I signed up to write this week’s “writing in the raw” segment because it is the week before the 63rd anniversary of the U.S. dropping atomic bombs on the civilian populations of two Japanese cities, Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

While thinking about this topic, one thought kept recurring – the idea of anger.  What is anger?  How does it come about?  What do we do with it?  How does anger become resolved?  And what purpose does anger serve?  This diary will be totally subjective, exploring my own feelings as I’m no scholar on the issue.  I’ve read a little about anger in Buddhist texts, but I’m relying mostly on my own personal feelings and development here.

Anger has been a constant companion throughout my life, always there, like a loyal dog following me about.  Sometimes it may be sleeping, not making a big commotion, but sooner or later it wakens and anger and I become like the proverbial dog chasing its own tail, round and round we go.  Sometimes the anger has lept ahead, dragging me along at the end of the leash, with little or no control over where the dog will take me.  

So please be pulled along beyond the fold…

I’m very pleased with what I see happening with consciousness on the planet right now, particularly in places like this blog.  I’m equally fascinated by the questioning about whether or not we will survive beyond the predicaments which surround us.

Human beings seem to be lazy laggards to a large extent.  Maybe that’s too strong; but we do seem to suffer from a form of “I’ve arrivedism”.  When we get somewhere, we tend to just want to sit down in the grass, relax, and enjoy.  In all honesty, many of us have been able to do that for a number of years now.  From time to time, however, life comes along and prods us into the next need to grow and move. We resist; we don’t want to get up, to move on.  It’s a form of that addage: “…the old swimmin’ hole in the river under the oak tree was good enuff for us…” syndrome.  Actually, that sounds pretty good to me right now.  But I digress.

We tend to resist change, to get up and move on. And so we don’t until we are absolutely forced to do so by a reality which has become too dangerous, too hostile, too uncomfortable, and too destructive to stay put any longer.

Today is a time when we must not, we cannot, stay put.  The danger is too great.  The stakes are too high.  We have created structures and ways of thinking which are no longer sustainable.  It is imperative that we move on, that we evolve new ways of thinking and being.  And surprisingly these ways will resemble some older ways as pointed out in Opol’s wonderful essay, “We are All Related,” “Mitakuye Oayasin”.

So good old life is nudging us again, saying get up, move forward, grow, evolve.

Will we make it?  Will we survive?  I don’t have the answer to that.  But I do know I must contribute whatever little bit and all I can to being able to say “Yes!”

Leap with me beyond the fold…

I’m updating this diary because I really think we have a good chance to get some accountability and justice on this.  Please check the links in Lisa Lockwood’s comment below (it’s about the 4th comment).  Please read these links and take action.  ADS site link has toll free numbers to Congress and lists Jud Comm members.  The AtLarge link has really good prosecutable points!  end this update 7/9

House subpoenas

Karl Rove!!!

Rove’s lawyer claims that Rove will

NOT TESTIFY  UNDER OATH.  In

response, the House Judiciary

Committee has SUBPOENAED the

former White House adviser

He is to appear July 10 to testify.

Now his lawyer says he will not

even show up. Conyers says Rove

is not above the law & he will take

action.

This is breaking news which I heard at about 11:15 A.M. (7/8/08) on the Thom Hartmann show on Air America Radio.  Hartmann announced that not only has Karl Rove refused to testify under oath at his hearing before the House Judicial Committee on Thursday, 7/10; Rove’s attorney said today that Rove is not going to show up at all.  Rove will defy the subpoena completely.  Hartmann further reported that Pelosi has just said she will oppose prosecuting Rove for Contempt of Congress and has told Conyers not to proceed with such prosecution.

Thom Hartmann had Don Siegelman on his program to discuss this.  I have not been able to get further confirmation on Pelosi’s position; Spiegelman was not certain either.  Pelosi’s phone is busy/busy/busy!  Both Spiegelman and Hartmann urge all of us to take action.  Call our Congresspersons, call the speaker, call members of House Judiciary committee.

The person I spoke to in Conyers’ office claimed they didn’t know anything more that that Rove was scheduled at the hearing for this Thursday.  If anyone gets any confirmations of this, please post in comments.

More information at Don Siegelman dot com and Thom Hartmann dot come.

As xofferson says, “DO SOMETHING.”    

And, Thanks for doing something!  

Time is running out so we must work together to spread the message and apply pressure.

Robwert Wexler asks for our assistance:

Our effort to hold the Bush/Cheney Administration accountable has taken another dramatic step forward. Last night, Congressman Dennis Kucinich introduced the first Articles of Impeachment ever to be introduced against President Bush.  It includes, in total, thirty-five Articles detailing this Administration’s blatant abuse of power. Today, I enthusiastically co-sponsored this vitally important bill.

I am grateful for Dennis’ leadership on this issue and for the steadfast support that countless Americans have given to both of our efforts to redeem our government and expose the crimes of Bush and Cheney.  

I will now expand my efforts to secure impeachment hearings in the Judiciary Committee for these new Articles of Impeachment against President George W. Bush.

Many of the charges against President Bush are well known – and would shock the conscience of everyday Americans if only the national media would be willing to report on these stark facts.

The Articles present a stunning narrative of offenses that have go well beyond previous crimes committed by any US chief executive.  In fact no President or Vice President in history has done more to undermine our constitution.  

These charges are broad, with 35 separate allegations including the deliberate lies regarding WMDs that led us to war and the approval of illegal wiretapping of American citizens.  The Articles also include new allegations of high crimes – including the explicit approval for high Administration officials to violate treaties and US law banning the use of torture.

The Democratic Party gained a majority in the House and Senate due in large part to our promises to end the corruption of the Republican majority and to hold the Administration accountable to the law. This courageous bill is a crucial step towards fulfilling this promise, but – like the Articles against Cheney – they require your support to convince Democrats and open-minded Republicans to support this bold but necessary action.

Time is running out so we must work together to spread the message and apply pressure.

First, please encourage your friends and family members to sign up at WexlerWantsHearings.com – as it will allow us to keep in touch with you and speak to a wider audience.  If you haven’t yet put in your phone and address, please sign up again, as we will be doing telephone town halls in the near future.

Second, call your representative and urge them to support Impeachment hearings.  

Finally, contact newspapers, news stations, and your favorite bloggers and urge them to report on this movement.  We need to keep Impeachment a significant news story until the Democratic leadership sees the value in it.

McClellan Agrees to Testify:

I was pleased to inform you yesterday that Judiciary Committee Chairman Conyers met my call to have Former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan testify under oath.  I am thrilled to inform you that McClellan has agreed to testify on June 20th at 10AM.  This will be the first step in what we hope will be ongoing and deepening examinations of the stark evidence and charges against both President Bush and Vice President Cheney.

Thank you for your continued passion and advocacy.  Your support means so much to me.

Sincerely,

Congressman Robert Wexler

I have nothing to add.  Just go do it!  Look up HOR Judiciary members and use the toll free numbers for Congress:

    1-866-340-9281

    1-866-338-1015

    1-877-851-6437  

Thanks!  Go get ’em!

Tomorrow will be the 5th anniversary of the Bush regime’s Shock and Awe blitzkrieg against Iraq.  How dazzling the light and color explosions would have appeared on my TV screen if I had been able to disassociate myself from what was most certainly the experience of human beings on the ground.

Many of us knew at the time that the war was a travesty, that Iraq probably had no Weapons of Mass Destruction, was not an ally of bin Laden, had no role in 9/11, and was not a threat to the USA.  I watched in horror.  Not only did Saddam have no Weapons of Mass Destruction, he didn’t even have those other “WMD”s, Weapons of Minimal Defense.

Over this last weekend, I listened to the Winter Soldier II hearings in Maryland, just outside Washington, D.C.  I thought back to the Winter Soldier I hearings in 1971 with veterans of the Vietnam travesty.  Will our country never learn?

But I heard something quite different today, in 2008.  I heard a very different quality, a different tone.  To read about this different tone, follow me across the leap in consciousness below the fold.

Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) will have hearings, reports and testimonials from the women and men who have fought in this war.  All three days of hearings will be broadcast on several outlets including, Pacifica FM Radio, warcomeshome.org, and speak peace tv.

Pacifica’s schedule is:

  Friday, 3/14 ….. 9AM to 7PM EDT.    Saturday, 3/15 ….. 9AM to 7PM EDT

                           Sunday, 3/16 …… 10AM to 4PM EDT  

More information and on-line streaming at kpfa or on war comes home, linked at kpfa.

The first Winter Soldier hearings were in early 1971 during the Vietnam war.  It was a forum where combat troops could voice their disillusionment at having found themselves in a crazy and illegal war.  Like today, Winter Soldier gave troops a safe environment to express their guilts, fears and anguish at participating in a war where atrocities were committed, where it felt like some wrongs had to be committed just to survive.

The name “Winter Soldier” comes from Thomas Paine in 1776:

These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.

When I first listened to the Vietnam Winter Soldiers, years ago, it felt as if my soul was ripped apart, but ripped apart in a necessary, righteous, imperative way.  I knew I must understand what these wars do to our soldiers, to the “enemy” and to all of us.  The hearings were a step toward healing.  They were also a major factor in raising awareness about the conflict.  Two other actions flowed from the Winter Soldier hearings: Dewey Canyon III, A Brief Incursion into the Country of Congress, and troops tesitfying at congressional hearings.  

Dewey Canyon III was named after an illegal invasion into Laos called Operation Dewey Canyon (I & II) where American troops met the NVA (North Vietnam Army regulars) and suffered heavy casualties.  Dewey Canyon III was a very powerful and effective action where troops camped for days on the capitol mall, and threw their medals back on the capitol steps.  As one vet said, while throwing his medals back —

I’m not proud of these medals.  I’m not proud of what I did to receive them.  A whole year, we never took one prisoner alive.  Just wasted them.

As for Winter Soldier I:

It is impossible to describe to you exactly what did happen in Detroit – the emotions in the room, and the feelings of the men who were reliving their experiences in Vietnam. They relived the absolute horror of what this country, in a sense, made them do.”

In one of the most famous antiwar speeches of the era, Kerry concluded: “Someone has to die so that President Nixon won’t be – and these are his words – ‘the first president to lose a war’. We are asking Americans to think about that, because how do you ask a man to be the last man to die in Vietnam? How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?

Since it is imperative that we:

         End the madness of War     and     Create the Sanity of Peace

It is also imperative to have as much information as possible and to do everything we can to reverse this course.  Bush has called for a war without end.  We must counter with a peace movement without end.  In a preview of this Winter Soldier II, one vet expressed this perfectly, saying that when a war ends, the peace movement just picks up and goes home; we must not do that again.  The peace movement must remain, ever vigilant, saying “No” again and again to any and every threat of permanent war.

Winter Soldier Begins Today, Live Coverage Begins Tommorrow

Posted on: March 13, 2008 – 5:27am by Aaron Glantz

Winter Soldier Iraq and Afghanistan kicks off in Washington, DC today, with hundreds of veterans of the two wars descending on the National Labor College in Silver Spring, Maryland to talk about what they saw, and did, in the name of America. Pacifica radio will be carrying the proceedings live beginning at 9am Eastern tomorrow morning. Audio will be streamed live from Warcomeshome.org and kpfa.org until 4pm EST on Sunday.

  For rusty1776 in gratitude for his “Writing in the Raw: Valentine Confessions”

I remember when you brought me hyacinths

We walked the path under pepper trees

Laughed our way to the beach

To play in the surf like yearling seals

And when you kissed me, your salt wet curls

Dripped ocean on my face

I was a virgin then, and you a married man

In a country with strange taboos

I remember when you came again

We were older then, and you had tasted

The bite of war on your golden flesh

You brought me only your body then

And took me, coldly unwilling

On the stone cold floor

Eyes wild, body strawberry ripe

Your virgin rape bride

In a country with strange taboos

When you took me over my protests

I heard the voice inside me say

Yes to the Universe

Yes to God

Yes to you

Yes in concentric circles swirling out

Thought forms in an expanding universe

Orgasm of matter in an ocean of space

Meeting each other face to face

 forgetting your wife

Waves from a meteor plunged in the sea

 at her desk a mile away

Rippling into the universe like a psalm

I remember when you brought me your wound

Placing it in the palm of my hand

The night you, dreaming of the war

Took the remington you kept by the bed

And shot your reflection in the mirror

Thinking it a jap

Killing on instinct

In a country with strange taboos

I remember when you said you could not love me

Although you loved me

We played like Hindu deities

Entwined like spiral galaxies

You brought me so many images then

Mother and Priestess

Virgin and Whore

I had ruined your life you said

Because I wasn’t a virgin when we met, you said

In this country with strange taboos

And I remember when you brought me spider mums

Naming me Circe

She of the beautiful hair

Naming me an illusion and your fear

Saying we had to live celibately

That only in god was there ecstacy

You the torero, killer of bulls

You the marine, killer of men

You the man, killer of me

The killer in Circe’s lair

In this country with stange taboos

You brought your wound and your war and your fear

Home to me here in our bed

Taught me the thorn in the flesh wound of sex

Gradually I learned to live

According to these strange taboos

I learned to go on living and

Sometimes only fucked and judged and fucked and judged

But wanted always only to love

Even with galactic distances between our souls

In recreational sex till the messiah comes

I sought love on the beach and love in the bar

I sought love in the eyes of a stranger

Who looked for all the world like a friend

To help the wound to mend

The gap in the heart of the soul

Till the wound heals and we are whole

Meanwhile

I write confessional poetry

  shadows of

  what should I blame

  a catholic girlhood

  a father’s vice

Some strain across a fault zone in the planet’s heart

Some original sin in my soul

Meanwhile

I write recreational poetry

Kill the messiah every time he comes

  from what

  from fear, from habit

  ego, lack of trust

Some geo-centric allergy to dust

While in my heart I know we must

Love one another body heart and mind and soul

Till the wounds heal and we are whole

And kill these strange tabboos.