Wage Peace, Love and Compassion

Peace, Peace, Peace on Earth and goodwill to men.
This is a time for joy
This is a time for love
Now let us all sing together
of peace, peace, peace on earth

- [version of Silent Night, Holy Night that HMC sang in this past concert 'Holiday Glee'. I can't find a recorded version of us or anyone else doing it concert so here is a recording of our rehearsal cd. It's the second part, after the traditional carol that is of note. [still working on getting that that track online]

The older I get, the more I read about this subject, the more I am completely disgusted with the United States. I guess this is nothing new. It's happened since the beginning of our government, I suppose my awareness of it is the only thing that has changed. Like this email below from the Center for Constitutional Rights says, we are waging war on nearly all corners of the planet. While I do understand it's a scary world, people really want to bring harm to innocent civillians, it seems like in fighting those people, we are killing civillians ourselves. We're (the US) the ones who are exporting terror. For every drone killing, every covert action, there is an immediate backlash. Which creates more hate, then creates more terrorists and then more people for us to kill. It's a never ending cycle that has gotten so out of hand that it seems as if it will seriously never end.

Human Rights Day

The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) of 2012 will authorize $662 billion dollars for US military operations at a time when the US government is waging overt and covert wars and occupations in Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Pakistan and Somalia, and dangerously escalating sanctions and threats against Iran. The Obama administration has expanded the use of drone strikes and has authorized the targeted killings of individuals beyond any recognized zone of armed conflict. The NDAA also reaffirms the government’s expansive power to hold individuals in indefinite military detention without charge or trial.

The sorry state of our democracy means that the Obama administration is not accountable to anti-war voices and movements seeking an end to a bloated US military and a belligerent US foreign policy that causes harm to the lives and aspirations of millions of people around the globe, and makes people in the United States neither more safe nor more free.

Yet as the NDAA arrives at Obama’s desk, we must continue to raise our voices against this state of affairs. Write and call the White House and tell the President that you oppose $662 billion dollars being spent on war making rather than peace building. Demand that he meaningfully scale back the size of the US military and uphold his promise to veto the NDAA as long as it contains provisions that would essentially prevent him from sending Guantánamo detainees home or resettling those men who need asylum in third countries.

More than half of the men currently detained at Guantánamo – 89 of the 171 – have been unanimously cleared by the CIA, FBI, NSC and Defense Department for transfer or release. Yet no one has been transferred since last January, when Congress created restrictions similar to those the NDAA would make permanent. This marks the longest period without a transfer in the prison camp’s entire 10-year history and only underscores the president’s broken promise and failure to close Guantánamo.

Write and call the White House. Tell the President to veto the NDAA and change Guantánamo from being what it has become—Obama’s forever prison.