Yesterday Dennis Kucinich spent 4 and a half hours reading 35 articles of impeachment against George W Bush for High Crimes and Misdemeanors, presenting evidence for each charge.

"More than two centuries ago, the Founders of this country set forth a procedure for Congress to follow in the event of grave abuse of power by the Chief Executive. That process is impeachment. In the face of the monumental deceit and disregard for the Constitution that we have witnessed on the part of the President over the past seven years, Congressman Kucinich's initiation of this process is neither fanciful nor futile, neither vengeful nor vindictive; it is the sober fulfillment of his sworn duty as a Congressman to follow the law without regard to personal consequence and misguided political stratagem. It is, quite simply, an act of patriotism ."

THAT is a goddamned patriot!
Where is Obama?
Where is Clinton?
Where is McCain?
Where is any democrat for that matter?

All hail Keebler elves! More at After Downing Street.org Update [2008-6-10 22:51:20 by supersoling]: The clerk of the House is now reading Kucinich's Impeachment Articles into the record on c-span. There may be a vote as early as tomorrow. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

My home is very quiet this morning. My children's mother is in Maryland because her grandfather is gravely ill. My son has just left for work and my daughters are still asleep. In the few hours I have before leaving for work myself I'm cooking a big breakfast for the girls and trying to fill the void their mom's absence has created. There is a void in my own life because I'm estranged from my own mother since the death of my father three years ago. And though the damage done is irreparable and I have no expectation of our relationship ever being saved, I still can't help but feel some pride...still, and even love. Certainly gratitude for the woman who made me who I am and for the women I know who are so very much like her. She was and is a fierce antiwar activist. She never hesitated or wavered when it came to confronting the militaristic government of this country because for her it was about protecting her children and all mother's children from the horror of war and from those in power who have always found it so easy to throw threats across oceans and continents while backing those threats up with the blood of others.

Arise, all women who have hearts!
Whether your baptism be of water or of tears!
Say firmly:
"We will not have questions answered by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage,
For caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.
We, the women of one country,
Will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.

Julia Ward Howe

There are two women, mothers, in particular that I'm thinking of this morning. I'm fortunate to have met both, though whom through my own laziness and sad habit of taking some things for granted have neglected to contact lately. I beg their forgiveness for that. But despite not talking to or being with them for a long while I still think of each of them nearly every day and wonder how they are. Mostly I wonder how their adversarys are because I know that they, like my own mother, leave nothing on the field when confronting the enemies of peace!

I know that many of you here are relatively new to Boomantribune. I also know that this site is focused on elections now. Some of you might not be aware of the great burst of antiwar activism that existed here back in 2005 and 2006 or of the many people who found their activist sea legs through friendships and alliances made here. Those bonds are what have defined this place for me, even as we've mostly drifted apart, sometimes not on the best of terms. That's a sad part of life, but it doesn't mean those people's influence on me is lessened in any way.

I think it's important to take time to remember that great solidarity of purpose that existed then and personally for me, to pay a small tribute to two of the most influential women in my life. And also as a way to introduce them to those of you who never knew of them. There is a history of their commitment in this site's archives. Their contributions remind me that it is the people who will bring about change in this country, not politicians and candidates.  It's mothers like Damnit Janet and
Alohaleezy are the real heroes in my world because in spite of their fears and the obstacles arrayed against them they stood up anyway and defended and still defend the children of all mothers and strive for peace defiantly and lovingly.

For my two friends and for all women who sacrifice all for their children,

Happy Mothers Day

In August 2005 there was a diary here by MilitaryTracy that reignited my desire to get involved and make my disillusionment and disgust with the war in Iraq known in a very public way. She talked about going to Crawford, Texas to support Cindy Sheehan in her demand that George Bush come out and explain to her the "noble cause" that her son Casey lost his life for in Iraq. Though I had been active for many years, in different ways and for different and diverse causes, my passion was waning and dormant. I'll always be grateful to Tracy for inspiring me to get back out there.

Promoted by Steven D.

                                       

Angel Diaz finally died after 34 minutes and two lethal injections in Florida.

Department of Corrections spokeswoman Gretl Plessinger said she doesn't believe Diaz felt any pain. She said Diaz started snoring and became unconscious after the first three drugs were administered and never regained consciousness.

Not so.

Medical findings contradict prison officials
Diaz, 55, was put to death for murdering the manager of a Miami topless bar during a holdup in 1979.

The medical examiner's findings contradicted the explanation given by prison officials, who said Diaz needed the second dose because liver disease caused him to metabolize the lethal drugs more slowly. Hamilton said that although there were records that Diaz had hepatitis, his liver appeared normal.

Executions in Florida normally take no more than about 15 minutes, with the inmate rendered unconscious and motionless within three to five minutes. But Diaz appeared to be moving 24 minutes after the first injection, grimacing, blinking, licking his lips, blowing and appearing to mouth words.

As a result of the chemicals going into Diaz's arms around the elbow, he had a 12-inch chemical burn on his right arm and an 11-inch chemical burn on his left arm, Hamilton said.

Florida Corrections Secretary James McDonough said the execution team did not see any swelling of the arms, which would have been an indication that the chemicals were going into tissues and not veins.

Diaz's attorney, Suzanne Myers Keffler, reacted angrily to the findings.

"This is complete negligence on the part of the state," she said. "When he was still moving after the first shot of chemicals, they should have known there was a problem and they shouldn't have continued. This shows a complete disregard for Mr. Diaz. This is disgusting."

 

I read something today that caused me to reexamine my  feelings about Native American exceptionalism. At least as far as I, and many people I know idealize them. It's been easy for me to romanticize their culture as if they are the one example of how a society can be inherantly fair and egalitarian. A reverance for the Earth. Never taking more than they needed. No modern sense of ownership of land. If you take something out of necessity, you give something of equal value or meaning in return. Leaving my larger opinions of them aside, and back to what I read today....

Promoted by Steven D. I know this is on the recommended list, but it also deserves to be seen on our front page, as well.

                                           

The Anti-War movement in this country is alive and well, despite what the media would have you and me believe. The rise of opposition to this war came much faster and with larger numbers involved than the protests against the Vietnam War did. We still have a long way to go though, to match and surpass the level of visible opposition to the war in Vietnam. Those actions  began slowly, but over the course of a decade produced numbers in the hundreds of thousands.

April 17, 1965 - March Against the Vietnam War. Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) held its first anti-Vietnam War protest rally in Washington. 25,000 attend.

November 27, 1965 - Another March Against the Vietnam War.

May 16, 1966 - Another March Against the Vietnam War.

October 22, 1967 - March on the Pentagon. Major march to protest the Vietnam War.

January 15, 1968 - Jeannette Rankin brigade. Called for withdrawal of troops from Vietnam.

November 15, 1969 - National Mobilization to End the War. 600,000 demonstrate against the war in Vietnam.

May 9, 1970 - Kent State/Cambodia Incursion Protest. A week after the Kent State shootings, a 100,000 demonstrators converged on Washington to protest the shootings and Nixon's incursion into Cambodia.

April 24, 1971 - Vietnam War Out Now rally. 500,000 call for end to Vietnam War.

May 3, 1971 - May Day Protests 1971. Mass action by Vietnam anti-war militants to shut down the federal government.

 

Wampsutta -Wampanoag-November 1970

I speak to you as a man -- a Wampanoag Man. I am a proud man, proud of my ancestry, my accomplishments won by a strict parental direction ("You must succeed - your face is a different color in this small Cape Cod community!"). I am a product of poverty and discrimination from these two social and economic diseases. I, and my brothers and sisters, have painfully overcome, and to some extent we have earned the respect of our community. We are Indians first - but we are termed "good citizens." Sometimes we are arrogant but only because society has pressured us to be so.

It is with mixed emotion that I stand here to share my thoughts. This is a time of celebration for you - celebrating an anniversary of a beginning for the white man in America. A time of looking back, of reflection. It is with a heavy heart that I look back upon what happened to my People.

Cross posted from Even Flow  

The nurse made a prediction.
She said, with confidence, that the baby would weigh 8lbs, 8ozs. I have a picture of that nurse holding that baby with a huge, satisfied smile on her face. It turned out that she was exactly right. But I think she was smiling because she was just as much in awe of this beautiful and noisy little miracle as I was.

I witnessed the births of all three of my children. Dumbstruck and crying. Feeling useless and so completey and universally priveledged to witness such things. Words will never be nearly adequate to express the three most precious events of my life. I don't remember words. I remember feelings. I remember touch. I remember sounds, and I seek out eyes. I seek connections of the soul through those eyes. I have been so deeply in love with each of them since I first heard of each one's existence. And I'm still in love with them.

I want to tell you more about little Miss 8lbs, 8ozs......

                                           The Haymarket Tragedy and the 8 Hour work day

The People of the State of Illinois
vs.
August Spies impld. &c.
18803 Indictment for Murder

Therefore it is ordered, and adjudged by the court that the said defendant August Spies be taken from the bar of the Court to the common Jail of Cook County from whence he came, and be confined in said Jail in safe and secure custody until the third day of December A. D. 1886 and that on said third day of December between the hours of ten o'clock in the forenoon and two o'clock in the afternoon the said defendant August Spies be, by the Sheriff of Cook County according to law, within the walls of said Jail or in a yard or enclosure adjoining the same hanged by the neck until he is dead, dead.

Thank you for recognizing here, here, and here, what the front page of BoomanTribune did not.

In the current atmosphere of George Bush's nuclear threats and an American foriegn policy that is inching us all toward nuclear Armageddon, it saddens me and angers me that the majority of Americans, including those who call themselves progressives have failed, once again, for the most part to recognize the anniversarry of two of history's foulest war crimes. The exceptionalist murders of 200,000 people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

While reading at dKos this morning, I came across a diary  by TXsharon about the candidacy of David Van Os. He's running for Attorney General of Texas. Unlike the vast majority of today's fake democrats who infest the power structures in DC, he has no desire to pander to the right wing as a way for democrats to win elections.

I'm counting down towards a year as a member of this community. And it is a community, regardless of the limitations of this medium. Those of you who know me here....my friends, know that I'm fairly open with the details of my life, my feelings, my hopes for this country, and this world. You might also know that I'm a fighter, among many fighters gathered here. I'm an activist, a protester, a dissenter. I never feel the need to yield. In truth, yielding ground in any fight is an alien thought to me. Today an old friend revisited me and my family. This friend, as I call it, is called Mental illness. Something my family has been living with for twenty years now. I need to explain, to purge the sadness dwelling within me, as to the source of my decision to yield today.

           Time has come for us to pause
           And think of living as it was
     Into the future we must cross, must cross
             I'd like to go with you
           And I'd like to go with you
         You say I'm harder than a wall
          A marble shaft about to fall
    I love you dearer than them all, them all.....