Author: mopress

Mr. Moses:

So, I just read your counterpunch post from today (8/22/05) and I have to admit that I’m thoroughly perplexed. I enjoyed the quotes from the soldiers and veterans that you mentioned at the end and the part at the beginning about Marx was confusing but I enjoyed the sentiment of wanting to make Marxist ideas more accessible. All in all, though I just found it to be very convoluted and I’m not really sure where you were trying to go with it. Clearly you’re alluding to a lot of things that most of us (who are not able to go to Texas right now) have no idea about. Some kind of arrests, something about the International Socialist Organization and two different Camp Casey’s. Maybe I can dig around the internet for this stuff, but I don’t have the time to follow every twist and turn of the inspiring events at Camp Casey, so you’ll have to forgive me. Since many of us have full time jobs, families and many other responsibilities it may have been helpful to a number of your readers to fill us in this information.

The only thing I could piece together was a general criticism of how radical groups (presumably the ISO) don’t take the time to listen and report from Camp Casey. Like you, I’m a fan of the ISO and I read their paper on line. The current issue actually has a long article about Camp
Casey, written from there, right on the cover. The paper comes out once a week, so I’m sure there will be another report in the paper this week too. (They seem to have a couple reporters there.) The current issue also has an interview with two soldiers from Iraq Veterans Against the War, not to mention a long review of a book about the soldier’s rebellion in Viet Nam and an interview with an abortion rights provider. All of this seems to contradict your argument. It appears that the socialists, or the ISO, at least, is doing quite a good job listening and reporting what their allies have to say. Here is the website: http://www.socialistworker.org/. Maybe if you took a second to read their ‘sectarian’ newspaper you would have realized that your attack was unfounded in reality. Now all you’ve done is dishonestly (or ignorantly) discredited all socialist groups in such a way that certainly won’t help get marx’s ideas more into the mainstream, which you claim as a goal.

In solidarity, but disagreement…

—-

Reply: With such fine resources at your fingertips, I’m sorry you find yourself digging around the internet in order to understand what was going on at Camp Casey this weekend. I really should have been more helpful. Meanwhile, as I say in my article, the socialists have been quite reliable propagandists for the peace movement. My offer still stands: I would even help them peddle lit on site.

P.S.: I have seen such high quality mail from an article. I’m going to post every bit of it at peacefile.org/phpnuke

By Greg Moses

AfterDowningStreet / CounterPunch / PeaceJournalism / OpEdNews / BellaCiao / UrukNet / SamHamod

If by socialism you mean the kind of world that officers’ kids enjoy, then I’m pretty much for it. It’s the kind of world I grew up in. Free health care, pretty good job security, cheap movies (that I could afford to attend every night in a row), swimming pools, bowling alleys, shooting ranges, craft shops, safe streets, and no private property to speak of. The toughest day on base was the day you “cleared quarters”, when a soldier with clipboard would come to your house and tell you whether you had to spend another day scrubbing the most out-of-way corners of your home so that it could be turned over to the next family. Of course, if you passed that dreaded inspection, you were off to see the world, living somewhere far away in quarters recently cleared.

So I have spent the better part of a day trying to figure out what is making me feel so anxious throughout my body as I think about the day the socialists got kicked out of Camp Casey Two, arrested actually for the crime of not having better relations with the camp’s organizers. Like me, some of these camp organizers have learned their socialism in ordinary places and have fully enjoyed the writings of great socialist thinkers such as Karl Marx.

In fact, the first place I found “the best of Karl Marx” was on my grandfather’s very short bookshelf, in his study at the back of that beloved home in Highland Park, Texas. His name was Russell Moses and I was named after him, although from an early age everybody decided it would be better if people used my middle name so as not to confuse me with him. But like I say, the bookshelf was very short, and right beside the Reader’s Digest anthologies, grandpa kept an anthology of Marx.

I don’t know how America got to be so juvenile since then, but there was a time when a Southern boy with one glass eye could go to West Point, get a good job in the Army, retire as a Colonel, dedicate his retirement to teaching, vote as a Lincoln Republican, and die in East Texas with a mind open enough to see that Marx is simply one of the best reads going. I mean, even if your only interest is quality writing, why would you not have some affection for good ol’ Karl right next to (because it’s never in) the best of Reader’s Digest. Too bad grandpa died before I finally re-read Marx more thoroughly. We might have had a quite wonderful chat about that. In terms of pure writing, I’d have asked grandpa if he’d ever read Adorno.

From the very beginning of the post 9/11 debacle, socialists have been quite reliable opponents of the Bush juggernaut. They predicted more or less where this was all heading, and they hit the streets early hollering about it. Some of my best sources of news these past years have come from lists organized by socialists. Moms of dead or endangered soldiers might find out they have more in common with socialists than they would otherwise think. So I hope the parties work something out. In terms of world history, America is sadly missing out on the great secret that socialism is a mainstream movement, adopted by base commanders everywhere as the best way for officer’s kids to be raised. Not to mention land grant universities such as my alma mater, Texas A&M.

Meanwhile, when Cindy Sheehan attempted to re-center herself at ground zero of a peace tornado that blew up overnight over the Texas prairie, she pointed our browsers to lewrockwell.com, which is not socialist but libertarian. In Texas, if a libertarian stands a far better chance than does a socialist of coming out and not getting beat up, it has nothing to do with anyone’s considered opinion of the issues. It’s just the way our contradictions work down here. But libertarians also have been pretty reliable opponents of the so-called war on terror and right up until Saturday, even in Texas, the libertarians and socialists have stood in solidarity against the extremist initiatives of the Bush administration. Now is not the time for either side to provoke a sectarian sideshow.

If the ISO would consider it, a simple compromise may be possible. Do your tabling on the county road at Camp Casey One. It is public property. You have as much right as anyone else to be there. Even libertarians must agree with that. Plus, you’ve worked as hard against the war as anyone and for just as long if not longer. Showcase your own veterans. If PETA could work something out in the middle of all these meat farms; then it can be done. And if you need a volunteer next weekend, give me a call and a ride from Austin. I’m not (nor have I ever been) a member of the ISO, but I’ve always enjoyed your book tables.

Now if you’ll just bear with me for another 860 words, I’d like to tell you about Saturday night under the big tent. The libertarians were there of course, and the Democrats, the carnivores and the vegans, I can’t imagine that some Republicans didn’t sneak their way in to find out how to keep their kids and partners from being killed. And if we must know, the radicals were there too, even long after the arrests, even if they were not pushing those sectarian newspapers that you see at nearly every public rally these days, yes Virginia, even in Texas.

Our homespun sage Steve Earle said at the end of the evening (and this much has been previously reported) that we have to do two things: proceed with respect for others, that’s number one. And second, we have to respect our own views of things by refusing to self-censor. In this age of emerging transparency, nobody hides for very long anyway. Why get caught trying?

And I think this need for raw honesty was the artistic motivation for why James McMurtry played his Oklahoma tom-tom song (the same one covered so well, so well on Ray Wylie Hubbard’s new CD). This just ain’t the time to sing like we’re living in Disneyland. Just as slick talk and censorship got us into this godawful butchery, raw talk is going to cut the path that gets us out. Under the listening tent, we have to put it just the way we feel.

On stage Saturday night under the listening tent, although I can’t find news of it anywhere, not even in the so-called alternative press, there was a long line of emissaries from military families, including Iraq veterans themselves, all of them bringing open messages from within the ranks of the military. Fight like hell to end this war! That’s what they want us to do for them. That’s what we have to do anyway. So there are a lot of people, them and us included, who we cannot afford to let down.

My personal favorite was Eddie Boyd who on Friday flew all the way down from Baltimore and who Sunday would be flying all the way back in order to try and keep his job. When they asked if anybody wanted to speak from stage he said hell yes I do, and he said it plain. He said:

“I was one of those guys who fell for the con. I was one of those guys who believed we were out to defend democracy and bring freedom to Iraq. Besides in the neighborhood where I come from, there were not too many options. Eight out of ten of my best friends back home died from a life of crime.” (Back in his neighborhood, kids weren’t treated like officer’s kids.) Eddie was at Camp Casey to support Sister Sheehan and he wanted us to know that there are lots of honest, hard working people who feel this war is insane.

“And do you want to know what terrorism is?” asked Eddie. “Terrorism is being the richest nation on earth and letting 43 million people go without health care. Terrorism is giving money to large corporations for contracts in Iraq while refusing to put money into schools and hospitals. In Baltimore cameras are watching you 24 hours a day, and they say they are protecting our rights. They say they’re fighting for your right to speak. But ever since this war started I got less and less rights. I’m pissed off at this administration.”

“Right over there,” says Eddie pointing next door. “Is a president on Va-Ca-Tion! We’ve got wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, not to mention the Philippines and other places. And this man,” says Eddie pointing, “decides to go on vacation! Today the line must be drawn.”

“When I came back from Iraq my mom could not understand where I was. Yes, physically I was all right. But mentally and spiritually I was dead. If we love our kids so much why don’t we keep them from putting on uniforms?”

“And what about the female soldiers who get into the military and face sexual harassment and assault. Don’t they too deserve every right to live in peace? If you want to find a terrorist, look at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, that’s where the terrorist lives! And we need to do something about it!” As I scribble to keep up best I can, I think, Eddie Boyd has earned the right to say these things, and he has already paid too high a price. Will he be able to keep his job after all in the land of the free?

I take notes on sheets of paper folded into eight squares, which is sixteen squares of notes per sheet, if you count both sides. What I have just reported from Eddie Boyd is three and a half squares of notes from a 24-square evening of speeches. And I’m not finding any of this stuff online. Socialists looking for something to do? Why not come here and listen? With all due respect for those who bring literature, there is a crying need in the world today to get the words spoken from this tent out.

—–

Note: Democracy Now clips from Saturday Night, Aug. 20.

By Greg Moses

IndyMedia Austin / UrukNet / AfterDowningStreet

Two weeks ago in Crawford, Texas there was a lonely Peace House with payments to make and not much money in the bank. Today, there is not only a Peace House with enough money in the bank to pay it off, but there are two (count ’em two!) Camp Caseys that now reach out and around the vacation home of the President of the USA, supporting a peace movement that the mainstream media are having a difficult time hiding.

And where is the money coming from? From the same places the people are coming from who show up to the Peace House every day. From all over the country. And a movement that some thought would die overnight after Cindy Sheehan left town to care for her ailing mother? That movement will surely be swelling to the largest numbers ever Sunday night as confirmation is spreading at the speed of light: Joan Baez is coming!

One of the Peace House organizers, Kay Lucas, speaking from her home in Moody, about 25 miles south of Crawford, says she doesn’t know how many letters her colleague Johnny Wolf picked up at the Dallas Post Office recently, but she does know that when the postal workers there found out that the Crawford Peace House was in the building, they spontaneously came out and applauded. As for what’s going to happen to the Crawford postal workers who sent all those letters back to Dallas, under the excuse that they were not properly addressed, Lucas says she doesn’t know that yet either. But right now she has to get busy finding some ice if you don’t mind, because another hot day is on the way, and they are already out of ice.

But the point of the postal story is that a peace flood is rising among the people of the USA, and it really can’t be stopped. Right now the question is not IF this peace movement is going to stop this war in Iraq. The only question is when. Because new voices are rising every day.

On Saturday Renee Kaplowitz of Austin and her daughter Dominique were in Crawford for a peace pilgrimage. Out at Camp Casey One, the famous bar ditch encampment along Prairie Chapel Road, Dominique strolled the county road hand-in-hand with an even younger girl and handed out folded paper peace cranes from a clear plastic bag. “Would you like a peace crane?” she would ask folks lined up to catch shuttles to Camp Casey Two.

The peace crane tradition among children was started by Sadako Sasaki of Hiroshima who folded them from her hospital bed, because she thought that if she folded 1,000 of them, the gods might release her from atom-bomb-induced leukemia. Since then, the folding of peace cranes has been a way for children to make peace, especially during August, when memories of the atom bombs are memorialized.

Later Saturday, out at Camp Casey Two, Dominique stood with her mother under a white canopy, facing neatly-placed rows of white crosses that glowed under the light of a full moon. With the light of day nearly faded into navy blue, Dominique and Renee stood together as down the tiny country road walked a tall trim soldier, trumpet in hand. The soldier stopped in front of them, raised the horn to his lips and played taps. There was hardly a whisper among the 300 or so witnesses who stood under the crystal clear dusk sky.

And then, for Renee, suddenly, it all came back. “I mean you act as if it’s gone, but it’s just not.” When she was seven years old, explains Renee, her father died. “It never goes away.” Into the clear night air, in answer to the silence of the prairie, Renee started singing. And her voice rang through the night like a trumpet.

“Let there be peace on earth!” To the gathered crowd, Renee’s singing sounded like the next perfect thing. To Cathy Courtney of Houston, Renee’s first line was immediately recognizable as a 1955 hymn by Sy Miller and Jill Jackson. So Cathy joined in. “And let it begin with me.” Together they sang the next line: “Let there be peace on earth, the peace that was meant to be.”

By the time it was over, with the full song sung, and the crowd milling slowly back under the huge tent, Dominque was hugging her mother with both arms, and Renee rested her wet cheek on her daughter’s shoulder.

So if you wonder where the money’s coming from, or the people, or the voices, or the soul of this newfound peace movement out here on the Texas prairie, then look no further than the place where Renee Kaplowitz was standing on Saturday night. Because this story, like Renee’s memory of her father, ain’t never goin’ away.

—–

NOTE: An earlier version of this story assumed that Renee’s father had been killed in war. But that has not been confirmed. The relevant sentence has been revised accordingly.

By Greg Moses

UrukNet / CounterPunch / OpEdNews / AfterDowningStreet
/ BellaCiao

Not having Cindy Sheehan in Crawford Friday turned out okay. Her absence didn’t stop the media from crowding around a noon prayer vigil. And nobody I talked to was planning to cut short their stay on account of her absence. In fact, as usual, folks were sort of falling in love with the land and each other, wondering how many days more could they squeeze in.

Take the example of Katie Sterling of Fort Worth and her traveling companion Pam Humphrey of Burleson, Texas. In the sweltering afternoon heat across Cedar Rock Parkway from the Crawford Peace House, they were tending to a field of 40 cars parked in neat rows, talking with big smiles about last night’s sleepover in the network of bar ditches that has become Camp Casey. “We planned to stay in Waco with relatives, but we couldn’t leave, so we slept in a ditch and it was great!” And why couldn’t they leave? Because they were having too much fun.

Humphrey has kicked around North Texas as a journalist and activist, but these are hard times in hard country and she had to let the journalist part go. The activism part is dedicated to a group called the Smarty Pants Liberals, who have made a project out of liberating the local Congressman, Democrat Chet Edwards, so he can vote less Bush-like. They were happy to see him vote against CAFTA, but would like to see less capitulation to the Patriot Act or the war agenda, two issues that Cindy Sheehan has dragged into the district behind her. The Smarty Pants met with Edwards this week, says Thompson. Although Cindy isn’t in town, the effects of the movement might help move a Bush country Congressman, we’ll see. Humphrey also organized a local vigil in Cleburne, outside the Edwards office, one of hundreds of local vigils held in solidarity with Cindy across the nation Wednesday night.

Or take the example of Dominic Stewart Guido of Ithaca, New York. He was born on the ninth of July, which makes him eligible to run for president in 2040. His mother Lisa is on maternity leave and could think of no better place to lounge around relaxing. “What better place is there for mothers and children than here?” asks Lisa as she points out Dominic’s older brother who in turn has found a playmate nearly his age, a little girl with streaks of body paint in black and white. Lisa and her partner Audrey have planned a full week here, and they are happy to be part of this.

To this little cluster of moms and kids, New Mexico poet Rick Burnley offers one of his anti-war poems that begins with the words “Georgie Porgie.” He has several of these poems that he’s been reciting at least since Feb. 2003, back when the peace movement first peaked before the Iraq war. And he is a preservationist noted for finding ways to keep developers from exploiting areas of his hometown, Placitas where coyote, bear, and deer drink from a creek, and great horned owls and bald eagles soar overhead.” Some time later, as I’m resting near Rick under the lush but narrow Camp Casey windbreak, he tells me how much he enjoys this green, cool space. It’s not quite what he expected to find.

No doubt Camp Casey has its focus in the illegal war on Iraq and the premeditated murders of men who have been killed in a lie, but when people like Pam, Lisa and Rick are drawn together, they bring with them shade and steady breezes for broader cultural refreshment. Time and again, people from so many places are finding each other in a long lost community. How can so many people from so far away find themselves so much in the same place?

“It’s like the hundredth monkey,” says a schoolteacher from Madison, Wisconsin as we ride a packed van out to camp from the Peace House. She is referring to a popular theory of social intelligence that says when a certain number of individuals adopt a new behavior, it mysteriously becomes a social change. “Cindy was the hundredth monkey.” Once she stood up, it was time for everyone to stand. Folks in the van are nodding. I count four women and four men, all of them including me appear to be eligible for senior discounts. Somtimes those first hundred monkeys take their damn time.

*****

On this trip out, I notice something different as we pass the millionaire ranch that drew so much attention last week. Beginning about there, I notice that an American flag has been hung along with a sign. Then two SUVs pass in the oncoming lane with double flags attached to windows. It is time for our driver to point something out. “We have some counter-demonstrators out here. Dozens of vehicles involved. If they attempt to draw you into a confrontation, don’t go there. Don’t laugh at them. Don’t point a finger at them. Don’t flip a finger at them. And remember this triangle of grass belongs to the woman building that big house over there and she doesn’t want anybody on it, so stay off the triangle.”

Although Cindy is not at Camp Casey, familiar signs of leadership persist. Lisa Fithian and Jodie Evans are holding an open meeting in full sunshine, which is about as high level as you can get out here when Cindy’s not around. Folks just let them do their business, keeping a respectful distance. In a pair of shaded chairs, Annie and Buddy Spell chat quietly with an empty chair nearby for anyone who needs it. And that colorful guy who fired the shotgun last week was right, this is a battle of port-o-potties. Last week Camp Casey got one (“the victory of the week,” says Buddy, giving all credit to Austin attorney Jim Harrington). This week there are five.

Interspersed between the Texas cars that line both sides of the parking area along County Route 450A (the brand new mapquest name for Morgan Road) one finds license plates from Louisiana, Alabama, Florida, Arizona, California, Iowa, Indiana, Maryland, and New York. Already there are bumper stickers that say “We Support Cindy Sheehan.” Up through the vacant road comes a woman with bullhorn asking: “is there anyone with a medical background?” Are you a doctor she asks a guy walking next to me. Thanks for the compliment he answers, but no.

One right after the other I see two t-shirts dedicated to soldiers named Torres, but it turns out they are two quite different stories. Sgt. Daniel Torres was killed on Feb. 4 this year by a roadside bomb in Iraq, one week after finding out that his partner was pregnant with his child. “He had a hunch it would happen,” said his father Sergio, who lives in Ft Worth. “When he came to visit us in December, he told us he didn’t know if he would return.”

Army Spec. John M. (Juan) Torres was found dead on July 12, 2004 in a latrine in Afghanistan. Neither his family nor buddies believe the Army report that says he killed himself. He was due to come home in two weeks. When the People’s Weekly World saw the Chicago father of the dead soldier carrying a protest sign about his son’s death, they followed up with a story in February. Today the elder Torres carries the same sign: John M. Torres, murdered by CID in Afghanistan. The mystery is a reminder that opium and heroin are primary exports of the region in which Torres died by gunshot.

“Bush Lies,” says a sign propped along Morgan Road. “Why does the media scrutinize the grieving mother and ignore the president’s lies.” That’s a pretty fair question for just about every example of media I can think of except for Amy Goodman who is standing nearby. “Meet the new Army of One” says a sign with a face of Cindy Sheehan, but here today is the network of one standing around in her default black jogging suit, a long distance runner if ever there was.

AM 1360 KLSD, San Diego’s Progressive Talk is just wrapping up its West Coast morning show, broadcasting live from Camp Casey, just as Amy Goodman had earlier broadcast live to her East Coast audience with the morning sun still low. And I’m beginning to notice among reporters on the scene today, laminated tags with White House logos on them. The presidential press corps, too? Talk about both sides of a see saw.

*****

One of the shuttle cars has just pulled up and a fellow tugs hard on an overstuffed backpack to get it out of the trunk. “I have enough in here to last me five days!” he brags. “And I love camping!” Can you tell he’s not put off by Cindy’s absence?

I’m almost to the end of the line along Morgan Road, and the chatter is lively. “I brought some white t-shirts, and I can write what I want on them.” The guy is ready to turn with this movement on a dime.

Now I’m at the PETA booth where the camp food is vegan or else. PETA is cooking free veggie burgers and barbecued veggie ribs. The ribs are not bad. Good sauce. But the grill is not too warm, and the ‘ribs’ are still cold on the inside. Still, the flavor is okay and nobody had to die. One of the cooks takes a call and talks a little about what it’s like to eat vegan in this part of the world. Either he eats grilled veggie ribs at camp or microwaved veggie ribs at the motel. As I scan the horizon I wonder where did they put the cows and goats today? The guy should write a book: how I staffed a PETA booth on County Route 450A and nobody gave me grief.

No wonder Rush and O’Reilly are in a panic. All their pet intolerances are softening up here at Camp Casey where PETA and cattle ranchers share the same street. Or as the left panel reads at the booth for Military Families Speak Out: “Hate Multiplies Hate”, “Violence Multiplies Violence”, and “Toughness Multiplies Toughness.” Note to selves: Tolerance Multiplies, Too. Across Prairie Chapel Road, a pro-Bush delegate is doing a live interview for cable news.

“Hi Diane, how you doin’?” someone says as a red shiny pickup pulls into the lane. “I’m doin’, uh, hot!” replies Diane Wilson with a grin. She eases the truck into park and steps onto the pavement. “Why don’t you try some sun screen,” says a camper. “Well,” says the bronze Gulf Coast fisherwoman, “I don’t want to start out doing something I can’t keep up.” Like wearing platform sandals. “I had on some clunkers, but I fell off them a couple of times, so I changed back to my boots.” Sure enough the brown points of the boots peek out from under her long dress. She’s used to hard work in the sun, but she has to admit that out here, “By evening you are whooped!” But you can telll by her grin that she means it in a good way. Back in the truck, she says “bye bye” and drives off.

Signs of camp organization appear at a welcome booth on Morgan Road about where shuttles unload passengers. Cree from Galveston is just now finishing a multi-colored sign that reads: “Welcome New Friends, Get Oriented Here.” A white board is being filled in with the day’s schedule and other camp info such as lead volunteers for task groups (Food, Traffic, Welcome, and Peacekeeping) and security contacts (Ann Wright, Diane Wilson, Lisa Fithian).

A canvas map handmade in Austin invites folks to place their home towns in magic marker. Only South Dakota and about three other states have yet to be claimed. Texas, California, and the NorthEast are the obvious clusters here. From the map you’d think Texas was the bluest state in the nation. In fact, with demographics that have just tipped Texas into a majority non-Anglo state, there is a call among Hispanic state legislators such as Aaron Pena to move the state into an early Presidential caucus that might better reflect a diversity not available in Iowa or New Hampshire.

Under a netted tent designated for Iraq Veterans for Peace, a dozen men are sitting close together in a circle listening to each other one at a time. It is Dustin Langley’s turn to talk about his experience as a Navy vet and his work at the “no draft no way” website. He speaks about the need to resist the way that Bush’s education agenda has made it easier for military recruiters to draw on student information collected by schools. There is provision for parents to opt out of this database, but he says the paperwork is usually buried in a stack of first-day materials that typically overwhelm folks. About this time Amy Goodman is also strolling the lane. She stops to listen for a minute, too. Just outside the netting sits Gulf War vet Rick Blumhorst, wearing his Army Green jacket, unfazed by the climbing heat index. At 100 degrees, it would still be about 20 degrees cooler than Baghdad on a hot day.

*****

Out near the rows of crosses in the naked sunlight stands a closely packed group of 75, including an impressive collection of camera crews. They are getting started on the day’s main events: a press conference at 11:30 and an interfaith service at noon, including a minute of silent prayer that is being taken up by peace activists across the country. Also, for the second day in a row, the women of Camp Casey are gathering letters for Laura Bush, asking her to intercede in the war policy of her husband’s administration. The letters are taken as close as possible to the Bush ranch, just a little further down the road.

Interfaith ministers for the noon program have been transported in three large vans to the first memorial crosses of Arlington West. There the pastors, priests, and rabbis debark for a silent walk up Prairie Chapel Road. Juan Torres of Chicago leads the procession with the sign that he has made for his son. And the mother of Daniel Torres marks the end of the line with her message: “Bush lied and killed my only son.” At the gathering point for the interfaith event, all the clerics kneel facing SouthEast, focusing their attention on the crosses that remember the dead.

As the ministers rise for a second prayer, I overhear a cell conversation at the Southern tip of the triangle. She is talking about all the giving that is going on out here. A man who shows up with food for 100. A florist who sends out 35 dozen red flowers to adorn the crosses. It’s enough to make you cry on the phone talking about it.

Rev. Andrew Weaver of Brooklyn is talking now about how the nation has allowed too many people to grieve alone in their losses to the war. But now, thanks to Cindy, he says, “We shall no longer mourn alone and grieve alone. We are in solidarity with their grief. In prayer he asks that we be neither blue states nor red, but “states of compassion.”

Moving back along Morgan Lane I see a woman carrying a flag-colored umbrella. “That’s a nice umbrella,” I say, hoping she will stop and say something about herself. “Yes, it’s an Estee Lauder,” says the woman as she passes me by. “And that’s why you don’t have one, dear,” says her companion smiling at my poor self as she moves by. It is about this time that I notice the shiny Lincoln Navigator being used by the CBS news crew. I don’t have one of those either. Looking at their blue and white umbrella folded up on the ground I wonder if it’s Estee Lauder, too.

At the Southern tip of the triangle someone has posted a No Trespassing sign to remind us that the little green patch of grass and gravel is private property, belonging to the woman building the the big house across the street. In the middle of the triangle stands Deputy Kolinek. But what exactly is he going to do when Amy Goodman walks right past him? She’s not waiting for her Democracy anymore on this high noon in Texas. May blessings shine down on her head this blazing interfaith day….