BED-INs and Other Protests Needed Now

Craig continues, "The first thing people here need is hope, probably. Anybody, to survive, you need hope. And the second thing is respect, respect for their humanity. And I have vast respect for these people. And then we have to get to work, of course, on some humanitarian aid and rebuilding aid, but again, that has to come in a political context which gives them a hope for a real future. You look at the children here that we've seen throughout this day and the previous days and, of course, on other trips, and they're beautiful. They're just beautiful, smiling. Somehow they manage still to smile. How can you be shaking for twenty-five minutes and then-children are resilient in a lot ways and run around smiling later, but they deserve a future, just like our kids have. And we won't have the kind of future that we want unless these children have that, a chance at that future. You know, they need to be able to get that way."

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Finally, Rachel's father notes, "So I think that's part of it: trying to tie what is a real connection that we see between people of Palestine and our own existence in the United States. We're wedded together, whether we like it or not. And so, we need to figure out how to make that, I guess, a happy marriage. And it can be. The people here will somehow have the capacity to, first of all, make a distinction between Americans coming here and our foreign policy, which for them is atrocious. This-you know, United States largely paid to build some of these factories here, to build-for instance, you look at the electrical plant that was destroyed or partially destroyed a few years ago, and the United States built it, the United States insured it, and the United States bombed it. And with this-it's largely true for the whole Strip, that through US aid money and some other of things-a lot of this was built with US money. It was certainly bombed with US ammunition.Â

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"The United States paid and actually transported the fuel for this somewhat during the summer. While we were paying $4 a gallon for gas, we were also shipping gas to Israel for use here. And now we're talking about rebuilding it again with US dollars. You know, enough is enough. I absolutely think we need to rebuild the Gaza Strip, but it has to be rebuilt with the standards of-political standards that need to go around that, so that it's not going to be bombed apart again."

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Both Craig and Rachel's mother, Cindy Corry, think that they and all Americans "need to insist on accountability for what has happened here. I know that there have been calls for investigation into specific incidents. I don't know exactly the form that that's going to take. I was really happy to hear before we left the United States that Senator Leahy, I believe, had called for investigation of one incident where two young men were killed when they were traveling with their father. We visited the father, heard his story. It was during-they were out traveling during the time when there was a three-hour kind of ceasefire each day, when people could go out into their neighborhoods and so forth."

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In short, Americans and peacemakers around the globe need to organize more than ever before (even after Obama's election)  to get justice and peace in the second decade of this century, i.e. organize  at a level not experienced before in history.So, start the Bed-ns!!!

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Start the peace marches!!!

File for arrest warrants, like bush who threw out constitutions and good neighbor policies.Â

Occupy Offices!!!

GET WHAT WE NEED NOW-and don't settle for less!!!!

Don't pay taxes! Â

Don't promote bank bailouts until the world gets more oriented to obtaining PEACE NOW!!!! Â Â Â

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