In Praise of Kevin Benderman

Hi there. Remember me? I've been busy. I've been doing the usual mom/wife/employee stuff, CodePink SD has been active, and I started a class. Whew. I get tired just writing it down here. This morning I've been working in the yard, but it's hot so I'm taking a break.

Last weekend the CPer's passed out flyers about the Downing Street minutes in downtown, and on Sunday they walked down the boardwalk at the beach doing the same. I didn't join them Sunday. I wanted a day off. But I posted messages about it at afterdowningstreet.org and at Activist SD, and we had several new people show up. The downtown crowd was not particularly friendly, but the beach people were more mixed. I've been thinking alot about where we should hold our events and actions, and have pretty much decided that we really need to focus on areas where people will be more aligned with either our ideas or respect our right to be out in public expressing them. It does no one any good if we're just spending our time being confronted by angry people. We're not going to change their minds, they're not going to change ours, and it's not a productive use of time and energy. We need to be where we can garner support from people who lean toward or agree with our goals. I'd rather approach this a little differently than we have been doing the last couple months.

Personally, I think we need to become a visible and active community oriented peace/social justice organization. I think if we work within those communities and support other like-minded organizations, they will in turn support us. Then we can take our projects and our flyers and our petitions (etc) into those communities and hopefully they can support our goals in return.

Which was small part of the reason for my idea for us to join the LGBT pride parade yesterday. We asked the Coalition for Peace and Justice if we could join them, and they said the more the merrier (gayer?), so we marched with them. We aren't a large group, but we're very pink so people remember us. It was a lot of fun. Interesting dynamics in these coalitions though. There's a whole bunch of smart people with strong opinions, and it's made me do a lot of thinking about how diverse groups can work together effectively. More on that another day.

I have a question.

Now that the Patriot Act has been extended, is the 4th Amendment going to be stripped out of the constitution? Is it going to skip from 3 to 5. Do you think anyone will notice. Some of those school aged kids are pretty sharp. They might notice something is missing when they're taking their civics classes.

....three? ....five? uh...teacher? I have a question. Didn't there used to be a four in between three and five? Does this mean the terrorists won?

From the NY Times: "For at least a year before the nomination of Judge John G. Roberts to the Supreme Court, the White House was working behind the scenes to shore up support for him among its social conservative allies, quietly reassuring them that he was a good bet for their side in cases about abortion, same-sex marriage and public support for religion."

Yesterday I told my husband that between the facts of the war in Iraq and the SC nominations, the worst of my initial worries about Bush have all come true. There's more of course, but those were two biggies.

I think that's why I've not had much to say....all I really want to say is noooooooooooooo!!!!!!!

Anyway, I'm still busy doing my thing. This weekend is the 3rd anniversary of the "Downing Street minutes" and CodePink is working in conjunction with afterdowningstreet.org

The goal is to bring attention to the minutes/memo because the corporate media hasn't bothered much with the story. I guess they were too busy with Michael Jackson's trial when it came to light. We have a couple things planned for the weekend. I'll report back later!

So I've been painting signs, and sending emails, and copying flyers and writing and publicizing and and and....

Naomi Klein on Haiti: It was only 10 years ago that President Clinton celebrated Aristide's return to power as "the triumph of freedom over fear". So it seems worth asking: what changed?

"Privitisation, privitisation, privitization..."

Personally, I'm getting sick and tired of this fetishization (is that a word?) of the "free market". AFAIC, that's what has us in this mess in Iraq. This administration doesn't want the world safe for democracy. They want it to be safe for business. I don't believe they really give a rat's patootie for freedom, liberty, justice, democracy, etc. They're just true believers performing their ritual sacrifices at the alter of capitalism.

I've not had much to say because I've been busy trying to overcome a wee little bout of hopelessness and cynicism. I'm sure I'll be back to my regularly scheduled bitching pretty soon.

Making a difference, joyfully

I ran across this article by Isabel Losada on Alternet, and followed it to her website. Sweeeeeet. It's good to be reminded once in a while that there really are some gentle and peaceful souls on this earth.

A few thoughts on a terrible day, by Josh Marshall at TPM.

He also reprinted the statement made today by Ken Livingstone, the Mayor of London. Well said.

Mostly, I'm speechless, which is bad news in a blog. I just can't fathom the depth of that kind of hate and indifference to human life.

Rats. I had a post here from Sunday and I saw a typo so I was going to fix it but Blogger tells me the post doesn't exist. I see it! It does exist!

Well, it did exist. I republished the blog and poof....it's really gone now.

Sigh...oh well....I was going on at length about our CodePink rally on Sunday and how nifty it was this time. Blaring horns galore. Lots of positive feed back. A good sized group. People who stopped to talk who didn't chew us out. There was the usual woman hanging out the passenger window berating us as she passed, but that's expected. Not the same woman, but for some reason it's always a women. Men usually stick to flipping us off or telling us to go to Iraq. Anyway....it was great and glorious.

Kinda like my missing post...sniff.