Living in Bush world is a miserable existence

BY CHARLES SHAW - In February of this year, United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ), a coalition of more than 800 peace and justice groups throughout the United States, held their second annual Assembly to hear and vote on proposals for a 2005 “action plan.” With the war in Iraq fast approaching its second anniversary, and the larger “War on Terror” crossing its third and half year, close to 500 delegates from 275 member groups traveled to St. Louis in the hopes that the “anti-war movement”—which emerged with unprecedented speed and size just prior to the US invasion of Iraq in spring of 2003—could be resuscitated.

The sad state of the American labor movement has been the subject of much debate and discussion in recent years, but this weekend workers from around the Midwest gathered to talk about strategies to reverse that situation. Around 50 union members and workers met in Kansas City, Missouri this weekend for the Future of American Labor conference.

You can count on dedicated labor, peace and justice activists to do whatever it takes to call attention to the workers’ plight and the Wal-Mart blight. Artic-like weather with 20-40 mile per hour wind gusts and sub-zero wind-chill index did not did not deter the 125 protestors Saturday, January 22, who chanted and carried signs protesting Wal-Mart’s business practices of low wages for workers and loss of jobs to overseas manufacturing for cheap labor, often provided by children.

The people shown in these photos have the highest moral authority to speak out against America's foreign policies. These Kansas City citizens bravely protested on often bitter cold days, and were among the millions worldwide who made personal sacrifices, standing strong with their guiding principles in the hopes of making a difference.

People routinely refer to our troops in Iraq as heroes. What is heroism in an unjust war?

Charley Gibson of Good Morning America, as so many news people do, referred to our troops in Iraq as heroes. I flinch when I hear that. Can we give blanket praise to all who are fighting in this unjust war? Some have probably performed heroic deads. Others have committed crimes against the Iraqi people, and have done it with the blessing of the U.S. government.

City Councils here, and around the nation, are acting publicly to re-assert our basic civil liberties, spelled out in the Bill of Rights in the U.S. Constitution.

When Congress rushed the USA PATRIOT Act through its chambers shortly after 9/11, some wise members argued against its worst provisions. But the Bush Administration, with John Ashcroft as Attorney General, prevailed. Civil liberties-conscious activists in the Kansas City area and around the nation have been struggling ever since to stop the abuses to which it and other Administration orders and decisions have led.

Patriot Act info [PDF]
USA PATRIOT Act [Wikipedia]
EFF Analysis
Library signs [Librarian.net]