contributions

The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government... The mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few to ride them. - Thomas Jefferson
Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe. - Frederick Douglass
We (…)

Amy Branham, Gold Star Families for Peace; A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION [Excerpt]
I went back out to Crawford this week to see for myself how things are going and what it’s like there now. I couldn’t believe my eyes. It was just absolutely amazing.
I left in the wee hours of the morning Saturday to get there, in a caravan with members of Military Families Speak Out (MFSO) from Houston. I think it was about 10 a.m. by the time we arrived at the Peace House.
There were so many cars and (…)

The mother of a Scots soldier killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq has helped launch a legal bid to secure an independent inquiry into the legality of the war. Rose Gentle, whose son Gordon was just 19 when he died, joined the families of 17 other servicemen at the High Court in London where they are seeking a judicial review of the Government’s decision to refuse an inquiry.
In war, casualties can be expected, but the parents at the High Court today believe the war in Iraq was illegal and (…)

By ANGELA K. BROWN
Dozens of war protesters camping along a road near President Bush’s ranch are about to pull up their stakes - but they’re not leaving.
The group is moving about a mile away to a 1-acre corner lot, owned by an Army veteran who sympathizes with those at the vigil that started Aug. 6 by grieving mother Cindy Sheehan.
"I just think people should have a right to protest without being harassed," Fred Mattlage told The Associated Press late Tuesday. "And I’m against the (…)

Cindy Sheehan is filling a void for those opposed to Bush’s Iraq policies. But he may benefit too.
By Ronald Brownstein, Times Staff Writer
WASHINGTON - The high-profile vigil near President Bush’s Texas ranch by Cindy Sheehan, the mother of a soldier killed in Iraq last year, could scramble the politics of the war as much for her allies as for the target of her protest.
An immediate effect may be to increase the pressure on liberal activist groups and Democrats - who have focused (…)

By William Fisher
Civil libertarians and the Pentagon appear headed for yet another trainwreck in the ongoing dispute over the so-called second batch of photos from Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
In response to a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the Centre for Constitutional Rights (CCR), and a number of medical and veterans groups demanding release of 87 new videos and photographs depicting detainee abuse at the now infamous prison, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of (…)

President must explain why he changed his mind
by Jennifer Monroe
WASHINGTON, D.C. — (OfficialWire) — 08/18/05 — In 1999, George W. Bush criticized then-President Bill Clinton for not setting a timetable for exiting Kosovo, and yet he refuses to apply the same standard to his administration’s illegal war.
"Victory means exit strategy, and it’s important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." —George W. Bush, Houston Chronicle April 9, 1999
"If we (…)

The Peaceful Occupation of Crawford (Day 12); Vigils
by Cindy Sheehan, Crawford, TX
Our candlelight vigil at Camp Casey was beautiful tonight. There were hundreds of people here and we are hearing that hundreds of people were involved in vigils around the country. We at Camp Casey are so amazed and gratified that there were almost 1700 vigils around the country.
CNN followed me around for the morning to do a ’Day in the Life’ of Cindy Sheehan. I kept asking them if they were falling (…)

By Greg Moses
Two months ago while exhausted from a Summer Soulstice peace festival, and while looking with dismay into a long hot summer of war, Louisiana attorney Buddy Spell, his spouse Annie, and their guest of honor Cindy Sheehan decided they needed to do something, but not something too high energy. So they browsed through the train schedule and designated an Amtrak Crescent as their Peace Train. Come September they’d board the train in New Orleans and put out word to folks along the (…)

by Tim Shorrock
Lost amidst the publicity about the breakup of the AFL-CIO at its convention last month were two events that, in their own ways, could point to a radically new foreign policy for American unions and workers. The first was the convention’s passage of a resolution placing organized labor squarely behind a rapid withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq-the first time that the AFL-CIO has ever taken a public stance against an ongoing U.S. war. The significance of the resolution was (…)