end the war, bill moyers, marge piercy

iraq: we have to stop this war, end it now. what are they waiting for? more suffering, deaths, money. my heart will be in washington end of january when the demonstrations are happening. my body will be in sesshin. i wish i could bi-locate.

and check out codepink. these women, great women, are completely on the right track.

and if you are wondering how a buddhist feels about this: i feel we should commit everything to ending this utterly stupid war.

Bill Moyers, speaking to the National Conference for Media Reform states: "Our democracy is now put to a vital test, for the conflict is between human rights on the one side and on the other, special privilege asserted as a property right. The parting of the ways has come."


   As my plane was circling Memphis the other day, I looked out across those vast miles of fertile soil that once were plantations watered by the Mississippi River and the sweat from the brow of countless men and women who had been forced to live someone else's story. I thought about how in time they rose up, one here, then two, then many, forging a great movement that awakened America's conscience and brought us close to the elusive but beautiful promise of the Declaration of Independence. As we made our last approach to land, the words of a Marge Piercy poem began to form in my head, and I remembered all over again
why we were coming here:

What can they do
to you? Whatever they want.
They can set you up, they can
bust you, they can break
your fingers, they can
burn your brain with electricity,
blur you with drugs till you
can't walk, can't remember, they can
take your child, wall up
your lover. They can do anything
you can't stop them
from doing. How can you stop
them? Alone, you can fight,
you can refuse, you can
take what revenge you can
but they roll over you.

But two people fighting
back to back can cut through
a mob, a snake-dancing file
can break a cordon, an army
can meet an army.

Two people can keep each other
sane, can give support, conviction,
love, massage, hope, sex.
Three people are a delegation,
a committee, a wedge. With four
you can play bridge and start
an organization. With six
you can rent a whole house,
eat pie for dinner with no
seconds, and hold a fund raising party.
A dozen make a demonstration.
A hundred fill a hall.
A thousand have solidarity and your own newsletter;
ten thousand, power and your own paper;
a hundred thousand, your own media;
ten million, your own country.

It goes on one at a time,
it starts when you care
to act, it starts when you do
it again after they said no,
it starts when you say We
and know who you mean, and each
day you mean one more.

From The Moon Is Always Female, by Marge Piercy
Copyright 1980 by Marge Piercy