Oct. 4th 2007

Onomea sunrise - photo by phoenix

Aloha Dragonflyers,

I wish I could say that all I have to talk about is how BEAUTIFUL it is here in Paradise, loving my dogs, friends and guests. But the truth is, there is some shocking news in the world that we need to know about and attend to. So if you prefer to not be exposed to unpleasant truths, please feel free to press the delete button before reading further. Maybe my next newsletter will not need to be filled with this urgent information I am quickly pulling together, and we can just live and love and laugh as the dreamed of, Ohana of the World.

This message came from my labyrinth society friend, Judy, who wrote what I was thinking:

Good morning Good people !
As you know I typically try to keep information which I share light-hearted, artistic etc.
 
However, I think this is important & a great opportunity for us to positively change the way we help others attain their wishes for democracy, without seeing our loved ones go off to war; risking lives, injuries & so much more that the ripple-effect causes!
 
Imagine!  We can help just by letting our voice be heard through the act of a few simple seconds' worth of a signature ! -truly a democratic act of freedom- a vote! It's a good first step. Regardless of where you stand on the current war or whether you have loved ones involved in the military, Thank You for your consideration & participation and for taking the time to pass this on to all who you know! Let's try to nip this one in the bud without physical tragedy, mental anguish....   and doing Gandhi & M.L.King proud!
 
Sincerely,
....JUDY HOPEN


Supporting the Brave Burmese Uprising

The monks led the crowd in chanting:

"May we be free of torture, may there be peace in hearts and minds
as our kindness spreads around the world" 

Dear friends,
Burma's generals have brought their brutal iron hand down on peaceful monks and protesters -- but in response, a massive global outcry is gathering pace. The roar of global public opinion is being heard in hundreds of protests outside Chinese and Burmese embassies, people round the world wearing the monks' color red, and on the internet-- where our petition has exploded to over 200,000 signers in just 72 hours. People power can win this. Burma's powerful sponsor China can halt the crackdown, if it believes that its international reputation and the 2008 Olympics in Beijing depend on it. To convince the Chinese government and other key countries, Avaaz is launching a major global and Asian ad campaign on Wednesday, including full page ads in the Financial Times and other newspapers, that will deliver our message and the number of signers. We need 1 million voices to be the global roar that will get China's attention. If every one of us forwards this email to just 20 friends, we'll reach our target in the next 72 hours. Please sign the petition at the link below -if you haven't already- and forward this email to everyone you care about:
http://www.avaaz.org/en/stand_with_burma/t.php

The pressure is working - already, there are signs of splits in the Burmese Army, as some soldiers refuse to attack their own people. The brutal top General, Than Shwe, has reportedly moved his family out of the country - he must fear his rule may crumble.

The Burmese people are showing incredible courage in the face of horror. We're broadcasting updates on our effort over the radio into Burma itself - telling the people that growing numbers of us stand with them. Let's do everything we can to help them - we have hours, not days, to do it. Please sign the petition and forward this email to at least 20 friends right now. Scroll down our petition page for details of times and events to join in the massive wave of demonstrations happening around the world at Burmese and Chinese embassies.
With hope and determination, Ricken, Paul, Pascal, Graziela, Galit, Ben, Milena and the whole Avaaz Team

TELL CONGRESS IT'S TIME FOR MORE THAN LIP SERVICE ON BURMA

On October 2, 2007, taking a break from honorary renaming of Post Offices, the House of Representative dusted off and quickly passed (413-2) a concurrent resolution on Burma, which had been languishing in inactivity.

Sadly, that resolution doesn't actually DO anything, and makes no reference whatsoever to the massacres of the last week or the ongoing horrors taking place in that country now.

BURMA ACTION PAGE: http://www.usalone.com/burma_action.php

We have documentary evidence of the Burma military junta machine gunning peaceful civilian demonstrators, including the murder of foreign journalists in cold blood. There are credible reports of people being burned alive in government crematoriums. There are widespread accounts of EMPTY monasteries, and thousands of monks being herded into concentration camps in remote parts of the country, bodies dumped in the jungles, pictures of monks floating face down in the rivers and more. The ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) expressed "revulsion", and that was BEFORE most of the above reports. You can see the brutal oppression from space. [The action page above is heavily annotated with links to all the factual
sources.]

And none of this, NONE of it was even mentioned in the House resolution passed today. Congress must immediately

1) Declare the military dictatorship in Burma to be a terrorist organization. They were sure quick enough to do that for the Iran Revolutionary guard, who have been shown by no evidence to do any of the above things. People who go into houses of worship to murder religious devotees ARE terrorists. Remember when we were told Saddam was murdering his own people, 15 YEARS after the fact. These massacres are going on NOW!

2) Act to freeze the assets of the military junta and urge all international banks to bar any monetary transfers in the interim. Our government was sure quick enough to do that to try to stop Al Qaeda. Similar actions were taken against North Korea by banning the importation of luxury goods and the like, a successful example of application of diplomatic pressure, and

3) Call for an international peace keeping force under the aegis of the U.N. to protect the people of Burma and the monasteries in particular, and to allow under its umbrella real fact finding of the crimes against humanity committed there. If Japan can send peacekeepers to Iraq they can certainly be persuaded to do so where, where they are already demanding for an accounting for the murder of their journalist. Are not the members of the ASEAN repulsed enough to participate? Let this be an example of how the world is supposed to
react to tragic events like these, by acting THROUGH the U.N.

BURMA ACTION PAGE: http://www.usalone.com/burma_action.php

But what Congress had done is nothing more than an empty gesture. Nowhere in the concurrent resolution is there a single tooth. The military strongman in Burma is said to be stubborn. The world must stand up to that monstrous bully, and do so in a way that stands in clear contrast to everything that was done WRONG in Iraq, where the phony coalition of the willing was mostly blackmailed into participation. Burma needs a protection force, not an offensive force. If Congress can vote 413-2 to say anything about Burma, can not a majority be found to call for real action?

Write Congress now using the action page above. Tell them they must do more.

Is it said that China and India among others are doing too much business with Burma to rock the boat. Would not a country of free people also sell they resources on the world market? It's time to pressure the corporations and let them know that we the people will no longer tolerate murderous business as usual.

Please take action NOW, so we can win all victories that are supposed to be ours, and forward this message to everyone else you know.

If you would like to get alerts like these, you can do so at
http://www.usalone.com/in.htm


SAY “NO” TO STRYKERS IN HAWAII

Those of you who don’t live on the island probably do not know that the US military has long been using these strategic islands for “war games”. One third of Oahu is military, and they have been expanding on the Big Island—with intentions of expanding even further.

In Hawaii, we are taking a stand against Strykers (over 317 of these HUGE tankers) rolling around on our beautiful island, over dirt that has Depleted Uranium from decades past when the military was secretly using Weapons of Mass Destruction on our sacred aina, contaminating our land, air and water--with detrimental results to the health of soldiers and islanders alike.

We believe that Hawaii is Paradise. It is incongruous with the Aloha State to train American soldiers to use these barbaric killing machines.

Will you help us by writing your disapproval of Strykers on the islands of Hawaii? “CLEAN UP rather than build up,” is our plea. While DU lasts 450,000 years, we must do what we can to contain the DU rather than spread it by running tankers over this contaminated soil.
You may have heard of the residents of Kauai stopping the big superferry dead in it’s tracks. It was built and railroaded through Govonor Lingle’s office with the intention of transporting Strykers inter-island. None of us want to fund that anymore. My guest from Kauai said that one surfer went nose to nose with the superferry and made it back up out of the Kauai bay where outraged citizens organized and protested it’s arrival!
I testified against the Strykers in Waimea:
Gabriel Cousens has written a detailed explanation of DU and the unfortunate results of American military refusing to obey US and international law to NOT use DU. As Martin Luther King said, We have a choice:
“nonviolence or nonexistence.”
If you wish to speak up on stopping the militarization of Hawaii...and the world, please write to:
PublicComments@aec.apgea.army.mil
PLEASE GET YOUR COMMENTS IN BY THE END OF THE MONTH. Pass along this information to everyone you know who loves Hawaii and wants to keep it a peaceful Paradise.

TEA BAG PHILOSOPHY
My Tea bag said: LIGHT THE WORLD WITH KINDNESS, GRACE AND COMPASSION. To that, I would like to add, ALONG WITH HUMOR. If you want a little chuckle, watch this:
WILL FERRELL/BUSH ON GLOBAL WARMING
http://www.transbuddha.com/mediaHolder.php?id=1147

Also, comedy with a purpose,
I was impressed with the new Bolivian president, Evo Morales, who actually LIVES “kindness, grace and compassion”! Can we find an Evo for the US?

MOVIE NIGHT AT THE DRAGONFLY RANCH

Each month, we are showing educational movies at the Dragonfly. “White Rain/Black Cloud” was brilliantly directed and horrorifically moving—especially when we shared it with neighbor/artist/writer, Mayumi Ota, who was a young child in Japan when the hydrogen bombs were dropped in her country. Call Shannon (below) to find out how to set up movies in your community.
News release:
Please come and join us at the Dragonfly Ranch on October 6th, Saturday evening, at 6:30 p.m. to see the documentary movie "The End of Suburbia"--a very interesting award winning film about the end of oil and the changes to our lives thereafter. We will also see a second feature by comedian Bill Maher in "The Decider," a very funny standup routine.
Part of "movie night" at the Dragonfly, we have pupus and conversation from 6:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. at which time we will watch the double feature. We welcome you to bring your friends and family members to join us in this educational evening with new and old friends.   
Admission is free.
For more information you can call Shannon 324-4609 or Barbara 328-2159.
     
“End of Suburbia”
Watch a trailer here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHr8OzaloLM
Reviews here
 http://www.endofsuburbia.com/reviews2.htm

WANT TO LAUGH? COMIC RELIEF

Laugh This kid really knows how to belly laugh!

THE FATE OF HAWAII HERO, LT. EHREN WATADA
 
ALERT! New trial for Lt. Watada Oct. 9!  This is a call for help!
Dear folks,
 
The Army is threatening to go ahead with a new court martial of 1st Lt. Ehren Watada on Oct. 9th.  This is in gross violation of law and the Constitution, because his lawyers have appealed against a second trial on the basis of double jeopardy.  For quite some time, Ehren’s lawyers were proceeding on the assumption that since the appeal is in progress in the court system, the Army would cancel or postpone the Oct. 9th court martial.  But now it is only a week and a couple of days away, and nothing has been cancelled or postponed.  The trial is looking very much like it is on, yet nothing has been confirmed one way or the other.    

If the court martial is indeed going to happen, we need all the help we can get!  We need all our friends and allies around the country to hold teach-ins, demonstrations, press conferences (if you have lawyers who can address the double jeopardy issue, please have them speak), write letters to the editors, anything you can do, on the weekend prior to Oct. 9 and/or on the day of.  Anyone who can to come to Ft. Lewis and support Ehren in this critical moment, please come.  

Let me provide some background here.  In pre-trial motions, the Army judge, Lt. Col. Head (the same judge who lied and forced a mistrial when things didn’t go the Army’s way in the first trial), said that double jeopardy didn’t apply because they have “different rules” in the Army.  When Ehren’s lawyers cited specific Army regulations and case law that proved double jeopardy does apply in the Army, the judge simply rejected the facts out of hand.  The entire pre-trial motions were very scripted and controlled by the judge, who told the prosecution what to say and limited what the defense lawyers were allowed to say.  The appeal is still in process and there are several layers of appeal yet to be exhausted before the appeal has run it’s course.  It is clearly illegal and unconstitutional to hold a trial until the question of double jeopardy is finally resolved - but the Army is doing it.  It appears that Ehren is about to be railroaded by a kangaroo court in which the whole proceeding will be very controlled and scripted and the outcome pre-determined.  

Ehren’s parents, Bob Watada and Rosa Sakanishi, and Carolyn Ho will be going up to Ft. Lewis for the court martial.  So will folks from the San Francisco Bay Area including myself.  Anyone who can, please join us!  For those who can’t, please organize some event in your local area to publicize this issue.  Thanks very, very much.  

I apologize for this extremely late notice.  Ehren has been prevented from communicating anything of substance to any organizers because of heavy military surveillance, and this came to our attention only now.    Basically we are all flying by the seat of our pants and I would say to everyone everywhere, just do whatever the hell you can do with whomever is willing to do it with you.  Please circulate this email widely among peace activists.  

 
Michael Wong
Veterans for Peace chapter 69
Watada Support Committee
San Francisco
mlwong@jps.net

Subject: Watada Habeas  Petition
Date: Wed, 3 Oct 2007 16:16:09 -0700
From:  kagan@carneylaw.com

Hello:

I wanted to advise you of what has most recently occurred in LT Ehren  Watada's case.

The attached federal habeas petition and motion for an emergency  stay were filed this afternoon in the United States District Court for the  Western District of Washington. We're hopeful we will be granted a hearing  on our emergency motion for a stay by Friday afternoon.

 We believe we have a strong case, and are looking forward to  litigating the double jeopardy issue in federal  court.
Sincerely, 
Kenneth S. Kagan
James E. Lobsenz
Carney Badley Spellman, P.S.
701 Fifth Avenue, #3600
Seattle, WA  98104
(206) 622-8020

  


YOKO ONO DEDICATES “IMAGINE PEACE TOWER”
ON JOHN’S 67TH BIRTHDAY
Coincidentally, this day is the same as Ehren Watada’s court date, OCT. 9.
http://www.imaginepeace.com/ 

LET’S MAKE PEACE A REALITYI pray that we can all not just imagine peace, but rather insist that it become a reality. There really is no other sane choice. Heartening news just in from Korea! Korean leaders issue peace call. South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun, left, and North Korean leader Kim Jong-il share a toast after signing a joint declaration in Pyongyang - 04/10/07. The two leaders reached agreement on a number of issues. The leaders of North and South Korea have signed a joint declaration calling for a permanent peace deal on the Korean Peninsula. 

MY MAINLAND PLANS
On Oct. 12, I will be arriving in Oakland, going to my brother Jim’s memorial celebration in Idaho on the 19^th. I return to Hawaii on the 27^th, in plenty of time for a Wedding/Halloween Party on my birthday, Nov. 2. (I’m seriously working on my costume. Just in case you didn’t know that I’m a real nut, I’m planning to be an extra testicle!) Until the 12^th, you can reach me at 808-328-2159.After that, my cell phone is 808-936-9408. Hoping to noodle around the coast and visit with whoever loves me the most!

Best wishes, and blessings of peace and good times ahead. Thank you for taking ANY action that will improve our world.