A Diary From a Year Ago

I wrote this diary on October 20, 2005 on another blog. I've been wrestling with the same emotions ever since....

*YOU DON'T SUPPORT THE TROOPS*

This is really starting to hurt my soul lately.

I don't have a magnet or sticker on my car. I've been called names that would make you sick. I live in the Redneck part of a Blue State between "Bumfuck" and "You've Got a Purdy Mawf", California.

I've had some rather hairy scary encounters with some of these people who are going totally postal. Here's a snippet of another type of postal encounters.
Each morning I pin up another Whispering Campaign notice and as well as another "Bring Them Home Now" postcard on the USPS bulletin board that I received from Veterans For Peace at the UFPJ concert.

The gentlemen there treated me like I was a queen and gave me a stack of cards 2 or 3 inches thick that I carried all the way home to California. (Me meeting a new life-long friend, Jim Staro of VFP)

After some rather harrowing experiences with the Deliverance people around my county lately, most of which have never served a day in their life let alone served a hungry person a bowl of soup... I wasn't sure how a reunion would be with a certain young man I had watched grow up.

My young friend has been in Iraq since he turned 18. He spent 3 tours there. I was sure he had heard I had marched. I was sure he was told what a horrible person I am for not supporting Bush. I wasn't too sure if he would still like me. I wasn't sure of what I would or could say to him if we ever met.

As fate would have it... this is how we reunited.

Turns out I didn't have to say anything to him he had come up behind me as I was pinning yet another "Bring Them Home Now card on the board. Our eyes met. He just came up to me and hugged me. Then he cried. He came home after risking his life to find most of his friends and family hadn't even bothered to VOTE. He cried and said over and over again, "they don't care".

I've had people scream at me, call me names, try to rip flags from me... holding a Marine in my arms as we reassured each other and reunited... was almost like being in DC again. It was a "Welcome Home" for both of us to each other.

"If you don't support the War President you don't support the troops." What a complete crock of a mind fuck that is on American Citizens.

I dare anyone to say that the young man above doesn't support the troops. He was at the DC March. Along with hundreds of thousands of others who were there because they do support the troops. I dare anyone to say that Veterans For Peace, Iraq Veterans Against the War, Military Families Speak Out, CodePink etc etc - do not support the troops. If one believes that then they are a blind fool.

Supporting the troops has NOTHING to do with one's dissent of this piece of shit President or fucked up Administration. In fact, if one actually did support the troops they'd be demanding answers from this government.

It's not just politics. It's also about HUMANITY.

I was asked at Camp Casey DC if I had lost anyone probably because I couldn't quit the flow of tears as I walked along the white crosses. I started to say no. Another man corrected me and said that we ALL lost them. That all those Soldiers and Marines are OURS. THEY ALL ARE OURS.

Time Warp.... to another morning...

I got my friend in touch with Iraq Veterans Against the War just now.... I hope he can find some peace and support there...

Drove over to the Post Office and found that my young friend was waiting for me there. He didn't have my phone number and figured that I'd show up at some point. This struck me hard -- he was just waiting.

He had some pictures he asked if he could show me. Some were of where some of his pals had spent their last minutes. He said that at the time he thought their loved ones might want to know where they had died and so went back and took photographs of the areas.... but that he can't ever give them up or doubts anyone will want to see them.

He said that in the short time he's been home he's never felt "so far away". No one wants to talk to him about anything. Just me and his Dad but says he's worried about freaking out his Dad all the time. Gave him my number and said he could call anytime.

I mainly just listened. There were times when I was even able to make him smile a bit. I hope I did alright.

*I see a kid of barely 21 and he now looks like an old man when he tries to smile.*

No Apologies

It seems that everyone is being excused and pardoned while so many others are gearing up for the real work to be done. Nothing has been "won". Nothing has been achieved. The killing is still going on. The evaporation of our rights to even be continues.

I have so much to say, share and show simply because nothing is over yet.

Lt. Ehren Watada still needs help. Iraqi children are still being orphaned or trying to pull what limbs they can of their former classmates out of the rubble.

Since I can't preface every diary or post of mine with "Grieving Military Loved One" or "Military Spouse/Sibling etc etc"... in order for my thoughts, opinions or work to end killing, murders, starvation, WAR to matter or count...

and since I have spent so much time and energy and put my ass on the line to promote IMPEACHMENT of WAR CRIMIALS and to support WAR RESISTORS...

and since I don't slap everyone with the label of IGNORANT or UNAMERICAN...

at this time, the only place I can now post or share is at MLW and these few personal blogs. Please know this decision was not a rash one.

There's just too much work that is being done by people I know, work with and support and apparently it goes against everything the green place I called "home" is now about.

It's a horrible sadness for me to leave there... but war is more horrible and allowing war criminals to go unaccounted for and to praise people simply because they lash out... with anger, hatred, fear and violence.

It's the same mentality I hear out on the streets and from Right Wingers: That since I'm not IN the military or have a loved one IN Iraq (which I have and still do but I don't use it as a ready-made excuse to undercut anyone else) that I shouldn't hold an opinion or even be out protesting.

The only way for me to ward off the crazy nuts due to my CodePink bumpersticker was to add another bumpersticker.



Somehow by adding the Veterans For Peace sticker (a signal of our military history/service) this made it "tolerable" for an American Woman to dissent against death, destruction and dictators without the continuous threats to her personal safety upon returning to her car after shopping or picking up her kids from school. I believe that says a ton for how this society still [doesn't] work.

People and friends have always told me to be careful and to conserve my energy for the battles I need to fight. Defending diaries is pointless to me. Defending War Resistors and insisting on Impeachment of this bloody Regime which has taken our rights and caused so much blood to flow... that is what's important.

Realizing that the safety of others is still in jeopardy due to this Regime and the apathy of so many when it comes to our Constitutional... hell our HUMAN rights... I see now that there isn't "Safety in Numbers". For me, the only safety I have is trying to remain focused.

War is wrong. I will not apologize for that idea.
War never solves anything. I will not apologize for that idea.
War is a waste of human lives and decency.

I will do everything I can to stop wars and killing.
And for that I do not apologize.

Yes, we're going to meet more resistance. Especially since so many feel that "we've won", "everything is peachy" and that "impeachment would be worthless".

I am ready to be arrested, injured - and for that I don't expect anyone to apologize.

After the Giddiness Subsides Dept.

*Things to not forget when the partying quiets down:*

The VFP 72 (BOHICA's baby) constructed and maintains Peace Park in Portland, Oregon. The largest park for Peace in America.

1. Bob Gates is a crook, a liar, major scumbag who was at the very center of Iran Contra and Arms for Hostages. He cannot be rubber stamped by the outgoing lame duck Fascist-dominated Congress.

2. Donald Rumsfeld is a war criminal and should not be allowed to escape prosecution. There are legal moves being made right now in Germany to officially declare him, as Henry Kissinger was, an international war criminal subject to arrest and detention in many countries. There are documents available which identify Rumsfeld as directly running extreme Gitmo tortures and illegal extradition for the purposes of torture of a number detainees--in direct violation of the Geneva Conventions, to which we are signators. This man deserves to hang just like Saddam.

3. We still have on the books un-Constitutional laws which illegally retroactively indemnify the Bush war crime family from any prosecution from their heinous acts against Humanity. This would be like OJ passing a retroactive law making it ok for a Black man to kill 2 White people as long as he was only using sharp objects.

4. The United States currently has abandoned the rule of Habeas Corpus. This must be reinstated immediately.

5. We have legalized extradition of American citizens for the purposes of torture. This must end.

6. We have legalized torture and all manner of violations of the Geneva Conventions. This must end.

7. We have legalized un-Constitutional violations of privacy against Americans. This must end immediately.

8. Every Federal department and agency has been jam packed with corrupt corporate shills selling off our land, the very air we breathe, our water, our seas and our birthright to voracious multinational conglomerates. They harass broadcasters to kowtow to the hysterical whims of radical Religious nuts. Freedom of Speech has disappeared. The FDA is approving dangerous drugs with little or no oversight, and blocking safe drugs which violate the superstitious fantasies of radical religious lunatics. This too must end.

9. Science is under attack at all levels in America by religious fanatics with a huge sway over corrupt politicians. This too must end.

10. The Middle Class is under attack on all fronts by policies forged by elitist neocons which have long since run away and hid and disavowed their original policy input. Thus we have a kind of political V-Ger which lives on past its shelf life continuing to destroy without thought or reason.

11. The massive corruption in Washington can only be stopped by public campaign financing, and strict limits on spending.

It's exactly to the degree that the Democrats answer to these issues and many more over the next two years that our present exhilaration will be vindicated. As Han Solo said...

"Don't get cocky, kid!"

In fact, if 2 years from today we can point to ONE of the above getting crossed off the list, it'll be a $&%^%$#@ miracle. We only have a better class of politicians in place now, kind of like getting mugged by a better class of mugger. These guys will thank us for the nice watch.

--------------------

No nation can preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare. -- James Madison, 1795

Full credit to my dear friend and hockey pal, Ken Melville. Photographs I've taken from along the way of a very strange year and a half.

I'd like to add:

Bring our Troops home NOW and get our War Resisters out of jail... NOW!