Category: gmoses

Geraldine Green 18.8.05

ALL OF US

and i she replied in a watery voice as she slung her hips forward over avalanche

and ice and i she cried on the hillsides crumbling soil and i she replied to herself

as she stepped like an antelope over the wall of the dead. the dead that lay like sandbags against

an oncoming river or tidal wave they could not stop they could not be stopped. and i they replied

as they marched side by side over elongated river beds like crocodile teeth and i we all cried as

we leant forward against the wind’s long breath that took ours away as we lighted our candles

each day by slow day.

and i she called to the ones who won’t return and yes they all cried in voices uncertain yet louder

and louder and i they replied to their mothers and fathers and their families called back fervent

and loud and the clouds lifted their voices into the skies

and the rains came and the rains came and the rains came down.

and the doctors sighed and the medics tutted and they all did their best and they all

did their very best because they have been trained like the soldiers who march into war and they

have been trained to be humans after all and all and all and all of us cry.

—–
Submitted by the poet via email to Peacefile ‘to share with Cindy’; forwarded to AfterDowningStreet. The poet replies:

Greg

Hello there and thank you for posting my poem on Peacefile and afterdowningstreet.org websites. I’ve been keeping up to date with latest happenings. It’s just great that Cindy Sheehan has provided a focal point for people’s own feelings and thoughts on the matter.

Thanks again

Geraldine
Cumbria
UK

An official with the “coalition” that makes up Camp Casey had been talking to the ISO to diffuse the situation. I caught snippets of what he was saying… He said things like, “If it were up to me personally, I’d have no problem at all with you guys being here. What we need to do is all meet and discuss this, and figure out how we can all come together on this… The problem some people are having is not your presence here, but that you set up a rather large book table, with large signs and banners promoting the ISO, rather than the antiwar effort and Gold Star Families for Peace… All the money we raise here is to keep the peace effort here in Crawford going [free food, beverages, tents, shuttles, etc.], while some are objecting to your selling your books which goes to the ISO…” etc. It seemed that he was saying that they would be able to stay on, but that the ISO might have to do tone it down a bit.

At a few points on Saturday, members from the ISO *did* jump up on the table, trying to get everyone’s attention, shouting things like, “We’re getting arrested,” and “They are kicking us out.” This was at the beginning, when they were told rather forcefully by someone that they had to leave. (There was a guy who was being [aggressive] about it, apparently he was a Vietnam vet; after he initially stirred it up, he disappeared from the scene. Someone told us that they thought *he* was arrested.) A few times the cops (there were two of them) did pull someone aside, to talk to privately, but insisted that no one was being arrested unless they refused to pack up their books. We watched them pack up their books in boxes, and carry them to the trunk of their car. It seemed everything had calmed down, the cops kinda faded away, it was just the Camp Casey official talking with the ISO, so [the two of us] left, figuring it was being worked out… Personally I didn’t like the presence of the cops at Camp Casey, but I have to say that they seemed to handle it professionally; they tried to calm things down, and insisted over and over, “We are not the ones kicking you out. It is the Camp Casey people who object to your presence. We are here serving them; if they don’t want you here, then it’s our job to see that you leave…”

–received via email Aug. 27, 2005

All the people at Camp Casey would do well to abandon all their isms and adopt Sheehanism. For the simple reason that its the only damn thing that has worked.

"Raw talk revival" – good article. Tnx 4 the epiphany I got fm yr description of army base kids in practical terms living a socialist life. I’ve seen that life-style as elitist privilege, but of course: It’s simply a society (the military one) taking care of its own. And why not extend this to everyone? Very good Q.

It seems the concept of socialism has taken such a bad-mouthing & beating in the US over the past century, that noone (in the Dominant Public Sphere) any longer looks at its actual practical contents. Scared away fm looking at & pointing to good solutions, simply for these solutions being too similar to the denigrated concept of socialism. Neat trick fm the powers that be interested in stalling Equitable Reciprocity. Yet the roots of the USA can be found in the proto-socialist movement of the French / New England intellectuals of the late 18th century: Freedom, Equality, Solidarity being the main slogan (slightly updated – "Brotherhood" = Solidarity). Better keep that fact shunted aside by being talked to little pieces of no consequence (again in the DPS).

Living in Norway we keep being told ours is a semi-ideal society near to socialism – the social-democratic approach. But although on the outskirts of ‘Empire’, attitudes here are strongly ‘guided’ by signals fm the US. We can do as we please, as long as our economic premises follow US ways. Which leaves fairly little to discuss. Luckily our oil makes us filthy rich, allowing a semblance of equality to be poured atop the basic inequalities. Meanwhile the ideology (?) of ‘privatization’ gnaws at the roots of our hard-won welfare-society. Which is why I’m concerned with what happens in the US. It directly impacts us pretty quickly.

So when smbd in the US speaks truth to power, that is very much in my personal interest, too. Pls keep it up.