The CODE PINK delegation that includes Ret. Col. Ann Wright has successfully entered Gaza…along with two other delegations and the Hope Convoy. check it out at www.codepink4peace.org and www.imemc.org/article/60563 . Looks like Alaska’s Rich Moniak will be one of the members also visiting Israel afterwards (and he’ll be blogging).
Archive for May, 2009
delegations enter Gaza
May 30, 2009Col. Ann Wright speaks on Gaza, Middle East
May 19, 2009Here’s Tom Macchia’s report on Col. Ann Wright’s visit to Anchorage May 14, co-sponsored by Alaskans for Peace & Justice and Alaskans for Palestine… She’s now headed for her 3rd visit this year to Gaza, with Code Pink (one of what she estimates is about 100 Americans total who have ever visited Gaza).
There was a standing room only crowd at the Bartlett Democratic Club, over 70 people. Her speech was very well received and there were many good questions which she answered adroitly and thoroughly. Included in the audience were Diane Benson, Phil Munger (see his coverage at http://www.progressivealaska.blogspot.com/ ) and several current or former state representatives as well as union representatives.
The evening talk at UAA had an audience of about 40 people including many from the Palestinian community. Katy Parrish video taped the talk at UAA, thanks Katy! [link available soon]
A basket was passed at UAA and over $200 was raised for a project to rebuild a playground for Palestinian children destroyed in the recent Gaza war crimes.
We learned that there is a new website for Alaskans for Palestine http://alaskansforpalestine.org/
All of the books that we ordered were sold.
I thought that she exemplified and spoke well to getting involved in response the increasing disillusion that some progressives are feeling with the administration and congress.
Col. Wright will soon return to Palestine with Code Pink. http://www.codepink4peace.org/
She plans to invite Sen. Begich to go (at Phil Munger’s suggestion). We might call and encourage him to join the Code Pink Trip.http://begich.senate.gov/public/
P.S. When I mentioned the Green Party to her she said that she has heard that Cynthia McKinney will again be joining a relief flotilla to Gaza.
p.s. Ann Wright’s website is voicesofconscience.com
We will not raise our children to kill another mother’s child
May 7, 2009Julia Ward Howe, Mother’s Day Proclamation, 1870
Arise then…women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts!
Whether your baptism be of water or of tears!
Say firmly:
“We will not have questions answered by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage,
For caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.
We, the women of one country,
Will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.”
From the bosom of a devastated Earth a voice goes up with
Our own. It says: “Disarm! Disarm!
The sword of murder is not the balance of justice.”
Blood does not wipe out dishonor,
Nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil
At the summons of war,
Let women now leave all that may be left of home
For a great and earnest day of counsel.
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace…
Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
But of God -
In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality,
May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient
And the earliest period consistent with its objects,
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
The amicable settlement of international questions,
The great and general interests of peace.
Thank you codepink for original post and feministing
