DRANT #243: THE REALLY INCONVENIENT TRUTH

The Inconvenient Truth is, that Impeachment is a scam.
Notwithstanding that the invertebrates in Congress can't even clot together enough votes to stifle their own interminable yakking off, much less the 2/3 needed to Impeach.
Al Gore's film is a fairly evolved Paul Revere ride into the global future, but - like the Impeachment campaign, it casts both the blame and the responsibility for the fix in all the wrong places.
Al gots it backwards, and for obvious reasons. In comparison to the Brobdingnagian mean in DC -- Gore is relatively enlightened, but bottom line is he's a whore for the big guys, and don't you fuggeddit. He ain't about to bust big biz or the war machine. They his homeboys.
Gore's movie never mentions the real villains - the true causes of a great preponderance of the earth's carbon emissions - military operations, wars and occupations (most particularly ours), globalized corporate business, agri-capitalism and de-forestation, the coal and oil companies and their co-conspirators in the auto biz, the airlines.
Instead he puts the blame on us simpleton drivers, and worse, makes it seem that some pretty painless little changes will solve the problem.
If we would all just Priusify ourselves - change to fluorescent bulbs, recyclable toilet paper and close the damn frig -- things would be just fine in a few years. Total hooey.
As long as the world, and most particularly the USA, continues to make endless war on itself and all of its inhabitants, the planet is doomed. In Iraq alone, US Occupation Forces burn 16,000 gallons of fuel a day for every soldier there.
For the full staggering facts- check out

In a bizarre reverse irony, Impeachment misplaces the blame, misidentifies the perpetrators, and seeks the cure among the truly culpable. But this time, its the government the villains, and we the people to the rescue. More hooey.
BUSH and CHENEY didn't make this war, and offing them would do nothing except seduce us into another snooze of self-satisfied somnolence.
It wan't them what did it -
It was US.
And impeachment is merely a Gorish way of avoiding the real truth, a convenient method whereby we, the people, who really did it, can further escape self-confrontation and taking full responsibility for what we have done.
We yell Impeach to drown out the screams of guilt inside our own hearts.
It was Them. We were fooled, lied to, bamBushled. We didn't know, we had no idea.
They did it.
Lynch the bastards.
Well my friends, we can scape all the goats in the universe, but we will never beat the rap-- that irrefutable vision we'll see every day in the mirror.
You and I did it. Us. We knew, we let it happen, and the more we stick the blame on others, the worse our crime.
If hanging Bush and Cheney makes us feel better, well fine. Just see it for what it is. A lynch mob of self-exculpation and avoidance.
Taking the resources, the time, the energy to indulge in this -- while daily ever more thousands are being killed or worse by our sons and daughters, with the guns that we pay for, is further complicity in mass murder. And it isn't THEM what's doing it.
Playing Impeach is the same game as the Democrats' vile charade of it ain't our fault, we can't do nothinism.
We must take, rather we must confront and embrace our own total responsibility for all that has happened.
Without that, we will never even begin to make the amends and reparations that could possibly lead to a glimmer of redemption for what WE, (not THEY,) have done.

"...If we ever are to change the course of this, if we are ever to make amends for what we have done, and if all this death and murder and waste is ever to be infinitesimally redeeming - then we must begin by taking responsibility for what we have done, accepting all of it, each last one of us, and begin again from a place of deep humility, service to the other above all else, profound respect for ourselves and every other being on the earth, and embrace the great truth that there are no chosen people, no hierarchy of human souls, and that every single one of us is responsible for every single other one of us, and for what all the rest of us do.
There are no exemptions, no innocent, no bystanders.
We cannot be the equivalent of B-51 bomber pilots, killing featureless specks miles from our view. We cannot ever say we didn't know, for we must be as morally responsible for what we don’t know as what we do..."
DR, DRANT #121 May 2005
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Such issues must be faced straightforwardly, without dissembling, if Americans are ever to hold rightful title to the “good conscience” they've so long laid claim to owning. How they are to respond to what stares back at them from the proverbial mirror is an altogether different question however.
Transformation from beastliness to beauty can be neither instantaneous nor, in terms of its retroactive undoing, complete.
There is no painless, privilege-preserving pill that can be taken to effect a quick fix of what ails the US, no petition no manifesto, no song nor candle light vigil that will suffice.
The terms of change must and will be harsh, inevitably so, given the propensity of those who seek to prevent it to gauge their success by the rotting corpses of toddlers. This truth, no matter its inconvenience to those snugly situated within the comfort zone of political pretense, is all that defines the substance of meaningful struggle.”
Ward Churchill
On The Justice of Roosting Chickens
Read more!!

DRANT #242: ON THE ROAD WITH CINDY SHEEHAN

A quick note from the road -
Cindy Sheehan is travelling across the red states of the south, in the belly of the beast as Che so famously said-
She is not only NOT preaching to the choir, she is increasingly facing confrontational opposition from various groups, including the proto Brown shirts "Gathering of Eagles" -- a Vietnam Vet Motorcycle gang to whom I introduced you all when I wrote about the DC action March 07.
Cindy is out there in an RV, facing them, and facing the cops, and facing the truth and telling it.
Where the HELL are YOU ?
Do you think this is going to go away by itself, like some historic athlete's foot ?

The Democrats put on a disgraceful charade last night-
YakYakYak all night long- as if - as if they couldn't shut this war down in eight minutes of yelling NO.
As if we're stupid enough to believe their onanistic puppet show.
Here's the schedule for the next week or so.
We need you. We need your ass on the line.
We need help.
You can join, and DO something, or you can sit back, and figure out another reason why you have something better to do.
There is no more time -- and no other means.
Join Us.
Send this information to everyone you can.
Or, we can do nothing.
They're counting on it.


Please go immediately to
http://www.thecampcaseypeaceinstitute.org/
There, you will find Cindy Sheehan's statement, and all the daily plans.
Here is an updated schedule and other info available--

Date Leave Arrive
July 18 Charlotte NC Greensboro NC
July 19 Greensboro NC Lynchburg NC
July 20 Lynchburg NC Charlottesville Va
July 21 Charlottesville Va. Richmond Va.
July 22 Richmond Va. Arlington Va
July 23 Arlington Cem White House/ Capital
July 23 Washington DC Philadelphia PA.
July 24 Philadelphia PA Allentown PA
July 25 Allentown PA New York City NY
July 26 United Nations Action
July 27 Begin to Gather at Central Park
July 28 TBA
July 29 Gathering of Hearts Fest Central Park

We need local volunteers/ Organizers to help.
What we would need from each local organizer:
Housing/ Camp site for Walkers
Dinner after rally/action and Breakfast the next morning before resuming walk.
Help to plan a rally in your city
If applicable an action outside of your congressional office.
Please e-mail Dede at tiggerloli@aol.com and tell her how you're going to help.
Read more!!

DRANT #241: MARCH TO DC

There will be no revolution by cell phone or email.
Calling or emailing Congress, sending faxes, polite demonstrations, pithy slogans, witty signs, "protests" with long lists of speakers--
all the old methods -- have accomplished exactly nothing, and will accomplish nothing.

I have often proposed (see previous DRANTs) that our model must be Gandhi's 1930 - SALT SATYAGRAHA -- his Salt March to Dandi, the world-shaking March To The Sea.
(He said: "When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible but in the end, they always fall -- think of it, always.")
I have often proposed that this march needed to be led by Cindy Sheehan, and that we march from Crawford TX to DC, gathering people as we walked, in an ineffable tide of humanity.
Congress will not end the war nor the WARS. They never have.
It is up to US. Every single one of us.
We can depend on no one else.
And now, it is the time.
Cindy Sheehan has announced that she will lead a walk across America, beginning in Crawford on July 10, to DC, and going all the way to NY.
I beg you, urge you-- JOIN US. For a day, an hour, a week.
The insanity must end, and only WE can end it.
Please go immediately to
http://www.thecampcaseypeaceinstitute.org/
There, you will find Cindy Sheehan's statement, and plans.
Here is an updated schedule and other info available--

Walk Route
Date Leave Arrive
July 10 Crawford Tx Houston Tx
July 11 Houston Tx. New Orleans La.
July 12 New Orleans La. Montgomery Al.
July 13 Montgomery Al. Ft. Benning Ga,
July 14 Ft. Benning Ga Atlanta Ga.
July 15 Atlanta Ga. Gainsville Ga.
July 16 Ganisville Ga. Clemson SC
July 17 Clemson SC Charlotte NC
July 18 Charlotte NC Greensboro NC
July 19 Greensboro NC Lynchburg NC
July 20 Lynchburg NC Charlottesville Va
July 21 Charlottesville Va. Richmond Va.
July 22 Richmond Va. Arlington Va
July 23 Arlington Cem White House/ Capital
July 23 Washington DC Philadelphia PA.
July 24 Philadelphia PA Allentown PA
July 25 Allentown PA New York City NY
July 26 United Nations Action
July 27 Begin to Gather at Central Park
July 28 TBA
July 29 Gathering of Hearts Fest Central Park

We need local volunteers/ Organizers to help.
What we would need from each local organizer:
Housing/ Camp site for Walkers
Dinner after rally/action and Breakfast the next morning before resuming walk.
Help to plan a rally in your city
If applicable an action outside of your congressional office.
Please e-mail Dede at tiggerloli@aol.com if you can help.

There is no more time -- and no other means.
Join Us.
Send this information to everyone you can.
Or, we can do nothing, or do the usual.
They're counting on it.
Read more!!