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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

Thursday, April 20, 2017

Mass migration of soldiers....

As I drive west on I40 through gorgeous New Mexico, I'm filled with such love and emotion inspired from the reds and browns and greens of the mountains, the blacks of the cloud shadows and the ancient lava weaving across the land, the buzzards and ravens and kestrels joyfully soaring on wild winds. I settle in content to listen to my book, absorb the magnificent landscape, and wave happily to the enthusiastic drivers who pass me, honking or hanging out passenger windows or just smiling and motioning thumbs up.

I see 4 or 5 large buses pulled off to the shoulder so I move over to the fast lane to give them space, as I always do. To my horror, I witness hundreds of identical soldiers pouring out of the buses onto the land beyond the shoulder. There are so many of them, they turn the red rocks a putrid green.

I'm sick. Where are they being taken to? How many of the people that I passed or even spoke with in the tiny towns across the country have turned their sons over to kill for the fascists that are blatantly running our country? What do these young men know about compassion and walking a mile in someone else's shoes? When, if not already, will they turn over their final speck of morality and become the killing machines for our empire?

I lean on my horn the way angry truckers do to me and give them the thumbs down. Some of them are facing me, others are milling around like the cows awaiting their cross-country railroad trip alongside the Texas freeway.

My heart clenches, wondering if they even know how to spell Korea or Somalia or wherever they are on their way to.

Several miles later, I pull into a beautiful Arizona rest stop and see that several large buses are idling there with the trucks. And dozens of soldiers are congregated around the doors. I lean out and try to yell "RESIST" "RESIST", that I think comes out as a squeak in this vast land. But all the soldiers turn in unison toward my truck and they all edge forward, their initial smiles turning into gaping stares as I repeat "RESIST" "RESIST".

I drive around to the car side, park quickly, hop out and see a few straggling soldiers leaving the bathrooms, climbing over the rocks and rugged terrain of the rest stop, heading toward the buses. I rush after them but can't catch up. I want to ask them, not yell at them, who they are getting ready to kill? Whose mother or son or brother will they decide to murder? But the all disappear as quickly as a retreating tide, leaving no footprint.

I feel like falling on my knees and weeping, knowing so much more clearly what their future has in store then they do. And our future, my future, the Mother Earth, and the future of all the unarmed and barely armed humans on this earth who will bravely try to fight for justice, for freedom, for peace.


White male coward


YMCA's have been added to my very short list about what is wonderful about the u.s. along with libraries and national parks. I've been able to work out daily in almost every city I've been in, which is crucial when spending hours driving.

I exit the Y this morning, feeling jazzed and so ready to leave the south and mid-west way behind and enter the great majesty of the southwest!

I enter the tail end of rush hour traffic as I head south on I25 to connect with I40 west. A couple miles before the ramp, a white pickup truck has slowed way down in front of me, like to almost 30 miles an hour.

As I cautiously edge around him, an older white man glowers out his window, glasses slipping down his nose in concert with a sky blue cap sliding over his right ear, and gives me the finger. 

The finger. He has slowed down on a 75mph freeway to tell me fuck you and make sure I see it. Okay.

Of course, he speeds up as I begin pass him and I give him my standard "what?" with both hands palms up and off the steering wheel. He slows down with me, attempting to make it impossible for me to pass or follow him.

I motion for him to pull over then as I continue to ask him WHAT??? He points to the shoulder and starts pulling over, like I’m going to stop on the side of the highway with cars speeding by.

I pass his new white pickup, emergency blinkers on, fuck you finger still up accompanied by thin pale lips mouthing fuck you.

I indicate the exit which is .5 miles away and watch him pull in behind me. There’s a gas station to the right directly off the exit. I pull into the station and the fucker drives right by and disappears down a side street.

What a fuckin coward. See? These men are bullies and cowards. They can’t have a face-to-face conversation.