Just WHAT are we fighting for, exactly?

Via Unrepentant Old Hippie:



Marianne Faithfull: Broken English

Could have come through anytime,
Cold lonely, puritan
What are you fighting for ?
Its not my security.

Its just an old war,
Not even a cold war,
Dont say it in russian,
Dont say it in german.
Say it in broken english,
Say it in broken english.

Lose your father, your husband,
Your mother, your children.
What are you dying for ?
Its not my reality.

September 15

Maybe Bush will make sure he's outta town:

While the momentum for the Sept. 15 Peace/Impeachment demonstration grows, the Bush Administration is going to extraordinary lengths to suppress the mobilizing for this mass demonstration.

Less than 18 hours ago, National Park Service Police turned a September 15 Press Conference, held in front of the White House, into a chaotic scene. On the pretext that there was no permit for a three foot long folding table that the media placed their microphones on, the police intervened in the middle of the press conference to announce that it was an unpermitted activity. Three people were arrested and are still being held in jail. They include Adam Kokesh, an Iraq war veteran; Tina Richards of Grassroots America; and Ian Thompson an ANSWER Coalition organizer.

The Parks Police even rode a horse directly into the crowd of reporters and shocked onlookers. The National Parks Police is an agency in the Interior Department whose Secretary is a member of George W. Bush's cabinet. In recent weeks September 15 organizers have been fined more than $30,000 for putting up posters promoting the September 15 March on Washington.

We encourage ImpeachBush.org members to circulate this email and the important story from the AFP wire story that documents this outrageous assault against Free Speech rights by the Bush Administration. At the end of this email we are also enclosing a link to a video on YouTube that shows some part of the suppression of the September 15 press conference yesterday.

Bush and company want to prevent people from coming out for a mass action led by Iraq war veterans and their families that will expose his war propaganda as a lie. The Administration wants to suppress the growing movement for impeachment. This is a showdown of great magnitude.

Please make every effort to come to Washington DC on September 15. We will not be intimidated. Join the tens of thousands who are coming to Washington, DC on September 15. Buses, car caravans and vans are coming from more than 100 cities.

If you cannot personally come you can help by making a generous donation. The buses, literature, posters, stage, sound and other expenses are immense. Many have already contributed. Please do your part and make a contribution today by clicking this link.

If you have made a donation today please consider doing so again today by clicking this link.

Transformers!

More than meets the eye!

Mapaghimagsik of Drunk Duck shows us what would happen if we had a draft.

Bumpersticker I saw today

I'm already against the next war!

Just why has this man

not enlisted?

Expressions about Iraq

By the Gorillaz singing 'Dirty Harry'. (Shared by Ellroon's Daughter):

GORILLAZ LYRICS

"Dirty Harry"

I need a gun to keep myself from harm
The poor people are burning in the sun
But they ain't got a chance
They ain't got a chance
I need a gun
Cos all I do is dance
Cos all I do is dance

I need a gun to keep myself from harm
The poor people are burning in the sun
No, they ain't got a chance
They ain't got a chance
I need a gun
Cos all I do is dance
Cos all I do is dance

In my backpack
I got my act right
In case you act quite difficult
And your result weaken
With anger and discontent
Some are seeking and searching like me, moi

I'm a peace-loving decoy
Ready for retaliation
I change the whole occasion to a pine box six-under
Impulsive don't ask wild wonder
Orders given to me is:
strike and I'm thunder with lightning fast reflexes on constant alert
from the constant hurt that seems limitless with no dropping pressure

Seems like everybody's out to test ya
'til they see your break
You can't conceal the hate
That consumes you
I'm the reason why you fill up your Isuzu

Chill with your old lady at the tilt
I got a 90 days digit
And I'm filled with guilt
From things that I've seen
Your water's from a bottle
mine's from a canteen

At night I hear the shots
Ring so I'm a light sleeper
The cost of life,
it seems to get cheaper
out in the desert
with my street sweeper
The war is over
So said the speaker with the flight suit on
Maybe to him I'm just a pawn
So he can advance
Remember when I used to dance
Man, all I want to do is dance

(Dance!)
(Dance!)
(Dance!)

I need a gun to keep myself from harm

Cindy Sheehan

The best comment I've come across is from spyderkl at Big Brass Blog:

To know that your child died not only for no real cause, but that the country he died for doesn't really care...Yes, I think the only mystery is not that Cindy Sheehan is done with public anti-war activism, but that she hung in there for so long. I hope that she can regain her health and some semblance of a private life.

Thank you for all you have done, Cindy.

Update 6/1: Molly Ivors at Whiskey Fire :

My point is that when Sheehan came forward as a public face, in 2005, that kind of raw emotion, her loss, was the most potent weapon we had available to us as anti-war activists, and we embraced her accordingly. She was doing something to fill the void left by her son's death, and she was an essential, a potent symbol, of the cost of the war on real lives.

Our opposition, however, must be based on broader principles than the grief of one mother. I realized how far we had moved this spring, when Mary and Kevin Tillman testified before Congress about the cover-up and propaganda campaign surrounding the death of Patrick Tillman. It struck me then that Sheehan seemed to be demanding a personal justice she was never going to get from the sociopath inhabiting the White House, who has been content to watch others die for his ideology for going on 40 years. But the Tillmans went at it somewhat differently, collecting information and reports from all over in order to expose the "fraud... deliberate and calculated lies" which followed hard upon Patrick's death.

[snip]

And so I wish Cindy Sheehan peace, not Kristinn Taylor's "suck it up" peace, but the peace of knowing that she did an incredible amount to change the conversation in this country and made it possible for us to move to another level of critique. Thank you.

Exactly. Cindy Sheehan threw a wrench into the war propaganda machine, personalized the dead soldiers, ripped off the shuttered faces to show the pain. The Tillmans couldn't have been heard if Sheehan hadn't been there first.

Where have you guys been?

We were afraid you were hijacked along with your churches!

WASHINGTON - Thousands of Christians prayed for peace at an anti-war service Friday night at the Washington National Cathedral, kicking off a weekend of protests around the country to mark the fourth anniversary of the war in Iraq.

As one Christian at the rally mentioned:

"A lot of the rhetoric that we hear coming from Christians has been dominated by the religious right and has been strong advocacy for the war," Pattison said. "That's just not the way I read my Gospel."