Excerpt: Before we expose huge populations to catastrophic risks with BSL 3 & 4 labs, we need to ask why. If someone does attack the U.S. with biologicals, what is the likelihood that we’ll have the right vaccine, in enough quantities, available when it is needed? Wouldn’t we have to vaccinate people before the threat reaches them? Perhaps an antidote, not a vaccine, will be needed. And how much vaccine, and when, would be considered a good solution? And who would be vaccinated? Only the government? The military? The medical community? Who might our solution actually save? And finally, has anyone examined the probability that these risky efforts can even be successful? We’re considering exposing huge populations to catastrophic risks. For what? If someone does attack the U.S. with biologicals, what is the likelihood that we’ll have the right vaccine, in enough quantities, available when it’s needed? Excerpt: I was almost raped as a young mother. A very caring policeman later sternly warned me, “Don’t be so stupid as to leave your window-shade up! You’re attracting every pervert in the county. Eventually, they’ll all make a beeline to your window!” These labs leave the window-shades in Frederick up. Their very existence in Frederick asks, perhaps begs, for trouble, and that trouble will make its dangerous beeline straight to our area. Excerpt: Scientists in these labs will be genetically-engineering (from diseases with no cures), completely new, highly lethal and contagious life forms, life, life so new that no one yet understands how it works. What if a newly-mutated strain somehow finds a way to attach itself to a lab worker in some unpredictable way, some way that defeats the protections put on it, so that the lab workers carry it outside unknowingly? I plead for humility in the face of nature’s chaotic, awesome genetic power. Excerpt: The record shows that research lab workers, even those with the highest security clearances and the best available training, are still fallible human beings who can and do become victims of blackmail, fall in love unwisely, get into desperate financial situations, hide growing prescription and other drug problems, and develop volatile feelings about co-workers. Lab workers sometimes become blind to their own religious and political biases and bigotry, and are thus susceptible to involvement in illicit covert operations, conspiracies and cover-ups. Sometimes they get in a hurry and make professionally embarrassing mistakes and bad decisions. Sometimes they hide evidence, fudge records and fake procedures in order to save their jobs and livelihoods, and then rationalize the risks they’re taking—escalating and exponentially complicating situations already perilous. Also sadly, no one yet has been able to explain to me why it wouldn’t be easy, temptingly easy, to kamikaze an airplane flown from the Frederick Airport into a targeted Ft. Detrick building, or lob a well-placed rocket over the Ft. Detrick fence. Either of these unpreventable actions would very legitimately throw chaos and panic into the post, city and metropolitan area, creating unforeseen, complicated, dangerous situations.   more »

Excerpt: “Schizophrenic behavior” is defined as behavior which is motivated by contradictory or conflicting principles, or which results from the co-existence of disparate or antagonistic activities. In other words, when your ideals frequently conflict with each other, and when your actions feel equally conflicted, it can drive you nuts. Fallible human attempts to live up to one’s ethics, values, standards and goals can make even the best soldiers feel schizophrenic. Excerpt: When soldiers from any nation come home from their wars, of course they have trouble rectifying all they've participated in, with their peacetime ethical, spiritual and religious beliefs about what it means to be humane, caring, good—all the many understandings parents and teachers carefully taught them about what makes relationships work, and what make life worth living. Many returning war veterans basically go insane for years. Others are unstable or crazy for the rest of their lives.   more »

Excerpt: Will some brilliant programmer please step up and design a google-type software program that can linguistically analyze and determine a speaker/writer’s cooperative tone and intent? Your new program could identify and distinguish among those writers/speakers whose communications promote a sense of division, partisanship, negativity, polarization, blame, attack, incivility, rudeness, destructiveness, unfriendly competition, bickering and hate—and those promoting a sense of positivity, creativity, life-affirmation, support, harmony, acceptance, forgiveness, productivity, civility, courtesy, equality of opportunity, caring, cooperation and unity. Excerpt: Your software would have endless useful and profitable applications. For immediate profitability, please consider using your product for security purposes, to helpfully ward off unfriendly attacks and attackers (of whatever kind) upon individuals and enterprises (of whatever kind.) Excerpt: Your software will stimulate lively dialogue; increase the impact and number of creative, thought-provoking, and controversial-but-civil exchanges; reduce (by virtue of indifference and neglect) the quantity and influence of divisive communications arising anywhere in the world; universally improve facility in verbal and mental processing of complexities, innuendo and nuances; and inspire us all to pull together cooperatively to resolve our common personal, local and global problems.    more »

(Excerpt): For instance, thanks to our current civic dialogue on torture, we now realize that the decision to torture, like the decision to go to war, only seems “simple” when we see “others” as “not-us,” “different,” and in terms of “us/them;” the decision to torture is infinitely more complicated when we view all people as valuable, “us,” “ours,” one community. We’ve also learned that torture undermines founding American principles of respect and support for human life, is often counterproductive, ineffective, unreliable, and misleading, endangers our own imprisoned soldiers, weakens our alliances, and creates endless new enemies.   more »

Regarding the op-ed Obama’s China Card of 4/8/09: John Wohlstetter’s sinful offer to China of a poisoned diplomatic apple would serve only to heighten geostrategic tensions. Why aggravate our banker China, our most influential ally in negotiating with North Korea, when China could well be the very country most-motivated to partner with Obama’s smart-power, win-win efforts to find peaceful and mutually-advantageous solutions to the global problems shared-in-common by China and her trading partners, neighbors and debtors? Immense U.S. profits already accrued from China’s WTO membership will only grow during China’s historic rise—if unresolved energy shortages, climate change, nuclear proliferation, war, terrorism, trade wars, worldwide crime and disease and other such global conundrums don’t make future international trade moot. Increased enmity with China could even lead to war, which never prevents catastrophe, being itself a catastrophe. Our closest allies have with impunity violated far more UN Security Council resolutions than has North Korea. Let’s retire our lingering sentimental attachments to obsolescent strategies like sword-rattling and stick-shaking, along with defunct foreign policies that bully, threaten, and subsidize massive war-profiteering, approaches which have only moved our tiny blue planet steadily closer to nuclear nightmare.   more »

I originally titled this piece, "Rush Limbaugh is a Dangerous Destructive Simplistic Fear-Based Hateful Ignorant Terrifying Lying Demagogic Blowhard." But I like Rush Limbaugh, if not what he says, so I changed the title. Some of the things I like best about Rush Limbaugh are: his work ethic, his perseverence, his vulnerability, his gentleness, his good mind and his facility with words and ideas, his patriotism, and his loving spirit. Despite overwhelming evidence that his narrow worldview is way too confining for his large heart and fine intelligence, he seems fiercely determined so far to force unruly facts into his too-small mental paradigms, in order that he may continue to be safely "right" about whatever he's said up until now. Rush Limbaugh is afraid (as are we all) of being "wrong," and also of not-knowing, when the truth is, the more one knows, the more one knows one doesn't know. What I do know about Rush is that he means well, and that he wants very much to believe that what he's doing will work for him and for America and Americans. Certainly his past approaches have made him rich. They've also left him feeling very much alone in an angry, frightened, adoring, clueless crowd.   more »

From the looks of the many recent letters to newspapers, U.S. right-wing extremists plan to win back the presidency in 2012 by politiely offering voters a false dichotomy: we citizens will "be forced" to choose between safety and good government—i.e., “Since Bush protected us from terrorist attacks, if there is an attack on Obama’s watch, it will be Obama’s fault, so we'll have to fire him—regardless of his achievements for the people.” The truth is, terrorist attacks are quite likely nowadays, being relatively cheap, easy to carry out, and hard to prevent; examples of such atrocities are 9/11 (which occurred on Bush’s watch), the London train bombings, and the Mumbai attacks. Obama will defend our borders, go after terrorists, and work with all nations to confront and ameliorate the conditions which produce terrorism—lawlessness, violent cultures, lack of opportunity, political oppression and repression, poverty, inequality, easily-available weapons, and ongoing conflicts. But Obama’s job has not been made easier by Bush's disastrous economic legacy, nor by his ill-advised Iraq war, Guantanamo, and his record of torture, all of which have left Obama with an Al Qaeda far bigger, stronger, richer, and more dedicated than Bush ever inherited from Clinton. None of these facts matter, however, to faithless demagogues like Rush Limbaugh, who trust in lies, fear—and a timely terrorist attack—to rescue themselves and their ilk from present ignominy. I welcome your comments! Please send them to njcpace@gmail.com . Thank you! Nancy Pace :) Ps. I am working on a memoir of my years as the military brat daughter of a highly-decorated war hero (and career officer)--about the implications of those experiences for me, my family, other military families, my country and the world in general, and about my difficult transition to peace activism. I will return to full-time blogging as soon as ever I can, and until then, I know I will keep blogging sporadically because sometimes I simply cannot not write about reactions I have to things I read in the newspaper, like the above commentary.... I love blogging, and will post again soon.... Thank you for your patience to all my readers! :)   more »

(Excerpt): During those pre-Civil War days, politicians gained national political stature through public speaking—that is: by composing speeches and then publishing them in the nation’s newspapers. These thoughtfully-wrought, persuasive intellectual arguments concerning the issues of the day included valuable original personal perspectives and prescriptions for appropriate responses to breaking conflicts and topics. Barack Obama himself has certainly fulfilled all such requirement for visionary intellectual leadership, having personally written two best-selling books during his relative youth, and having personally planned and executed an unparalleled national campaign that bent and shaped the ideas of the world through the sheer force of his intellect. (Excerpt): But Secretary of State? We definitely do not need a parochial street fighter in that role. What we need is a global visionary who will approach the world non-adversarially—not as a defensive women up against a world of men, not as an advocate of the interests of the United States against the interests of “the rest,” but as one with all others. (Excerpt): Actually, I had Al Gore in mind for Obama's Secretary of State, because of his green, global, cooperative vision and personality, and his demonstrated intellectual leadership through speaking, writing, and other political venues. But if Obama does offer State to Clinton, then I hope she will consider his offer with a real humility about her motives and abilities gained from her recent hubris. And if she accepts, I hope she now comes from that intellectual bandwidth which alone will determine whether both their decisions will look good to posterity. Unfortunately, Clinton’s previous particular strengths have not been in this department—with the exception of her global work for women and children.   more »

(Excerpt): We are all conditioned to believe that being “right” about ourselves, our politics, traditions and religions, is more important than living and letting others live in peace. We have to be “right” about so many things—about who the bad guys are, who started it, who was at fault, what happened, who meant well and who didn’t, who did what to whom, whose ideology or form of government or religion is superior…. (Excerpt): The truth is, in this confusing world, it’s difficult to find agreement even amongst our best friends and those most “like” us, about what life is all about—what we’re doing here, and how best to look upon the world, ourselves, and one another. Even the greatest scholars realize that the more they know, the more they know they don’t know. This is why, in every conflict, humility, acceptance, mutual respect, support, and yes, forgiveness, are the wisest guides to being “right.” (Excerpt): Wars cannot prevent catastrophes; war itself is a catastrophe, as attested by all those whose lives are touched by war. Soldiers and soldiers’ families are always catastrophically exploited by war. Ninety percent of the victims of war are civilians. We who so proudly march into war have no idea what future injustices those wars will inevitably loose upon innocents on all sides.   more »

(Excerpt): John McCain’s idea of leadership is to cheer us on comfortably from the sidelines, while using his most familiar tool, the military, to force the outcomes he desires. Barack Obama will organize and galvanize us to take the necessary effective national actions on our problems. He will spend our tax money wisely, keep us out of costly wars, get us working to solve our problems, and get us where we need to go, together.   more »

This poem (about anti-China bias in the West) appeared on the internet in March and has since gone viral, popping up on thousands of blgs and web sites, in both English and Chinese. Its authorship could not be confirmed. I think it's quite wonderful.   more »

(Excerpt): I must once again protest The Washington Post’s relentless editorial bias against China and China's favorite current project, the upcoming Beijing Olympics (see "Saved by China," May 14.) For several years, whenever China has made the news, The Washington Post has jumped on all such occasions to write strongly negative editorials portraying China in the most unfriendly, unfavorable light. This negative bias is not apparent in your great newspaper toward any other nation or ethnicity. My letters-to-the-editor and my calls to you questioning this pointed hostility have been ignored. I hope that no single individual in your organization is so powerful as to feel free to disseminate his or her personal racist, belligerent perspectives toward this powerful, influential and important nation, because such attacks are unworthy and unrepresentative of your otherwise admirably balanced, objective news organization......................... Also, a letter I wrote in Oct 07: Who gains from your relentlessly adversarial, competitive slant toward China, except a few fear-mongering demagogues and their greedy, war-profiteering kin (see your mean-spirited editorial about the problems of the Three Gorges Dam, Oct. 15th.) Please consider adopting a friendlier, more open-minded editorial tone which treats all others everywhere the way we in the U.S. would like to be treated by foreign journalists. Salute and learn from others’ achievements, empathize with their failures, celebrate commonalities, accept differences, bear with weaknesses, enlighten and support one another.   more »

I’m enjoying watching the Obama veepstakes unfold…. If Hillary doesn't want the job, which she isn't right for (although I love her) maybe Barack will pick either Pennsylvania’s Bob Casey or Jim Webb.    more »

(Excerpt): Although I support Obama’s candidacy wholeheartedly, I disagree with him here, preferring Reverend Wright’s logic. With Wright, I see no moral difference between a weak, fallible organization (or individual) setting off a suicide bomb in a marketplace, and a big, powerful, fallible nation dropping an atomic bomb on a civilian population—except, of course, that powerful nations have more options. (Excerpt): War doesn’t prevent injustices. War itself is always a grievous injustice to all involved in it. Most soldiers and their families are catastrophically exploited by war. 90% of the victims of war are civilians. Unfortunately, when citizens manipulated into vindictive indignation over present and past injustices march into wars, they rarely consider all the many future injustices which that war will inevitably inflict on both sides. Whether or not we act violently, injustices occur. Whether we fight wars or rise up together in peaceful protest, some people will suffer unjustly, some will die. The Jews died in the Holocaust despite the war effort and perhaps also because of it. Europe is now united; tyrants come and go. No matter whether we choose peace, terrorism, or war, we cannot prevent all injustices. But we can avoid adding to their sum by accepting compromises, listening to all sides, and steadfastly rejecting the gravest injustice of all—war itself. (Excerpt): Too often, we prefer being “right” to living and letting others live in peace. We think we have to be right about so many things—about who’s the bad guy, who started it, who’s at fault, what happened, who meant well and who didn’t, who did what to whom, whose ideology or form of government is superior, whose religion is true, who is weird and strange and cultish and backward and disgusting, who gets to be in control, who gets to be the one with the gold who makes all the rules…. (Excerpt): When we insist on being ‘right’ rather than making the compromises necessary to live together in peace, we are making the choice of terrorism/war over freedom. What is freedom, if not the freedom to live one’s life and pursue one’s dreams in peace?   more »

I was greatly distressed to watch CNN’s coverage of the Pennsylvania Democratic primaries. I tuned in when the polls closed, and listened until nearly 11 p.m. when I got disgusted and turned the TV off. ......... Not a single commentator mentioned the most glaringly obvious outcome, that Barack Obama, a virtual unknown a year ago, had used his time in Pennsylvania to gain from ten to fifteen percentage points on well-known local girl and party-insider Hillary Clinton, an eight-year first lady to a popular president—and thus added to his chances of winning the presidency. As in every other state Obama has campaigned in, people who get to know him, like him, vote for him, and go on to campaign for him. Not a soul on CNN’s political panel mentioned how clearly time has proven to be on Barack’s side, or how, truly, in the general election in November, only the math will count..............No one brought up the important point that Hillary has played every card the Republicans will use against Obama later—except the overt hate-and-fear-of-black-people racist card—while principled Obama hasn’t even begun to untie the huge and readily-available bag of old Clinton family footage, quotes, votes, indiscretions, innuendo, mistakes, and general nastiness (think Kenneth Starr’s report, for starters) which anonymously-funded demagogues have no doubt already begun pawing through and honing, with anticipatory glee, to disgusting effect. Bill Clinton survived his campaigns because he was wildly appealing and charismatic. Hillary is neither, and her negative campaigning against her widely-liked and respected opponent only makes her seem smaller, meaner, scareder. Why didn’t CNN’s commentators point out how Barack has survived Hillary’s worst, while she hasn’t even begun to reckon with the evil that will come at her when the Republicans strike up their band?.............Several other astonishingly clueless comments were voiced by the CNN bobbleheads-of-the-night. One callous voice commented in passing that, if super-delegates coldly overrule the will of the American people in November, “Sure, the Black people will be disappointed, but…”.............   more »

I wonder if Barack Obama ever read Rudyard Kipling’s novel, Kim, about a half-British, half-Indian child growing up happily, as Barack did, in an amazingly diverse culture; Kim’s world was India, Barack’s Hawaii and Indonesia. Kim’s nickname was “little friend of all the world,” and he, like Barack, drew on his hard-won expertise in navigating a mysteriously multi-faceted childhood world to later become successful in “the great game” of politics. ********** Certainly, Kipling’s own memories of growing up in British Raj India influenced his own many adult contributions as a great communicator and cultural ambassador.************** I thought about these many fascinating commonalities while reading Amanda Ripley’s story in today’s Time Magazine about Barack’s anthropologist mother. What adventures she and Barack shared living in the fascinating mélange that is Indonesia—17,500 islands, 230 million people, 300 languages, Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim and Dutch/Christian traditions--and later in multicultural Hawaii, where Barack attended, on scholarship, a prestigious private high school. ******************* Among Barack’s many strengths as a Presidential candidate are his openness to different cultural and political perspectives, and his non-polarizing, accepting attitude toward people from all walks of life. No one is ever a stranger to this non-ideological, caring, international rock star. ********************** What a fascinating youth compelled Barack Obama, our own young “friend of all the world,” to overcome petty divisions and partisan distractions, offer leadership and service to his own nation, and bring the world together to resolve our most pressing common global problems—the ravages of disease, injustice, hopelessness, hunger, greed, environmental degradation, natural disasters, ignorance, addiction, prejudice, nuclear proliferation, crime, poverty, war, terrorism, and violence itself.   more »

(excerpt): I only know what I read in the papers, and I’m nervous about speaking up for someone who is, for the moment at least, being demonized by the Bush administration, especially someone who is currently shooting back at American forces, albeit in self-defense. But I must raise the question of whether Moqtada al-Sadr might not be one of the "good guys," a strong, spiritual leader whom world opinion should now be ecumenically supporting. (Excerpt): Al-Sadr is apparently a wildly popular leader of the Shiite poor, who, time and again, has demonstrated his commitment to peacefully resisting the overwhelmingly-superior military forces bent upon murdering him. Aside from his courageous refusal to relinquish the ancient homelands of his followers to invaders who would steal and exploit them, and his stubborn unwillingness to be assassinated, what has he done to deserve universal media condemnation and abandonment in the west? (Excerpt): Isn’t it time we reconsidered the unquestioned place we have given al-Sadr in our western pantheon of demonized enemies? He is a leader to whom the majority of Shiites in Iraq currently pledge their allegiance, one who has often turned the other cheek even while his beloved followers were being killed. Despite being repeatedly stalked, discredited, attacked, betrayed, and occasionally befriended by President Bush, his millions of followers trust him unreservedly to make their decisions for them. Shouldn’t journalists be speaking out loudly and clearly against the attacks upon him? Who are the bad guys here, and who are the good guys? (Excerpt): Currently, American forces are attacking al-Sadr’s Mahdi army in oil-rich Basra, which is right across the border from Iran. Perhaps Mr. Cheney hopes to provoke just enough Iranian retaliation for this particular aggression to finally justify his own longed-for invasion of Iran’s oil fields? Patriots in Basra and Iran share far more in common with one another than with their American attackers; surely the Iranian government cannot be expected to indefinitely contain the passions of their red-blooded youth, currently standing passively by watching while their brother-Shiites in Basra are being slaughtered.....   more »

Both Barack and Hillary say they can lead America through sweeping legislative changes, yet only Barack has a convincing plan for getting it done.///// Hillary's plan is to do what she always has, that is, to work as hard as she can, and care a lot—a strategy which has resulted in creditable incremental changes, but which promises only more-of-the-same.///// Barack’s plan for getting it done is daring, plausible, and perfectly aligned with his uniquely charismatic and inclusive leadership style.///// He will begin by bringing in so many enthusiastic new voters during the general election that he will sweep a solid majority of Democrats, like-minded Independents, and Republicans amenable to his agenda into office along with him.///// After he’s elected President, he’ll use his remarkable consensus-building abilities to transparently bridge divisions and identify workable solutions to pressing common problems. ///// Then he’ll eloquently sell his legislative package to a devoted American public, who by that time will know and trust him far more than they’ll trust opposing politicians or special interest lobbies, no matter how much money is spent on media campaigns to the contrary.///// Finally, Barack will ask his devoted followers to hound their Members of Congress, and if necessary, turn out in the streets to protest, to get his legislation passed. And they will. And he will. ///// Hillary is wonderful, but her leadership style just doesn't get it done. During fifteen years of unlimited opportunities, connections, and insider information at the center of power—eight years as First Lady and seven years as a U.S. Senator—Hillary diligently chipped away at the edges of big problems, making praiseworthy differences in many lives, all good stuff, but hardly the leadership America needs now. ///// We need a widely popular President who can articulate, orchestrate, and legislate the urgent changes mandated by a solid majority of newly-mobilized followers—a President who gets it done. ///// Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a similarly-populist President who led the country through sweeping legislative changes cherished by the American working class, told the activists who sought his support, "You've convinced me. Now go out and make me do it." They turned out to protest, and his legislation passed. ///// All through FDR’s Presidential campaign, detractors had complained loudly that he would prove a flash in the pan, "only" a great communicator, a man of “mere” words. All such complaints ended abruptly, however, on Day One, a day which, after all, turned out to be far less significant than the many other truly transformative days that followed.    more »

Dr. King's life and stirring words have touched, in our own generation, another great and inspiring leader, Barack Obama, who just as courageously as Dr. King, leads us today, encouraging us to work with him in unity for change. In 1967, at a time when nationalistic fervor made opposition to the Vietnam war an agonizing choice, Dr. King spoke out boldly: “America, the richest and most powerful nation in the world, can well lead the way (in a) revolution of values. There is nothing, except a tragic death wish, to prevent us from reordering our priorities, so that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war. These are the times for real choices and not false ones.” Dr. King’s words could not be more relevant today. Barack Obama has been equally bold in his own steadfast opposition to the Iraq war since before its inception, when nearly everyone else was calling for the much more popular idea of vengeance and retaliation after the 9/11 tragedy.    more »

Make no mistake, only a President embodying a combination of trustworthiness, charisma, confidence, and instantaneous brilliant articulation of principled policies can lead everyday Americans into pressing Congress for sweeping policy reforms in a multitude of urgent issue-areas. A trustworthy, kick-ass leader unafraid to lead will cut through the crap and point us toward truth and away from hucksterism, using his reputation for straight-shooting to aggressively and successfully pursue policy changes....   more »

Peaceful political arrangements in the Middle East are a good place to start, but real and lasting peace will come only when, one-by-one, we in the United States and Iran and Iraq and China and Israel and Palestine and everywhere else, we Christians and Jews and Muslims and Buddhists and atheists alike, first humbly strive to embrace peace in our own hearts, endure injustices without adding to their sum, renounce violent resolution of conflicts, and offer to all others in this and every nation that same forgiveness, acceptance, and love we so long for ourselves (the universal “Golden Rule.”)   more »

Breach of trust Originally published in the Frederick News-Post, November 07, 2007 By Katherine Heerbrandt A week before Sen. Barbara Mikulski visited Frederick County extolling the economic promise of Fort Detrick's expansion, Keith Rhodes, chief technologist for the Government Accountability Office, told members of Congress that the proliferation of high-level biolabs raises serious questions about public safety. "The more BSL-4 labs there are, the more opportunity for mistakes and the more opportunities for release," Rhodes told the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations on Oct. 4. Since 9/11 the number of labs researching the most virulent pathogens -- those with no cure -- grew from two to 15. With no central oversight of the growing number of labs, and disincentives inherent in reporting safety breaches, the security and operations of BSL-3 and BSL-4 labs are in question. The oversight of these labs is "fragmented and relies on self-policing. High-risk labs have health risks for individual lab workers as well as the surrounding community. The risks due to accidental exposure or release can never be completely eliminated, and even labs within sophisticated biological research programs, including those most extensively regulated, have had and will continue to have safety failures," Rhodes said. Burning to spend the billions unleashed for biodefense research, the feds rushed to act with little consideration of the consequences. A sadly familiar refrain. The U.S. Army War College's 2005 "Assessing Biological Weapons and Bioterrorism Threat" concludes money was spent with no analysis of the bioterrorism threat, which it called "systematically and deliberately exaggerated" by this administration. More probable than a bioterrorist attack is that we infect ourselves by theft, design or mishap. With every new lab opened, every square foot added, the risk increases, according to the GAO. The Associated Press produced an interactive map that reveals biolab breaches in the U.S. (http://hosted.ap.org/specials/interactives/wdc/biohazards/) As recently as June, anthrax bacteria was found on a freezer handle, light switch and shoes in a changing room at USAMRIID. With stories of accidents, breaches of protocol and incompetence from biolabs emerging with disturbing regularity, Detrick's refusal to participate in a public meeting isn't surprising. Why subject itself to more national attention when biolabs are under assault? The request came from County Commissioner David Gray, who issued a statement in August saying that federal officials ignored policy in their Environmental Impact Statement by not seeking alternate sites for the labs. Detrick agreed to meet, then backed out, offering a private meeting with county commissioners. Gray wanted to bring community members and the press. Detrick declined that offer, too. Detrick has already done its duty, says spokesperson Eileen Mitchell, providing ample opportunity for public comment and complying with federal regulations. Maybe they weren't counting on anyone actually reading the EIS, but local attorney Barry Kissin and Beth Willis have made a thorough study of it, culminating in a 17-page statement including tough questions for Detrick officials. At best, the EIS is a cursory attempt to comply with federal guidelines. At worst, it ignores documented breaches and blithely concludes that any danger is "negligible." The lack of serious effort in such a critical report is yet another example of the arrogance characterizing the federal government's tactics in the name of keeping America safe from terrorists. Wave the flag and our brains shut down? Undeterred by Detrick's refusal, Gray will have his forum at 7 p.m. on Nov. 19 at Winchester Hall. But it will take more than the usual 20 to 25 regulars to convince a majority of commissioners that the EIS is severely flawed and deserves a court review. It's your last chance. Make it count. kheerbrandt@yahoo.com Please send comments to webmaster or contact us at 301-662-1177. Copyright 1997-07 Randall Family, LLC. All rights reserved. Do not duplicate or redistribute in any form. The Frederick News-Post Privacy Policy. Use of this site indicates your agreement to our Terms of Service.   more »

Why all the subterfuge and indirection? Let's just get down to it, be straightforward and direct: Instead of dragging U.S. troops, diplomats, politicians, reporters, and the rest of us citizens into the Middle East holocaust, why not just drop all our stupidly transparent political pretenses and hand over the whole bloody mess to the corporations? Let’s just give them all the depressing tasks related to stealing and controlling the oil, let them go ahead and divvy up all the various conquest-and-occupation tasks--and of course, the profits, too--but they were going to get those anyway. Our expensive, time-consuming national hand-wringing is such a waste. Why elaborately go through all those pointlessly unsettling motions of giving a damn, all those silly political and journalistic rituals intended I suppose to ease our way into Middle East hegemony—when our very professional corporations could get the job done much more efficiently and thoughtfully, well out of the public eye. Why should we Americans have to be involved at all (except of course a few staggeringly-wealthy shareholders, who can't help themselves.) Why should the rest of us even have to pull ourselves away from our video games and shopping and stuff to think about any of this distressing business? What does it have to do with us? It’s not like we have any illusions anymore that the war has anything to do with our consent, our safety, or our future well-being. We're clear already that we'll get nothing out of Bush’s endless war but more debts and enemies, so why must we also participate in all the suffering—or even watch it unfold? The corporations could easily buy up all their own weapons, hire and train their own militaries, attack and conquer (whomever), grab up their own oilfields, bribe and terrorize their own collaborators, subdue and exploit foreign populations, and write and produce their own media propaganda--as in fact they already do now--without the U.S. government and citizenry being so embarrassingly dragged into the whole mess to provide political cover. The corporations obviously don’t need our citizen support or even our (present-day) tax money. They've managed to move forward on their agenda quite nicely for many years without any of that. And if we're no help to them, we're certainly no bother to them, either, as we've clearly decided to roll over and play dead, asking polite permission for only a few brief opportunities to attempt to dignify our/their actions with silent moments of protest and mourning. Insufficient to maintain a shred of dignity? Then to heck with faking it. Just make it official, give them carte blanche. They're running the show already anyway. Let them just take whatever they want, however and whenever they want to, from whomever, wherever; they’re going to do it anyway, and the niceties of humanitarian and spiritual and political ideals be damned, because, don't forget, we’re still, by far, the biggest bully on the block, and so long as we are, such niceties aren't worth our trouble. Are they? Unless of course empire-building is not what America is about…. Unless of course we’re willing to risk peace, and turn our national will and resources toward cooperating with all the world’s peoples everywhere to end violence and solve our problems together, as one. (So let's just do it. Now.)    more »

I just read Sally Jenkins' sports column in the 8/22/07 Washington Post, about Michael Vick and his dog-fighting choices.... Jenkins said that people who train animals to fight, and then make them fight, are "brutal...sleaze…wallowing in gore by choice...out of sheer dumb meanness...punishing...torturing...battering...killing...enslaving and tormenting...with unnerving ruthlessness.... (Fighting animals is) a bloodsport...barbaric...a gratuitous form of cruelty...a calculating, deliberate and sustained cruelty…." If anyone did such things to people, Jenkins says, we would call it genocidal fascism. No. We would call it military training, and war, and we would perpetrate such crimes without thought, everywhere, every day. We would take innocent, gentle, ethical young men, and put them through military (or terrorist) training, and then throw them into combat, to kill and maim or be killed and maimed, along with their buddies. We would condition and indoctrinate our soldiers into forgetting everything they’ve ever learned about how to treat other people. We would turn them into knee-jerk mental, physical and emotional monsters, so that they can efficiently “do their jobs" without thinking of their victims as human beings. After excruciating training, we would turn them loose upon strangers, many of whom are themselves innocents protecting their own homes and families. We would make our young heroes into snipers and bombers and interrogators and other cold-blooded executioners, to do “work” they can do only because they’ve been brainwashed into thinking of whole populations as demonized “others," as "the enemy." Wars are about powerful, misguided leaders taking for themselves whatever they want—resources, power, money, land—by killing large swaths of people. But soldiers are carefully taught a very different kind of morality, a kind of contextual fuzzy logic that ethically "covers" their bloodiest actions for as long as they can believe that they’re fighting, killing, and dying to protect their friends and families, and to further their country’s noblest ideals and purposes. Soldiers cling to the illusion that that their jobs are necessary and valuable and moral, in hopes that their losses and sacrifices are not in vain, that they have not wasted their lives--and others'. Unfortunately, when soldiers come home from wars, few can morally rectify the gore they've participated in with their peacetime ethical, spiritual and religious belief systems about what it means to be humane, caring, good—all the understandings which make relationships work, and which make life worth living. Many veterans basically go insane for years. Others are unstable or crazy for the rest of their lives. Everyone says training and fighting animals is an outrage. We wouldn't, we couldn’t, we shouldn’t do this to a dog. So why do we keep doing it to people? It's time to reconsider the inevitability of our centuries-old practice of solving problems through violence. Human conflict is perfectly natural and unavoidable, since people will always have competing interests, misunderstandings, old grievances.... In fact, conflict is very beneficial, because it nearly always points to inequities or confusions which need addressing. But violent resolutions of conflict only make things worse. We can teach all people to resolve conflicts peacefully just as easily as we can raise them to respond to problems violently. It's time for America the beautiful, the once and future leader of the free world, to take the first step toward committing to building a world culture of peace.   more »

(Excerpt): I grew up loving a gentle, funny, talented man who was also a highly-decorated war hero and career military man—my father. Many long nights I lay awake listening to the sad bugled tones of “Taps” floating through the quiet night air of the far-flung military stations where we were posted, worrying and wondering about whether my darling Dad might be called away again at any moment, to fight, to suffer, maybe even to die. My deep respect and affection for this dear man made my lifelong fascination with war and my search for alternative paths to peace inevitable. But war itself no longer seems inevitable to me. I’ve come to believe that, while human conflict is completely natural, and while our many differences and disagreements offer the necessary challenges leading to growth, learning, and change, violent responses to conflict only complicate issues, making them that much more difficult to resolve. In fact, I’ve come to believe that violence itself, and the fear which begets it, is the greatest threat both to our nation and to mankind.   more »

(Excerpt): Americans express outrage at attacks on American soldiers, but turn a deaf ear to the pleas of millions of Iraqi war refugees desperate for asylum from our wars. We express indignation when an Israeli dies, but can’t be bothered to count—much less mourn—the untold Muslim victims of our Middle East wars. This double standard would shock us if the oceans of propaganda we swim in daily did not prevent our awareness of it. (Excerpt): Terrorism, like war, is a continuation of politics “by other means.” Grieving and jobless Muslim youth “join up” with terrorist forces in hopes of prevailing against regional and international foes, just as American youths patriotically join the armed services to donate their young bodies in service to their government’s many goals, and end up killing innocent strangers, or dying, or being maimed, only for the mercenary protection and expansion of far-flung corporate/economic interests. (Excerpt): Our country has never been invaded by Muslims, nor, credibly, by anyone else. We spend an annual military budget larger than the next fourteen largest nations combined--in total, 45% of the entire military spending in the whole world--on attacks on and within the homelands of foreigners who have never come anywhere near our homes. We have over 600 military bases all over the world. All this pretense of “defense” of America...even though former Secretary of State Madeline Albright guilelessly admitted after 9/11 that “…’homeland security’ is something people hadn’t really thought of before.” (Excerpt): The literate class in the Muslim world certainly blames the U.S. for oppressing Muslim states. As cruelly and certainly as war kills both body and spirit, so do economic and political exploitations kill, maim and warp lives. Western nations have been meddling politically, financially and militarily throughout the twentieth century, repressing democratic movements and political freedoms throughout all Arab nations, propping up Western-friendly dictators, failing to promote good governance and economic advancement, and neglecting to address rapidly-changing social, demographic and economic developmental challenges. Islamic extremism will continue to thrive until Muslim youth everywhere are offered real hope of political and economic improvements. (Excerpt): Angry Muslims believe that we want to weaken and divide the Arab world, shake the foundations of Islamic belief, and dismantle the structures of Muslim society—their culture, traditions, and their approaches to justice, government, rights, and freedom, however controversial. They believe we want to lead their young people astray, control and limit their use of and profit from their resources, and emasculate and neutralize all opposition to our agenda by spreading our competing western values and influence. (Excerpt): Many Muslims believe that we in the West very much want to keep their countries backward, afflicted, poor and miserable, so we can more easily exploit their riches—their oil, land and human resources. They attribute America’s historical political and economic success not to a morally, economically and politically superior system of government, but to a two-hundred year exploitation of the richest swath of virgin territory and resources that the world has ever known, on the backs of slaves and slaughtered Native Americans, using a form of government primarily supportive of the growth of wealth (the U.S. was originally settled by capitalist business ventures in Jamestown, Plymouth, etc.) and backed up by a growing military force which turned next to support for similar profitable exploitations in the third world. (Excerpt): The West’s war against Islam is considered criminally immoral by the millions of peaceful/innocent non-“enemy” Muslims who have been the “collateral damage” of western aggressions. Like Americans, Arabs have the right to keep and/or sell their resources whenever and at whatever price they prefer. They feel their only hope is to resist and endure Western onslaughts until their undeserved suffering redemptively earns them international sympathy and respect—and/or breaks the American economy—as their resistance broke the national economies of the late great Soviet and British empires. (Excerpt): Muslims pray that the U.S. will lose their political will for unending war, that media backlash from our allies will eventually convince us of endless war’s tragic and wasteful effects. A survey of 47 major nations by Pew Research recently demonstrated that “global public opinion (is) increasingly wary of the world’s dominant nations (and) disapproving of their leaders. Anti-Americanism is extensive, as it has been for the past five years…. Global support for the U.S.-led war on terrorism is shrinking, and distrust of American leadership and foreign policy is growing. Not only is there worldwide support for a withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, but there also is considerable opposition to U.S. and NATO operations in Afghanistan.”(Excerpt): The biggest problem with fighting an endless war on terrorism is that such a war does nothing at all to resolve the terrorist problem, while creating more terrorists. Wars on terrorism are wars no one wins and everyone loses. (Excerpt): Millions of Christians currently live in Arab countries, sharing very much the same culture as their Muslim counterparts, just as Muslims in America share much of our American culture. Unarguably, some Muslim leaders are intransigent and fearful, and some fundamentalist Muslims are as crazy as loons—just like some of our own leaders and fundamentalist Christians, who would nuke whole Arab nations right now. But just because each culture has its crazies doesn’t give anyone the right to attack all Christians or all Muslims in “self-defense.” No society can prevent all senseless, tragic injustices, but we do not have to add to their sum. (Excerpt): Religion can be misused in any land, whether Christian or Jewish or Muslim—to win votes, to gain political power and control, to further various nationalist and ethnic motives. Just as political electioneering in America relies upon familiar, emotion-stirring patriotic and Judeo/Christian words and images, politics in Arab lands come clothed in the garb of Islam. Like our own neoconservative opportunists, radical Islamic opportunists urge their political ideologies and associated plans—whether for a utopian future embracing Sharia law and rejecting secularism and all things foreign, or for world domination and a global empire run by international corporations—all these unscrupulous politicians (whether clerical or secular) urge their dark visions using religion as a motivator for change, and not the other way around. (Excerpt): The very best way to reverse Islamic terrorism, though, is step-by-step, the same way it was created, by reversing the causes of anti-Americanism and extremist violence. Step-by-step, we can move away from a foreign policy of violence-based international competition toward one embracing non-violent global cooperation. Neither approach to ending terrorism is simple, obvious or guaranteed. But only one has any chance of succeeding.   more »

(Excerpt:) I predict that unscrupulous and frightened campaign schemers and strategists within the Republican Party (such as Karl Rove) will convince their followers of the necessity of focusing the 2008 presidential campaign on xenophobia—fear of outsiders. Like all good fascists throughout history, they’ll find themselves “reluctantly forced” to flood the airways with compelling commercials, "information," "news stories," "facts" and "statistics,"convincing a nervous American public that the only thing standing between “us” and a fatal, up-close-and-personal, all-out collision with a horde of terrible “others” so not-like-us as to be sub-human, is to vote Republican. ((Excerpt:) Right-wing talk-show extremists—politicians, preachers, “experts,” business leaders—terrorists all—are already terrorizing the public with their visions of danger, scarcity, and death, hammering their variations on their single essential theme: “If you don’t vote Republican, you and your loved ones, sooner than you think, will be left alone to live and die, poor and horribly, because of “outsiders.’” Excerpt:) The great threats mankind faces today ignore borders, arising as they do from a sense of disunity. These threats, which cannot be solved competitively, but only through global cooperation, include nuclear proliferation, organized crime, poverty, infectious diseases and unsupportive health conditions and attitudes, environmental degradation, armed conflicts of all kinds, including wars both within and among nations, terrorism, the global arms trade, mass migrations, injustice, hopelessness, hunger, greed, natural disasters, ignorance, addiction, prejudice, pornography, homelessness, hate, fear, anxiety, civic alienation, loss of morality, excessive taxation, crumbling infrastructures, more and more “enemies,” violence itself…. The list of threats without borders is long and continues to grow rapidly. (Excerpt): The only way to lick ‘em is to join ‘em. Instead of holding at arm’s length the world’s hungry, envious and angry, instead of arming dictators or beating enemies into submission, or bombing them flat, we can change the way we feel and act toward "others." We can learn to view all people as our brothers and sisters, and to see all hostile actions as a cry for help. (Excerpt:)Yes, Virginia, there really are some very bad terrorists out there, and not a few of them are currently holding top positions in the Republican Party.   more »

(excerpt): Rachel Corrie had no affection for bullies. Burning with a wish to stand up to power and deadly violence, she seemed born to resist injustice. I think she would have been just as eager to oppose Palestinians attacking innocent Israelis, were she drawn to their plight first. (Excerpt): I was saddened to think that some who cherish holocaust narratives like The Diary of Anne Frank would try to censor Rachel’s inspired voice and words for partisan reasons. I doubt any peaceful Jew seeing this play would urge such censorship. (Excerpt): Peaceful Christians, Jews, Muslims, and other Americans are often so aggressively intimidated by their own extremist factions that they rarely speak out publicly against the vengeful actions, bloody rhetoric, and sheer barbarism of all they see, on all sides. Caught within the context of a violent century’s heightened emotions, most moderates—peaceful Jews and Christians and Muslims and citizens of all nationalities everywhere—are too frightened to say “Enough” against even the extremist voices within their own groups. (Excerpt): As long as demagogues and partisan extremists freely pressure and intimidate moderates, worldwide anti-Islamism, anti-Semitism, and anti-Americanism will continue to grow. And if the hot-blooded AIPAC successfully pushes extremists in America and Israel into another bloodbath, this time against Iran, the potential for anti-Semitic, anti-American, and anti-Islamic blowback upon moderates in all these groups everywhere will be as terrible as the cataclysmic impact upon the direct victims of the war. (Excerpt): Extremist Jewish leaders preaching the wisdom of ten-eyes-for-an-eye, and depicting Israel as a tiny beleaguered island within a vast sea of murderous Muslims all wanting to kill Jews and “erase Israel from the map” are as repellently manipulative as extremist Palestinian leaders claiming to be merely a defenseless band of ragtag refugees confronting the combined wrath of the world’s largest and most powerful military forces, or American Christian-extremists sounding the alarm of American invasion by rapacious outsiders and infidels, or American patriots bristling with nuclear arms , self-righteously claiming to be the victims of nations working frantically to develop even a single one. (Excerpt): Violence, or violent extremism, or terrorism—that is, resorting to violence to resolve conflicts—turns out to be “the problem” itself, and not, as many have tried to persuade us, any particular ideology, ethnicity, religious tradition, or national affiliation. The burning question is always: who is committed to non-violent resolution of conflicts, and who isn’t?   more »

(excerpts): Consider: what if an imagined, vastly more powerful Muslim alliance had invaded and occupied the United States five years ago? We wouldn’t be “generating vigorous, sustained condemnation” about an occasional American suicide bomber way over in Iraq, consumed as we would we be already, here at home in America, with simple day-to-day survival, with burying and mourning our million dead brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers, sons and daughters, with caring for five times that million beloved wounded, with desperately fleeing the violence along with the millions of our fellow Americans abandoning their homes and trying to pick up the pieces of their lives and dreams anywhere else…. Just who is it, Mr. Friedman, who is “erasing basic norms of civilization” by terrorizing—Islamic suicide bombers, or our own invading and occupying armies? Both, of course. I have no doubt that many extremist Muslims are every bit as crazy as some of our very own home-grown terrified fundamentalist Christians and Jews who stand ready to nuke whole Islamic nations right now with no more questions asked. Yes, there are violent, ignorant, vengeful people everywhere, and this is a big big problem. And adding more violence, suffering, anger, and fear to all of their lives is being done to what good purpose? (Excerpts): Friedman argues that it’s up to Muslim leaders to “remove this cancer” of terrorist violence. No. It is up to western leaders to remove this cancer of military-backed hegemony, this cancer of “might makes right,” this cancer of trampling the rights and traditions of smaller and weaker peoples. Unless Mr. Friedman and I can somehow agree upon which of our children and grandchildren we’re willing to trade for a steady flow of cheap Middle Eastern oil, and which of our cities we’ll willing to exchange for bigger earnings for American stockholders, we should support leaders capable of shifting our nation and the world into to a new era of non-violent global cooperation, for the sake of all in both the east and the west.   more »

I know that there are a great many peace-loving, non-racist Jews in Israel and the U.S. who would welcome a non-apartheid government with equal civil rights for all people in Israel/Palestine, and who reject war as a way to resolve conflict as thoroughly as they reject terrorism.... I believe that Ahmadinejad has said he wants to wipe the current war-mongering/anti-Islamic regime off the map; he explained to my satisfaction that he was mistranslated--he didn't mean harm to peaceful Israelis who see Palestinians as part of a universal brotherhood.... And I also think we Americans still hope to solve our oil problem by controlling the flow and price of Iraqi (and Iranian?) oil, and that's one reason the oil companies and neocons behind Bush pushed him (sad patriotic misguided dupe that he is) into going to war in Iraq in the first place.... I think some fundamentalist Christian beliefs about Armageddon and the Apocolypse (they are too unloving to give my attention to) are behind much of the support for anti-Islamic-pro-Israel lobbying in America too....I'm sorry to think also that much of the American mainstream media is controlled by people who think like this article describes.... Sadly, most Americans think like this too, because of the brainwashed and brainwashing media.... When America asked, "Why do they hate us?" the media did not tell us.... Our truly inadequate educational system where history and civic curricula are determined by ignorant locals who are equally brainwashed must also be transformed to a more global, caring message, not the empirical, right-makes-might message, the America-is-better-and-thus-must-rule message many schools put out now.... I think all of the forces cited in the article (click on "more" below) are pushing us all to get into a catastrophic war with Iran for all of the reasons given.... But we won't, because we will all join hands around the world and our peace will overcome them....Thank you, Corvuswire, whoever you are, for your courage in writing/sharing your thoughts, most of which I agree with....I hope that the AIPAC/Anti-Defamation League will see that I love Jews but don't love hateful messages.... I believe in non-violent, caring, humanitarian solutions to world problems.... Please read this short piece (click on "more" below) and after you read it, write to njcpace@gmail.com to tell me what you think of it? Thanks.... Nancy Pace   more »

(Excerpt): My husband hates politics, but when I have a nightmare, he listens kindly to my ranting. Here’s my bad dream: President Bush suddenly dies of some inscrutable injury secretly inflicted by the next President Dick Cheney, who appoints a worthless investigative commission, goes scot-free, and uses his brief presidency to orchestrate the succession of his fave cohort-in-conspiracies-against-the-Constitution, David S. Addington. (Excerpt): The few times I have inflicted my politics upon my husband, he’s listened with resigned patience. But this time he gently suggested that I might consider dreaming about something more likely to happen than Vice-President Cheney overthrowing the government.... (Excerpt): Because no one would benefit more from an assassination than Cheney and Addington…. Because no one has done more to undermine the Constitution than Cheney and Addington, however pure their intentions in amassing great power to “save America” (their way)…. Because no one has so much to answer for, or so many wolves at their door, than Cheney and Addington…. I doubt not that Cheney and Addington are deeply unsatisfied with their measly vast powers. I’m confident that they feel increasingly marginalized by their own party, and threatened by mounting opposition from Congress, the State Department, the CIA, not a few top military brass, and even by President Bush, who recently reversed many of Cheney’s war-on-terrorism policies, who apparently is drawing back from Cheney’s influence, and who may even now be feeling the first tingles of fear in Cheney’s presence…. Am I crazy even to wonder whether Cheney and Addington would actually consider using their old military or CIA contacts to quietly engineer an insider-job presidential assassination? Apparently, neither of these men has had a single qualm about wasting hundreds of thousands of lives in the Middle East to further their purposes; what difference would one more life make, when you've spent your whole life pursuing executive power and only one man stands in your way? I admit I haven't had any real experience with power politics...but I've read Shakespeare.... Cheney has deflected negative attention in the past by creating diversions. If Congress calls Cheney’s bluff regarding non-compliance with the NARA executive order (and just why is it that Bush hasn’t stepped forward to interfere with this, hmmmm...?) or if the Justice Department crowds Cheney with BAE slush fund allegations, a presidential assassination might prove as effective and timely a diversion as a war with Iran (Cheney's other all-purpose fall-back diversion.) Here’s a great comment recently posted by “razzi” in response to an internet article about Cheney: “Let's have no game-playing with a man this dangerous who's just a heartbeat away from the presidency. Hearings on his abuse of authority and war crimes need to begin immediately and need to persist for the remainder of his term so that in the event Bush is incapacitated, the case for instant impeachment will already have been built. The evidence needed for an eventual war crimes trial after his term is over also needs to be built. This is a...man who needs to be investigated, prosecuted, and punished for what he is doing to the republic.”   more »

...Whenever anyone in any country has done something injurious to any other, or left undone what could have helped another, no matter who we were, no matter in the name of what ideology we acted, we were wrong. And whenever we chose to support human life, we were acting aright. Politics is as simple—and as complicated—as that. We either contribute to another’s fear, or we offer them loving support. We either perceive their anger and wrong-headedness as an anguished cry for help, or we attack and punish them. We reject them, or we contribute to their acceptance and well-being. We light a candle or leave them in darkness. We offer them war or contribute to their peace. We lift them up or we abandon them. We share their dreams or take them away. We help them or we hurt them. We choose love over fear, or we quibble amongst ideologies to gain power, and end up losing shared life itself on our tiny blue planet.   more »

Not that I can sing, but these two wonderful entertainers sure can. Click on "more" below, and then, below the words to the song, click on the "Dreamin 1.wav" file to hear me sing the words and melody. And please let Tim and Faith know that you've heard a peace and love song that was made just for them (and just made for them, too.... They will know how to pick up some very nice harmonies....) I hope they love it and that you'll love it, too.   more »

To think incisively and to think for one's self is very difficult. We are prone to let our mental life become invaded by legions of half truths, prejudices, and propaganda…. To save man from the morass of propaganda, in my opinion, is one of the chief aims of education. Education must enable one to sift and weigh evidence, to discern the true from the false, the real from the unreal, and the facts from the fiction….The function of education, therefore, is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. But education which stops with efficiency may prove the greatest menace to society. The most dangerous criminal may be the man gifted with reason, but with no morals…. We must remember that intelligence is not enough. Intelligence plus character--that is the goal of true education. The complete education gives one not only power of concentration, but worthy objectives upon which to concentrate. The broad education will, therefore, transmit to one not only the accumulated knowledge of the race but also the accumulated experience of social living. -- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., writing in college, 1947   more »

(I wrote this in response to a letter-to-the-editor in our local paper, which is also reprinted.) The Darfur/Sudan dispute is primarily over who will control the newly-discovered oil-rich lands of Darfur, in western Sudan. As often happens, the indigenous poor there have been ruthlessly pushed aside by voracious corporate and national interests in a typical no-holds-barred international competition for scarce valuable resources. China’s respectful diplomacy toward the legitimate Muslim government of Sudan has given the Chinese an “in” which they are very profitably exploiting. The bumbling U.S. strategy of arming Sudan’s neighbors has won us only suspicion and resentment. A mysteriously (well) funded "Save Darfur" media campaign has legitimately excited the sympathies of people everywhere to help the innocents, perhaps also to "justify" future aggressions. Historically, many illegal invasions, occupations, and wars of greed have been “sold” as rescue missions. China has much to teach the U.S. about win-win diplomacy and trade, just as the U.S. has many important and wonderful things to teach China. May we generously support peaceful international humanitarian efforts to assist the victims in Sudan, and may we use the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing to further mutual peaceful understanding, dialogue, and good will with our trading partner, China.   more »

I haven't abandoned my blog or my cherished readers, but I have undertaken an additional project which I intend to share with all of you as it emerges--a memoir, sort-of-about my military-brat experiences, and about soldiers as ideal universal peace partners.... I've recently stolen a little time from my blogging to research and shape this memoir project. However, I intend to post anecdotes and chapters for your feedback as I write them, and also to return soon to responding to emerging news stories. I hope you will find my memoir an interesting journey, and that you will take this little lull as an opportunity to read early postings you might have missed--a varied but still-relevant stew into which I threw a lot of burning opinion and very enthusiastic creativity..... Thank you, dear readers.... Nancy Pace/"Eppy Harmon"   more »

The following thought-provoking letter-to-the-editor denouncing war protesters recently appeared in our local paper. (My response, as well as the fantastic response of my friend and neighbor, Nancy Arnold, are printed below that letter.) Please click on "MORE" below.... LOCAL PROTESTERS DESERVE RIDDANCE "On behalf of the followers of al-Qaida and militant Islamic jihadists everywhere, I would like to extend our admiration and gratitude to those extraordinary citizens who turned out downtown to show support for our efforts and to register disgust with their country’s war on terror. We share a strong common bond. We each despise George Bush, the American military and Western-style democracies. It is imperative that American resolve to fight our cause be diminished. Your assistance in that regard is greatly appreciated. It is, after all, the highest form of patriotism to give aid and comfort to your country’s enemies—especially when our sons and daughters are sacrificing their lives for your freedom." PLEASE CLICK ON "MORE" TO READ OUR TWO PUBLISHED RESPONSES TO THIS LETTER....   more »

(Excerpt): The best strategy for insuring a reasonable share of post-war oil is for the U.S. to follow China’s admirable (and successful) approach to foreign relations: make friends with every country; don’t try to control events; don’t take sides with factions by using bribes and threats and offering weapons (all of which strategies only make more enemies, while making conflicts harder to resolve); offer apologies as necessary; and spread goodwill by generously supporting, in every country, only open, popular, peaceful initiatives of leaders with broad-based, loyal coalitions. (Excerpt): We need to attend to the real “illegals” in American life—not the immigrants who daily seek respite and freedom from the world’s violence and injustice on our shores, but the thousands of prisoners rotting forgotten in illegal dungeons throughout Iraq, Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Cuba, and elsewhere. We must find a way to bring due process of law to these imprisoned and abandoned “illegals” who have been deprived of their most basic human rights, and end our inhumane criminalization of the inevitable south-to-north global migrants whose only crime is fleeing poverty and terror, finding hospitable ways to assimilate them into American life. (Excerpt): All the strategies described above depend upon our growing awareness that nothing we may fear is more dangerous than fear itself, and no weapon more effective than love in all its forms—kindness, patience, understanding, acceptance…. It is not hate, but fear which builds up armies and stockpiles nuclear weapons; not hate, but fear which looses destruction upon hapless presumed enemies, and thus upon ourselves. The Golden Rule--treat others as you would be treated--works just as well in international relations as it does with individuals. Just as families and businesses must learn to accept, respect, and support others (just as they are) in order to be successful, so must all political leaders, their party members, and their followers—indeed, all citizens everywhere—learn and teach acceptance, respect, and support all our brothers everywhere, all God’s beloved children, every one—if we are to survive and thrive together on our tiny blue planet.   more »

(Excerpt): Once upon a time, two admirable immigrant families, the Chos and the Samahas, came to live in the same Virginia town. Their different versions of the American Dream story both ended on the same day, when they each tragically lost a child to fear, in the massacre at Virginia Tech. (Excerpt): With a chance for a do-over of Cho’s life, we’d stock his schools with structured programs especially intended for minorities, immigrants, the differently-abled, and other struggling children—strong programs every bit as financially well-supported as the many programs currently supporting our most-able students, such as sports, music, and drama programs, and other mostly-top-quartile clubs. Perhaps within such a supportive program, Cho would have found relevant and sufficient friendship. With at least one friend, maybe two, or even three, maybe a small group to hang out with when times were tough, maybe he would have come out all right. And maybe not. It’s hard to imagine not having a single friend, though. (Excerpt): We’ll never know, and neither will the thirty-two Virginia Tech classmates who will remain nameless and faceless at least to him, because he murdered them in the cold blood of a youth who had no friends, who came to believe that he was all alone, feared and hated, an unwanted “alien” in his family’s chosen promised land. (Excerpt): What we can know for sure is that Americans--immigrants all, unless we’re Native Americans--along with the citizens of most other northern countries, will be happier and safer both as individuals and as nations when we finally come to accept the inevitability of today’s south-to-north global migrations (escaping starvation, terror, political oppression, war...) as a fact of life--while supporting population control; when we finally decide together how best to welcome and assimilate all the precious already-living human beings fortunate enough to arrive on our shores legally, as well as the many desperate and equally sanctified souls bravely arriving any way they can in hopes of finding the merest sustenance—or an American Dream—for their families. (Excerpt): In Matthew 25: 31-46, Jesus says: “’Come, O blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see thee hungry and feed thee, or thirsty and give thee drink? And when did we see thee a stranger and welcome thee, or naked and clothe thee? And when did we see thee sick or in prison and visit thee?’ And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me…. As you did it not to one of the least of these, you did it not to me.’ And they will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.’”   more »

(Excerpt): We need our many battlefields, our monuments, and our gravesites to some day help us remember, above all else, the monstrous insanity that once was war. One person at a time, one conflict at a time, one battlefield at a time, we are all finally learning to rise above war, and to become builders of peace.   more »

Excerpt: “The people of the world genuinely want peace. Some day, the leaders of the world are going to have to give in and give it to them.”- Dwight D. Eisenhower (Excerpt): A cabinet-level Department of Peace is a fundamentally conservative idea. Peace in America and throughout the world has become an urgently practical mainstream goal for generations of Americans wishing to conserve lives, resources, good will, money, health, our American ideals, principles, and values, our traditional way of life, our environment, and our talents, time, energy, and property. There is no reason why the long-held American dream of “peace in our time” should not be the business of government. According to our Constitution, a good government supports domestic tranquility, a more perfect union, justice, the common defense, the general welfare, and the blessings of liberty. Without a citizenry and leadership skilled in non-violent resolution of conflict, all these goals are doomed to failure. If we don’t stand for peace, what do we stand for? What better way to show our heartfelt appreciation and support for our troops’ past and future selfless service, what better way to express our debt of gratitude, than to give them a Department of Peace charged with partnering with our military, diplomatic, and political leadership to insure that American soldiers never again march into ill-planned unnecessary wars? Department of Peace legislation could be the unifying, groundbreaking, even visionary legacy needed by the Bush presidency. Most importantly, a Department of Peace promises an effective new approach for solving our nation’s biggest and most costly problem—domestic and international violence.    more »

Saddam Hussein, who is very much one of God’s beloved, fallible children (just like the rest of us) met his death with dignity and courage.... If all such world leaders who wreak ill-conceived, reckless, needless mayhem, who destroy innocent lives in their ambitious pursuit of influence and power, deserve such grisly ends, then some of our current world leaders ought to be feeling a bit queasy just about now.... There is a lot of irony in the sad fact that we’ve spent hundreds of billions of hard-earned and greatly-needed tax dollars to kill off one violent despotic regime in Iraq, simply in order to install another one equally unpopular and equally dependent upon maintaining its power via the same undemocratic brutish means—armies and secret prisons and assassinations and torture. Why else would we need to send ever more armies into Iraq to prop them up?... The Bush administration sold us their disastrously costly war by drumming up American fears of an evil madman imminently threatening U.S. citizens, yet not only could we not find such weapons, we couldn’t even pull off a demonstrably “democratic” (i.e., fair) trial convincingly proving that Saddam Hussein indeed deserved death by hanging for even one single alleged killing spree.   more »

(Excerpt): President Bush can still redeem himself in the eyes of history as the good old boy he means to be, but first he must stand up courageously and presidentially to his neocon friends and their misguided schemes. (Excerpt): If Mr. Bush wishes to be remembered as a force for good, rather than a dupe for a tiny manipulative clique, he should go to work immediately with Congress and cabinet to cut short any planned coups, and to plan a thoughtful withdrawal of all U.S. troops and bases fromIraq. (Excerpt): During his remaining years in office, he has an opportunity to devote the $2 billion/a day we currently spend on war, toward brokering a lasting Middle East peace agreement. Then he can offer generous support to those regional leaders willing to compromise, together rebuilding a peaceful Middle East to their mutual specifications, not ours. (Excerpt): If President Bush wades deeper into an exploding Iraq now, to prop up a coup or to attend to certain blowback from it, he will waste his last two years, and all our money, not to mention vast swaths of American and Iraqi lives, on a futile, catastrophic, Vietnam-like last-gasp effort to impose narrow-minded changes upon a very distant, very old, and very dissimilar civilization. (Excerpt): If the coup rumors are ignored, Americans will wake up someday soon to news that a coup has already taken place (or has been disastrously attempted); that American lives are in danger; and that a far-more massive American military force must be rushed immediately off to Iraq. In just this way have fourteen previous regime changes secretly been engineered by past Presidents and their administrative and corporate cronies, all to American discredit, all at shocking human and material cost. (Excerpt): Once such jingoistic adventures get started on their mindless juggernauts, once demagogues begin feeding the public imagination with new reasons for new fighting, then an unending toll of new, unforeseen losses and enemies will make the widening conflicts almost impossible to stop. If a few right-wing zealots might welcome an “inevitable” Armageddon in the Middle East, the vast majority of Americans would not. (Excerpt): It would be wonderful if James Baker could visualize the shape of an eventual compromise following such a catastrophe, and be so bold as to broker that same compromise right now, before any more bloodletting.   more »

Here are some comic strips about war and sexuality that I wrote, but never drew. I think they're sweet, funny, and make a point.... Do you agree?   more »

EXCERPT: For the first time, Americans are experiencing the christian spirits of this exotic and unfamiliar culture which devoutly prays many times daily, is devoted to family, and which, just like Christians, exhorts its children at home, mosque and school to acts of goodness, kindness, generosity, and peace. EXCERPT: When we choose to see them through christian-spirited eyes, we’ll see a gentle people who have suffered greatly during a century of relentless violence from outsiders, simply because oil was discovered on the land of their ancestors, who yet still reach out hospitably to all who come, not as occupiers and invaders, but as peaceful, respectful visitors and citizens. EXCERPT: Most Muslims, like most Christians, have “christian” spirits, wanting to raise families in a compassionate culture which nurtures universal values. Yet most Americans today agree that, somewhere along the way, America has lost many of her ‘christian’ ways.    more »

Excerpt: People like to feel good about themselves, and Americans are no exception; so only a relative handful of scholarly Americans are even aware of their government’s direct historical responsibility for a century of violent regime changes in fourteen countries from Hawaii, Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, Nicaragua, and Honduras, to South Vietnam, Iran, Guatemala, Chile, Grenada, Panama, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Excerpt: Kinzer’s brilliant decision to summarize the colorful particulars of who-what-when-where-how leading up to, during, and following each overthrow, give range to his best journalistic talents, while reducing his biographer’s breadth and historian’s bounty of facts, figures, places, and times into fourteen short, lively, memorable tales of derring-do, intrigue, overreaching, ignorance, prejudice, greed, and mayhem. Excerpt: Reading Overthrow brought to mind the darker aspects of Margaret Meade’s assertion, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has,” while adding credibility to the mounting evidence that the tragedy of today’s Middle East is indeed directly traceable to the benighted machinations of a few dedicated, powerful, and sorely misguided neocons in Washington, D.C. For each case of regime change, Kinzer implicates a small group of daring individuals usually acting for corporate interests and always with presidential authority.   more »

Here are some of my hobbies(painting, cartooning, etc.) as well as a self-portrait, and a portrait of me by my five-year-old friend, Alexa. Look for them elsewhere in my website to see/learn more.... Thank you for visiting my website! -eppyharmon   more »

Excerpt: A few months ago, I decided to watch some of the best-received war movies that came out of the Vietnam war—The Deer Hunter, The Killing Fields, Platoon, Full Metal Jacket, Apocalypse Now, and Coming Home, as well as some recent and older ones—The Battle of Algiers, Crimson Tide, Saving Private Ryan, The Enemy Below, and Black Hawk Down. Excerpt: I found amazing agreement in all these books and movies in their moral conclusions about war, even as each offered me a unique personal perspective and story unlike any other. Excerpt: Over and over, every work expressed or implied the point of view that “their” war had been insane, cruel, hard, sad, misguided, and stupid, and that it had seemed to create far more problems than it resolved. Their actual acts of war—the killing parts—were consistently experienced as pointless, chaotic, numbing, unreasonable, inhumane, confusing, wrong--and often thrilling, in that the pointy end of the sword had actually gone into some other man.   more »

Excerpt: (W)e can watch, on one channel, various national and international leaders patiently strive to work through peaceful diplomatic channels in search of just, compassionate solutions to deadly conflicts, or we can flip over to another channel and watch Rumsfeld, Cheney, and Bush lambaste these same statesmen as unpatriotic pacifiers, appeasers and sympathizers. Excerpt: How could it be in our best interests for our leaders to refuse to talk with the very enemies whom they’ve told us to hate, because (as they’ve also told us) they hate us. If hate and fear are so dangerous—and they certainly are—why wouldn’t we try to improve such relationships by listening to their grievances and hearing their suggestions for peaceful solutions? Excerpt: Wars are never initiated by popular pressure, never fought from the bottom-up, but always from the top-down, at the whims of leaders who work hard to maintain their intricate ideological justifications. Excerpt: The Defense Department is currently attempting to manipulate our freedom of the press by demanding equal time for its pro-war propaganda. Happily, our free press neither answers to nor agrees with such self-serving ideas about what the job of the press should be. Excerpt: One would think the Defense Department would find our state of constant war sufficient public distraction from the embarrassing truth that we may have as much to fear from an administration capable of embracing its foes with nuclear arms, as we have from their confusingly shape-shifting enemies. Excerpt: Perhaps they hope that once we finally have a clear “enemy” to hate and fear, maybe we won’t notice that a significant contributor to our state of national insecurity is our unrepresentative, repressive, empire-building government. Excerpt: No one can avoid suffering some injustice in this well-armed and very frightened post-9/11 world, but the risk of injustice should not rush us into pre-emptive wars which always only add to the sum of the world’s injustices, while creating ever more enmity and dangers....   more »

Excerpt: Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Al Qaeda and other similarly militant organizations and individuals will never stop “terrorizing” until the far more wealthy, powerful, and better-armed leaders of nation-states stop sending their military and espionage forces to invade, occupy, assassinate, murder, war against, exploit, direct, victimize, and otherwise “terrorize” them. Terrorists are those who have given up on dialogue, diplomacy, and compromise, and have instead resorted to war and other kinds of violence to achieve their political goals. People who courageously stand beside their homes, defending them from invading outsiders who would threaten their way of life, are not terrorists.   more »