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Peace Action at SF Federal Building: Pelosi Speak With Us! Pt 2

by Robert B. Livingston (gruaudemais [at] yahoo.com)
Moments prior to today's peace action at the San Francisco Federal Building (where House Speaker Nancy Pelosi keeps her district office) Toby Blome of Code Pink explains the purpose of the protesters.
Listen now:
Copy the code below to embed this audio into a web page:
Dumb me!

I left the protest to go to work: to find myself a few hours later without a job: because I quit it!

Maybe my life would be completely different had I stayed with the brave protesters who were arrested!

At least now I have some time to make a couple more posts here at Indybay-- and if anybody knows of a job that suits someone with a low tolerance for any type of BS-- please e-mail me.

Below is an mp3 recording of Toby Blome of Code Pink explaining the strategy and purpose of today's action at the Federal Building.
§Toby Blome among fasters
by Robert B. Livingston
toby_blome.jpg
Toby is wearing the scarf.
§Toby draws and writes her message in chalk.
by Robert B. Livingston
chalk-a_moral_weapon.jpg
In the interview I informed Tony that I had just read that deaths in Iraq had topped 1 million. The source I cited was incorrect:

This is the source I was thinking of:
http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/iraq/press.html

Just Foreign Policy (an independent and non-partisan mass membership organization dedicated to reforming U.S. foreign policy) related in a recent e-mail:

"We have crossed another tragic milestone in the war in Iraq. Our estimate of violent Iraqi deaths due to the U.S.-led invasion and occupation has crossed the one million mark.

We have been working hard getting the word out, since the Iraqi death toll should be central to the public debate over ending this war and preventing future ones. We have communicated with hundreds of journalists, spoken on local radio shows, and spread the word online. The counter is now posted on over 150 web sites.1 It has been cited by Democracy Now! and Inter Press Service and appeared in a news video and a hard-hitting editorial cartoon.2

However, despite our best efforts, none of the major U.S. news outlets have covered this story. That is sadly unsurprising, since the major U.S. media have consistently downplayed Iraqi deaths. They refuse to accept the findings of the scientific study conducted by researchers at Johns Hopkins University last year, on which our estimate is based."
§We must all ask ourselves: "What is it that we write with our actions?
by Robert B. Livingston
one_who_dares.jpg
"The Moving Finger writes: and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it."
-- Omar Khayyam
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Comments (Hide Comments)
by Nancy Pelosi Press Release Today
This is NOT a press release stating that Nancy Pelosi met with peace activists in San Francisco to have an honest dialog about their concerns.

Nancy Pelosi, instead, issued this statement:

Pelosi Statement on New National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq

Thursday, August 23, 2007

Contact: Brendan Daly/Nadeam Elshami, 202-226-7616

Washington, D.C. – Speaker Nancy Pelosi released the following statement today on the new National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq. Below are also key quotes from the NIE:

“In today’s National Intelligence Estimate, the American people were presented with yet more evidence that the Iraqi government has failed to take the necessary steps to reach political reconciliation. Our military has performed their duties excellently, but the purpose of the escalation in Iraq was to create a secure environment in which political change could occur, and it is clear that the Iraqi leaders have failed to make progress.

“We need a New Direction to bring our troops home from Iraq so that America can refocus its efforts against terrorism worldwide.”
Robert, Thank you for your moving words and photos. Pelosi's cowardice in not meeting with her constituents, including peace and impeachment activists, causes her to make a terrible mistake: she is missing out on the best political advice -- and all for free! Her strategy last spring, of putting up a lame bill with various porkbarrell additions and a totally inadequate timeline, was predictably shot down by Bush and Co, leaving her and the Dems (and us) with more money for war. Of course she "doesn't have the votes" (yet); her job as a leader is to create a new political reality. That reality already exists in San Francisco, where a huge majority supports both withdrawal of US troops from Iraq and impeachment of Cheney and Bush. Shame on Pelosi for not representing her constituents!
by Robert B. Livingston (gruaudemais [at] yahoo.com)
"Below is an mp3" should be "Above is an mp3"

"In the interview I informed Tony" should be "In the interview I informed Toby"

The footnotes in the quotation from Just Foreign Policy refer to:
1 http://tinyurl.com/2ums4w
2 http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/iraq/press.html

Comments and corrections from readers are welcome.

Jody briefly explains her experiences. She has been fasting twelve days.
Luke Thomas has photos of the arrest of protesting fasters of Code Pink.







Go to this page at Fog City Journal:
by Robert B. Livingston (gruaudemais [at] yahoo.com)
never_to_return.png
Once to every man and nation
Comes the moment to decide,
In the strife of truth and falsehood,
For the good or evil side;
Some great cause, God's new Messiah,
Off'ring each the bloom or blight,
And the choice goes by forever
Twixt that darkness and that light.

Though the cause of evil prosper,
Yet 'tis truth alone is strong;
Though her portion be the scaffold,
And upon the throne be wrong:
Yet that scaffold sways the future,
And behind the dim unknown,
Standeth God within the shadow
Keeping watch above his own.
-- James Russell Lowell

Photos of three of the six who Toby Blome sorrowed for on the day of this protest-- they have passed the threshold of this life never to return.
by thanks Jody!






also links to latest news


by the day Pelosi "met" with peace activists
Here are some links to highlight the continuing saga of the people of District 8 who cannot meet with their representative.

On Thursday, August 30, San Francisco anti-war activists held a “Peoples Town Hall Meeting” at the San Francisco Federal Building, site of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s home office.

(Excellent videos by Bill Carpenter)
part 1
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/09/03/18445543.php
part two
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/09/03/18445557.php
part three
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/09/03/18445560.php
part four
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/09/04/18445685.php


And a plea from Francisco Da Costa Sept. 4, 2007
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/09/04/18445613.php
by Thanks Bill!



TOWNHALL: Speaker Nancy Pelosi Meets With Her Constituents! Pt. 5: Medea Benjamin
motr films by Bill Carpenter


Go to Indybay link:

I am so happy to learn that Renée for one mentioned Cindy Sheehan's candidacy to run against Nancy Pelosi in 2008.



TOWNHALL: Speaker Nancy Pelosi Meets With Her Constituents! Pt. 6: Renée Saucedo
by Bill Carpenter
On Thursday, August 30, San Francisco anti-war activists held a “Peoples Town Hall Meeting” at the San Francisco Federal Building, site of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s home office.

Link to film:
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