The WILL to END WAR NOW??? to be continued

Do we have the will to end war now?

To answer that question as a nation, we have to answer it as individuals.

For it is the individuals that will have to step forward before the nation can move.

There is a 'bit' of 2-part warmongering propaganda that ends up being embraced and perpetuated by the anti-war movement that I will no longer tolerate, even in little alluded to snippets: "they don't listen to us, we worked so hard and nothing worked".

The propaganda is two fold: 1)nothing we do works; and 2)we've worked so hard.

First of all, EVERYTHING we do counts, no matter how big or how small. EVERYTHING we do matters. We cannot even begin to see the entire big picture revealing the influence of our hard work and we may never know exactly how much what we did influenced the direction of war mongers and peace, but we KNOW we did have such influence.

How DARE anyone say what we did didn't work? Maybe the things we did didn't work to end war NOW but it worked in a multitude of other ways that I do not have room or time to go into all here.

But for starters, one of the most important things we did is show the rest of the world not EVERYONE in this country are crazed, war-mongering, greedy, violent U.S.A. creatures. And we were able to meet and work with some of the most compassionate, passionate, loving, fierce womyn who are alive here today.

Maybe those who swallow this part of the propaganda are not mothers or have forgotten certain parenting skills. Who stops telling their children to clean their rooms just because the kid might be making a mess? Who neglects to tell their child to be kind just because he might be attempting to whack his sister at the moment?

We invest in what we believe in. The amount of energy we invest in something is equivalent to the degree of impact we have on that something. And the results of that investment do not necessarily appear overnight.

I understand. We wanted to prevent war and then we wanted to end war. Neither of those things happened, which adds fuel to that part of the propaganda that claims what we do doesn't work, has no influence, isn't heard.

Which brings me to the second part of the war propaganda: we've worked so hard.

Take out a piece of paper and a pencil. Choose a period time. This past week. The month of June, 2005. 24 hours in your life.

Write down how much time you personally spent during that time period doing the things you do that are important to you: how much time you spent sleeping; how much time you spent working for money; how much time you spent reading; how much time you spent talking; how much time you spent riding in the car.

And then figure out during the same time frame how much time you spent working to end war.

I think if we are all honest with ourselves and viewing our lives, we will find that we spend, what .0005% of our time working to end war? We certainly don't spend 50% of our time or even 10% of our time working to end war.

And we will need to spend MORE TIME working to END WAR! Maybe it will take 100% of our time to END WAR! Certainly the smaller number of individuals working, the more work from each is required. If even 10 per cent of the u.s.a. people were willing to work 10% of their time to end war, well, you get the picture. The more people willing to work, the less each individual has to do.

So we must ask ourselves how hard have we really worked to end war? Or better yet, how hard am I willing to work now to end war?

I believe the next three months will be the most critical time of our lives in this country and our opportunity to END WAR NOW!

We are at a turning point. We have a new president. We have a new president who is wanting to escalate war against Afghanistan (again) and Pakistan. He will be asking Congress for the money to do this sometime in the next three months, most likely February but March at the latest.

We have a Speaker of the House that has publicly said she will not lobby for those funds for an unpopular and unwanted war. We have a Congresswoman, Barbara Lee, who has a bill blocking any funding for military escalation against Afghanistan. We have Congressman, Dennis Kuccinich, who has another bill calling for the immediate withdrawal of U.S. military.

We have Cindy Sheehan and Peace of the Action calling for us to come to D.C. in March and STAY THERE until we END WAR FUNDING.

I know we want to point the finger at everyone and every thing else that both perpetuates and could end war: some find it comforting to believe it is up to Congress to end war; some that it is up to the soldiers to refuse to fight; still others it is up to war mongers to cut their profits and refuse to make the weapons.

Many believe it is up to the tax payer to stop providing the taxes.

But most of us who want to believe in the war propaganda that what we do doesn't work - may want to believe this because then we can give ourselves permission to NOT do anything, but to continue with our own personal lives, our own personal goals, our own personal life styles.

And most of us who want to believe it is up to others to end war may want to believe this also so we are the ones who do not have to be responsible.

The only looking around we should be doing is in our own mirror. WE are the only ones there are to END WAR. It is up to us, unfortunately, sadly, tragically but true.

I say let us spend the next THREE months of our lives putting in 100% plus to END WAR!

Join our Sunrise (RE)Commitment Ceremony at Ocean Beach Jan 1 or hold your own. It is only for the next three months of your life. What could you possibly have to do that is more important than working to END WAR NOW? There is never a good time and there never will be a good time to END WAR - except NOW!