Molly Ivins: 1944 - 2007

The Texas Observer Tribute

Crosses of Lafayette: January Sunset

Photo by John Eaton

Ellen Tauscher: CA-10, More Rumblings on the Left

Lisa Vorderbrueggen has an interesting article in yesterday's Contra Costa Times about Rep. Ellen Tauscher and "liberal bloggers":

Posted on Sun, Jan. 21, 2007
LISA VORDERBRUEGGEN: TIMES POLITICAL EDITOR
Bloggers take Tauscher to task

THE NATIONAL spotlight is heating up for Rep. Ellen Tauscher, D-Alamo, chairwoman of the moderate New Democrat Coalition.

Along with heady appearances on CNN, invitations to the White House and quotes in the New York Times, Tauscher has become a favorite target of liberal bloggers.

Two Web sites dedicated to ousting her from office have surfaced, a third is in the works, and she is regularly castigated by at least six progressive bloggers, including Calitics and Berkeley-based Daily Kos.

Tauscher is seen as a centrist who needlessly undermines progressives. Tauscher is unfazed but Terry Leach has a word of caution:

Lamorinda Democratic Club President Terry Leach, a Lafayette progressive who has been asked to run against Tauscher, is urging the congresswoman to do more than listen.

Leach says she won't challenge Tauscher, calling it a dangerous distraction from critical races such as the re-election of newly elected Rep. Jerry McNerney, D-Pleasanton.

But ignore the netroots and grass roots at your peril, Leach warns. These are the same folks who helped funnel the Bay Area progressive army into the campaign of McNerney, the underdog who defeated seven-term incumbent Richard Pombo in November.

"Yes, they are feeling their oats, and perhaps there's a sense that they can accomplish more than they can," Leach says, "but I wouldn't want anyone to underestimate them. The best thing Ellen could do is create a 'kitchen Cabinet' with the netroots and grass-roots people, among other groups, and invite them to be a part of her regular advisers."

And Tauscher should pay heed to progressive constituents. Just today, a new organization called Working For Us PAC opened its doors. This Political Action Committee is a partnership between MoveOn and SEIU and others. Their goal is to go after politicians who "have abandoned basic progressive values and voted against the best interests of their constituents." Who do you think is #1 on their hit list? That's right - Ellen Tauscher. Headed up by Steve Rosenthal, former labor organizer and head of ACT, these people know how to organize, raise money and get out the vote.

Crosses of Lafayette: 3054

This photo was taken in late afternoon on January 21, 2007. Several hundred crosses were added today. The sign still reads 3019. Sadly, at least 25 troops were killed on Saturday, bringing the likely total at the end of the day on Sunday to 3,054.

Photo by John Eaton

Crosses of Lafayette: Embraced by Community

Here is the feature article posted today in Salon. You must watch a short ad before viewing the article if you are not a subscriber.

Peace movement at a crossroads

Three years ago, it was called "un-American." But now this moving antiwar protest in small-town America has been embraced by the community.

By Katharine Mieszkowski

Jan. 20, 2007 | On a brisk, clear Sunday morning, Paul Cavanaugh, a paralegal, and his 10-year-old son, Kevin, work on a steep green suburban hillside, dotted with more than 1,200 white wooden crosses. Armed with staple guns, father and son busily affix laminated pieces of paper to the crosses. Each slip of paper bears the name of an American serviceman or woman killed in Iraq. Other volunteers use shovels to dig holes in the ground and install new crosses. By mid-afternoon, there will be 1,400 crosses on the hill, and yet that's still less than half the number of American soldiers killed so far in Iraq.

The crosses were first erected by a local building contractor, Jeff Heaton, as a daily reminder to commuters of the tragic toll of the Iraq war. Cavanaugh and his wife, a lawyer, run a family law firm in nearby Concord. He says he supported the war in Afghanistan and adds, tartly, "That was a rat's nest we needed to clean out." But the recent escalation of the war spurred him and his son to get their hands dirty. "When Bush made the announcement that we're going to commit our reserves, 20,000 troops we don't have, we decided to get involved," Cavanaugh says. "After the election we just had, which was a referendum on the war, it's just outrageous."

Where's the outrage about putting tens of thousands of additional troops in harm's way in this dead-end war? It's here in a bedroom community in Northern California. Located 15 miles from Berkeley, Lafayette is made up mostly of low-slung ranch homes nestled in oak-covered foothills. Its population of 24,000 people is a mix of retired oldsters and a newer generation of wealthier professionals, who've migrated to the sprawling suburbs east of the San Francisco Bay to raise their families. Louise Clark, 81, who owns the private property where the crosses sit, has lived in Lafayette for 55 years. She describes it as "a suburban community that's not at the forefront of political action. It's a town that's concerned with potholes in the pavement."

When the crosses first started appearing last November, they prompted a contentious City Council meeting and stirred local debate. But as the memorial has grown, it's become a national symbol of opposition to the war, making news everywhere from National Public Radio's "All Things Considered" to the New York Times. Resistance has come to Middle America. According to a recent Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll, more than three-fifths of Americans now believe the war is not worth fighting. And 60 percent of Americans, like Cavanaugh, don't support the president's plans to escalate the war by sending in another 21,500 troops.

Heaton, who started the memorial, is a soft-spoken, 53-year-old general contractor who has lived in Lafayette his whole life. In a black fleece vest, the bespectacled Heaton, trim and clean-shaven, looks like he'd be at home on Lafayette's hiking trails. In his younger days, the self-described pacifist marched against the Vietnam War, only to be chased by police mounted on horseback, wielding billy clubs. A conscientious objector, whose draft number never came up for Vietnam, Heaton has protested every war since then. Inspired by a visit to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., he decided three years ago to oppose the Iraq war by erecting 20 crosses on this hillside. Vandals promptly tore them down. "Anyone who tried to do something like this three years ago was called un-American, unpatriotic, but now it's completely changed," he says.

The current memorial took shape after the November '06 election. The first few hundred crosses were planted by Heaton and volunteers from groups like Mt. Diablo Peace and Justice Center, Grandmothers for Peace, and Lamorinda Peace Group. But now the effort has expanded to include local neighbors like Cavanaugh. At weekly Sunday work sessions, the memorial is branching out at the rate of about 200 new crosses per week. The goal is to erect one cross for every American soldier lost.

A field of white crosses now covers a swath of the five-acre hillside. They are easily visible from both the BART commuter train platform across the road, and nearby state Route 24, a major artery that takes commuters on their weekday trek from suburban enclaves like Concord, Walnut Creek and Lafayette to San Francisco.

Many crosses have red ribbons tied around them in bows. Others boast flowers or American flags planted at their bases. One cross has a wooden Star of David affixed to it, while another bears a crescent moon, a symbol of Islam, a third a Chinese prayer wheel. Several are festooned with wreaths. All of the crosses fan out from a large sign that reads: "In memory of 3019 U.S. troops killed in Iraq." An American flag flanks the sign. The number on the sign changes as the death toll continues to grow.

While Heaton sees the memorial as a way to protest the war, he has taken pains to keep it from becoming overtly partisan. When someone planted a sign amid the crosses that read, "Bush Lied. Troops Died," he removed it. He sees the installation as having a different kind of impact than attending a march or a rally. "You can go out and hold a sign and get arrested, and get five seconds on the evening news, but this is something that is here every day that hundreds of thousands of people who commute to work see," he says.

On the hillside, one first-time volunteer, who gives her name only as Sandra, breaks down in tears at the sight, while Heaton places a hand on her back to comfort her. A retired Head Start teacher who lives in neighboring Concord, she says the son of a friend is about to be sent back to Iraq to serve for the fourth time. She admits that she was initially for the invasion, but only because she had been misled to believe that Saddam Hussein was harboring weapons of mass destruction. "I feel very strongly that our troops should come home," she says. "It's a civil war over there now."

Baika Pratt, 46, a hospice worker who drives past the site every weekday on her commute from Martinez to Oakland, says she was drawn to it by her grief and disillusionment about the war. "So many young people are dying and it's for nothing," she says. Now, in addition to attending the Sunday work groups, she stops by almost every day, checking in on her way to or from work, to pick up trash or to straighten crosses that may have been knocked down in the wind, or just to sit and look.

Candlelight vigils were held at the crosses on New Year's Eve and after Bush announced the commitment of 21,500 more troops. On Christmas Eve, the red ribbons on many of the crosses shimmered in the night, turning them into so many solemn Christmas presents. Heaton later heard that the ribbons were put up by some local high school grads. It's the informal, grass-roots nature of the project that the instigator says gives it its appeal. "People come by, and they don't have to belong to a certain group," he says. "They can participate and let it represent something for them. That's why I'm trying to keep it from becoming too politicized. It is a demonstration against the war, but I want to make sure it really stays a memorial."

Not everyone who lives in Lafayette is in favor of the highly visible display of the cost of the war. There's still a trace of black tar on top of the sign announcing the number of the dead. It's left over from the time a vandal painted over the whole sign to obscure the message. On another occasion, a furious motorist got out of her car to kick the large sign down. One Islamic crescent moon mysteriously disappeared in the night. And while the memorial is located on private property, the local City Council has taken up the issue of its legality, since the sign announcing the death toll is too large by city standards. Even now, as the volunteers, in their jeans and tennis shoes, work to expand the memorial, a driver in a white pickup passes by, honks his horn and yells out his window: "Thanks a lot for trashing our neighborhood!"

Louise Clark and her husband, Johnson Clark, 85, bought the land where the crosses sit decades ago in hopes of developing it into senior housing, given that it's so close to public transit. Heaton is the son of friends the Clarks have known for 50 years.

Clark says she's received about 100 phone calls about the memorial on her land, and so far only one has been from a person opposing it. She hopes the memorial will remind Americans that the real costs of the war are hidden from most of them. "Back in World War II, we had gas rationing, we had meat rationing, we had special taxes on just about any luxury, and that's not happening today," she says. "Today's war is on the shoulders of just the service people and their families. It's too big a sacrifice to ask of such a small segment of our large country. I want young people to realize that the country is at war, and there are people who are giving their lives for the rest of us."

That said, Clark would like to see the troops withdrawn right away. "I want the world to know that we support our service people and we want to bring them home, and we don't want them dying for reasons that are not obvious to most people in this country. They're not fighting a war against terrorism. That's in Afghanistan. Right now they're fighting a civil war for the Iraqi people, and we have no right to be there."

-- By Katharine Mieszkowski

Volunteers gather at the site every Sunday from 10:00 AM to 2:00 PM to add crosses.

Crosses of Lafayette: Names

Volunteers have begun putting the names of the fallen heroes on the Crosses of Lafayette.

Photo by John Eaton

Photo by John Eaton

Into The Valley of Death - To Reason Why

Yesterday, I was thinking about the famous Tennyson poem, "Charge of the Light Brigade", so I googled "Into the valley of death rode the 600." To my astonishment, one of the first sites revealed was a book review from the Time Archive dated 1954.

The book review is called Story of a Blunder while the book in question is "The Reason Why" by Cecil Woodham-Smith. The title, of course, comes from the poem:

Theirs not to make reply, Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do and die:

Into the valley of Death Rode the six hundred.

Historically, we know that some 700 horsemen made the charge but that only 195 came back. Everyone knew that the tactic was a blunder and the question remained why did it happen? The answer turns out to be that the three main decision makers were all rank amateurs who had "purchased" their officer commissions. They were able to do this because of their position as elite, landed gentry.

Even in Tennyson's day, everyone knew that the order to charge had been a hideous mistake. But publicly, "the reason why" was long a mystery. Mrs. Cecil Woodham-Smith's book is the best untraveling of the old story yet.

Colonelcies by Purchase. To Author Woodham-Smith. who became interested in the subject when she was writing Florence Nightingale (TIME. Feb. 26, 1951), the Charge of the Light Brigade was not an isolated mistake. It was the spectacular culmination of a deplorable British conviction: that any rich aristocrat who wanted to become an officer should be able to buy a colonelcy in a crack regiment. The three aristocrats who may be called the villains of the Charge of the Light Brigade, and whose life stories Author Woodham-Smith traces in fascinating detail:

Lord Raglan, commander in chief in the Crimea at the age of 65, had never led troops into battle in his life... George Bingham, third Earl of Lucan. C. 0. of the cavalry division of which the Light Brigade was a part, who received and passed on Lord Raglan's order, had paid £25,000 to become colonel of the crack Lancers. He had spent half his life pouring money into his Lancers, whose superbly tailored uniforms won them the name "Bingham's Dandies"- and the other half squeezing the necessary money out of his Irish peasants. CJ James Brudenell. seventh Earl of Cardigan, who led the Charge of the Light Brigade, had paid more than £40.000 for command of the 9 Light Dragoons. Brave, handsome, bad-tempered and brainless.

snip

Brave, stupid Lord Cardigan is remembered nowadays only by the button-up woolen sweater he wore in the Crimea.

Lord Raglan is enshrined in the "raglan" - a bulky overcoat with shoulders cut in a sporty, informal slope. As for Lord Lucan, only Irish tradition remembers him: it refers to him as "The Exterminator." Yet all three men would have one thing in common if they were alive today-a sense of horror at the reforms which they unwittingly helped to bring into the British Army. "At the beginning of the campaign, the private soldier was regarded as a dangerous brute," but by the end, thanks largely to the terrible charge, "he was a hero. Army welfare and army education, army recreation, sports and physical training, the health services, all came into being as a result of the Crimea." Moreover, the practice of purchasing commissions was abolished. And that is why, for more reasons than were known to Tennyson, readers of this admirable history may say with him:

Honor the charge they made! Honor the Light Brigade, Noble six hundred!

The story is both fascinating and revealing. Then as now, there were unqualified people from privileged backgrounds in positions of leadership. Then as now, we can honor the warriors but not the blundering leaders.

But it is not 1854 and this country is not an aristocracy. George Bush and the neocons have produced an unending sequence of blunders. While our troops may not be permitted to "reason why" it is the obligation of our congress and senate to "reason why."

Cross posted at Daily Kos.

Earth to Bush: "The Age of Colonialism Is Over"

As usual, Zbigniew Brezinski gets it right. Here is his OpEd in today's Washington Post:

Friday, January 12, 2007; A19

The president's speech gives rise to five broad observations:

· It provided a more realistic analysis of the situation in Iraq than any previous presidential statement. It acknowledged failure, though it dodged accountability for that failure by the standard device of assuming personal responsibility. Its language was less Islamophobic than has been customary with President Bush's rhetoric since Sept. 11, though the president still could not resist the temptation to engage in a demagogic oversimplification of the challenge the United States faces in Iraq, calling it a struggle to safeguard "a young democracy" against extremists and an effort to protect American society from terrorists. Both propositions are more than dubious.

· The commitment of 21,500 more troops is a political gimmick of limited tactical significance and of no strategic benefit. It is insufficient to win the war militarily. It will engage U.S. forces in bloody street fighting that will not resolve with finality the ongoing turmoil and the sectarian and ethnic strife, not to mention the anti-American insurgency.

· The decision to escalate the level of the U.S. military involvement while imposing "benchmarks" on the "sovereign" Iraqi regime, and to emphasize the external threat posed by Syria and Iran, leaves the administration with two options once it becomes clear -- as it almost certainly will -- that the benchmarks are not being met. One option is to adopt the policy of "blame and run": i.e., to withdraw because the Iraqi government failed to deliver. That would not provide a remedy for the dubious "falling dominoes" scenario, which the president so often has outlined as the inevitable, horrific consequence of U.S. withdrawal. The other alternative, perhaps already lurking in the back of Bush's mind, is to widen the conflict by taking military action against Syria or Iran. It is a safe bet that some of the neocons around the president and outside the White House will be pushing for that. Others, such as Sen. Joseph Lieberman, may also favor it.

· The speech did not explore even the possibility of developing a framework for an eventual political solution. The search for a political solution would require a serious dialogue about a joint American-Iraqi decision regarding the eventual date of a U.S. withdrawal with all genuine Iraqi political leaders who command respect and wield physical power. The majority of the Iraqi people, opinion polls show, favor such a withdrawal within a relatively short period. A jointly set date would facilitate an effort to engage all of Iraq's neighbors in a serious discussion about regional security and stability. The U.S. refusal to explore the possibility of talks with Iran and Syria is a policy of self-ostracism that fits well into the administration's diplomatic style of relying on sloganeering as a substitute for strategizing.

· The speech reflects a profound misunderstanding of our era. America is acting like a colonial power in Iraq. But the age of colonialism is over. Waging a colonial war in the post-colonial age is self-defeating. That is the fatal flaw of Bush's policy.

The writer, who was national security adviser to President Jimmy Carter, is the author of the forthcoming book "Second Chance: Three Presidents and the Crisis of American Superpower."

Crosses of Lafayette: Protesting Bush's Escalation

Photo by John Eaton

Here is the post from Katherine Tam about tonight's protest of Bush's escalation held at the Crosses of Lafayette:

Protesters hold vigil at Lafayette war memorial
By Katherine Tam
CONTRA COSTA TIMES

LAFAYETTE - At least 300 anti-war protesters, fueled by President Bush's plan to dispatch more troops to Iraq, gathered Thursday night at a Lafayette memorial to call for an end to the war.

"The way to support them is to bring them home," said Lynda Robertson, a Pittsburg resident. Bush's plan "troubled me greatly. He's going backward from what we need."

The 1,200 crosses that blanket the privately-owned hillside across from the BART station have become a gathering spot for those opposed to the war. Members of the group MoveOn acted quickly to organize a candlelight vigil here the day after Bush unveiled his plan to send 20,000 more troops to Iraq and called for the Iraqi government to bolster forces as well.

The vigil was largely peaceful. One man hollered "filthy traitors" from a passing car, but most drivers honked in support or stared expressionless from behind the wheel.

Walnut Creek resident Jackie Pells, whose friend's grandson Alan Blohm died in Iraq, arrived with a lighter to light candles beside the crosses.

"Fifty-four years ago, we graduated from high school together," Pells said. "It was the Korean War at the time and what have we learned?"

Lafayette resident Karel Uehara's 5-year-old was a baby when Uehara helped organize a protest in Richmond. The turnout was much smaller then -- about 20 or 30 people -- and some passersby were less open to their message, he said. The response in Lafayette Thursday night was much more receptive, he added.

The display, which includes a handful of Jewish Stars of David and Islamic crescents, has grown substantially since it went up over Veteran's Day weekend. Organizers have added new crosses weekly, and plan to place 200 more every Sunday until there is one for each of the more than 3,000 dead U.S. soldiers, said organizer Jeff Heaton.

The crosses and the large sign stating the number of soldiers killed in Iraq ignited an emotional debate immediately after they were installed. An angry passerby tore down the sign on the second day. Organizers put it back up.

Then in late December, someone covered the sign with a black substance thought to be paint. Organizers replaced the sign on Christmas Eve and have since added an electric-powered neon sign with the number of dead soldiers that is visible at night.

Public debate has centered mostly on whether the display is an appropriate tribute to fallen troops, but the city has focused on whether the sign meets the law or is too big. The city attorney is reviewing the matter.

The display is organized by Heaton, the Lamorinda Peace Group and members of the Mount Diablo Peace and Justice Center in Walnut Creek.

"It gives us a connection," Robertson said. "We stay isolated in our daily lives. It helps us grasp the immensity of it."

New Leaders Not More Troops

Clay Bennett

Crosses of Lafayette: Who Can Stop the Madness?

Photo by John Eaton

Crosses of Lafayette: Gold Star Families Speak Out

Photo by John Eaton

Gold Star Families Speak Out were at the Crosses of Lafayette today and here is the report from the Contra Costa Times:

Creators of a hillside monument of crosses outside the Lafayette BART station began to put names on them Sunday while supporters, including mothers of fallen soldiers in Iraq, turned the gathering into an impromptu memorial service for the war dead.

"This memorial is a sacred place," said Nadia McCaffrey of Tracy, the mother of Army Sgt. Patrick McCaffrey, killed in Balad, Iraq on June 22, 2004. `"Each one of those crosses has a name."

"These crosses give their lives and their deaths meaning," said Karen Meredith of Mountain View, mother of Army Lt. Ken Ballard, killed in Najaf, Iraq on May 30, 2004.

"There was a life and a future behind every one of these crosses," said Dolores Kesterson, of Santa Cruz, mother of Army Chief Warrant Officer Eric Kesterson, killed in Mosul, Iraq on Nov. 15, 2003.

Added Meredith, "These crosses say, 'We will not be silent.'"

Read the rest of the story.

Karen Meredith's car was parked in the BART parking lot. Her license plate honors her son:

Photo by John Eaton

Watch their "Plea For Peace."

Time for a Change

Reuters/Larry Downing

Crosses of Lafayette: Full Moon, Briefly

The first full moon of 2007 made a brief appearance tonight before disappearing behind the clouds. Of course, the full moon will be back. The fallen heros in Iraq will not be back. Ever.

Photo by John Eaton

Crosses of Lafayette: Sign of our Times

Photo by John Eaton

The moon will be full again on January 3, 2007.

Photo by John Eaton