All you need is love (...and a small, well-trained army) (Mickey Z.)

  Both humans and landscape ended up thoroughly doused with Agent Orange-time and time again. The protest campaign obviously had no effect, so a different approach was taken. "A bunch of Vietnam vets lived in those hills," the activist told Jensen, "and they sent messages to the Bureau of Land Management and to Weyerhauser, Boise Cascade, and the other timber companies saying, 'We know the names of your helicopter pilots, and we know their addresses'

  "You know what happened next?" she asked.

  "I think I do," Jensen responded.

  "Exactly," she said. "The spraying stopped."

***

To me, the following quote reads like poetry... so that's how I'll present it:

  Whenever any form of

  government

  becomes destructive

  to these ends,

  it is the right of the people

  to alter or to abolish it,

  and to institute new government,

  laying its foundation

  on such principles

  and organizing its powers

  in such form,

  as to them

  shall seem

  most likely

  to effect

  their safety

  and happiness

  (Thomas Jefferson)

***

  In her excellent 1995 book, Bridge of Courage, Jennifer Harbury quotes a Guatemalan freedom fighter named Gabriel, responding to a plea to embrace non-violent resistance: "In my country child malnutrition is close to 85 percent. Ten percent of all children will be dead before the age of five, and this is only the number actually reported to government agencies. Close to 70 percent of our people are functionally illiterate. There is almost no industry in our country -- you need land to survive. Less than 3 percent of ourlandowners own more than 65 percent of our lands. In the last fifteen years or so, there have been more than 150,000 political murders and disappearances ... Don't talk to me about Gandhi; he wouldn't have survived a week here. There was a peaceful movement for progress here, once. They were crushed. We were crushed. For Gandhi's method to work, there must be a government capable of shame. We lack that here."

  Repeat after me: We lack that here.

***

  Another "poem" of sorts:

  You've got to learn

  that when

  you push people around,

  some people push back.

  As they should.

  As they must.

  And as they undoubtedly will.

  There is justice

  in such symmetry.

  (Ward Churchill)

  Mickey Z. can be found on the Web at: http://www.mickeyz.net.

{mos_sb_discuss:2}