Senate Votes with This Insane Administration

$165 Billion with no strings attached for two wars which the American people want no part of.
Now we might as well give up on the Senate as well as the administration. Tell your Senator you're sick of not being heard. Go to www.fcnl.org

Find your senators and tell them how you feel. I sent messages to both of my senators, one Democrat and one Republican who both voted in favor!! There is still a little hope for the House vote. You might want to check out the green party presidential candidate. She sounds pretty amazing. :http://www.runcynthiarun.org/

A Plan...Here's Something We Can Do..Watch Video Ezra

The Article I wrote earlier today has me searching for ways to help. I had the privilege of attending one of the global simultaneous showings of gorgeous films on Pangea Day, May 10th. You can view the film Ezra about child soldiers by clicking on the title to this article. There you will also find a link to Plan USA, a wonderful organization working with kids in distress around the world. I'm looking into all of the options they offer.

One of the ways is to get youth in your own community involved in helping other kids. In a way that is working from both angles. It's hard to stay vulnerable to the idea of killing people in war if you are connected to them in some way.http://www.planusa.org
Instead of military recruiters in our schools we can have programs that give meaning to our children's lives. Please post any other ideas find.

Putting 2&2 Together For Children Caught in War What Kind of Monster Have We Become

This country, The U.S.A. is at the top of the abuse of Children related to WAR. According to a recent ACLU report, "The United States is failing to protect its own youth from abusive military recruitment, and is simultaneously failing to protect the youth of other countries who have already been forcibly involved in armed conflict," said Jamil Dakwar, Director of the ACLU Human Rights Program. "The United States should take immediate action to bring its policies and practices on military recruitment and treatment of former child soldiers in line with internationally accepted standards."

Another report from Human Rights Watch, has as its headline:

US: Respect Rights of Child Detainees in Iraq
Children in US Custody Held Without Due Process

This report includes the following information about U.S. treatment and detention of children.

On May 22, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child will meet in Geneva to review US compliance with the Optional Protocol on children in armed conflict, which the US ratified in 2002. The treaty bans the recruitment and use of persons under 18 in hostilities by any party to a conflict, and requires states to provide all appropriate assistance for the physical and psychological recovery and social reintegration of such children under their jurisdiction or control.

Since 2003, the US has detained some 2,400 children in Iraq, including children as young as 10. Detention rates rose drastically in 2007 to an average of 100 new children a month from 25 a month in 2006.

"The vast majority of children detained in Iraq languish for months in US military custody. The US should provide these children with immediate access to lawyers and an independent judicial review of their detention," said Clarisa Bencomo, Middle East children’s researcher at Human Rights Watch.

Democracy Now, comments on the report. "The American Civil Liberties Union has accused the Bush administration of holding the youths in violation of international standards. The US has joined Somalia as the only states to refuse to ratify the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child. Around 2,500 youths have been jailed in US prisons in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo since 2002."


There is an overwhelming link between the military's recruitment policies and it's treatment of children in detention. There is a huge problem that demands a revolution in thinking from the top down. Is there hope for change?

Another article on Common Dreams stated that Congress had invited Murat Kurnaz, an ex-Guantanamo prisoner to testify via satellite. Only about 6 members showed up.The first to speak after Kurnaz was finished was ranking member on the committee, Republican Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, who expressed doubts about the testimony and recalled that the United States was “at war” and needed to protect itself even at the price of making some errors. This comment brings me so much shame after causing 5 years of suffering to an innocent man. What kind of monsters have we become?

Troops/Earthquakes /Cyclones & Revolution

I'm always amazed that we can continue send soldiers to a tiny country to kill people in a war that almost no one supports, while outrageous human and earth disasters go almost unattended. The money, the human effort, all thrown down an enormous black hole that causes wounds so deep we will need unknown medicine to heal them.

Spies are being created by the thousands while children may die in the thousands because a few cruel men refuse to allow them to be helped, and the monster Bush keeps the aid at bay by continuing to aggravate the military monsters of Burma.

We don't want any of this any more. The ordinary people of the world are fed up. We are tired of lives that have no meaning. We are up to our necks in horror paid for from our labor. We are over destroying the earth that sustains us. We are ready for goodness, kindness, hope, peace, and some for all, not most of it for a few.

We want revolution in our thoughts, what we allow, what we buy, and how we live. Got any ideas? Let's use this amazing wealth of creativity born in us for our own lives and the lives of each other and our children, not to increase the wealth of a few obscenely wealthy few who think they own the world.

The Sound of Life

I'm starting a new "Writing for Life," class in a few days, so am preparing. Sound is my first thought. Kids love the sound of language, whether their own invented speech or whatever native language their community speaks. We have rhythm like music when we write or speak or maybe we can't hear ourselves, so we loose our the sense of the sound of our words.

I'm taking some of my more recent writing and reading it out loud to myself, loudly! Which reminds me of how we have taken to being so silent in our current American culture. We do not hear ourselves yell or sing or just speak truth. During Nazi occupation of many parts of Europe, silence was required for survival. There was a saying about that time that was taken by the gay community as this part of our population tried to exist. Death was sometimes the consequence of "coming out." The saying was, "Silence is Death."

If we are to maintain life, we must not be silent. We need to gather with each other and speak hope into what looks like a hopeless void. We need to give our language in poetry, in articles, in books, in song, in conversation, in speeches, in protests in the street. We need to go together to the meetings of our government and speak, hear the sound of our own bodies, give our sound as a gift to the greater community that is dying from our silences.

Speak to friends, speak to power, but for god's sake and ours, SPEAK!