Tag Archives: Quakers

How I nearly got arrested for holding a sign at Denver International Airport

Posted on by
7


DIA, COLORADO- Last weekend I joined thousands across the country protesting Trump’s executive order restricting entry visas from seven predominantly Muslim countries. Spontaneous demonstrations had erupted at international airports nationwide on Saturday January 27. Denver’s airport was no exception but the lively gathering of sign holders was ultimately persuaded by police to leave the premises. Supposedly a permit was required to hold signs. Demonstrators the next day were quickly ushered outside, to rally instead between the terminal and adjacent lightrail station, where only a tiny fraction of travelers would see them. This much we knew as we monitored events online while we reconnoitered DIA from the short-term parking garage. We made our way swiftly to the International Arrivals doors at the north end of the main terminal WITH OUR SIGNS.

International Arrivals
The point was to reach immigrants, right? We walked to our intended protest spot unhindered and inconspicuous, because of course signs are not an unusual sight at an airport. Travelers who’ve been a long time away, in particular soldiers returning from deployment, are frequently greeted by family members holding signs. Often limo drivers have to page their corporate clients. We carried our placards with their message facing inward hoping they’d be mistaken for everyday signs. When we raised them above our heads we attracted immediate attention. They read “#NO MUSLIM BAN #NO REGISTRY, END WHITE PATRIARCHY” and “FIRST THEY CAME FOR THE MUSLIMS AND WE SAID: NOT TODAY MOTHERFUCKER.” Immediately a man with a “DIA Operations” cap informed us that we weren’t allowed to hold signs. We assured him the opposite was true. He called for backup.

We weren’t alone in front of International Arrivals. In addition to the families awaiting loved ones, there were a couple dozen law firm employees holding signs which read “Pro Bono Immigration Legal Services”. We surmised that their presence might have already been negotiated with DIA. Soon a couple of those lawyers approached us to announce loudly that the public protest was outside the building and that we could continue there unmolested. We thanked them for their assistance but urged that they also clarify publicly that we were within our rights to stay inside as well. I was upset that their gravitas, as lawyers, was seen as supportive of the authorities telling us to stop.

Police officers arrived in short order, a first one filming us with a digital point-and-shoot, then a second filming with a cell phone, both surely streaming to a command center. After six officers assembled, a sergeant approached us flanked by two DIA employees. She gave us our formal warnings. We were given instructions to “cease and desist” while we countered that we knew our rights. After a second warning we were assured that a third would mean our immediate arrest. We held our signs higher, all the while asserting their order was unlawful. The immigration lawyers huddled as far away from us as they could. Sgt. Virginia Quinones then got on her phone to consult somebody.

I recount this scene like it was a nail-biter, but of course we’ve held this standoff many, many times before. For activists with Occupy Denver, it’s become the routine. I was wearing an OD hoodie on this visit to DIA and I suspected whoever was on the line with Sgt Quinones had likely dealt with OD before. To be honest, this standoff too often does lead to arrest, so we were not proceeding without trepidation. Denver jail is an excreble experience. But it’s an unlawful arrest and that’s where we have to push back. As the sergeant kept talking, she and her entourage retreated. We stood our ground smiling and winked to each other. For onlookers however, the tension lingered. Several lawyers approached us to offer their cards, in case of arrest.

Intimidation
Though we were confident about asserting our rights, the six officers standing at the ready made it near impossible to entice other sign holders to join us. Our encourgements would be followed by the DIA operatives offering their advice to the newcomers. Nearly every newcomer opted to go outside. Only after hours of detente, with officers projecting a more relaxed inattentiveness, did we succeed in building a consensus of demonstrators.

In the meantime DIA operatives installed queue barriers to keep us from intermingling with the lawyers and family members waiting for international travelers. This strategy might also have meant to force us into the flow of passengers entering the nearby security check. We stood clear and even as our numbers grew, no obstruction occured.

One interesting fellow, a Mr. Gene Wells, wore a jacket with a message taped on its back. It read:

“D. TRUMP
IS A SMALL MAN
WHO CONTINUES
TO SHRINK
AS A PERSON”

with the letters diminishing in size every line. He was warned by DIA personnel that he could only wear his jacket outside. DIA operatives wouldn’t leave his side as he walked through the terminal, but abandoned their effort to intimidate him as he rejoined us at the arrivals door.

A couple of travelers joined in before they had to catch a flight, they held signs they’d printed that morning at their AirBnB. We were joined by Quakers and even a former Denver Occupier. At most we numbered eight, compared to the hundred outside.

The protest outside
The protest outside was seen only by those travelers arriving or leaving by light-rail. And potentially by only half of those departing DIA through the B and C terminals, whose security check queue necessitated passing the windows facing the south. Perhaps. Most travelers approaching security aren’t lingering to take in the sights. The other half of passengers departing DIA go through the north security check, or over the walkway to Terminal A.

All arriving passengers, on the other hand, enter the main terminal from the north or using the underground train. They pass through the center of the main terminal before exiting at the baggage claims to the east and west. International arrivals enter the terminal from the north and proceed directly to parking or ground transport. If they are met by family they are very UNlikely to be riding the light-rail to downtown Denver.

While the protest outside did garner local television coverage, it was prevented from reaching immigrants or those awaiting arrivals, to convey the solidarity which those who opposed the Muslim Ban wished to express.

Inside our signs prompted a constant stream of public support. Passing travelers gave us thumbs up, high fives and thank yous. Muslims shook our hands and offered their heartfelt thanks. A couple gentlemen made speeches expressing their pubic appreciation of what we and the lawyers were doing.

Permits
The DIA operatives kept explaining that protesters need only apply for permits. The catch was that they required seven days advance notice. And of course activist do not expect permits to be granted.

One of the Quakers who joined us expressed confidence that her group would be granted a permit to protest at DIA. She explained to me that she was personal friends with the new Denver DA.

I told her applying for permits set a bad precedent. Asking for permission implies those rights are not already protected by the First Amendment. Permits also restrict others to the code of conduct agreed by those who signed permit agreements. Often permits are used to exclude public participation on public grounds temporarily reserved for the use of the permit holder.

Worse, the police can intervene when “others” aren’t abiding by the permit agreement, when they aren’t complying with police intrusion, or aren’t acquiescing to the authority of the permit holder.

Never the less, this Quaker wanted to inform me that as the anticipated holder of the permit at DIA, she wished to invite me to participate with her group. However, she anticipated that her church colleagues would be made most uncomfortable by my sign (which ended with the word “motherfucker”). So if I did choose to join, she was expressing her preference that I not bring my sign.

A Modest and Humble Apology…

Posted on by
Reply

…but not to the Troll or Trolls, who are neither owed any nor shall they GET any, at least not from me.
But to Eric and the other readers and writers on this blog who now have to put up with the whiney tantrums of the Trolls because they “had their feelings hurt”.

The Trolls are in essence and indeed, in their whole being, Accomplices to Murder.
They assist in the continuing Murder Spree by making excuses for the Murders.

And torture, and, yes, Trolls, both of the crimes you defend and aid and abet with your continual sniping at people who oppose Murderous Behavior… Both of those crimes are directed at Children and infants even, because Cowards such as yourself and your StormTroopers prefer the victims to be as helpless as possible.

Like the Nazis before you.

If the comparison to Nazism offends you, it surely hasn’t been because of any qualms of your consciences.

If you’re willing to Offend God, mock His names which are taken by both Jew and Christian, by taking up arms against civilians and especially Children, then you must have burned your consciences long ago, and may God Himself take pity on you.

I have about run out of Pity for Murderers.

And their Keyboard Kommando accomplices.

We also have friends who are Friends. as in Quakers.

One of our Local Trolls who pretends to be a Marine and has his own radio show, Gunny Bob Newman, compares The Society of Friends to Terrorists because they object to his poisonous rants in defense of murder and torture.

He, like your other Troll Accomplices, whines and snivels a lot about being a Victim of people who reproach him for aiding and abetting Murders.

It’s a disgusting freak-show, and I can easily understand why the Trolls would want to leave their real names out of it.

The policy of the Friends is to be gentle with their rebukes, but definitely firm.

The term “Quakers” doesn’t refer to cowardice on their part, it refers to their Absolute Courage in rebuking even the Kings of England, when the Kings resorted to the Cowardly use of the Sword.

It wasn’t the Quakers who were quaking, it was King Charles.

King Charles who felt, and said so loudly with his words and even more Loudly with his Murders, that he, as King, was not only not bound by the law, but that he WAS the law in person.

His most famous saying is “Rex est Lex”.

The Friends say not to spark the Murderers to rage with insults.

and, they’re right.

However, the Troll I insulted by saying he had already killed and eaten his mother, and really ALL the Trolls who work tirelessly to suppress Peace and Justice, are already filled with such burning Rage that any extra spark isn’t even felt by them.

They’re filled with Rage that they have no power in their own lives.

And, certainly, when their Rage overflows, they’ll commit atrocities such as call me when we behead somebody...

The G.I. Jihadi Doll…

Posted on by
3

GI JoeSo my brother was telling me, about a toy that brainwashes little Palestinian and Iraqi and Afghan children into growing up to be Suicide Bombers which is intensely Bullshit on many levels.
One is the Fundamentalist Islamic aversion to Dolls, much like the Puritans and Pilgrims lynching people as “witches” for giving kids dolls to play with.

But the preacher who told him this, and of course had never had any more experience with Islam than my brother did, said that the doll had a little toy sword, a little toy rifle, and toy bombs…

Just like the very REAL toy made by a company with many Military Contracts, such as making the butt-piece for the M16 rifle, buttons for the uniforms…and their doll shown above has bombs, has a gun, has knives…

The big difference is, THIS doll actually exists.

When Right Wing Lunatics preach that the Terror Doll is being used to brainwash little kids into the Suicide Bomb Cult, their Brainless followers eat it up with a spoon… and fork… and Tabasco Sauce…

When the Society of Friends, the Quakers, point out the REAL doll and how the REAL doll is used to lure AmeriKlan kids into the Killing Machine, romanticizing War and Death,

The Right Wing Lunatics Scream that the QUAKERS must be Terrorists and accuse the QUAKERS of Hate Speech.

Our Local Right Wing Radio Propagandist “Gunny” Bob for instance.

Oh, yeah, Gunny, three words… Semper… Fi… BITCH…

Then there’s the idea that Muslim preachers tell the Suicide Bombers that God is on their side, and if they die while fighting the Infidel they’ll be taken to Heaven and adored by God and all the Saints and all the Angels… oh, wait, that’s EXACTLY what USAF and Army and Marine and Naval Chaplains tell the HOMICIDE Bombers before each mission.

When you don’t pay ‘war taxes,’ is it ‘peaceful nonviolence’ or more like smug self-righteous religious complacency?

Posted on by
1

Pontius Pilate chief tax manMonday night I got asked out of the clear blue sky at a meeting of self described ‘Peace’ advocates if I paid taxes? I was kind of drowsy from shift work I had just finished doing, and didn’t really consider the fact that Jesus was asked just about the same question in his time, but by those he considered to be spies of the Roman Empire. I was being asked the question though from a self righteous and complacent ‘Quaker’ woman who was in the process of giving me her idea of a litmus test, for whether I would be allowed by her and her husband to be in one local antiwar grouplet here in Colorado Springs called the PPJPC?

I failed her test when I answered that I did indeed pay taxes (too much so IMO), and my statement that it was so was soon followed by a self righteous and complacent harangue about her opinion that the woman and her ‘leader’ husband did not pay ‘war’ taxes and that that was that and why did I not do as they do? The implication was that I should just shut up and let them run things in the group and keep my mouth shut up for good. Why? Well because I pay my taxes!

Further I was told at the meeting by the Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission that I was not ever going to be considered a member of the group, no matter what. I was told that I gave neither time nor money to the group!, and that I was out of it in their eyes because I had written previously in the local press about how the leader of the group had called the cops on us for trying to hold a meeting to plan antiwar activities outside the locked doors of the group’s offices.

“All those bad things you said about us of the PPJPC!”

Locked out, because as members of the group we wanted some democracy inside an organization that has but one pretend membership meeting per year and is run by salaried office folk who want to be small business adminstrators instead of anything much else!

I have been told too that I must sign onto some sort of ‘adherence’ statement to the ‘non-violence’ aim of the group. Further the religious pacifists running the show have stated to the press that I and others, too, do not adhere to their Christian motivated ‘nonviolence’, implying to the police and press that we are time bombs about to go off! Meanwhile, they continually invite representatives of the police to ‘meetings’ with themselves so that they can supposedly make their events more ‘nonviolent’, I guess? A hug here, a handshake there, and let us know what you want us to do, Peace Officers?

So back to the question of whether it is peaceful nonviolence’ or self righteous complacency when one does pay taxes at this time of the year? Let us go to The War Resisters League and examine their understated list of the Consequences of War Tax Resistance some. What can happen if you just opt out and tell IRS to shove it? Here, these Christians tell you that you can go to jail but not to worry about it because almost nobody does (in the US). Go figure? To the feds it is more trouble to jail these few religious ‘resistoes’ than to just harass them in other ways. Why shoot down a gnat with an elephant gun?

However there are other consequences, including your right to travel freely outside the US terminated (one of local pacifist families has been confronting just such a restriction imposed most recently, as they were barred from visiting relatives in Canada). You can lose your income through a restriction coming about on licensing in the line of work you do. You can lose your property, much more of it than if you had actually paid those taxes to the government. That happens a lot per the War Resisters League, but they assure us that it all looks good on their own balance sheet of pros and cons! Well not on mine. Nor on Jesus’s balance sheet either! He was resurrected but I don’t know really whether that would happen to me if IRS decided to crucify?

But back to the case of the Quaker woman and her ‘leader’ husband who don’t pay taxes as they assured me that was the case. Her husband actually was in the military and supposedly gets some special pension for that, that I guess I am stupidly paying taxes for them to then lecture me about what a supposedly moral cretin I must be? Kind of a weird situation, ay?

But then again, let’s say that I’m wrong about that, and that these 2 Quakers get no income for that military ‘service’ at all? Where do they get their money from then? Stocks and bonds? Social Security? God? Plus, how can you draw a line between taxes for the military and taxes for other things, since Quakers do most often pay taxes for ‘other things’ and actually most just subtract some percent away (43%) from the taxes they in fact do pay to the government? Does that make it all Kosher then???

It really does not do anything at all from an individual angle, since the government just ‘garnishes’ the wages with interest added on directly from the salaries of religious protesters. However, non religious tax ‘protesters’ are often time not even given such benign treatment at all, since the government has codified well the idea that all ‘conscientious objection’ comes mainly about because ‘God forbids Believers to do something or other?’

No belief in God? Then you got no ‘Right’ to state morality coming from God as motivation, and no Right to really object, you damn atheists!

Does erecting this artificial accounting wall between supposedly taxes for good purposes and taxes for bad purposes help grind the War Machine down and then out? The AFSC (Quakers/ Friends) thinks it does, and is pushing to have 2 tax barrels put into Federal Law, where their religion’s membership can deposit funds into a ‘Peace’ Barrel, while the other religious folk can get the War Barrel! Is this really all that ‘peaceful non-violence’ comes down to in the concrete? Like it makes some dimes bit of difference to the government to separate ‘war taxes’ from a ‘Peace tax’?

Let’s say though, that you do not pay a cent to the government and some how keep them from garnishing your income with interest added in on top? That’s nice, and some few actually do just that and get away with it without being jailed. That is about as effective a route to fighting war as doing nothing though. To stop the war mass action is necessary, and not just becoming the one or two individuals here and there who sneak by the IRS.

So where does this Quaker couple now get their income from? Due to a successful career perhaps from stocks, and not a dime from military pensions or social security, they’re living off corporate dividends and previous savings not garnished by the government for ‘nonpayment’ of taxes? I can only speculate, however, I don’t think they have accomplished much at all, other than to make themselves smug in their religious complacency, as they drape themselves in flag and ‘peaceful’ Christian mantle for cops and other agents of the Roman Empire.

There are ways of resisting the War Machine but I do not think that trying to withhold tax monies is one of them? Neither did Jesus from what I gather from rather unreliable documentation, but he did try to evade the question of whether one should pay taxes with tricky ‘sayings.’ Ultimately that cleverness and not paying the tax are maybe the issues that got him the death penalty? I wasn’t there so I cannot really say.

“Gunny” would be proud I’m sure..

Posted on by
1

This is twice in less than hour I’m taking his name in vain.

Maybe I just had a premonition and for once acted on it.

But you remember last year when Gunny Bob said that QUAKERS were a “terrorist hate group”?

Wonder how he feels about Unitarian Universalists.

Not really, he’s pretty much open with his hatred and religious bigotry.

In case anybody’s wondering, this is about the Church Shooting in Tennessee yesterday.

Rush, Sean, (m)Ann Coulter, Miz Malkin, Gunny, are you proud of where your Hatred is leading Americans?

Just, thankfully, (contrary to your stated beliefs) Not All or even Most Americans.

Way of the Cross, Way of Justice

Posted on by
Reply

Stations of the cross, March 21, Noon to 2pm, downtown Colorado Springs
Pikes Peak area Catholics presented their annual Good Friday Stations of the Cross downtown. The stations were manned by Pax Christi Pikes Peak Region, Sisters of St. Francis, Holy Cross Novitiate, Benedictine Sisters of Benet Hill, Colorado Springs Friends Meeting (Quakers), National Alliance on Mental Illness, PPJPC, Dignity Colorado Springs, Penrose Clinical Pastoral Education, and Holy Family Parish.

Americans and the Iraq War

Posted on by
3

The impact the Antiwar Movement has made on Americans is skin deep so far. While at least 2/3 of Americans now dislike the Bush Administration, much of that rejection is because many feel that the current government has poorly managed a war they fully supported. See poll data

Despite the US government’s warfare against the Iraqi people that has gone on since 1991 and produced a total tragedy, only 1/3 of Americans feel that it was wrong to have been attacking that country in the first place.

Why has the American antiwar movement been so lackluster? I think that the main reason has been the demobilization of the US working class. In fact, much of the US working class has been largely co opted by the military and finds its employment somehow connected with continued support of the US war machine. You don’t see working class people attending protests much at all.

Another reason though has been the failure of leadership of the Peace Movement. It is dominated by store keepers, ex-monks, pastors, and nuns and ex-nuns, Mennonites and Quakers. There are also 2 other sectors of this movement whose presence is barely discernible by and large. The largest of the 2 are the college educated liberal types who think that voting for liberal Democratic Party politicians is the outer limit of what they will involve themselves in doing.

Last of the 3 main sectors of the essentially inert Peace camp is the anticapitalist Left, made up of Left Libertarians (Noam Chomsky, Znet, and crowd) and Marxists. The Left Libertairans have great analysis but no organizing ability, and are fairmly embedded in academia as professors, but are largely absent in the working population made up of ordinary citizens. And the Marxist Left, outside of the Workers World Party and its split off sister Party of Liberation and Socialism, has been mainly busy comtemplating their navels. But despite organizing many big demonstrations,the WWP is so sectarian that its national membership remains at several dozens.

Until there is a secular Left that resurects itself from the grave, the religious folks and DP addicts of voting only will continue to demobilize the American people. They will pray and they will vote, but they will not construct an activist movement that builds something different than church based organizations and the corporate Frankenstein called the Democratic Party. They will lobby and pray in fields where missile silos are located. They will pray in churches and vote for Democrats come election day along with attending an occasional forum and attending a military gate or other.

There is no easy solution to finding a way to resurrect the dormant American secular Left. Like the dormant Nazi Era German Left, we now largely are dependent on outside help. The problem is the American people themselves, ‘liberals’ and’ conservatives’ both. Both camps are totally immersed in LaLa Land.

Oaxaca and Iraq- The people have a right to self defense

Posted on by
Reply

Oaxaca and Iraq demonstrate that the people have a right to self defense against state terrorism. Today, the Mexican police were assaulting the students holding a radio station use in their self defense against the governmental death squads that have been terrorizing the population of Oaxaca. When captured and jailed, the protesters have been severely tortured. What would the mealy mouthed, American Christian pacifist communkity have them do during the military assault on them? Turn the other cheek? Not throw rocks to stave off the capture of the one piece of media available to the Oaxacan community; the university radio station? Not to set fire to barricades to hold the government thugs back from capturing the protesters, and then jailing and torturing them? The American ‘peace’ pacifists would lecture them about the supposed lessons of Gandhi and non-violence, no doubt, as if self defense was some sort of violence itself! The US pacifist community certainly live with a surreal mindset lacking in clarity and reality. And what would they have the Iraqis do as the Pentagon terrorizes that nation? Sit down in the streets and pray? With their constant prattle about the need to be ‘non-violent’ martyrs, the pacifist community tries to deny that people under attack have the right to resist, by any means necessary, as Malcolm X would have stated it.

The resistance of the Iraqi and Oaxacan communities are two examples of the need to RESIST oppression with self defense, and not just the silly pacifism of overly religious folk. It is not just church mice that bring about justice, but real people using real tactics to defend their rights, and not just always spouting Jesus-Gandhi talk. All the ‘peace and justice’ pacifism that bogs down our Left activism in the US, is a denial of solidarity with those folks under the gun. They are also our heros, and not just US Quakers and US Catholic nuns who might accept arrest here at home. Peace with justice can only come about through united resistance of all types, including armed resistance of some type or other.

I am not advocating picking up the gun and going after ‘them’. But what I am saying is that the message and tone of pacifism is a bunch of religious babble, in general. It does not help in building a US antiwar movement to only talk about Jesus, ‘nonviolence’, and Gandhi. The religious message is not our only one, and should not even be our dominant one. It hinders our ability to communicate with the US community at large to always emphasize only this liberal religious sermonizing about ‘peace’. An antiwar community is about much more than just ‘peace’.

I am overjoyed that there are peoples around the globe that are defending themselves against our government violence, and the violence of their death squad allies around the globe. They are doing it with rocks, molotov cocktails, guns, and bombs. They are doing it peacefully if they can, and not peacefully if that avenue is cut off to them. One just gets sick of Englsih speaking (principally) pacifists saying that that is wrong. Let’s tell the truth here. Much of Anglo pacifist sermonzing is pure bullshit. The people have a right to resist and defend themselves no matter what the pacifists in imperialist countries might say.

Let’s say it straight. We want this government organized, US imperialist army defeated. And it is because the US army is wrong in their battle on behalf of the imperial Super Rich in this PARTICULAR war, not just because all battles and all warfare is wrong to fight. It is not just pacifists that are anti US war making. Non-pacifists also hate this US governmental war making, too. Let’s open up the US antiwar community to those of our population that are not religiously motivated by pacifism and spouting non-violence all the time. A ‘peace’ movement that is only trying to convert folk to liberal religous faith is self limiting. There has got to be more message than that.

May the people of Iraq and Mexico push the forces of US hegemony aside, and build themselves a better world.

Eyes Wide Open Minus 279

Posted on by
Reply

Why don’t we reflect on the 279 US soldiers who lost their lives in Afghanistan, too? I think it simply because the AFSC/ Quakers almost universally vote Democratic Party. They don’t want the public to ‘reflect on the true costs of the Afghan war’ while most liberal Democratic Party voters continue to support such. And because of that, the Eyes Wide Open has its eyes sewed wide shut regarding Afghanistan. The AFSC, it seems, will have us only reflect on US troops who died in Iraq.

I have not been much of a backer of this top down AFSC bringing of Eyes Wide Open to Denver and Colorado Springs anyway. How top down? I would say that the main impetus for bringing this exibition to Colorado came from outside the state, and not from within. Discussion was very limited and completely shut off once the honchos had their thing going.

PLUS,this fetishist AFSC focus on the boots of US GIs is a reflection of the constant US nationalist fetishism that focuses on ‘supporting our troops’. They are not OUR troops and we should not be just focusing on the dead GIs’ boots and tags while relegating to the minimalist side the consideration of the deaths of the victims of these US troops. These troops were paid for by our taxes stolen and misused by the government, but they are not my troops. Nor yours, for that matter. So why do we memorialize them as if they were something so very much more special than their victims? Why, AFSC?

And this controlling top down organizing by the Quakers has me peeved. Who do they think they are to try to limit other points of view other than their own pacifist ones at these Fall antiwar events? If the Afghans and Iraqis try to kick the US out of their countries using armed force, then so be it. One gets a little tired of the constant US pacifist Christian messaging, pontificating to other people to non-violently resist their own US government’s violence. These sanctimonious people would have had the Jews of the Warsaw ghetto turning the other cheek to the Nazis even! Defintiely, nobody should feel obligated to not bring their own materials and posters to Eyes Wide Open just because the AFSC tells them not to. They have some damn nerve trying to censor off views other than those parallel with their own. Yes they do.

As an atheist, I will help set up this nominally antiwar exhibit. At least, it will be seen by the press as such. But we sure need a more secular antiwar movement in the future, with the ability to reach out to more than just the liberal church goers. The thing about liberal Christian pacifists, is that they demand that others not just reject the US warmaking but that they do it only for the same reasons that liberal pacifists do. They keep the antiwar movement small, by excluding the majority of people that actually might want to oppose US militarism for reasons other than religiosity.

Anyway, I remember the 279 US troops who have lost their lives in Afghanista. And what’s more, I remember the country of Afghanistan we have torn to shreds. Reflect on that, AFSC.

Iran will be next target and why does America’s Left continue to sleep?

Posted on by
Reply

Are we all asleep? The Bush Administration is planning to bomb Iran, and yet there is no effort to stop this. What in God’s name does it take to wake up an American Left? Let’s face it, most liberals have their thumbs stuck up their asses and their only plan is to just keep voting for the offal that runs under the Democratic Party banner, go to church, and pray. The Democratic Party supports Bush’s plans to attack Iran, therefore all the liberals once again have fallen into a trance behind their corporate misleadership on the question of stopping an attack on yet another country. It’s like Iran doesn’t even exist on their radar screens. Meanwhile, there are reports that the Pentagon is already moving into action once again.

Instead of moving with the times, the Colorado ‘peace movement’ contemplates its own navel this week. Are we to be out there mobilizing opposition to the planned bombing campaign against Iran? No, instead something called ‘Eyes Wide Open’ moves across the state this week. It involves a bunch of boots, and people both for the Iraq war and against it are encouraged to stare at these boots and what….? they will be encouraged to ‘reflect on the true cost of the Iraq war’! What a pile of crap! People should be encouraged to PROTEST the damn thing, but the good liberal church folk who come up with this sort of pseudo event impede the very organization of real protest events against the Pentagon, and substitute silliness instead. What next, an inaction to get us to ‘contemplate’ the evils of torture, instead of protesting the newly legalized and open use of it? Hey! Some people might not know that it hurts, I guess?

So what we have is a sleepy, milktoast American Left led by nuns, Quakers, and the Clintons and the Gores amongst us. Iran lookout! We can only ‘reflect’ here after you have been strafed, not before. Not all American Christians support Bush though. Some wait till he’s been bad, and then go ‘tsk,tsk,tsk’. They’ll be encouraging you to non-violently resist the new generation atomic weaponry their country’s military forces will be using on you. And they will be encouraging multi-faith reunions with any moderate Muslim clerics available, if not taken out already by Christian soldiers ahead of time. Let’s hold hands and pray together now. We will light the candles for you, as the troops put out your’s.

Wouldn’t it just be nice to actually have a more secular, and less Democratic Party controlled ‘peace movement’? Hey, let’s rename it an antiwar movement, too, while we’re at it. How about…whisper, whisper, whisper…. naming it ‘The Movement to Stop the US Military and to Dismantle the Damn Thing? 100%’. Take the idea to your church and/or atheist group. The idea is to protest a coming attack on another people ahead of time, and not just sit around with thumbs up the bum.

Here’s the response of the Christian pacifist to such a proposal as to confront head on the Right Wing militarist. whine…..”Oh, that’s not reaching out to others. They can change.”

To the Iranian Muslim, I apologize for the stupidity of the liberal Christians of America. They’re ready to turn their cheeks, even as you get yours slapped. Instead of an actual movement against the constant war, they just want a movement of the prayerful. They will get around to ‘defending’ you eventually. But first, you have to be crucified. Please don’t respond with a gun. They’ll be ‘reflecting’ on your behalf.