If it were up to me...

If it Were Up to Me

Maybe it's the movies, maybe it's the books
Maybe it's the bullets, maybe it's the real crooks 

Maybe it's the drugs, maybe it's the parents 

Maybe it's the colors everybody's wearin 

Maybe it's the President, maybe it's the last one 

Maybe it's the one before that, what he done 

Maybe it's the high schools, maybe it's the teachers 

Maybe it's the tattooed children in the bleachers 

Maybe it's the Bible, maybe it's the lack 

Maybe it's the music, maybe it's the crack 

Maybe it's the hairdos, maybe it's the TV 

Maybe it's the cigarettes, maybe it's the family 

Maybe it's the fast food, maybe it's the news 

Maybe it's divorce, maybe it's abuse 

Maybe it's the lawyers, maybe it's the prisons 

Maybe it's the Senators, maybe it's the system 

Maybe it's the fathers, maybe it's the sons 

Maybe it's the sisters, maybe it's the moms 

Maybe it's the radio, maybe it's road rage 

Maybe El Nino, or UV rays 

Maybe it's the army, maybe it's the liquor 

Maybe it's the papers, maybe the militia 

Maybe it's the athletes, maybe it's the ads 

Maybe it's the sports fans, maybe it's a fad 

Maybe it's the magazines, maybe it's the internet 

Maybe it's the lottery, maybe it's the immigrants 

Maybe it's taxes, big business 

Maybe it's the KKK and the skinheads 

Maybe it's the communists, maybe it's the Catholics 

Maybe it's the hippies, maybe it's the addicts 

Maybe it's the art, maybe it's the sex 

Maybe it's the homeless, maybe it's the banks 

Maybe it's the clearcut, maybe it's the ozone 

Maybe it's the chemicals, maybe it's the car phones 

Maybe it's the fertilizer, maybe it's the nose rings 

Maybe it's the end, but I know one thing. 

If it were up to me, I'd take away the guns.

Until just a few moments ago, I thought this was written by my favorite singer, Holly Near, who I have seen in concert maybe 8-10 times, but not in the last few years, but I just found out that it was written by Cheryl Wheeler who I've never heard of.  It is recorded on one of my favorite Holly Near CDs, Edge.  I was thinking this morning on my way into work, that I wanted to blog the lyrics of this song and I was singing it loud and proud in my car.  And, just because, I'm gonna do 2 blog entries today.  

We'll call this one NaBloPoMo#10a.  Peace. No Guns, No War. Out.

Signs of Peace in Little Tokyo

P - E - A - C - E 

Kuida-Osumi at the Candlelight Vigil 9-9-10

supporting Muslim Americans with NCRR

On 9-11-10, we went to the Peace Vigil
at the Islamic Center of Southern California

Jenni's Quotable Quotes

So funny. I was looking for a good Maya Angelou quote this morning on Google, and I came across a whole ton of quotes... from www.kuidaosumi.com. I completely don't even remember that I used to do an occasional quote of the month for my old website from 2002-2004. I stopped in January 2005, a month before Maiya was born. Here they are:

"For in the baby lies the future of the world..." - From a Mayan Proverb

"Let me say at the risk of seeming ridiculous that a true revolutionary is guided by great feelings of love." - Che Guevara

"From your garden of dreams, many things may blossom." - Fortune cookie fortune from Jenni's wallet

"We are born with purpose and when we walk in purpose... we collide with destiny. - Dr. Bertice Berry, "It's Time to Change: The Art of Transformation, Becoming all that you are!"

"Unless each individual develops a sense of responsibility, the whole community cannot move. So therefore it is very essential that we should not feel that individual effort is meaningless - you should not feel that way. We should make an effort. - The Dalai Lama's Book of Love & Compassion

"Let me just say: Peace to you, if you're willing to fight for it." - Fred Hampton, Chair Illinois Black Panther Party

"Each of us needs to be awakened to a personal and compassionate recognition of the inseparable interconnection between our minds, hearts, and bodies, between our physical and psychical well-being, and between our selves and all the other selves in our country and in the world."- Grace Lee Boggs, National Exchange on Arts & Civic Dialogue, Flint, October 2003 (I was fortunate to be able to give the introduction to Grace)

"What the world needs now is love, sweet love. It's the only thing that there's just too little of." - Burt Bacharach

"Together, let's build a new world, a world without violence, a world free of weapons and warriors, a world of lasting PEACE!--Okinawan Women Against Military Violence

"There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but one must take it because it is right." - Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

"We must go beyond organic, as it is currently defined in the National Organic Standards, and strive for food that is not only healthful and natural but also local... Buying locally means farmers get more of the food dollar, we get better nutrition, and less fuel is consumed in transport." - Kathleen Merrigan, Organic Gardening

"Somehow, some way, the arts will again emerge from the current crisis and grow stronger, for despite all the attacks, the arts offer something irreplaceable to society. As long as we are a species, nothing can ever destroy the instinct to create, and the desire we have to access that creativity." - Barry Hessenius, former Executive Director, California Arts Council

"The future depends on what we do in the present." - Grace Lee Boggs

Peace can start with just one heart,
From a small step to leaps and bounds
A walk becomes a race for time
And a brave child calls out from the crowd
We will have peace, we will because we must
We must because we cherish life
- Holly Near from "The Great Peace March

"Facing future I see hope, hope that we will survive, hope that we will prosper, hope that once again we will reap the blessings of this magical land, for without hope I cannot live, remember the past but do not dwell there, face the future where all our hopes stand." - Israel Kamakawiwo'ole

"Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding." - Albert Einstein

"We must be the change we wish to see in the world." - Gandhi

"Strike against war, for without you no battles can be fought... Be not dumb, obedient slaves in an army of destruction! Be heroes in an army of construction." - Helen Keller

"Education is our passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to the people who prepare for it today."– Malcolm X

"Peace isn't the absence of war, but the presence of justice." - Martin Luther King, Jr.

"Keep in mind always the present you are constructing. It should be the future you want." - Alice Walker

"We got to keep on keepin on... Intensify the Struggle in all our areas of work... we have to dig deeper within ourselves not to let the false patriotism, jingoism and other ideological bullshit push aside all the important gains that we have made in our struggles for civil rights and civil liberties. Sound like 'old hat' don't it? But yes indeed... Freedom IS a Constant Struggle." - Bill Sorro

5 Years of War in Iraq

Here's a vintage blog - 5 years ago today... a lot going on in my life back 5 years ago if you want to take a peek from my March 2003 Blog.

March 19, 2003 - Stop the Bombing

Art by Weston

The big bad bully launched his war tonight. After work, Tony and I drove down to the Federal Building in Westwood to join in the call for peace. We thought there would be many more people there, but they had only started the bombing about 10 minutes before we got there. I'm guessing many more people will be gathering there tomorrow nite. I feel mad, especially when I hear people talk about standing behind the President, and when I see the misinformation lies the mainstream media puts out. Stop the bombing.

Here's an excerpt of Michael Moore's letter to George Bush: "The majority of Americans -- the ones who never elected you -- are not fooled by your weapons of mass distraction. We know what the real issues are that affect our daily lives -- and none of them begin with I or end in Q. Here's what threatens us: two and a half million jobs lost since you took office, the stock market having become a cruel joke, no one knowing if their retirement funds are going to be there, gas now costs almost two dollars -- the list goes on and on. Bombing Iraq will not make any of this go away. Only you need to go away for things to improve."

----

$2 a gallon for gas? Cough, cough. I paid $3.79 the other day. Peace. Out.

The Media & Iraqis

NaBloPoMo#16: Here's an important article written by our dear friend Shea in Detroit, who is part of the Boggs Center. It's very enlightening. I also spent the night at Kellie's house years ago when I was there for an arts project for Great Leap. She made the most delicious mung dal dish.

THINKING FOR OURSELVES
The Media and Iraqis
By Shea Howell
Michigan Citizen, Nov. 18-24, 2007

I’ve been working with a colleague at Oakland University, Dr. Kellie Hay, studying the mainstream media coverage of Arabs. We have been comparing the way the Palestinian people were described in the New York Times and Detroit Free Press before 911 with the way Iraqi people are portrayed today.

Much of what we found was both disturbing and predictable. Even though Palestinians and Iraqis are very different people, engaged in very different struggles, with very different histories, the media continues to use the same dehumanizing and limiting categories when describing Arabic people. The frames and labels used to depict Palestinians continue today in the portrayal of Iraqis.

As you read daily papers or listen to the news, you might want to consider some of what we found.
First, we found that when American troops are killed, their deaths are attributed to some one: Iraqi militants, al Qaeda or insurgents. By contrast, the deaths of Iraqis, when they are reported at all, simply happen. No one is ever identified as causing them. They are simply reported as facts, without any assignment of responsibility. A typical sentence is “173 Iraqis were found dead.”

Second, we found that Iraqis were rarely identified as individuals, acting on their own behalf. Rather they were almost always reported as mass groups: “mobs,” “crowds,” and “thousands.” These mobs were often described in terms associated with forces of nature rather than with human beings. The mobs “surged,” “flooded streets,” “erupted” and “ignited.”

In many cases, these mobs had their origin in mosques. Frequently, stories emphasized mosque doors opening and mobs flooding the streets. In fact, in the four months period we studied, mosques were either the object of violence, places that were attacked, shot at or bombed, not the source of violence. Curfews were justified to keep people away from mosques because they might “incite” people to violence.

This association between Islam and violence wove through all the stories we read even when, between the lines, it was clear that religious leaders were calling for peace, for calmness, and for respect across differences.
One of the most interesting images to emerge in the study was that of Moktada al-Sadr, the Shiite leader most associated with the poorest people in Iraq, and usually noted for his anti-occupation stand. The mainstream press labeled him a “firebrand,” “rebellious,” and “anti American.”

In the incident we studied, the bombing of the Mosque of the Golden Dome in Samarra in 2006, al-Sadr and the Shiites were the people most aggrieved by this tragedy. After the bombing, al-Sadr joined with other religious leaders to appeal for calm. Yet, within three days press reports had shifted from acknowledging him as a victim to describing him as a cause of the violence that followed. There was never any attempt to allow Sadr to speak in his own words.

This obscuring of the role of religious leaders, especially al-Sadr, in responding to violence is one reason why the mainstream media has been unable to convey the role he is playing in the current decline in daily violence. At the end of August, al-Sadr declared a unilateral cease-fire. CNN reported on September 1, this “’declaration holds the potential to reduce criminal activity and help reunite Iraqis separated by ethno-sectarian violence and fear,’ the U.S. military said.”

Following long-standing patterns in reporting on the Arab world, we find no discussion in the mainstream press of the critical role Iraqis, especially al-Sadr, are playing in restoring daily life. By denying Iraqis a voice and vision, the “objective news” distorts our understanding of the possibilities for peace.
--------------
Peace. Out.