("endemic surveillance society"), along with UK, China and Russia. These features helped us get our rating: increased surveillance with poor oversight, increased border control, plans for national ID cards including biometrics, security breaches, and invasion of privacy. Surveillance technology is now capable of advancing more rapidly than government safeguards for privacy.

Last week, The US Senate rejected an attempt to expand a secret court's oversight of government eavesdropping, sticking instead with a surveillance bill favored by the White House." The New York Times Editorial Board, on the debate over re-authorization of the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, wrote: "The Senate (reportedly still under Democratic control) seems determined to help President Bush violate Americans' civil liberties and undermine the constitutional separation of powers." There is more voting today, and word was that Clinton and Obama will both return to the Senate to vote "no" against the Bush version of the FISA bill, though he may still veto.

A couple of final things:

Michael Mukasey, top law enforcement officer for the USA, keeps a framed photograph of George Orwell in his office. He says that he admires him for his "clarity of thought." Even FOX News reported that the FBI can listen to you using your cell phone even when it's off, unless you take the battery out. (see video below)

According to the Pew Research Group, Americans are worried more that businesses rather than government are snooping into their lives. About three-in-four (74%) say they are concerned that business corporations are collecting too much personal information while 58% express the same concern about the government. Given the powerful influence corporations have on government, it's hard to be comfortable with either.

Even in the short term, we need to be vigilant and proactive. We are juggling several big and inter-related civil liberties issues at the same time that we need to apply pressure to our Legislators on!

When I was in Graduate School, the atmosphere could become competitive and negative. I remember someone putting up a sign that said, "Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean you're not being watched." That sign comes to mind now.

(Photo: D. Grieser)

First of all, some of you may not know about Shirley Chisholm, the first African-American woman in Congress, a candidate for the Presidency in 1972, and one of the most inspiring politicians ever, but watch the first 2 minutes and 24 seconds of this video and you will understand a great deal:

Think of Shirley as a canary in a coal mine, one who hung in there and fought long and hard and straight and clean, and who, in the end succumbed to the insider politics that characterized the Democratic party at that time. Newly emerging as the party of the people, the antiwar and anti-racism party, those leaders wore the mantle uncomfortably., looking over their shoulders at all times in fear of being called too liberal. In the end, they could not support the smart, dark-skinned woman who told it like it was. They could support the mild-mannered white guy, equally clear but not as forceful, and so, in their timidity, the little bird of truth in the coal mine gasped, and fell to the ground.

Sound familiar?

Listen to Barack Obama's speech from a week ago: his Sunday sermon on the mount:

Now we do not endorse candidates here at the DCP and this piece is no endorsement for any candidate. But I want to highlight a small segment of the Obama speech; one we have discussed before, and that is his invocation of Dr. King's concept of the Beloved Community.

I had a cool thing happen to me the other day.

I was at Starbucks (or as my friend calls it, "Fourbucks"). It's my little weekly treat. I get a grande soy mocha latte, and read the New York Times from first page to the last page. All of it. Okay, I skip the Bill Kristol crap, but that only because I don't consider that sort of cliche whoring to be writing. But I digress.

I got in line, and in front of me, there were two EMTs. I have a rule. When I'm in the house, no EMT's or firefighters pay. Ever. This is for personal reasons, which aren't important, but it's been my rule for a while. So I signaled to John, the manager barista, that they were on my tab. The EMT's were gracious and thanked me kindly. I'm always embarassed, because it seems such a small thing to do for them. Next it was my turn in line. I ordered, and when I went to pay, John wouldn't let me. He said, "Hey, you buy for those guys, I buy for you."

I have to say, I was blown away. Not because of the monetary aspect, but because of the human aspect of it. I thought to myself, "Wow, how cool would the world be if everyone worked this way." Now, I know it doesn't. But that day, it did, and I embraced that experienced, and I shared it with everyone I talked to that day. I was thinking that the more people that know that we can have this kind of existence and treatment of one another, the more people that will think of doing it sometime on their own.

It also reminded me of this story:

A holy man was having a conversation with the Lord one day and said, "Lord, I would like to know what Heaven and Hell are like."

The Lord led the holy man to two doors. He opened one of the doors and the
holy man looked in. In the middle of the room was a large round table. In
the middle of the table was a large pot of stew which smelled delicious and
made the holy man's mouth water.

The people sitting around the table were thin and sickly. They appeared to
be famished. They were holding spoons with very long handles that were
strapped to their arms and each found it possible to reach into the pot of
stew and take a spoonful, but because the handle was longer than their arms,
they could not get the spoons back into their mouths. The holy man
shuddered at the sight of their misery and suffering.

The Lord said, "You have seen Hell."

They went to the next room and opened the door. It was exactly the same as
the first one. There was the large round table with the large pot of stew
which made the holy man's mouth water. The people were equipped with the
same long-handled spoons, but here the people were well nourished and plump,
laughing and talking.

The holy man said, "I don't understand."

"It is simple," said the Lord, "It requires but one skill. You see, they
have learned to feed each other, while the greedy think only of themselves."

You know, there's alot of humanity out there. More than some days it feels like. But it is there.

Today, in me, hope is alive. i hope that through my experience, I can awaken some more hope in all of you.

-Casey

Yesterday’s Washington Post led with an editorial entitled, “Martin Luther King Jr.: His words are more relevant than ever this election year.” If only it were true. The Post editorial is a sad example of how powerful institutions like the Post cooperate through omission to bury Dr. King’s challenges to the more fundamental structural problems of poverty and militarism, problems which Dr. King argued were intimately linked and ultimately inseparable from racism.

The editorial diminishes King’s legacy by focusing exclusively on racism, citing a passage from King’s famous 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech.

Instead of 1963, let’s go to Riverside Church in New York, April 4, 1967, at a conference of Clergy and Laity Concerned, where King spoke out against “the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism.”

Could it be that the Post’s editorial board were a bit uncomfortable with King’s characterization of the United States government as “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today…”? Or perhaps the Post thought it rude to remind its readers that Dr. King also said, "A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death."

If they read the very edition of their own paper in which their editorial appears, the Post’s editorial writers might have thought a little bit about militarism, even if they couldn’t remember that estimates of the cost of the Iraq War already exceed $2 trillion dollars and counting.

The Post’s editorial writers might, for example, have read the story by Walter Pincus that ran on page 13 of yesterday’s paper, with their King editorial on the other side. Pincus wrote about a new Congressional Research Service report (that I know you have all read about already, given the wonderful coverage that this kind of important report always engenders) entitled “The Gulf Security Dialogue and Related Arms Sale Proposals.” (RL34322, January 14, 2008).

This report describes proposed U.S. contributions to the arms race in the Gulf region, subject to approval by Congress. Bush has proposed a $20 billion arms package, including:

--for Saudi Arabia, 900 Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) kits to turn gravity bombs into “smart” weapons that can land within 4 feet of a target when launched from a place 10 miles away; along with 550 500-pound bombs, 250 2,000-pound bombs and another 100 2,000-pounders with penetrating warheads [and] “$631 million in armored vehicles, personnel carriers, towed mortars and machine guns, as well as five sets of airborne early-warning and command and control systems worth $400 million. They would also buy for $220 million 40 Sniper advanced targeting pods, which would upgrade the ability of their F-15s to detect other aircraft at long range.”

--for the seven city-state federation of the United Arab Emirates, Bush is proposing 200 JDAM systems, along with 224 2,000-pound hard-target bombs and 488 500-pounders, plus “…900 Hellfire missiles and 300 blast-fragmentation warheads for use with its U.S. attack helicopters and 2,106 anti-tank TOW missiles that also can be fired from helicopters…” The UAE package also includes “…a $9 billion advanced Patriot 3 missile defense system with nine fire units, 10 phased-array radar sets and 500 missiles.”

--for Kuwait, “… a $328 million package of more than 3,500 TOW missiles…and 80 PAC-3 missiles, kits to upgrade earlier missiles and radars associated with the Patriot anti-missile defense system -- together worth $1.4 billion.

And for those worried about upsetting the military balance between Israel and the other Middle East state, Israel gets 10,000 JDAM kits (in addition to the $30 billion for arms purchases which the U.S. gave Israel last summer).

If the Post were edited by people who truly cared about Dr. King’s entire message, they might have offered us some thoughts on the relevance to today’s world of Dr. King’s words at the Riverside Church speech.

Here are a few excerpts from Dr. King’s 1967 speech. Through the wonders of the Internet, you can not only read the whole speech, you can listen too, and hear Dr. King’s tragic, somber delivery of a speech so infused with pain that it is hard to listen to, a tone that stands in sharp contrast to the cadences of the 1963 speech.

I join you in this meeting because I am in deepest agreement with the aims and work of the organization which has brought us together: Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam. The recent statements of your executive committee are the sentiments of my own heart, and I found myself in full accord when I read its opening lines: "A time comes when silence is betrayal." And that time has come for us in relation to Vietnam.

The truth of these words is beyond doubt, but the mission to which they call us is a most difficult one. Even when pressed by the demands of inner truth, men do not easily assume the task of opposing their government's policy, especially in time of war. Nor does the human spirit move without great difficulty against all the apathy of conformist thought within one's own bosom and in the surrounding world. Moreover, when the issues at hand seem as perplexed as they often do in the case of this dreadful conflict, we are always on the verge of being mesmerized by uncertainty; but we must move on.

My third reason moves to an even deeper level of awareness, for it grows out of my experience in the ghettoes of the North over the last three years -- especially the last three summers. As I have walked among the desperate, rejected, and angry young men, I have told them that Molotov cocktails and rifles would not solve their problems. I have tried to offer them my deepest compassion while maintaining my conviction that social change comes most meaningfully through nonviolent action. But they ask -- and rightly so -- what about Vietnam? They ask if our own nation wasn't using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today -- my own government.

At this point I should make it clear that while I have tried in these last few minutes to give a voice to the voiceless in Vietnam and to understand the arguments of those who are called "enemy," I am as deeply concerned about our own troops there as anything else. For it occurs to me that what we are submitting them to in Vietnam is not simply the brutalizing process that goes on in any war where armies face each other and seek to destroy. We are adding cynicism to the process of death, for they must know after a short period there that none of the things we claim to be fighting for are really involved. Before long they must know that their government has sent them into a struggle among Vietnamese, and the more sophisticated surely realize that we are on the side of the wealthy, and the secure, while we create a hell for the poor.

Somehow this madness must cease. We must stop now. I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam. I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted. I speak for the poor of America who are paying the double price of smashed hopes at home, and death and corruption in Vietnam. I speak as a citizen of the world, for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken. I speak as one who loves America, to the leaders of our own nation: The great initiative in this war is ours; the initiative to stop it must be ours.

If we continue, there will be no doubt in my mind and in the mind of the world that we have no honorable intentions in Vietnam. If we do not stop our war against the people of Vietnam immediately, the world will be left with no other alternative than to see this as some horrible, clumsy, and deadly game we have decided to play. The world now demands a maturity of America that we may not be able to achieve. It demands that we admit that we have been wrong from the beginning of our adventure in Vietnam, that we have been detrimental to the life of the Vietnamese people. The situation is one in which we must be ready to turn sharply from our present ways. In order to atone for our sins and errors in Vietnam, we should take the initiative in bringing a halt to this tragic war.

Now there is something seductively tempting about stopping there and sending us all off on what in some circles has become a popular crusade against the war in Vietnam. I say we must enter that struggle, but I wish to go on now to say something even more disturbing.

The war in Vietnam is but a symptom of a far deeper malady within the American spirit, and if we ignore this sobering reality...and if we ignore this sobering reality, we will find ourselves organizing "clergy and laymen concerned" committees for the next generation. They will be concerned about Guatemala and Peru. They will be concerned about Thailand and Cambodia. They will be concerned about Mozambique and South Africa. We will be marching for these and a dozen other names and attending rallies without end, unless there is a significant and profound change in American life and policy.

It is with such activity in mind that the words of the late John F. Kennedy come back to haunt us. Five years ago he said, "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." Increasingly, by choice or by accident, this is the role our nation has taken, the role of those who make peaceful revolution impossible by refusing to give up the privileges and the pleasures that come from the immense profits of overseas investments. I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin...we must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.

A true revolution of values will lay hand on the world order and say of war, "This way of settling differences is not just." This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.

It is a sad fact that because of comfort, complacency, a morbid fear of communism, and our proneness to adjust to injustice, the Western nations that initiated so much of the revolutionary spirit of the modern world have now become the arch antirevolutionaries. This has driven many to feel that only Marxism has a revolutionary spirit. Therefore, communism is a judgment against our failure to make democracy real and follow through on the revolutions that we initiated. Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism. With this powerful commitment we shall boldly challenge the status quo and unjust mores, and thereby speed the day when "every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be become an absolute necessity for the survival of man.

We are now faced with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked, and dejected with a lost opportunity. The tide in the affairs of men does not remain at flood -- it ebbs. We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is adamant to every plea and rushes on. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residues of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words, "Too late." There is an invisible book of life that faithfully records our vigilance or our neglect. Omar Khayyam is right: "The moving finger writes, and having writ moves on."

We still have a choice today: nonviolent coexistence or violent coannihilation. We must move past indecision to action. We must find new ways to speak for peace in Vietnam and justice throughout the developing world, a world that borders on our doors. If we do not act, we shall surely be dragged down the long, dark, and shameful corridors of time reserved for those who possess power without compassion, might without morality, and strength without sight.[emphasis added]

(D Grieser, MLK Way, Seattle)

photo credit

I read Erica Jong's "Fear of Flying" on an airplane 35 years ago. I came across this piece of hers and had to share it in its entirety. It was published on January 13, 3008 at HuffingtonPost and I just sat there nodding my head. Here is more information about Erica Jong, the person.

Erica Jong wrote:

This column is not about Hillary vs. Obama vs. Edwards. The truth is if I had the choice I'd vote for Dennis Kucinich because he's against the war, for the impeachment of war criminals in government, smart on the environment and the economy, and he has a sense of humor about UFOS. He's not afraid to joke about 'em for fear he'll be labeled a nutcase -- as indeed he was.

But I don't have that option. Kucinich represents my views, but he only got 1% in New Hampshire. Too bad.

I want to talk not about candidates but about our media turning every presidential election into a high school popularity contest. And we let them get away with it. And we don't stop Rupert Murdoch, Clear Channel, Disney, GE, Sumner Redstone and a few others from owning all the media all the time.

Our magazines and newspapers are so dumbed down that they never discuss issues, only stereotype or attack or puff up candidates -- and all for the most idiotic things -- like their marriages, which in truth we know nothing about -- or their weight or their clothes or their hair. They don't discuss brains, intelligence, psychological maturity, but only who's up or down in the polls, cuter in photos, who misted up, cried or didn't cry, said "my friends" like Reagan or mimicked Bill Clinton's style or JFK's or whomever's. Our press is a disgrace.

When Al Gore was a candidate, he was mocked and slimed by our stupid press. And look who we got? Cheneybush! Now Hillary's being slimed for being a woman, for being the wife of, for being smart, for being political, for being old, for not having left her husband -- just as she'd be slimed if she had left her husband. She has baggage -- like any old broad -- because the truth is that the older you are the more baggage you have. So there's ageism too. And a new fresh face, with less baggage, is like the latest starlet in Hollywood. We never heard about Edwards' ideas until his wife got cancer. We heard about his haircuts!

We never discuss psychological depth because hey, who cares if the president's a bomb-happy dry-drunk trying to play out an Oedipal war with his father? We never talk about people being tested in power or how steady they are or whether they read books or understand what they read because we judge them on their looks. Or one idiotic sound byte, taken out of context.

We had gazillions of columns about Al Gore's weight gain and growing a beard -- I was even asked to write one for the New York Times -- and I obliged because that's all the news that's fit to print and I like shooting my mouth off on the Op-Ed page as much as anyone. Besides women writers are only drafted for the most trivial subjects. We comment on style not substance, beards not policy, clothes and shoes and chick lit and cooking. The men get the big topics like war, though women have the most to lose--like their children whom they carried and nursed and suckled and love more than themselves--as of course do many men.

Bush was considered a good ole boy and Gore was a considered a nerd. Now Edwards cares too much about his hair, Hillary "cried" in the press--though she didn't cry in reality. But we live in this parallel universe where there is no reality. Obama? Who knows who he is? A brilliant writer, yes, a cute young guy, yes, a progressive, we think. But who really knows? I give him the benefit of the doubt. Why not? But what a stupid way to choose a President!

If Eleanor Roosevelt were alive and running, they'd talk about her big teeth and her hoity toity accent. If JFK were alive and running, they'd reveal his affair with Marilyn and slander his wife for it. If Jackie O were alive and running, they'd say she fucked Onassis -- which she did -- while she was married to JFK. If Plato were alive and running, they'd say he was gay--though many Greeks were bisexual and thought nothing of it.

So kids, if you elect a President of the United States like you elected the President of the GO in High School, you deserve what you get.

After suspicious events occurred during the last two major US elections, many are concerned about election integrity.

Voter fraud as can be perpetuated via nonverifiable electronic voting machines, where results can be altered. Voter fraud can also occur though voter disenfranchisement, where certain demographics are prevented from getting to the polls in the first place. One way to do this is to require unrealistically complex voter ID. Ironically, the excuse given may be that such IDs prevent "voter fraud," such as people voting multiple times, or placing votes using stolen identity such as that of dead people.

There have been no convincing studies which have showed significant voter ID fraud, including the large bipartisan study. Yet laws continue to be enacted to prevent "voter fraud" via stricter IDs, especially in states where conservatives are in control of government. Recently, the state of Indiana attempted to enact Voter ID legislation. Indiana's Secretary of State maintained that voter fraud happens all the time, but had no instances of proof to offer.

Indiana already had the strictest of the 24 states with voter ID law. Anyone voting must present a current government photo ID. Yet their Solicitor General told the Supreme Court that this was not enough. Indiana Democrats, joined by the ACLU, sued shortly after the voter-ID law was adopted. Both a federal district court and then the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the law. It was then taken to the Supreme Court and here is the transcript.

The Supreme Court was sent Indiana's disputed voter ID case to decide, not because of demonstrable voter fraud, but as a "preventative measure" - similar to the logic used for pre-emptive war against someone who "might develop weapons" even though they cannot be shown to have them. Slate wrote about the lack of evidence for actual voter fraud. "Increasingly, the effort to stop fictional vote fraud looks like a partisan effort to suppress votes that tend to go to Democrats—and somehow, it's always indigent, elderly, and minority voters who are disproportionately affected."

Ginsburg and Stevens were the only Justices to even hint that the drive for photo ID law in Indiana is part of a partisan fear that Republicans are worried about Democratic voter fraud, whereas Democrats fear Republican voter suppression to cut down Democratic support. Justice Scalia maintained that clients suffered no actual harm so had no suit. Chief Justice John Roberts observed that no voters were prevented from voting. Roberts asked Smith, representing the clients, whether asking indigent nondrivers to take a 17-mile bus ride to procure the proper ID was that difficult. He noted also Indiana's problem with dead people voting, which certainly would put Indiana at huge risk for voter fraud.

"But there's not a single recorded example of voter impersonation fraud in Indiana," said Smith. The Chief Justice then indicated that 1) Pretend Vote Fraud might one day become real, and 2) Pretend Vote Fraud might be occurring already, but going undetected. Smith explained that those with stolen identity tend to complain, to which Scalia replied that "people who are dead or have moved away aren't coming in and objecting." Justice Alito pointed out that Jimmy Carter and James Baker called for voter ID laws. Justice Bader reminded him that those IDs were supposed to be "easily and costlessly" procured over time. Carter-Baker also reported that 12% of legal voters don't have driver licenses.

Alito asked, "If you concede there can be some kind of voter ID requirement, where do you draw the line?" Smith estimated that at least 200,000 Indiana voters would be affected by the proposed requirement. The solicitor general rose to dispute that number, arguing for 25,000 or less. The rest of the time was spent arguing about whether "facial challenges" were desirable, by which I assume they meant examination of whether the ID "looks like" the person presenting it (which should make voting feel somewhat like being pulled over by a patrolman or being carded in a club).

As the Slate article cited above recapped:

I fear I am counting five justices who believe that a nonexistent problem can be constitutionally cured by burdening the fundamental right to vote. Happy byproduct? Doing away with those pesky facial challenges that liberals like to use to address massive injustices. So in the guise of doing away with hypothetical future challenges to a law, the court is poised to uphold a law that solves hypothetical future problems in voting. And for those of you wondering why the court didn't see fit to release audio for today's monumentally important argument, the answer remains, who knows? But here's one guess: The justices didn't want to be caught on tape sounding like the same 5-4 court that decided Bush v. Gore, even if nothing has changed.

On NPR, the reporter, having no access to audio, simply read from the transcript. This made it self-evident how racist and disturbingly partisan this legislation is in intent. Read about actual "Jim Crow" laws that are part of American history and were used to attempt to legitimize widespread discrimination.

Passions will part to a strange melody.
As fires will sometimes burn cold.
Like petals in the wind, we're puppets to the silver
strings of souls, of changes.
Phil Ochs, Changes

The "change" meme looms large in this year's conversation about the direction and leadership of this country. In fact Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama got into it a little in the New Hampshire debates.

But what does it mean to embody change? Or to lead into change? None of the candidates seems to be defining change; they are just claiming to represent it. So I started thinking about it, especially since "change" is movement and movement analysis is what I do.

There are many things that one can change:

1. Changing direction: The economy is heading downward, oil prices are heading upwards, and many people think the country is headed in the wrong direction. I'd like to ask the candidates to answer the question: Which direction(s) is./are the right direction(s)?

2. Changing face: The changing face of Americans is perhaps best represented by Barack Obama: a mixed race, smiling guy with a fairly young swing in his step, whip smart, and full of piss and hope. But then the other faces are far more familiar and perhaps, therefore reassuring to some. I'd like them all to address changing the face of politics in this country--how will each do it?

3. Changing attitudes: Right now there are attitudes towards the citizens, towards people of the middle east, towards anything that comes under the category of "otherness" that need to change. Any of the top candidates on either side seem to be willing to change those attitudes, but again, how and to what?

4. Changing course: The course of the "war on terrorism" has been steady and a failure. No, the surge is NOT working; at least, it is not working except as it accomplishes what should have been accomplished immediately following the fall of Baghdad, which was what? Four years ago? At any rate, it was the wrong course to begin with. But to change that course also requires an acknowledgment that the course is wrong and has been wrong and a revised course, hopefully in the direction of peacemaking rather than warmaking, should be developed.

5. Changing policies: The policies of meanness, thuggery, profiteering, and the war on the poor need changing. John Edwards has been the most vocal and specific of all of the candidates on this front, and whomever is the nominee from either party (or any of the ones trying to run down the middle or off to the side) ought to listen to him. He truly proposes a change in policies, and a return to American principles of fairness and caring.

6. Changing strategies: Aah, who can be so versatile as to shift how one is approaching a campaign that promotes change? We saw Hillary Clinton shift, we may see Mike Huckabee change from his openness to considering different perspectives to a more ideological and narrow strategy. Is changing strategies a useful leadership skill or a sign of flip-flopping? ;)

7. Changing hearts and minds: We who were part and parcel of the Kerry blog understand how much time, attention, love and caring it takes to work with someone's misperceptions or beliefs about an issue or a candidate, and to both teach and learn at the same time. It is this kind of change-ability I value most in a leader and it is this kind of ability I see so rarely. When someone believes a perception, such as a candidate's perceived arrogance, and others have evidence to the contrary, how one frames that evidence is critically important, as is staying with the conversation long enough to trade examples and to keep the channels open for changing. Open minds and open hearts are absolute requirements for real substantive change in beliefs. And yet, we are an impatient species, not prone to to teaching or learning deeply, especially online. The ability on the ground to look someone in the eye and answer a question with honesty and concern is a special skill. But that skill is what I, personally, search for.

In the end, I think what keeps real change from happening is the underlying belief that change=loss of something. In America, we are consumed with the notion of WINNING. The candidates' tiffing over who best embodies change is challenged by whether or not the citizens want or fear change. As the economy, jobs, healthcare, basic safety, and social services deteriorate however, less ambivalence may prevail and people just might be ready to leap into those waters, even to risk drowning in them, in order to reach the shores of justice and democracy.

We can only hope.

Welcome to primary day. This post will be fairly short, since I'm still not quite on my feet, but my crabbiness remains fully intact, which means I can blog.

This is just something I've been thinking about today.

When I met my husband, lo these ten years ago, falling in love with him also meant enjoying the company of his evil companion, a six year old, seven pound hairball of a black feline female called "Tosca". Oh, that she would imitate her namesake and throw herself from the nearest parapet. But parapets are hard to come by these days. Pity, that. She hisses at everyone and everything and hates all lifeforms except my husband. I've tried to make nice with this beast. I've even gone so far as to serve her warm milk in a saucer by the fireplace. That was during the first year of our marriage. Now, these many years later, I live in a stoic coexistence with this menace to humanity.

It's not merely that she is evil. No. She also pukes. She binges and purges. Or sometimes it's an actual hairball and not mere gluttony. Or she's stupidly eaten the plants, once again for the zillionth time, imagining them to be some sort of kitty-type salad. She pukes with charming regularity. And she pukes anywhere and everywhere in the house.

My favorite is when she pukes at the bottom of the stairs during the night, and in the morning I hit the slippery wet slime, when my eyes are only half-open, and I'm heading full speed for the coffee pot. I go sliding along on this disgusting mass of regurgitated cat contents for a good five feet or so before coming slamming to a stop. Into the nearest wall.

Lovely.

Anyone who knows me, knows well of my loathing for Satan's fur-covered handmaiden.

Tosca is now about 15 years old and shows no sign whatsoever of taking her cattitude and shuffling off this mortal coil anytime soon. Or in fact, ever.

Which brings me to this morning.

This morning, my six year old son was sitting at the counter eating his favorite breakfast cereal, Crispix, and having a perfectly wonderful 7:30 in the morning pre-leaving for first grade routine.

I, on the other hand, having not slept at all last night, again, and with a headache, again, looked liked the scariest part of any scary movie monster you have ever seen.

Hoping to raise my mood from "What Fresh Hell Is This?", to merely, "God, I Look Forward To Old Age So I Can Be Crochety But Also Be Socially Acceptable", I set about making a freshly fabulous cup of thick, black, turbo caffeinated acid. I'm talking about my personal ambrosia, baby: Peets Coffee.

I was pouring the water in an environmentally unfriendly bleached piece of crap Melitta coffee filter when disaster struck. I was walking away from the draining coffee, and then the filter overflowed, and the boiling hot coffee/water spilled over the side, onto the counter, down the cabinets, and onto the floor. A huge, giant, dripping mess all over, well, everywhere. I didn't even have the energy to deperately wail to the heavens, "Is The No Balm In Gilead?".

The boy sensed my distress and offered to help. So sweet, just like his Dad.

"No", I said wearily, "It's just one more part of the many things I will spend time cleaning up today." To which he replied, his face full of smiling angelic wisdom and innocence, "You have to look at it this way, Mom--It's better than cleaning up cat puke."

And just like that, my day went from "What Fresh Hell is This?" to "Is There No Balm In Gilead?", to "It's Better Than Cleaning Up Cat Puke."

Life has been both great and utterly crappy lately. Mostly it's been really tiring. But for today and tomorrow and the next day, I am going to hold fast to my son's wisdom. Because he's right. It's better than cleaning up cat puke.

And most days, even when they are bad, are still better than cleaning up cat puke.

And thus the boy kissed me good-bye, hugged the dog, and got on the bus.

We have a holiday tradition of going through the house, basement, garage and shed and looking for items to donate to charity. Each year we can come up with at least six big bags full. We all live in an economy that is dependent on "consumer spending" and consumption. We are at war for resources, our environment is impacted by our overuse and our economy is flailing. Yet we are encouraged to continue to spend, acquire, update and upsize.

It was in this context that I became aware of three things that I wanted to share at this early point in a new year.

The first is an article by Robert Weissman in The Guardian entitled "Selfish Capitalism Is Bad For Our Health". The second is the article and trailer for "The Story of Stuff," which explains the "materials economy" in 20 fun-filled minutes. It features Annie Leonard, cool graphics, humor and a thorough but conversational analysis. The third is a book called "Free Lunch: How the Rich Get Richer," by David Cay Johnston, and you can hear the audio version from NPR at the link.

Here are additional references from Doug Tarnapol at Free Expression which discuss The Story of Stuff and related issues.
The Story of Stuff
Z Mag article
Kent's Bike
M-Pyre

Excerpted information from: Selfish capitalism is bad for our mental health

The growth in relative materialism over the past 20 years is taking a heavy toll on the wellbeing of English-speaking nations (This article appeared January 3, 2008 in The Guardian.)

The author notes a startling increase in child/adult mental illness since the 1970s and has written a book called The Selfish Capitalist - Origins of Affluenza. According to the World Health Organization, mental health has almost doubled in the three decades. In addition, English-speaking nations are twice as likely to suffer mental illness as non-English speaking European cultures. (In other words, mental health problems in America, Britain, Australia, New Zealand and Canada have been double that of Germans, Italians, French, Belgians, Spanish and Dutch, in the last annual period measured.) Why would this be?

He links it to the Reagan/Thatcher type of selfish capitalism where the wealth of the wealthy is increased and the average earner is robbed so that the rich might have more. It is in these countries where more tax burden has been shifted away from the rich. He goes on with British statistics, but the pattern mirrors what we see in US, with the top 1% becoming filthy rich and richer. He cites nations with economic inequality, such as Nigeria and China, but where mental illness is relatively more rare. What is the difference?

He blames not just the economic inequality but the extreme materialism (Affluenza), the placing of a high value on possessions, appearances and fame to meet psychological needs. This goes way beyond survival and stacks up unrealistic aspirations that cannot be fulfilled by consumerism alone. We end up with workaholism, child neglect, anorexia. The author then advocates for a more "unselfish" lifestyle and gives seminars on the subject. (see Selfish Capitalist.

Excerpted information from Free Lunch: How The Rich Get Richer

Here is the blurb:
Investigative reporter David Cay Johnston explores in his new book how in recent years, government subsidies and new regulations have quietly funneled money from the poor and the middle class to the rich and politically connected. Cay Johnston covers tax policy for The New York Times, where he won a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on that beat. His previous book, Perfectly Legal: The Covert Campaign to Rig Our Tax System to Benefit the Super Rich — and Cheat Everybody Else, was a best seller. The new book, which expands the inquiry beyond tax policy into a whole range of regulatory machinery, is titled Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense (and Stick You With the Bill).

But, what I took from the broadcast were a couple of shockers:

1. When you go into a "big box" store, it is likely that the sales tax you pay is going for the operating expenses of the store. There is a government subsidy program where this is allowed, to get the store started in a new area and supposedly attract business (but also runs small businesses out AND makes the customer subsidize the store instead of schools, libraries, fire stations, etc.) If most consumers knew this, they would not only never shop there but would seek action!

2. George Bush got 17 million dollars for doing nothing, really. It had to do with reselling the sports venue he ran along with others, and getting to keep the profits. Listen to the broadcast, for details.

In summary, I hope that we can all unload some of our stress and pressure with a "greener" and more humane philosophy of consumption. Small is Beautiful. (That was the name of aa book from the early period of environmentalism, written in 1973 by E. F. Shumacher, that is worth seeking out - click on the link for more information.)

There are voices, crying, begging, screaming: Iraqis, Pakistani lawyers, Burmese monks, Kenyans, Katrina victims, sick children without insurance, mothers of soldiers, steelworkers, immigrants, polar bears even. The noise is deafening if you listen, but listen, we must.

It is the Year of Listening Well.

And so must Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee and it will be the test of their lives. No matter what happens in New Hampshire, South Carolina, and beyond, the American people already understand where the will of the people leans, where the yearning for a particular kind of leadership has opened.

Sssshhh. Listen.

We are tired of the blind eye and the deaf ear, we are weary of the bullies and the bullied sparring over the details of yet another cut at the Constitution or human rights. We don’t like torture, rendition, or the loss of jobs. We despise the housing and mortgage industry and those who were supposed to regulate it. We want health care for all, and we’ll take what Canada and France have, even with the imperfections.

Ssshhh. Listen: The needy children. The firefighters. The veterans, the teachers, the homeless and the unemployed. All need to be heard.

And yes, we all get that global warming is real and we have blown the stewardship thing.

And so we turn to the new leaders, the voices for change and the two men who are emerging as the representatives for such change. They are both expansive and present, both see far and wide and both listen and consider. Both have strong cores of values. Both have mobile active faces, both are complex movers, and both relate deeply and purposefully.

Sssshh. Because the noise level may drive them mad. Because now it begins: the voices in the ear, the hand on the shoulder of the experienced, the tug at the sleeve from the supplicants, the advisors, consultants, constituents, the funders, the donors, the bundlers, the “special interests”, and these two men will listen, must listen, should listen to the experts too, right?

Two men stand in for our need to be heard: one is Black and one is White, one has a multi-ethnic and global perspective, having lived in the larger world, and one is deeply focused on a particular belief system and is authentically, religiously narrow.

Some of the voices will be telling Barack Obama: focus in, speak to American values, move closer to the middle (or the RNC will portray you as a LIBERAL). Some will be telling Mike Huckabee: Speak out against immigrants, support prayer in schools, stop gay marriage (or the evangelicals will see you as a LIBERAL).

And yet both men, each in his way, are innately liberal, meaning they are open, good listeners, nuanced thinkers, considerate and capable of advancing an idea into policies that work for most. Problem-solvers. They are smooth dancers who can lead on the floor and come away with new insights.

Will they? Or will they succumb to the noise and, in the effort to sort out the voices, privilege the ear-whisperers, the ones with one hand full of cash and the other on the shoulder, steering them towards the corporate, the profiteering, the imperial and imperious insider trade mart?

Sssshhhhhhhhhh. Watch. Observe, Listen. Be aware and beware. We enter into the fray as foot soldiers for peace and justice and learning and caring for the planet and each other. All around us is noise and jumble. We must be vigilant.

Mr. Obama and Mr. Huckabee: We are watching you both.

Sssshhh. When the noise level rises, you know what to do.

[Ed. Note: This is Richard's piece, posted on my account]

There are all kinds of commandments out there about how we should live our lives. We're all familiar with the ten that the fundamentalist right wants to carve in stone on the walls of our courtrooms (although a funny survey found that most Americans couldn't come up with all ten).

Then there are the resolutions that many of us are dutifully making today, New Year's Day, some of which we may carry out and some of which are gone before the day is done.

In thinking about what to say on this New Year's Day, the first day of 2008, I came across a different sort of commandment, one that directly challenges a feeling that almost everyone who works for peace and social justice is familiar with: being tired. Given the nature of the struggles that engage us, whether they be for housing in New Orleans, stopping the war in Iraq, impeaching Bush and Cheney, getting health care for all, stopping global warming, whatever the cause may be, it's not surprising to find yourself thinking one day, "I'm tired, I'm really tired, when is this ever going to get better?"

The speech below is by Frida Berrigan, the daughter of peace activist Philip Berrigan, at the unveiling of a monument on Greenham Common in Britain, site of one of the great peace struggles. There is a great deal to think about in her speech, but I was especially struck by her story of a speech her father gave in 2002 in Washington, DC in which he told the crowd "you are the answer, don't get tired."

It's easy enough to say these words. And if you really are tired, it's easy enough to dismiss the whole concept, even to feel angry that someone else (who's certainly not as tired as YOU are) would make such a difficult demand.

There is no "answer" to such feelings. I don't know anyone who would not admit to feelings of tiredness and despair at times.

Frieda Berrigan's speech is a wonderful depiction of how one man struggled with this issue, and the sources he drew on to find the spiritual strength to keep on keeping on, and not give in to tiredness.

So my wish for 2008 is that we can find the way, working with each other as we do on this blog, and in our own hearts, to understand that we are the answer, and not get tired.

*****
Frida Berrigan Speaks at Greenham Common
At the unveiling of a monument celebrating the life of Philip Berrigan
October 2, 2004

Today is Mahatma Gandhi 's 135th birthday. So, on this site of death and destruction that has been so beautifully transformed by women's work for peace, we are grateful for the path forged by Gandhi 's teaching and example. Happy Birthday.

This coming Tuesday would be my dad's 81st birthday. He hated having a fuss made over him on his birthday. But he loved the women of Greenham Common, loved the long commitment, the steadfastness, the faithfulness, the personalism of people taking responsibility for the health and well being of people, nation and world when government's were endangering the health and well being of people, nation and world.

So, on this site when 50,000 missiles have become 50,000 birds and butterflies and flowers, he would be grateful to Greenham Common women, for your creativity, steadfastness, and embodiment of hope. Happy birthday, Dad.

I have been asked to share about my dad. Dan said I could talk about him as a father, a peacemaker, a disciple of Jesus , a member of the Jonah House community, an organizer, etc. He said I had half an hour, and if I could also talk about how he influenced and challenged the peace movement in the United States that would also be great.

It is not an easy thing to do, but I will try.

I am honored and moved to be here to represent our family and the Jonah House community at this celebration and commemoration.

I hope by talking about him as a father, you will see the peacemaker, the disciple, the community member and the organizer.

I think I would like to talk to him as a father first, because that is how I best know him. I was at a retreat led by my mom and Uncle Dan recently. At lunch a woman brightly asked me, "so what is it like to have icons as parents." To which I replied, "I don't know. They are not icons to me." I think it was her way of telling me how much she appreciated them, but it a little uncomfortable nonetheless.

"What was it like?" is a question I am often asked. What was it like to have these larger than life people as parents. I don't have any other parent experience to compare it to* The thing is, my dad was not an icon to me. He was- and still is even though he is dead- my father. The man who pushed back my cuticles, rolled up my too long sleeves and was always telling me to comb my hair and get my bangs out of my eyes.

My dad was a man with an easy laugh, shit eating grin who learned some hard lessons about war and greed and the need for people to take responsibility. He passed them on to us without too much sugar coating.

My dad was a man whose expectations of himself- and by extension his children- were sky high and biblically rooted. "From those to whom much has been given, much will be required." He said. We were gifted, he said, in family, love, skills, talents, insights- and we had a responsibility to use those gifts in the service of others.

My dad was a man who transcended prisons and confines and hardships again and again to be there for us. There were lots of missed milestones- the plowshares action that happened on my 17th birthday. He was in jail for my sister's graduation from high school and all three of our college graduations. But there were intimate moments- the milestones we created- that we stole from the state, stole from the sterility and inhumanity of countless prison visiting rooms.

I want to share one story from one of those visiting rooms. In 1997, Dad was in jail in Maine . My boyfriend Ian and I went to visit him, but it was a short visit and there were a lot of other people there to see him and his co-defendants.

We did not have a lot of private time together. In fact, there was no private time. But some how zone in on where I was and what I was thinking. I had just graduated from college. I was deep into planning and trying to figure it all out. I was asking all the big questions and avoiding all the answers.

A week or so later, I got a letter that spoke directly to the "what do I do with my life" questions I was obsessing about.

Dad wrote:

"Constant effort to chart out future, to confirm relationships, and to come up with a bewildering array of answers, is a first world practice par excellence. And self defeating, impossible of clarity, another aspect of the western addiction to effectiveness and results.

"What about the present? What about the "now"? the Gospel is a "now" manifesto- what do we make of the world now? What does God command us to do now? Is one doing good work now?

"If good work is being done, then the future, then the good and just relationships, then the right questions will appear in time."

"Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof," he quotes. And "seek God's kin-dom and Her righteousness and everything else will be added."

He finished up, "Please forgive the soapbox- I don't mean to climb it. But I don't want to see you giving an inch to this rotten kulcha."

Our of prison and the chaos of a brief visit comes Dad's letter with a brand of advice I was not getting anywhere else. Dispensed with love and humor from inside of a lousy county jail in Maine.

Dad was a big one for not being distracted. Focus. Discipline. Vision. The long haul. They are such anachronistic concepts, aren't they. I was looking through some old papers preparing for trip and found an article he wrote for Jonah House 's newsletter Year One. He told this story that I had not heard before about the entrapments of the culture.

I recall how a 1964 witness in South Vietnam gave me hope and clarity, and strengthened me for perseverance. Two young Frenchmen, appalled by how the U.S. followed the French downward spiral of violence and cruelty, resolved to do an action against the war. (They were in Saigon teaching, an alternative to military service.) They climbed a war memorial statue in downtown Saigon , scattered hundreds of leaflets - eagerly read by cabbies and bystanders - and waited for security. Police pulled them down, beat and jailed them. At a court appearance a journalist confronted them, visibly shaken: "Who paid you?" he shouted. "You couldn't have done anything so stupid without getting paid!" One of the Frenchmen retorted: "People don't always act for money!" "Bullshit!" came the answer: "Either you sell yourself, or they come and buy you!"

The journalist thereby expressed a cardinal rule of corporate capitalism when hitched to imperialism: "Either you sell yourself, or they come and buy you!" Hitler reportedly said the same: "Every man (sic) has his price and it's surprising how cheap it is!"

Who are "they" who traffic in the human spirit? The hucksters of the Establishment - politicians, warriors, CEO's, pundits, churchmen - bombard one with a thousand solicitations and seductions to sell. The tradeoffs are multitudinous and unrelenting - jobs, income, benefits, reputation, privilege, country clubs, vacations, expense accounts, the right to owe the bank. They slam every door, boxing one into a cell of appetite and greed, making it too expensive to say "NO!'

The story from Saigon forced me to think, practically as well as Biblically. Slowly, I developed a horror of life reduced to economics, to business, commercialism, selling and buying of lives. Especially my own. And I drew a line in the sand - never allow my compromises - we all compromise - to destroy essentials, like my life is not mine to exploit as I please.

Yes, I've proven unfit for the kin-dom of God. But always, God's mercy has resurrected me, filling my lap with the hundredfold. Now, at 78, following a hip replacement, I hope for a few more years to awaken the American people to an archenemy, their own government and the domination coalition that it serves.

"Does the one who shaped the ear not hear? The one who formed the eye not see? Does the one who guides nations not rebuke? The one who teaches humans not have knowledge?" (Ps. 94: 9,10)

I did not know my father as a priest. The photos of the handsome well dressed cleric do not fit neatly next to the grizzled house painter and working man who was my father, but I did understand my dad as a person struggling to be faithful. Whose considerations and deliberations were studded with biblical insights- like this article is.

He was a man who knelt by the side of the bed each morning and we did not interrupt those times of quiet commune.

In the glove compartment of every car and truck we owned growing up was a small bible, and at the beginning of each trip, whether it was a six hour drive to visit relatives or a 20 minute jaunt to a job site or the vegetable terminal where we scrounged food form dumpsters- every trip began with a reading from the bible.

My brother and I got a first class biblical education from the time we were four and five. Once a week we read bible stories and discussed them with dad, him probing us to put ourselves in the stories, identify with the beggar, the blind man, the one with the faith to ask for healing. These sessions interrupted the much more popular nightly reading of The Lord of the Rings, and Laura Ingalls Wilder , and later on Shakespeare and Charles Dickens.

John Deer , a Jesuit friends, tells of being in jail with dad and finding a list on the back of a writing tablet, the list:

Prince of Peace Son of God Root of Jesse Suffering Servant Wonder Counselor Peacemaker Christ Anointed One Messiah Good Shepherd The Way The Truth The Life

What is this? asked John. Oh, my dad replied. I read these names each night and reflect on them when I lie in bed.

That was my Dad's faith. Worked on. Practiced. Never take for granted. Practical. A tool to use, again and again and again, to carve hope out of despair, light of darkness, community out of alienation.

When he got sick- he was diagnosed with cancer around this time two years ago- we had a family meeting. He told us he would try the doctor route, would submit to chemotherapy, but he would not put his faith in hospitals or medicine. He was putting his faith in God, praying for healing, not a cure. He told us he was not afraid to die, and it was a comfort to hear that, just as it was comforting all those years to know that he was not afraid of prison.

After one dose of chemotherapy, Dad said, no more. I am dying and I will not spend my last months fighting it in a hospital. I want to be home with my family and community.

I know Dad was (is) well regarded as a biblical scholar and theologian, but that is not the part I know. I know the earthy, loving man, who put himself in God's hands. Who did not see himself as the actor, the wielder of power, who worked to sublimate ego, to quiet self, so that he could hear God.

The last story I want to tell is one of my favorite memories of my Dad. On April 20, 2002 there was a huge peace march in Washington , DC and Dad was asked to speak at it. We all drove down from Baltimore together. We brought a folding chair because dad was due for hip surgery and it was hard for him to stand.

It was a beautiful day and the whole city seemed filled with the brilliant colors of posters and banners and masks and puppets.

Behind the big stage, the organizers had set up a tent for all the "luminaries." Dad was greeted with deference and respect by people like Martin Luther King the Third, lefty movie stars, union leaders, and organization directors. But he really wanted to talk with the young people who were making it happen, the kids in the headsets and walkie talkies.

He was so energized to see how many thousands had turned out to protest how the attack of September 11th had been used as an excuse to wage war.

When it was his turn to speak, he got up on the stage and saw for the first time how huge the crowd was. He was silent for a second, and mustered up new energy to be heard.

He started off by saying, "you are the answer, you are the answer. Don't get tired, don't get tired."

I was sitting on the side of the stage watching him. I had helped him up the stairs, and I knew he was in a lot of pain, that bone on bone grind of his hip and socket. I knew he was tired. Tired of pain, but mostly tired of bullshit and half-heartedness. And that in front of all those thousands, that tired was melting away, being replaced by the energy and hope of tens of thousands.

His "don't get tired," was an injunction, an order, but it was also a plea.

"May this be the first of many new beginnings aimed at sending the bosses and warriors packing."

He only had a few minutes to speak. And with the deftness and simplicity of a haiku master he laid out all the challenges facing the peace movement, all the war, injustice, pain and wrong. He ended by saying: What do we do about this can of worms?

1. Love God, love our neighbor, love our enemies.
2. Stay loving, just, strong, nonviolent.
3. Don't mourn, organize.
4. Non-cooperate now, don't run the rotten system for the bosses and billionaires.
5. Oppose any and all wars. There has never been a just war.
6. Be clear: "The killing stops here with each of us!" We will prevent others from killing. When we do that, marvelous things will happen.
7. Don't get tired.

God bless you.

I hear his voice in my head all the time, saying "Don't get tired."

I get so tired. I cop out, I get pissy and frustrated. And I remember my dad standing on the stage, looking out over the thousands, but I think also looking back on all he had accomplished and created and suffered, and begging us not get tired. I still do get tired, but I hear him calling me back from selfishness each time.

That day in April was a high point of joy he would remember. His eyes shining, he would say, "wasn't it beautiful." He died eight months later.

That was his gift, his challenge, to the peace movement- to good people in general. Don't get tired. Don't give up. It is a luxury that we cannot afford. And here is a simple recipe for sustaining hope and energy- love, faith, action, mix and repeat until the cruise missiles have left Greenham Common. Until communities of resistance and resiliance have formed. Until our voices are strong and our visions are clear. Until we cannot be marginalized any longer. Love, faith, action. Mix and repeat.

I want to end with a poem is so central to my mom and dad's vision, that they named the book they wrote together after it. The Time's Discipline. It seems like a perfect poem to read here, with a group of people who have so embodied and enacted this discipline.

A Discipline

by Wendell Berry

Turn toward the holocaust, it approaches
On every side, there is no other place
To turn.
Dawning in your veins
Is the light of the blast.
That will print your shadow on stone
In a last antic of despair
To survive you in the dark.
Man has put his history to sleep
In the engine of our doom.
It flies
Over his dreams in the night,
A blazing cocoon.
O gaze into the fire
And be consumed by man’s despair,
And be still, and wait, and then see
The world go on with the patient work
Of season, embroidering birdsong
Upon itself as for a wedding, and feel
Your heart set out in the morning
Like a young traveler, arguing the world
From the kiss of a pretty girl.
It is the time’s discipline to think
Of the death of all living, and yet live.