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Not much more to say than this. Thank you Keith Olbermann for being a sane voice in the wilderness.

Body of War

I have been meaning to write an extensive post about the soundtrack for the new movie called Body of War. I doubt I will see it until it is available on DVD. But the soundtrack includes heroes of mine: Eddie Vedder, Ben Harper, Bright Eyes, Neil Young, Tom Waits, John Lennon, and Tori Amos, so buying it was a no brainier.

This is not meant to be an extensive post with philosophical, political, and intellectual arguments against corporate sponsored warfare and American Imperialism. Nor is this post a song-by-song analysis of new artists like Immortal Techniques and Lupe Fiasco who are rapping and singing reggae songs with enough information to teach anyone the true nature of this war.

No. This post is meant to be a quick in-and-out. I have been tired and need rest, but I had to get this post off my chest before I crawl into bed for some much needed rest. I am off to Thailand tomorrow for some time with my family and I needed to post this before I left.

There are two songs that have been haunting me since I bought the album a few weeks ago. I play them over and over as I drive around town, eat my dinner, or as sit and listen to the click clack of these keys. I cry. I get angry. I pound my chest. I shake my head and simply live another day. I am not proud or ashamed of these emotions. They are real and that is enough for me. They remind that there is a criminal war going on a few hundred miles from where I sit in an air conditioned house. I am too exhausted to know what else to do but listen to these songs and cry and write.

So I that is what I do on these lonely afternoons after I spend my time driving in my car listening to these songs; I share them with you. In hopes that if we carry the weight of these crimes together, it will lighten the load and we can bring this war and all wars to an end.

Okay, I can feel this one getting away from me here. The first song is called Hero's Song by a new-comer named Brendan James. I will not say much about it, except that this doesn't appear to be the official video, but I think it goes with the song quite well and says all it should on its own.



Here I am
In the desert again
A compass and a weapon
A lost American

I started out with a simple plan
And a locket in my hand
But the sun is so unforgiving
And the wind so hard to stand

Fall out, fall out
With the rest of your brothers
With the rest of your sisters
Heroes on the line

Carry out what your leader says
For what his leader says
Is that his leader says
This is right for the people

No one will ever understand what
Thousands of beautiful healthy young statues must fall
Smoke and explosions surround me
A flood of hate, it drowns me
I cannot live this way
No I cannot live with
Doubt and confusion
They find me
They run up right behind me
I cannot die this way
No, I cannot die this way

In the water, in the sand
Is the blood of a culture
Is the blood of an ancient people
In whose holy war I stand

I hear the world like a cannon roar
Say I can win this war
I promise them this
Isn't what I signed up for

No one will ever understand what
Thousands of beautiful healthy young statues must fall
Smoke and explosions surround me
A flood of hate, it drowns me
I cannot live this way
No I cannot live
With doubt and confusion
They find me
They run up right behind me
I cannot die this way
No, I cannot die this way

No one will ever understand what
Thousands of beautiful healthy young soldiers must fall

Smoke and explosions surround me
A flood of hate, it drowns me
I cannot live this way
No I cannot live
With doubt and confusion
They find me
They run up right behind me
I cannot die this way
No, I will not die this way

My only qualm about the video is that it only shows the war from the side of the American soldier, but let's be honest, American sympathy for the victims of their adventures has never stopped the wars. It is always seeing "our" boys dying that brings them home. Either way, whatever works right? This CD is teaching me to have compassion for the soldiers themselves. They are simply ignorant of what is going on. I wish every soldier in Iraq would listen to this CD and talk about it before they signed up, or once there. They would be back home sooner than we think.

The second song I have to share is called No More by my two favorite artists out right now: Eddie Vedder and Ben Harper. It was penned by Vedder and I saw it performed this summer in Chicago and Lollapolooza. There are several versions on youtube. This may not be the best one; deal with it.



Here are the lyrics:

No More War

I speak for a man who gave for this land
Took a bullet in the back for his pay
Spilled his blood in the dirt and the dust
He's back to say:

What he has seen is hard to believe
And it does no good to just pray
He asks of us to stand
And we must end this war today

With his mind, he's saying, "No more!"
With his heart, he's saying, "No more!"
With his life he's saying, "No more war!"

With his eyes, he's saying, "No more!"
With his body, he's saying, "No more!"
With his voice, he's saying, "No more war!"

Yeah, nothing's too good for a veteran
Yeah, this is what they say
So nothing is what they will get
And there's no American way

The lies we were told to get us to go
Were criminal... let us be straight
Let's get to the point where our voices get heard
And I know what I'll say

With his mind, he's saying, "No more!"
With his heart, he's saying, "No more!"
With his life he's saying, "No more war!"

With his eyes, he's saying, "No more!"
With his voice, he's saying, "No more!"
With his body, he's saying, "No more war!"

No more innocents dying
No more terrorizing
No more eulogizing
No more evangelizing
No more presidents lying
No more war

With our minds, we're saying, "No more!"
With our hearts, we're saying, "No more!"
With our lives, we're saying, "No more war!"

It can't be any more simple than that. No matter where you stand politically we must simply say No More War! Readers of this blog know, that I understand things will never be that simple so please stay tuned for a song-by-song breakdown, with full commentary, coming soon. I actually would like to make a podcast. Anyone want to join me just leave a comment. We will be in touch. In the meantime, get the CD and prep yourself, maybe you can join me on Skype and we can talk about it together. The technological revolution has arrived, when will it lead to the one that changes the world?

Can people handle a three-Youtube-clip blog post, a CD and a book recommendation? I hope so; The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein is a MUST read book to accompany your journey. Here is the preview for that:



I have a very long blog post about that book brewing in my crowded head, but now is not the time. These suggestions should keep you busy for a while. This was meant to be a quick in and out blog post. BE WARNED! Content may force you to think, feel, and act to stop war, and once you know the facts it is hard to live without doing something about them. Even if all you do is sit and cry at a red light in your hometown, wherever that may be.....

Bring Peace With Justice To A Country That Wants Neither

I have spent the last fifteen minutes stalling and messing around on the Internet, contemplating what the point is of writing a post about Cindy Sheenan quitting the anti-war movement. I also wanted to link to an amusing article about how the US ranks 96th out of 122 nations in some new peace index. Iran by the way is 97th. It is a happy day for all peace loving Iranian Americans! Israel at 119 was also a telling spot.

I am tired of writing about myself, so this seemed like a nice distraction, but it might be best to simply shut down this machine and crawl into bed with a book. I was very saddened his morning as I read Cindy Sheenan’s farewell post. It is a sad day indeed in American politics, but perhaps it will act as a wake up call. I have been saying for years that until the left ditches the Democratic Party, we will not get anywhere. At least she saw it now; perhaps her frustration will spread and more people will abandon the Democratic Party and begin to demand change from our failing government in the form of Independent Parties. I hope all those Nader bashers are mobilizing for some third party action in 2008, because Nancy Pelosi ain’t gonna end this war.

In the meantime, I will stay overseas and feel like a total asshole, as I deal with my own petite bourgeois guilt. Here is a must read article over at Adbusters for any other self-righteous jackasses like myself who claim they are looking out for the working man and the oppressed, as we gallivant around the globe on leisurely vacations with good paying jobs. More on this guilt complex and my thoughts on middle class, intellectual socialism soon; I hope. It all depends on if I can muster up enough energy to give a shit.

Here is Sheenen’s speech with my favorite parts highlighted in bold!

I have come to some heartbreaking conclusions this Memorial Day Morning. These are not spur of the moment reflections, but things I have been meditating on for about a year now. The conclusions that I have slowly and very reluctantly come to are very heartbreaking to me.

The first conclusion is that I was the darling of the so-called left as long as I limited my protests to George Bush and the Republican Party. Of course, I was slandered and libeled by the right as a “tool” of the Democratic Party. This label was to marginalize me and my message. How could a woman have an original thought, or be working outside of our “two-party” system?

However, when I started to hold the Democratic Party to the same standards that I held the Republican Party, support for my cause started to erode and the “left” started labeling me with the same slurs that the right used. I guess no one paid attention to me when I said that the issue of peace and people dying for no reason is not a matter of “right or left”, but “right and wrong.”

I am deemed a radical because I believe that partisan politics should be left to the wayside when hundreds of thousands of people are dying for a war based on lies that is supported by Democrats and Republican alike. It amazes me that people who are sharp on the issues and can zero in like a laser beam on lies, misrepresentations, and political expediency when it comes to one party refuse to recognize it in their own party. Blind party loyalty is dangerous whatever side it occurs on. People of the world look on us Americans as jokes because we allow our political leaders so much murderous latitude and if we don’t find alternatives to this corrupt “two” party system our Representative Republic will die and be replaced with what we are rapidly descending into with nary a check or balance: a fascist corporate wasteland. I am demonized because I don’t see party affiliation or nationality when I look at a person, I see that person’s heart. If someone looks, dresses, acts, talks and votes like a Republican, then why do they deserve support just because he/she calls him/herself a Democrat?

I have also reached the conclusion that if I am doing what I am doing because I am an “attention whore” then I really need to be committed. I have invested everything I have into trying to bring peace with justice to a country that wants neither. If an individual wants both, then normally he/she is not willing to do more than walk in a protest march or sit behind his/her computer criticizing others. I have spent every available cent I got from the money a “grateful” country gave me when they killed my son and every penny that I have received in speaking or book fees since then. I have sacrificed a 29 year marriage and have traveled for extended periods of time away from Casey’s brother and sisters and my health has suffered and my hospital bills from last summer (when I almost died) are in collection because I have used all my energy trying to stop this country from slaughtering innocent human beings. I have been called every despicable name that small minds can think of and have had my life threatened many times.

The most devastating conclusion that I reached this morning, however, was that Casey did indeed die for nothing. His precious lifeblood drained out in a country far away from his family who loves him, killed by his own country which is beholden to and run by a war machine that even controls what we think. I have tried every since he died to make his sacrifice meaningful. Casey died for a country which cares more about who will be the next American Idol than how many people will be killed in the next few months while Democrats and Republicans play politics with human lives. It is so painful to me to know that I bought into this system for so many years and Casey paid the price for that allegiance. I failed my boy and that hurts the most.

I have also tried to work within a peace movement that often puts personal egos above peace and human life. This group won’t work with that group; he won’t attend an event if she is going to be there; and why does Cindy Sheehan get all the attention anyway? It is hard to work for peace when the very movement that is named after it has so many divisions.

Our brave young men and women in Iraq have been abandoned there indefinitely by their cowardly leaders who move them around like pawns on a chessboard of destruction and the people of Iraq have been doomed to death and fates worse than death by people worried more about elections than people. However, in five, ten, or fifteen years, our troops will come limping home in another abject defeat and ten or twenty years from then, our children’s children will be seeing their loved ones die for no reason, because their grandparents also bought into this corrupt system. George Bush will never be impeached because if the Democrats dig too deeply, they may unearth a few skeletons in their own graves and the system will perpetuate itself in perpetuity.

I am going to take whatever I have left and go home. I am going to go home and be a mother to my surviving children and try to regain some of what I have lost. I will try to maintain and nurture some very positive relationships that I have found in the journey that I was forced into when Casey died and try to repair some of the ones that have fallen apart since I began this single-minded crusade to try and change a paradigm that is now, I am afraid, carved in immovable, unbendable and rigidly mendacious marble.

Camp Casey has served its purpose. It’s for sale. Anyone want to buy five beautiful acres in Crawford , Texas ? I will consider any reasonable offer. I hear George Bush will be moving out soon, too…which makes the property even more valuable.

This is my resignation letter as the “face” of the American anti-war movement. This is not my “Checkers” moment, because I will never give up trying to help people in the world who are harmed by the empire of the good old US of A, but I am finished working in, or outside of this system. This system forcefully resists being helped and eats up the people who try to help it. I am getting out before it totally consumes me or anymore people that I love and the rest of my resources.

Good-bye America …you are not the country that I love and I finally realized no matter how much I sacrifice, I can’t make you be that country unless you want it.

It’s up to you now.

Now that I feel adequately like shit, because I see myself when she says, "do more than walk in a protest march or sit behind his/her computer criticizing others."

I am off to bed. If these words ever get to Cindy Sheehnan, I want to say thank you for putting a human face on the fight with this unjust system. You have done more than anyone could have imagined or expected. I hope to regroup and find a way to attack it from another angle...

Keith Olberman for President!

Thanks to Mock, Paper, Scissors for bringing this to my attention! All I can say is that it's about FUCKING TIME!!!!! For all my pro-democrat friends out there, it cannot be more clear that the Democrats are a bunch of useless idiots who are in cahoots with the rest of the thieves and liars in Washington. It is time for a dramatic change in American politics. It is time to act and get in the streets, because the government has failed us. As Rage Against the Machine has so eloquently said, "It's time to take the power back."

As election 2008 comes around, I am not sure how anyone can look themselves in the mirror and back a Democratic candidate. Share this link with as many people as you can.

Have You Ever Heard of Jo Wilding?

I was browsing through my news pages when I came across this article, which led me to a book called Don't Shoot The Clowns by a blogger named Jo Wilding, which later led me to a film called A Letter To A Prime Minister. I guess my point is that there is a lot of information out here in cyber land, and we cannot simply sit back and say we do not know what is happening through out the world. The hardest part is knowing what to do about it. I am still at a loss. However, I for one am excited to get my hands on this book and movie and try to put a human face on the occupation.

"You can’t talk about democracy and ‘Do you agree with the war or not, did we do the right thing?’ if you don’t know what we actually did and what actually happened to people. I was just in one city and I talked to a fraction of the people who were affected but still, I think I was able to hear and then tell a lot of people’s stories. The number of people who read the blog and responded to it backed that up.”