By David Swanson

Sixty-five congress members, including 60 Democrats and 5 Republicans, voted to end the occupation of Afghanistan on Wednesday. But 356 congress members, including 189 Democrats and 167 Republicans voted to keep the war going. The vote followed three hours of debate created by Congressman Dennis Kucinich's introduction of a privileged resolution.

The debate featured three leaders from three groups of congress members: the war opponents (almost all Democrats), the pro-war Democrats, and the pro-war Republicans. Given this alignment, which has existed for nearly a decade now, is there any reason for supporters of peace and justice to take heart? I think so. Here's why: If the 60 Democrats acted in good faith and would have voted the same way even if the bill had a chance of passing, or even if that could be said of only 38 of them, then we may very well see funding of the wars dry up. If the leadership includes unrelated measures in the next war funding bill ($33 billion coming in April or May), measures that lead all the Republicans to vote No (as happened last July), then only 38 Democrats have to vote No to block the bill.

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By David Swanson

In every village of the kingdom the heralds would cry out the news. And always it would be the same news from every herald who wore the purple sash. But other heralds would cry out different news, crazy news, news that wasn't news at all.

The royal heralds got their news from the king's palace, which is why they all cried out the same news at the same time. The other heralds told about the inner workings of the palace as well, but it was clear they did not know what they were saying.

Once, a common herald spoke of the clerk in the royal counting house, and spun such tall tales that many listened for enjoyment, but when a royal herald shouted, interrupting, and demanded to know which wine the royal clerk preferred with his desserts, the poor commoner simply could not say. Mockery and scorn became that would-be herald's usual reception.

Time passed, and they were hard times in the village of the poor unheeded herald. They were hard times throughout the kingdom, as they were times of war. Much of the harvest and many of the young men were taken away, never to return from a distant land where fearsome creatures breathed fire and cultivated hatred of the good villagers.

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By David Swanson

The last time I was on Laura Flanders's GRIT tv I argued that the American public opposed the occupation of Afghanistan, but another guest -- some Washington, D.C., "progressive" -- argued that this had no relevance, since the American public didn't know anything about Afghanistan.

When the RAND Corporation held a forum on Afghanistan recently on Capitol Hill, Zbigniew Brzezinski claimed that it was uncontroversial that US troops had to stay in Afghanistan. I pointed him to polls of Americans, and he replied that Americans get fatigued and don't know any better.

When I spoke to a philosophy department at a university this month, a number of the professors objected to my advocacy of majority-rule on the grounds that experts often know best.

Let's set aside for a moment the ludicrous propaganda that maintains that the reason we occupy other people's countries is to impose democracy on them. Let's assume we're imposing the rule of elite experts. Even so, even on those terms, here are some possible responses to this line of thinking.

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Across the country, there's a movement quietly taking shape to reclaim November 11 as a day of peace.

What is now called Veterans Day was originally designated in the US as Armistice Day, the day that World War I ended at 11 a.m.  on 11/11.  In the UK and elsewhere, it is also known as Remembrance Day or Poppy Day.

President Woodrow Wilson declared Armistice Day:

"To us in America, the reflections of Armistice Day will be filled with solemn pride in the heroism of those who died in the country’s service and with gratitude for the victory, both because of the thing from which it has freed us and because of the opportunity it has given America to show her sympathy with peace and justice in the councils of the nations…"

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By David Swanson

Around the United States, peace groups are engaged in effective campaigns against proposed new military installations, local funding of weapons companies, and the routine destruction of the environment and of workers' health by such companies. Activists are building better media outlets, educating young people, educating old people, keeping military testing and recruiting out of schools, and discouraging the Army from building real-weapon video arcades in shopping malls. But when it comes to stopping our wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, our citizens are less clear how to go about it.

The peace movement was defunded and demobilized by the absurd belief that an election alone would make a difference, and now there is widespread desire to tell everyone that it didn't. Certainly, it didn't. We have a larger military budget, bases in more nations, and more troops and mercenaries on the ground in Afghanistan and Iraq combined now than before the election. We need to understand that this was entirely predictable and predicted. Those who expected something from an election alone need to be clear that such expectation was entirely - not just partially - misguided. Disappointment with a president needs to be replaced with acknowledgement of strategic error. The latter generates less despair and allows clearer thinking about strategy going forward.

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(Ben Heine)
Thinking of my own responsibility as an artist in a time of war, I began to consider the obligations of artists, and was struck with the sense that many artists do not feel compelled or obligated to craft something that attempts to shed light upon the often shady reasons for warfare or upon the propaganda that may foment it.

Why would an artist not try to weave immediate dissent into his or her art, be it painting, music, film, plays, etc? For me the need for art in the world is great, and during times of strife, upheaval or war, it is, in my opinion, most important, appropriate and even obligatory.

With the premise of responsibility one might explore the following questions:

1. Are artists obligated to create, pro or con, art that touches upon aspects of current wars?

2. If artists do not are they basically forgoing some unwritten rule of their particular craft?

To explore these questions one must, I suppose, first consider the definition of war and the feelings it may illicit.

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Americans who voted for peace last November but are getting only more war are becoming increasingly disillusioned.

The majority of Americans, polls show, would slash the military budget by over 30 percent yet President Obama has increased it by four percent. A majority of Americans want U.S. troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan but the Pentagon will garrison 50,000 in the former country indefinitely and dispatch perhaps 20,000 more shortly to escalate the war in the latter.

Since voting doesn’t bring the desired change in national policies, people wonder what they can do individually. The answer is quite a lot. “Things have gotten bad enough in the minds of enough Americans that there is an opening for creating a mass movement for real change, and that movement is already growing all around us,” writes citizen/activist David Swanson of Charlottesville, Va., in his new book “Daybreak”(Seven Stories Press). Swanson is cofounder of the anti-war After Downing Street Coalition.

He ticks off a number of examples where grass-roots citizen groups won a round vs. the Establishment:

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'Imagination is the word that Reeves uses with most enthusiasm to summarise his work and belief, “the view that there is always something new waiting to be born” — whether in a London parish or a Bosnian town. “And imagination for me is the entry into religion,” he adds, an imagination that combines clarity about where society is and a vision of change.' - From The Times, July 10, 2009

Cross-posted at Blazing Indiscretions and at The Peace Tree.

In The Times (UK) - a Murdoch paper! - yesterday there's a wonderful profile of Donald Reeves, former vicar at the landmark St James's Church - designed by Christopher Wren - in London's West End, promoting his new book, Memoirs of a Very Dangerous Man. I was a member of SJP for a year in 1999; although Reeves was no longer vicar, his mark on the parish was evident in its inclusiveness in celebrating other faith traditions and in its social justice ministries to the marginalised in greater London. St James's, Piccadilly continues to do good work with asylum seekers. In 1999, we were actively assisting Albanian and Bosnian refugees to adjust to life in a strange city and battling with the increasingly hostile UK authorities to prevent their deportations. One Sunday evening, I joined fellow SJP friends to hear Reeves give a talk at Westminster Abbey about his work, just starting to take root in the Balkans.

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(A Poetic Justice Photomontage)

Killing puts abortion foes on defense
In worship he found his cause
In prayer he found his score
In murder he found his god

Obama hopeful on Mid-East peace
How simple it must sound
This wistful wishful flight among the fragile beams
Of stone and foul hatred.

Search Is On for Wreckage of Missing Air France Jet
Among protea, cycads, and pincushions and the stunning breath of petals
They surely float. The jagged Drakensberg Peaks, like broken teeth
Shimmering edges, dark lines, not bones, but fractured meadows.

Judge: Release Gitmo Docs
We say we’d die for our beloved country,
We proudly wave her colors and cry
At the thought of promised freedom,
Say we’d descend into the grave of valor-
But what of our torture?

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(8:30pm - promoted by Edger)

Thursday marks six years since the "shock and awe" invasion rocked Iraq and the US kept the world safe from Saddam Hussein's non-existent weapons of mass destruction.

Dick Cheney continues to insist we "won" the war in Iraq because there is a new democratic government there. There's also a new Democratic government here, and that, too, is in large part a result of the invasion and occupation.

The Obama administration isn't talking about a 100-year war, as John McCain did. Right now, it's not quite three more years until all US troops leave -- and move to Afghanistan.

So why are the antiwar groups demonstrating? Are they never satisfied?

Well, I'm not, and I hope you're not, either. We need to keep the pressure on, to speed the Iraq withdrawal that currently plans to leave 50,000 troops there, and to stop the escalation in a guaranteed losing effort in Afghanistan.

Events across the country this week will mark the anniversary itself on Thursday. Friday is the Iraq Moratorium observance held on the Third Friday of every month, and Saturday is the day for marches in Washington, Los Angeles, San Francisco -- and Milwaukee, where I live.

Wisconsin is a hotbed of antiwar activity, and organizers have planned at least 24 events that I know of, and others that I don't.

Around the country there are hundreds of events. Many are listed on the Iraq Moratorium website and others at United for Peace and Justice or ANSWER.

Join them if you can.

It ain't over till it's over.