Code Pink Journals CodePINK Journals

Work 4 Peace,Hold All Life Sacred,Eliminate Violence! I am on my mobile version of the door-to-door, going town-to-town holding readings/gatherings/discussions of my book "But What Can I Do?" This is my often neglected blog mostly about my travels since 9/11 as I engage in dialogue and actions. It is steaming with my opinions, insights, analyses toward that end of holding all life sacred, dismantling the empire and eliminating violence while creating the society we want ALL to thrive in

Sunday, October 09, 2011

Such little consciousness

I am terribly disappointed to witness such low levels of consciousness here at Freedom Plaza - we are focused on fighting for the right to occupy, so, as usual in the white supremest/patriarchal scheme of things, other 'issues' as womyn's voices are stifled let alone people of color's voice, smokers believing it is their god-given right to smoke wherever they walk or sit, be it in the food tent, at a meeting, among the tents! grrrrr

As the masses of people who were on the 6th have dwindled - especially womyn leaving - the unconsciousness becomes more blatant. Today I approached the mike, 9th on stack of all males & me! I was beckoned by the note taker who whispers to me to keep it short.

Keep it short!@#!@$@# An old white male vet followed me - no one approached him, or any of the other men - and he rambled on at least twice as long as I spoke.

If things were fair, white womyn would be allotted twice as long as to speak as men, and black womyn thirty times longer.

vets, military families, and peace activists

Why do vets, who have chosen to pick up guns and shoot people, be the pawns in the killing, harming, raping, destroying of countries and individuals, been trained as killers even if they are among the rare today in the military who never actually killed - why is their word, their voice so much more valued and valuable then the people who have refused to pick up guns, refuse to be pawns, refuse to hurt others?

And why are women some of their most ardent worshipers and enablers?

How can we say we love the bullets but hate the gun? It is crazy.

I do not love soldiers, veterans, or any part or parcel of the military industrial complex. I feel for especially those soldiers whose choices really are so limited, the military is the only "choice": as people who are threatened with jail or military.

I even feel for those who have thoroughly convinced themselves that indeed, being trained to kill, as distasteful as it might later seem, was really, really, really their only choice in life and not just easier and more convenient then doing whatever it takes to figure out how to survive without making this horrific, immoral 'choice'.

My heart also goes out to those youth whose idealism, nationalism, and machismo desires to bound about the earth fighting for his country are savagely exploited by the powerful, manipulative military industrial complex.

And at the same time, unlike christians who blame/credit their god, I believe everyone must be held accountable for his or her own behavior and actions.

I remain defining the job of a soldier as the ones who advance and protect U.S. corporate power and rule around the world and especially in those countries we are attacking and occupying. I will always abhor the job that soldiers decide & are trained to do.

I do NOT support men going off and killing, raping, torturing people for any reason.