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First of all, voting just doesn't cut it. Realistically, our choices are between War Party Candidate A and War Party Candidate B. A true peace candidate is marginalized, metaphorically spat upon, and reviled. This is not a nation that honors peace and non-violence. From the top down, we are a violent nation--so from the bottom up, we have to restructure society. Liberate yourself and remove your Obama bumper sticker that has a peace sign instead of the "O." If you are antiwar, you know in your heart that he is not a peace monger.
Secondly, our resources and energy are stretched thin. We live in a credit based economy where good jobs are scarce. Many people, who have the same values, in this almost value-free society, constantly tell me that they would be with me if they could afford it.
Since my son was killed, which was as violent of a paradigm shift as anyone should have to endure, I have whittled my life down to a bare minimum. I have no car. I have no pets. I have no plants. I have no credit cards. My income is based on my donations from my itinerant peace travels and book sales. I have moved eight times since Casey died and now I can move with one small u-haul. I have a cell phone and computer, a bed, clothes, a few dishes, a few valued books and peace paraphernalia and pictures of my children and grandbabies.
As HD Thoreau said: "You don't own your possessions, they own you." This consumer orgiastic society makes us literal slaves to a system that is detrimental to our health. Freeing oneself from those chains frees one to be a full-time, or near full-time activist. "Simplify, simplify, simplify."
Massive antiwar protest in this country is dead. We may as well acknowledge that and just bury the corpse, mourn, and then figure out a better way of doing things.
In the Christian tradition, death was only a prelude to new and better life and farmers well tell you that a seed has to die before a health-nourishing plant can be born and then there's the ever ubiquitous example of the ugly, hairy, and yucky caterpillar being reborn as a magnificent and beautiful butterfly. Have I hammered you with enough clichés yet?
The key to turning this caterpillar of a country into a beautiful butterfly is in Peace and recognizing that no matter if one is Bush, Obama, McCain or Palin--these people don't want Peace, but we do.
I think we lose the raw humanity of war when we allow ourselves to wallow in War Party politics. When the Democratic Wing of the War Party took over the mis-management of the Empire, the anti-war movement was effectively neutralized even though the wars weren't.
So after we are done mourning, we get together as one human family to organize something that will bring positive change. We are not enemies with each other--we may be "enemies of the state," but the state is our enemy.
No more marching in circles, it makes us dizzy.
No more signing petitions, it gives us writer's cramp.
No more calling Congress-scum, the war machine is its master.
The establishment wants us to think that this busy-work has a chance to be effective--but when is the last time any of these tactics worked on a Federal level? Your president or your congress rep couldn't care less want you think or want. Your vote doesn't even count--in case you haven't heard, they steal votes and falsely manipulate you, anyway.
I am going to close with my organization's motivational quote. Peace of the ACTION takes our inspiration from a Mario Savio quote that he said on the steps of Sproul Hall at UC Berkeley, 46 years ago:
There comes a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart that you can't take part, you can't even passively take part. You have to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the levers, upon all the apparatus and you've got to make it stop. And you've got to indicate to the people who own it, to the people who run it, that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all."
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