Vigil Report, March 31, 2007

Dear Friends,

 

Eight of us spent a sunny but chilly noon hour standing for peace in Shirley Square. As has become usual, positive responses were overwhelmingly in the majority, with only one 1-finger salute from a young man with a US Marine plate on his car, and one older man who asked if we remembered Pearl Harbor! Who can explain such associations of the mind?

 

Hope to see you next week.

 

Peace,

 

Ted

Vigil Reminder, March 31, 2007

Dear Friends,

 

Weather report looks fine for tomorrow. See you at Shirley Square at noon!

 

Peace,

 

Ted

Re: Memorial Vigil: Reschedule dates

Dear Friends in Peace,

I am petitioning the town for use of the Training Green to conduct our Memorial Vigil on the weekend before or during the Memorial Day. This time around we have the support from the state branch of Disabled American Veterans.

I am hoping that we can continue to count on other veteran and peace groups. Please think about how you would like to see this Memorial Vigil implemented. We again have enough time to plan. Will let you know when I have received final approval.

Irene

Vigil Report, March 24, 2007

Dear Friends,

 

Eight of us basked in a warm sun this noon at Shirley Square; wish you were there!

 

Responses were overwhelmingly positive and supportive, though we had a few one-finger salutes and catcalls. I can't understand the vehemence of such folks.

 

Thanks to all who turned out.

 

Peace,

 

Ted

Vigil Reminder, March24, 2007

Dear Vigil Friends,

 

Sunny and warmer weather forecast for tomorrow. Barring an unforeseen upheaval, hope to see you at Shirley Square at noon.

 

In Peace,

 

Ted

Fw: Please forward: Benefit Concert for Iraqi Famlies April 20th

Dear Friends,

Forwarded for your possible participation.

Louellyn and her husband have joined us at vigil and have assisted in
preparations for the Memorial Vigil.

Ted

----- Original Message -----
From: "Louellyn Lambros" <llambros46@hotmail.com>
To: <rudybean@yahoo.com>; <hebesan@earthlink.net>; <vakelty@aol.com>;
<tacurtin@verizon.net>; <jennymaas3@riseup.net>; <agnesmccann@comcast.net>
Sent: Wednesday, March 21, 2007 9:13 AM
Subject: Please forward: Benefit Concert for Iraqi Famlies April 20th

>
>>A message from Citizens for an Informed Community in Bridgewater:
>>
>>Dear Friends in Peace:
>>
>>Ordinary Iraqis suffering the consequences of war are often overlooked.
>>Please join us at a benefit concert for some of the
>>families caught in the crossfire.
>>
>>TALES OF LOVE AND FRIENDSHIP IN A TIME OF WAR
>>- Bridgewater Benefit Concert for Iraqi Families -
>>
>>featuring storyteller George Capaccio
>>World Musician Salil Sachdev
>>Hearts with Ukes youth ensemble
>>
>>Friday April 20th 7:30 PM
>>First Parish Unitarian Universalist Church
>>50 School Street
>>Bridgewater MA 02324
>>(508) 697-2525
>>
>>Suggested Donation: $10/$5 Student/Low Income
>>
>>Since 1998 professional storyteller George Capaccio has assisted a small
>>group of Iraqi families, first helping them deal with punitive
>>UN sanctions, then with the worsening situation after war was declared in
>>2003. Today George assists 10 families, one of which has gone into exile
>>in
>>neighboring Jordan, where its members live in limbo awaiting the outcome
>>of
>>the war.
>>
>>All donations will directly benefit the families George has met during his
>>trips to the Mideast. Please join us as we extend the hand of
>>compassion to those who suffer the brunt of war: the civilians living in
>>the combat zone.
>>
>>PROGRAM NOTES: George Capaccio is an acclaimed professional storyteller
>>who
>>uses myths, fables and poetry to illuminate universal themes of humanity
>>and peace. Salil Sachdev composes for various media and is the director of
>>Khakatay, the Bridgewater State College West African drumming ensemble.
>>Hearts With Ukes is an "Arts for Youth" ukelele ensemble dedicated to
>>raising money for children's charities.
>>
>>PLEASE FORWARD THIS MESSAGE. THANK YOU.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> It's tax season, make sure to follow these few simple tips
> http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Taxes/PreparationTips/PreparationTips.aspx?icid=HMMartagline
>

Re: HONOR THE FALLEN VIDEO

> Dear Irene and friends,
>
> In the spirit of the March 17th event, now to be rescheduled, I
> thought
> you would want to want to see this video, of folks remembering their
> loved
> ones who died in the Iraq War.
>
> Louellyn

Hi, Louellyn.

I also have the video hosted on one of my web sites at
http://www.allgeektome.com/memorial.asp , and I also have set up a
related "Mission Accomplished ???" page at http://www.allgeektome.com/
(each page has links to the other at top and bottom). (Full info on
war casualties is, of course, at http://icasualties.org/oif/ .)

Fred

HONOR THE FALLEN VIDEO

Dear Irene and friends,

In the spirit of the March 17th event, now to be rescheduled, I thought you would want to want to see this video, of folks remembering their loved ones who died in the Iraq War.

Louellyn

http://iraqmemorial.org/

An Iraq War Vigil TONIGHT in Scituate

FYI

• Vigil time and location:

4th anniversary of the war
Host(s): Louellyn L.
When: Monday, March 19, 6:00 PM
Where: Lawson Common
Lawson Common
Scituate, MA

• Bring candles and friends. At tonight's vigils we will be holding signs that call on Congress to bring our troops home and reading stories from family members of fallen US troops. We will also hold candles and silently reflect on this tragic anniversary, so please be sure to bring a candle or two to ensure that everyone who comes (or joins in from the street) has a candle to hold. Also, one great way to grow your vigil and make the experience more inclusive is to invite your friends and family to attend.

 

Diane

 

Veterans'Centers

Dear friends,

 

Here is a rundown on Vets' Centers and what they are doing.

 

Let's plug for one in Plymouth.

 

Ted

 

 

 

Vet Centers Making a Difference in Communities

A recent VA briefing to military and veterans' service organizations highlighted the positive differences being made by community-based outreach programs.

Currently, the VA has 209 Veteran Service Centers across the country, with 23 more approved for construction.  One of their key purposes is to make the post-war adjustment easier for vets and their families, providing a continuum of care in the home community.  They are the key access link between the veteran and other services in the VA, including:

• Individual and group counseling
• Marital and family counseling
• Bereavement Counseling
• Military sexual trauma counseling and referral
• Community outreach and education
• Substance abuse assessments
• Medical referral
• Assistance with VA benefits
• Employment counseling, guidance and referral
• Information and referral to community resources

A plus to the program is the 100 Global War On Terrorism veterans who have been hired specifically to reach out to their fellow Iraq/Afghanistan veterans where they live, at National Guard/Reserve component demobilization sites, active duty transition points, and elsewhere in their local communities. 

Their shared experience provides a bond and trust that helps personalize the VA's service and promotes the veteran's successful integration back into hometown America.  More than 165,000 OIF/OEF veterans have been provided services since 2005 when the outreach project began.

Vigil Announcement, March 17, 2007

Dear Friends,

 

I can hardly see across my back yard, and the forecast is for things to worsen before they get better sometime late tomorrow.

 

Thus, I feel we must cancel our vigil for tomorrow.

 

As some have been informed, the special Plymouth Memorial Vigil scheduled for tomorrow, from 10 to 2, has also been canceled.

 

Also, as some of you have been informed by Irene Caldwell, we are all encouraged to support the movement to bring a Veterans' Administration clinic to Plymouth. This clinic had been planned, OKed and budgeted, then suddenly canceled in the general VA budget cuts. In the interest of Peace and Justice we should support this effort to provide much needed, easily accessible medical service to the rapidly growing population of veterans in this area.

 

Please take the time to write your congressman and our senators, urging their strong support for this Plymouth clinic:

 

For Plymouth area residents:

 

Congressman William Delahunt email william.delahunt@mail.house.gov

 

Senator Edward M. Kennedy email  feedback@kennedy.senate.gov

 

Senator John F. Kerry email  john_kerry@kerry.senate.gov

 

Peace,

 

Ted

Why Libby case will be remembered

I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby.

Chief of staff and longtime close friend of Vice President Dick Cheney.

Convicted felon.

The conviction of Libby, for lying to FBI agents and to the grand jury investigating the leak of CIA officer Valerie Plame’s identity, is one of those moments in legal history that only has significance if taken in context. Lying to the FBI and a grand jury is not honorable behavior, but how many people do we hear about being successfully prosecuted, following a lengthy and expensive investigation, and, as is likely in Libby’s case, spending some time in jail? Some wag on television compared it to convicting mobster Al Capone on tax evasion charges. It’s not getting at the heart of the matter, but it’s better than nothing. You go to court, as it were, with the evidence you’ve got.

So, Libby’s conviction won’t make the history books because of the resoundingly egregious nature of his offense. It will make the history books because he lied in the process of being investigated for his role in leaking the name of a CIA agent to the press -- another serious felony. And that eventuality was linked closely to the dominant point of view within the administration, one that required an attitude of invulnerability, righteousness and the sense of being beyond the reach of law.

That view, in turn, becomes significant because it is necessary to underwrite our assurance when we undertake campaigns of redemptive violence, as we have in Afghanistan and Iraq. It is difficult to bring religious principles into consideration these days without stirring up theocratic jingoism or getting into useless debates over individual interpretations of selective sacred texts. Isn’t it enough to say, however, that it would be impossible to find justification in the Christian scriptures for preemptive massive violence?

The projection of overwhelming power has no foundation in the Beatitudes; that notion, which knows no partisan limits, comes from somewhere else.

In Salon.com, Glenn Greenwald wrote following the trial that Libby “has long been one of the most well-connected neoconservatives in the country. Along with Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Jeb Bush and Norman Podhoretz, Libby was one of the 25 signatories to the founding statement of Bill Kristol’s empire-embracing Project for a New American Century in 1997.”

That initiative had Iraq in its sights, as Greenwald notes, long before Sept. 11, and long before the trumped up evidence for invading Iraq that was the subject of former Ambassador Joe Wilson’s curiosity when he took the trip to Niger in Africa, from which Iraq was allegedly importing material for nuclear weapons. The charge was incorrect. Wilson ultimately wrote a piece critical of Bush administration rationale for the invasion, and not long after, his wife’s identity as a CIA officer made its way into print.

The Libby case will also make the history books because of other realities made clear during the trial. This is a case in which the legal system showed it can serve in oblique but beneficial ways. What became disturbingly evident was that Libby was, indeed, the fall guy for many in the administration, not least among them his immediate boss, Mr. Cheney.

What also became clear was the bare-knuckles approach that Mr. Cheney and others in the administration employ when combating those who dare question their strategies and motivation.

New York Times columnist David Brooks laments what has happened to Libby because, guilt in this case aside, “I’ll always believe he’s a good man.”

“Yet that doesn’t begin to cover the sadness that this trial arouses,” he continued, “for the proceedings have revealed the arc of what the administration was and could have been.”

Since the period of 2003 covered by the trial, a time of “a feverish sense of mission” at the White House, cruel reality has worn away the sense of invincibility so that now, says Brooks, “there’s a greater tendency to match ends to means, and to actually think about executing a policy before you embark upon it. There’s much more tolerance for serious thinkers. … In short, this administration’s capacities have waxed as its power has waned.”

But hubris and intolerance for serious thought is not an inevitability for every administration. This administration has been an unusual experiment born of extremist ideologues, secrecy and a disregard for the Constitution and traditions of accountability.

Libby may indeed be a good man who toiled admirably as a diligent public servant, obedient to superiors.

The problem is, we have become reluctant, even reticent, when it comes to asking the essential questions about what is being served.

National Catholic Reporter, March 16, 2007

Advance reminder for March 17

Dear Friends,

 

This is to remind you of the Memorial Vigil that will take place next Saturday, March 17, and to urge you to set aside some time between 10:00 AM to 2:00 PM to visit, in communion with all those who have been affected by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

 

The Memorial, a symbolic display of markers in honor of those who have died in the war, is to be set up on the Training Green, the park with the tall Civil War monument, on Rte. 3A, just south of the bridge over Town Brook at Brewster Gardens (about a mile south of the junction of Rte. 44 and Rte. 3A).

 

We also suggest that, if possible, you plan to "adopt" one of the markers at a cost of $10.

These donations may be designated for Disabled American Veterans, Military Families Speak Out, or the USO.  Make out your check to the organization of your choice in an envelope marked "First Parish Church" and deposit it in a designated receptacle on the Green.

 

We plan to hold our usual vigil in Shirley Square from Noon to 1:00 PM. I expect that those who have not visited before noon will then proceed to the Memorial. We will not bring any signs to the Memorial, because of its solemn nature. There will be music, and speakers after 1:00.

 

Hope to see you there. In Peace,

 

Ted

 

 

Re: Vigil Report, March 10, 2007

Thanks, Fred,

And thanks to all who turned up.

Wonder if that older gent thinks Osama and Saddam were behind the attack on
Pearl.

Peace,

Ted
-----

Vigil Report, March 10, 2007

> The weather forecast is for warmer weather - up to 48 - A heat wave!

Well, not exactly a heat wave (it was mostly cloudy, cool, and
blustery), but it certainly was better than some of the absolutely
bitterly cold days some of us have endured this winter - <g>.

We had nine brave souls standing up for Peace and Justice in Shirley
Square today. Most responses were positive, with a smattering of
negatives noted. Most unusual was the older gentleman who, at barely
12:00, just as we were just getting started, yelled out of his car
window at us, "What about Pearl Harbor?". No, not 9/11, but Pearl
Harbor. (Heck, even Darth Cheney doesn't go back that far.) I guess
the guy's been fighting the rest of the world ever since 1941 (?).

Warmer weather is coming. Peace is coming. Too bad that the warmer
weather will arrive first...

Pax,

Fred

Vigil Reminder, March 10, 2007

    Dear Friends,

 

We are called out of town tomorrow, and won't be able to attend the vigil.

 

Eileen has the signs, and will meet you in Shirley Square at noon.

 

The weather forecast is for warmer weather - up to 48 - A heat wave!

 

Peace,

 

Ted

Fw: Storming Capitol Hill. . .by Phone (pass it on!)

Hi Friends,

This is forwarded for your interest and consideration as another avenue
towards PEACE.

Ted

----- Original Message -----
From: "Cindy, Medea & Tom" <info@pdamerica.org>
To: <tacurtin@1949.usna.com>
Sent: Monday, March 05, 2007 10:41 AM
Subject: Storming Capitol Hill. . .by Phone (pass it on!)

> HEED THE CALL FROM CINDY SHEEHAN, MEDEA BENJAMIN, TOM HAYDEN Join the
> national *Call-In for Peace*. PDA and its allies are coordinating a
> unified phone campaign to get Congress to reject additional Iraq war
> funding - the Bush supplemental appropriations request for $93
> billion more. With the Democratic leadership signaling weakness and
> half-hearted amendments aimed at undermining the surge but not the
> war, our coalition is /phoning/ in a loud and clear message: NO MORE
> FUNDING FOR WAR. VOTE NO ON THE SUPPLEMENTAL. BRING OUR TROOPS HOME.
> . .AND OUT OF IRAQ'S CIVIL WAR. *PDA's big day is Tuesday, March 6.
> Mobilize all PDA members and supporters to phone Congress on Tuesday.
> Our special number into Congress is 1-888-851-1879.* When you call
> your Senate and Congressional offices, /politely/ tell them one or
> two of the following points: Most Iraqis - both Sunni /and/ Shia --
> want US troops out of their country and most believe attacks on our
> troops are justified. US military force is no solution in Iraq -
> especially given the tainted rationales for invading Iraq, cultural
> gaps, Abu Ghraib, etc. Diplomacy, not war, is the solution. The
> American people at the polls in November and in opinion polls have
> expressed their view that the US needs to get out. Four years is
> enough! With its Constitutionally-granted "power of the purse,"
> Congress has the duty to end the war by cutting off war funding,
> except what's needed for the prompt, safe, orderly withdrawal of all
> our troops.
> Each day from March 5 through March 13, different national groups in
> our alliance will spark phone calls to Congress. Instead of just one
> day of calls, we'll keep pressure on Congress for over a week leading
> up to the Iraq Supplemental vote. Thanks to our toll-free number
> (connected directly to the Capitol Hill switchboard), we'll track how
> many calls we can generate when we all work together. Mon., March 5 -
> Voters for Peace *Tues., March 6 -- PDA, **AfterDowningStreet**,
> **US** Labor Against the War* Wed., March 7 -- CodePink, Global
> Exchange Thurs., March 8 - GSFP Fri., March 9 - Peace Action Mon.,
> March 12 - UFPJ Tues., March 13 - All together now! *Join with PDA
> members/supporters this Tuesday, March 6 and call Congress: 1-
> **888-851-1879.* ** *Please take a minute to share with us how things
> went with your call! {http://blog.pdamerica.org/?p=1011}*
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> Powered by PHPlist, www.phplist.com --
>
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>

Vigil Report, March 3, 2007

Dear Friends,

 

It was a lovely, warm, but gusty noon hour in Shirley Square. Ten of us stood vigil in the sun and observed many positive responses from all ages. I didn't see or hear any negatives, except for our old "pal" the bus driver.

 

Please be on the lookout for more information from Irene Caldwell about the Memorial Observance at the Training Green on Sat. March 17, and plan some time for it around mid day.

 

Peace,

 

Ted and Grace

Vigil Reminder, March 3, 2007

Dear Friends,

 

The rain is stopping, and the forecast for tomorrow is for cloudy and warmer weather - up into the 50s!

 

Hope to see you at Shirley Square at noon.

 

In Peace,

 

Ted